We've hit the hornets' nest, Muky, and the only thing for us to do is to get out of this country as fast as we can!" "We'd make a nice pot-shot just at this moment," volunteered Rod, looking across to the dense blackness on the opposite side of the river, where the moonlight seemed to make even more impenetrable the wall of gloom.
As he spoke there came a slight sound from behind him, the commotion of a body moving softly beyond the wall of spruce boughs, then a curious, suspicious sniffing, and after that a low whine.
"Listen!" Wabi's command came in a tense whisper.

He leaned close against the boughs, stealthily parted them, and slowly thrust his head through the aperture.
"Hello, Wolf!" he whispered.

"What's up ?" An arm's length away, tied before a smaller shelter of spruce, a gaunt, dog-like animal stood in a rigid listening attitude.

An instant's glance, however, would have assured one that it was not a dog, but a full-grown wolf.

From the days of its puppyhood Wabi had taught it in the ways of dogdom, yet had the animal perversely clung to its wild instincts.