In this excerpt, two men traveling by dogsled get a good look at a wolf-dog that has been following them for days. A few minutes later, Henry, who was now travelling behind the sled, emitted a low, warning whistle. Bill turned and looked, then quietly stopped the dogs. To the rear, from around the last bend and plainly into view, on the very trail they had just covered, trotted a furry, slinking form. Its nose was to the trail, and it trotted with a peculiar, sliding, effortless gait. When they halted, it halted, throwing up its head and regarding them steadily with nostrils that twitched as it caught and studied the scent of them. "It's the she-wolf," Bill answered. The dogs had lain down in the snow, and he walked past them to join his partner in the sled. Together they watched the strange animal that had pursued them for days and that had already accompanied the destruction of half their dog-team. After a searching scrutiny, the animal trotted forward a few steps. This it repeated several times, till it was a short hundred yards away. It paused, head up, close by a clump of spruce trees, and with sigh and scent studied the outfit of the watching men. It looked at them in a strangely wistful way, after the manner of a dog; but in its wistfulness there was none of the dog affection. It was a wistfulness bred of hunger, as cruel as its own fangs, as merciless as the frost itself. It was large for a wolf, its gaunt frame advertising the lines of an animal that was among the largest of its kind. "Stands pretty close to two feet for a wolf," Henry commented. "An' I'll bet it ain't far from five feet long." "Kind of a strange color for a wolf," was Bill's criticism. "I never seen a red wolf before. Looks almost cinnamon to me." The animal was certainly not cinnamon-colored. Its coat was the true wolf-coat. The dominant color was grey, and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue—a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, that was more like an illusion of the vision, now grey, distinctly grey, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness of color not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience. "Looks for all the world like a big husky sled-dog," Bill said. "I wouldn't be s'prised to see it wag its tail." "Hell, you husky!" he called. "Come here, you whatever-your-name-is." "Ain't a bit scairt of you," Henry laughed. Bill waved his hand at it threateningly and shouted loudly; but the animal betrayed no fear. The only change in it that they could notice was an accession of alertness. It still regarded them with the merciless wistfulness of hunger. They were meat, and it was hungry; and it would like to go in and eat them if it dared. "Look here, Henry," Bill said, unconsciously lowering his voice to a whisper because of what he imitated. "We've got three cartridges. But it's a dead shot. Couldn't miss. It's got away with three of our dogs, an' we oughter put a stop to it. What d'ye say?" Henry nodded his consent. Bill cautiously slipped the gun from under the sled-lashing. The gun was on way to his shoulder, but it never got there. For in that instant the she-wolf leaped sidewise from the trail into the clump of spruce trees and disappeared. The two men looked at each other. Henry whistled long and comprehendingly. "I might have knowed it," Bill chided himself aloud as he replaced the gun. Of course a wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs at feedin' time, 'd know all about shooting-irons. I tell you right now, Henry, that critter's the cause of all our trouble. We'd have six dogs at the present time, 'stead of three, if it wasn't for her. An' I tell you right now, Henry, I'm goin' to get her. She's too smart to be shot in the open. But I'm goin' to lay for her. I'll bushwhack her as sure as my name is Bill."