It snowed all that day, and things grew quieter and quieter, except in the tree-tops, where the wind spoke viciously between its teeth.  When Gulo came out that evening, he had to dig part of the way, and he viewed a still and silent, white world, under a sky like the lid of a lead box, very low down.  He stood higher against the tree-trunks than he had done the night before, and, though he did not know it, was safe from any horse, for the snow was quite deep.  The cold was awful, but it did not seem to trouble him, as he slouched slowly southward.

There appeared to be nothing alive at all throughout this white land, but you must never trust to that in the wild.  Things there are very rarely what they seem.  For instance, Gulo came into a clearing, dim under the night sky, though it would never be dark that night.  To the ear and the eye that clearing was as empty as a swept room.  To Gulo’s nose it was not, and he was just about to crouch and execute a stalk, when half the snow seemed to get up and run away.  The runners were wood-hares.  They had “frozen” stiff on the alarm from their sentries.  But it was not Gulo who had caused them to depart.  Him, behind a tree, they had not spotted.  Something remained—­something that moved.  And Gulo saw it when it moved—­not before.  It was an ermine, a stoat in winter dress, white as driven snow.  Then it caught sight of Gulo, or, more likely, the gleam of his eyes, and departed also.

Gulo slouched on, head down, back humped, tail low, a most dejected-looking, out-at-heels tramp of the wilderness.

Once he came upon a wild cat laying scientific siege to a party of grouse.  The grouse were nowhere to be seen; nor was the wild cat, after Gulo announced his intention to break his neutrality.  Gulo knew where the grouse were.  He dug down into the snow, and came upon a tunnel.  He dug farther, and came upon other tunnels, round and clean, in the snow.  All the tunnels smelt of grouse, but devil a grouse could he find.  He had come a bit early.  It was as yet barely night, and he should have waited till later, when they would be more asleep.  However, he dug on along the tunnels, driving the grouse before him.  And then a strange thing happened.  About three yards ahead of him the snow burst—­burst, I say, like a six-inch shell, upwards.  There was a terrific commotion, a wild, whirring, whirling smother, a cloud of white, and away went five birds, upon heavily beating wings, into the gathering gloom.  Gulo went away, too, growling deep down inside of, and to, himself.

He was hungry, was Gulo.  Indeed, there did not seem to be many times when he was not hungry.  Also, being angry—­not even a wild animal likes failure—­he was seeking a sacrifice; but he had crossed the plain, which the night before had been as a nightmare desert to him, and the moon was up before his chance came.