Not so Noel. The fire blazed out in his eyes; the long bow swung to the
wolf, bending like a steel spring, and the feathered shaft of an arrow
lay close against the boy's cheek. But Mooka caught his arm--
"Look, Noel, his ear! _Malsunsis_, my little wolf cub," she breathed
excitedly. And Noel, with a great wonder in his eyes, slacked his bow,
while his thoughts jumped far away to the den on the mountains where the
trail began, and to three little cubs playing like kittens with the
grasshoppers and the cloud shadows; for the great wolf that lay so still
near them, his eyes fixed in a steady glow upon the coming caribou, had
one ear bent sharply forward, like a leaf that has been creased between
the fingers.
Again Mooka broke the tense silence in a low whisper. "How many wolf
trails you see yesterday, little brother?"
"Seven," said Noel, whose eyes already had the cunning of Old Tomah's to
understand everything.
"Then where tother wolf? Only six here," breathed Mooka, looking timidly
all around, fearing to find the steady glare of green eyes fixed upon
them from the shadow of every thicket.
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