The White Wolf (3 page)

Nadine shut off her tape recorder.
“Taking animals out of Acadia National Park is illegal,” she said. “I don’t know if we’ll catch these two, but we’ll try. Thank you for reporting what you saw, Abbi.”

Nadine left, promising to be back in touch if she learned anything.

“I wish we could do something!” Abbi said as the jeep pulled away.

“Could Walker look for the thieves from his plane?” Ruth Rose asked.

“What a great idea!” Wallis said. She picked up the kitchen phone again.

Wallis dialed, listened, then said, “Walker, this is Sis. Call home as soon as you get this message. Abbi was at her telescope, and she saw a man and woman steal those baby wolves! Both in shorts and caps. The woman had blond hair.”

Wallis hung up the phone. “I got his voice mail,” she said. “Don’t worry, honey, your uncle is always good about
checking his voice messages.”

Abbi backed away from the table and wheeled herself out to the deck. Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose helped Wallis clear the table, then walked out themselves. They found Abbi peering through the telescope.

“I saw the mother come back,” Abbi said. “She sniffed the ground, then went into her lair.”

“Maybe we should go out there and investigate,” Ruth Rose said, looking toward the woods.

“Out where?” Josh asked.

“To the wolf’s lair,” Ruth Rose answered. “We might find some clues.”

“Would you?” Abbi asked.

Josh froze. “Um, what if the mother wolf thinks
we
took her babies?” he said.

“Wolves are afraid of humans,” Abbi told Josh. “If she sees you coming, she’ll hide until you leave.”

“How do we get there?” Dink asked.

Abbi pointed toward a slight clearing in the woods behind the cabin. “I think there’s a sort of trail there,” she said. “If you follow it uphill, it should go pretty close to where the wolves live.”

“But what if the trail stops or leads somewhere else?” Josh said. “We could get lost out there.”

Abbi made room for Josh at the telescope. “See that big dead tree behind the rocks?” she asked.

“Yeah, I see it,” said Josh.

“If you get lost, just look up and find the tree,” Abbi said. “Coming back, look for our flagpole.”

“I say let’s do it,” Ruth Rose said. She looked at Dink and Josh.

Dink nodded.

Josh gulped. “Okay, let’s hit the trail!” he said.

The kids left the deck, passed Wallis’s van and the flagpole, and walked into the trees. They turned and waved to Abbi, who waved back.

“This looks like a trail,” Dink said, looking down.

The kids kept their eyes on the ground as they moved deeper into the trees. Soon Abbi and the cabin were out of sight.

The land was level for the first few minutes, then it angled sharply upward. The kids hiked in single file, with Josh
leading and Dink last in line.

Fallen trees, roots poking out of the ground, and jagged rocks made walking difficult.

“I don’t see any trail at all!” Josh wailed when they stopped to look around. High above their heads, tall trees blocked out the sky.

“I think we should just keep going up,” Ruth Rose said. “If we get out of these trees, we might be able to see that dead one Abbi showed us.”

They kept climbing. Dink could hear Josh and Ruth Rose taking deep breaths. He was sweating and swatting at mosquitoes.

After about twenty minutes, Josh stopped. “It better not be much farther,” he panted.

“It’s not. Look!” Ruth Rose said. She pointed uphill behind Josh.

“It’s the dead tree!” Dink said. “We’re almost there!”

It took them ten more minutes of climbing before they were standing at the base of the tree. Josh turned and waved his arms high in the air in case Abbi was watching.

Near the dead tree stood a pile of giant boulders. Behind the tree, the land sloped downward toward a cliff.

“It’s beautiful up here,” Dink said.

“You can see for miles!” Ruth Rose said. “Look how blue the water is.”

“And look how dark those clouds are,” Josh said nervously. “I sure don’t want to be up here in a thunderstorm.”

The kids split up and walked among the rocks and boulders. It took only a few seconds for Dink to find animal tracks in the sand.

“Guys, over here!” he called.

Josh and Ruth Rose found him on his knees. “Look, are these wolf tracks?”

Josh and Ruth Rose knelt next to Dink.

“They do look like pawprints,” Ruth Rose said, studying the sandy ground.

Josh put his own hand next to a pawprint. “Look how big these tracks are!” he said.

Ruth Rose pointed to some shoe-prints. “Do you think these are the kidnappers’ prints?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Dink said. “But other people must come up here, too.”

The kids prowled among the rocks. They found animal tracks, but no more from humans.

Josh stopped in front of two rock slabs leaning against each other. Beneath the rocks, a burrow had been dug, leaving a mound of loose dirt.

“Guys, I think I found the den!” Josh whispered.

The kids knelt and peered down into the dark lair.

“What if the mother wolf is down there right now?” Josh asked.

Suddenly they heard a wolf howl. All three kids jumped back.

“Run!” yelled Josh.

“She’s not down there,” Ruth Rose said. “Look!”

The mother wolf was standing on top of a pile of boulders about one hundred yards away. She was watching the kids with her ears standing straight up.

While the kids looked at her, she let out another howl, then leaped off the rocks and disappeared.

“What should we do?” asked Josh.

“Nothing,” Dink said. “I think she’s just looking for her babies.”

“Let’s move away from her lair in case she comes,” Ruth Rose said.

Dink and Josh followed Ruth Rose. They walked toward the cliff and stood looking down at the ocean.

The ground there was too rocky to show any kind of prints.

“I wonder how that man and woman got the baby wolves out of here,” Dink said.

“In a cage,” Josh reminded him. “Remember what Abbi said?”

“I know, but what did they do with the cage?” Dink asked. “Cars can’t drive up here, so how did they get the cage away?”

“By boat, maybe,” Ruth Rose said, pointing down at the ground. “Look!”

Not five feet away from where they stood, a narrow path led down toward the water.

“Let’s check it out,” Dink said, moving toward the path.

Josh and Ruth Rose followed him. The narrow track was steep, but rocks and roots provided footholds.

“Stop!” Josh shouted after they’d gone down about fifty feet.

“What?” asked Ruth Rose. She was directly behind Josh and nearly collided with his back.

“Blueberries!” Josh said. The bushes on both sides of the trail were loaded with clusters of dark blue berries. Josh reached for a branch and began picking.

“Eat some, guys,” he told Dink and Ruth Rose. “They’re excellent!”

But Dink was looking at the ground under their feet. Dozens of blueberries had been crushed in the dirt.

“These berries are fresh,” Dink said. “Someone walked on them recently!”

“Someone like the wolf kidnappers!” Ruth Rose said. “They must have carried the cage down this way!”