In one leap Ben was on his feet, following him.  The wolf turned once, saw that his master was at his heels, and sped on.  They turned up a slight draw, toward the hillside.

It became clear at once that Fenris was depending upon his marvelous sense of smell.  His nose would lower to the ground, and sometimes he tacked back and forth, uncertainly.  At such times Ben watched him with bated breath.  But always he caught the scent again.

Once more he paused, sniffing eagerly; then turned, whining.  Just as clearly as if they had possessed a mutual language Ben understood:  the animal had caught the clear scent at last.  The wolf loped off, and his fierce bay rang through the hushed forest.

It was a long-drawn, triumphant note; and the wild creatures paused in their mysterious, hushed occupations to listen.  It was also significant that it made certain deadly inroads in the spirit of Ray Brent, sitting in his distant cabin.  He marked the direction of the sound, and he cursed, half in awe, under his breath.  He had always hated the gray rangers.  They were the uncanny demons of the forest.

Ben followed the running wolf as fast as he could; and in his eagerness he had no opportunity for conjecture as to what he would find at the end of the pursuit.  Yet he did not believe for an instant this was a false trail.  The wolf’s deep, full-ringing bays were ever more urgent and excited, filling the forest with their uproar.  But quite suddenly the silence closed down again, seemingly more deep and mysterious than ever.

Ben’s first sensation was one of icy terror that crept to the very marrow of his bones.  He knew instantly that there was a meaning of dreadful portent in the abrupt cessation of the cries.  He halted an instant, listening, but at first could hear no more than the throb of his heart in his breast and the whisper of his own troubled breathing.  But presently, at a distance of one hundred yards, he distinguished the soft whining of the wolf.

Fenris was no longer running!  He had halted at the edge of a distant thicket.  The cold sweat sprang out on Ben’s forehead, and he broke into a headlong run.

There was no later remembrance of traversing that last hundred yards.  The hillside seemed to whip under his feet.  He paused at last, just at the dark margin of an impenetrable thicket.  The wolf whined disconsolately just beyond the range of his vision.

“Ezram!” he called, a curious throbbing quality in his voice.  “Are you there, Ez?  It’s me—­Ben.”

But the thickets neither rustled nor spoke.  The cracked old voice he had learned to love did not speak in relief, in that moment of unutterable suspense.  Indeed, the silence seemed to deepen about him.  The spruce trees were hushed and impassive as ever; the moon shone and the wind breathed softly in his face.  Fenris came whimpering toward him.

Together, the man and the wolf, they crept on into the thicket.  They halted at last before a curious shadow in the silvered covert.  Ben knew at once he had found his ancient comrade.