CHAPTER XVI
THE MAN THAT THE WOLVES SPARED
"Won't you tell us about it, Sergeant?" Percy urged.
Silk puffed for a few moments at his cigarette.
"There isn't a great deal to tell," he responded quietly. He leant forward, resting an elbow on his knees.
"Yes," he began, "I was in charge of the case, and I failed to make an arrest. But, you see, I didn't arrive on the scene until a longish while after the thing had happened, and the culprit had got off, leaving no clue that could be of the slightest value in following him up.
"I was at the depot at Soldier's Knee, alone, as it happened, except for my chum, Dave Stoddart, who was asleep in his bunk. It was a bitterly cold winter's night outside, with a wild wind blowing out of the north and whistling weirdly in the pine trees round about the old timber-built shack that served as a police station. But inside it was warm enough. I had kept a good fire burning in the stove, and I sat in front of it, reading by the light of the hanging lamp.
"There wasn't any great need for me to keep awake, and, as I'd been out on a long patrol during the day and was weary, I began to nod over the book. You see, it wasn't very interesting, and I'd read it before—knew it almost by heart. But, for all that, I didn't want to fall asleep, and there was one thing that kept me awake, even if the book failed.
"On the previous night we'd been disturbed by the yapping of a pack of hungry wolves that were nosing around the end of the shanty, where we kept our store of cariboo hams and other grub, and on this particular night of which I'm telling you I was waiting and listening, expecting those wolves to pay us another visit. But they didn't seem to be in any hurry.
"It was just about midnight when they came sniffing around. Through the little window I could see their dark shapes moving to and fro in the moonlight. One of them was bold enough to come up and look in at me with its staring, glistening green eyes, and I was about to open the loophole and fire a shot at him when from behind me there sounded the tinkling of the telephone bell.