He crossed the trail of the reindeer.  He did not know anything about those reindeer, mark you, whether they were wild or semi-tame; and I do not know, though he may have done, how old the trail was.  It was sufficient for him that they were reindeer, and that they had traveled in the general direction that he wanted to go.  For the rest—­he had the patience, perhaps more than the patience, of a cat, the determination of a bulldog, and the nose of a bloodhound.  He trailed those reindeer the better part of that night, and most of the time it snowed, and part of the time it snowed hard.

By the time a pale, frozen dawn crept weakly over the forest tree-tops Gulo must have been well up on the trail of that herd, and he had certainly traveled an astonishing way.  He had dug up one lemming—­a sort of square-ended relation of the rat, with an abbreviated tail—­and pounced upon one pigmy owl, scarce as large as a thrush, which he did not seem to relish much—­perhaps owl is an acquired taste—­before he turned a wild cat out of its lair—­to the accompaniment of a whole young riot of spitting and swearing—­and curled up for the day.

He was hungry when he went to sleep.  Also, it was snowing then.  When he woke up it was almost dark, and snowing worse than ever.  If it could have been colder, it was.

While he cleaned himself Gulo took stock of the outside prospect, so far as the white curtain allowed to sight, and by scent a good deal that it did not.  This without appearing outside the den, you understand.  And if there had been any enemy in hiding, waiting for him outside, he would have discovered the fact then.  He had many enemies, and no friends, had Gulo.  All that he received from all whom he met was hate, but he gave back more than he got.  In the lucid terms of the vernacular, he “was a hard un, if you like.”

Nothing and nobody saw the wolverine leave that lair that was not his.  He must have chosen one blinding squall of snow for the purpose, and was half a mile away, still on the track of the reindeer, before he showed himself—­shuffling along as usual, a ragged, hard-bitten ruffian.  And three hours later he came up with his prey.

Gulo knew it, but nobody else could have done.  There were just the straight trees ahead, and all around the eternal white, frozen silence, and the snow falling softly over everything; but Gulo was as certain that there was the herd close ahead as he was that he was ravenous.  And thereafter Gulo got to work, the peculiar work, a special devilish genius for which appears to be given to the wolverine.

He ceased to exist.  At least, nothing of him was seen, not a tail, not an eye-gleam.  Yet during the next two hours he learnt everything, private and public, there was to be learnt.  Also, he had been over the surroundings almost to a yard.  Nothing could have escaped him.  No detail of risk and danger, of the chance of being seen even, had been overlooked; for he was a master at his craft, the greatest master in the wild, perhaps.  The wolf?  My dear sirs, the wolf was an innocent suckling cub beside Gulo, look you, and his brain and his cunning were not the brain and the cunning of a beast at all, but of a devil.