"Reincarnation?" I said aloud. It may have been the wrong word. I was not sure that reincarnation was what I had seen. I spoke partly because I was a little scared of the wolf -- just whistling in the dark -- and partly because I wanted to say something more to him before he ran off.
     The wolf froze and looked at me. "Life is more beautiful than you'd think," he said, as if admonishing me, and he trotted off into the trees.
     The dream was over so quickly that at first I thought little about it. It had possessed a real life, independent of me. I had no control over it once it started, and the ending had surprised me, and I was not at all sure what the wolf's answer meant, but I did not find these things remarkable that day. I did not break my stride but continued down through the spruces. I might have forgotten the dream entirely, if we had not later met Aviril Thayer. Four days after the dream, Thayer, who managed the Arctic Wildlife Range for the government, dropped in on us, landing his small plane on the lake. He knew we were planning to cross the range and wanted to see how we were doing. He was a man of few words. He spoke carefully, pronouncing all his articles distinctly, as if he had been alone in the Arctic so long that he didn't trust himself to get them out correctly. Pointing to the direction of the spruce forest where I had dreamed earlier, he told a story. He had been photographing there one day, he said , and had used up the film in his camera. He was walking back to the lake when a large black wolf came trotting out of the woods, not seeing him. "He kept coming until he was not, well, ten feet from me. Still didn't see me, until I guess I said something, and he looked up at me and ran off. First he hid behind a tree some ways off. He looked back from behind the tree and then he ran the rest of the way.

--KENNETH BROWER