Then came the other sound.  It was the swift chug, chug, chug of galloping feet—­of hoofs breaking through the crust of the snow.  A shape loomed up, and Philip knew it was a caribou running for its life.  He drew an easier breath as he saw that the animal was fleeing parallel with the projecting finger of scrub in which he had made his camp, and that it would strike the timber a good mile below him.  And now, with a still deeper thrill, he noted the silence of the pursuing wolves.  It meant but one thing.  They were so close on the heels of their prey that they no longer made a sound.  Scarcely had the caribou disappeared when Philip saw the first of them—­gray, swiftly moving shapes, spread out fan-like as they closed in on two sides for attack, so close that he could hear the patter of their feet and the blood-curdling whines that came from between their gaping jaws.  There were at least twenty of them, perhaps thirty, and they were gone with the swiftness of shadows driven by a gale.

From his uncomfortable position Philip lowered himself to the snow again.  With its three or four hundred yard lead he figured that the caribou would almost reach the timber a mile away before the end came.  Concealed in the shadow of the spruce, he waited.  He made no effort to analyze the confidence with which he watched for Bram.  When he at last heard the curious zip—­zip—­zip of snowshoes approaching his blood ran no faster than it had in the preceding minutes of his expectation, so sure had he been that the man he was after would soon loom up out of the starlight.  In the brief interval after the passing of the wolves he had made up his mind what he would do.  Fate had played a trump card into his hand.  From the first he had figured that strategy would have much to do in the taking of Bram, who would be practically unassailable when surrounded by the savage horde which, at a word from him, had proved themselves ready to tear his enemies into pieces.  Now, with the wolves gorging themselves, his plan was to cut Bram off and make him, a prisoner.

From his knees he rose slowly to his feet, still hidden in the shadow of the spruce.  His rifle he discarded.  In his un-mittened hand he held his revolver.  With staring eyes he looked for Bram out where the wolves had passed.  And then, all at once, came the shock.  It was tremendous.  The trickery of sound on the Barren had played an unexpected prank with his senses, and while he strained his eyes to pierce the hazy starlight of the plain far out, Bram himself loomed up suddenly along the edge of the bush not twenty paces away.