It was not reasoning, but an
instinctive oppression of fact. He would come back. That
conviction burned dully in his brain. But now--to-night--he must
go. He slunk off into the darkness. With the stealth of a fox he
made his way between the sleeping dogs. Not until he was a quarter
of a mile from the camp did he straighten out, and then a gray and
fleeting shadow he sped westward under the light of the moon.
There was no hesitation in the manner of his going. Free of the
pain of his wounds, strong-limbed, deep-lunged as the strongest
wolf of the forests, he went on tirelessly. Rabbits bobbing out of
his path did not make him pause; even the strong scent of a
fisher-cat almost under his nose did not swerve him a foot from
his trail. Through swamp and deep forest, over lake and stream,
across open barren and charred burns his unerring sense of
orientation led him on. Once he stopped to drink where the swift
current of a creek kept the water open. Even then he gulped in
haste--and shot on. The moon drifted lower and lower until it sank
into oblivion. The stars began to fade away The little ones went
out, and the big ones grew sleepy and dull. A great snow-ghostly
gloom settled over the forest world.
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