"Sounds all right," said Fred, "but suppose they overtook you before you got to the ambush?"
"Oh, they wouldn't dare to attack me. They'd keep me in sight, stop if I stopped, and turn if I turned, waiting for a chance to take me at a disadvantage. A shot would scatter them, anyway. The only trouble would be that they'd scatter so quick when you opened fire that you wouldn't be able to bag more than one or two. And I don't suppose the same trick could be worked twice."
They discussed the matter all that evening and grew so enthusiastic over it that they determined to try it the next night. There was no hope now of diamonds, and the expedition had cost them nearly two hundred dollars. A few wolf bounties and pelts, together with the furs found in the cabin, would cover this and perhaps leave a little profit.
It was cold and cloudy the next day, and they waited impatiently for evening. The moon would not rise till nearly midnight, and it was necessary to wait in order to have light enough for the proposed ambush. They sallied out toward eleven o'clock, and shot three rabbits, which Peter attached to a deerskin thong. Selecting an open glade, Maurice and Fred established themselves in ambush under the thickets, while Peter started on a wide circle through the woods, trailing his bait, in the hope of attracting the wolves.
Fred and Maurice waited for more than two hours, nearly frozen, stamping and beating their arms, listening for the hunting cry of the wolf pack. At the end of that time Peter reappeared, tired and disgusted. The wolves had failed to do their part, and had not picked up the trail.
Still he was not discouraged, and insisted on trying it again the next evening. This time Fred and Maurice stayed in the cabin to keep warm, listening intently. At the first, distant howl they were to rush out and ensconce themselves in a prearranged spot, a quarter of a mile up the river, which Peter was to pass. They kept the two repeating rifles, while Mac carried the double-barreled gun, loaded with buckshot, which they had found in the cabin.
Half a mile from the shanty Peter shot a swamp hare that was nibbling a spruce trunk, and a little way farther he secured another. These carcasses he tied together with a deerskin thong as before, and trailed them in the wake of his snowshoes. This time he intended to make a longer circuit than on the preceding night.
He dragged this bait across a hardwood ridge and down into a great cedar swamp on the other side. In hard weather all the wild life of the woods resorts to such places for shelter, and here the wolves would be hunting if there was a pack in the neighborhood. But he found few tracks and no sign at all of wolves.
After traveling slowly for two or three miles, Mac sat down on a log to rest, and as the warmth of exercise died out, the cold nipped him to the bone through the "four-point" blanket coat. He got up and moved on, intending to return in a long curve toward the cabin. He did not much care, after all, whether he started any wolves. It was too cold for hunting that night.
The dry snow swished round his ankles at the fall of the long racquets. He still dragged the dead hares, which were now frozen almost as hard as wood, but not too hard to leave a scent.