Even after that, a long
time elapsed before the man and woman succeeded in patting him. It
was a great victory, for they alone were allowed to put hands on
him. He was fastidiously exclusive, and no guest at the cottage
ever succeeded in making up to him. A low growl greeted such
approach; if any one had the hardihood to come nearer, the lips
lifted, the naked fangs appeared, and the growl became a snarl - a
snarl so terrible and malignant that it awed the stoutest of them,
as it likewise awed the farmers' dogs that knew ordinary dog-
snarling, but had never seen wolf-snarling before.
He was without antecedents. His history began with Walt and Madge.
He had come up from the south, but never a clew did they get of the
owner from whom he had evidently fled. Mrs. Johnson, their nearest
neighbor and the one who supplied them with milk, proclaimed him a
Klondike dog. Her brother was burrowing for frozen pay-streaks in
that far country, and so she constituted herself an authority on
the subject.
But they did not dispute her. There were the tips of Wolf's ears,
obviously so severely frozen at some time that they would never
quite heal again.
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