When Nell felt Robin’s coat she noted that his hackles were stiff and his throat quivering with deep growls. Robin could put up with most of the wild folk--after a fashion--but wolves made him furious! All three of the party sat down again close to the fire, and comforted themselves with hot tea and dried meat.
"Something happens every night," commented David thoughtfully; "this was the queerest. Who’d have thought of a bull moose down here--and wolves!"
"How can we tell how far they’d come," said Nell. "He looked awfully done. Da, his antlers were jolly fine--all of seven feet across. I expect he was an old bull and that they singled him out of the herd and kept him back from the others--that’s the way they do."
"I do hope he got away," said the boy again.
Nell hoped so, too, but she didn’t think it likely. Wolves are fearfully persistent.
After a bit they went back to bed and actually slept till a faint, faint pink light spread over the flatness of the lake.
The wind was less keen, but it still blew the snow about in eddies, and Nell was very eager to be off while this help was on their side.
She looked back towards the river and the far woods. Nothing showed. They struck camp very quickly indeed, for her hurry was infectious. She felt unsafe out here in the open, for figures show a long way upon clean snow.
They kept to the edge more or less. Not quite the edge, because there is always a good deal of rotten ice under the banks, but within a little of it. It was easier going, and of course Nell was not quite sure where the river ran out of the lake and onward. She longed desperately for that fresh start on the river road. It would be wonderful to have crossed the lake and be actually on the straight track to Moose River.
All day they drove on and on, stopping once or twice in likely places on the banks for a rest and food. This lake was not nearly so large as the Abbitibbi Lake, or several others--it was not so wide. Away over the snow they could see the opposite--the southern--shore. But they could not see the end. It was probably twenty-five miles long from the entrance of the river at the west, to its exit in the east, and that’s a long, long way even on snowshoes, when you are on the trail with a sled, even a light sled.