“A pack of timber wolves, you mean, buddy—the big, gray chaps that can pull down a deer as easy as a mountain lion would do the job?”
“Them’s the kind like enough, Jack,” affirmed the other.
“The chase is on then, it seems, Perk; what d’ye reckon they’re after?”
“Some sorter game they’re meanin’ to make a breakfast off’n—mebbe a cow moose, or else it might be a caribou, partner,” Perk went on to say, as if mildly interested. “Huh! wouldn’t mind havin’ a juicy caribou steak myself for breakfast, on’y it’d be breakin’ the game laws to shoot sech a critter out o’ season. Say, they must be headin’ this way, Jack, ol’ pard!”
“Either that, or else there’s a change of wind,” agreed the other; “for the racket grows louder right along.”
Perk reached out and laid his hand on the ever faithful machine-gun, which it seemed he had carefully placed alongside on settling down for the night.
“I guess now I’ll get up, an’ toddle out by that openin’ in the timber,” Jack heard him saying; “mebbe we might have the good luck to look-in on the gay scrap, if the beggars bring their quarry to bay close by here. Anyhow it’s plumb mornin’, an’ plenty to do.”
Jack could not have told had he been asked why he should copy Perk’s example, possessing himself of the Winchester repeater, and even following his comrade in the direction of the open glade, toward which the suggestive sounds appeared to be heading.
There, too, was Red Lowden starting to “climb out” of his swathing blanket, apparently recognizing the fact that there might be something interesting on the carpet worth witnessing. All this movement must have aroused the doctor, for Jack noticed a movement in his quarter, as though the exodus from the camp were about to be made unanimous.
Jack and Perk dropped down on the edge of the opening.