"Wolfs," commented Corlaer.
"What are they doing?" I asked. "Surely, in this distemper of nature——"
"They are hunting," said Tawannears. "The deer and the buffalo cannot run away in such weather."
The howling came nearer, died in the distance.
The morning of the fourth day we wakened to a world that was all a clean, dazzling white, snow to the depth of a man's chest on the level, ay, and higher, and heaped into drifts the size of young mountains in the hollows. We in our hut were obliged to tunnel to the surface, for the bowlder and our artificial structure had formed a windbreak against which the snow was piled to twice my height. We cut our way out gradually, taking care not to permit the treacherous stuff to cave in upon us, fetched up our weapons and packs, donned snowshoes and resumed our journey.
Snowshoeing is slow work in hilly country, but we made better going of it than the unfortunate wild things we saw on every hand, profiting by a thaw which gradually scummed the level drifts. In a gulley a herd of buffalo were buried chest-deep, some of the outer ones frozen solid, the others subsisting by their combined animal heat. A herd of great deer—the bucks as tall at the shoulder as a tall man—that Tawannears called Wapiti*—were plunging clumsily through the crusted surface of the snow, falling forward on their horns. In a tiny valley which had been unusually sheltered an immense concourse of antelope threshed about, butting each other for the scanty food available.
* Of course, Ormerod refers to the elk.—A.D.H.S.
We saw numerous bears, which Tawannears deemed strange, saying that these beasts must have been surprised by the sudden advent of the storm, after delaying to den-up, as is their custom, because of the protracted fall. A cougar, a striped, cat-faced demon, passed us on a hillside, belly to the snow, on the track of some quarry. And during the afternoon we heard at frequent intervals the wailing cry of the wolves. Toward dusk they came steadily nearer, and I grew uneasy; but neither of my companions said anything, and I did not like to seem more nervous than they. I held my peace until we were traversing a level stretch of plain just short of sunset, and a torrent of low-running gray shapes erupted over the skyline.
That indescribable, heart-shaking howl of the hungry wolf echoed across the snow.
"Those beasts are tracking us," I exclaimed.