As they slid along, noiseless as shadows, in the moonlight, they came upon a run-way.Both noses went down to the footprints in the snow.These footprints were very fresh.One Eye ran ahead cautiously, his mate at his heels.The broad pads of their feet were spread wide and in contact with the snow were like velvet.One Eye caught sight of a dim movement of white in the midst of the white.His sliding gait had been deceptively swift, but it was as nothing to the speed at which he now ran.Before him was bounding the faint patch of white he had discovered.
They were running along a narrow alley flanked on either side by a growth of young spruce.Through the trees the mouth of the alley could be seen, opening out on a moonlit glade.Old One Eye was rapidly overhauling the fleeing shape of white.Bound by bound he gained.Now he was upon it.One leap more and his teeth would be sinking into it.But that leap was never made.High in the air, and straight up, soared the shape of white, now a struggling snowshoe rabbit that leaped and bounded, executing a fantastic dance there above him in the air and never once returning to earth.
One Eye sprang back with a snort of sudden fright, then shrank down to the snow and crouched, snarling threats at this thing of fear he did not understand.But the she-wolf coolly thrust past him.She poised for a moment, then sprang for the dancing rabbit.She, too, soared high, but not so high as the quarry, and her teeth clipped emptily together with a metallic snap.She made another leap, and another.