There followed now the ominous, waiting silence of an awakened wilderness.  Rod could hear his heart throbbing within him.  He forgot the intense cold.  His nerves tingled.  He looked out over the endless plains, white and mysteriously beautiful as they lay bathed in the glow of the moon.  And Wabi knew more than he what was happening.  All over that wild desolation the call of the wolf had carried its meaning.  Down there, where a lake lay silent in its winter sleep, a doe started in trembling and fear; beyond the mountain a huge bull moose lifted his antlered head with battle-glaring eyes; half a mile away a fox paused for an instant in its sleuth-like stalking of a rabbit; and here and there in that world of wild things the gaunt hungry people of Wolf’s blood stopped in their trails and turned their heads toward the signal that was coming in wailing echoes to their ears.

And then the silence was broken.  From afar—­it might have been a mile away—­there came an answering cry; and at that cry the wolf at the end of his babeesh thong settled upon his haunches again and sent back the call that comes only when there is blood upon the trail or when near the killing time.

There was not the rustle of a bough, not a word spoken, by the silent watchers in the spruce.  Mukoki had slipped back and half lay across his support in shooting attitude.  Wabi had braced a foot, and his rifle was half to his shoulder, leveled over a knee.  It was Rod’s turn with the big revolver, and he had practised aiming through a crotch that gave a rest to his arm.

In a few moments there came again the howl of the distant wolf on the plains, and this time it was joined by another away to the westward.  And after that there came two from the plains instead of one, and then a far cry to the north and east.  For the first time Rod and Wabi heard the gloating chuckle of Mukoki in his spruce a dozen feet away.

At the increasing responses of his brethren Wolf became more frantic in his efforts.  The scent of fresh blood and of wounded game was becoming maddening to the captive.  But his frenzy no longer betrayed itself in futile efforts to escape from the babeesh thong.  Wolf knew that his cries were assembling the hunt-pack.  Nearer and nearer came the responses of the leaders, and there were now only momentary rests between the deep-throated exhortations which he sent in all directions into the night.

Suddenly, almost from the swamp itself, there came a quick, excited, yelping reply, and Wabi gripped Rod by the arm.

“He has struck the place where you killed the buck,” he whispered.  “There’ll be quick work now!”

Hardly had he spoken when a series of excited howls broke forth from the swamp, coming nearer and nearer as the hunger-crazed outlaw of the plains followed over the rich-scented trail made by the two Indians as they carried the slaughtered deer.  Soon he nosed one of the trails of blood, and a moment later the watchers saw a gaunt shadow form running swiftly over the snow toward Wolf.