Half blindly, they had been making their way, hardly able to see in the green-black of the darkness. But they marked their path by the darker blackness of the clumps of spruce trees, which to their trained instinct pointed the way like a map.
Again a chill ran down their spine and the hair raised along the backs of their necks! Some instinct told them real danger was near—what danger, they could not know. Rolling their startled eyes behind them, they could see points of light gleaming at them through the darkness.
At length, through the winter night, came a long, shrill cry like that of a hound, only wilder and more terrifying. Then came another, and a third. It was an uncanny sound, that of the three gray wolves, watching from behind the snowy evergreens.
Fleet Foot knew, more by instinct than experience, what they were, for their like she had never seen before. Nor had any one in those woods known a winter when these ravenous beasts had come down out of the Canadian wilds. But it had been handed down from grand-sire to grand-son that once, when the snows were uncommonly deep, and half the wild folk starved and frozen, wolves had come down from the far North in search of prey.
There were three of the lean gray shapes, like collie dogs, yet so much larger and fiercer—large enough to attack even bigger game than Fleet Foot, the doe.
Should worst come to worst, she would have no more chance with even one such foe than a rabbit with a hound. It would all be a matter of which could run the faster. And she had to look out for the fawns!
Their one chance of escape lay in their nimble heels. They might, for a time, outspeed their enemies, if their strength held out. The combined hoofs and antlers of the herd might have fought off the beasts for a time, but the herd-yard was now too far away for Fleet Foot ever to reach it with the fawns before those lean gray shapes would be at their throats. The Valley Farm lay straight ahead, and her fear of man shrank to nothing beside the terrors behind her.
Yes, the one hope on the horizon lay at the Valley Farm, where the fear of man might keep the wolves from following.
And to the Farm Fleet Foot and the fawns now sped with their great, bounding strides that took whole drifts at a leap. Would their feet slip in the darkness, crippling them and leaving them helpless almost within sight of safety?
On and on they ran, and behind them through the forest crept the three gray shapes, slinking along like shadows with glowing coals for eyes. Every now and again their barking howl, long drawn out and fearful, tore the darkness. Could they reach the Valley Farm, Fleet Foot asked herself with pounding heart?