This time, from the direction of the wolf-pack, there came the ringing report of a rifle! It might have been a mile or two miles away, but distance did not lessen the fear it brought to the dying king of the North.

That day he had heard the same sound, and it had brought mysterious and weakening pain in his vitals.
With a supreme effort he brought himself to his feet, once more sniffed into the north, the east, and the west, then turned and buried himself in the black and frozen wilderness of tamarack.
Stillness fell again with the sound of the rifle-shot.

It might have lasted five minutes or ten, when a long, solitary howl floated from across the lake.

It ended in the sharp, quick yelp of a wolf on the trail, and an instant later was taken up by others, until the pack was once more in full cry.

Almost simultaneously a figure darted out upon the ice from the edge of the forest.