"Come," he said.
His voice was gasping, strangely unreal and thick. She came to him and
put her hand in his again, and it was wet and sticky with tundra mud
from the spring. Then they climbed to the swell of the plain, away from
the pool and the willows.
In the air about them, creeping up from the outer darkness of the
strange twilight, were clearer whispers now, and with these sounds of
storm, borne from the west, came a hallooing voice. It was answered from
straight ahead. Alan held the muddied little hand closer in his own and
set out for the range-houses, from which direction the last voice had
come. He knew what was happening. Graham's men were cleverer than he had
supposed; they had encircled the tundra side of the range, and some of
them were closing in on the willow pool, from which the triumphant shout
of the bearded man's companion had come. They were wondering why the
call was not repeated, and were hallooing.
Every nerve in Alan's body was concentrated for swift and terrible
action, for the desperateness of their situation had surged upon him
like a breath of fire, unbelievable, and yet true. Back at the willows
they would have killed him. The hands at his throat had sought his
life. Wolves and not men were about them on the plain; wolves headed by
two monsters of the human pack, Graham and Rossland.
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