The Wolf Hunters

The Wolf Hunters

James Oliver Curwood

The Wolf Hunters

James Oliver Curwood

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THE WOLF HUNTERS

CHAPTER I. THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST

CHAPTER II. HOW WABIGOON BECAME A WHITE MAN

CHAPTER III. RODERICK SEES THE FOOTPRINT

CHAPTER IV. RODERICK'S FIRST TASTE OF THE HUNTER'S LIFE

CHAPTER V. MYSTERIOUS SHOTS IN THE WILDERNESS

CHAPTER VI. MUKOKI DISTURBS THE ANCIENT SKELETONS

CHAPTER VII. RODERICK DISCOVERS THE BUCKSKIN BAG

CHAPTER VIII. HOW WOLF BECAME THE COMPANION OF MEN

CHAPTER IX. WOLF TAKES VENGEANCE UPON HIS PEOPLE

CHAPTER X. RODERICK EXPLORES THE CHASM

CHAPTER XI. RODERICK'S DREAM

CHAPTER XII. THE SECRET OF THE SKELETON'S HAND

CHAPTER XIII. SNOWED IN

CHAPTER XIV. THE RESCUE OF WABIGOON

CHAPTER XV. RODERICK HOLDS THE WOONGAS AT BAY

CHAPTER XVI. THE SURPRISE AT THE POST

The Wolf Hunters A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness

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THE WOLF HUNTERS
A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness
BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
1908
To my comrades of the great northern wilderness, those faithful companions with whom I have shared the joys and hardships of the “long silent trail,” and especially to Mukoki, my red guide and beloved friend, does the writer gratefully dedicate this volume

THE WOLF HUNTERS

CHAPTER I. THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST


Cold winter lay deep in the Canadian wilderness. Over it the moon was rising, like a red pulsating ball, lighting up the vast white silence of the night in a shimmering glow. Not a sound broke the stillness of the desolation. It was too late for the life of day, too early for the nocturnal roamings and voices of the creatures of the night. Like the basin of a great amphitheater the frozen lake lay revealed in the light of the moon and a billion stars. Beyond it rose the spruce forest, black and forbidding. Along its nearer edges stood hushed walls of tamarack, bowed in the smothering clutch of snow and ice, shut in by impenetrable gloom.
A huge white owl flitted out of this rim of blackness, then back again, and its first quavering hoot came softly, as though the mystic hour of silence had not yet passed for the night-folk. The snow of the day had ceased, hardly a breath of air stirred the ice-coated twigs of the trees. Yet it was bitter cold—so cold that a man, remaining motionless, would have frozen to death within an hour.
Suddenly there was a break in the silence, a weird, thrilling sound, like a great sigh, but not human—a sound to make one's blood run faster and fingers twitch on rifle-stock. It came from the gloom of the tamaracks. After it there fell a deeper silence than before, and the owl, like a noiseless snowflake, drifted out over the frozen lake.