A vagrant wind, which had
been wandering and moaning all morning as if lost, seemed to stir the
snow and settle to rest again. But now, where the plain seemed most
empty and lifeless, seven great white wolves crouched down in the snow
in a little hollow, their paws extended, their hind legs bent like
powerful springs beneath them, their heads raised cautiously so that
only their ears and eyes showed above the rim of the little hollow where
they hid. So they lay, tense, alert, ready, watching with eager,
inquisitive eyes the two children drawing steadily nearer, the only sign
of life in the whole wide, desolate landscape.
* * * * *
Follow the back trail of the snow-shoes now, while the wolves are
waiting, and it leads you over the great barren into the gloomy spruce
woods; beyond that it crosses two more barrens and stretches of
intervening forest; then up a great hill and down into a valley, where
the lodge lay hidden, buried deep under Newfoundland snows.
Here the fishermen lived, sleeping away the bitter winter. In the late
autumn they had left the fishing village at Harbor Weal, driven out like
the wild ducks by the fierce gales that raged over the whole coast.
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