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There were cries of men and sounds of sleds and harnesses, and the whimpering of dogs. Four sleds with half a dozen men approached the man who crouched in the centre of the dying fire. They were shaking him into consciousness. He looked at them like a drunken man and said sleepily:

“Red she-wolf… Come in with the dogs at feeding time… First she ate the dog-food… Then she ate the dogs… And after that she ate Bill…”

“Where’s Lord Alfred?” one of the men shouted in his ear, shaking him roughly.

He shook his head slowly. “No, she didn’t eat him… He’s in a tree at the last camp.”

“Dead?”

“And in a box,” Henry jerked his shoulder away from the grip of his questioner. “Leave alone… Good night, everybody.”

His eyes closed. And even as they put him down upon the blankets his snores sounded in the frosty air.

But there was another sound: a far and faint cry of the hungry wolf-pack as it took the trail of other meat.

Part II

Chapter I. The Battle of the Fangs

It was the she-wolf who had first caught the sound of men’s voices and the whining of the sled-dogs; and it was the she-wolf who was first to spring away from the man in his circle of dying fire. The pack followed her.

A large grey wolf – one of the pack’s several leaders – directed the wolves’ course on the heels of the she-wolf. She went near him, as though it were her appointed position. He did not snarl at her, nor show his teeth, although he snarled at the younger wolves. On the contrary, when he ran too near it was she who snarled and showed her teeth. She could even slash his shoulder sharply on occasion. He showed no anger.

On the other side of the she-wolf ran an old wolf, marked with the scars of many battles. He ran always on her right side – perhaps because he had only one eye, and that was the left eye. Sometimes he and the grey wolf on the left showed their teeth and snarled across at each other. They might have fought, but now they were too hungry.

Also there was a young three-year-old that ran on the right side of the one-eyed wolf. When he dared to run abreast, a snarl sent him back. Sometimes he even edged in between the old leader and the she-wolf, but was stopped by three sets of savage teeth (the leader’s, the one-eyed wolf’s, and the she-wolf’s).

The situation of the pack was desperate. It was lean with hunger. It ran slower than usual. The weak members, the very young and the very old, ran behind. At the front were the strongest. Yet all were more like skeletons than wolves.

They ran night and day, over the surface of the frozen and dead world. They alone were alive there, and they looked for other things that were alive to eat them and continue living.

Finally they came upon a moose. It was a short and fierce fight. And after that there was plenty of food. The moose weighed over eight hundred pounds – fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for more than forty wolves of the pack.