Again a young bull with his keen, polished spike-horns, more active and
dangerous but less confident than the over-antlered stags, would stand
in the old wolf's path, disputing with lowered front the right of way.
Here the right of way meant a good deal, for in many places on the high
plains the scrub spruces grow so thickly that a man can easily walk over
the tops of them on his snow-shoes, and the only possible passage in
summer-time is by means of the numerous paths worn through the scrub by
the passing of animals for untold ages. So one or the other of the two
splendid brutes that now approached each other in the narrow way must
turn aside or be beaten down underfoot.
Quietly, steadily, the old wolf would come on till almost within
springing distance, when he would stop and lift his great head,
wrinkling his chops to show the long white fangs, and rumbling a warning
deep in his massive chest. Then the caribou would lose his nerve; he
would stamp and fidget and bluster, and at last begin to circle
nervously, crashing his way into the scrub as if for a chance to take
his enemy in the flank.
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