Noel stirred uneasily. Somewhere close at hand another huge wolf was
waiting; and a wholesome fear fell upon him, with a shiver at the
thought of how near he had come in his excitement to bringing the whole
savage pack snarling about his ears.
A snort of alarm cut short his thinking. There at the edge of the wood,
not twenty feet away, stood a caribou, pointing his ears at the children
whom he had almost stumbled over as he ran, thinking only of the wolves
behind. The long bow sprang back of itself; an arrow buzzed like a wasp
and buried itself deep in the white chest. Like a flash a second arrow
followed as the stag turned away, and with a jump or two he sank to his
knees, as if to rest awhile in the snow.
But Mooka scarcely saw these things. Her eyes were fastened on the great
white wolf which she had claimed for her own when he was a toddling cub.
He lay still as a stone under the tip of a bending spruce branch, his
eyes following every motion of a young bull caribou which three of the
wolves had singled out of the herd and were now guiding surely straight
to his hiding-place.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141