SUMMER this year was shorter than usual. As if they knew that the winter would come early and be long and hard, the deer left the Valley of the Good Spirit earlier than ever before, and began the slow journey back toward the winter grazing¹ grounds. At the first movement of the herds³, Aklak and Tuktu had been sent back to the main camp to help break camp and move to their winter home. So it was not until the deer were back on the home pastures⁴ that they had an opportunity to look for the deer Aklak had so carefully trained.

 

An unusually bold family of wolves had attacked the herd² on the way. There are no more cunning⁵ people in all the great world than the wolves. For days they had followed the deer without once being discovered by either the deer or the herders. Perhaps the latter had grown careless. Perhaps they had allowed the deer to scatter⁶ too widely. Anyway, the attack came when there were no herders near enough to interfere⁷.

 

A wary⁸, clever old mother was the leader of those wolves. She knew deer as not even the herders knew them. She knew just how to cut out a small band of animals from the main herd and drive them into the hills to be killed at leisure. She knew how to do it without stampeding the rest of the herd, and she and her well-grown children did it. It wasn’t until one of the herders found their tracks in newly-fallen snow that the presence of the wolves was suspected. Then it didn’t take long to discover what had happened.

 

Two of the herders, who were also noted⁹ hunters, set out on the trail of the wolves to make sure that the band was not still hanging around. They also hoped that they might find some of the missing deer.

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