There was no telling what the outcome would have been, for the third wolf joined the elder, and together, old leader and young leader, they attacked the ambitious three-year-old and proceeded to destroy him.

He was beset on either side by the merciless fangs of his erstwhile comrades.

Forgotten were the days they had hunted together, the game they had pulled down, the famine they had suffered.

That business was a thing of the past.

The business of love was at hand--ever a sterner and crueller business than that of food-getting.
And in the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of it all, sat down contentedly on her haunches and watched.