"It is almost musical," said Holderness. "That wolf must be singing a kind of song."
"He is," said Henry, "and, as you notice, it is almost a human sound. It is one of the easiest of the animal cries to imitate. It did not take me long to learn to do it."
"Can you really repeat that cry?" asked Holderness with incredulity.
Henry laughed lightly.
"I can repeat it so clearly that you cannot tell the difference," he said. "All the money I have is one silver shilling and I'll wager it with you that I succeed, you yourself to be the judge."
"Done," said Holderness, "and I must say that you show a spirit of confidence when you let me, one of the wagerers, decide."
Henry crouched a little on the timbers, almost in the manner of a wolf, and then there came forth not three feet from Holderness a long whining cry so fierce and sibilant that, despite his natural bravery, a convulsive shudder swept over the young lieutenant. The cry, although the whining note was never lost, rose and swelled until it swept over the river and penetrated into the great Canadian forest. Then it died slowly, but that ferocious under note remained in it to the last.
"By Jove!" was all that Holderness could say, but, in an instant, the cry rose again beside him, and now it had many modulations and inflections. It expressed hunger, anger and loneliness. It was an almost human cry, and, for a moment, Holderness felt an awe of the strange youth beside him. When the last variation of the cry was gone and the echo had died away, the lieutenant gravely took a shining shilling from his pocket and handed it to Henry.
"You win with ease," he said. "Listen, you do it so well that the real wolf himself is fooled."
An answering cry came from the wolf in the Canadian woods, and then the deep silence fell again over forest and river.