For the life of him Baree could not keep from dancing about, while the wire grew tighter and tighter about his neck.
When he snapped at the wire and flung the weight of his body to the ground, the sapling would bend obligingly, and then--in its rebound--would yank him for an instant completely off the earth.
Furiously he struggled.

It was a miracle that the fine wire held him.
In a few moments more it must have broken--but McTaggart had heard him! The factor caught up his blanket and a heavy stick as he hurried toward the snare.

It was not a rabbit making those sounds--he knew that.
Perhaps a fishercat--a lynx, a fox, a young wolf-- It was the wolf he thought of first when he saw Baree at the end of the wire.

He dropped the blanket and raised the club.

If there had been clouds overhead, or the stars had been less brilliant, Baree would have died as surely as Wapoos had died.