The other raccoons followed him up there, and the leader shouted triumphantly: “Now we’ve got him!”
Washer squealed as one of them nipped at his tail and another at his front paws. “Please, please—” he began, whimpering with pain.
Now whether it was his cry, or the loud noise made by the scampering raccoons, it is impossible to say, but there were other eyes and ears in the woods that had been drawn to the scene, and Washer’s words were hardly out of his mouth before several dark forms shot out of the woods and crossed the open space. At the same moment the hunting cry of the wolf pack startled the raccoons and made them crouch in terror on top of the rock. They forgot Washer, and turned their attention to the wolves.
To their dismay there seemed no chance of escape. The wolves had them surrounded on all sides as they broke from the cover of the bushes on four sides.
That terrible, blood-thirsty hunting cry of the pack terrified the cornered raccoons so they could not move. They flattened down on the rock and waited for the end.
But Washer had recognized the familiar hunting cry. He knew those voices. They came from his own foster brothers—Mother Wolf’s cubs. Fortunately Sneaky wasn’t with them. Neither was there any other member of the pack.
Washer took courage, and raised himself on the top of the rock. “Brothers,” he called as loudly as he could, “please don’t hurt me or any of my people.”
The cubs stopped short at the foot of the rock, and looked up. “Why, it’s Little Brother!” they cried in a chorus.
“Yes,” answered Washer, “I’m up here with my people. When the pack said they would kill me, Mother Wolf and Black Wolf took me home. Then I asked Mother Wolf to bring me back to my people. I knew I couldn’t live with the wolves any longer, and Mother Wolf knew she couldn’t protect me forever from them. So she said she’d bring me to my own people. I came to Silver Birch grove, and she left me there.”