noon
The temperature had fallen another ten degrees , and nothing was moving . Traps were never sprung on such nights , for even the furred things -- the mink , and the ermine , and the lynx -- lay snug in the holes and the nests they had found for themselves . An increasing hunger was not strong enough to drive Kazan and Gray Wolf from their windfall . The next day there was no break in the terrible cold , and toward noon Kazan set out on a hunt for meat , leaving Gray Wolf in the windfall . Being three-quarters dog , food was more necessary to Kazan than to his mate . Nature has fitted the wolf-breed for famine , and in ordinary temperature Gray Wolf could have lived for a fortnight without food . At sixty degrees below zero she could exist a week , perhaps ten days .