He followed briskly a somewhat dim trail that led northward near the west coast of [[65]]the island, where waves and wind exerted their greatest force and where the island has for several thousand years received the most severe battering of the waves.
Ray followed this trail for the same reason that animals and men of all ages have followed trails; because it is so much easier to travel along a trail than to cut across the brush. The footing on a trail is much more secure than it is across brush, roots, and rocks, and one does not have to watch his direction so carefully.
Ray had walked, whistling and singing, about a mile, when the trail turned a little away from the coast to an almost bare area of several acres. At the end of this open space Ray saw something that for a moment almost made his blood freeze.
On a big bare rock stood a wolf looking at him. Ray’s first impulse was to turn and run; but he was too scared to run. He knew that if the wolf followed him he would soon overtake him. So in sheer desperation and make-believe courage Ray stepped up [[66]]on a rock, swung his arms over his head and yelled. But this wolf did not do what wolves are supposed to do when they see a man in summer. He did not run, but he stood right there, and he even wagged his tail, and Ray could see that he had a big bushy tail.
On a big bare rock stood a wolf looking at him.
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And then before Ray’s very eyes, the wolf on the rock became transformed. He suddenly lost the appearance of a wild wolf of the Great Lakes country, and took on the shape and almost the color of a creature with which Ray had often roamed the hills of Vermont, and Ray had cried bitterly when Bruce had insisted that Ray could not take him along.
Ray dropped the club he had picked up and for a moment he stood spellbound. Then he called: “Shep! Come here, Shep! Come here!” And he ran toward the animal. The animal also came bounding toward the boy. The boy threw his arms around him, and the animal, as if mad with joy, danced around the lad, and jumped up [[67]]on him and almost knocked him over in his unrestrained expression of joy.
“Come on, Shep, you go home with me.” The boy spoke as if he were talking to a human being. “Don’t you get lost again. You stay right with me. You are going with us. If they won’t let you go with us, I shall stay right here on the island with you, and Ganawa and Bruce can go alone and hunt up their man.”