Skipper Ed led the way into the forest to the southward of the open, that they might keep well to leeward of the pack, and thus avoid so far as possible danger of the wolves getting their scent. He hoped that this maneuver might permit them to circuit back to the cabin under the protecting cover of the brush fringe along the shore and the forest to the northward. To have crossed the open would have been to invite discovery, for it was evident the wolves would follow the bed of the stream through the gulch and into the open.