Silence fell again over the lodge; and there were left only a
few frightened dogs whose noses had already told them everything, a few
fishermen who watched and listened, and one Indian boy with a long bow
in his hand and an arrow ready on the string, who trailed away with a
little girl at his side trying to puzzle out the track of one wolf that
left a drop of blood here and there on the snow in the scant moonlight.
Far up on the hillside in a little opening of the woods the scattered
pack came together again. At the first uproar, so unbearable to a
silence-loving animal, they had vanished in five different directions;
yet so subtle, so perfect is the instinct which holds a wolf family
together that the old mother had scarcely entered the glade alone and
sat down to wait and listen when the other wolves joined her silently.
Malsunsis, the big cub, scarcely felt his wound at first, for the arrow
had but glanced through the thick skin and flesh, and he had torn it out
without difficulty; but the old he-wolf limped painfully and held up one
fore leg, pierced by a seal shot, as he loped away over the snow.
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