Dusty Star

nd the forest began she stopped dead, her hair bristling, her eyes alight. Here was the spot of the cub's capture! Here was the second trail! As she sniffed, and learnt the record told in smell, her anger rose. But with the anger went misgiving, and the uneasiness of fear; for here she recognized again the trail of the new presence upon Carboona, the dread of which had caused her to seek another den. The trail went straight into the forest, in a south-easterly direction. With the utmost caution the mother-wolf took it up, in a swift, noiseless lope, passing deeper and deeper into the vast wilderness of spruce and pine that went descending, always descending, towards the basin of the world. But long before it reached the lowest levels, the trail turned due east through the mighty gorge that sucks the prairie wind into Carboona's bosom like an enormous throat. Through the gorge went the old wolf, sniffing, peering, listening--every sense strained to the utmost, for now the buckskin scent was strong upon the gro