“Muky is a wizard when it comes to hunting wolves,” Wabi went on.  “He has studied them and thought of them every day of his life for nearly twenty years.  He knows more about wolves than all the rest of the hunters in this country together.  He can catch them in every trap he sets, which no other trapper in the world can do; he can tell you a hundred different things about a certain wolf simply by its track, and because of his wonderful knowledge he can tell, by some instinct that is almost supernatural, when a ‘wolf night’ comes.  Something in the air to-night, something in the sky—­in the moon—­in the very way the wilderness looks, tells him that stray wolves in the plains and hills are ‘packing’ or banding together to-night, and that in the morning the sun will be shining, and they will be on the sunny sides of the mountains.  See if I am not right.  To-morrow night, if Mukoki comes back by then, we shall have some exciting sport with the wolves, and then you will see how Wolf out there does his work!”

There followed several minutes of silence.  The fire roared up the chimney, the stove glowed red hot and the boys sat and looked and listened.  Rod took out his watch.  It lacked only ten minutes of midnight.  Yet neither seemed possessed with a desire to return to their interrupted sleep.

“Wolf is a curious beast,” mused Wabi softly.  “You might think he was a sneaking, traitorous cur of a wolf to turn against his own breed and lure them to death.  But he isn’t.  Wolf, as well as Mukoki, has good cause for what he does.  You might call it animal vengeance.  Did you ever notice that a half of one of his ears is gone?  And if you thrust back his head you will find a terrible sear in his throat, and from his left side just back of the fore leg a chunk of flesh half as big as my hand has been torn away.  We caught Wolf in a lynx trap, Mukoki and I. He wasn’t much more than a whelp then—­about six months old, Mukoki said.  And while he was in the trap, helpless and unable to defend himself, three or four of his lovely tribe jumped upon him and tried to kill him for breakfast.  We hove in sight just in time to drive the cannibals off.  We kept Wolf, sewed up his side and throat, tamed him—­and to-morrow night you will see how Mukoki has taught him to get even with his people.”

It was two hours later when Rod and Wabigoon extinguished the candles and returned to their blankets.  And for another hour after that the former found it impossible to sleep.  He wondered where Mukoki was—­wondered what he was doing, and how in his strange madness he found his way in the trackless wilderness.

When he finally fell asleep it was to dream of the Indian mother and her child; only after a little there was no child, and the woman changed into Minnetaki, and the ravenous wolves into men.  From this unpleasant picture he was aroused by a series of prods in his side, and opening his eyes he beheld Wabi in his blankets a yard away, pointing over and beyond him and nodding his head.  Rod looked, and caught his breath.