After a searching scrutiny, the animal trotted forward a few steps.
This it repeated several times, till it was a short hundred yards away.
It paused, head up, close by a clump of spruce trees, and with sight and scent studied the outfit of the watching men.It looked at them in a strangely wistful way, after the manner of a dog; but in its wistfulness there was none of the dog affection.It was a wistfulness bred of hunger, as cruel as its own fangs, as merciless as the frost itself.
It was large for a wolf, its gaunt frame advertising the lines of an animal that was among the largest of its kind.
"Stands pretty close to two feet an' a half at the shoulders," Henry commented."An' I'll bet it ain't far from five feet long.""Kind of strange color for a wolf," was Bill's criticism." never seen a red wolf before.Looks almost cinnamon to me."The animal was certainly not cinnamon-colored.Its coat was the true wolf-coat.The dominant color was gray, and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue -- a hue that was baffling, that appeared and disappeared, that was more like an illusion of the vision, now gray, distinctly gray, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness of color not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience.
"Looks for all the world like a big husky sled-dog," Bill said."I wouldn't be s'prised to see it wag its tail.
"Hello, you husky!" he called."Come here, you, whatever-your-name-is.""Ain't a bit scairt of you," Henry laughed.