“A year or so after this, reports began to come in about them from all around the county. They’d gathered up other stray dogs by that time and made them cunning, blood-thirsty outlaws like themselves. The big, half-wolf Eskimo dog appeared to be their leader, and some used to say he had found two or three timber-wolves and got them to join his band. But there aren’t any wolves in Maine.
“Finally people began to hunt them; and when they failed to get near enough to shoot, they set poison traps. In that way they managed to kill one or two, and then the pack refused to touch any more of the poisoned bait.
“One winter the trappers organized a hunt to run them down on snowshoes. Although the best men in the county took part, they only succeeded in killing two out of the pack, which by that time had increased considerably.
“Each year they grew bolder and killed more game, till the county offered a reward for killing them, and men went to work to hunt them. But it was no use.
“Perhaps somebody kills one, or maybe two, now and then, but they have increased till there are probably twenty or thirty in the pack. They’ve chased or killed off all the game around Big Otter Pond way, and now they’ve come yelping and raving up here like a pack of devils.”
“Do they ever attack people?” asked Ed, when the unusual story was finished.
Ben resumed work on the snowshoes, and did not reply.
Ed repeated his query, and the guide was forced into an answer.
“Oh, they’re not dangerous,” he laughed, evading the direct question, and the boys knew he was not so sure of it.
They spent the balance of the day skating on the lake. Toward evening they thought they heard the wild pack again, and they felt that the cabin was the place for them.