But it was not the swift passage of man and dog that held the wolf rigidly alert, ready for flight--and yet hesitating.

It was something from the opposite direction, from the North, out of which the wind was coming.

First it was sound; then it was scent--then both, and the wolf sped in swift flight up the sunlit ridge.
In the direction from which the alarm came there stretched a small lake, and on its farther edge, a quarter of a mile away, there suddenly darted out from the dense rim of balsam forest a jumble of dogs and sledge and man.

For a few moments the mass of animals seemed entangled in some kind of wreck or engaged in one of those fierce battles in which the half-wild sledge-dogs of the North frequently engage, even on the trail.

Then there came the sharp, commanding cries of a human voice, the cracking of a whip, the yelping of the huskies, and the disordered team straightened itself and came like a yellowish-gray streak across the smooth surface of the lake.