For an instant, as the two beasts of prey met, there fell a silence; then both animals joined in the wailing hunt-pack cry, and the wolf that was free came to the edge of the great rock and stood with his fore feet on its side, and his cry changed from that of the chase to the still more thrilling signal that told the gathering pack of game at bay.

Swiftly the wolves closed in.  From over the edge of the mountain one came and joined the wolf at the rock without the hunters seeing his approach.  From out of the swamp there came a pack of three, and now about the rock there grew a maddened, yelping horde, clambering and scrambling and fighting in their efforts to climb up to the game that was so near and yet beyond their reach.  And sixty feet away Wolf crouched, watching the gathering of his clan, helpless, panting from his choking efforts to free himself, and quieting, gradually quieting, until in sullen silence he looked upon the scene, as though he knew the moment was very near when that thrilling spectacle would be changed into a scene of direst tragedy.

And it was Mukoki who had first said that this was the vengeance of Wolf upon his people.

From Mukoki there now came a faint hissing warning, and Wabi threw his rifle to his shoulder.  There were at least a score of wolves at the base of the rock.  Gradually the old Indian pulled upon the babeesh rope that led to the dead buck—­pulled until he was putting a half of his strength into the effort, and could feel the animal slowly slipping from the flat ledge.  A moment more and the buck tumbled down in the midst of the waiting pack.

As flies gather upon a lump of sugar the famished animals now crowded and crushed and fought over the deer’s body, and as they came thus together there sounded the quick sharp signal to fire from Mukoki.

For five seconds the edge of the spruce was a blaze of death-dealing flashes, and the deafening reports of the two rifles and the big Colt drowned the cries and struggles of the animals.  When those five seconds were over fifteen shots had been fired, and five seconds later the vast, beautiful silence of the wilderness night had fallen again.  About the rock was the silence of death, broken only faintly by the last gasping throes of the animals that lay dying in the snow.

In the trees there sounded the metallic clink of loading shells.

Wabi spoke first.

“I believe we did a good job, Mukoki!”

Mukoki’s reply was to slip down his tree.  The others followed, and hastened across to the rock.  Five bodies lay motionless in the snow.  A sixth was dragging himself around the side of the rock, and Mukoki attacked it with his belt-ax.  Still a seventh had run for a dozen rods, leaving a crimson trail behind, and when Wabi and Rod came up to it the animal was convulsed in its last dying struggles.

“Seven!” exclaimed the Indian youth.  “That is one of the best shoots we ever had.  A hundred and five dollars in a night isn’t bad, is it?”