The White Wolf (6 page)

Walker hurried out to the deck and came back with the cassette. He ejected the one in the recorder and slid in the BIRDS tape.

They heard the hooting of an owl, some loons, and finally a raucous, high-pitched squawking.

“Those are gull calls,” Abbi said. “Do you hear the difference?”

“Play the other one again,” Ruth Rose said.

Abbi switched cassettes, and they once more heard the sounds that Abbi said were the pups.

“It
does
sound like puppies whimpering,” Josh said. “My dog makes that noise when he’s hungry!”

“But how did we get the wolf pups on tape?” Dink asked. “We never saw them.”

“They must be hidden somewhere out there,” Abbi said. “You might have
heard them, but you thought they were seagull noises. Now we can tell the police!”

“But this tape doesn’t prove the wolves are on that island,” Walker said. “The Dacks might have dogs.”

“But I saw the woman in the boat!” Abbi insisted. “I can tell the police she was the same woman I saw take the pups.”

“You saw her from a long distance both times,” Walker told his niece. “You might have seen two different women with long blond hair.”

“Uncle Walker is right, hon,” Wallis said. “We can call the game warden again, but I have a feeling she’ll want more proof before she accuses those people.”

“Abbi, what do wolves eat around here?” Dink asked suddenly.

Abbi looked at Dink. “Small animals, mostly,” she said. “Why?”

“Well, Josh found a dead mouse
in their boat,” Dink explained.

“Right, and I touched it,” Josh said. “It was wet and slimy and gross!”

“You should have heard Josh scream, Abbi,” Ruth Rose said.

Suddenly Abbi backed her wheelchair away from the table. She wheeled herself to the fireplace and came back with a book in her lap.

With the others watching her, she flipped some pages, then started reading:

Abbi closed the book. “I think those baby wolves were in that boat,” she declared. “The mother wolf probably caught the mouse for her babies, and one of them was eating it when they got thrown in the cage.”

“So the mouse
was
a clue!” Josh said.

“It’s almost like connecting dots to make a picture,” Dink said. “First Abbi saw two people steal the puppies. Then we saw human footprints near the wolves’ den. Ruth Rose found a trail down to the beach and blueberry stains on the dock. And Josh found a dead mouse in the boat.”

“And we heard the whimpering noises on the tape,” Abbi added.

“Okay, I have to admit that I see a picture forming,” Wallis said. “But what we believe isn’t necessarily the truth.”

“Right,” Walker said. “There are a couple more dots to connect. Like how do we prove that whimpering on the tape came from the baby wolves?”

“I have an idea,” Josh said quietly.

“Tell us, Josh,” Wallis said.

“I was thinking about the mother wolf,” Josh said. “She would know if those were her babies whimpering on the tape.”

Everyone stared at Josh.

“I don’t get it,” Dink said.

“I do!” Ruth Rose cried. “We let the mother wolf listen to the tape, right, Josh?”

Josh nodded. “Yeah, we can take the tape recorder to her den and play it. If the mother wolf is there, she should do something when she hears her babies crying.”

“If those really are her babies on the tape,” Wallis reminded them.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Walker said. “Come on, kids!”

Dink, Josh, Ruth Rose, and Walker left the cabin and hiked into the woods.

Ruth Rose carried Abbi’s tape recorder and a copy of the tape in her backpack. Walker had slung his camera around his neck.

“I sure hope this works,” Dink said as they trekked through the trees.

“Me too,” Walker said. “Abbi will be heartbroken if we don’t get those wolf pups back with their mother.”

They stopped talking when they saw the tall dead tree. Dink, Josh, and Walker found a place to stay out of sight.

Ruth Rose set the tape recorder on the ground about fifty feet from the lair. She pressed
PLAY
, then ran to where the others waited.

Seconds later, they heard the taped whimpering noises. All four watchers had their fingers crossed.

Suddenly a white blur shot out of the rock cave. The mother wolf hurled herself at the tape recorder. Lying on her stomach, she made her own whimpering sounds. She put her nose next to the tape recorder, as if trying to smell her babies.

Walker was recording it all on his digital camera.

After a moment, the whimpering noises stopped, and the kids’ conversation came from the tape.

The mother wolf leaped to her feet, and her ears went straight up. She barked at the tape recorder as if it were alive.

Walker motioned that they should leave, and the four backed away. When they were on the trail toward home, they stopped and high-fived each other.

“Did you see her?” Josh asked. “If that isn’t proof, I don’t know what is!”

“And Walker got it all on camera!” Ruth Rose said.

“I sure hope Abbi was watching,” Dink said. “Will she be mad that we left her tape recorder up there?”

Walker laughed. “She’ll forgive us,” he said. “Between your tape and these pictures, I’m pretty sure the game warden
will agree to take a boat ride out to talk to the Dacks.”

Abbi and Wallis were waiting on the deck when the kids and Walker emerged from the woods.

“We saw it all!” Abbi cried. “I told you those were wolf whimpers!”

Walker grinned. “You were right on, honey,” he told Abbi. “We had to leave your tape recorder up there, though.”

“It was so cool,” Josh said. “That mother wolf practically crawled inside the tape recorder.”

“Now can we call the police and have them arrested?” Abbi asked.

“Now we can ask Nadine to pay those people a visit,” Wallis said.

Nadine showed up twenty minutes later with another game warden named Jason. They borrowed Walker’s camera and motored toward the island with the blue awning.

The four kids waited on the dock. To kill time, they counted all the boats they could see. The boys got a point for each motorboat, and the girls for each sailboat.

The girls were ahead eighteen sailboats to eleven motorboats when Ruth Rose screamed, “HERE THEY COME!”

Sure enough, Nadine was sitting in the bow of the boat as Jason guided it toward the dock. In the middle of the boat was a lump covered with an old blanket.

“Did you get them?” asked Abbi as Nadine stepped onto the dock.

“Piece of cake,” Nadine said.

“The puppies are pretty scared,” Nadine said. She and Jason carried the bulky, covered cage up to the deck.

They set the cage in the shade. The baby wolves whimpered through the blanket.

Wallis and Walker joined them on the deck. They were both grinning.

“Can we peek in?” asked Abbi.

“Okay, but just for a second,” Nadine said. “Jason and I have to get them back to their mother as soon as possible.”

Nadine lifted a corner of the blanket,
and everyone peeked into the cage. The three baby wolves were huddled together. Small black eyes peered back at the kids.

“They are so amazing!” Josh said.

“They look thirsty,” Abbi said. “Should we give them some water?”

“Sure, and I could use a glass, too,” Jason said.

“Let’s all go inside,” Wallis said.

When the wolves had been given a bowl of water, the two game wardens told what happened on the island.

“At first the Dacks denied everything,” Nadine said. “But then I showed them your digital pictures, and that did it. They took us to a small shed, and there were the baby wolves, crying and scared.”

“Did they say why they took the wolves?” Ruth Rose asked.

Jason nodded. “It seems that Greg Dack read an ad in a magazine from some guy who wanted to buy wolves to use as watchdogs,” he said. “The Dacks stood to make several thousand dollars on this little scheme.”

“And right in the middle of their confession, their boss walked in,” Nadine said. “He fired the Dacks on the spot. Jason called the authorities, and they’ll be arrested within an hour.
Those two won’t be kidnapping anymore wolves.”

Nadine smiled at Abbi. “If it hadn’t been for you, they would have gotten away with it,” she said. “And who knows what might have happened to those pups.”

Nadine took a small book from her back pocket. She opened the book in front of Abbi. “This shows all the animals that live in this park,” she said. “Since you have a telescope, you could help us out by letting us know how many you see.”

Abbi accepted the book and beamed. “Thank you!”

Jason stood up. “Let’s get those pups back to their mom,” he said.

With the kids watching, Jason and Nadine carried the covered cage into the woods.

Twenty minutes later, Dink looked
up from the telescope. “They made it!” he said.

Taking turns, the kids watched the game wardens set the cage in front of the lair. They removed the blanket, unlatched the door, then backed away.