"Wolves! Quick, Ross, the door!" While Leslie sprang to the gun hung on pegs against the logs near the door, Ross fumbled at the door fastenings and, in a moment, both boys were out in front in the clearing that they had shoveled in front of the door and window. The sound was rapidly retreating down the side of the slope toward the seven spruces. Eagerly the boys ran toward the spruces, which, in the darkness, merely made a darker spot below them. From the midst of the trees came the scratching sound on the crust. Throwing the gun to his shoulder Leslie excitedly fired again and again in the direction of the rapidly receding sounds. "There!" he exclaimed when the chambers of the gun were emptied. "Of course I haven't hit anything, but I have the satisfaction of knowing I've shot at a wolf, at least!" CHAPTER XVIII A HUMILIATING DISCOVERY RETURNING to the cabin, the boys excitedly split up a box and, binding the dry splinters together, thrust one end into the stove. A moment later, Ross, brandishing this improvised torch, and followed by Leslie, bearing the gun in hands none too steady, ran down to the seven spruces. This group of trees, full grown and broad limbed, interlocked their branches at the foot of the mountain in the path of the high winds which roared through the canon as through a funnel between the high mountains. The trunks formed a windbreak for the storms that left their load of snow heaped to the branches on the upper side at the expense of the lower side where the crust was swept as clear of loose snow as though by a broom. Here, in the shadow of these trees, Leslie, despite his earnest protest to the contrary, half expected to see a wolf dead or wounded, but no wolf appeared. Lowering the torch, the boys made their way warily around the trees and the drifts heaped to leeward. The pile of snow had not been disturbed, nor did they discover any tracks. "Less, I'm not satisfied," exclaimed Ross finally. "Something broke that window and something ran down here. There's enough loose snow over this crust to show traces if----" Here the speaker hastily interposed his body between a gust of wind and the flaring torch. "That's true," asserted Leslie, "but the snow is so light that this wind has probably moved every particle of it since that window was broken, and this crust is too hard to show a track." Ross uttered a sudden exclamation and plunged forward, the torch's head flaming against the crust. "Quick, Less, see here!" Leslie sprang forward and bent over the torch. "Blood!" he shouted. "I did hit him for sure! There is a--no, see here, Ross, here are some more drops, a neat little collection! I must have hit hard. Oh, we can track him now easily!"