“It’s the wolves!” said Tom in a low, rather awestruck voice.
The boy was right. The gray rangers of the big timbers were abroad seeking their meat from God.
CHAPTER VII—IN THE TRAPPER’S HUT.
Now, to a reader who has never been a woodsman, who has never penetrated the silences that lie north of Fifty-three, the word “wolves” conveys a distinct impression of uneasiness.
The cold fact is that the northern woodsman stands rather in contempt of wolves. He has no use for them, but he does not fear them; and the wolves for their part—except in some startling exceptions—leave mankind alone.
The boys had been long enough in the Northland to share this feeling, and it was not fear that brought them to a halt at the long, melancholy ululation that told them of the “gray brothers” wishing each other “good hunting.” It was quite another feeling: the sense of their isolation, that the moaning cry had brought sharply home to them, the loneliness of the solitudes about them, the possibly dangerous nature of their quest.
“Wow! but that sound always makes me shiver,” said Jack, glancing about him, as if he expected to see a gray head pop out from behind the trees at any moment.
“Yes, it never sounded very good to me, even when we were lying snugly in our bunks on the good old Yukon Rover,” agreed Tom. “I wish we could find some trapper’s shack or hut hereabouts. I wouldn’t mind making a good camp with some company around, for to-night anyhow.”
“Why, you talk as if we might be a long time in the woods,” said Jack, in rather dismayed tones.
“And so we may be, for it is up to us now to keep on that trail till we find the man that made it, or else run it out.”