But they did not begin to understand the matter till
they caught glimpses of gray backs bounding hither and yon in the
underbrush, while the two great wolves raced easily on either side,
yapping sharply to increase the excitement, and guiding the startled,
foolish deer as surely, as intelligently, as a pair of collies herd a
flock of frightened sheep.
When the cubs broke out of the dense cover at last they found the two
old wolves sitting quietly on their tails before a rugged wall of rocks
that stretched away on either hand at the base of a great bare hill. In
front of them was a young cow caribou, threatening savagely with horns
and hoofs, while behind her cowered two half-grown fawns crowded into a
crevice of the rocks. Anger, rather than fear, blazed out in the
mother's mild eyes. Now she turned swiftly to press her excited young
ones back against the sheltering wall; now she whirled with a savage
grunt and charged headlong at the wolves, which merely leaped aside and
sat down silently again to watch the game, till the cubs raced out and
hovered uneasily about with a thousand questions in every eye and ear
and twitching nostril.
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