rather than to the monster, for he had no faith in the monster's voice. There probably was no voice; the words were no more than his own perverse imagination. The wolves had come back to the bulleven of them now, where he had never seen more than six before�and were tearing at the carcass. "Good eating to you," he said to them. Both the hide and the meat of the ancient animal would be tough. It would take some effort to rip through the hide to get at the flesh, which would not be the best of eating. But to a wolf it would be meat to fill an empty gut. Before the day was over, Boone would need some of the meat; he had nothing else to eat. It would be dangerous to walk out to the carcass and drive the wolves away so that he could slice out some meat. The only tool he had was a jackknife of the very cheapest sort, put together so shoddily that any undue pressure might break it all apart. He'd have to wait a while until the wolves were less hungry and therefore less possessive. By that time, perhaps, they would have so torn the hide as to expose areas of flesh from which he could hack a chunk for his own consumption. He'd be, he decided, the scavenger to the wolves. He rose from his squatting position before the fire and
