Then another for themselves, and the
hunt was over,--all but the feast at the end of it.
When a big and cunning lynx took to a tree at the first alarm the wolves
would go aside to leeward, where Upweekis could not see them, but where
their noses told them perfectly all that he was doing. Then began the
long game of patience, the wolves waiting for the game to come down, and
the lynx waiting for the wolves to go away. Upweekis was at a
disadvantage, for he could not see when he had won; and he generally
came down in an hour or two, only to find the wolves hot on his trail
before he had taken a dozen jumps. Whereupon he took to another tree and
the game began again.
[Illustration: "The silent, appalling death-watch began."]
When the night was exceeding cold--and one who has not felt it can
hardly imagine the bitter, killing intensity of a northern midnight in
February--the wolves, instead of going away, would wait under the tree
in which the lynx had taken refuge, and the silent, appalling
death-watch began. A lynx, though heavily furred, cannot long remain
exposed in the intense cold without moving.
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