For to be noiseless and
inconspicuous, and so in harmony with his surroundings, is the first
desire of every creature of the vast solitudes.
Meeting the wolves now, as they roamed wild and free over the great
range, one would hardly have recognized the little brown creatures that
he saw playing about the den where the trail began. The cubs were
already noble-looking brutes, larger than the largest husky dog; and the
parents were taller, with longer legs and more massive heads and
powerful jaws, than any great timber-wolf. A tremendous vitality
thrilled in them from nose to paw tips. Their great bodies, as they lay
quiet in the snow with heads raised and hind legs bent under them, were
like powerful engines, tranquil under enormous pressure; and when they
rose the movement was like the quick snap of a steel spring. Indeed,
half the ordinary movements of Wayeeses are so quick that the eye cannot
follow them. One instant a wolf would be lying flat on his side, his
long legs outstretched on the moss, his eyes closed in the sleepy
sunshine, his body limp as a hound's after a fox chase; the next
instant, like the click and blink of a camera shutter, he would be
standing alert on all four feet, questioning the passing breeze or
looking intently into your eyes; and you could not imagine, much less
follow, the recoil of twenty big electric muscles that at some subtle
warning had snapped him automatically from one position to the other.
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