It was their first rough experience with men, and probably the one
feeling in every shaggy head was of puzzled wonder as to how and why it
had all happened. Hitherto they had avoided men with a certain awe, or
watched them curiously at a distance, trying to understand their
superior ways; and never a hostile feeling for the masters of the woods
had found place in a wolf's breast. Now man had spoken at last; his
voice was a brutal command to be gone, and curiously enough these
powerful big brutes, any one of which could have pulled down a man more
easily than a caribou, never thought of questioning the order.
It was certainly time to follow the caribou--that was probably the one
definite purpose that came upon the wolves, sitting in a silent,
questioning circle in the moonlight, with only the deep snows and the
empty woods around them. For a week they had not touched food; for
thrice that time they had not fed full, and a few days more would leave
them unable to cope with the big caribou, which are always full fed and
strong, thanks to nature's abundance of deer moss on the barrens.
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