“Leave you here!” Dick exclaimed. “What do you think we are—cowards?”
“I should say not, Dick Kent,” replied the policeman. “But that doesn’t make me any less a burden. With this wolf pack surrounding you you’ll do well to get away from camp at all, say nothing of hauling me along.”
“But we’re with you anyway,” Dick concluded decisively.
“Oh, well,” the officer turned a little, stifling a groan at the movement, “the wolves may scare up moose or caribou before morning. If they do they’ll soon leave us alone.”
The conversation had weakened the corporal, and Dick soon left him to rest, joining Sandy. The boys discussed the situation, listening to the fearful howls of the wolves, hoping against hope that as Corporal Richardson had said, they might find other game before morning.
After two hours of sound slumber, Toma quietly arose and joined the two at the fireside. He said little, but set to work cutting down more wood, and breaking it up into firewood lengths.
Morning dawned, cold and gray. Dick and Sandy were worn from loss of sleep. Silently they waited for the wolves to depart. But with the sun an hour high the pack still circled the camp, tongues lolling, jaws slavering.
“Will they never leave!” Sandy’s voice faltered.
“Wolf much hungry!” Toma grunted. “Maybe um leave, we start. Sometime they do.” He looked at Dick to see what he thought.
Dick surveyed the menacing circle of wolves. They had grown bolder as their hunger increased. Could they hitch up the dog and break out of that circle of death?