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007Bruce:
Chapter 3: [b]THE HUNGER CRY[/b[

The day began auspiciously.  They had lost no dogs during
the night, and they swung out upon the trail and into the silence,
the darkness, and the cold with spirits that were fairly
light.  Bill seemed to have forgotten his forebodings of the
previous night, and even waxed facetious with the dogs when, at
midday, they overturned the sled on a bad piece of trail.
It was an awkward mix-up.  The sled was upside down and
jammed between a tree-trunk and a huge rock, and they were forced
to unharness the dogs in order to straighten out the tangle. 
The two men were bent over the sled and trying to right it, when
Henry observed One Ear sidling away.
“Here, you, One Ear!” he cried, straightening up and turning
around on the dog.
But One Ear broke into a run across the snow, his traces
trailing behind him.  And there, out in the snow of their back
track, was the she-wolf waiting for him.  As he neared her, he
became suddenly cautious.  He slowed down to an alert and
mincing walk and then stopped.  He regarded her carefully and
dubiously, yet desirefully.  She seemed to smile at him,
showing her teeth in an ingratiating rather than a menacing
way.  She moved toward him a few steps, playfully, and then
halted.  One Ear drew near to her, still alert and cautious,
his tail and ears in the air, his head held high.
He tried to sniff noses with her, but she retreated playfully
and coyly.  Every advance on his part was accompanied by a
corresponding retreat on her part.  Step by step she was
luring him away from the security of his human companionship. 
Once, as though a warning had in vague ways flitted through his
intelligence, he turned his head and looked back at the overturned
sled, at his team-mates, and at the two men who were calling to
him.
But whatever idea was forming in his mind, was dissipated by the
she-wolf, who advanced upon him, sniffed noses with him for a
fleeting instant, and then resumed her coy retreat before his
renewed advances.
In the meantime, Bill had bethought himself of the rifle. 
But it was jammed beneath the overturned sled, and by the time
Henry had helped him to right the load, One Ear and the she-wolf
were too close together and the distance too great to risk a
shot.
Too late One Ear learned his mistake.  Before they saw the
cause, the two men saw him turn and start to run back toward
them.  Then, approaching at right angles to the trail and
cutting off his retreat they saw a dozen wolves, lean and grey,
bounding across the snow.  On the instant, the she-wolf’s
coyness and playfulness disappeared.  With a snarl she sprang
upon One Ear.  He thrust her off with his shoulder, and, his
retreat cut off and still intent on regaining the sled, he altered
his course in an attempt to circle around to it.  More wolves
were appearing every moment and joining in the chase.  The
she-wolf was one leap behind One Ear and holding her own.
“Where are you goin’?” Henry suddenly demanded, laying his hand
on his partner’s arm.
Bill shook it off.  “I won’t stand it,” he said. 
“They ain’t a-goin’ to get any more of our dogs if I can help
it.”
Gun in hand, he plunged into the underbrush that lined the side
of the trail.  His intention was apparent enough.  Taking
the sled as the centre of the circle that One Ear was making, Bill
planned to tap that circle at a point in advance of the
pursuit.  With his rifle, in the broad daylight, it might be
possible for him to awe the wolves and save the dog.
“Say, Bill!” Henry called after him.  “Be careful! 
Don’t take no chances!”
Henry sat down on the sled and watched.  There was nothing
else for him to do.  Bill had already gone from sight; but now
and again, appearing and disappearing amongst the underbrush and
the scattered clumps of spruce, could be seen One Ear.  Henry
judged his case to be hopeless.  The dog was thoroughly alive
to its danger, but it was running on the outer circle while the
wolf-pack was running on the inner and shorter circle.  It was
vain to think of One Ear so outdistancing his pursuers as to be
able to cut across their circle in advance of them and to regain
the sled.
The different lines were rapidly approaching a point. 
Somewhere out there in the snow, screened from his sight by trees
and thickets, Henry knew that the wolf-pack, One Ear, and Bill were
coming together.  All too quickly, far more quickly than he
had expected, it happened.  He heard a shot, then two shots,
in rapid succession, and he knew that Bill’s ammunition was
gone.  Then he heard a great outcry of snarls and yelps. 
He recognised One Ear’s yell of pain and terror, and he heard a
wolf-cry that bespoke a stricken animal.  And that was
all.  The snarls ceased.  The yelping died away. 
Silence settled down again over the lonely land.
He sat for a long while upon the sled.  There was no need
for him to go and see what had happened.  He knew it as though
it had taken place before his eyes.  Once, he roused with a
start and hastily got the axe out from underneath the
lashings.  But for some time longer he sat and brooded, the
two remaining dogs crouching and trembling at his feet.
At last he arose in a weary manner, as though all the resilience
had gone out of his body, and proceeded to fasten the dogs to the
sled.  He passed a rope over his shoulder, a man-trace, and
pulled with the dogs.  He did not go far.  At the first
hint of darkness he hastened to make a camp, and he saw to it that
he had a generous supply of firewood.  He fed the dogs, cooked
and ate his supper, and made his bed close to the fire.
But he was not destined to enjoy that bed.  Before his eyes
closed the wolves had drawn too near for safety.  It no longer
required an effort of the vision to see them.  They were all
about him and the fire, in a narrow circle, and he could see them
plainly in the firelight lying down, sitting up, crawling forward
on their bellies, or slinking back and forth.  They even
slept.  Here and there he could see one curled up in the snow
like a dog, taking the sleep that was now denied himself.
He kept the fire brightly blazing, for he knew that it alone
intervened between the flesh of his body and their hungry
fangs.