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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yellow Horde, by Hal G. Evarts
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Yellow Horde
+
+Author: Hal G. Evarts
+
+Illustrator: Charles Livingston Bull
+
+Release Date: April 17, 2008 [EBook #25082]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YELLOW HORDE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sarah Thomson and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
++-------------------------------------------------------------+
+|Transcriber's Note: Variations in hyphenation are preserved. |
+|Specifically, "homecoming" vs. "home-coming" and "timberline"|
+|vs. "timber-line".                                           |
++-------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+THE YELLOW HORDE
+
+
+[Illustration: When dawn lifted the shadows from the low country, Breed
+was prowling along the first rim of the hills.
+
+FRONTISPIECE. _See page 6._]
+
+
+
+
+  THE YELLOW HORDE
+  BY HAL G. EVARTS
+
+
+  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+  CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL
+
+
+  TORONTO
+  McCLELLAND AND STEWART
+  1921
+
+
+
+
+  _Copyright, 1921,_
+  BY HAL G. EVARTS.
+
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+  Published April, 1921
+
+
+  Norwood Press
+  Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co.
+  Norwood, Mass., U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  When dawn lifted the shadows from the low
+  country, Breed was prowling along the first rim
+  of the hills                                     _Frontispiece_
+
+  The elk migration had begun                           PAGE   63
+
+  As the summer advanced the pups learned to
+  pack-hunt with Breed                                        167
+
+  Breed was compelled to hunt farther from home
+  as the deer quit the valleys                                191
+
+
+
+
+THE YELLOW HORDE
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The wolfer lay in his cabin and listened to the first few night sounds
+of the foothills. The clear piping notes of migrating plover floated
+softly down to him, punctuated by the rasping cry of a nighthawk. A
+coyote raised his voice, a perfect tenor note that swept up to a wild
+soprano, then fell again in a whirl of howls which carried amazing
+shifts of inflection, tearing up and down the coyote scale. One after
+another added his voice to the chorus until it seemed that the swelling
+volume could be produced by no less than a full thousand musical prairie
+wolves scattered through the foothills for a score of miles.
+
+Wild music to the ears of most men, the song of flat wastes and deserts
+and limitless horizons, freighted with a loneliness which is
+communicated to man in a positive ache for companionship,--and which
+carries a wealth of companionship in itself for those who have lived so
+long under the open skies that the song of the desert choir comes to
+them as a lullaby.
+
+It moved Collins, the wolfer, to quiet mirth. Always it affected him
+that way, this first clamorous outburst of the night. He read in it a
+note of deep-seated humor, the jeering laughter of the whole coyote
+tribe mocking the world of men who had sworn to exterminate their kind.
+
+"The little devils!" Collins chuckled. "The little yellow devils! Men
+can't wipe 'em out. There'll be a million coyotes left to howl when the
+last man dies."
+
+From this oft-repeated prophecy Collins was known to every stockman in
+three States as the Coyote Prophet, the title a jeering one at first,
+then bestowed with increasing respect as men saw many of his prophecies
+fulfilled. The coyote's larger cousin, the wolf, ranged the continent
+over while the coyote himself was strictly a prairie dweller. For twenty
+years Collins had predicted that wolves would disappear in settled
+districts while the coyote would survive; not only survive but increase
+his range to include the hills and spread over the continent from the
+Arctic to the Gulf. There were rumors of coyotes turning up in Indiana.
+Then came the tale that a strange breed of small yellow wolves had
+appeared in Michigan. Those sheepmen who summered their sheep in the
+high valleys of the western mountains complained that stray coyotes quit
+the flats and followed them into the hills to prey upon the flocks. The
+buffalo wolves that had once infested the range country were gone and it
+was seldom that any of the big gray killers turned up on the open range
+except when the pinch of cold and famine drove a few timber wolves down
+from the north. Men saw these things and wondered if all of Collins'
+sweeping prophecies would come to pass. In the face of conditions that
+had placed a value on the coyote's pelt and a bounty on his scalp, there
+was no apparent decrease in the numbers of the yellow horde from year to
+year.
+
+Collins listened to the coyote clamor and knew that they had come to
+stay. The concert was suddenly hushed as a long-drawn wolf howl, faint
+from distance, drifted far out across the range. Collins turned in his
+blankets and peered through the window at the black bulk of the
+mountains to the north of him, towering clear and distinct in the
+brilliant moonlight.
+
+"If you come down out of those hills I'll stretch your pelt," the wolfer
+stated. "I'll pinch your toes in a number four."
+
+The wolf whose howl had occasioned this assertion was even then
+considering the possibilities of which Collins spoke. Men called those
+of his kind breed-wolves, half coyote and half wolf. He stood on the
+high divide which was the roughly separating line between the haunts of
+the two tribes whose blood flowed in his veins,--all wolf except for the
+yellow fur that marked him for a breed. The coyote voices lifted to him
+and Breed read them as the call of kind; for although he had spent the
+past ten months with the wolf tribe of his father his first friendships
+had been formed among his mother's people on the open range. The acrid
+spice of the sage drifted to his nostrils and combined with the coyote
+voices to fill him with a homesick urge to revisit the land of his
+birth.
+
+But he would not go down. Breed knew well the dangers of the open range;
+the devilish riders who made life one long gamble for every wolf that
+appeared; he had gruesome recollections of the many coyotes he had seen
+in traps. But those things gave him small concern. It was still another
+menace--the poison baits put out by wolfers--which held him back. Not
+that he feared poison for himself, but coyotes writhing in convulsions
+and frothing at the mouth had always filled him with a terrible dread.
+It was an epidemic of this sort which had driven him to leave the
+sagebrush land of the coyotes for the heavily timbered country of the
+wolves. The memory of it lingered with him now. Would he find these
+stricken, demented creatures there?
+
+Breed moved down the south slope of the hills at last, the sage scent
+luring the coyote in him, but moved slowly and with many halts
+occasioned by the wolf suspicion which urged him to turn back. When dawn
+lifted the shadows from the low country, Breed was prowling along the
+first rim of the hills.
+
+Two dirt-roofed log cabins showed as toy houses, small from distance,
+and he could see the slender threads of smoke ascending from others, the
+houses themselves beyond the scope of his vision. The range was taking
+on fall shades, the gray of the sage relieved by brown patches of open
+grasslands and splotches of color where early frosts had touched the
+birch and willow thickets that marked each side-hill spring. Tiny dark
+specks moved through it all. Meat! It had been long since Breed had
+tasted beef, and his red tongue lolled out and dripped in anticipation
+of the coming feast.
+
+But he would not go down until night. Twice during the early evening
+Breed howled, and Collins, down in the choppy country below, turned his
+glasses toward the spot to see what manner of wolf this was who howled
+in the broad light of day. The second time he located Breed. The yellow
+wolf stood on the rims half a mile above, looming almost life-size in
+the twelve-power lens. Collins noted the yellow fur.
+
+"A breed-wolf," he said. "The most cunning devil that ever made a track.
+He'll never take on a feed of poison bait or plant his foot on a trap
+pan. He'll come down--and I'll ride him out on the first tracking snow."
+
+Just at dusk Breed howled again and dropped down to the broken country
+at the base of the hills, skirting the flats and holding to the roughest
+brakes, then swung out across the rolling foothills.
+
+The wind soon brought him the message that coyotes were just ahead and
+he traced the scent upwind, anxious for the first sight of his former
+running mates. Two coyotes scattered swiftly before his approach, each
+carrying his own piece of a jack rabbit which the pair had caught and
+torn apart. Breed did not follow but held steadily on in search of more.
+The urge for companionship was even stronger than hunger, and he sought
+to satisfy the stronger craving first. Twice more he veered into the
+wind, and both times the coyotes slipped away as he advanced. He
+followed the line of one's retreat and the coyote whirled and fled like
+a yellow streak in the moonlight. Breed was puzzled by all this, but the
+craving for food had grown so strong as to crowd out all else, and he
+abandoned the hunt for friends to hunt for meat instead.
+
+Out in the center of a broad flat bench a mile across Breed made out a
+group of slowly moving specks which he knew for cows, and he headed
+toward them, taking advantage of the cover afforded by every clump of
+sage as he crept up to a yearling steer that lagged behind the rest. He
+had hunted heavy game animals with the wolves, animals with every sense
+alert to detect the approach of the big gray killers, and he fully
+expected the steer to break into full flight at the first warning of his
+presence. He had almost forgotten the stupidity of the cows on the open
+range and the ease with which he had torn them down when hunting them
+with his wolf father long before. He made his final rush and drove his
+teeth deep into one hind leg before his prey had even quickened his
+gait. The steer lurched into an awkward gallop and bawled with fright as
+the savage teeth cut through muscles and hide. Breed lunged for the same
+spot again; once more and the leg was useless, the hamstrings cut, and
+it sagged loosely with every step. He slashed at the other leg. Within a
+hundred yards of the start the steer pitched down, bracing his foreparts
+off the ground with his two front feet, and even as he fell the yellow
+wolf drove for his throat.
+
+Then Breed circled his kill, looking off in all directions to make sure
+that there was no route by which men might approach unseen. He stretched
+forth his head and cupped his lips as he sent his tribal call rolling
+across the range, the message that here was meat for all of his kind who
+would come and feed. A score of coyote voices answered from far and
+near.
+
+Collins heard the dread cry and knew that the wolf had made a kill. He
+knew too that whenever the wolf note was heard, all other sounds were
+stilled as if every living creature expected to hear an answering cry
+and waited for it to come before resuming their own communications. The
+fact that the coyotes answered the cry assured Collins that it was the
+breed-wolf that had howled; that coyote ears had read a note of their
+own kind in the sound, a note which even his experienced ears could not
+detect.
+
+The yellow wolf tore at the warm meat and waited,--waited for his coyote
+kinsmen to join him at the feast. He howled again and they answered,
+reading invitation to coyote as well as to wolf in the sound, but they
+would not come in. An old dog coyote trotted up and down the crest of a
+slight rise of ground two hundred yards downwind. Another joined him,
+then a third, and in less than an hour there was a half score of coyotes
+circling the spot. Breed could see dim shapes moving across the open
+places and padding on silent feet over the cow trails that threaded the
+sage. Surely they would come in. The shadowy forms were restless, never
+still, and prowled round and round him, but they would not join him at
+the kill.
+
+Breed was mystified by this strange thing. Here was meat yet the
+meat-eaters would not come in and feed. Coyotes had fed with him long
+ago but shunned him now. Breed could not know that then he had been
+accepted as one of them, having grown to maturity among them and so
+become known to every coyote on his range; that they had forgotten him
+as an individual, as he had also forgotten them. If there were any old
+friends among those who circled round him now he did not know them as
+such, only as a companionable whole; and they knew him for a wolf,--a
+wolf at least in size and strength. There was a coyote note in his call
+but not one of them would venture in to feed with the great yellow beast
+that was tearing the steer.
+
+At last a grizzled old dog coyote drew up to within ten yards. He had
+lived to the limit of all experiences which a coyote can pass through
+and still survive. He had even known the crushing grip of a
+double-spring trap, a Newhouse four. This misadventure had occurred in
+midwinter when the range was gripped by bitter frost. The cold had
+numbed the pain and congealed the flesh to solid ice. He had cut through
+the meat with his keen-pointed teeth, and one desperate wrench had
+snapped the frozen bone and freed him. There were many of his kind so
+maimed, and the wolfers, abbreviating the term peg-legs, called these
+three-footed ones "pegs."
+
+A second coyote joined Peg near the steer. He too had lived long and
+hard. He had been shot at many times and wounded twice. A shattered
+foreleg had healed with an ugly twist, the foot pointing inside and
+leaving only the prints of two warped toe pads when it touched the
+ground.
+
+Peg and Cripp circled twice round the steer at a distance of thirty
+feet. They had known other breeds and had found that some would share
+their kills. Breed went out to greet them and they sidled away as he
+advanced, stopping when he stopped and turning to face him. Cripp
+allowed him to draw close, his teeth bared in warning against a too
+effusive greeting, while Peg drew swiftly in behind the wolf. The
+peg-leg coyote stretched forth his nose for one deep sniff, then sprang
+ten feet away as Breed whirled. Cripp drew up for a similar sniff as
+Breed faced Peg, then leaped away as Peg had done. Nature has endowed
+the members of each animal tribe with a different scent, and most
+animals identify enemies and friends with nose instead of eyes. That one
+deep inhalation had assured the two coyotes that there was a strain of
+their own scent mingled with that of the wolf. They grew bolder and
+stalked stiffly about him, appraising his qualities with eye and nose.
+When Breed returned to the feed they followed a few steps behind. At
+first they kept the body of the steer between them, then lost all
+restraint and accepted Breed as a brother coyote from whom they had
+nothing to fear.
+
+An hour before dawn Breed left the spot and traveled back to the edge of
+the hills where he bedded for the day. He was full fed and satisfied
+with life. It was not until night closed down about him that he was
+conscious of the single flaw in his content, the one thing lacking to
+complete it all. Breed loosed the hunting cry but there was no answering
+call. He tried again without success. When with the wolves he had longed
+for the smell of the sage, the scent that spoke of home to him, and the
+mocking voices of the coyotes. Now that he had all these he missed the
+muster cry of the pack, hungered to hear the aching wails coming from
+far across the timbered hills, penetrating to the farthest retreats of
+the antlered tribes and sounding a warning to all living things that the
+hunt-pack was about to take the meat trail. But he knew that coyotes did
+not hunt in packs; that they hunted singly or in pairs, killing more by
+stealth than strength; clever stalkers and the most intelligent
+team-workers and relayers in the world, but lacking the weight and
+driving force to tear down a steer,--calves their largest prey.
+
+Breed howled again and started on the hunt alone. Even then, though he
+did not know it, his pack was gathering to him. The two wise old coyotes
+who had fed with him the night before knew that wherever they found the
+big breed-wolf, there they would also find meat. They had started up at
+his first call and Peg was coming swiftly from the south, Cripp from the
+west. Breed had not traveled far before he was aware that other hunters
+were abroad and running with him, swinging wide on either flank. Here
+was his pack! At first he was not sure, but whenever he wheeled or
+veered from his course the two coyotes altered their routes to accord
+with his. He ran on for miles, thrilled with the knowledge that his
+queer pack followed loyally where he led, and when at last he singled
+out a steer the two veteran coyotes angled swiftly in and ran but a few
+yards on either side of him.
+
+Then Breed sounded the meat call,--and two jeering coyote voices
+launched into full cry and howled with him. And Collins, the Coyote
+Prophet, for the first time in all his experience heard wolf and coyote
+howl in unison over the same kill.
+
+Every night thereafter Breed's pack of two ran with him on the hunt and
+always there were the dim shapes circling the kill, padding restlessly
+through the sage as they waited for the yellow wolf to leave so they
+could swarm in and pick the bones.
+
+At first Breed had retired to the edge of the hills to spend his days,
+but his habits were changed through long immunity until his days as well
+as nights were spent in the open country; but his caution was never
+relaxed and he bedded on the crest of some rise of ground which afforded
+a clear field of view for miles in all directions. He frequently saw
+some of the devilish riders and occasionally one drew uncomfortably near
+his retreat, but always veered away before discovering his presence. His
+days were untroubled except by the memories of poisoned coyotes which
+persisted in his mind. When he slept his dreams often reverted to these
+poisoned horrors, and their death rattles sounded in his ears and his
+feet twitched in imaginary flight as he sought to put distance between
+himself and these haunting demons. Breed knew that poison was some evil
+exercised by man, but its workings were shrouded in mystery. Traps he
+could understand,--and rifle shots; for although this latter force was
+peculiar, yet there was sound. He understood only those things which to
+him were real and actual, things communicated through his physical
+senses. Poison seemed some sort of intangible magic, an evil spell
+wrought by man, and which transformed sound coyotes into diseased fiends
+in the space of seconds.
+
+Always he waked snarling from these dreams, and always he was vastly
+puzzled by the abrupt change from night death scenes to the daylight
+calm of the open range. For dreams too were beyond his comprehension.
+They were actual scenes and scents and sounds to him,--then vanished. It
+was only natural that his greatest waking terror should stalk through
+his dreams, two mysteries combined to haunt him. Also it was inevitable
+that these dreams should eventually link up with the personal equation.
+
+Breed slept one day on the crest of a knoll and suddenly it was night
+instead of noon, and Cripp and Peg were leaping about him in a frenzy,
+their frothing jaws snapping on the empty air in their madness. He faced
+them with bared fangs,--and it was noon once more, but the two old
+coyotes stood before him in reality, their own noses wrinkled in snarls
+which answered his menacing actions and warned him off. The same old
+baffling wave which flooded Breed after each of these recurring dreams
+engulfed him now. Peg and Cripp were as sane as himself, yet a moment
+past they had been stricken before his very eyes. It had been very real,
+and Breed started suddenly from the knoll and headed for the base of the
+hills five miles away, nor did he stop until he was far back among their
+sheltering ridges.
+
+With the coming of the night he felt the loss of the two old coyotes who
+had traveled with him for the past three weeks. They had been normal
+when he saw them last and as this latter impression was the stronger he
+knew that he would find them untouched by madness; yet the vividness of
+the dream lingered with him and held him back from the low country. He
+howled once and started on a solitary hunt through the hills. The cry
+drifted faintly to the flats below and reached the ears of Cripp and
+Peg. They started instantly in the direction from which it came.
+
+The chain of hills in which Breed hunted was but an outcropping spur,
+extending thirty miles eastward at right angles from the main bulk of
+the hills, and he found no meat. The elk and deer were high up in the
+parent range and would stay there until heavy snows drove them down to
+winter in the valleys of the lower hills. Breed worked up the slope
+until he reached the crest of the divide. He prowled along the bald
+ridge, undecided which course to take, then whirled and faced back in
+the direction from which he had come. Five miles below him a coyote had
+raised his voice; another answered. By traveling steadily Cripp and Peg
+had covered much ground since Breed's first cry of the night had reached
+their ears and the two coyotes were ten miles within the first folds of
+the hills and still seeking the yellow wolf, the leader of the pack.
+
+Breed cupped his lips, his head stretched forth and his muzzle depressed
+to a line slightly below the peak of his shoulders as he sent forth the
+hunting cry to summon his loyal band. An hour later Cripp and Peg were
+with him, the three of them swinging west along the divide toward the
+rough mass of the main range of hills. Morning found them climbing
+through a matted jungle of close-growing spruce and down-timber.
+
+Breed chose a ridge that lifted above the trees and there curled up for
+the day in a clump of stunted sage. Coyotes hunt in the full glare of
+the noonday sun as readily as at night and Cripp and Peg slept a bare
+two hours before starting once more on the hunt. They found small game
+less abundant in the high hills than in the flats and they scoured the
+surrounding timber without success, returning at last to bed down near
+Breed on the open ridge. Hunger drove Breed from his bed before the sun
+had set and he headed deeper into the hills, the two coyotes following,
+even though they had small liking for this country which seemed devoid
+of meat.
+
+The yellow wolf sampled the cross currents of air which drifted in from
+each branching gulch. He crossed the cold trail scent of several deer
+but was in no mood for following a long trail so passed them by. It was
+the actual warm body scent he sought. He stopped suddenly with uplifted
+nose. The shifting breezes had carried the deer scent to his
+nostrils,--one brief flash and it was gone. Breed tacked back and forth
+across the wind, caught it again and held it, following the ribbon of
+scent upwind as easily as a man would follow a blazed trail through the
+timber. Two hundred yards from the start he sighted his prey, a
+fork-horn buck grazing slowly along under the trees. Breed turned his
+eyes to either side to determine the location of Cripp and Peg but they
+had suddenly vanished from sight.
+
+He crept toward the fork-horn, standing without the moving of a muscle
+whenever the young buck lifted his head, advancing swiftly when he
+dropped it again to feed. The wind held steadily from the deer to him
+and Breed drew up to within fifty feet. The buck lifted his head and
+looked off in all directions, not from present uneasiness but from his
+never-failing caution, then reached for another bite of grass, and even
+as the downward motion was started Breed launched forward in a silent
+rush.
+
+The fork-horn caught one backward slanting glimpse of him and fled just
+as the wolf's teeth clashed a bare inch short of his hamstring, and
+Breed was off in pursuit of an animal whose speed matched his own. This
+prey was no awkwardly galloping steer but a nimble beast that swept
+ahead in twenty-foot bounds, and after fifty yards Breed was still ten
+feet behind. Then a yellow streak darted over a windfall jam and Peg
+flashed at the buck. The deer turned almost at right angles in his
+fright, and as he turned Breed's teeth slashed his leg, but not deep
+enough to cripple, and the chase was on again. Another fifty yards and
+Cripp leaped from behind a spruce trunk and struck gamely for a leg
+hold. The flying speed of the buck jerked him clear of the ground, broke
+the hold of his teeth and threw him end over end. But he had retarded
+the deer for one half-second and the yellow wolf closed his jaws on a
+leg with all the force he could throw into the drive. Breed too was
+thrown, but the deer was turned again and running with less than half
+his former speed, one hind leg powerless. Peg was angling across to turn
+him still another time but Breed overhauled him first and slashed at the
+other leg, and as the deer rolled downhill the three-legged coyote
+dodged the churning hoofs and fastened on his throat.
+
+Collins had journeyed far into the hills to replenish his supply of
+meat. It was scarcely dark under the trees when he heard the breed-wolf
+and two coyotes howl together,--thirty miles back in the heart of the
+hills!
+
+"There now!" he exclaimed. "I've been telling 'em right along that the
+coyotes would take to the hills some day. Those breed-wolves--they'll
+teach 'em to live in the hills."
+
+When Breed had eaten his fill from the deer he headed back for the low
+country. The effect of the mad dream was waning before the fact that Peg
+and Cripp were with him in reality, sane and normal in every way. The
+three of them were sluggish and heavy with meat and they traveled slowly
+with frequent halts for sleep.
+
+The following night Breed's howl sounded again in the foothills and a
+score of coyotes answered him from far and near. The coyote tribe had
+learned that when the yellow wolf prowled the range there would be fresh
+beef for all. Each night the number of shadowy forms that padded through
+the sage round his kills increased, waiting until the wolf should leave
+and they could close in and finish it to the last mouthful. They grew
+bolder from the fact that two of their own kind fed with Breed, and on
+the first night after his return from the hills three others found
+courage to come in and feed upon his kill before he left it. Within a
+week he was accepted unreservedly as a member of the coyote clan.
+
+Each succeeding evening Breed found more and more coyotes gathering
+swiftly toward him at the first hunting cry of the night, spreading out
+over a quarter-mile front and running with him on the chase, knowing
+there would be meat in plenty at the end of the run.
+
+Collins noted a curious change in the coyote signs in his immediate
+neighborhood. He still found their tracks singly or in pairs, where they
+wandered in all directions through the sage in their hunts for jacks, or
+padded thick round some spot where they had killed a calf, but he soon
+discovered that whenever he found a track which the breed-wolf had left
+the night before he had only to swing out to the right or left to find
+the trails of many coyotes pointing in the same direction,--a general
+movement of coyotes over a wide front. Collins had heard many tales of
+late which accorded with a prophecy he had made long ago; for three
+hundred miles north and south men who rode back into the mountains
+reported seeing coyotes far back in the very heart of them and of
+hearing their howls from among the highest peaks. His prediction that
+coyotes would take to the hills and feel as much at home high above
+timberline as in the flats had come to pass.
+
+Collins studied long over the many coyote trails which always paralleled
+the tracks of the yellow wolf and made still another prophecy,--that
+breed-wolves would teach the coyotes to hunt in packs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+No man who has lived long in the open and observed the ways of animals
+and birds doubts that each tribe has a language of its own,--the
+vocabulary of cadence and inflection. A man may watch a marsh teeming
+with waterfowl, their contented chuckles filling his ears; then every
+wing will lift at once, every bird roused to sudden flight by the change
+of a single note so faint that it makes no impression on the ear of the
+watching man, yet sufficient to warn the birds as surely as a gunshot. A
+widely scattered bunch of range cows will graze placidly for hours, and
+suddenly every head will be raised and every cow gaze off in the same
+direction.
+
+Coyotes catch all finely shaded inflections and interpret them as
+unerringly as a man notes the difference between a bawling cow and a
+blatting sheep. Mate communicates with mate through all the coyote
+refrains of the night; half-grown coyotes answer their mother's voice
+but are silent when another calls. All that wild outburst in which men
+read only an uproar of meaningless savagery is in reality the
+intelligent conversation of the coyote nation.
+
+Breed's range covered fifty miles each way and there were some two
+hundred coyotes who used the same strip or whose range overlapped his
+own, and of these there were but few who had not at one time or another
+profited by some of his kills. Breed knew the voice of every coyote in
+the little band that made up his pack. Even when their notes reached him
+faintly through a maze of other howls his ears identified their voices
+as certainly as the eyes of man pick out the faces of his friends among
+a crowd. Those coyotes in whom dog ancestry was less than four
+generations removed betrayed that fact to him when they howled.
+
+There are those who believe that the shepherds and police dogs sprang
+originally from the jackal. In any event, there are more dogs that
+revert to the wild bunch from these wolfish types than from all other
+kinds combined. The gulf between shepherd and coyote is not wide, and
+except when raiding coyotes and stock-guarding dogs meet in a clash of
+interests they are more apt to mate than to fight.
+
+Throughout the whole of Breed's range there was but one note which
+puzzled him,--and it was not the ancestry but the present habits of the
+one who made the sound that baffled him. The parental mixture was
+plainly evidenced in the voice. It was the cry of a she-wolf, a
+half-blood coyote and dog, and Breed heard her howl night after night
+yet could not locate her. He would answer her cry and announce that he
+was coming, but always she evaded him. When he picked up her trail and
+followed it persistently, it invariably led him toward an isolated
+cabin. The wolf in him held him back from too close an approach to the
+homes of men. When he stopped she called again from up near the
+twinkling windows of the house. There was a lonesome note in her cry,
+and it was furtive, carrying both fear and invitation in its tones as if
+the she-wolf felt herself an outcast and both longed and dreaded to
+break down the bars between her wild relatives and herself.
+
+And she was an outcast, without doubt. Collins had trailed her mother, a
+renegade shepherd, to the den. He had turned in the rest of the pups for
+bounty, keeping her for a pet. She was slightly heavier than a coyote
+and the fur of her back was dark, the badge of shepherd parentage. The
+yellow underfur showed through the black guard hairs of her back-strip
+when the wind ruffled it, the black shading to yellow on flanks and
+sides, and from this Collins called her Shady.
+
+Shady's relations with men and beasts were unsatisfactory in the
+extreme. Stockmen hate the coyote with an intensity that they show
+toward no other animal, and with good reason, for the coyote meets them
+on a more equal footing than other beasts, his strategy outrivaling that
+of men. He repays their cruelties against his kind by killing their
+sheep and calves in broad daylight and executing a well-covered retreat
+before the owners can exact the penalty, then returning at night to
+raise his jeering laughter almost under the windows of his enemies.
+
+Collins had no stock, his business being that of killing coyotes, and he
+found far more to admire than to despise in the qualities of his prey
+and so did not accord coyotes the undying hatred shown them by other
+men. In his gruff way he was kind to Shady. Those who came to his cabin
+were mainly stockmen and they hated Shady cordially. That she sprang
+from a renegade sheep dog, a traitor to her kind, was even more
+condemnatory in their eyes than the coyote part of her.
+
+The coyotes, less averse to the proximity of man, had investigated
+Shady's case by drawing nearer to the cabin than Breed would go and so
+were no longer curious about her. Breed was almost two years old yet he
+knew nothing of dogs. His mother had ranged a limited strip of country
+in which only two men made their homes and neither had owned dogs. When
+north with the wolves he had met none of his domestic cousins except
+those renegades or breeds that were of the wild. He had crossed the
+trails of others at rare intervals. Therefore he did not know dogs as
+allies of men and so enemies to himself; rather Shady seemed some
+extra-shy wolf creature yet with sufficient courage to range in close to
+men. She seemed a daring adventurer to Breed.
+
+It was partly this curiosity which piqued his interest in her. Then too
+he recognized in her a freak type,--as he himself was a freak. Each
+stood for the first generation of a new breed, the equally divided
+parental strains not yet dulled and blended by further crosses, and so
+each of them recognized something outstanding and unusual in the other.
+
+At first their knowledge was confined to what each learned of the other
+by ear alone, unaided by the testimony of other senses. Breed never once
+caught sight of her, and the trail scent which she left behind told him
+little except that she was half coyote and half dog, as he already knew.
+
+For a month he answered her howls, his curiosity unassuaged. And as
+Breed puzzled over Shady's voice, so Collins puzzled over Breed's.
+Collins had heard him howl more than a hundred times and knew that there
+was some slight difference between his voice and the pure wolf note. He
+had made a close study of animal sounds and knew them well. He knew
+Shady's voice from that of other coyotes. Her variations were less
+sharply defined; more sustained than the bewildering staccato of the
+coyote and with a slightly coarser tone. Collins knew that he should be
+able to detect that peculiarity in Breed's howl,--a difference which he
+felt was there but could not place. There were times when the solution
+rose to the very surface of his mind and struggled for interpretation
+into readable thought, but always it eluded him in the end.
+
+Shady came to listen for Breed's voice among the multitude of other
+sounds, and in some small measure she felt acquainted with the yellow
+wolf. She missed his voice on those nights when he hunted in some far
+corner of his range and the familiar cry failed to reach her.
+
+This sense of familiarity led her at last to wait for a sight of him.
+Breed traveled one night toward the howl which always had the power to
+draw him, and he suddenly saw Shady fifty yards ahead. She would permit
+of no nearer approach, fleeing before him as he came on, stopping when
+Breed stopped, but always keeping that fifty-yard gap between. Every
+night for a week Breed strove to narrow the breach, but without success;
+but Shady's doubts were wearing down before his constant advances and
+she found no menace in his actions. She eventually allowed Breed to draw
+near and they viewed one another at a distance of ten yards. Their
+course through the sage was a series of eccentric loops as each circled
+repeatedly downwind to catch the other's scent.
+
+Then their relations were reversed, Breed the retiring one, Shady the
+aggressive. There was the scent of the stables, a horsy smell that clung
+to Shady and which Breed could not understand. There seemed too some
+vague taint of man about her which held him back. Shady grew bolder in
+the face of his timidity, and Breed's new-found suspicion eventually
+waned before her friendly insistence. Their friendship once established
+they romped together night after night.
+
+Shady was puzzled over the fact that this new playmate invariably left
+her early in the night. These meetings took place before Breed raised
+his voice to summon the coyote pack for the nightly hunt. He would break
+off in the middle of a race and send out the call, then leave the
+wondering Shady to her own devices for the rest of the night.
+
+His curiosity satisfied, Breed answered her invitations less often and
+she saw him only at infrequent intervals; and there was a reason for
+this flagging interest. Wolves and coyotes mate for life, or till one or
+the other of a pair falls victim to the wiles of man. When once a pair
+is broken the survivor will not take unto himself another mate till the
+next running time of wolves. There were pairs of coyotes running
+together in Breed's pack; there were also single she-coyotes and single
+dogs, but while the mated ones were as devoted as ever before, these
+single ones had only a general interest in the others, their attitude
+uninfluenced by the lure of sex. And Shady, hampered by her relations
+with man and so unable to follow Breed's leadership at will, exercised
+less influence over him than either Peg or Cripp.
+
+Breed killed abundantly, the coyotes picking the last morsel of each
+victim before dawn. Often he killed twice in one night. Word had spread
+that a breed-wolf had turned up on the range and was running with the
+coyotes. Private rewards were added to the State bounty till a total of
+two hundred dollars was posted as the price on his scalp. Every rider
+kept a sharp lookout for the breed; yet so great was his caution that
+except for that first day of his return, when Collins had seen him on
+the rims, no man had set eyes on the yellow wolf.
+
+Breed's watchfulness for traps and poison baits had waned from the fact
+that he found none of either on the range, and he now gave them scarce a
+thought. On the other hand his caution to avoid horsemen was quickened
+from seeing many of them and his vigilance in that particular was never
+relaxed. He chose his beds with care and he slept so lightly that the
+least sound penetrated his consciousness and carried its message to his
+brain. The shrill cachinnations of a prairie dog, the shriek of a
+burrowing owl or the bawling of a range cow; any of these usual sounds
+of the open failed to rouse him; but invariably he knew when a man was
+dangerously near. If the menace was upwind and within reasonable
+distance, his nose detected it. At times the creak of saddle leather
+reached his ears or the sound of the horse's hoofs warned him.
+
+This hoof reading was a curious thing. Breed could not tell why he knew
+when a horse was ridden, but invariably he did. If walking, the feet of
+an iron-shod horse struck pebbles and rocks with a metallic sound and
+Breed was suspicious of all horses that wore shoes; but usually a rider
+traveled at a steady trail trot. It was not the way of loose horses to
+strike a steady, regular gait and hold it, and the even vibrations of a
+shuffling trail trot beat through all other sounds and warned him that a
+horseman was near.
+
+Men grossly underestimate the keen physical senses of the animal world,
+being loath to credit them with finer sense perceptions than those
+possessed by man, dulled by countless centuries of disuse. A coyote can
+scent the tracks left by a bird long hours past; the smell of fresh
+blood is hot in his nostril a full half-mile downwind while the nose of
+man could scarce detect it at a distance of two feet. His ears, attuned
+to receive the delicately shaded tone inflections of coyote converse,
+catch vibrations of sound far too fine to make the least impression on
+the ears of man. And it is through these sense impressions that animals
+are warned at distances which men believe impossible without the aid of
+some subtle intuition or sixth sense. They speak of these things as
+animal instinct and let it go at that.
+
+In addition to this Breed had many other ways of protection at his
+command; he usually knew of the approach of man long before the direct
+message reached him over the paths of his own physical senses,--this
+from his vast knowledge of the ways of animals and birds and his ready
+understanding of their widespread systems of communications. Their
+actions frequently put him on guard before his own senses apprised him
+of the actuality of the danger.
+
+These things, coupled with his own habits and backed by coyote
+intelligence, made Breed an animal most difficult to stalk.
+
+Collins knew the wolf habit of bedding on a rise of ground. He knew too
+that the dog who turns round and round before lying down is not merely
+chasing his tail but instead is exhibiting a relic of his wild
+ancestors' way of rising frequently from his bed and turning to look off
+in all directions before resuming it. Day after day Collins swept the
+range with powerful glasses and through his knowledge and persistence he
+located Breed at last.
+
+Breed lay on the crest of a knoll. Peg and Cripp were hunting in the
+shallow basin below him and he watched with keen interest the diabolical
+cunning of his two chief followers. Peg ranged in the open while Cripp
+paralleled his course, moving along just behind the wave of a low ridge.
+A long-eared jack rabbit bounced from his bed in front of Peg and fled
+swiftly for a hundred yards, then halted to look back as he discovered
+that he was not pursued. He reared on his haunches, forefeet clear of
+the ground, as he watched the coyote who had veered away from him and
+was now questing aimlessly through the stunted sage. Peg turned toward
+him again and the jack bounced away toward the ridge, stopping again as
+Peg swung away. From his point of vantage Breed could see the cunning
+Cripp keeping even with the jack, following closely its every move and
+peering at it through the scattered sage that topped the ridge. Peg,
+apparently unconscious that there was meat in sight, rambled in erratic
+tacks that crowded the rabbit toward the ridge. Breed saw a crouching
+shape slip behind a sage within ten feet of the jack, whose eyes were
+occupied with Peg. There was a flash of yellow as Cripp struck him and
+the dying squall of the big hare floated to Breed's ears. He rose from
+his bed in excitement, then paused to sweep the country with his gaze
+before resuming his nap.
+
+Collins had seen! From the point of a commanding ridge five miles away
+he had centered his binoculars on the yellow wolf. The wolfer's horse
+grazed in the bottom of a gulch, his reins trailing loose, and Collins
+moved swiftly down to him and swung to the saddle. He had covered less
+than two hundred yards before Breed, five miles away, knew that a man
+rode toward him!
+
+The pronghorn antelope has a most peculiar signal system of his own. He
+is furnished with a white patch on his rump, the hair long and stiff,
+and when alarmed, instead of bristling his neck roach as do other
+animals, the antelope bristles this white rump patch. The sun strikes
+light from the glistening hair and every antelope within view follows
+suit; the warning is flashed from band to band till every antelope
+throughout an area of many miles knows that some man is abroad on the
+plains.
+
+Whenever a band of antelopes sported within view of Breed his eyes
+flickered open for frequent glimpses of them. Ten minutes after the two
+coyotes had killed the jack Breed opened his eyes for a view of a
+pronghorn buck that had taken his stand on a low ridge half a mile away.
+Breed caught the danger signal and was instantly alert. For as far as
+his eye could reach he could see the glistening points of light which he
+knew for antelope flashes. The whole antelope tribe was facing toward
+the danger and so pointed out its direction for Breed. It is this sort
+of signaling which men will not understand, preferring instead to credit
+an animal, warned at a distance of many miles, with some mysterious
+occult knowledge.
+
+A band of antelope joined the buck on the ridge and fled with him toward
+Breed, stopped to look back, stamping their feet excitedly, then swept
+on past as a rider topped the ridge they had just left.
+
+Breed flattened in his nest, resting his head between his paws. It was
+not his way to rush off in panicky flight across the open at the first
+glimpse of man, but rather the coyote way of remaining motionless till
+the enemy had passed, or slipping away unseen if he came too close. The
+horseman came on at an angle that would take him three hundred yards to
+one side, then altered his course and angled the other way. He stopped
+to look over a bunch of cows, shifted again to view another bunch and
+circled round it; came on again but turned to head a stray steer back
+toward the rest. Collins was using the same tactics in approaching Breed
+that the two coyotes had so recently used to stalk the jack. He seemed
+about to pass two hundred yards away but lifted his horse into a keen
+run and whirled him straight for the point of the knoll, then shifted
+his course again to round the shoulder of the little hill instead of
+over its crest, knowing that Breed was running at top speed down the
+opposite slope. He pulled the horse back on his haunches and flung from
+the saddle with the first glimpse of the fleeing wolf.
+
+Breed did not stop to look back as most other animals would have done
+but ran with every ounce of his speed. He flinched away from the sharp
+crack near his head as a rifle ball passed him and the crash of the
+report reached his ears. The next shot struck close behind and the
+biting gravel stung him as the ricochet hissed past within an inch of
+him. He held straight ahead but resorted to the coyote ruse of flipping
+from side to side in sharp tacks, his tail snapping jerkily outward to
+balance him on the turns. Bullets ripped through the sage about him as
+Collins emptied his gun. Then he was safe on the far side of a swell and
+Collins was grinning ruefully at a wolfless landscape.
+
+"Coyote stuff!" he said. "A man might as well gun up the corkscrew
+flight of a jacksnipe as to pour lead through the gaps in a
+side-steppin' freak like that. But you, Breed,--you better keep your eye
+on me. The Coyote Prophet is out for your scalp--so walk soft, old
+boy,--walk soft."
+
+Breed struck a swift, gliding trot and held it clear to the base of the
+hills, stopping only when far up the first slope of them to sweep the
+low country for sight of his enemy. That night when he raised his howl
+it reached the ears of perhaps a hundred coyotes far out across the
+flats and immediately thereafter there was a strange movement in the
+coyote tribe. The majority of them rambled in all directions on personal
+business or pleasures of their own but through it all, strung out over a
+five-mile front, more than a dozen coyotes were running swiftly toward
+the hills. They were not to be turned aside but held their course,
+gathering to the wolf who had led them to many a kill,--willing to
+follow wherever he should lead. An hour later, when Breed raised his
+voice from the divide, a wave of coyote answers rose in unison and when
+he headed toward the parent range there were fourteen coyotes traveling
+with him through the hills. They moved together, but not as man
+understands that term, for they did not travel closely grouped. Some
+were half a mile to either side and some far behind, and there were gaps
+of several hundred yards in the line. Their trails sometimes shifted and
+crossed, but noses and ears kept them well informed as to the locality
+and actions of the rest.
+
+They entered the rough mass of the main range and pushed on, traveling
+in this loose formation. Toward morning Breed stopped and listened to a
+far-off sound which reached him. Every coyote in the pack had also
+stopped to listen, their red tongues circling hungrily along their lips
+as they caught the significance of the sound.
+
+There were no sheep on Breed's immediate range. Trouble between the
+cowmen and those who grazed sheep had been temporarily adjusted by
+apportioning the range. Sheep now grazed far to the south but the cowmen
+allowed the privilege of pastoral transportation across the cattle strip
+twice a year for those who summered their sheep in the hills. The snows
+were late in falling and the flocks had been held correspondingly late
+high in the hills.
+
+Breed had known sheep in the past,--and this was the sound of sheep. Two
+herders had combined their bands to work them down to the low country
+and the camp tender stayed to help them with the crossing. Breed
+listened long to the droning undertone, the maddening blat of five
+thousand woollies on the bed ground, its querulous volume persisting
+through the sound of water and wind and drifting to him across a
+distance of five miles. Then he stretched forth his head and issued his
+hunting cry.
+
+The savage peal ripped through the plaintive chant of the sheep as the
+prow of a canoe cuts sluggish water, and traveling against the current
+of sound it reached the ears of the camp tender who rolled over in his
+blankets and cursed. There was a half-minute cessation of the baa and
+blat, and before it was resumed the tender had prodded the two herders
+into wakefulness.
+
+"Better sleep with one eye open," he advised. "There's a wolf in the
+hills. Just crossing through, mebbe--but anyhow you better stay awake to
+hold the sheep while I fire a shot to scare him off if he comes too
+close. He'll put 'em off the bed ground and scatter 'em if he slips past
+the dogs."
+
+The cry sounded again, this time less than a mile away, and a clamor of
+coyote howls rose with it.
+
+"Coyotes!" the tender exclaimed. "Night shooting won't scare those
+cunning devils off,--they know a man can't see at night. It sounds like
+they was running in a pack, and enough of 'em to make a noise like as if
+the whole damn coyote nation had took to the hills. Wonder how come
+they're pranking round with a wolf? They'll likely only hang along to
+cut out some strays--but if they do come in close in a mob like that,
+it's good night, sheep! Them shaller-brained woollies will take to the
+peaks."
+
+The sheep had risen from their beds and were huddled close. The tender
+and herders stood with drawn guns and the three dogs bristled savagely
+and turned their gaze toward the timbered slope that rose on one side of
+the open side-hill bench that served as a bed ground. There was a
+movement among the sheep; the fleecy mass buckled and surged as those on
+the outer edge turned and sought safety by plowing toward the
+close-packed center. The three men stationed themselves in a triangle
+three hundred yards apart, hoping to steady the sheep and hold them. The
+dogs circled swiftly round the milling horde, driving merciless teeth
+into every panic-stricken sheep who sought to quit the flock. The whole
+mass suddenly crowded off to one side and all three dogs sped round to
+hold them.
+
+One herder saw a flitting streak leave the timber edge and glide toward
+the sheep; another; there was no moon and he could not be sure. His gun
+barked twice as a dozen shadowy forms crossed the open, strung out for
+two hundred yards. Then hell broke loose on the bed ground.
+
+The fear-crazed horde streamed past the other herder and the tender.
+They shouted and struck out with heavy staffs, trying to stem the tide
+and turn it back. The resistless sea of fleece surged on and was
+swallowed in the gloom of the heavy timber down the slope. And in the
+center of it all Breed and the coyote pack were working.
+
+They ripped through the mob and split it; drove through again. The sheep
+split into a hundred small detachments and blundered on under the trees.
+The men stumbled through the down-timber windfalls and their shouts and
+the frantic barking of the dogs rose above the clamor of the sheep,--but
+there was not a sound from the yellow killers who had started the
+stampede. Every coyote knew the location of the men and each one singled
+out a stray band for his own and swept ahead with it. The dogs worked
+like fiends but the marauders were in too great force for them. Whenever
+a dog bore down upon a coyote the raider fled straight away from the
+sheep and their blats recalled the dog to duty. The mad wave rolled down
+the slope and up the next.
+
+The first light of dawn revealed each of the three dogs holding a large
+band of sheep. The two herders and the camp tender had each rounded up a
+smaller bunch. They worked their separate ways back toward the bed
+ground, gathering strays along the way. The camp tender held them in the
+open while the two herders and the dogs combed the surrounding hills for
+stragglers; and as they worked they cursed the coyote and his ways. It
+was no unusual thing in their experience for a few coyotes to fly at a
+bunch of sheep and scatter them, cutting out a few that straggled away
+from the protection of men and dogs, but this savage attack in pack
+formation and the harrying of five thousand head of sheep far through
+the hills was new to them.
+
+All through the morning they rounded stragglers toward the flock and
+shortly after noon they headed the tired sheep down toward the
+foothills, fearing a repetition of the stampede. Just at dusk they
+milled the sheep and bedded them on a ridge in the low country, a mile
+from the base of the timbered hills.
+
+The camp tender looked them over with practiced eye and shook his head.
+
+"There's no chance to make a count now," he said. "But when we do make
+one it's dollars to dimes that we'll tally out two hundred short."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Collins had waited till the fur was prime and the flesh side of the
+coyote pelt showed flint white before throwing out his trap line. He
+made the first set three hundred yards from the cabin, choosing the spot
+with care, for he knew that the last place a coyote would enter was the
+one where guiding clumps of sage formed an inviting lane across the
+traps. He selected an open spot instead and dismounted on a sheep pelt
+spread flat upon the ground; with a hand-axe he hewed out a triangular
+trap bed a foot across by three inches deep, placing every shred of
+fresh earth removed from it in a canvas sack; then he fitted a heavy
+Newhouse four in place with both springs bent far to the rear and drove
+a slender steel pin out of sight through the swivel ring of the chain.
+He smoothed a piece of canvas under the jaws and over the pan and poured
+the soft earth over it all, filling it level with the surface and
+tamping it firmly with his fingers except that within the six-inch
+circle of the jaws. From a second sack he sifted dust over the spot till
+it matched the surrounding flat, remounted and leaned from the saddle to
+recover the sheep pelt on which he had knelt and used it as a fan to
+whip the dust of the flat into curling eddies which settled back so
+uniformly as to defy the eyes of any man to detect the location of the
+trap. The surplus earth removed from the hole he carried away to be
+emptied far from the spot. For Collins knew the qualities of his prey
+and a good wolfer leaves no sign. He had used no foolish scent to
+disguise his own, knowing that the heat of day and the frost of night
+would diffuse his scent and obliterate all trace of it, the same as an
+animal's trail grows cold in time, while any foreign odor lingering
+longer than his own would only serve as a guide for the cunning prey he
+sought.
+
+The wisdom of the fox has furnished theme for song and legend, and only
+those who have followed the trap line for both fox and coyote know that
+Reynard's vaunted brain is but a dry sponge when compared to the
+knowledge-soaked brain of the prairie wolf. It is the way of the coyote
+to live near man, confident that his own cunning will offset that of his
+arch enemy and lead him unscathed through all the contrivances men may
+employ for his destruction. Collins knew that the fox was only trap-shy
+while the coyote was--vast difference between the two--trap-wise; that
+he would go to a bait, knowing the traps were there, and risk his life
+in an effort to uncover them and so leave evidence behind that he was
+keener than his foe.
+
+At the end of a week Collins had thrown out three pear-shaped loops of
+traps, each line with a length of twenty miles, the whole a clover-leaf
+effect with his cabin as the base. He had used no bait until his scent
+should have been blotted out round his traps, not from fear that coyotes
+would not approach the bait while his scent was fresh but from certain
+knowledge that they would approach too soon, locate his traps and
+uncover them. When the third trap circle was complete he started back
+over the first and baited the sets, then commenced the steady routine of
+riding one string each day and thus covering his entire line in three
+days.
+
+Shady frequently accompanied Collins on these trips and when he made a
+trap set she sat down some distance away and watched him with full
+understanding of what he was about; for Shady's past experience with
+traps had been large. She had seen Collins take many a coyote from his
+traps. Twice she had slipped away to steal the bait from some set near
+the cabin and both times had felt the sudden deadly clutch of steel jaws
+on her foot, remaining in their grip till Collins had released her. She
+had seen coyotes dead and bloated from eating poison baits,--and meat
+was now a danger signal to Shady, not a lure. She would touch no food
+except that which she obtained at the cabin.
+
+The trap line had yielded many coyote pelts while Breed was still in the
+hills and he knew nothing of the widespread mortality among the coyotes
+in his absence or the dangers which lurked in wait for him on his
+return.
+
+There were two hundred sheep scattered for miles through the hills and
+Breed and the coyote pack found easy killing. Winter had claimed the
+lofty peaks, while but little snow had fallen below timber line.
+
+Breed sensed the coming storm. The movements of the elk herds told him
+it would be a heavy one. It was nearing the end of the elk rutting moon
+but the bulls were still bugling. Breed heard the clear bugle note of an
+old herd bull, the piercing sound reaching him from many miles back
+among the snowy peaks. It was closely followed by others. The elk
+migration had begun; the herds were evacuating the lofty basins of their
+summer range and boiling out through the high passes of the peaks before
+the snowfall of the coming storm should block them in,--coming down to
+winter in the lower valleys of the hills.
+
+[Illustration: The elk migration had begun. _Page 63._]
+
+The certainty with which animals gauge a coming storm is cited as proof
+of that mysterious instinct with which men credit them; yet this
+information may reach them through known laws. Breed knew of it from the
+elk movements, and it is probable that the elk in turn were warned from
+some similarly natural source,--perhaps from atmospheric changes, more
+likely from the flight of migratory birds.
+
+A marshland may be empty of certain species of ducks in the fall; then
+suddenly a flock will pitch down out of the blue, followed by another
+and another till the whole sky is streaked with the oncoming horde. They
+will feed and start on, the belated arrivals not even alighting but
+holding straight ahead. The flight ceases as suddenly as it commenced
+and inevitably a storm drives down out of the north in the wake of the
+flocks. But this is not instinct. The storm strikes those birds that
+have remained farthest north and as they scurry ahead of it the more
+southerly ones take wing. Many ducks fly at rates of speed that are well
+over a hundred miles an hour and so can distance the swiftest storms.
+Even the ears of man may detect the difference between the
+wing-whistlers of a flock of mallards or other slow-flying ducks and the
+humming screech of redhead or canvasback hurtling through the night with
+tremendous speed; and animals note such things more readily than man.
+
+In any event Breed knew of the coming storm many hours before the first
+soft flakes fell and melted on his yellow coat. He took shelter under
+the low-hanging branches of a stunted spruce and slept. It snowed for
+two days and throughout that time there was little sound in the hills.
+Each coyote in the pack had sought out a similar shelter, the mated
+pairs bedding together, the others singly. No one of them howled during
+the storm. The elk and deer held to their beds without a sound. The few
+stragglers who had not yet crossed out through the passes were the only
+ones that moved, pushing on through the storm, and the herd bulls
+traveling with them bugled to hold their cows together; but the
+snow-filled air deadened these distant sounds. And for two days Breed
+heard nothing but the soft hissing of the snow through the branches or
+the groaning of overburdened trees. The third night a big gray owl
+hooted gruffly an hour before dawn, and as if dispersed by the sound of
+his voice the last gray clouds scudded past and the stars flamed from
+the steel-blue sky of night.
+
+A savage wind sprang up with the sun, shrieking along the exposed ridges
+and rippling the valleys of lodgepole pine, hurling its force against
+the spruce slopes. For another day Breed heard only the howl of the
+gale, the snow sliding from the swaying branches and the sudden crash of
+falling trees,--not a sound of life. The fury of the wind abated toward
+night and an hour after dark there was a sudden lull followed by one
+last rush of wind, leaving the white hills wrapped in a vast silence.
+
+Breed heard a single bugle note of a young bull, the last he was to hear
+for another ten months, for the mating time of the antlered tribes had
+been ushered out with the storm. The gray owls hooted the warning that
+they would soon set forth on silent wings to strike down any small
+creature that moved across the white carpet under the trees. The elk
+were working back up to the bald ridges that had been blown free of
+snow. All the night-feeders of the wild prowled in search of food after
+the fast.
+
+Breed raised the hunting cry and the coyote pack answered roll call.
+They were gaunt and their flanks were pinched up and hollowed from the
+three-day famine. They ran silently and with but a single purpose,
+spurred on by hunger. A coyote far out on one flank of the pack winded a
+bunch of elk and headed for them. The elk accorded him scarcely a glance
+as he drew near. In an earlier day, before the white man had invaded the
+foothills, the elk herds had wintered there, but the coyotes had not
+molested them; of late a few coyotes had invaded the high country, the
+summer range, but the elk did not fear them.
+
+The coyote howled, one short eager blast, and angled in between the herd
+and a straggler on the edge of it, a yearling elk, a spike bull, his
+first antler growth consisting of two pointed spikes eighteen inches
+long. He was not alarmed,--but it was a new kind of coyote that faced
+him now, one that had learned pack hunting under the leadership of the
+yellow wolf.
+
+The coyote made a swift lunge and drove his teeth in one hind leg. The
+young bull whirled and aimed a sweeping slash of his polished spears,
+intent upon impaling his foe; and as he turned a second coyote flashed
+from behind a tree and slashed him. The bull whirled again and struck
+wickedly with a smashing forefoot. The rest of the elk had stopped to
+gaze in amazement at this strange scene,--at coyotes attacking an elk.
+
+Every coyote in the pack had altered his course at that short howl,
+wheeling as at a command. Yellow shapes had appeared as if by magic and
+were sliding under the trees on silent feet and circling the bull. There
+was something sinister and purposeful in this concerted action and the
+rest of the elk milled about uneasily and at last turned and trotted
+off. The spike bull fought with hoof and horn, but at every turn a
+coyote slashed him from behind, striking always at the hamstring. His
+rage turned to fear and he fled. He struck the heavy four-foot drifts
+where the wind had scoured the snow from the ridge above and sifted it
+deep in the timber. His sharp hoofs and heavier weight let him deep into
+the snow while the coyotes padded easily along, their feet sinking in
+but a few inches. He tired himself with desperate charges at some coyote
+that always eluded him while others drove fangs in him from behind. More
+coyotes joined the running fight and he was far gone before Breed drove
+through the pack and struck him with all the force of a killing wolf. He
+spent the last of his ebbing strength in a whirlwind of furious
+fighting, then went down and the yellow horde swarmed over him. They fed
+long and when they left the feast they were no longer gaunt. Flanks had
+filled out and paunches sagged heavily, nearly touching the snow. The
+following night they returned to the kill and finished it. Then Breed
+headed back for the open sagebrush foothills. The immediate fear of
+being shot had departed, leaving only the lesson as a reminder of his
+narrow escape.
+
+The pack reached the edge of the hills in the first morning light and
+many of them kept on, but Breed, more averse to daylight traveling than
+they, would not venture down till night. The low country lay spread out
+below him, ragged patches of brown alternating with those of dirty
+white, the wind having scoured the snow from open grass-country and
+piled it to the tops of the sage in the heavier clumps and in long
+drifts trailing away downwind behind them, or packed it in the depths of
+badland washes and cracks. The powdery snow had been swept from the open
+before it had time to melt and the dry air of the hill country had
+sucked up what little moisture remained, leaving the flats almost as
+dusty as before.
+
+With nightfall Breed descended to the tongue of the foothills that
+reached up into the notch formed by the outcropping spur where it joined
+the main range at right angles. Thirty miles east along this Hardpan
+Spur was his home territory and he followed along the base of it. Not
+till within ten miles of Collins' cabin did he howl. The wolfer heard
+it, and again he had the feeling that he could almost name that
+peculiarity in Breed's note, but before he could give it expression the
+solution was slipping away from him as always before. He could feel the
+odd quality but it defied analysis in words.
+
+Shady too had heard the call and answered it. Breed started toward her
+but stopped abruptly and tested the wind. The scent of stale meat played
+on his nostrils and he veered aside to investigate. He moved along a cow
+trail and peered from the edge of the sage at a ten-pound chunk of meat
+that lay in the center of an open flat. He knew what that meant.
+Suspicion flooded him and every hair tingled as he realized that this
+was the work of man. Traps! No coyote on the range would have found need
+to look twice at the tempting morsel to know that it had not come there
+by accident but had been placed by some man as a coyote lure.
+
+Breed, springing as he did from two wise tribes, had been educated in
+two schools. His coyote mother had led him to meat, knowing men had put
+it there to bait her, and she had taught him to detect the most
+cunningly buried trap. Later he had practiced this art himself. The old
+dog wolf who was his father had followed one simple rule which served
+him well. He killed each meal as he felt the need of it and would touch
+no other food, not even returning to previous kills of his own. Breed
+was possessed of both traits in moderation, inclining to either for long
+periods as his moods varied. Breed moved to within ten feet of the meat
+and extended one forepaw, feeling cautiously through the carpet of dust,
+then pushed it two inches ahead. For a solid hour that paw was not once
+lifted from the ground except when the other was pushed forward to
+replace it. He moved ahead an inch at a time, the edging forepaws
+feeling through the dust for the least sign of loosened earth beneath.
+He knew that the crushing jaws of a trap yawned beneath the surface
+somewhere near the meat. His eyes swept every inch of ground for a sign
+that differed from the rest and his nose quested for a spot which held
+the taint of man. A faint trace of it pervaded the place, coming mainly
+from the bait itself and almost blotted by the meat scent.
+
+Cripp and Peg watched every move from a distance of ten feet. Two young
+coyotes had come to the spot and one of them worked in toward the bait
+from the opposite side, using the same tactics as those employed by
+Breed. At the end of an hour Breed stood within three feet of his goal
+and the out-stretched paw suddenly touched yielding earth. He scratched
+gently along the edge of this softened spot; a claw scraped some solid
+substance and the moonlight glinted on a point of naked steel. Breed
+pushed his paw beneath it and gently lifted till half of a deadly
+four-pound trap showed above the dust. He looked long at it, then veered
+past it to the bait; and the young coyote edged in from the other side.
+Breed's feet did not shift an inch as he tore a mouthful from the meat,
+but the young coyote across from him strained to drag the whole of it
+from the spot. It was wired solidly to a stake and he shifted far to
+either side in his vain efforts to dislodge it. There was a hissing
+grate of loosened springs and the young coyote felt the bone-shattering
+snap of a trap as it closed on his foot. Breed whirled and leaped ten
+feet away, from which point he watched the struggles of his ill-fated
+friend. In his desperate struggles to free himself the young coyote
+leaped clear across the meat and the trap that Breed had unearthed
+closed on another foot. Breed circled uneasily round the spot, powerless
+to help the coyote that was stretched full length between two traps, yet
+he lingered till an hour before dawn.
+
+This experience quickened old fears in Breed. Memories of past horrors,
+long dormant but not forgotten, welled up out of his mind to increase
+his caution, and fresh pangs were added by similar discoveries on each
+succeeding night. The whole range seemed studded with fearsome traps and
+the odor of stale meat was borne on every breeze. There were few nights
+when he did not find some animal fast in one of these man-made snares.
+Each new victim acted differently, according to the characteristics of
+its kind. Breed found a badger in a trap and the animal ceased his
+struggle long enough to wrinkle his nose and hiss at Breed with a thick
+snakelike sound. The badger's forepaws were more than twice the size of
+his hind feet, and were fitted with heavy two-inch claws, while those of
+the hind feet measured but half an inch. He was caught by one hind foot,
+leaving the powerful spading forks of the forepaws free to work. He had
+always found safety by burrowing in the ground and so now, in his last
+extremity, he turned to digging and plowed every inch of the surface
+within reach. He settled on one spot at last and burrowed from sight.
+Breed watched the heaving dirt till it ceased to move as the badger
+settled comfortably in fancied security, buried to the full limit of the
+trap chain.
+
+Some nights later Breed passed a cross fox that had strayed down from
+the high country and had stepped into one of Collins' traps. The fox was
+never still, weaving in and out, looping and turning round the pin that
+held the trap; lashed into constant movement by his native nervousness
+but making no strenuous efforts to break loose. Later the same night he
+found a bobcat. The big cat made no move save a slight creasing of his
+facial muscles preparatory to a snarl if the wolf drew near. The first
+pain had dulled and he rested quietly, lacking the hardihood to stretch
+his own flesh and bones in a struggle against the trap.
+
+But Breed always found a trapped coyote fighting,--fighting silently and
+gamely to the last heartbeat. Coyotes are high in the scale of
+intelligence and so each one has an individuality of his own. One would
+surge time after time against the chain, driving savagely to the end of
+it. Another would grind his teeth against the cold steel till his jaws
+dripped blood, while a third would amputate the mangled foot. But
+whatever the method, the basic fact was the same,--no coyote waited
+submissively for his fate but waged a ceaseless, desperate fight for
+freedom.
+
+All these things heightened Breed's suspicions. He felt the reassertion
+of wolfish caution within him, driving out the coyote desire to outwit
+man. Three times he unearthed the traps and stole the bait. Then he
+refused to go near stale meat. He was nauseated by the smell of it and
+merely avoided instead of investigating the spots from which the scent
+came to him. And this was not through fear of traps--he retained full
+confidence in his ability to detect them--but from the fact that
+wherever he had found traps in the past he had also found poison and so
+these two were associated together in his mind.
+
+Throughout a whole month of accustoming himself to these new conditions,
+Breed had visited Shady but twice. He had the companionship of coyotes
+to fill his time and the lonesome howls of the she-wolf were unanswered.
+It is the stock dog without steady occupation that reverts to the wild.
+Mere inactivity, even if coupled with kindness, is insufficient to still
+his natural restlessness and fill his life; he must have careful
+training and active employment to be content,--and Shady was half wild.
+
+The mating time of wolves was drawing near and Breed caught the new note
+in Shady's voice. He dropped all other business to hurry to her. Though
+the season was yet some time ahead they knew its nearness and each
+recognized in the other a possible future mate.
+
+Collins thought of Shady more as a pet than as a dog and so had not
+troubled to train her. The wild traits in her were as apparent in
+maturity as they had been in infancy--even more pronounced--and chief
+among these was her natural aptitude for stealing. She pillaged Collins'
+stores and even sneaked food from the table when his back was turned, as
+her wild ancestors for many generations had stolen his bait. Collins
+curbed this propensity, not by judicious training which would eliminate
+it, but by the simple process of chaining her to the cabin wall when he
+left for a trip and did not wish her to accompany him. So it was not
+strange that Shady viewed thieving from the standpoint of expediency.
+Those who came to Collins' cabin predicted a bad end for Shady.
+
+That insistent note in her voice was more pronounced as the season
+neared and Breed tingled to the sound of it. The frequency of his visits
+increased till they were of nightly occurrence instead of semi-monthly.
+He used every wolfish inducement to lure her away from the vicinity of
+the twinkling lights that marked the abode of man. She longed to follow
+him into the wild but could not bring herself to face its terrors. Breed
+longed to follow her when she left him but could not bring himself to
+face the horrors which must lurk near the haunts of men. These clashing
+outlooks upon life held them apart. The wild represented safety for
+Breed, its dangers known to him and accepted as a part of it and not to
+be greatly feared. Those dangers were the work of man, and by natural
+consequence Breed assumed that their numbers and deadliness increased in
+proportion as he drew nearer the homes of men, the house itself the most
+dangerous of all. Shady's mode of life had taught her the reverse of
+this; that complete safety lay in the cabin and its immediate vicinity,
+the known and unknown terrors of the wild increasing in ever-widening
+circles dependent upon the distance from the refuge of the cabin that
+was home to her.
+
+The season had started and some few coyotes had paired, yet Breed could
+not induce Shady to follow him. The preceding winter her desire for
+motherhood had been thwarted. Collins had chained her to the cabin for a
+month. Coyotes are without the wolf suspicion which fills their larger
+cousins with fear of human habitations, and they are prone to
+investigate them at night while a wolf will not approach. Several dog
+coyotes had braved the dangers of Collins' cabin in answer to Shady's
+howls. Her soft whimpering had roused the wolfer each time this occurred
+and every new admirer had been greeted with a charge of buckshot as he
+slipped toward the house, three dog coyotes having paid for their
+temerity with their lives.
+
+The Coyote Prophet intended the same imprisonment for Shady the present
+season but he neglected it one day too long. He came from the cabin, a
+collar and chain in his hand, only to see Shady slip away into the dusk.
+A minute later she howled.
+
+Breed heard it. Every fiber of him quivered to the sound. It was the
+mating call!
+
+Collins whistled in vain. There was no answering whimper from Shady. But
+the habit of obedience was strong in her and she lingered within sound
+of it. Breed came nearer than ever before, his fears dulled by the
+message she had sent him. Collins came from the house again and whistled
+shrilly. Breed shrank from the sound and drew back as Shady trotted a
+short distance toward the house; she answered the whistle with an uneasy
+whine and Collins moved in the direction from which it came, coaxing as
+he advanced.
+
+Fear flooded Breed. It spurred him to sudden rushes of flight which were
+halted in a few stiff bounds as the longing for Shady cried out against
+his leaving her. Then came the clanking of the chain in Collins' hand.
+It was the clank of a trap chain to Breed,--and he was off. That same
+sound, its meaning so different for each of them, resulted in flight for
+both. Shady ran with him through the night, and once started it was not
+so hard to keep on. And as she ran she transferred her trust from
+Collins to Breed, giving herself entirely into his keeping to lead her
+through the unknown perils which lay ahead,--and she ran close to him,
+her nose almost touching his flank.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The exhilarating element of danger in trap robbing, which appeals so
+strongly to the coyote, held no fascination for Shady. She was vastly
+trap-wise but used her knowledge solely for self-preservation. Every
+scrap of meat on the range represented possible pain or death to her and
+she found no sport in close investigation with its attendant risks. She
+was entirely dependent upon Breed, feeling a sense of security in his
+nearness, but weighed down by the vast unknown which seemed to close in
+upon her whenever the gap between them exceeded the span of one leap.
+She would not touch any food other than that which he provided.
+
+The coyotes clustered round the steer that Breed pulled down a few hours
+after luring Shady from the cabin and she viewed them suspiciously,
+warning them off by repeated growls. Peg and Cripp edged in to feed.
+Shady's protest rose frenziedly and she raged at them but did not
+attack, and the two old coyotes eyed her warily as they ate. She noted
+that Breed accepted their presence and she quieted and patterned her
+actions according to her mate's.
+
+The rest of the pack came in. Her uneasiness persisted and for an hour
+she ate but little, edging away from physical contact with those who
+crowded about her. She pressed close to Breed's side and whirled to snap
+at any coyote who attempted to wedge between them, but her suspicions
+subsided as she found that these nips were never returned. Whenever a
+dog coyote was inclined to make friendly advances to Shady a low growl
+from Breed warned him from her side. The sense of strangeness, of having
+been catapulted from a sheltered life into the midst of a growling mob,
+wore off and Shady rapidly accustomed herself to these new conditions.
+
+The feast was but half finished when the head of every coyote in the
+pack was raised at once and the shuffling feet and grinding jaws were
+stilled as a timber wolf howled from the slope of the Hardpan Spur. All
+animal sounds were suspended till the last ripples of Breed's answering
+cry died away; then lesser beasts, having preserved strict silence while
+two mighty hunters spoke, resumed their own interrupted communications.
+
+The Coyote Prophet heard the two cries, and that baffling quality in
+Breed's voice was instantly clear to him, as was the reason why he had
+never before been able to give it name. He had quested for the
+difference with his ear,--and the difference lay in the feel of the
+sound. Collins had felt the crawling of his flesh and the roughening of
+his skin at the gray wolf's cry; for a man may hear that note every
+night of his life and the wolf shiver will shake his frame the last time
+it sounds as surely as it does the first. It is not fear; no man can
+name it; but the wolf shiver is as inseparably linked with the wolf howl
+as the involuntary gasp is linked with a dash of ice water on the spine.
+And Collins knew that that quality was lacking in Breed's cry. The
+personality of the gray wolf was marked by absolute savagery, his bleak
+outlook on life undiluted by a single ray of that humor which is so
+evident in every act of the dog and the prairie wolf; and this
+difference of temperament was reflected in his voice, apparent to the
+ears of the animal world, apparent to Collins only in the different way
+in which his subconscious mind reacted to his howl. Collins, having once
+defined Breed's note, its sound so identical with that of the wolf howl
+yet so dissimilar in the elusive feeling which accompanied it, had no
+further doubt that he could thereafter identify Breed by his howl.
+
+"You, Breed! I've got your number now," he said. "I could pick you out
+from amongst a hundred wolves." This was merely a casual assertion, a
+self-congratulation over having solved the puzzle, and the Coyote
+Prophet made it without a thought that the day would ever come when he
+might have opportunity to file it among prophecies fulfilled.
+
+The wolf howl affected Shady in a similar way, its stark savagery
+clashing discordantly with the dog strain in her. She felt the grating
+along her spine, and the hair rose with it. There was an air of
+expectancy among the coyotes. Heads were raised between mouthfuls and
+all eyes were repeatedly turned toward the hills. It was the first time
+that Shady had heard the cry of one of the big gray hunters. She noted
+the tension among her new friends without reading its portent. Of them
+all, Breed seemed the only one unaffected. One by one the coyotes left
+the feast, then the remaining few sidled hurriedly away as a huge dog
+wolf moved swiftly across the flat. His pace slowed as he neared the
+kill and he halted ten feet away, his quivering nose taking stock of the
+two who fed there.
+
+Shady's long run through the sage had whipped her soft fur full of sage
+dust, its sharp scent nearly obliterating the conglomerate smell of the
+cabin which usually clung to her. The reek of coyote scent and fresh
+blood that permeated the spot still further concealed it, and though the
+wolf caught the peculiar odor he could not trace its source to her
+without closer inspection. He was hungry and advanced to the meat,
+tearing off huge bites and gulping them down till the wire edge of his
+hunger was appeased, then sidled cautiously round the steer to nose the
+mating she-wolf. As he neared her his eyes peered over her at Breed.
+That foreign odor which he had noted he now traced to Shady, but having
+once accepted her it did not trouble him. Shady flinched away from him
+and Breed's lips writhed up and cupped away from his ivory fangs. There
+was no mistaking the snarl that accompanied this baring of his teeth and
+the gray wolf moved back to the opposite side of the steer.
+
+Thereafter both wolves ate sparingly and each watched for the least
+hostile move in the other. The coyote pack ringed in close, awaiting the
+departure of the timber wolf. He frequently turned his head and favored
+the closer ones with a baleful stare, the move always accompanied by a
+flattening of his ears, and the ones so fixed by his appraising eye
+shrank deeper into the sage. Each time this occurred his head swung
+abruptly back toward Breed.
+
+Shady feared and hated the wolf. If she thought of him in human words
+she would have given him the name of Flatear, and with good reason. In
+coyote, fox and wolf the ears are even more expressive than the eyes. A
+wolf's ears work when he sleeps, one of them inclining toward the least
+sound that reaches him. When awake his ears seem to work automatically
+in conjunction with nose and eyes, tipping sharply forward and turning
+in the direction of any strange object or questionable scent that
+excites his curiosity. And the flattening of the ears is indicative of
+his mood, preceding even the snarl, their backward angle an accurate
+gauge of his intent. It seemed to Shady that the big wolf's ears were
+chronically laid as he regarded Breed. She was unversed in the ways of
+her wild kinsfolk and could not know that the yellow wolf and the gray
+were sparring for the advantage of the first blow in the savage fight
+that would soon be waged for the right of proprietorship,--herself as
+the prize.
+
+Both wolves centered their attention on the main issue and waited only
+for an opening. Shady and the restless coyotes out in the sage were
+forgotten, each wolf conscious only of his foe. Those others mattered
+not at all, for there were certain known laws which all past experience
+had proved unalterable. She-wolves showed small concern over the clashes
+of rival males; coyotes never fought with their big gray cousins, and
+there were no other wolves about. The issue was squarely up to them.
+
+Each time that Breed appeared off guard for a split second the gray wolf
+laid his ears, the involuntary betrayal of muscles tensing for the fatal
+spring; and Breed's own flattening ears each time evidenced his
+readiness to counter. Shady sensed the enmity between them without
+knowing the inevitable result. Her mode of fighting was the impulsive
+way of the dog, the act almost simultaneous with the desire, and this
+protracted, cold-blooded calculation was new to her.
+
+Breed gave an opening at last, turning and reaching for a bite of meat,
+and exposing the unprotected side of his neck. Flatear struck for it
+without a sound, driving straight across the steer with all his weight
+behind the gleaming rows of teeth. Breed dropped flat and as his enemy
+swept over him he swung his head up and sidewise in a terrible slash
+that tore an ugly rent in the gray wolf's paunch. They whirled face to
+face,--and both were treated to a series of tremendous surprises which
+shattered all previous convictions.
+
+Shady harked back to the ways of her domestic ancestors, to the custom
+of dashing into a neighborhood dog fight and mauling the one strange dog
+in the lot, regardless of sex,--and Breed had been her friend long
+before he had become her mate. Flatear was the one strange dog to Shady,
+and he found himself assailed by a screeching fury who fought without
+care or caution, her sole aim being to sink her teeth in any available
+part of him. As he leaped away from this unnatural she-wolf he was met
+by a second surprise. The coyote pack had learned to strike when the
+leader struck. Peg flashed round a sage and laid open his flank, and as
+he whirled to face this new enemy Cripp slashed him from behind. Three
+coyotes darted past Breed and before he had recovered from the shock of
+the surprise his enemy had fled.
+
+Flatear did not flee from fear but from an overwhelming sense of the
+whole world gone mad, the shattering of tradition and the overthrow of
+natural laws. The chaos in his mind sent him flying from this insane
+place within six seconds after his first attack. A mating she-wolf had
+been transformed into a she-fiend and in the same second he had been
+mobbed by coyotes. No doubt he believed with Collins that strange things
+had come to pass of late in the ranks of the coyote tribe. Flatear
+headed back for the hills out of which he had come, and as he ran his
+bewilderment crystallized into a consuming hatred for the strange yellow
+wolf, the hybrid beast who had upset the established order of things. He
+did not know that Breed himself had been so nearly paralyzed with sheer
+astonishment that he had not joined the attack.
+
+The coyotes settled once more to the enjoyment of their interrupted
+banquet. Breed little realized that he had made a mortal enemy, one who
+would not merely attempt to deprive him of his mate during the running
+moon as would any other unattached dog wolf, but one whose enmity was
+for the individual and who had marked him for the slaughter when next
+they met, regardless of time or season.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The number of coyotes in Collins' territory had been cut down by half
+and only the wisest were left. As they grew more trap-wise the wolfer
+increased the cunning of his sets. Clearly marked cow trails crossed
+through every low saddle in the foothills and Collins studded these with
+traps. After once his scent was cold the coyotes had nothing to warn
+them of these sets, but trail trapping is largely chance and not
+productive of great results.
+
+Breed saw one coyote in a trail trap and he forswore the following of
+cow trails. The coyotes soon learned to avoid them. Collins noted the
+absence of coyote tracks on trails that had once been padded thick with
+them and the wolfer chuckled over this evidence of their
+resourcefulness.
+
+Some of Breed's pack had fallen victims to the trap line but their
+places had been filled by new recruits, every one trap-wise to the last
+degree. But even these found it increasingly difficult to retain their
+lives.
+
+A new menace hovered over every coyote that ranged near the foot of the
+Hardpan Spur, a menace that filled the hardiest prairie wolf with dread.
+Many a lone coyote was suddenly startled by a huge shape that leaped for
+him and bore him down. None thus attacked lived to spread the warning
+and the only knowledge the others had of the lurking fiend was the
+finding of old friends, stiff and dead, their throats gashed open by
+savage teeth. The tracks and scent round these murder spots identified
+the slayer.
+
+Flatear spent his days high in the hills and at night he dropped to the
+low country to perpetrate his unnatural crimes. Coyotes had violated the
+customs of centuries and turned their teeth against him. He now wreaked
+vengeance for this affront. There were no wolves to answer his call, so
+Flatear no longer howled, but prowled the range without a sound to warn
+prospective victims, a silent assassin that struck without notice.
+
+At the end of a week he had left a long trail of victims behind but not
+one of Breed's pack was among them. Those that had pack-hunted with the
+yellow wolf and learned the advantages of combined attack in killing
+heavy game now put that same knowledge to good use for their own
+protection, sufficient evidence of the quick adaptability with which
+coyotes rise to meet any new emergency.
+
+Mated pairs now ran close when hunting, sometimes traveling in fours.
+Flatear soon discovered that the teamwork of a pair of fighting coyotes
+was more than a match for even his great prowess and his kills grew
+fewer.
+
+Cold fear clutched every coyote that caught a fugitive scent of the gray
+killer, but Breed did not share this dread. He was Flatear's match in
+size and strength and so was not concerned. Breed could not know that
+Flatear's hatred had become almost an obsession; that night after night
+the slayer was craftily trailing him and that killing coyotes was but a
+side line to lighten the hours of a protracted stalk for Breed himself.
+Flatear was a veteran warrior and he waited only for an opportunity to
+attack when he should find Breed alone. Nose and ears kept him apprised
+of the yellow wolf's whereabouts, but usually there were coyotes running
+with him and invariably the tracks of the she-fury were mingled with
+those of her mate. Breed was untroubled by any thought that sudden death
+lurked in wait for him the first time he should run alone through the
+sage.
+
+While Flatear plied his bloody trade and made the nights fearsome for
+the coyotes, men found one more method of harrying them by day.
+
+The first Breed knew of this danger was one day when he lay with Shady
+on a high point of ground. There were many things about Shady which he
+could not fathom. From the first he had found much of mystery in her.
+She insisted on traveling in broad daylight whenever the notion seized
+her and she seemed not to share his fear of horsemen, often rising
+incautiously from her bed for a better view of them, careless of the
+risk of their seeing her.
+
+Shady cocked her ears alertly at a distant sound, and the same note,
+faint as it was, roused Breed from his nap. Somewhere off across the
+foothills several men had raised their voices in a wild outburst of
+cheers. This sounded again and again, each time from a point nearer to
+where Breed lay. A band of antelope sped past without following their
+usual custom of stopping to look back. Breed caught the vibrations of
+pounding hoofs, the sound of many hard-running horses blended in one.
+Through it all he heard an occasional note that was strange to him, a
+shrill, sharp note that had something of the wolf in it, yet which he
+knew was not made by any beast he had met before. And at this note Shady
+laid her ears and growled.
+
+The cheers and the hammering hoofs came closer and Breed fixed his eyes
+on the edge of the flat bench spread out for half a mile before him. A
+coyote spurted from the mouth of a draw off to the left of Breed's
+position and raced across the flat. He was stretched out and running his
+best, but before he had covered two hundred yards five great wolfhounds
+poured out of the draw. They were slender and long-coupled, capable of
+tremendous speed, and before the coyote passed below Breed the lead dog
+was but a few lengths behind.
+
+For the most part the dogs ran silently and wasted no breath in
+senseless clamor, but occasionally one of them loosed an eager yelp, the
+sound as thin and keen as his body. A dozen riders streamed across the
+flat on furiously running horses, cheering as they came. The coyote
+doubled to evade the snapping jaws of the foremost dog, and as he turned
+another struck him. He rolled over twice, and when he gained his feet he
+faced his enemies. He knew the game was up but he went down
+fighting,--fighting against odds without a whine; and Breed watched five
+savage dogs mauling a limp dead thing that ten seconds past had been his
+valued friend. These strange beasts did not move off as the men rode up,
+and Breed realized with a shock that the men did not ride with the
+purpose of killing them; that they were leagued together and that the
+dogs were the creatures of men the same as sheep and cows were their
+property.
+
+He stole down the far slope, keeping the high ground between himself and
+the horsemen. Shady followed him closely, moving furtively and with many
+backward glances, her tail tucked almost between her legs, and Breed,
+accustomed to Shady's indifference to the approach of riders, wondered
+at this sudden reversal of her usual ways.
+
+But it was not the men that roused Shady's fear; above all other things
+she feared and hated dogs. The few that had followed their masters to
+Collins' house had always sensed the wild blood in her, and at the first
+opportunity they had pounced on her with intent to kill. Shady had found
+friends among the coyotes and had found only hostility among dogs.
+Savagery is only relative, according to the views of the one who
+pronounces upon it, and from Shady's experience she was right in her
+judgment that the ultimate limit of savagery was reached only in the
+dog.
+
+The owner of the dog pack lived some ten miles from Collins and the
+whole countryside had assembled to witness the first race. There were
+fewer riders in each chase as the novelty wore off but the days were few
+when the owner failed to take the dogs out for a run. Wolfhounds run
+only by sight and coyotes are slippery prey, doubling and twisting on
+their trails to throw their pursuers off, so the result was always in
+doubt and every chase did not yield a coyote pelt.
+
+After that first day Breed did not wait for the dogs to draw near but
+started off the instant he found that they were coming his way. It was
+Shady's habit of daylight traveling that led Breed into grave danger
+within a week after the dog pack had made their first run. He followed
+Shady down the bed of a gulch which screened their movements from prying
+eyes but at the same time served to shut out all the various signs by
+which Breed received long-range warnings. As they loitered along the
+bottom of the draw the antelope bands were flashing the danger sign;
+range cows on the ridges all stood facing the same way; everywhere
+coyotes were scurrying for cover, but all these things passed over
+Breed's head. A coyote flipped into the gulch and he did not tarry but
+passed Breed with merely a sidelong look and vanished round a bend.
+
+Breed was instantly alert. He darted to the rim of the draw and looked
+warily about him. There was not an antelope in sight and no cows grazed
+in the little basin that flanked the gulch at the point where he left
+it; not a sign to warn him of the source of the danger. He ran for the
+crest of a ridge for a better view,--and the next instant he was in full
+flight back the way he had come, for as he sky-lined himself on the
+ridge five sharp-eyed wolfhounds a quarter of a mile away had darted
+toward him. He knew that they had seen him and were coming, that death
+was sweeping down on him.
+
+He turned up the gulch and followed it toward the hills, Shady running
+her best to keep up with him. The dogs fanned out to look for him as
+they topped the ridge. The upper end of the draw widened to blend into a
+broad mesa and the hounds caught sight of the two wolves as they headed
+out across the flat. Breed had held his lead but a clean race of over a
+mile confronted him, the flat affording not one shred of cover. He swung
+his head slightly to one side as he ran, one backward-rolling eye taking
+in every detail of what transpired behind him.
+
+He saw the five specks increase their speed and knew that they had
+sighted him again; they angled slightly and he watched them draw
+gradually together, their courses converging on the center of his line
+of flight till they were once more running well bunched,--and gaining.
+
+His lead was being steadily cut down, the gap perceptibly lessened; the
+specks showed larger with every backward glance till every dog was
+clearly visible. Shady was fleet but her speed was no match for Breed's
+and he would not leave her. The high-pitched sinister yelps sounded from
+behind him as the eager dogs closed up, putting forth every effort to
+end the race before the wolves reached the choppy badland breaks at the
+far edge of the flat. Shady's pace was lagging, and they gained the
+first gulch of the broken country a bare fifty yards ahead of the
+leading hound.
+
+The gulch feathered out into a maze of branching draws and Shady lost
+Breed on the first sharp turn and ran on alone while the dogs streamed
+past after the yellow wolf.
+
+Breed slowed his pace, fear for Shady's life surmounting even the fear
+for his own, but as the lead dog flashed into view without any sound of
+a fight behind him, Breed knew that his mate was safe and he turned on
+the reserve speed he had not been free to use while she ran with him.
+
+The country ahead was a tangle of small flat-tops, crisscrossed by a
+network of badland washes and cut-bank draws, and for two miles he
+eluded the dog pack by sheer brainwork and cunning. But the hounds
+pressed him hard. Their speed was greater than his own and each time
+they lost sight of him they spread out both ways. Whenever he crossed a
+flat-top bench some one of them always sighted him and bored straight
+for the spot, and his team-mates, noting this sudden burst of speed,
+wheeled as one and fell in behind him.
+
+Breed's one aim was to reach the hills, knowing that once among the
+trees he could shake them off. His course led him ever nearer to the
+base of the spur but he knew at last that he could not make his goal.
+His muscles had lost their spring and his breath came in leaky gasps;
+the dogs would pull him down on the first sagebrush slopes of the hills
+before he could gain the shelter of the trees.
+
+He broke cover and started up the last long sloping bench that led to
+the base of the spur. The mouth of every gulch behind him seemed to
+belch forth a dog and they raced across the bench, spread out for two
+hundred yards.
+
+Then Breed sprung one last desperate trick,--a coyote trick. A badland
+wash intersected the flat squarely across his route and Breed leaped to
+the bed of it and fled fifty yards along its course, then flashed into a
+narrow coulee that led straight back toward the dogs. The draw was
+shallow, with scarcely sufficient depth to cover him, but the dogs did
+not suspect and as they darted on ahead Breed doubled back through the
+very center of the pack. He ran with the last of his strength, crept
+from the sheltering coulee and leaped into the center of a heavy clump
+of sage where he crouched flat and peered out at the puzzled dogs. Of
+all the beasts there are but few with the brains to plan such a coup and
+the nerve to carry it through when winded and played out,--and with
+certain death the penalty for a single slip. The ruse would not have
+fooled a trail hound for an instant, but with sight-hunting coursers it
+worked.
+
+Breed watched the dogs swing wide and scour the country off to the right
+of him till they appeared as swift-skimming dots in the distance. Then
+one of them lined out with increased speed as he topped a ridge. One
+after another Breed saw them flash over the skyline and disappear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Shady's first impression after taking the wrong turn in the coulee was
+one of vast relief at having evaded the dogs. The recovery of her breath
+was accompanied by a vague sense of loss which rapidly deepened into an
+ache of loneliness so oppressive that her whole spirit was weighed down
+by it. She started up through the long crescent-shaped neck of badlands
+that partially encircled Collins' cabin and extended clear to the foot
+of the spur, knowing that this was Breed's favorite route when making
+for the hills. She moved slowly and with many halts, cocking her head
+sidewise and tilting her ears for some sound of her mate. She came out
+into a funnel-shaped basin that sloped down from the first sharp rise of
+the spur. The small end of it formed a saddle between two knobs, leading
+to Collins' shack as through a natural gateway.
+
+Shady trotted to the saddle and gazed down at the wolfer's cabin five
+hundred yards away, the spot which had meant home to her over the
+greatest part of her life. The door stood invitingly open. She turned
+and saw the five dogs pouring down the funnel of the basin. The sudden
+purposeful increase of speed which Breed had noticed as the dogs left
+his field of view had been occasioned by the sight of Shady standing in
+the notch.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation Shady headed straight for that open
+door, a haven of refuge which had served her well in the past when
+assailed by the dogs of visiting ranchers. The dogs were jaded and Shady
+was fresh, and she reached her goal without their gaining an inch.
+
+Collins sat smoking his pipe when he was startled by the frenzied
+entrance of his former pet. Shady failed to pause for greetings but made
+one mad leap from the door and slid to the farthest corner under the
+wolfer's bunk.
+
+Collins grunted with surprise and for a space of five seconds his brain
+refused to function with its usual snap. Then he rose and crossed to the
+door to discover the reason for Shady's headlong home-coming,--and
+slammed it shut with but a single second to spare.
+
+One dog rose on his hind feet, standing higher than a man, and savagely
+raked the door from top to bottom with his claws while another opened
+his jaws wide and closed them, his teeth splintering across the smooth
+surface as he sought to gnaw his way inside. The remaining three circled
+the cabin, sniffing explosively at the cracks between the logs. Shady
+was seized with a fit of excessive shivering induced by these dread
+sounds, and Collins heard her hind leg-joints beating a spasmodic tattoo
+on the cabin floor. Then he turned on his ready grin.
+
+"Just one split second more," he said, "and they'd have surged in here
+and wrecked this plant for fair,--and that's a fact!"
+
+That night when Breed sent out his call for Shady there was no answering
+cry. He called again and again, an agony of longing and entreaty in his
+tones. A sickening dread entered his soul,--the fear that his mate had
+been caught in a trap, shot by some rider or killed in some other way by
+man. He little suspected that Shady was at that instant resting her head
+on a man's knee and enjoying the feel of his fingers scratching behind
+her ears.
+
+"Good old Shady," Collins said, roughing her head between his hands.
+"You're a renegade now, old girl,--a she-outlaw, that's what you are.
+You've gone over to the wild bunch, and men will be out after your
+scalp; and they'll get it too. You'll go ambling up to some man and
+he'll blow you up. You won't stick with me now unless I keep you
+chained. You'll go back to 'em,--and if you're lucky you may go right on
+living for mebbe a month. You don't know the ropes out there and they'll
+pick you up."
+
+Shady suddenly stiffened at Breed's first cry.
+
+"Don't need to be afraid of that," Collins assured her. "That's old
+Breed. He won't bother you. It must be hell, Shady, to be born astraddle
+of a fence like you, afraid of tame dogs and the wild bunch too."
+
+Breed howled again and Shady moved to the door and whined, scratching
+and sniffing along the crack. Her uneasiness increased with every howl.
+She clawed so vigorously at the door that it rattled on the hinges; then
+her pent-up emotions sought partial relief in action and she ran in
+crazy circles about the cabin, weaving in and out among the furniture at
+top speed, running over and under the bunk and leaping over chairs, then
+brought up in front of Collins and gazed pleadingly up into his face.
+The Coyote Prophet regarded her speculatively.
+
+"I read you wrong, Shady," he said. "You're not afraid of Breed--you
+want to go to him, that's what; he's a friend of yours. Surely now, an
+old savage like him didn't go and take up with a little misfit like
+you."
+
+Breed's voice sounded again and Shady raised her own, the whole cabin
+ringing with her long-drawn howl. Up in the funnel basin Breed had
+picked up her trail and was trying to work it out from among the trails
+left by the dogs. He stopped abruptly and listened. A strange muffled
+sound had reached him, hollow and drumlike, but there was a familiar
+chord in it, and Breed swept ahead on Shady's trail, his hope of finding
+her alive renewed.
+
+"You're mated up with that yellow wolf," Collins stated. "Two freaks
+paired up! If you track round with Breed you may live longer than I
+thought. He'll show you how to beat the game." The Coyote Prophet
+crossed to the door and opened it. "Go to it, Pet," he said. "He's
+a-calling you." But the last remark was addressed to a streak that
+vanished into the night.
+
+Shady met Breed in the notch and frisked wildly around him. Breed's
+delight in this reunion was as deep as hers but he was more dignified
+and staid, his emotions less openly apparent. All through the night
+Shady held so close to him as to brush against him frequently as they
+ran.
+
+Shady rapidly absorbed much of Breed's caution. Two days after their
+race with the dogs Shady had occasion to revise her estimates of
+horsemen. Twice in the same day, after imprudently showing herself in
+the open, she heard the vicious reports of their guns and the balls
+tossed up spurts of earth about her. Thereafter she followed Breed's
+lead in all such cases. Breed's way was the wolf way, recognizing no
+individuals among men but classing them as a dangerous whole. Shady,
+having lived among them, knew them as individuals, but this knowledge
+was soon blurred and she too acquired the views of the wild things
+toward men and lumped them as a whole. There was but one reservation.
+She placed Collins, the one man who had been kind to her, in a class by
+himself.
+
+This eccentricity was the source of much worry to Breed. Shady could see
+no good reason why she should not revisit Collins when the mood so moved
+her. One night she turned abruptly from her course and headed for the
+twinkling lights of the wolfer's cabin. Breed turned with her. Cripp and
+Peg, each with his mate, ran on either flank. The coyotes stopped two
+hundred yards from the house but Shady held straight ahead. Breed tried
+to dissuade her but to no avail. He nipped her sharply, and its only
+effect was to cause her to tuck her tail and spurt for the house.
+
+Breed stopped twenty yards away, every nerve quivering from excitement
+over this suicidal move. He heard Shady scratch at the door. It swung
+back and a flood of light streamed out into the night. Breed heard a
+man's voice booming out a welcome; saw his mate jump up and put her paws
+against him, their outlines framed in the lighted doorway. Then the door
+closed and his mate was inside with a man, the arch enemy of all wolves.
+Breed whirled and fled. He ran blindly and at high-pressure speed as if
+he fled before an actual enemy. All his sense of balance was thrown out
+of gear, the fitness of things upset, and he felt his reason tottering.
+For his ear, attuned to receive the meaning of all animal sounds, could
+detect the least tremor of menace in any animal note; when a range bull
+bellowed Breed knew whether the tones held invitation to his cows or
+husked a warning to some intruder that had strayed over into his chosen
+range. In any animal voice the quiver of anger or fear was easily
+apparent to him; and there had been no vibrations of anger in the man's
+tones, only those of friendliness.
+
+The coyotes were hard pressed to keep abreast of him, and after a wild
+race of some four miles he wheeled abruptly and retraced his course, the
+longing for his mate combining with curiosity to draw him irresistibly
+back to the spot where this impossible thing had transpired.
+
+His pace slackened as he neared the house, then increased as he heard
+Shady's voice. Shady had met Breed in the notch after her first visit to
+the cabin and she naturally assumed that she would find him there again.
+She repaired to the spot at once after leaving the cabin and waited for
+him to come.
+
+For three nights in succession Shady made her pilgrimage to meet her one
+friend among the world of men. Breed could not unravel the mystery of
+these visits. He could only know the actual that reached him over the
+trails of his physical senses. Sights, scents and sounds were facts to
+him. Those senses combined to show him that the unnatural visits were
+real,--that Shady actually entered the lair of a man and came back
+smelling strong of him. Yet when she was with him Breed felt a sense of
+unreality in his memories of those visits, partaking of the same vague
+qualities that dreams possessed for him after waking.
+
+But he fathomed it at last, evidence that his brain came from his coyote
+mother, a brain that is capable of constructive reasoning, of taking two
+facts which the physical senses have verified and evolving a third from
+them,--the association of ideas.
+
+His nose told him that there was something in Shady's scent that was
+similar to that left by the dog pack. His eyes had proved that those
+dogs were the companions of men. Eyes, ears and nose testified that
+Shady visited the haunts of men and was accepted as a friend. His nose
+further told him that Shady was half coyote, and her voice added proof
+of this. From out this fragmentary assortment of facts Breed found a
+satisfactory answer. He knew that Shady was of the wild, yet that she
+was also linked with the world of men, thus combining two things which
+in the past had seemed widely separate, a chasm too wide to span,
+dividing the animals of the wild from those belonging to man.
+
+Each recurring visit confirmed this fact. Shady missed two nights, but
+on the third she headed for the cabin with the coming of night. The
+comparative warmth of early winter had given way to the gripping,
+penetrating cold of January. Breed's appetite increased with a
+corresponding drop in temperature and he was hungry. But from Shady's
+actions he knew that she was seized with one of those queer lapses which
+called her back to former ways and he delayed the hunt until she should
+return from this trip. The coyotes had all mated and the season for
+pack-hunting was past, yet many of them still rallied to his call; but
+on this night he lingered in the notch and waited for Shady to come back
+to him before summoning the pack.
+
+He prowled uneasily about the narrow saddle, and in his nervousness over
+Shady's protracted absence he forgot the danger of following cow trails
+and padded restlessly up and down those which threaded through the gap.
+And as he waited for her a mortal enemy found the chance he had sought
+so long and began stalking him from behind.
+
+Flatear dropped from the hills to follow his ruthless trade and as he
+swung down the funnel basin Breed's scent was wafted to his nose. The
+breeze held up the slope,--he had the wind on the yellow wolf. He
+shifted across the wind but it carried no coyote scent. His victim was
+alone. Flatear followed up the drifting current of scent and sighted
+Breed at a hundred yards. His feet made no sound and the wind held
+right; the breed-wolf was unaware of his approach.
+
+Breed saw a sudden flow of light from the cabin and knew that Shady was
+leaving it to come back to him. He sent forth the rally call to the pack
+and turned to trot along a cow trail. He gave a sudden mighty leap into
+the air and crashed down four feet away as he struck the end of the
+chain swiveled to the trap that had crushed his foot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Breed's great paw had not squarely centered the trap and the jaws
+clamped on but two toes. He fought the trap with all his strength,
+backing up to gain slack in the chain, then throwing all his weight and
+force into his spring as he launched himself into the air, only to be
+jerked violently to the ground at the end of the chain.
+
+Four times he sprang, and four times the breath was almost jarred from
+his body as he smashed down on his side. As he rose from the last spring
+he suddenly stiffened, standing rigidly in one spot while every hair
+rose along his spine. Twenty feet away a great gray shape loomed in the
+sage. Breed knew it was the midnight killer who had left such sinister
+evidence of his handiwork scattered along the foot of the hills,--and
+there was no doubt of his purpose. The yellow wolf was handicapped and
+knew that he had no chance, but he did not storm and rage aloud as a dog
+would have done; his was the coyote way. He backed up inch by inch till
+he stood above the trap stake, and this move gave him a four-foot
+striking range each way.
+
+Flatear did not fear traps with the full knowledge of their powers and
+limitations as the coyotes did, but with the superstitious dread of the
+wolf. In common with all his kind he had merely avoided instead of
+investigating this danger, and now his understanding could not
+distinguish between a trap that was set and one that was sprung and
+harmless.
+
+The clank of the trap chain delayed his attack. He feared that the thing
+which clamped his enemy's foot might leap out and seize his own. The
+killer circled his victim, and the yellow wolf turned round and round in
+the same spot, keeping his bared fangs toward his foe. The trap chain
+kinked and twisted till it gave him less than a foot of play. Only his
+insane hatred of Breed led Flatear to brave his horror of that sound of
+grating steel,--but he came in close at last, crouched and sprang. Breed
+leaned sharply to one side and met him with a side slash of teeth but
+the weight of his enemy threw him and he felt the killer's teeth cut
+cleanly into his shoulder and slide along the bone. Flatear reversed his
+snap so swiftly that it seemed but a double swing of his head, yet the
+second swing drove his teeth along Breed's neck and laid open a six-inch
+gash. As Breed struggled to his feet the wolf's fangs sliced at his
+throat and ripped it open but not deep enough to kill. A loop of the
+kinked trap chain was tightened on Flatear's toes by Breed's convulsive
+backward dodge, and a ghastly fear that he himself was trapped swept
+through him, transcending even the lust to kill the yellow wolf. He made
+one wild leap for safety,--and the tightening kink cracked his toes and
+threw him, the same lurch dragging Breed down with him, and they rolled
+into a furious tangle of clashing teeth and rattling steel.
+
+Out in the night the coyotes were moving in from all directions in
+answer to the call Breed had sent out ten seconds before the steel jaws
+gripped him. Shady was trotting leisurely up to the saddle to meet her
+lord and mate,--the mate whose life was flowing out through a score of
+ugly rents. Breed's strength was ebbing fast, and he no longer had the
+power to put killing force behind his teeth. Flatear snapped aimlessly,
+his mind half crazed by that fearsome pinching of the chain on his toes.
+He felt it loosen and slip off, and he leaped clear of the spot.
+
+A shape moved over the edge of the saddle and the next instant Shady
+drove straight at the gray assassin, raging as she came, the dog in her
+boiling to the surface. Before she reached him a yellow streak split the
+night and Peg's teeth crunched on the wolf's hind leg, the little
+coyote's deadly silence contrasting queerly with Shady's fighting
+shrieks.
+
+The big wolf fled from this combined attack, one hind leg sagging as he
+ran, the muscle torn raggedly across by Peg's one snap. Once more Breed
+was indebted to Shady and his coyote followers.
+
+But Breed was far gone. He struggled to rise but fell back again and lay
+still, the blood oozing from the rents in his tattered pelt. He raised
+his head and looked at Shady, and for a single instant his mouth opened
+and his red tongue lolled out in friendly greeting, showing his spirit
+still intact even though his body was slit in ribbons; then he lowered
+it flat between his paws and moved nothing but his eyes.
+
+Shady crept close to him and licked his wounds. The coyote pack came up
+in pairs and circled about their stricken leader, some of them squatting
+on their haunches as they regarded his plight, others moving restlessly
+about; all of them silent as the grave, the only sound in the notch
+being Shady's continuous low wails as she implored her mate to rise and
+follow her.
+
+The bitter frost claimed Breed's swollen foot and stiffened it, numbing
+all sense of pain. He felt comfortable and content. Then Peg moved up
+and sniffed critically at the trapped foot. He set his teeth in it but
+Breed did not flinch. The three-legged coyote crouched beside him and
+turned his head sidewise, the right side of his jaws flat on the trap,
+his teeth sliding along the cold steel and shearing away the frozen
+flesh. The leg was dulled to all sensations and Breed felt no pain.
+Shady viewed this amputation closely and whined with anxiety as it
+proceeded. Peg sliced the meat from the two toes, set his teeth firmly
+across the bones and crunched just once. Then he hooked one forepaw over
+the trap and scratched it away from Breed's sprawling hind leg, two
+severed toes remaining in the trap.
+
+Peg's lips and gums along the right side of his face were seared and
+burned from contact with the chilled steel of the trap, raw patches of
+flesh showing where the skin had adhered to the frosted springs and had
+been wrenched loose. He nursed these wounds with his hot tongue, and
+fiery twinges of pain racked him but he did not whine. He curled up and
+slept for an hour, then rose and nipped Breed's flank. The cold had
+stopped the flow of blood from Breed's cuts and the pain of the nip
+roused him from the stupor. He struggled to his feet and stood swaying
+while Shady bounced around him with joyous yelps. Then he set off for
+the hills, moving at a walk, with his head drooping weakly.
+
+The next morning Collins stood and looked down at the two great toes in
+the trap.
+
+"Pegged him," he said. "Pegged old Breed. He'll be minus two hind toes
+from now on out--but he could lose two toes off each foot and still beat
+the game. The whole coyote tribe must have been up here to look him over
+from the number of tracks."
+
+When Collins returned to his shack he found six stockmen awaiting him.
+The stampede of the sheep and the big kill made by Breed's pack up in
+the hills had enraged the sheepmen. They had confidently expected that
+some man would collect Breed's scalp on a fresh tracking snow, but while
+every rider had scoured the foothills for Breed's tracks after every
+storm, no man had cut his trail. After gorging on warm meat at night a
+wolf runs sluggishly the following day; his muscles lack snap and his
+wind is leaky, and a good horse can wear him down. Twice in his first
+year Breed had been harried far across the foothills by hard-running
+horses, and now the first spitting flakes of a coming storm brought
+recollections of those desperate races and roused his uneasiness to such
+a pitch that he set off for the hills and remained there till the wind
+had piled the snow and cleared long stretches which made tracking from a
+running horse impossible.
+
+The sheepmen at the cabin informed Collins of the big killing and their
+tale was punctuated by every possible epithet applicable to the coyote
+tribe. Collins, owning no sheep, was in a position to view the killing
+in a more philosophical light than they.
+
+"You can't rightly blame 'em," he said. "Men raise up sheep to kill 'em
+in cold blood; coyotes kill 'em when they're hungry. Two sides to it,
+'cording to whether you're a coyote or a man."
+
+The stockmen stated the purpose of their visit. Their association had
+raised the bounties, making it profitable for wolfers to hunt even in
+the summer months when pelts were unprime and valueless; the price for
+spring pups had been raised to equal the reward posted for adults; and
+now the association would furnish free poison for all wolfers and
+advocated its use all through the year. They stated their belief that
+this system, if followed ruthlessly, would result in the practical
+extermination of prairie wolves. They rested their case and anxiously
+awaited the Coyote Prophet's verdict on their plan. Collins shook his
+head.
+
+"Part of it's good," he told them, "and part of it's dead wrong. Anyhow
+you can't kill 'em all. I've told you so for twenty year and I stand on
+what I've said. There'll be a million coyotes left to howl when the last
+man dies. The raise on summer bounties is a good move--a man can afford
+to kill shedders at that price; and the pup bounty will set men to
+digging out their dens. But your main plan was laid out by men that
+don't savvy the coyote mind." Collins leaned forward and tapped one
+forefinger in the open palm of his other hand to emphasize his point.
+
+"You let this all-year poison idea slide! You mark me--if you try that
+on you'll lose; more ways than one. I know 'em! A coyote will take a
+chance on guns and traps, but he's superstitious about these strychnine
+baits. After a few turn up on the range with a dose of it the rest will
+quit your line. Your traps won't show one catch. There's only one time
+to use it and that's after you've bait trapped and trail trapped till
+only the wisest are left. Then shoot the whole range full of poison; get
+it all out at once and knock off all you can. Then take your poison up
+and quit! You hear me,--quit! Then they'll sort of halfway forget before
+another year and you can spring it again. But I'm a-telling you the
+facts,--if you leave poison scattered round loose for six months you'll
+see coyotes increasing fast and there'll be hell to pay amongst your
+sheep; you'll break behind two ways at once. There'll be just enough
+that forget themselves and take on a poison feed to keep the rest in the
+notion of passing up all dead meat. They won't even touch bloats or
+winter-killed stock. When they're hungry they'll make a kill,--and
+they'll work on your sheep."
+
+"I've stripped off three times more pelts than any wolfer that's mixed
+poison with his traps. Now my trap line is played out and I'm going to
+throw poison into 'em for a month,--and quit."
+
+As Breed lay convalescing from his wounds he reviewed the dangers of his
+chosen range, not knowing that the one horror which he feared more than
+all else combined was about to sweep through the foothills. His former
+attitude toward Flatear had been one of aversion for his gruesome
+practices, but with no touch of personal enmity. But the gray wolf had
+not only pounced on him at a season when mating was past and dog wolves
+at peace, but had almost torn him to shreds while he was helpless in the
+grip of a trap. Breed now felt a terrible hatred growing in him, a
+desire to kill the slinking gray beast as soon as he gained sufficient
+strength to take his trail.
+
+Breed was too weak to hunt but there was enough of the coyote in Shady
+to lead her to rustle food for her mate. For five days Breed lived
+wholly upon the chunks of meat which Shady purloined from the frozen
+bait piled against Collins' shack,--the meat which he intended to poison
+and strew all across the range as soon as he had finished taking up his
+traps. On the sixth night Shady found that the whole of the great stack
+of meat had entirely vanished and near morning she returned without
+food.
+
+Breed's strength had flowed steadily back to him and he craved meat. By
+noon his hunger was a hollow ache. Then suddenly he knew that there was
+meat two miles west of him. The wind was square at his back so he could
+not possibly have scented it, and any man who had seen him rise from his
+bed and head for meat that lay two miles downwind would have charged the
+act to that mysterious intuitive knowledge that animals are supposed to
+have.
+
+There is one sure way by which men of the open locate animal carcasses:
+the location of winter-killed stock or range cows mired down in an
+alkali bog is pointed out to them at a distance of several miles. Game
+wardens make use of it to locate the illegal kills of poachers, and
+rangers to locate the kills of cougars and wolves. In all countries
+there are meat-eating birds and their flights reveal much to practiced
+eyes.
+
+Breed's mysterious information came from seeing an eagle pitch down far
+to the west of him. Two minutes later another swooped from another
+angle. Ravens and magpies winged toward the spot,--and Breed set off at
+once toward the converging lines of their flight. His hunger overcame
+his dislike for daylight traveling, but he held to high ground instead
+of the valleys.
+
+He came to the edge of a shallow basin devoid of all vegetation except
+an occasional spear of grass, chalk-white patches on the surface of the
+earth showing it to be an alkali sink. A hundred yards beyond the last
+tongue of sage that reached out into it Breed could see a quarter of
+beef, two eagles jealously guarding it. Magpies and ravens flitted
+about, waiting for their share of the feast. One of the eagles made
+frequent moves to scatter them when they came too close, rushing at them
+with a queer hopping run, his wings half spread and trailing back. Breed
+could plainly hear the snapping of his powerful beak.
+
+The larger eagle suddenly took flight, rising with awkwardly flapping
+wings and cutting eccentric loops and curves, each dip calling forth a
+raucous scream. He fought his way to a height of two hundred yards, then
+lost all muscular control and fell loosely to the ground, his mate
+taking wing as he smashed down on the flat.
+
+A vague dread seized Breed. He watched the magpies close in to the feed.
+A score of them took the air at half-minute intervals, fluttered wildly
+and with a spasmodic jerking of their long tails and pitched down in
+death. The rest of them left the meat. Breed's mind again proved capable
+of associating ideas, of constructing theories from known facts. The
+birds had been alive. There were no clanking traps or sound of gunshots
+to account for it,--yet they had died. Their crazy flappings had been in
+sharp contrast to their usual grace when in the air. Their actions had
+not been normal, and Breed someway thought of the ways of poisoned
+coyotes. He had never seen a poisoned horse or cow, or till now a
+poisoned bird,--had always believed it an affliction of coyotes alone;
+yet he felt the quickening of long dormant fears. He knew that meat was
+poisoned and he would not go near. He drew farther back in the sage and
+rested till night.
+
+He started out with Shady at dusk and they were joined by Peg and his
+mate, the four of them hunting together. Peg killed a jack and Breed's
+share of it partially satisfied the gnawing of his hunger. As he
+traveled on he sampled the wind for some sign of the gray killer. It had
+narrowed down to a feud between the yellow wolf and the gray, an undying
+hatred, and whenever they next met there would be one of them whose
+trail the coyotes would never again cross on the range.
+
+Then all thought of hunger, all thought of his feud with Flatear,
+everything but stark horror was suddenly swept from Breed's mind. A
+horrid, racheting cough sounded from straight ahead. A coyote whisked
+into the open and bounced toward them with bucking leaps, strangling and
+gagging as he came, then whirled and snapped at himself, the froth
+dripping and foaming from his jaws and the moonlight reflecting from his
+set, staring eyes. They drew away from him and he writhed on the ground
+in nasty convulsions,--stiffened and stretched out with his eyes bulging
+from their sockets and glaring forth in death.
+
+Breed headed for the hills and Shady and the two coyotes clung close to
+his flanks, as if numbers relieved the horror of the thing they had just
+seen.
+
+Three times before they reached the hills they were terrified by the
+appearance of former friends who had suddenly been stricken into foaming
+maniacs. Breed turned on the first rise of the hills and howled. The
+members of the coyote pack read the message. Breed was bidding farewell
+to the land of sage. Perhaps he knew that he would never see the gray
+foothills again.
+
+Six pairs of coyotes gathered toward his cry. They had seen much and
+lived to pass their knowledge on. Every one of them had run the gauntlet
+of rifle fire; they had been hounded by dogs. Most of them had been
+maimed by traps,--and now this affliction that turned coyotes mad with a
+single bite of meat.
+
+They followed Breed back into the hills, a wise band, the pick of the
+coyote tribe and well able to cope with new conditions and teach their
+future pups the work of pioneering in strange countries which lay ahead
+of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Breed found the hills buried deep under a blanket of snow. In the low
+country the drifts lay only in the gulches and the more sheltered spots
+but up in the lodgepole valleys and the heavy stands of spruce on the
+slopes the white covering seemed endless and unbroken. The dogs killed
+the meat for the whole pack, for at this season the she-coyotes were
+unfitted for the strenuous work of pulling down heavy game. For the same
+reason they were unable to travel long distances in the snow. Breed too
+was disinclined to move rapidly. His foot had healed but the swollen leg
+was weak and tender. The pack averaged less than twenty miles a day.
+
+At the end of a week Breed's old home was more than a hundred miles
+behind and he was well up in the backbone of the hills. He came out upon
+a mighty divide and gazed off across a rolling country extending fifty
+miles each way, all of it high but ringed in by still more lofty ranges,
+their ragged saw-teeth standing gaunt and grim against the sky. There
+were broad, open meadows spread out before him, great areas devoid of
+trees, intersected by timbered ridges and rolling parks where the stand
+of spruce was dotted. The whole of it lay under a four-foot layer of
+snow and gleamed dead white and lusterless, but even so its aspect was
+more inviting than the gloomy forest through which they had come.
+
+The open-loving coyotes elected to remain in this land rather than
+penetrate the questionable beyond. As they crossed the open spaces the
+racy smell of the sage leaked through the packed drifts underfoot and
+they knew that parts of these valleys were carpeted with the same brush
+that clothed the foothills of their home land. This was the summer range
+of the elk herds and once well down the slope of the divide they found a
+country that seemed devoid of game.
+
+After advancing in loose formation for five miles without any coyote
+finding a promising trail, Breed caught a fugitive scent of meat. He
+circled and looped, now catching it, then losing it again. The broad
+valley stood white and silent, gripped in a dead calm, and the few
+vagrant breezes were imperceptible, merely the sluggish drift of local
+air pockets that shifted a few feet and settled.
+
+The yellow specks that moved in pairs far out across the snow fields
+slowed and halted, changed their routes and headed toward the leader who
+was questing about with uplifted nose. Then Breed dropped his head and
+ran with nose close to the snow, twisting and turning in one locality of
+less than a hundred yards in extent. The eyes of every advancing coyote
+were fastened on Breed. They saw him stop abruptly and shove his nose
+into the snow, and the little puff of steam which rose around his head
+as he breathed hard into the drift was clearly visible to them all. They
+put on more speed as he began to dig, and when the first of them reached
+him they saw a tawny expanse of elk hair at the bottom of the
+excavation.
+
+They tore away the snow and uncovered the whole carcass of a
+winter-killed elk that had been refrigerating there for months. Breed
+lingered near this spot for three days, the coyotes bedding near by in
+pairs, and up here where there were no men they fed in the daytime
+whenever so inclined. There was not an hour of the day or night when
+Breed could not see one or more coyotes tearing at the elk. When the
+last scrap of meat, hide and hair had been devoured and the bones gnawed
+white and clean, Breed moved on in search of more.
+
+There were always some few stragglers that lagged behind the elk herds
+and failed to start for the winter range till after the passes were
+blocked with snow. These turned back and starved when the grass was
+buried deep and their feet were cut and worn from pawing through the
+crust to reach it; for the elk is strictly a grazing animal and cannot
+live entirely by browsing on the twigs and brush as do moose and deer.
+
+For a month Breed prowled this high basin country, and in all that time
+his feet never once touched earth except when crossing some bald ridge
+from which the wind had whittled the snow. His menu consisted
+exclusively of frozen elk.
+
+A chinook swept the hills and held for a week, the hot wind melting and
+packing the drifts and clearing the more exposed slopes free of snow.
+The pack had split up and scattered in pairs, each she-coyote selecting
+some likely spot and remaining in that vicinity.
+
+The first day of the chinook every she-coyote started her den, and the
+sites, though widely separated, were identical in many respects. Each
+chose a ridge with a southeast exposure while higher ridges behind cut
+off the sweep of the north and west winds; and every den was located in
+a heavy clump of sage. This latter feature was not for the reason that
+sagebrush reminded them of home, but because experience had proven that
+the heaviest growths of sage were indicative of deep, soft soil beneath
+and so pointed to easy digging, a rule used not only by home-seeking
+coyotes but by homesteading men as well, and one that holds good
+throughout a half-million square miles of sagebrush country.
+
+Shady too had settled on an open ridge and now spent much of her time
+there, but this seemed more from a disinclination to travel and a
+dislike of bedding in snow than from a definite purpose of excavating a
+den. This puzzled Breed. Shady leaned more to the casual dog way of
+trusting that a suitable spot would present itself on the day when her
+pups should arrive; yet there was enough of the coyote in her to cause
+her to scratch out a shallow nest in a sunny spot. This act was more for
+present comfort, however, than from any intent to make provision for the
+future.
+
+Peg and Cripp had always clung more tenaciously to Breed than had the
+others of the pack and Peg had settled on a ridge not more than two
+miles away; but Cripp was no longer to be found. It had been long since
+his voice had been raised in answer to Breed's call and he had not come
+back into the hills with the coyote pack. Breed missed the trusty
+follower who had run with him on so many hunts, and day after day he
+expected to catch a trace of Cripp in the wind or to hear his friendly
+voice at night, but the crippled coyote never came.
+
+Peg was now Breed's sole companion at night, except when their mates
+joined them at the two frozen elk carcasses in the bottoms between their
+home ridges, and the two of them explored the surrounding country
+together. Peg's lips were scarred along the right side of his face, the
+price of Breed's liberty. There are close ties between animals, a myriad
+proofs of friendships and enmities, the same as among men, and it may be
+that the act which had brought Peg those honorable scars had helped to
+cement the bond between himself and the yellow wolf. Whether or not they
+had means of discussing Cripp's absence, there can be no doubt that they
+missed the genial old rogue that had been their running mate for so many
+months and that they wondered at his fate.
+
+Breed visited Peg's home ridge during the height of the chinook. Peg's
+mate was a silky-haired coyote, her fur fluffy and long. Fluff lay
+sprawled contentedly in the sunshine while her mate worked on the den.
+She growled uneasily at Breed as he peered down the hole. A shower of
+dirt greeted him and he drew away as Peg backed from the den and shook
+the dirt from his fur. Fluff took her turn at the work but soon tired of
+it, and Peg started in as soon as she left off. A she-coyote picks her
+own den site and starts the hole, but because she is easily exhausted
+near denning time it falls to the dog to complete the den.
+
+When Breed returned to Shady he found her scratching leisurely at the
+nest she had scooped out. It was merely a raking of the surface to
+loosen and soften the bed which was smooth and glazed from her having
+bedded there when her fur was wet; but Breed read it as a tentative
+start toward making a permanent home.
+
+When Shady ceased her aimless scratching Breed edged her aside and tore
+at the soft earth with his paws. He had buried himself to the hips
+before he drew back. Shady entered and critically inspected the hole,
+then immediately backed out. That was the extent of her interest. It may
+have occurred to Breed that his mate's shifts at digging were extremely
+brief, but nevertheless he persisted till he had tunneled a curving
+entrance eight feet long and hollowed out a nest eighteen inches high by
+three feet across. All well-ordered she-coyotes have at least two, and
+the majority of them three openings leading from their homes. Shady
+failed to indicate the direction which she wished these emergency
+tunnels to take so Breed laid them out according to plans of his own. By
+the time the den was completed the chinook wind had cooled, and winter
+tightened down over the hills once more, freezing the surface dirt so
+solidly as to make excavating impossible.
+
+Breed repaired to the last frozen elk carcass in his neighborhood and
+found Peg there before him. An hour later a she-coyote came to the feed.
+She sprawled flat in the snow and tore ravenously at the frozen meat.
+Her eyes were hollowed from hard journeying and lack of food. Breed knew
+her for Cripp's mate and he momentarily expected to see his friend. When
+her hunger was appeased she faced back toward the divide over which she
+had come and howled; then, as if knowing her cry would go unanswered,
+she turned and left them as abruptly as she had come. She had no time to
+lose and she could not dig a den, yet she planned the best she knew.
+There would be no mate to rustle food for her, and meat would be the
+first essential while her pups were young. Five miles beyond Breed's
+home ridge she found an elk drifted deep under the snow in the heavy
+timber. She crawled into the heart of a windfall jam, choosing one where
+the lay of the land would prevent her being drowned out when the drifts
+should melt, and stayed there till her five pups were born.
+
+When Breed returned home near morning he heard queer squeals issuing
+from the yawning mouth of the den. Shady's doglike faith that a place
+would somehow be provided for the great event had been justified and she
+had taken possession of the den which her wild mate had so carefully
+prepared.
+
+Shady wandered no more with Breed, but stayed at home in the den, and
+for the first week all that Breed saw of her was a brief glimpse of her
+nose as she came to the mouth of the hole, seized the elk meat which he
+brought as an offering and backed down out of sight with it. After that
+he occasionally saw the whole of her but these views were hasty.
+Whenever Shady emerged from the den her tail barely cleared the mouth of
+it before she twisted back and dived headlong from sight, panic-stricken
+lest some mishap had befallen the pups during her long eight-foot trip
+from them to daylight. After two days of hourly excursions of this sort
+she spent a few moments outside the den, and thereafter these periods
+were lengthened until she remained on the warm slope fully as much as in
+the den.
+
+Night after night Breed heard the howls of the lone she-coyote that had
+denned in the windfall. Always she faced toward the land that had been
+her home. A she-coyote whose mate is killed after the running moon will
+raise her pups alone and refuse to accept another mate; yet the howls
+she sent out were calls for a mate, and from this Breed knew that she
+did not believe that Cripp was dead. He pondered long over this mystery
+of why Cripp still lived but did not join his mate.
+
+The supply of elk meat rapidly diminished and at last was gone. The only
+carcass Breed could locate within ten miles was the one near the
+windfall, and the widowed mother defended that furiously against all
+comers. The warm days of early March had turned it stale and putrid but
+it was all she had.
+
+Every waking second of Breed's time was spent on the meat trail. An
+occasional blue grouse or snowshoe hare was the largest game he found.
+That the coyotes were faring as poorly he knew from the signs he crossed
+each day in the hills. He found the tracks of dog coyotes many miles
+from their dens and always the signs showed that they had been working
+out some cold rabbit trail. Breed found the tracks of many bobcats in
+the hills and these appeared to have been wandering aimlessly. But Breed
+knew that the noses of cat beasts are not keen enough to work out any
+but the warmest trails; that this accounted for his seldom finding signs
+that a cat had trailed a rabbit, and that their apparently crazy way of
+traveling was in reality a systematic shifting across the air currents
+in search of the warm body scent of their prey. Several times Breed
+picked up a hot cat track and followed it at top speed but the big bobs
+held mainly to the heavy timber and always took refuge in a tree.
+
+When Breed's pups were three weeks old he had his first look at them
+when Shady came from the den on a warm afternoon and a swarm of fluffy
+little creatures toddled after her. There were eight of them, all with
+heavy frames that gave promise of their attaining almost as great size
+as their father, and there were strips of dark fur along their backs.
+After that first trip they spent much time romping and quarreling on the
+sunny side hill.
+
+A pair of golden eagles had nested on the rough face of a pinnacle that
+rose from the floor of the valley near its head, some five miles from
+Breed's home ridge. These mighty birds soared far out over the divide
+and returned with meat for their fledglings in the nest. Their pealing
+screams often split the silence of the valley. Shady paid small heed to
+them but Breed often cast a wary eye aloft when the screams sounded from
+close at hand.
+
+Shady was stretched comfortably before the den one day, watching the
+pups scattered out along the ridge, when she became aware of a faint
+rushing sound such as the first puffs of a fresh wind make when they
+strike the trees some distance away. This increased to a humming roar.
+She looked up to see a huge shape driving down upon a pup with
+incredible velocity, swooping at a sharp angle, the great wings spread
+wide and hissing through the air as the big bird tipped dizzily from
+side to side. Within two seconds after the first droning sound had
+reached Shady's ears she saw the eagle strike his claws through a pup
+and start up the valley on lazily flapping wings. Shady raced madly
+under him and raged until the valley echoed to her fury. Then she
+quieted and watched till he was but a tiny speck off toward the nesting
+peak, the dead pup dangling loosely from the talons that had struck
+clear through his slender body, the hind claw on each foot meeting and
+interlocking with one front claw in a grip which nothing short of the
+actual severing of a leg tendon could break.
+
+Thereafter Shady knew why Breed showed uneasiness when an eagle screamed
+near the den.
+
+The pups knew every note of their mother's voice and obeyed it
+implicitly. They would be asleep in the den when a note would summon
+them forth to play, every pup tumbling hurriedly out; she would give
+another cry when they were playing carelessly in the open, the tone
+being so nearly identical with that of the first that a man might hear
+it a hundred times and detect no difference, yet every pup would dive
+headlong for the nearest hole.
+
+Shady learned to watch for the eagles. Nearly always it was a shadow
+which warned her first. She would see a swiftly moving black speck
+gliding over the snow fields or darting along the slopes of the ridges
+that flanked the valley and she instantly issued a warning to the pups,
+knowing that where there was a shadow there must be a bird above.
+Sometimes Breed saw the birds first and called. Shady relayed the danger
+signal to her young, and even if she was half a mile away the pups made
+a prompt and desperate spurt for the den.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The snow melted slowly in the high country but by mid-April a few bare
+spots showed in the more open meadows, the hardy mountain grass sending
+forth green shoots. The rabbits were drawn from the timbered ridges to
+nibble these first spring dainties. The surface of the drifts showed
+thousands of tiny mouse tracks,--the mice that had lived deep under the
+snow, subsisting on food previously stored, now coming forth to swarm
+into these first cleared patches.
+
+The pups had grown large and strong and were able to follow their
+parents on the meat trail, and they soon learned to catch their own
+mice. The drifts in the passes had packed so firmly as to afford good
+footing and the game was coming back to the summer range. After the
+first few had made the crossing the rest followed their trails and the
+main tide of the elk migration set in, great droves of cows boiling
+through all the passes and streaming down into the green spots in the
+meadows. There was now meat in plenty, and the yelping barks of the cows
+sounded in the valleys that had been wrapped in white silence for so
+many months; but there was not a sound from the bulls; the antlered
+lords whose ringing challenges had filled the whole expanse of the hills
+the previous fall seemed voiceless now. These old fellows had remained
+up among the high bald ridges, their new antler growth tender in its
+velvet sheath, and nothing would be heard from them till after the
+porous growth had hardened and their points were polished for the next
+rutting time.
+
+The wolf family returned to the den no more, except perhaps for a casual
+inspection when their wanderings chanced to lead them to the
+neighborhood.
+
+The bears had come from their long sleep and left the dens. There were
+black and brown bears and monster grizzlies roaming in the meadows. At
+first the diet of these huge beasts consisted almost entirely of grass
+and twigs but their appetites rapidly increased and it was no unusual
+thing for a bear to appropriate one of Breed's kills.
+
+Breed did not fear bears, knowing that their speed was less than his own
+and that they were harmless so long as he did not molest them and come
+into too close quarters. He accepted this stealing of his meat as part
+of the established order of things and always moved away when a bear
+came swaying leisurely up to his kill.
+
+Shady, on the contrary, had a wholesome fear of bears and was excited at
+their approach, but at the same time she could not view their thieving
+ways in such a philosophical light and her resentment rankled deeper
+with each recurring theft.
+
+The wolf family returned to a kill to find a great silvertip feeding
+there. Shady's rage boiled over and she swept down upon him with a
+furious burst of barking. She would have halted short of him but there
+was no need. Breed was profoundly amazed to see the mighty baldface flee
+down the slope with Shady in full cry behind him.
+
+Breed knew that bears did not fear him, even though his fighting ability
+far surpassed that of his mate, yet a grizzly fled at the first sound of
+her voice. This deepened his respect for Shady; the mate who was so
+helpless in many respects was surprisingly resourceful in others.
+
+It was not known to Breed that bears had learned to dread the bellowing
+of a pack of trail hounds in the hills through knowledge that men
+followed close behind, and that the dog note in Shady's voice stirred up
+visions of a man with a magazine gun on their trail. But while the
+reason was not clear to Breed, the fact that the mightiest grizzly took
+flight before his mate was repeatedly proved to him, and after once
+learning her power Shady permitted no bear to deprive her family of its
+meat.
+
+[Illustration: As the summer advanced the pups learned to pack-hunt with
+Breed. _Page 167._]
+
+As the summer advanced the pups learned to pack-hunt with Breed. The
+coyote howls at night were now confined to messages between mate and
+mate or between mother and pups. The life they led was essentially a
+family life and they had no interests outside of the family circle.
+Breed's cry to rally a pack was never raised, for his own domestic
+duties were many; and if he had sent forth the summons none would have
+answered it. He sometimes met Peg and ran with him for a while, but
+these visits were infrequent and brief, each having pressing business of
+his own.
+
+Breed one day caught the scent of a coyote upwind from him. This in
+itself was nothing unusual but there was something vaguely familiar
+about it, something that roused old memories, and suddenly he thought of
+Cripp. He traced up the scent and as he topped the ridge he stopped
+short and bared his teeth, the hair rising along his spine. A horrid
+nightmare of a thing rose from its bed and leered at him. The hair had
+slipped from its body, leaving the skin shiny and slate-blue. The ears
+and head were furred, and the legs; tufts of hair sprouted from the
+shoulders and along the spine, but flanks and sides were bare and the
+long tail was rat-like, its joints showing through the tight-stretched
+skin. The lips were drawn back and revealed the blue gums receding from
+loosened teeth. This was the result of poison that had failed to kill.
+
+Breed knew this grisly apparition for Cripp. The scent was there, and
+the warped foreleg. Cripp did not recognize his friend. His mind was
+clouded and the light of insanity gleamed in his sunken eyes. Breed
+whirled and fled, and a weird cry sounded behind him,--the eerie howl of
+a maniac.
+
+All through the summer the coyotes shunned the specter of living death
+that plodded silently up and down the valleys and the ridges. When it
+came suddenly through the trees, drawn by the scent of a fresh kill,
+some coyote family scattered swiftly and left the feast. Cripp was as
+apt to howl in broad daylight as at night, and the sounds were
+meaningless, the unintelligible jargon of an idiot. Every coyote within
+hearing bristled with fear whenever Cripp's jabbering reached their
+ears.
+
+In the background of Breed's mind the purpose to slay Flatear still
+persisted, but his duties prevented his spending the time to hunt for
+him. Occasional wolf howls were heard back here in the hills, the calls
+of strays that had drifted down from the north, following the line of
+the hills and keeping well back from the dangers of the low country.
+Each time he heard the wolf note the urge to kill was strengthened in
+Breed. He had heard Flatear's voice but once and so was unable to
+identify him by ear alone but must receive added testimony through eyes
+or nose. Twice he left his family to investigate the source of these
+cries. One came from a lone female; the other from a big gray dog wolf
+who had mated with a coyote, and there were five pups trailing after the
+oddly assorted pair. These pups were much like Breed's own and they gave
+proof that the coyote strain was stronger than the wolf. Their language
+was that of their mother. The only trace of wolf parentage was shown in
+their greater size and the dark fur of their backs. Breed's search for
+his old enemy proved fruitless. Many things of which Breed was unaware
+had taken place on his old home range since he had left it, and Flatear,
+terrified by the latest of these events, had slunk away to the north.
+
+Collins' prediction had been verified. The coyotes in the low country
+where poison had been strewn broadcast on the range had suddenly turned
+from stale meat as from disease. Much of their food supply had come from
+bloated sheep, from locoed horses, and from cows that had eaten larkspur
+and died, but they would no longer touch these carcasses. Deprived of
+this source of food, their kills became more frequent and they grew
+bolder in their raids on calves and sheep.
+
+Then a new and appalling menace reared its ugly head in the foothills,
+striking not at coyotes alone but at every living thing. There were many
+coyotes such as Cripp, with the hair slipped from their hides,--the ones
+that had survived a dose of poison but were unable to shake off its
+devastating after effects. Hydrophobia broke out among these and they
+ran amuck, striking alike at friends and foes. Sound coyotes were turned
+into frothing fiends that helped to spread the wave of madness that
+swept across three States. Horses and cows died by hundreds and it was
+no unusual thing for one mad coyote to bite fifty head of sheep in a
+single night. The five dogs that had harried Breed were themselves
+infected when they pulled down a mad coyote, and they drove poisoned
+fangs into forty head of stock before the last of the five was run down
+and shot.
+
+There was but one ray of hope in the whole dangerous business and men
+seized on that. Mad coyotes lost their cunning and ran stupidly on some
+chosen course, biting every living thing that crossed their trails, but
+refusing to be turned aside even to avoid an approaching man. Riders
+poured through the foothills on fleet horses, shooting down the stricken
+ones, all other business suspended till this menace had been stamped
+out. And through it all the ravages among the wily coyotes were far less
+than among domestic stock.
+
+The spreading of coyotes over new territory, which had been only gradual
+before, was accelerated by the poison and madness that had blighted the
+foothills. Thickly settled districts far to the east, where coyotes had
+formerly appeared but infrequently, were now invaded by great numbers.
+Poison and traps could not be used effectively against them in
+localities where there were dogs on every farm, and the coyotes were
+safer there than on the open range. Reports that reached Collins showed
+that for eight hundred miles south along the base of the hills the
+coyotes were quitting the flats and roaming through the fastnesses of
+the Rockies.
+
+Breed noted the steady flow of strange coyotes into the high basins of
+his new range. In the late summer his pups dropped one by one from the
+family circle, going off on some business of their own. During the
+latter part of August Breed was conscious of a vague sense of
+loneliness. This grew more pronounced and then suddenly he knew! The
+rally call for the pack rolled through the valleys and echoed among the
+peaks, and from far and near he heard familiar voices raised in answer.
+The parental responsibilities were over for one season, the pups gone
+forth on their own, and the members of the pack were free to follow the
+yellow wolf.
+
+As Breed ran through the hills the pack gathered, and each coyote fell
+into his old place. Peg and his mate ran close on the right of
+Breed,--but the place on the left was vacant.
+
+Cripp was coming, however. The cry for the pack had penetrated the fog
+that obscured his reason and touched a responsive chord buried deep
+beneath. That cry was meant for him. The coyotes made a kill and
+feasted, but before their hunger had been satisfied a living skeleton
+came moving toward them, and they scattered wildly and left the meat to
+Cripp.
+
+Several strange coyotes joined Breed's pack and these new members seemed
+possessed of some haunting fear. Breed noted their constant air of
+expectancy and the intent regard with which they favored every coyote
+that drew near to them. They seemed always suspicious that some friend
+would suddenly turn upon them, and whenever some eager coyote clashed
+his teeth while feeding, these strangers that had come so recently from
+the low country started uneasily at the sound.
+
+Night after night Cripp followed the pack and came to the kill. The
+coyotes all avoided him but the strangers were assailed with a ghastly
+dread of his grinning mask, and their fears were communicated to the
+rest of the pack. Breed himself caught it. An air of tense watchfulness
+pervaded their gatherings, a guarding against some menace as yet unknown
+but which the actions of the strangers indicated might be upon them at
+any moment.
+
+After a week of this sort of thing Breed and Shady were bedded on a
+ridge slope that flanked a broad meadow when Breed saw a moving speck at
+the far edge of it. It proved to be a coyote, though at first its
+peculiar gait denied this. He came straight on across the open, and
+Breed saw one of his new friends trot from a willow clump in the meadow,
+take one look at the advancing stranger and become galvanized into a
+flitting streak that left the valley. Even at that distance his deadly
+fear was evident, and Breed knew that the unknown danger had become
+actual and was embodied in the queer-gaited coyote that was coming
+toward him.
+
+He ran with an automaton-like stiffness, never changing his course, and
+occasionally stumbling as if unaware of the character of the ground over
+which he passed. His head swung out slightly to either side and he
+snapped each time. There was something sinister in every move, as if his
+body was driven on without conscious volition, actuated by some
+dreadful, unclean force. Breed knew it for some sort of poisoning, and
+his muscles bunched for flight. Shady barked angrily as if to drive the
+thing away. Then Breed saw a hairless travesty of a coyote move out of a
+draw and halt directly in the path of the mad coyote. Cripp stood there
+grinning till he felt the other's teeth score his unprotected hide; then
+he whirled and snapped back at him. The mad coyote kept straight on and
+Cripp followed at his own queer shambling gait. He drew close and ran
+alongside, and for a hundred yards they exchanged slashes in a senseless
+sort of way. Breed could see the blood oozing from the fur of the mad
+coyote's neck, and the blobs of white foam sliding down Cripp's shiny
+hide. Then the mad coyote fell and Cripp kept on for another ten yards
+before he missed him. He wheeled and returned, stumbled and fell and
+crawled back to his foe, and they lay there toothing one another in an
+impersonal, detached way, as if it did not matter.
+
+Breed's soul revolted at this scene and he fled the spot. When he raised
+his howl that night he was twenty miles farther north, but the coyote
+pack answered from close at hand. Many of them witnessed the same scene
+from adjacent slopes of the valley. The others had viewed similar
+sights, and there was a general coyote movement north through the
+mountains, a widespread exodus ahead of the madness that was creeping up
+into the hills.
+
+Breed had formerly been imbued with the home-loving nature of the
+coyote, and this had led him to restrict his wanderings to a
+comparatively limited area instead of ranging hundreds of miles in all
+directions after the manner of wolves. This love of a permanent home
+range now operated in a peculiar way. All ties were severed behind him,
+the land he loved bristling with such a wide variety of dangers as to
+preclude all possibility of his return. The wanderlust which now seized
+him appeared a complete reversal of his former desire to remain in one
+vicinity where every topographical feature was to him a familiar
+landmark; but in reality this very wanderlust was an expression of home
+love; every step he took away from his old range was unconsciously
+actuated by the desire to find some new spot which would take the place
+of the old.
+
+For two weeks these wanderings were erratic and uncontrolled by any
+conscious purpose. He roamed on the Shoshone and the Thoroughfare, the
+Yellowstone and the Buffalo Fork of the Snake, then swung back across
+the Sunlight Peaks. Shady had acted queerly of late, frequently leaving
+Breed for hours at a time and climbing to some commanding point from
+which she would look far off across the hills, as if seeking something
+which was always just beyond the range of her vision; but she always
+came back to him. Breed found nothing out of the way in this. Mated
+coyotes were prone to follow separate trails for hours, even days, and
+then meet again. Shady had clung to him persistently, refusing to be out
+of his sight except when at the den with her pups, and this new
+manifestation seemed a natural one to Breed, an evidence that his mate
+had come to trust in her ability to shift for herself in the wild. But
+it was not this. Now that her pups had been schooled and sent out to
+face the world alone, Shady hungered to see the man who had raised her
+from a pup, and to feel his fingers scratching behind her ears.
+
+As the pack straggled out among the ragged Sunlight Peaks Shady looked
+down across the lower slopes; one valley opened into another in an
+interminable procession and far down across the spruce tops a rift
+between two flanking hills afforded a view of the low country,
+shimmering in the sun. Sand Coulee Basin, her old home! And a variegated
+mass in the distance marked the Rainbow Buttes, rising isolated and
+alone from out the badlands. Shady struck a swift gliding trot and
+dropped down the slope, disappearing in the first twisted masses of
+timber-line spruce.
+
+For the first few hours after her departure Breed gave it no thought,
+but when she failed to turn up he grew increasingly uneasy. Ten hours
+and he called to her and there was no reply, twelve and he circled to
+pick up her trail but it had cooled. He prowled the peaks for three days
+and nights, disconsolate and lonely, even though in close touch with the
+coyote pack, and sending out call after call for his mate. Shady had
+spent the first two days in almost continuous travel, put in a single
+hour with the Coyote Prophet, reveling in the feel of his exploring
+fingers and the friendly sound of his voice; then she departed as
+suddenly as she had come and spent two more days in reaching the summit
+of the Sunlight Peaks where she had left her mate, for after all his
+hold on her was far more gripping than that exercised by the man.
+
+She heard Breed's lonely cry and answered it, and an hour later she was
+frisking about him with doggish enthusiasm. The yellow wolf accepted her
+lavish display of affection with dignity; his joy in the reunion was a
+match for her own, but the wolf in him was unequal to matching the
+effusiveness of the dog in her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+All through the Yellowstone country the evidence of Breed's teachings
+was apparent on every hand. The progeny of the members of his original
+band had been taught pack-hunting by their parents, as they themselves
+had learned the art from Breed. For a hundred miles each way from Two
+Ocean Pass the hills were full of the disciples of the yellow wolf. The
+elk now fled from coyotes as once they had fled from wolves. The coyotes
+brought all their native trickery and resourcefulness into play and made
+pack-hunting a very different affair from that practiced by timber
+wolves. They did not hunt bunched, but scattered, saving their own
+strength and wearing down that of their prey. When an elk was singled
+out the coyotes relayed him and kept him on the move. Whenever he
+attempted a straightaway flight some coyote flashed out in front of him
+to turn him back, and he was headed through bogs and spongy ground on
+the slides at the foot of old snow drifts until his strength was gone.
+
+Breed's movements now lost their aimlessness, and each day found him a
+few miles farther north. The home love in him was working, but he
+himself was unconscious of the fact that he was seeking some land that
+would answer all requirements. It was not given to him to plan largely
+for the future, and each move was occasioned by the dissatisfaction with
+the country in which he found himself, rather than from any definite
+idea of mapping out a course for a permanent range and there
+establishing his home.
+
+Nevertheless he held steadily to the north and the faithful pack moved
+with him. Other coyotes flanked their line of march, urged on by fear of
+the madness that lay behind and finding courage for their pioneering in
+the fact that every night they heard the howls of the coyote pack ahead.
+
+The game herds were milling restlessly in high basins. The blacktail
+bucks had short new coats of sleek blue-gray; they had shed the long
+hair of the previous season,--the season of short blue, the Short Blue
+Moon of the Northwest Indian tribes. Broad vistas of the low country
+showed through revealing gaps in the hills, marked by the blue-gray
+tinge of the sage; a pale haze hung in the hills and turned distant
+green spruce slopes to silvery blue; the rivers had long since passed
+the flood tide of melting drifts, and were cleared of the roily effects
+of late summer rains, and lakes and streams, now free of sediment,
+showed blue-green to their very depths; the high peaks were held in
+silhouette against a clear blue sky. Everything showed a touch of
+blue,--such is the Short Blue Moon.
+
+And the love-making time of the antlered tribes is ushered in with the
+season of short blue. As Breed moved north the whistling snorts of
+lovelorn bucks reached his ears day after day. The clarion bugles of
+challenging bulls was promise of meat in plenty. Bighorn rams squired
+their bands of ewes on the plateaus and pinnacles above timber line.
+
+Breed's course was by no means a straight line. Hunts drew him to the
+east and west and frequently back to the south, but the general trend of
+it all was a northward migration for the coyote pack. Some days they
+gained twenty miles, some but three or four, and on others they lost
+ground. At the end of a month the land of the Yellowstone was a hundred
+miles southeast.
+
+The big gray wolves were more plentiful here, but scattered and not
+traveling in packs. At every wolf howl Breed felt the old hatred of
+Flatear surge up in him, but though he frequently met wolves none of
+them proved to be his enemy. The big grays showed only a casual interest
+in coyotes, evidencing neither enmity nor delight at any chance meeting,
+indifference the keynote of their attitude.
+
+Autumn blended into early winter and the gain toward the north was less
+apparent, Breed lingering in the vicinity of good hunting grounds as he
+found them, moving on when the supply of meat diminished. He held to the
+main divide of the Rockies, and when the heavy storms of midwinter set
+in, he was well across Montana and nearing the Canadian line. The deep
+snowfall had driven the game down out of the peaks to the lower valleys
+of the hills and Breed was forced to follow. He moved westward across
+the South Fork of the Flathead to the Kootenai Range. There were fewer
+elk here than in the Yellowstone, living in scattered bunches and not
+congregating in droves of hundreds on the winter feed grounds. Deer
+ranged the Kootenai country in plentiful numbers and Breed elected to
+stay. Mating was close at hand and the northward movement halted.
+
+Stray coyotes drifted continually up from the south and joined the ranks
+of the pack, and there were stray wolves crossing the range from the
+Flathead to Swan River and back. Many of these mated with the unattached
+coyotes as they straggled north. Breed's pack was rapidly thinned down,
+pairs dropping out to den till at last only Peg and Fluff were left.
+
+When the chinook set in Fluff chose a den site and stopped. Breed held
+on for another five miles, then Shady refused to travel. She picked her
+own site and showed a keener interest in home building than she had the
+season past, working short shifts to relay Breed on the digging, and the
+three tunnels that led to this new nest hole were longer and more
+elaborately curved and twisted than those of the old den on the
+Yellowstone. The last day of February seven pups came to share the den
+with Shady.
+
+The rest of the pack had denned to the south and few encroached on
+Breed's hunting territory. Deer were still plentiful, even after a
+winter of hard hunting, and he found little difficulty in supplying
+meat. There was but one flaw in his contentment.
+
+One day when the pups were a month old and had recently been out for
+their first romp Breed hunted across the divide and down the western
+slope of the Kootenais. He stood on a ridge in the gathering dusk when
+he was suddenly aware that other hunters were abroad before him. His eye
+caught flashes of white through the green of the spruce on the opposite
+slope. He knew that a band of deer had been startled to sudden flight,
+that the jerky gleams of white were the brief exposures of the
+underparts of their tails as they were upflung in hurdling windfalls.
+The wind was wrong and Breed could not catch the scent. He traced their
+course through the timber by their white flags and saw three deer break
+cover and start out across a long narrow opening on the slope, the path
+of a snowslide that had stripped a lane through the trees on the steep
+side hill, its trail a clean split in the solid green of the spruce. In
+the center of the slide the lead deer suddenly collapsed and the sharp
+report of a rifle rolled across the hills.
+
+At the sound of the shot Breed heard a few deep-chested dog notes half a
+mile down the narrow valley. He looked that way and saw a slender tongue
+of smoke curling lazily above the trees around a bend. The deep note was
+strange to him, but again the association of ideas came to his aid.
+Shady's occasional fits of barking and her strange ways; the wolf hounds
+that had belonged to men and had chased him in Sand Coulee Basin; this
+note that rose in answer to a rifle shot and came from near the smoke
+that denoted a cabin. Breed himself was unconscious of assorting these
+ideas, but he knew that the hoarse note came from some dog beast that
+belonged to man.
+
+A lone prospector had built his cabin on the west slope of the
+Kootenais, and hereafter Breed avoided this vicinity.
+
+When the pups were six weeks old Shady felt the call to help Breed
+rustle food and she hunted by herself in the neighborhood of the den,
+but her earnest efforts were unavailing, as there was no small game and
+she was unable to stalk a deer.
+
+[Illustration: Breed was compelled to hunt farther from home as the deer
+quit the valleys. _Page 191._]
+
+Breed was compelled to hunt farther from home as the deer quit the
+valleys to descend to the foothills for the first nips of green grass.
+One morning, when far south of the den, he heard again the note of the
+hound. It rose and fell, an eager bellow that moved slowly through the
+hills, and Breed did not like the music. This same baying reached him on
+three other days. The reason for all this uproar was beyond his
+comprehension, but from the fact that it came from a dog he knew that it
+meant no good for the wild things.
+
+A few days after he first heard this strange sound he came face to face
+with a pair of coyotes that had run with his pack. Their air was one of
+dejection and there was no springiness in their gait. From their
+dispirited manner Breed knew that tragedy had overtaken his friends,
+that some calamity had befallen their pups. Later he met a second pair,
+a dog coyote and a she-wolf, and they too were traveling aimlessly,
+their family torn from them. But Breed had no way of linking these
+disasters with the music of the trail hound. The prospector kept a
+single hound and when he found a fresh wolf kill in the spring he put
+the dog on the tracks that led from it, keeping him in leash, and the
+hound led him to the den. He had found good hunting near his cabin this
+spring, as the hills were full of the dens of the small yellow wolves
+that had turned up in such numbers the preceding winter, but his
+activities so far had been confined to the country that lay south of
+Breed's range.
+
+Breed led the pups forth for a few short trips as their strength
+increased. In his hunts toward the south he frequently crossed the
+trails of other coyotes that had led their offspring out for a ramble.
+At least one out of every three families were breeds, and the pups were
+uniform. They were heavier than coyotes and their backstrips were dark;
+but their language was pure coyote, their voices perhaps slightly deeper
+and with fuller volume, but the change was so slight as to escape
+detection from the ears of man. These pups were the same sort of hybrids
+as Breed, their parental strains identical, yet among them all he found
+only one with his own qualities, the coyote fur and the voice of the
+wolf. In all others this was reversed.
+
+Breed's own pups grew strong and active, capable of covering ten miles
+of rough hill country in a single night, and the family would soon have
+left the den but that Shady indulged in one of her flighty streaks,--a
+streak prompted by the dog strain in her rising temporarily above the
+wild.
+
+She had hunted tirelessly but had failed to bring home a scrap of meat.
+Her hopes ran high and she ranged continually farther from the den till
+she eventually crossed over the divide for a look at the west slope. The
+breeze held steadily from the west and Shady caught a whiff of wood
+smoke and moved toward it to investigate. She scouted along the edge of
+the timber, watching the cabin in the little clearing for signs of life.
+It appeared deserted. She crossed to it and sniffed at a crack,--then
+fled for her life. At the first sniff there came a deafening bellow and
+a great hound surged round the corner of the house.
+
+As Shady fled she rolled her eyes back, coyote fashion, for a glimpse
+behind. She noted that the hound seemed to have trouble in getting
+started, and once back in the timber she stopped. She heard the rattle
+of a chain,--the hound was anchored! From long experience in the past
+Shady knew the futility of striving to break a chain. The dog was
+powerless to harm her. Even if he should free himself it would avail him
+nothing; these slow running hounds were known to her, and their speed
+was no match for her own.
+
+Shady returned to the cabin and peered round one corner at the raging
+hound whose six-foot chain prevented his clearing the next corner by
+more than a foot. She moved along the side of the house till within ten
+feet of him and sat down, her tongue lolling out contentedly as she
+watched the frenzied hound almost strangle himself in his efforts to
+reach her.
+
+A flutter of canvas caught her eye and she rose with her forefeet
+against the logs as she stretched her nose up toward it. The prospector
+had rolled the cloth round a ten-pound piece of fresh venison to keep
+the flies from it. Shady sprang and seized it, swinging clear of the
+ground, all four feet braced against the logs, then fell sprawling as
+the nail from which it was suspended bent and allowed the cord to slip.
+She started off across the open, and the first fold of canvas flapped
+loosely under her feet and tripped her. Halfway to the timber the meat
+dropped out and she took it, leaving the cloth behind; something over an
+hour later she turned up at the den with the first meat she had ever
+furnished for her own pups.
+
+The prospector returned to his cabin and while still a mile away he
+heard the bellowing of the dog. The first sight that greeted him was the
+canvas, flapping limply in the open, and he found Shady's dust tracks
+round the cabin, and swore. He ducked hurriedly into the house and
+reappeared with a shotgun, unsnapped the chain from the cabin wall and
+resnapped it in his belt, and he was off, with the eager hound tugging
+ahead of him on Shady's trail.
+
+Shady, elated by her first success, had left the den for another hunt.
+As she swung back toward home she heard the steady bellow of a hound and
+put on full speed ahead. The baying ceased except for an occasional
+bark, and when Shady came to the last fringe of trees along the ridge
+she saw a man standing at the den. The hound was chained to a single
+tree some thirty yards away and she knew there was naught to fear from
+him. The man started excavating with a light miner's pick and a
+short-handled shovel which he unslung from his back. In half an hour he
+had opened one tunnel till he could peer into the den hole. Then he
+unwound a strange instrument from about his waist, a wolfer's "feeler",
+three strands of wire twisted into a pliable cable ten feet long, the
+three ends of the strands extending forklike a bare two inches beyond
+the cable braid at one end. This simple invention eliminates much
+tedious excavation work, the sensitive tool following the curves of the
+branching tunnels which each wolf pup makes for himself as soon as he is
+able to dig. Shady prowled along the edge of the timber and viewed these
+preparations suspiciously.
+
+The man inserted the end of the feeler in a hole that led off the main
+cavity of the den, and advanced it by gentle thrusts, twisting it as he
+pushed to clear the forks. There was not a sound from the den. The
+feeler would go no farther. He grasped it flat between the palms of his
+hands and twirled the cable rapidly from right to left. There was a
+sudden spitting explosion of baby snarls from the depths of the hole.
+The man gave one tentative tug and felt resistance, then hauled the
+feeler in hand over hand and drew forth a fighting pup, the three tines
+twisted firmly into his soft fur. The hound opened up excitedly; the
+short pick swept up and down,--and the pup was a lifeless heap.
+
+Terror and rage flooded Shady in equal parts. She gave one sharp
+cry,--and the other two openings disgorged a shower of frightened pups
+that scattered toward the timber as so many flushed partridges, fleeing
+in response to their mother's sharp command, and Shady raged straight at
+the man!
+
+The prospector was an old hand at rifling wolf dens. Occasionally a pup
+would dart from another exit, and the shotgun was an effective weapon
+with which to check his flight. But never had he seen such a mad
+outpouring of pups as this, and in all his long life in the hills a
+she-wolf had never rushed him, even in defense of her pups. Shady's
+charge was reversed so suddenly as to appear that she turned a flip in
+mid-air when she saw the man's hand stretch forth and lift the shotgun
+from the ground, for she knew well its purpose and its power.
+
+The thunderous roar of black powder sounded behind her and a charge of
+heavy shot raked her hips and loins as she gained the trees. Shot
+pierced both ears and furrowed along her skull. The man turned and
+pulled the second barrel at the rearmost pup and he went down limply, a
+puff of fur flung into the air above him, his life snuffed out in a
+single instant as the heavy charge pulverized him from end to end.
+
+A piercing series of yelps issued from the timber as Shady gave voice to
+her agony. The prospector nodded. The mystery was cleared; for he knew
+that he might shoot a wolf or coyote to mincemeat and neither would make
+a sound.
+
+"A dog," he said. "A renegade. I should have knowed it all along; her
+stealing thataway right alongside of Buge; and her bristling up to
+me--no wolf would carry on like that."
+
+He strode to the tree and unleashed the hound.
+
+"Go to it, Buge!" he said. "Go clean up them pups."
+
+As the dog sped into the timber a sharp note sounded from far down the
+slope. Shady had partially recovered her upset faculties and called the
+pups, and they gathered swiftly to her and ran their best. Even in her
+crippled state Shady could have outrun the trail hound, for her wounds
+had not yet had time to stiffen, but the pups could scarcely hold their
+own, and the dog's endurance was far greater.
+
+Breed was returning to the den with a ragged chunk of venison when he
+heard the double roar of the gun and Shady's agonized yelps. Her later
+cry to gather the pups indicated the general direction of her flight.
+Then the steady tonguing of the hound broke forth. Breed flanked the
+dog's route till he drew abreast of him. The baying voice filled the
+valley and echoed among the rims till it seemed that the whole breadth
+of the hills was filled with dogs, but Breed knew that the sound came
+from but one. He could hear no sounds of man, and he dropped swiftly in
+behind Buge to decipher the signs of the trail. There were the hot
+tracks of Shady and the pups, the hound's tracks on top of theirs, and
+no man had come that way. Breed spurted ahead and sighted the dog, and
+swung out to flank him and get the wind.
+
+Buge ran with his nose close to the ground. He was gaining on his prey,
+and his mind was so wholly centered on the trail that he was unaware of
+the deadly yellow wolf that ran almost abreast of him and forty yards
+downwind. Breed was puzzled as to how to handle the situation that
+confronted him. He feared the hound, believing that an ally of man might
+be endowed with man's strange power for harm. The dog was a slow,
+cumbersome animal and Breed knew that Shady was far speedier, yet he
+wished the spotted beast would quit her trail. He saw Buge's nose lifted
+from the trail as he caught the warm body scent from close at hand. The
+dog ran now with head held high, the body scent reeking in his nostrils.
+Then Breed saw Shady and the pups running under the trees a hundred
+yards ahead. The steady baying rose to a slobbering bellow as the hound
+followed his prey by sight. The gap narrowed, and Breed could see his
+slavering jaws, the froth drooling stringily back across his shoulders.
+The last pup was running desperately a bare twenty yards ahead,--and
+then the great hound was suddenly thrown off his feet as a fighting
+yellow devil struck him from the side without a sound to announce his
+rush. Breed's shoulder had caught him fairly in the middle of a stride
+and the shock of the impact slammed him down six feet away; as Buge
+landed heavily on his side two flashing rows of teeth closed on his
+throat and sliced into it, and his life was torn out with the yellow
+wolf's backward wrench.
+
+Then Breed ran on after Shady and the pups, knowing now that a single
+short-haired dog, despite the terrifying volume of his voice, was no
+formidable antagonist for a wolf when once caught outside the radius of
+man's protection.
+
+Night settled down over the hills as Breed came to the end of Shady's
+trail and found her lying in a half-swoon with the pups crouching near.
+Breed felt that he was leaving this country to return no more, and
+almost unconsciously he raised the call for the pack, knowing that the
+pack season was far in the future, yet longing to hear the voices of his
+friends. Far to the south a pair of coyote voices answered him, and
+still beyond them, so far that the sound did not reach Breed's ears, a
+second pair of coyotes relayed the message that the yellow leader
+called.
+
+Breed urged Shady on, but in three miles the wolf family was forced to
+lay over for a rest. Here a pair of coyotes overtook them. The slow
+march was resumed with frequent halts for rest, and before morning two
+other pairs of coyotes caught up with them, and these were all members
+of the original pack that had hunted together in Sand Coulee Basin. Just
+at dawn the dog coyote Breed had met some time earlier in the spring
+brought his she-wolf mate and joined the band. All of the new arrivals
+had lost their pups through the efforts of the hound that Breed had
+slain, and they were free to follow where the leader willed.
+
+Breed moved east across the Flathead and for two days he urged Shady on
+relentlessly till they were far up the sheltering slopes of the main
+divide. Shady then took shelter in a windfall, and for the next three
+days she refused to move. Her wounds stiffened and festered from
+imbedded shot, and she was dry and feverish. Three stray coyotes crossed
+the Flathead and joined those that prowled within a few miles of Shady's
+retreat.
+
+The third night Breed heard a well-known voice far down the slope and he
+threw all the force of his lungs into a welcoming cry.
+
+A coyote invariably deserts a den that is neared by man. Peg had
+discovered Breed's rifled den and his keen nose interpreted the signs.
+He had heard the leader's call and wondered why it had been raised so
+early in the year. He followed the sign till he found the body of the
+hound. It was morning when he reached his own home, and the following
+night Peg and Fluff had led their pups off in the general direction
+taken by Breed. The trail had cooled, but in moist and sheltered spots
+he found sufficient trace to guide him, and in the heavy timber where
+the great drifts lingered he could follow it by sight. Then at last he
+heard Breed's voice above him and an hour later Peg and Fluff led six
+half-grown pups to the windfall.
+
+When Shady was once more able to travel Breed led the way to the north,
+the band not traveling together, but every coyote's course laid out to
+accord with Breed's, and within hailing distance so that each might
+apprise the others of his whereabouts at night. When the pups were old
+enough to shift for themselves Breed had crossed the Canadian line and
+was two hundred miles north of it along the great divide that marks the
+boundary between British Columbia and Alberta.
+
+All along this route clear from the Yellowstone there had been coyote
+country to the east of him. The prairie wolves had long since populated
+the valleys of the Musselshell, and, farther north, the Marias River and
+the Breast. There were coyotes east of him now, running the prairies of
+Alberta and Saskatchewan, but he had at last arrived at a point west of
+the extreme northern limits of the coyote range. All over the continent
+to the south and east of him pioneering coyotes were pushing on into new
+lands: they had penetrated the hill country of Pennsylvania to the east,
+and south almost to Panama; but it had fallen to the lot of the yellow
+wolf to lead the way for the horde that was invading the northwest
+hills.
+
+During the first storm of the early fall Breed pulled down a yearling
+mountain sheep on a high plateau. A motley crew answered the meat call.
+Breed, the yellow hybrid, Shady, the half-blood renegade, and four pairs
+of coyotes born in Sand Coulee Basin; the dog coyote with his
+timber-wolf mate and several of Breed's and Shady's conglomerate pups;
+all were there to feed. And when the bones were picked Breed led his
+nondescript band on into the unmapped wilds of the British Columbia
+hills.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Wolfing was no longer profitable in the foothills and Collins pulled up
+stakes and left. He loaded his belongings on his pack horses and
+journeyed far to the north. Later he sold his horses and traveled by
+canoe, and after a roundabout course he preëmpted an old cabin between
+the Laird Fork of the Mackenzie and the head of Peace River. The climate
+was moist and the underbrush growth was often so dense as to force him
+to hack out a trail in spots as he laid out his trap line. The side
+hills were matted tangles and the valleys shaking bogs, and Collins had
+little love for his new surroundings. There were no cheery sounds at
+night, only the howls of wolves. In midwinter of his first season in the
+north he was roused out of a sound sleep, certain that somewhere close
+at hand a coyote had howled. During the brief gray light of the
+following day Collins stopped and gazed long at a small, wolf-like track
+in the snow.
+
+"Coyote!" he announced triumphantly. "It was him that howled."
+
+Twenty yards farther on he crossed a second coyote track, and for half a
+mile there were trails pointing to the north. There was one that showed
+evidence of a missing foot, a peg-leg such as those he had often seen on
+the open range. Then Collins halted and studied the next two trails that
+appeared side by side. One was a wolf track, and there were two toes
+missing from one hind foot. The smaller tracks were evenly spaced, and
+placed one before the other in a straight line after the manner of
+coyote and wolf, but ten feet beyond where Collins stood the trail
+showed the wavering gait of the dog with an occasional track out to
+either side. A sudden mist blurred Collins' eyes and he dashed it off
+with the back of his mitts.
+
+"It's Shady," he said. "Old Shady and that yellow Breed,--both still
+alive and way off up here." Collins threw back his head and sent forth
+the clear piercing whistle that he had used to summon Shady in the long
+ago. Three times the shrill blast, long and sustained, was sent far out
+across the snowy hills.
+
+Three miles to the north Shady lay curled up with Breed. She suddenly
+raised her head. Breed too opened his eyes and cocked one ear to listen.
+Shady was conscious of no actual sound. Some faint vibration reached her
+ears and seemed to play upon some chord deep within; the impressions
+were hazy and indistinct, yet she was aware of a vague sense of loss, a
+wave of something akin to homesickness, and she whimpered softly, then
+closed her eyes and slept.
+
+Collins heard more and more coyotes howl, and in the next two months he
+had brief glimpses of perhaps a dozen as they moved across some opening.
+At least half of these seemed larger than the coyotes he had known, and
+they had dark fur on their backs. The Coyote Prophet studied long over
+these strange things. The coyote voices roused an ache for the homely
+cabin in Sand Coulee Basin a thousand miles to the south; and each time
+one howled he said:
+
+"I'm going back. Once it comes spring I'll make tracks out of here. This
+here's no fit country for a white man, and me--I'm going back."
+
+But Collins did not go back with the opening up of spring. Rumors of a
+gold strike sent men stampeding toward the fabled spot, a long journey
+to the north and east. Three parties crossed over the old trail past
+Collins' shack. The old wolfer caught the fever and followed the last of
+them. Before he left he made one last prophecy.
+
+He predicted that the hill coyotes of the northwest from the Yukon to
+the Yellowstone would be larger and have dark fur on their backs from
+frequent infusions of wolf blood; that within a dozen years the fur
+markets would distinguish between these dark silky-furred ones and the
+woolly yellow coyotes of the plains. He scrawled this message on a
+wrinkled scrap of paper, signed it, tacked it on the wall, and started
+off down the trail.
+
+A month later a party of five men stopped overnight in the deserted
+cabin. One of them deciphered the queer scrawl.
+
+"Crazy," he announced. "Some old coot went off his nut from being holed
+up alone--and this is all he left."
+
+A tall lean man whose warped legs betrayed his sage-country origin
+leaned over and studied the signature.
+
+"Collins," he mused. "Now whoever would have figured to cut his trail up
+here? He maybe was crazy,--but anyway, I'll bet five hundred that scrap
+of paper will pan out just like it says."
+
+A hundred miles beyond the cabin Breed and Shady were educating their
+third litter of pups. The nature of the country had prevented the
+excavating of a proper den and Shady had taken possession of a windfall.
+Breed was vastly disgusted with this new land, heartily sick of being
+shut in by the interminable hills and of traveling through swampy
+jungles of tall brush, and he was glad when the pups were old enough to
+shift for themselves.
+
+He gathered the pack and started on, his course this time more east than
+north, and he covered better than twenty miles each day with a definite
+purpose of leaving behind him this country so thickly overlaid with
+brush that its effect upon him was almost a feeling of suffocation. He
+came out into the lower hills and crossed occasional open spots. Then,
+after ten days, he crossed through a rolling country and just at dusk
+came out on the shoulder of a hill; before him lay broad stretches of
+low plains, open meadows alternating with strips of heavy timber, the
+whole a wonderful park-like landscape swimming in the twilight. From
+nearby hills he heard the coyotes beginning to tune up, and each one was
+facing toward the plains, the first spot they had seen in three years
+which reminded them of home. Breed led the way and brought his band out
+into the first reaches of the Mackenzie Barrens that stretched back
+among the trees.
+
+Breed found no trap lines here, and there were no mad coyotes or poison
+baits. Another two days and the trees were left behind, open country
+stretching ahead as far as his eye could reach; the brush was stunted
+and reminded him of sage; there were clumps of dwarf spruce much like
+the twisted cedars of the badland brakes, and thickets of stunted
+willows such as those that sprouted from every side-hill spring in Sand
+Coulee Basin. It was like a homecoming after being exiled for three long
+years,--and Breed was content at last as he bedded on a knoll. The range
+was once more dotted with stock--only these were wild caribou--and old
+habits cropped out in Breed; he knew there were no men here, yet all
+through the short two-hour day he frequently raised his head and his
+eyes swept the range for signs of the devilish riders. When he left his
+bed he found fresh evidence that he was home, that Sand Coulee Basin
+could not be farther away than over the next tongue of high ground; for
+he had not traveled a mile before he smelled coyote blood and traced it
+upwind to find an old friend stiffened in death, and with her throat
+slit open,--the work of the silent assassin that had terrorized the
+foothills of Hardpan Spur.
+
+Breed's hatred of Flatear had been dulled with time. He had met hundreds
+of wolves since the fight in the notch, and at first he had sought for
+his enemy, but later this search had been manifested only by a careful
+investigation of each new wolf he met, a vague suspicion that the big
+gray might be an enemy; but this had become almost a mechanical process
+rather than a distinct impression of why he should expect to find an
+enemy among wolves.
+
+Animal memories are a mixture of impressions received through the senses
+of hearing, sight and smell, and after a considerable lapse of time it
+requires the coordination of all three of these senses to reconstruct
+the thought in its entirety. The sight of the slain coyote filled Breed
+with rage but lacking a definite object upon which to vent it. The scent
+around the spot further enraged him, and the picture of the great gray
+beast swam nebulously in his mind. A wolf howl sounded close at hand and
+stirred still another long-dormant pool of impressions; the whole
+crystallized into a distinct likeness of Flatear,--and Breed was off on
+the hunt for his ancient enemy.
+
+Flatear saw a great yellow wolf rushing down on him and he whirled and
+bared his teeth. The gray wolf weighed a hundred pounds, Breed slightly
+over ninety. They circled cautiously for an opening, hind parts tensed
+and drooping, ears laid flat and lips drawn back to expose the yellow
+tusks. Flatear sprang first and Breed met the open mouth with his own.
+The clash of teeth sounded far across the barrens and silent shapes
+changed their direction and moved toward the sound. Three times Breed
+took the force of the drive on his teeth and the jaws of both wolves
+dripped blood. A wolf came slipping up to watch, and two breeds of the
+yellow wolf's pack stationed themselves ten yards away. Three more
+wolves appeared; then Peg and Fluff came to the scene and Peg moved
+behind Flatear and crouched.
+
+Breed's snarl warned him off. The three-legged coyote was old and hoary,
+in his fifteenth year and with but a short span of life ahead; his teeth
+were rounded and worn down but his spirit was stout, and he longed to
+mix it with the wolf. His leader's order held him back, but he remained
+the nearest of the lot, watching every move of the combat as if
+appointed judge of it.
+
+Flatear rushed time and again, using his greater weight to batter down
+his antagonist's guard, but Breed gave back each time and Flatear's
+driving shoulder never reached its mark and his teeth were met with
+teeth. Breed was losing ground and Flatear pressed him hard. The yellow
+wolf seemed to have but one style of defense and no heart for attack.
+The fight was a mere procession of retreats before Flatear's heavy
+drives, and the gray wolf grew accustomed to this monotonous defense,
+and his attacks were unconsciously conformed to it, becoming equally
+mechanical, his one purpose to wear his enemy down by sheer strength and
+weight.
+
+And when Breed, instead of cringing away, struck at him with every ounce
+of his ninety pounds, Flatear was unprepared. He had started his spring
+and Breed's counter drive was aimed so low that his chest skimmed the
+ground. Flatear slashed savagely downward but the yellow wolf's head was
+well under him, and even as Flatear's teeth grazed Breed's shoulder his
+forward sweep was checked in mid-air as powerful jaws closed on a
+foreleg with a sickening crunch of bones. The opposing weights of both
+wolves pivoted on that one leg, and in addition to the fracture
+Flatear's whole side and shoulder were wrenched clear to his spine.
+
+There was an uneasy movement among the spectators, now numbering more
+than a score, wolves and coyotes for the first time in history mingling
+to witness the settling of a personal feud. Peg now sat down
+contentedly, his tongue lolling out in a satisfied grin.
+
+Breed's tactics changed and he wheeled round his disabled enemy with
+lightning feints; then his shoulder struck Flatear with a solid smash
+that crumpled him and he went down with Breed's teeth at his windpipe.
+His end was of the sort which he himself had handed to so many
+others,--and the new range was safe for coyotes.
+
+The silent spectators were startled by a faint whining sound. This
+whimpering grew louder and the wolves slunk away but the coyote pack
+remained. Breed's sudden hunt for Flatear had caught Shady unprepared,
+but she had finally cut his trail and was following it to the spot.
+
+For three months Breed saw no more of wolves, and when next he did see
+them the beasts were white. He had led the pack to the basin of the
+Copper River at the edge of the Arctic Circle. Their travels were over,
+and they now ranged a limited area of less than a hundred miles in
+extent. Except that no high hills flanked their new home, its features
+were much like the old. There were no longer any days and nights, but a
+seemingly endless period of varying degrees of twilight, and the rolling
+hills were deep with snow.
+
+Breed had met many new animals since leaving the land of the
+Yellowstone; he had known moose and goats in British Columbia, caribou
+on the barrens and the iron-gray sheep at the head of the Nelson. Now
+there were strange shaggy beasts with hair that hung nearly to the
+ground, and they came out of the north in small droves, the white wolves
+traveling on the flanks of the herds. He found musk ox easy prey and
+there was no lack of meat.
+
+A few days after the first of these appeared Breed and Shady topped a
+ridge and saw the one thing necessary to make the image of the old home
+complete. A light twinkled some half a mile away, as Breed and Shady had
+so often seen the lights of Collins' cabin. Shady whined as she looked
+at it and Breed raised his voice and howled. As if in answer to the howl
+a shrill whistle floated to them and Shady at once slipped from Breed's
+side and headed for the fire.
+
+Collins had turned back from the fabled gold fields, heartsick for the
+sight of his native foothills, disgusted with the Arctic night and a
+flat white world, and with two companions he had braved the terrors of a
+winter journey and headed into the south. They traveled light, supplies
+for three packed on a single sled, drawn by six dogs. Food had run low
+and for a week they had been forced to subsist on starvation rations;
+one more day and they would have killed a dog,--and then they crossed
+the trail of a musk ox herd. There was now food in plenty but Collins'
+mental exhaustion did not vanish with returning physical strength. He
+was obsessed with the idea that he would never see the sagebrush hills
+again and his companions could not rouse him.
+
+They fastened the dogs in a clump of dwarfed spruce and built a small
+fire on the downwind side of the trees.
+
+The old wolfer sat huddled in his furs before the fire, dreading to
+enter the little tent to crawl into his sleeping bag alone with his
+thoughts; for the white madness was driving its iron into his soul and
+striking at his reason. His mind coined queer white couplets; the white
+wolf pack and the white ice pack,--a whole world shrouded in white
+night.
+
+His companions had looked upon the white madness before; had seen men
+die from the deadly monotony of it all. It was conceivable that a book
+of bright pictures, anything with warm colors might penetrate the pall
+of white fog that clouded his brain and shatter the obsession,
+reinstating reason on its tottering throne. But there was only the
+howling of white wolves out across the white snow fields. Then a wolf
+howl sounded from close at hand.
+
+It seemed to pierce Collins' stupor and strike some memory filed long
+ago in his subconscious mind, and he suddenly straightened and glared at
+them.
+
+"I can pick him out from amongst a thousand wolves," he stated. "There's
+no wolf shiver to that howl. It's a yellow wolf! As yellow as gold, not
+a damned white hair on him anywheres! It's Breed, the yellow wolf of
+Sand Coulee Basin--there's color come into this white hell hole at
+last!"
+
+A shrill whistle pealed from his lips and his companions shook their
+heads. Then the wolf howled again and they stiffened with surprise as a
+score of wild voices answered. The sounds were new to them and the snowy
+waste was filled with bewilderingly different inflections that ripped
+back and forth through opposing waves of sound till it seemed that
+jeering cachinnations rose from a thousand fiends.
+
+They read the gleam in Collins' eyes and his disjointed utterances as a
+sign of hopeless madness,--but in reality it was returning sanity. A new
+warmth stole over him, and the certainty that he would win through.
+
+"Here they come," he said. "The little yellow devils! They've spread
+from the Arctic to the Neck, like I always knowed they would. There's
+music a white man can listen to--the music of the little yellow wolves."
+
+Then the two men sat silent and wondered if they themselves were mad.
+For the dogs were snarling and straining at their leashes in the scrub
+spruce, and a strange yellow she-wolf with a strip of dark fur along her
+back came creeping toward the fire. Her eyes regarded the two men
+suspiciously and one ear tipped toward the dogs beyond. She slipped up
+and rested her head on Collins' knee, enjoyed his friendly voice and
+rubbing fingers for a single minute, then vanished in the night as the
+yellow breed-wolf called his pack.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yellow Horde, by Hal G. Evarts
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Yellow Horde, by Hal G. Evarts.
+    </title>
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+              left: 95%;
+              font-size: small;
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+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yellow Horde, by Hal G. Evarts
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Yellow Horde
+
+Author: Hal G. Evarts
+
+Illustrator: Charles Livingston Bull
+
+Release Date: April 17, 2008 [EBook #25082]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YELLOW HORDE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sarah Thomson and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="note">
+Transcriber's Note: Variations in hyphenation are preserved.
+Specifically, "<a href="#homecoming">homecoming</a>" vs. "<a href="#home_coming">home-coming</a>"
+and "<a href="#timberline">timberline</a>" vs. "<a href="#timber_line">timber-line</a>".</div>
+
+<div class="link">
+   <a id="spine_th">&nbsp;</a>
+</div>
+<div class="center">
+   <a href="images/spine.jpg" >
+     <img src="images/spine_th.jpg"
+        alt="The Yellow Horde Spine" />
+ </a>
+
+   <a href="images/cover.jpg" >
+     <img src="images/cover_th.jpg"
+        alt="The Yellow Horde Cover" />
+   </a>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1>THE YELLOW HORDE</h1>
+
+<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
+
+<table class='TOC' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='TABLE OF CONTENTS'>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#THE_YELLOW_HORDE">THE YELLOW HORDE</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></td></tr>
+<tr align='center'><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+<div class="link">
+   <a id="front_th">&nbsp;</a>
+</div>
+<div class="center">
+   <a href="images/front.jpg" >
+     <img src="images/front_th.jpg"
+        alt="" />
+   </a>
+   <p class="caption">When dawn lifted the shadows from the low country, Breed was prowling along the first rim of the hills. <i>See <a href='#Page_6'>Page 6</a>.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><a name="THE_YELLOW_HORDE" id="THE_YELLOW_HORDE"></a>THE YELLOW HORDE</h1>
+
+<h2>BY<br />
+HAL G. EVARTS</h2>
+<h3>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY <br />
+CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL</h3>
+<h4>TORONTO<br />
+McCLELLAND AND STEWART<br />
+1921</h4>
+
+<p class='center'>
+<i>Copyright, 1921,</i>
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">By Hal G. Evarts.</span>
+<br /><br />
+<i>All rights reserved</i>
+<br />
+Published April, 1921
+<br /><br />
+Norwood Press
+<br />
+Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co.
+<br />
+Norwood, Mass., U. S. A.
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<table class='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS'>
+<tr><td align='left'>When dawn lifted the shadows from the low country, Breed was prowling along the first rim of the hills</td><td align='left'><a href='#front_th'><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The elk migration had begun</td><td align='right'><span class="smcap">page</span>&nbsp; &nbsp; <a href='#page_63_th'>63</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>As the summer advanced the pups learned to pack-hunt with Breed</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_167_th'>167</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Breed was compelled to hunt farther from home as the deer quit the valleys</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_191_th'>191</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span></p>
+<h1>THE YELLOW HORDE</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+
+<p>The wolfer lay in his cabin and listened to
+the first few night sounds of the foothills.
+The clear piping notes of migrating plover
+floated softly down to him, punctuated by
+the rasping cry of a nighthawk. A coyote
+raised his voice, a perfect tenor note that
+swept up to a wild soprano, then fell again in
+a whirl of howls which carried amazing shifts
+of inflection, tearing up and down the coyote
+scale. One after another added his voice to
+the chorus until it seemed that the swelling
+volume could be produced by no less than a
+full thousand musical prairie wolves scattered
+through the foothills for a score of miles.</p>
+
+<p>Wild music to the ears of most men, the
+song of flat wastes and deserts and limitless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span>
+horizons, freighted with a loneliness which
+is communicated to man in a positive ache
+for companionship,&mdash;and which carries a
+wealth of companionship in itself for those
+who have lived so long under the open skies
+that the song of the desert choir comes to
+them as a lullaby.</p>
+
+<p>It moved Collins, the wolfer, to quiet mirth.
+Always it affected him that way, this first
+clamorous outburst of the night. He read
+in it a note of deep-seated humor, the jeering
+laughter of the whole coyote tribe mocking
+the world of men who had sworn to exterminate
+their kind.</p>
+
+<p>"The little devils!" Collins chuckled.
+"The little yellow devils! Men can't wipe
+'em out. There'll be a million coyotes left
+to howl when the last man dies."</p>
+
+<p>From this oft-repeated prophecy Collins
+was known to every stockman in three States
+as the Coyote Prophet, the title a jeering one
+at first, then bestowed with increasing respect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span>
+as men saw many of his prophecies fulfilled.
+The coyote's larger cousin, the wolf, ranged the
+continent over while the coyote himself was
+strictly a prairie dweller. For twenty years
+Collins had predicted that wolves would disappear
+in settled districts while the coyote
+would survive; not only survive but increase
+his range to include the hills and spread over
+the continent from the Arctic to the Gulf.
+There were rumors of coyotes turning up in
+Indiana. Then came the tale that a strange
+breed of small yellow wolves had appeared
+in Michigan. Those sheepmen who summered
+their sheep in the high valleys of the
+western mountains complained that stray
+coyotes quit the flats and followed them
+into the hills to prey upon the flocks. The
+buffalo wolves that had once infested the
+range country were gone and it was seldom
+that any of the big gray killers turned up on
+the open range except when the pinch of cold
+and famine drove a few timber wolves down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span>
+from the north. Men saw these things and
+wondered if all of Collins' sweeping prophecies
+would come to pass. In the face of conditions
+that had placed a value on the coyote's pelt
+and a bounty on his scalp, there was no apparent
+decrease in the numbers of the yellow
+horde from year to year.</p>
+
+<p>Collins listened to the coyote clamor and
+knew that they had come to stay. The concert
+was suddenly hushed as a long-drawn
+wolf howl, faint from distance, drifted far
+out across the range. Collins turned in his
+blankets and peered through the window at
+the black bulk of the mountains to the north
+of him, towering clear and distinct in the
+brilliant moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>"If you come down out of those hills I'll
+stretch your pelt," the wolfer stated. "I'll
+pinch your toes in a number four."</p>
+
+<p>The wolf whose howl had occasioned this
+assertion was even then considering the
+possibilities of which Collins spoke. Men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span>
+called those of his kind breed-wolves, half
+coyote and half wolf. He stood on the high
+divide which was the roughly separating line
+between the haunts of the two tribes whose
+blood flowed in his veins,&mdash;all wolf except
+for the yellow fur that marked him for a breed.
+The coyote voices lifted to him and Breed read
+them as the call of kind; for although he had
+spent the past ten months with the wolf tribe
+of his father his first friendships had been
+formed among his mother's people on the open
+range. The acrid spice of the sage drifted
+to his nostrils and combined with the coyote
+voices to fill him with a homesick urge to
+revisit the land of his birth.</p>
+
+<p>But he would not go down. Breed knew
+well the dangers of the open range; the
+devilish riders who made life one long gamble
+for every wolf that appeared; he had gruesome
+recollections of the many coyotes he had
+seen in traps. But those things gave him
+small concern. It was still another menace&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span>
+poison baits put out by wolfers&mdash;which
+held him back. Not that he feared poison
+for himself, but coyotes writhing in convulsions
+and frothing at the mouth had always
+filled him with a terrible dread. It was an
+epidemic of this sort which had driven him
+to leave the sagebrush land of the coyotes for
+the heavily timbered country of the wolves.
+The memory of it lingered with him now.
+Would he find these stricken, demented
+creatures there?</p>
+
+<p>Breed moved down the south slope of the
+hills at last, the sage scent luring the coyote
+in him, but moved slowly and with many
+halts occasioned by the wolf suspicion which
+urged him to turn back. When dawn lifted
+the shadows from the low country, Breed was
+prowling along the first rim of the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Two dirt-roofed log cabins showed as toy
+houses, small from distance, and he could
+see the slender threads of smoke ascending
+from others, the houses themselves beyond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span>
+the scope of his vision. The range was taking
+on fall shades, the gray of the sage relieved
+by brown patches of open grasslands and
+splotches of color where early frosts had
+touched the birch and willow thickets that
+marked each side-hill spring. Tiny dark
+specks moved through it all. Meat! It had
+been long since Breed had tasted beef, and
+his red tongue lolled out and dripped in anticipation
+of the coming feast.</p>
+
+<p>But he would not go down until night.
+Twice during the early evening Breed howled,
+and Collins, down in the choppy country
+below, turned his glasses toward the spot to
+see what manner of wolf this was who howled
+in the broad light of day. The second time
+he located Breed. The yellow wolf stood on
+the rims half a mile above, looming almost
+life-size in the twelve-power lens. Collins
+noted the yellow fur.</p>
+
+<p>"A breed-wolf," he said. "The most cunning
+devil that ever made a track. He'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>
+never take on a feed of poison bait or plant
+his foot on a trap pan. He'll come down&mdash;and
+I'll ride him out on the first tracking
+snow."</p>
+
+<p>Just at dusk Breed howled again and
+dropped down to the broken country at the
+base of the hills, skirting the flats and holding
+to the roughest brakes, then swung out across
+the rolling foothills.</p>
+
+<p>The wind soon brought him the message
+that coyotes were just ahead and he traced
+the scent upwind, anxious for the first sight
+of his former running mates. Two coyotes
+scattered swiftly before his approach, each
+carrying his own piece of a jack rabbit which
+the pair had caught and torn apart. Breed
+did not follow but held steadily on in search
+of more. The urge for companionship was
+even stronger than hunger, and he sought to
+satisfy the stronger craving first. Twice
+more he veered into the wind, and both times
+the coyotes slipped away as he advanced.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span>
+He followed the line of one's retreat and the
+coyote whirled and fled like a yellow streak
+in the moonlight. Breed was puzzled by all
+this, but the craving for food had grown so
+strong as to crowd out all else, and he abandoned
+the hunt for friends to hunt for meat
+instead.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the center of a broad flat bench a
+mile across Breed made out a group of slowly
+moving specks which he knew for cows, and
+he headed toward them, taking advantage of
+the cover afforded by every clump of sage as
+he crept up to a yearling steer that lagged
+behind the rest. He had hunted heavy game
+animals with the wolves, animals with every
+sense alert to detect the approach of the big
+gray killers, and he fully expected the steer
+to break into full flight at the first warning
+of his presence. He had almost forgotten
+the stupidity of the cows on the open range
+and the ease with which he had torn them
+down when hunting them with his wolf father<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span>
+long before. He made his final rush and
+drove his teeth deep into one hind leg before
+his prey had even quickened his gait. The
+steer lurched into an awkward gallop and
+bawled with fright as the savage teeth cut
+through muscles and hide. Breed lunged
+for the same spot again; once more and the
+leg was useless, the hamstrings cut, and it
+sagged loosely with every step. He slashed
+at the other leg. Within a hundred yards of
+the start the steer pitched down, bracing his
+foreparts off the ground with his two front
+feet, and even as he fell the yellow wolf drove
+for his throat.</p>
+
+<p>Then Breed circled his kill, looking off in
+all directions to make sure that there was no
+route by which men might approach unseen.
+He stretched forth his head and cupped his
+lips as he sent his tribal call rolling across the
+range, the message that here was meat for all
+of his kind who would come and feed. A score
+of coyote voices answered from far and near.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Collins heard the dread cry and knew that
+the wolf had made a kill. He knew too that
+whenever the wolf note was heard, all other
+sounds were stilled as if every living creature
+expected to hear an answering cry and waited
+for it to come before resuming their own
+communications. The fact that the coyotes
+answered the cry assured Collins that it was
+the breed-wolf that had howled; that coyote
+ears had read a note of their own kind in the
+sound, a note which even his experienced ears
+could not detect.</p>
+
+<p>The yellow wolf tore at the warm meat and
+waited,&mdash;waited for his coyote kinsmen to
+join him at the feast. He howled again and
+they answered, reading invitation to coyote
+as well as to wolf in the sound, but they would
+not come in. An old dog coyote trotted up
+and down the crest of a slight rise of ground
+two hundred yards downwind. Another
+joined him, then a third, and in less than an
+hour there was a half score of coyotes circling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>
+the spot. Breed could see dim shapes moving
+across the open places and padding on silent
+feet over the cow trails that threaded the sage.
+Surely they would come in. The shadowy
+forms were restless, never still, and prowled
+round and round him, but they would not
+join him at the kill.</p>
+
+<p>Breed was mystified by this strange thing.
+Here was meat yet the meat-eaters would not
+come in and feed. Coyotes had fed with
+him long ago but shunned him now. Breed
+could not know that then he had been accepted
+as one of them, having grown to
+maturity among them and so become known
+to every coyote on his range; that they had
+forgotten him as an individual, as he had also
+forgotten them. If there were any old friends
+among those who circled round him now he
+did not know them as such, only as a
+companionable whole; and they knew him for
+a wolf,&mdash;a wolf at least in size and strength.
+There was a coyote note in his call but not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span>
+one of them would venture in to feed with the
+great yellow beast that was tearing the steer.</p>
+
+<p>At last a grizzled old dog coyote drew up to
+within ten yards. He had lived to the limit
+of all experiences which a coyote can pass
+through and still survive. He had even
+known the crushing grip of a double-spring
+trap, a Newhouse four. This misadventure
+had occurred in midwinter when the range
+was gripped by bitter frost. The cold had
+numbed the pain and congealed the flesh to
+solid ice. He had cut through the meat with
+his keen-pointed teeth, and one desperate
+wrench had snapped the frozen bone and freed
+him. There were many of his kind so maimed,
+and the wolfers, abbreviating the term peg-legs,
+called these three-footed ones "pegs."</p>
+
+<p>A second coyote joined Peg near the steer.
+He too had lived long and hard. He had
+been shot at many times and wounded twice.
+A shattered foreleg had healed with an ugly
+twist, the foot pointing inside and leaving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span>
+only the prints of two warped toe pads when
+it touched the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Peg and Cripp circled twice round the steer
+at a distance of thirty feet. They had known
+other breeds and had found that some would
+share their kills. Breed went out to greet
+them and they sidled away as he advanced,
+stopping when he stopped and turning to face
+him. Cripp allowed him to draw close, his
+teeth bared in warning against a too effusive
+greeting, while Peg drew swiftly in behind the
+wolf. The peg-leg coyote stretched forth
+his nose for one deep sniff, then sprang ten
+feet away as Breed whirled. Cripp drew
+up for a similar sniff as Breed faced Peg, then
+leaped away as Peg had done. Nature has
+endowed the members of each animal tribe
+with a different scent, and most animals
+identify enemies and friends with nose instead
+of eyes. That one deep inhalation had
+assured the two coyotes that there was a
+strain of their own scent mingled with that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>
+of the wolf. They grew bolder and stalked
+stiffly about him, appraising his qualities with
+eye and nose. When Breed returned to the
+feed they followed a few steps behind. At
+first they kept the body of the steer between
+them, then lost all restraint and accepted
+Breed as a brother coyote from whom they
+had nothing to fear.</p>
+
+<p>An hour before dawn Breed left the spot
+and traveled back to the edge of the hills
+where he bedded for the day. He was full
+fed and satisfied with life. It was not until
+night closed down about him that he was conscious
+of the single flaw in his content, the
+one thing lacking to complete it all. Breed
+loosed the hunting cry but there was no answering
+call. He tried again without success.
+When with the wolves he had longed for the
+smell of the sage, the scent that spoke of
+home to him, and the mocking voices of the
+coyotes. Now that he had all these he missed
+the muster cry of the pack, hungered to hear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>
+the aching wails coming from far across the
+timbered hills, penetrating to the farthest
+retreats of the antlered tribes and sounding
+a warning to all living things that the hunt-pack
+was about to take the meat trail. But
+he knew that coyotes did not hunt in packs;
+that they hunted singly or in pairs, killing
+more by stealth than strength; clever stalkers
+and the most intelligent team-workers and
+relayers in the world, but lacking the weight
+and driving force to tear down a steer,&mdash;calves
+their largest prey.</p>
+
+<p>Breed howled again and started on the
+hunt alone. Even then, though he did not
+know it, his pack was gathering to him. The
+two wise old coyotes who had fed with him
+the night before knew that wherever they
+found the big breed-wolf, there they would
+also find meat. They had started up at his
+first call and Peg was coming swiftly from the
+south, Cripp from the west. Breed had not
+traveled far before he was aware that other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>
+hunters were abroad and running with him,
+swinging wide on either flank. Here was his
+pack! At first he was not sure, but whenever
+he wheeled or veered from his course the two
+coyotes altered their routes to accord with
+his. He ran on for miles, thrilled with the
+knowledge that his queer pack followed loyally
+where he led, and when at last he singled out a
+steer the two veteran coyotes angled swiftly in
+and ran but a few yards on either side of him.</p>
+
+<p>Then Breed sounded the meat call,&mdash;and
+two jeering coyote voices launched into full
+cry and howled with him. And Collins, the
+Coyote Prophet, for the first time in all his
+experience heard wolf and coyote howl in
+unison over the same kill.</p>
+
+<p>Every night thereafter Breed's pack of
+two ran with him on the hunt and always
+there were the dim shapes circling the kill,
+padding restlessly through the sage as they
+waited for the yellow wolf to leave so they
+could swarm in and pick the bones.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At first Breed had retired to the edge of the
+hills to spend his days, but his habits were
+changed through long immunity until his
+days as well as nights were spent in the open
+country; but his caution was never relaxed
+and he bedded on the crest of some rise of
+ground which afforded a clear field of view for
+miles in all directions. He frequently saw
+some of the devilish riders and occasionally
+one drew uncomfortably near his retreat,
+but always veered away before discovering
+his presence. His days were untroubled
+except by the memories of poisoned coyotes
+which persisted in his mind. When he slept
+his dreams often reverted to these poisoned
+horrors, and their death rattles sounded in his
+ears and his feet twitched in imaginary flight
+as he sought to put distance between himself
+and these haunting demons. Breed knew that
+poison was some evil exercised by man, but
+its workings were shrouded in mystery.
+Traps he could understand,&mdash;and rifle shots;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span>
+for although this latter force was peculiar,
+yet there was sound. He understood only
+those things which to him were real and
+actual, things communicated through his
+physical senses. Poison seemed some sort
+of intangible magic, an evil spell wrought by
+man, and which transformed sound coyotes
+into diseased fiends in the space of seconds.</p>
+
+<p>Always he waked snarling from these
+dreams, and always he was vastly puzzled by
+the abrupt change from night death scenes
+to the daylight calm of the open range. For
+dreams too were beyond his comprehension.
+They were actual scenes and scents and sounds
+to him,&mdash;then vanished. It was only
+natural that his greatest waking terror should
+stalk through his dreams, two mysteries
+combined to haunt him. Also it was
+inevitable that these dreams should eventually
+link up with the personal equation.</p>
+
+<p>Breed slept one day on the crest of a knoll
+and suddenly it was night instead of noon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span>
+and Cripp and Peg were leaping about him
+in a frenzy, their frothing jaws snapping on
+the empty air in their madness. He faced
+them with bared fangs,&mdash;and it was noon
+once more, but the two old coyotes stood
+before him in reality, their own noses wrinkled
+in snarls which answered his menacing actions
+and warned him off. The same old baffling
+wave which flooded Breed after each of these
+recurring dreams engulfed him now. Peg and
+Cripp were as sane as himself, yet a moment
+past they had been stricken before his very
+eyes. It had been very real, and Breed
+started suddenly from the knoll and headed
+for the base of the hills five miles away, nor
+did he stop until he was far back among their
+sheltering ridges.</p>
+
+<p>With the coming of the night he felt the
+loss of the two old coyotes who had traveled
+with him for the past three weeks. They
+had been normal when he saw them last and
+as this latter impression was the stronger he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span>
+knew that he would find them untouched by
+madness; yet the vividness of the dream
+lingered with him and held him back from the
+low country. He howled once and started
+on a solitary hunt through the hills. The
+cry drifted faintly to the flats below and
+reached the ears of Cripp and Peg. They
+started instantly in the direction from which
+it came.</p>
+
+<p>The chain of hills in which Breed hunted
+was but an outcropping spur, extending thirty
+miles eastward at right angles from the main
+bulk of the hills, and he found no meat. The
+elk and deer were high up in the parent range
+and would stay there until heavy snows drove
+them down to winter in the valleys of the
+lower hills. Breed worked up the slope until
+he reached the crest of the divide. He
+prowled along the bald ridge, undecided
+which course to take, then whirled and faced
+back in the direction from which he had come.
+Five miles below him a coyote had raised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>
+his voice; another answered. By traveling
+steadily Cripp and Peg had covered much
+ground since Breed's first cry of the night had
+reached their ears and the two coyotes were
+ten miles within the first folds of the hills and
+still seeking the yellow wolf, the leader of the
+pack.</p>
+
+<p>Breed cupped his lips, his head stretched
+forth and his muzzle depressed to a line
+slightly below the peak of his shoulders as he
+sent forth the hunting cry to summon his
+loyal band. An hour later Cripp and Peg
+were with him, the three of them swinging
+west along the divide toward the rough mass
+of the main range of hills. Morning found
+them climbing through a matted jungle of
+close-growing spruce and down-timber.</p>
+
+<p>Breed chose a ridge that lifted above the
+trees and there curled up for the day in a clump
+of stunted sage. Coyotes hunt in the full
+glare of the noonday sun as readily as at night
+and Cripp and Peg slept a bare two hours<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>
+before starting once more on the hunt. They
+found small game less abundant in the high
+hills than in the flats and they scoured the
+surrounding timber without success, returning
+at last to bed down near Breed on the open
+ridge. Hunger drove Breed from his bed
+before the sun had set and he headed deeper
+into the hills, the two coyotes following, even
+though they had small liking for this country
+which seemed devoid of meat.</p>
+
+<p>The yellow wolf sampled the cross currents
+of air which drifted in from each branching
+gulch. He crossed the cold trail scent of
+several deer but was in no mood for following
+a long trail so passed them by. It was the
+actual warm body scent he sought. He
+stopped suddenly with uplifted nose. The
+shifting breezes had carried the deer scent
+to his nostrils,&mdash;one brief flash and it was
+gone. Breed tacked back and forth across
+the wind, caught it again and held it, following
+the ribbon of scent upwind as easily as a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>
+would follow a blazed trail through the timber.
+Two hundred yards from the start he sighted
+his prey, a fork-horn buck grazing slowly
+along under the trees. Breed turned his eyes
+to either side to determine the location of
+Cripp and Peg but they had suddenly vanished
+from sight.</p>
+
+<p>He crept toward the fork-horn, standing
+without the moving of a muscle whenever
+the young buck lifted his head, advancing
+swiftly when he dropped it again to feed.
+The wind held steadily from the deer to him
+and Breed drew up to within fifty feet. The
+buck lifted his head and looked off in all
+directions, not from present uneasiness but
+from his never-failing caution, then reached
+for another bite of grass, and even as the downward
+motion was started Breed launched
+forward in a silent rush.</p>
+
+<p>The fork-horn caught one backward slanting
+glimpse of him and fled just as the wolf's teeth
+clashed a bare inch short of his hamstring,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>
+and Breed was off in pursuit of an animal
+whose speed matched his own. This prey was
+no awkwardly galloping steer but a nimble
+beast that swept ahead in twenty-foot bounds,
+and after fifty yards Breed was still ten feet
+behind. Then a yellow streak darted over
+a windfall jam and Peg flashed at the buck.
+The deer turned almost at right angles in his
+fright, and as he turned Breed's teeth slashed
+his leg, but not deep enough to cripple, and
+the chase was on again. Another fifty yards
+and Cripp leaped from behind a spruce trunk
+and struck gamely for a leg hold. The flying
+speed of the buck jerked him clear of the
+ground, broke the hold of his teeth and threw
+him end over end. But he had retarded the
+deer for one half-second and the yellow wolf
+closed his jaws on a leg with all the force he
+could throw into the drive. Breed too was
+thrown, but the deer was turned again and
+running with less than half his former speed,
+one hind leg powerless. Peg was angling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span>
+across to turn him still another time but Breed
+overhauled him first and slashed at the other
+leg, and as the deer rolled downhill the three-legged
+coyote dodged the churning hoofs and
+fastened on his throat.</p>
+
+<p>Collins had journeyed far into the hills to
+replenish his supply of meat. It was scarcely
+dark under the trees when he heard the
+breed-wolf and two coyotes howl together,&mdash;thirty
+miles back in the heart of the hills!</p>
+
+<p>"There now!" he exclaimed. "I've been
+telling 'em right along that the coyotes would
+take to the hills some day. Those breed-wolves&mdash;they'll
+teach 'em to live in the hills."</p>
+
+<p>When Breed had eaten his fill from the
+deer he headed back for the low country.
+The effect of the mad dream was waning
+before the fact that Peg and Cripp were with
+him in reality, sane and normal in every way.
+The three of them were sluggish and heavy
+with meat and they traveled slowly with
+frequent halts for sleep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The following night Breed's howl sounded
+again in the foothills and a score of coyotes
+answered him from far and near. The coyote
+tribe had learned that when the yellow wolf
+prowled the range there would be fresh beef
+for all. Each night the number of shadowy
+forms that padded through the sage round
+his kills increased, waiting until the wolf
+should leave and they could close in and finish
+it to the last mouthful. They grew bolder
+from the fact that two of their own kind fed
+with Breed, and on the first night after his
+return from the hills three others found
+courage to come in and feed upon his kill
+before he left it. Within a week he was
+accepted unreservedly as a member of the
+coyote clan.</p>
+
+<p>Each succeeding evening Breed found more
+and more coyotes gathering swiftly toward
+him at the first hunting cry of the night,
+spreading out over a quarter-mile front and
+running with him on the chase, knowing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span>
+there would be meat in plenty at the end of
+the run.</p>
+
+<p>Collins noted a curious change in the coyote
+signs in his immediate neighborhood. He
+still found their tracks singly or in pairs,
+where they wandered in all directions through
+the sage in their hunts for jacks, or padded
+thick round some spot where they had killed
+a calf, but he soon discovered that whenever
+he found a track which the breed-wolf had
+left the night before he had only to swing out
+to the right or left to find the trails of many
+coyotes pointing in the same direction,&mdash;a
+general movement of coyotes over a wide
+front. Collins had heard many tales of late
+which accorded with a prophecy he had made
+long ago; for three hundred miles north and
+south men who rode back into the mountains
+reported seeing coyotes far back in the very
+heart of them and of hearing their howls from
+among the highest peaks. His prediction
+that coyotes would take to the hills and feel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span>
+as much at home high above <a name="timberline" id="timberline">timberline</a> as in
+the flats had come to pass.</p>
+
+<p>Collins studied long over the many coyote
+trails which always paralleled the tracks of
+the yellow wolf and made still another
+prophecy,&mdash;that breed-wolves would teach
+the coyotes to hunt in packs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+
+<p>No man who has lived long in the open and
+observed the ways of animals and birds doubts
+that each tribe has a language of its own,&mdash;the
+vocabulary of cadence and inflection.
+A man may watch a marsh teeming with
+waterfowl, their contented chuckles filling
+his ears; then every wing will lift at once,
+every bird roused to sudden flight by the
+change of a single note so faint that it makes
+no impression on the ear of the watching man,
+yet sufficient to warn the birds as surely as
+a gunshot. A widely scattered bunch of
+range cows will graze placidly for hours, and
+suddenly every head will be raised and every
+cow gaze off in the same direction.</p>
+
+<p>Coyotes catch all finely shaded inflections
+and interpret them as unerringly as a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>
+notes the difference between a bawling cow
+and a blatting sheep. Mate communicates
+with mate through all the coyote refrains of
+the night; half-grown coyotes answer their
+mother's voice but are silent when another
+calls. All that wild outburst in which men
+read only an uproar of meaningless savagery
+is in reality the intelligent conversation of the
+coyote nation.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's range covered fifty miles each way
+and there were some two hundred coyotes
+who used the same strip or whose range overlapped
+his own, and of these there were but
+few who had not at one time or another
+profited by some of his kills. Breed knew
+the voice of every coyote in the little band
+that made up his pack. Even when their
+notes reached him faintly through a maze
+of other howls his ears identified their voices
+as certainly as the eyes of man pick out the
+faces of his friends among a crowd. Those
+coyotes in whom dog ancestry was less than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span>
+four generations removed betrayed that fact
+to him when they howled.</p>
+
+<p>There are those who believe that the
+shepherds and police dogs sprang originally
+from the jackal. In any event, there are
+more dogs that revert to the wild bunch from
+these wolfish types than from all other kinds
+combined. The gulf between shepherd and
+coyote is not wide, and except when raiding
+coyotes and stock-guarding dogs meet in
+a clash of interests they are more apt to mate
+than to fight.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole of Breed's range
+there was but one note which puzzled him,&mdash;and
+it was not the ancestry but the present
+habits of the one who made the sound that
+baffled him. The parental mixture was
+plainly evidenced in the voice. It was the
+cry of a she-wolf, a half-blood coyote and
+dog, and Breed heard her howl night after
+night yet could not locate her. He would
+answer her cry and announce that he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span>
+coming, but always she evaded him. When
+he picked up her trail and followed it persistently,
+it invariably led him toward an
+isolated cabin. The wolf in him held him
+back from too close an approach to the homes
+of men. When he stopped she called again
+from up near the twinkling windows of the
+house. There was a lonesome note in her cry,
+and it was furtive, carrying both fear and
+invitation in its tones as if the she-wolf felt
+herself an outcast and both longed and dreaded
+to break down the bars between her wild
+relatives and herself.</p>
+
+<p>And she was an outcast, without doubt.
+Collins had trailed her mother, a renegade
+shepherd, to the den. He had turned in the
+rest of the pups for bounty, keeping her for
+a pet. She was slightly heavier than a coyote
+and the fur of her back was dark, the badge
+of shepherd parentage. The yellow underfur
+showed through the black guard hairs of her
+back-strip when the wind ruffled it, the black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span>
+shading to yellow on flanks and sides, and
+from this Collins called her Shady.</p>
+
+<p>Shady's relations with men and beasts were
+unsatisfactory in the extreme. Stockmen
+hate the coyote with an intensity that they
+show toward no other animal, and with good
+reason, for the coyote meets them on a more
+equal footing than other beasts, his strategy
+outrivaling that of men. He repays their
+cruelties against his kind by killing their
+sheep and calves in broad daylight and executing
+a well-covered retreat before the owners
+can exact the penalty, then returning at night
+to raise his jeering laughter almost under the
+windows of his enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Collins had no stock, his business being that
+of killing coyotes, and he found far more to
+admire than to despise in the qualities of his
+prey and so did not accord coyotes the undying
+hatred shown them by other men. In
+his gruff way he was kind to Shady. Those
+who came to his cabin were mainly stockmen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
+and they hated Shady cordially. That she
+sprang from a renegade sheep dog, a traitor
+to her kind, was even more condemnatory in
+their eyes than the coyote part of her.</p>
+
+<p>The coyotes, less averse to the proximity
+of man, had investigated Shady's case by
+drawing nearer to the cabin than Breed would
+go and so were no longer curious about her.
+Breed was almost two years old yet he knew
+nothing of dogs. His mother had ranged
+a limited strip of country in which only two
+men made their homes and neither had owned
+dogs. When north with the wolves he had
+met none of his domestic cousins except those
+renegades or breeds that were of the wild. He
+had crossed the trails of others at rare intervals.
+Therefore he did not know dogs as
+allies of men and so enemies to himself;
+rather Shady seemed some extra-shy wolf
+creature yet with sufficient courage to range
+in close to men. She seemed a daring adventurer
+to Breed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was partly this curiosity which piqued
+his interest in her. Then too he recognized
+in her a freak type,&mdash;as he himself was a
+freak. Each stood for the first generation
+of a new breed, the equally divided parental
+strains not yet dulled and blended by further
+crosses, and so each of them recognized something
+outstanding and unusual in the other.</p>
+
+<p>At first their knowledge was confined to
+what each learned of the other by ear alone,
+unaided by the testimony of other senses.
+Breed never once caught sight of her, and the
+trail scent which she left behind told him
+little except that she was half coyote and half
+dog, as he already knew.</p>
+
+<p>For a month he answered her howls, his
+curiosity unassuaged. And as Breed puzzled
+over Shady's voice, so Collins puzzled over
+Breed's. Collins had heard him howl more
+than a hundred times and knew that there
+was some slight difference between his voice
+and the pure wolf note. He had made a close<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span>
+study of animal sounds and knew them well.
+He knew Shady's voice from that of other
+coyotes. Her variations were less sharply
+defined; more sustained than the bewildering
+staccato of the coyote and with a slightly
+coarser tone. Collins knew that he should
+be able to detect that peculiarity in Breed's
+howl,&mdash;a difference which he felt was there
+but could not place. There were times when
+the solution rose to the very surface of his mind
+and struggled for interpretation into readable
+thought, but always it eluded him in the end.</p>
+
+<p>Shady came to listen for Breed's voice
+among the multitude of other sounds, and
+in some small measure she felt acquainted
+with the yellow wolf. She missed his voice
+on those nights when he hunted in some far
+corner of his range and the familiar cry failed
+to reach her.</p>
+
+<p>This sense of familiarity led her at last to
+wait for a sight of him. Breed traveled one
+night toward the howl which always had the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>
+power to draw him, and he suddenly saw
+Shady fifty yards ahead. She would permit
+of no nearer approach, fleeing before him as
+he came on, stopping when Breed stopped,
+but always keeping that fifty-yard gap between.
+Every night for a week Breed strove
+to narrow the breach, but without success;
+but Shady's doubts were wearing down before
+his constant advances and she found no
+menace in his actions. She eventually
+allowed Breed to draw near and they viewed
+one another at a distance of ten yards. Their
+course through the sage was a series of eccentric
+loops as each circled repeatedly downwind
+to catch the other's scent.</p>
+
+<p>Then their relations were reversed, Breed
+the retiring one, Shady the aggressive. There
+was the scent of the stables, a horsy smell
+that clung to Shady and which Breed could
+not understand. There seemed too some
+vague taint of man about her which held him
+back. Shady grew bolder in the face of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>
+timidity, and Breed's new-found suspicion
+eventually waned before her friendly insistence.
+Their friendship once established
+they romped together night after night.</p>
+
+<p>Shady was puzzled over the fact that this
+new playmate invariably left her early in the
+night. These meetings took place before
+Breed raised his voice to summon the coyote
+pack for the nightly hunt. He would break
+off in the middle of a race and send out the
+call, then leave the wondering Shady to her
+own devices for the rest of the night.</p>
+
+<p>His curiosity satisfied, Breed answered her
+invitations less often and she saw him only at
+infrequent intervals; and there was a reason
+for this flagging interest. Wolves and coyotes
+mate for life, or till one or the other of a pair
+falls victim to the wiles of man. When once a
+pair is broken the survivor will not take unto
+himself another mate till the next running
+time of wolves. There were pairs of coyotes
+running together in Breed's pack; there were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span>
+also single she-coyotes and single dogs, but
+while the mated ones were as devoted as ever
+before, these single ones had only a general
+interest in the others, their attitude uninfluenced
+by the lure of sex. And Shady,
+hampered by her relations with man and so
+unable to follow Breed's leadership at will,
+exercised less influence over him than either
+Peg or Cripp.</p>
+
+<p>Breed killed abundantly, the coyotes picking
+the last morsel of each victim before dawn.
+Often he killed twice in one night. Word had
+spread that a breed-wolf had turned up on the
+range and was running with the coyotes.
+Private rewards were added to the State
+bounty till a total of two hundred dollars
+was posted as the price on his scalp. Every
+rider kept a sharp lookout for the breed; yet
+so great was his caution that except for that
+first day of his return, when Collins had seen
+him on the rims, no man had set eyes on the
+yellow wolf.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Breed's watchfulness for traps and poison
+baits had waned from the fact that he found
+none of either on the range, and he now gave
+them scarce a thought. On the other hand
+his caution to avoid horsemen was quickened
+from seeing many of them and his vigilance
+in that particular was never relaxed. He
+chose his beds with care and he slept so lightly
+that the least sound penetrated his consciousness
+and carried its message to his brain.
+The shrill cachinnations of a prairie dog,
+the shriek of a burrowing owl or the bawling
+of a range cow; any of these usual sounds of
+the open failed to rouse him; but invariably
+he knew when a man was dangerously near.
+If the menace was upwind and within reasonable
+distance, his nose detected it. At times
+the creak of saddle leather reached his ears
+or the sound of the horse's hoofs warned him.</p>
+
+<p>This hoof reading was a curious thing.
+Breed could not tell why he knew when a
+horse was ridden, but invariably he did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span>
+If walking, the feet of an iron-shod horse
+struck pebbles and rocks with a metallic
+sound and Breed was suspicious of all horses
+that wore shoes; but usually a rider traveled
+at a steady trail trot. It was not the way
+of loose horses to strike a steady, regular
+gait and hold it, and the even vibrations of
+a shuffling trail trot beat through all other
+sounds and warned him that a horseman was
+near.</p>
+
+<p>Men grossly underestimate the keen
+physical senses of the animal world, being
+loath to credit them with finer sense perceptions
+than those possessed by man, dulled
+by countless centuries of disuse. A coyote
+can scent the tracks left by a bird long hours
+past; the smell of fresh blood is hot in his
+nostril a full half-mile downwind while the
+nose of man could scarce detect it at a distance
+of two feet. His ears, attuned to
+receive the delicately shaded tone inflections
+of coyote converse, catch vibrations of sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>
+far too fine to make the least impression on
+the ears of man. And it is through these
+sense impressions that animals are warned
+at distances which men believe impossible
+without the aid of some subtle intuition or
+sixth sense. They speak of these things as
+animal instinct and let it go at that.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to this Breed had many other
+ways of protection at his command; he
+usually knew of the approach of man long
+before the direct message reached him over
+the paths of his own physical senses,&mdash;this
+from his vast knowledge of the ways of
+animals and birds and his ready understanding
+of their widespread systems of communications.
+Their actions frequently put
+him on guard before his own senses apprised
+him of the actuality of the danger.</p>
+
+<p>These things, coupled with his own habits
+and backed by coyote intelligence, made
+Breed an animal most difficult to stalk.</p>
+
+<p>Collins knew the wolf habit of bedding on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span>
+a rise of ground. He knew too that the dog
+who turns round and round before lying down
+is not merely chasing his tail but instead is
+exhibiting a relic of his wild ancestors' way
+of rising frequently from his bed and turning
+to look off in all directions before resuming it.
+Day after day Collins swept the range with
+powerful glasses and through his knowledge
+and persistence he located Breed at last.</p>
+
+<p>Breed lay on the crest of a knoll. Peg and
+Cripp were hunting in the shallow basin
+below him and he watched with keen interest
+the diabolical cunning of his two chief
+followers. Peg ranged in the open while
+Cripp paralleled his course, moving along
+just behind the wave of a low ridge. A long-eared
+jack rabbit bounced from his bed in
+front of Peg and fled swiftly for a hundred
+yards, then halted to look back as he discovered
+that he was not pursued. He reared
+on his haunches, forefeet clear of the ground,
+as he watched the coyote who had veered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>
+away from him and was now questing aimlessly
+through the stunted sage. Peg turned
+toward him again and the jack bounced away
+toward the ridge, stopping again as Peg swung
+away. From his point of vantage Breed could
+see the cunning Cripp keeping even with the
+jack, following closely its every move and
+peering at it through the scattered sage that
+topped the ridge. Peg, apparently unconscious
+that there was meat in sight,
+rambled in erratic tacks that crowded the
+rabbit toward the ridge. Breed saw a crouching
+shape slip behind a sage within ten feet
+of the jack, whose eyes were occupied with
+Peg. There was a flash of yellow as Cripp
+struck him and the dying squall of the big
+hare floated to Breed's ears. He rose from his
+bed in excitement, then paused to sweep the
+country with his gaze before resuming his nap.</p>
+
+<p>Collins had seen! From the point of a
+commanding ridge five miles away he had
+centered his binoculars on the yellow wolf.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>
+The wolfer's horse grazed in the bottom of
+a gulch, his reins trailing loose, and Collins
+moved swiftly down to him and swung to the
+saddle. He had covered less than two hundred
+yards before Breed, five miles away,
+knew that a man rode toward him!</p>
+
+<p>The pronghorn antelope has a most peculiar
+signal system of his own. He is furnished
+with a white patch on his rump, the hair
+long and stiff, and when alarmed, instead of
+bristling his neck roach as do other animals,
+the antelope bristles this white rump patch.
+The sun strikes light from the glistening hair
+and every antelope within view follows suit; the
+warning is flashed from band to band till every
+antelope throughout an area of many miles
+knows that some man is abroad on the plains.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever a band of antelopes sported
+within view of Breed his eyes flickered open
+for frequent glimpses of them. Ten minutes
+after the two coyotes had killed the jack
+Breed opened his eyes for a view of a pronghorn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>
+buck that had taken his stand on a low
+ridge half a mile away. Breed caught the
+danger signal and was instantly alert. For
+as far as his eye could reach he could see the
+glistening points of light which he knew for
+antelope flashes. The whole antelope tribe
+was facing toward the danger and so pointed
+out its direction for Breed. It is this sort
+of signaling which men will not understand,
+preferring instead to credit an animal, warned
+at a distance of many miles, with some
+mysterious occult knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>A band of antelope joined the buck on the
+ridge and fled with him toward Breed, stopped
+to look back, stamping their feet excitedly,
+then swept on past as a rider topped the ridge
+they had just left.</p>
+
+<p>Breed flattened in his nest, resting his head
+between his paws. It was not his way to rush
+off in panicky flight across the open at the first
+glimpse of man, but rather the coyote way
+of remaining motionless till the enemy had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>
+passed, or slipping away unseen if he came too
+close. The horseman came on at an angle
+that would take him three hundred yards
+to one side, then altered his course and angled
+the other way. He stopped to look over
+a bunch of cows, shifted again to view another
+bunch and circled round it; came on again
+but turned to head a stray steer back toward
+the rest. Collins was using the same tactics
+in approaching Breed that the two coyotes
+had so recently used to stalk the jack. He
+seemed about to pass two hundred yards
+away but lifted his horse into a keen run and
+whirled him straight for the point of the knoll,
+then shifted his course again to round the
+shoulder of the little hill instead of over its
+crest, knowing that Breed was running at
+top speed down the opposite slope. He
+pulled the horse back on his haunches and
+flung from the saddle with the first glimpse
+of the fleeing wolf.</p>
+
+<p>Breed did not stop to look back as most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span>
+other animals would have done but ran with
+every ounce of his speed. He flinched away
+from the sharp crack near his head as a rifle
+ball passed him and the crash of the report
+reached his ears. The next shot struck close
+behind and the biting gravel stung him as the
+ricochet hissed past within an inch of him.
+He held straight ahead but resorted to the
+coyote ruse of flipping from side to side in
+sharp tacks, his tail snapping jerkily outward
+to balance him on the turns. Bullets ripped
+through the sage about him as Collins emptied
+his gun. Then he was safe on the far side of
+a swell and Collins was grinning ruefully at
+a wolfless landscape.</p>
+
+<p>"Coyote stuff!" he said. "A man might
+as well gun up the corkscrew flight of a jacksnipe
+as to pour lead through the gaps in
+a side-steppin' freak like that. But you,
+Breed,&mdash;you better keep your eye on me.
+The Coyote Prophet is out for your scalp&mdash;so
+walk soft, old boy,&mdash;walk soft."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Breed struck a swift, gliding trot and held
+it clear to the base of the hills, stopping only
+when far up the first slope of them to sweep
+the low country for sight of his enemy. That
+night when he raised his howl it reached the
+ears of perhaps a hundred coyotes far out
+across the flats and immediately thereafter
+there was a strange movement in the coyote
+tribe. The majority of them rambled in all
+directions on personal business or pleasures
+of their own but through it all, strung out
+over a five-mile front, more than a dozen
+coyotes were running swiftly toward the hills.
+They were not to be turned aside but held
+their course, gathering to the wolf who had
+led them to many a kill,&mdash;willing to follow
+wherever he should lead. An hour later,
+when Breed raised his voice from the divide,
+a wave of coyote answers rose in unison and
+when he headed toward the parent range
+there were fourteen coyotes traveling with
+him through the hills. They moved together,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span>
+but not as man understands that term, for
+they did not travel closely grouped. Some
+were half a mile to either side and some far
+behind, and there were gaps of several hundred
+yards in the line. Their trails sometimes
+shifted and crossed, but noses and ears kept
+them well informed as to the locality and
+actions of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>They entered the rough mass of the main
+range and pushed on, traveling in this loose
+formation. Toward morning Breed stopped
+and listened to a far-off sound which reached
+him. Every coyote in the pack had also
+stopped to listen, their red tongues circling
+hungrily along their lips as they caught the
+significance of the sound.</p>
+
+<p>There were no sheep on Breed's immediate
+range. Trouble between the cowmen and
+those who grazed sheep had been temporarily
+adjusted by apportioning the range. Sheep
+now grazed far to the south but the cowmen
+allowed the privilege of pastoral transportation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>
+across the cattle strip twice a year
+for those who summered their sheep in the
+hills. The snows were late in falling and the
+flocks had been held correspondingly late high
+in the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Breed had known sheep in the past,&mdash;and
+this was the sound of sheep. Two herders
+had combined their bands to work them down
+to the low country and the camp tender stayed
+to help them with the crossing. Breed
+listened long to the droning undertone, the
+maddening blat of five thousand woollies
+on the bed ground, its querulous volume persisting
+through the sound of water and wind
+and drifting to him across a distance of five
+miles. Then he stretched forth his head and
+issued his hunting cry.</p>
+
+<p>The savage peal ripped through the plaintive
+chant of the sheep as the prow of a canoe
+cuts sluggish water, and traveling against
+the current of sound it reached the ears of
+the camp tender who rolled over in his blankets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span>
+and cursed. There was a half-minute cessation
+of the baa and blat, and before it
+was resumed the tender had prodded the two
+herders into wakefulness.</p>
+
+<p>"Better sleep with one eye open," he
+advised. "There's a wolf in the hills. Just
+crossing through, mebbe&mdash;but anyhow you
+better stay awake to hold the sheep while
+I fire a shot to scare him off if he comes too
+close. He'll put 'em off the bed ground and
+scatter 'em if he slips past the dogs."</p>
+
+<p>The cry sounded again, this time less than
+a mile away, and a clamor of coyote howls
+rose with it.</p>
+
+<p>"Coyotes!" the tender exclaimed.
+"Night shooting won't scare those cunning
+devils off,&mdash;they know a man can't see at
+night. It sounds like they was running in a
+pack, and enough of 'em to make a noise like
+as if the whole damn coyote nation had took
+to the hills. Wonder how come they're
+pranking round with a wolf? They'll likely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span>
+only hang along to cut out some strays&mdash;but
+if they do come in close in a mob like that,
+it's good night, sheep! Them shaller-brained
+woollies will take to the peaks."</p>
+
+<p>The sheep had risen from their beds and
+were huddled close. The tender and herders
+stood with drawn guns and the three dogs
+bristled savagely and turned their gaze toward
+the timbered slope that rose on one side of
+the open side-hill bench that served as a bed
+ground. There was a movement among the
+sheep; the fleecy mass buckled and surged
+as those on the outer edge turned and sought
+safety by plowing toward the close-packed
+center. The three men stationed themselves
+in a triangle three hundred yards apart,
+hoping to steady the sheep and hold them.
+The dogs circled swiftly round the milling
+horde, driving merciless teeth into every panic-stricken
+sheep who sought to quit the flock.
+The whole mass suddenly crowded off to one
+side and all three dogs sped round to hold them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One herder saw a flitting streak leave the
+timber edge and glide toward the sheep;
+another; there was no moon and he could
+not be sure. His gun barked twice as a dozen
+shadowy forms crossed the open, strung out
+for two hundred yards. Then hell broke
+loose on the bed ground.</p>
+
+<p>The fear-crazed horde streamed past the
+other herder and the tender. They shouted
+and struck out with heavy staffs, trying to
+stem the tide and turn it back. The resistless
+sea of fleece surged on and was swallowed
+in the gloom of the heavy timber down the
+slope. And in the center of it all Breed and
+the coyote pack were working.</p>
+
+<p>They ripped through the mob and split
+it; drove through again. The sheep split
+into a hundred small detachments and
+blundered on under the trees. The men
+stumbled through the down-timber windfalls
+and their shouts and the frantic barking of
+the dogs rose above the clamor of the sheep,&mdash;but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span>
+there was not a sound from the yellow
+killers who had started the stampede. Every
+coyote knew the location of the men and
+each one singled out a stray band for his own
+and swept ahead with it. The dogs worked
+like fiends but the marauders were in too great
+force for them. Whenever a dog bore down
+upon a coyote the raider fled straight away
+from the sheep and their blats recalled the
+dog to duty. The mad wave rolled down the
+slope and up the next.</p>
+
+<p>The first light of dawn revealed each of the
+three dogs holding a large band of sheep.
+The two herders and the camp tender had
+each rounded up a smaller bunch. They
+worked their separate ways back toward the
+bed ground, gathering strays along the way.
+The camp tender held them in the open while
+the two herders and the dogs combed the
+surrounding hills for stragglers; and as they
+worked they cursed the coyote and his ways.
+It was no unusual thing in their experience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>
+for a few coyotes to fly at a bunch of sheep
+and scatter them, cutting out a few that
+straggled away from the protection of men
+and dogs, but this savage attack in pack
+formation and the harrying of five thousand
+head of sheep far through the hills was new
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>All through the morning they rounded
+stragglers toward the flock and shortly after
+noon they headed the tired sheep down
+toward the foothills, fearing a repetition of
+the stampede. Just at dusk they milled the
+sheep and bedded them on a ridge in the low
+country, a mile from the base of the timbered
+hills.</p>
+
+<p>The camp tender looked them over with
+practiced eye and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no chance to make a count
+now," he said. "But when we do make one
+it's dollars to dimes that we'll tally out two
+hundred short."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+
+<p>Collins had waited till the fur was prime
+and the flesh side of the coyote pelt showed
+flint white before throwing out his trap line.
+He made the first set three hundred yards
+from the cabin, choosing the spot with care,
+for he knew that the last place a coyote would
+enter was the one where guiding clumps of
+sage formed an inviting lane across the traps.
+He selected an open spot instead and dismounted
+on a sheep pelt spread flat upon
+the ground; with a hand-axe he hewed out
+a triangular trap bed a foot across by three
+inches deep, placing every shred of fresh
+earth removed from it in a canvas sack; then
+he fitted a heavy Newhouse four in place with
+both springs bent far to the rear and drove
+a slender steel pin out of sight through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>
+swivel ring of the chain. He smoothed a
+piece of canvas under the jaws and over the
+pan and poured the soft earth over it all,
+filling it level with the surface and tamping
+it firmly with his fingers except that within
+the six-inch circle of the jaws. From a
+second sack he sifted dust over the spot till
+it matched the surrounding flat, remounted
+and leaned from the saddle to recover the
+sheep pelt on which he had knelt and used
+it as a fan to whip the dust of the flat into
+curling eddies which settled back so uniformly
+as to defy the eyes of any man to detect the
+location of the trap. The surplus earth removed
+from the hole he carried away to be
+emptied far from the spot. For Collins
+knew the qualities of his prey and a good
+wolfer leaves no sign. He had used no
+foolish scent to disguise his own, knowing
+that the heat of day and the frost of night
+would diffuse his scent and obliterate all trace
+of it, the same as an animal's trail grows cold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span>
+in time, while any foreign odor lingering
+longer than his own would only serve as a
+guide for the cunning prey he sought.</p>
+
+<p>The wisdom of the fox has furnished theme
+for song and legend, and only those who have
+followed the trap line for both fox and coyote
+know that Reynard's vaunted brain is but
+a dry sponge when compared to the knowledge-soaked
+brain of the prairie wolf. It is
+the way of the coyote to live near man,
+confident that his own cunning will offset
+that of his arch enemy and lead him unscathed
+through all the contrivances men
+may employ for his destruction. Collins
+knew that the fox was only trap-shy while
+the coyote was&mdash;vast difference between the
+two&mdash;trap-wise; that he would go to a bait,
+knowing the traps were there, and risk his
+life in an effort to uncover them and so leave
+evidence behind that he was keener than his
+foe.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a week Collins had thrown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span>
+out three pear-shaped loops of traps, each
+line with a length of twenty miles, the whole
+a clover-leaf effect with his cabin as the base.
+He had used no bait until his scent should have
+been blotted out round his traps, not from
+fear that coyotes would not approach the bait
+while his scent was fresh but from certain
+knowledge that they would approach too
+soon, locate his traps and uncover them.
+When the third trap circle was complete he
+started back over the first and baited the
+sets, then commenced the steady routine
+of riding one string each day and thus covering
+his entire line in three days.</p>
+
+<p>Shady frequently accompanied Collins on
+these trips and when he made a trap set she
+sat down some distance away and watched
+him with full understanding of what he was
+about; for Shady's past experience with
+traps had been large. She had seen Collins
+take many a coyote from his traps. Twice
+she had slipped away to steal the bait from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span>
+some set near the cabin and both times had
+felt the sudden deadly clutch of steel jaws
+on her foot, remaining in their grip till Collins
+had released her. She had seen coyotes dead
+and bloated from eating poison baits,&mdash;and
+meat was now a danger signal to Shady, not
+a lure. She would touch no food except that
+which she obtained at the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>The trap line had yielded many coyote
+pelts while Breed was still in the hills and he
+knew nothing of the widespread mortality
+among the coyotes in his absence or the dangers
+which lurked in wait for him on his return.</p>
+
+<p>There were two hundred sheep scattered
+for miles through the hills and Breed and the
+coyote pack found easy killing. Winter had
+claimed the lofty peaks, while but little snow
+had fallen below timber line.</p>
+
+<p>Breed sensed the coming storm. The
+movements of the elk herds told him it would
+be a heavy one. It was nearing the end of
+the elk rutting moon but the bulls were still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>
+bugling. Breed heard the clear bugle note
+of an old herd bull, the piercing sound reaching
+him from many miles back among the
+snowy peaks. It was closely followed by
+others. The elk migration had begun; the
+herds were evacuating the lofty basins of
+their summer range and boiling out through
+the high passes of the peaks before the snowfall
+of the coming storm should block them
+in,&mdash;coming down to winter in the lower
+valleys of the hills.</p>
+
+<div class="link">
+   <a id="page_63_th">&nbsp;</a>
+</div>
+<div class="center">
+   <a href="images/page_63.jpg" >
+     <img src="images/page_63_th.jpg"
+        alt="" />
+   </a>
+   <p class="caption">The elk migration had begun. <i><a href='#Page_63'>Page 63</a>.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The certainty with which animals gauge
+a coming storm is cited as proof of that
+mysterious instinct with which men credit
+them; yet this information may reach them
+through known laws. Breed knew of it from
+the elk movements, and it is probable that
+the elk in turn were warned from some
+similarly natural source,&mdash;perhaps from
+atmospheric changes, more likely from the
+flight of migratory birds.</p>
+
+<p>A marshland may be empty of certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>
+species of ducks in the fall; then suddenly
+a flock will pitch down out of the blue, followed
+by another and another till the whole
+sky is streaked with the oncoming horde.
+They will feed and start on, the belated
+arrivals not even alighting but holding straight
+ahead. The flight ceases as suddenly as it
+commenced and inevitably a storm drives
+down out of the north in the wake of the
+flocks. But this is not instinct. The storm
+strikes those birds that have remained farthest
+north and as they scurry ahead of it the more
+southerly ones take wing. Many ducks fly
+at rates of speed that are well over a hundred
+miles an hour and so can distance the swiftest
+storms. Even the ears of man may detect
+the difference between the wing-whistlers
+of a flock of mallards or other slow-flying
+ducks and the humming screech of redhead
+or canvasback hurtling through the night with
+tremendous speed; and animals note such
+things more readily than man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In any event Breed knew of the coming
+storm many hours before the first soft flakes
+fell and melted on his yellow coat. He took
+shelter under the low-hanging branches of
+a stunted spruce and slept. It snowed for
+two days and throughout that time there was
+little sound in the hills. Each coyote in the
+pack had sought out a similar shelter, the
+mated pairs bedding together, the others
+singly. No one of them howled during the
+storm. The elk and deer held to their beds
+without a sound. The few stragglers who
+had not yet crossed out through the passes
+were the only ones that moved, pushing on
+through the storm, and the herd bulls traveling
+with them bugled to hold their cows together;
+but the snow-filled air deadened these distant
+sounds. And for two days Breed heard
+nothing but the soft hissing of the snow
+through the branches or the groaning of overburdened
+trees. The third night a big gray
+owl hooted gruffly an hour before dawn, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span>
+as if dispersed by the sound of his voice the
+last gray clouds scudded past and the stars
+flamed from the steel-blue sky of night.</p>
+
+<p>A savage wind sprang up with the sun,
+shrieking along the exposed ridges and rippling
+the valleys of lodgepole pine, hurling its
+force against the spruce slopes. For another
+day Breed heard only the howl of the gale,
+the snow sliding from the swaying branches
+and the sudden crash of falling trees,&mdash;not
+a sound of life. The fury of the wind abated
+toward night and an hour after dark there
+was a sudden lull followed by one last rush
+of wind, leaving the white hills wrapped in
+a vast silence.</p>
+
+<p>Breed heard a single bugle note of a young
+bull, the last he was to hear for another ten
+months, for the mating time of the antlered
+tribes had been ushered out with the storm.
+The gray owls hooted the warning that they
+would soon set forth on silent wings to strike
+down any small creature that moved across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span>
+the white carpet under the trees. The elk
+were working back up to the bald ridges
+that had been blown free of snow. All the
+night-feeders of the wild prowled in search
+of food after the fast.</p>
+
+<p>Breed raised the hunting cry and the coyote
+pack answered roll call. They were gaunt
+and their flanks were pinched up and hollowed
+from the three-day famine. They ran silently
+and with but a single purpose, spurred on by
+hunger. A coyote far out on one flank of
+the pack winded a bunch of elk and headed for
+them. The elk accorded him scarcely a
+glance as he drew near. In an earlier day,
+before the white man had invaded the foothills,
+the elk herds had wintered there, but
+the coyotes had not molested them; of late
+a few coyotes had invaded the high country,
+the summer range, but the elk did not fear
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The coyote howled, one short eager blast,
+and angled in between the herd and a straggler<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span>
+on the edge of it, a yearling elk, a spike bull,
+his first antler growth consisting of two
+pointed spikes eighteen inches long. He
+was not alarmed,&mdash;but it was a new kind of
+coyote that faced him now, one that had
+learned pack hunting under the leadership
+of the yellow wolf.</p>
+
+<p>The coyote made a swift lunge and drove
+his teeth in one hind leg. The young bull
+whirled and aimed a sweeping slash of his
+polished spears, intent upon impaling his foe;
+and as he turned a second coyote flashed from
+behind a tree and slashed him. The bull
+whirled again and struck wickedly with a
+smashing forefoot. The rest of the elk had
+stopped to gaze in amazement at this strange
+scene,&mdash;at coyotes attacking an elk.</p>
+
+<p>Every coyote in the pack had altered his
+course at that short howl, wheeling as at
+a command. Yellow shapes had appeared
+as if by magic and were sliding under the
+trees on silent feet and circling the bull.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
+There was something sinister and purposeful
+in this concerted action and the rest of the
+elk milled about uneasily and at last turned
+and trotted off. The spike bull fought with
+hoof and horn, but at every turn a coyote
+slashed him from behind, striking always
+at the hamstring. His rage turned to fear
+and he fled. He struck the heavy four-foot
+drifts where the wind had scoured the snow
+from the ridge above and sifted it deep in the
+timber. His sharp hoofs and heavier weight
+let him deep into the snow while the coyotes
+padded easily along, their feet sinking in but
+a few inches. He tired himself with desperate
+charges at some coyote that always eluded
+him while others drove fangs in him from
+behind. More coyotes joined the running
+fight and he was far gone before Breed drove
+through the pack and struck him with all
+the force of a killing wolf. He spent the last
+of his ebbing strength in a whirlwind of furious
+fighting, then went down and the yellow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span>
+horde swarmed over him. They fed long
+and when they left the feast they were no
+longer gaunt. Flanks had filled out and
+paunches sagged heavily, nearly touching
+the snow. The following night they returned
+to the kill and finished it. Then Breed
+headed back for the open sagebrush foothills.
+The immediate fear of being shot had departed,
+leaving only the lesson as a reminder
+of his narrow escape.</p>
+
+<p>The pack reached the edge of the hills in
+the first morning light and many of them
+kept on, but Breed, more averse to daylight
+traveling than they, would not venture down
+till night. The low country lay spread out
+below him, ragged patches of brown alternating
+with those of dirty white, the wind having
+scoured the snow from open grass-country
+and piled it to the tops of the sage in the
+heavier clumps and in long drifts trailing
+away downwind behind them, or packed it
+in the depths of badland washes and cracks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span>
+The powdery snow had been swept from the
+open before it had time to melt and the dry
+air of the hill country had sucked up what
+little moisture remained, leaving the flats
+almost as dusty as before.</p>
+
+<p>With nightfall Breed descended to the
+tongue of the foothills that reached up into
+the notch formed by the outcropping spur
+where it joined the main range at right angles.
+Thirty miles east along this Hardpan Spur
+was his home territory and he followed along
+the base of it. Not till within ten miles of
+Collins' cabin did he howl. The wolfer heard
+it, and again he had the feeling that he could
+almost name that peculiarity in Breed's note,
+but before he could give it expression the
+solution was slipping away from him as
+always before. He could feel the odd quality
+but it defied analysis in words.</p>
+
+<p>Shady too had heard the call and answered
+it. Breed started toward her but stopped
+abruptly and tested the wind. The scent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span>
+of stale meat played on his nostrils and he
+veered aside to investigate. He moved along
+a cow trail and peered from the edge of the
+sage at a ten-pound chunk of meat that lay
+in the center of an open flat. He knew what
+that meant. Suspicion flooded him and every
+hair tingled as he realized that this was the
+work of man. Traps! No coyote on the
+range would have found need to look twice
+at the tempting morsel to know that it had
+not come there by accident but had been
+placed by some man as a coyote lure.</p>
+
+<p>Breed, springing as he did from two wise
+tribes, had been educated in two schools.
+His coyote mother had led him to meat,
+knowing men had put it there to bait her, and
+she had taught him to detect the most cunningly
+buried trap. Later he had practiced
+this art himself. The old dog wolf who was
+his father had followed one simple rule which
+served him well. He killed each meal as he
+felt the need of it and would touch no other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span>
+food, not even returning to previous kills of
+his own. Breed was possessed of both traits
+in moderation, inclining to either for long
+periods as his moods varied. Breed moved
+to within ten feet of the meat and extended
+one forepaw, feeling cautiously through the
+carpet of dust, then pushed it two inches
+ahead. For a solid hour that paw was not
+once lifted from the ground except when the
+other was pushed forward to replace it. He
+moved ahead an inch at a time, the edging
+forepaws feeling through the dust for the least
+sign of loosened earth beneath. He knew
+that the crushing jaws of a trap yawned
+beneath the surface somewhere near the meat.
+His eyes swept every inch of ground for a sign
+that differed from the rest and his nose
+quested for a spot which held the taint of
+man. A faint trace of it pervaded the place,
+coming mainly from the bait itself and almost
+blotted by the meat scent.</p>
+
+<p>Cripp and Peg watched every move from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
+a distance of ten feet. Two young coyotes
+had come to the spot and one of them worked
+in toward the bait from the opposite side,
+using the same tactics as those employed by
+Breed. At the end of an hour Breed stood
+within three feet of his goal and the out-stretched
+paw suddenly touched yielding
+earth. He scratched gently along the edge
+of this softened spot; a claw scraped some
+solid substance and the moonlight glinted
+on a point of naked steel. Breed pushed his
+paw beneath it and gently lifted till half of
+a deadly four-pound trap showed above the
+dust. He looked long at it, then veered past
+it to the bait; and the young coyote edged
+in from the other side. Breed's feet did not
+shift an inch as he tore a mouthful from the
+meat, but the young coyote across from him
+strained to drag the whole of it from the spot.
+It was wired solidly to a stake and he shifted
+far to either side in his vain efforts to dislodge
+it. There was a hissing grate of loosened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
+springs and the young coyote felt the bone-shattering
+snap of a trap as it closed on his
+foot. Breed whirled and leaped ten feet
+away, from which point he watched the
+struggles of his ill-fated friend. In his
+desperate struggles to free himself the young
+coyote leaped clear across the meat and the
+trap that Breed had unearthed closed on
+another foot. Breed circled uneasily round
+the spot, powerless to help the coyote that
+was stretched full length between two traps,
+yet he lingered till an hour before dawn.</p>
+
+<p>This experience quickened old fears in
+Breed. Memories of past horrors, long dormant
+but not forgotten, welled up out of his
+mind to increase his caution, and fresh pangs
+were added by similar discoveries on each
+succeeding night. The whole range seemed
+studded with fearsome traps and the odor of
+stale meat was borne on every breeze. There
+were few nights when he did not find some
+animal fast in one of these man-made snares.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>
+Each new victim acted differently, according
+to the characteristics of its kind. Breed found
+a badger in a trap and the animal ceased his
+struggle long enough to wrinkle his nose and
+hiss at Breed with a thick snakelike sound.
+The badger's forepaws were more than twice
+the size of his hind feet, and were fitted with
+heavy two-inch claws, while those of the hind
+feet measured but half an inch. He was
+caught by one hind foot, leaving the powerful
+spading forks of the forepaws free to work.
+He had always found safety by burrowing in
+the ground and so now, in his last extremity,
+he turned to digging and plowed every inch
+of the surface within reach. He settled on one
+spot at last and burrowed from sight. Breed
+watched the heaving dirt till it ceased to
+move as the badger settled comfortably in
+fancied security, buried to the full limit of
+the trap chain.</p>
+
+<p>Some nights later Breed passed a cross fox
+that had strayed down from the high country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span>
+and had stepped into one of Collins' traps.
+The fox was never still, weaving in and out,
+looping and turning round the pin that held
+the trap; lashed into constant movement
+by his native nervousness but making no
+strenuous efforts to break loose. Later the
+same night he found a bobcat. The big cat
+made no move save a slight creasing of his
+facial muscles preparatory to a snarl if the
+wolf drew near. The first pain had dulled
+and he rested quietly, lacking the hardihood
+to stretch his own flesh and bones in a struggle
+against the trap.</p>
+
+<p>But Breed always found a trapped coyote
+fighting,&mdash;fighting silently and gamely to
+the last heartbeat. Coyotes are high in the
+scale of intelligence and so each one has an
+individuality of his own. One would surge
+time after time against the chain, driving
+savagely to the end of it. Another would
+grind his teeth against the cold steel till his
+jaws dripped blood, while a third would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span>
+amputate the mangled foot. But whatever
+the method, the basic fact was the same,&mdash;no
+coyote waited submissively for his fate but
+waged a ceaseless, desperate fight for freedom.</p>
+
+<p>All these things heightened Breed's suspicions.
+He felt the reassertion of wolfish
+caution within him, driving out the coyote
+desire to outwit man. Three times he unearthed
+the traps and stole the bait. Then
+he refused to go near stale meat. He was
+nauseated by the smell of it and merely
+avoided instead of investigating the spots
+from which the scent came to him. And
+this was not through fear of traps&mdash;he retained
+full confidence in his ability to detect
+them&mdash;but from the fact that wherever he
+had found traps in the past he had also found
+poison and so these two were associated
+together in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout a whole month of accustoming
+himself to these new conditions, Breed had
+visited Shady but twice. He had the companionship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span>
+of coyotes to fill his time and the
+lonesome howls of the she-wolf were unanswered.
+It is the stock dog without steady
+occupation that reverts to the wild. Mere
+inactivity, even if coupled with kindness, is
+insufficient to still his natural restlessness and
+fill his life; he must have careful training
+and active employment to be content,&mdash;and
+Shady was half wild.</p>
+
+<p>The mating time of wolves was drawing
+near and Breed caught the new note in Shady's
+voice. He dropped all other business to
+hurry to her. Though the season was yet
+some time ahead they knew its nearness and
+each recognized in the other a possible future
+mate.</p>
+
+<p>Collins thought of Shady more as a pet than
+as a dog and so had not troubled to train her.
+The wild traits in her were as apparent in
+maturity as they had been in infancy&mdash;even
+more pronounced&mdash;and chief among these
+was her natural aptitude for stealing. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
+pillaged Collins' stores and even sneaked food
+from the table when his back was turned, as
+her wild ancestors for many generations had
+stolen his bait. Collins curbed this propensity,
+not by judicious training which would
+eliminate it, but by the simple process of
+chaining her to the cabin wall when he left
+for a trip and did not wish her to accompany
+him. So it was not strange that Shady
+viewed thieving from the standpoint of expediency.
+Those who came to Collins' cabin
+predicted a bad end for Shady.</p>
+
+<p>That insistent note in her voice was more
+pronounced as the season neared and Breed
+tingled to the sound of it. The frequency
+of his visits increased till they were of nightly
+occurrence instead of semi-monthly. He used
+every wolfish inducement to lure her away
+from the vicinity of the twinkling lights that
+marked the abode of man. She longed to
+follow him into the wild but could not bring
+herself to face its terrors. Breed longed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>
+follow her when she left him but could not
+bring himself to face the horrors which must
+lurk near the haunts of men. These clashing
+outlooks upon life held them apart. The
+wild represented safety for Breed, its dangers
+known to him and accepted as a part of it
+and not to be greatly feared. Those dangers
+were the work of man, and by natural consequence
+Breed assumed that their numbers
+and deadliness increased in proportion as he
+drew nearer the homes of men, the house itself
+the most dangerous of all. Shady's mode
+of life had taught her the reverse of this;
+that complete safety lay in the cabin and its
+immediate vicinity, the known and unknown
+terrors of the wild increasing in ever-widening
+circles dependent upon the distance from the
+refuge of the cabin that was home to her.</p>
+
+<p>The season had started and some few
+coyotes had paired, yet Breed could not
+induce Shady to follow him. The preceding
+winter her desire for motherhood had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>
+thwarted. Collins had chained her to the
+cabin for a month. Coyotes are without
+the wolf suspicion which fills their larger
+cousins with fear of human habitations,
+and they are prone to investigate them at
+night while a wolf will not approach. Several
+dog coyotes had braved the dangers of Collins'
+cabin in answer to Shady's howls. Her soft
+whimpering had roused the wolfer each time
+this occurred and every new admirer had been
+greeted with a charge of buckshot as he
+slipped toward the house, three dog coyotes
+having paid for their temerity with their lives.</p>
+
+<p>The Coyote Prophet intended the same
+imprisonment for Shady the present season
+but he neglected it one day too long. He
+came from the cabin, a collar and chain in
+his hand, only to see Shady slip away into the
+dusk. A minute later she howled.</p>
+
+<p>Breed heard it. Every fiber of him
+quivered to the sound. It was the mating
+call!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Collins whistled in vain. There was no
+answering whimper from Shady. But the
+habit of obedience was strong in her and she
+lingered within sound of it. Breed came
+nearer than ever before, his fears dulled by
+the message she had sent him. Collins came
+from the house again and whistled shrilly.
+Breed shrank from the sound and drew back
+as Shady trotted a short distance toward the
+house; she answered the whistle with an
+uneasy whine and Collins moved in the
+direction from which it came, coaxing as he
+advanced.</p>
+
+<p>Fear flooded Breed. It spurred him to
+sudden rushes of flight which were halted
+in a few stiff bounds as the longing for Shady
+cried out against his leaving her. Then came
+the clanking of the chain in Collins' hand. It
+was the clank of a trap chain to Breed,&mdash;and
+he was off. That same sound, its meaning
+so different for each of them, resulted in
+flight for both. Shady ran with him through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span>
+the night, and once started it was not so hard
+to keep on. And as she ran she transferred
+her trust from Collins to Breed, giving herself
+entirely into his keeping to lead her through
+the unknown perils which lay ahead,&mdash;and
+she ran close to him, her nose almost touching
+his flank.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+
+<p>The exhilarating element of danger in trap
+robbing, which appeals so strongly to the
+coyote, held no fascination for Shady. She
+was vastly trap-wise but used her knowledge
+solely for self-preservation. Every scrap of
+meat on the range represented possible pain
+or death to her and she found no sport in
+close investigation with its attendant risks.
+She was entirely dependent upon Breed, feeling
+a sense of security in his nearness, but weighed
+down by the vast unknown which seemed to
+close in upon her whenever the gap between
+them exceeded the span of one leap. She
+would not touch any food other than that
+which he provided.</p>
+
+<p>The coyotes clustered round the steer
+that Breed pulled down a few hours after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span>
+luring Shady from the cabin and she viewed
+them suspiciously, warning them off by repeated
+growls. Peg and Cripp edged in to
+feed. Shady's protest rose frenziedly and
+she raged at them but did not attack, and the
+two old coyotes eyed her warily as they ate.
+She noted that Breed accepted their presence
+and she quieted and patterned her actions
+according to her mate's.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the pack came in. Her uneasiness
+persisted and for an hour she ate
+but little, edging away from physical contact
+with those who crowded about her. She
+pressed close to Breed's side and whirled to
+snap at any coyote who attempted to wedge
+between them, but her suspicions subsided
+as she found that these nips were never
+returned. Whenever a dog coyote was inclined
+to make friendly advances to Shady
+a low growl from Breed warned him from her
+side. The sense of strangeness, of having
+been catapulted from a sheltered life into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span>
+the midst of a growling mob, wore off and
+Shady rapidly accustomed herself to these
+new conditions.</p>
+
+<p>The feast was but half finished when the
+head of every coyote in the pack was raised
+at once and the shuffling feet and grinding
+jaws were stilled as a timber wolf howled
+from the slope of the Hardpan Spur. All
+animal sounds were suspended till the last
+ripples of Breed's answering cry died away;
+then lesser beasts, having preserved strict
+silence while two mighty hunters spoke,
+resumed their own interrupted communications.</p>
+
+<p>The Coyote Prophet heard the two cries,
+and that baffling quality in Breed's voice
+was instantly clear to him, as was the reason
+why he had never before been able to give it
+name. He had quested for the difference
+with his ear,&mdash;and the difference lay in the
+feel of the sound. Collins had felt the crawling
+of his flesh and the roughening of his skin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>
+at the gray wolf's cry; for a man may hear
+that note every night of his life and the wolf
+shiver will shake his frame the last time it
+sounds as surely as it does the first. It is
+not fear; no man can name it; but the wolf
+shiver is as inseparably linked with the wolf
+howl as the involuntary gasp is linked with
+a dash of ice water on the spine. And Collins
+knew that that quality was lacking in Breed's
+cry. The personality of the gray wolf was
+marked by absolute savagery, his bleak outlook
+on life undiluted by a single ray of that
+humor which is so evident in every act of the
+dog and the prairie wolf; and this difference
+of temperament was reflected in his voice,
+apparent to the ears of the animal world,
+apparent to Collins only in the different way
+in which his subconscious mind reacted to
+his howl. Collins, having once defined
+Breed's note, its sound so identical with that
+of the wolf howl yet so dissimilar in the elusive
+feeling which accompanied it, had no further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span>
+doubt that he could thereafter identify Breed
+by his howl.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Breed! I've got your number
+now," he said. "I could pick you out from
+amongst a hundred wolves." This was merely
+a casual assertion, a self-congratulation over
+having solved the puzzle, and the Coyote
+Prophet made it without a thought that the
+day would ever come when he might have
+opportunity to file it among prophecies fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>The wolf howl affected Shady in a similar
+way, its stark savagery clashing discordantly
+with the dog strain in her. She felt the
+grating along her spine, and the hair rose with
+it. There was an air of expectancy among
+the coyotes. Heads were raised between
+mouthfuls and all eyes were repeatedly
+turned toward the hills. It was the first
+time that Shady had heard the cry of one of
+the big gray hunters. She noted the tension
+among her new friends without reading its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span>
+portent. Of them all, Breed seemed the only
+one unaffected. One by one the coyotes
+left the feast, then the remaining few sidled
+hurriedly away as a huge dog wolf moved
+swiftly across the flat. His pace slowed as
+he neared the kill and he halted ten feet away,
+his quivering nose taking stock of the two who
+fed there.</p>
+
+<p>Shady's long run through the sage had
+whipped her soft fur full of sage dust, its sharp
+scent nearly obliterating the conglomerate
+smell of the cabin which usually clung to her.
+The reek of coyote scent and fresh blood that
+permeated the spot still further concealed it,
+and though the wolf caught the peculiar odor
+he could not trace its source to her without
+closer inspection. He was hungry and advanced
+to the meat, tearing off huge bites and
+gulping them down till the wire edge of his
+hunger was appeased, then sidled cautiously
+round the steer to nose the mating she-wolf.
+As he neared her his eyes peered over her at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span>
+Breed. That foreign odor which he had
+noted he now traced to Shady, but having once
+accepted her it did not trouble him. Shady
+flinched away from him and Breed's lips
+writhed up and cupped away from his ivory
+fangs. There was no mistaking the snarl
+that accompanied this baring of his teeth and
+the gray wolf moved back to the opposite
+side of the steer.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter both wolves ate sparingly and
+each watched for the least hostile move in
+the other. The coyote pack ringed in close,
+awaiting the departure of the timber wolf.
+He frequently turned his head and favored
+the closer ones with a baleful stare, the move
+always accompanied by a flattening of his
+ears, and the ones so fixed by his appraising
+eye shrank deeper into the sage. Each time
+this occurred his head swung abruptly back
+toward Breed.</p>
+
+<p>Shady feared and hated the wolf. If she
+thought of him in human words she would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>
+have given him the name of Flatear, and with
+good reason. In coyote, fox and wolf the
+ears are even more expressive than the eyes.
+A wolf's ears work when he sleeps, one of them
+inclining toward the least sound that reaches
+him. When awake his ears seem to work
+automatically in conjunction with nose and
+eyes, tipping sharply forward and turning in
+the direction of any strange object or questionable
+scent that excites his curiosity. And
+the flattening of the ears is indicative of his
+mood, preceding even the snarl, their backward
+angle an accurate gauge of his intent.
+It seemed to Shady that the big wolf's ears
+were chronically laid as he regarded Breed.
+She was unversed in the ways of her wild
+kinsfolk and could not know that the yellow
+wolf and the gray were sparring for the advantage
+of the first blow in the savage fight
+that would soon be waged for the right of
+proprietorship,&mdash;herself as the prize.</p>
+
+<p>Both wolves centered their attention on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span>
+main issue and waited only for an opening.
+Shady and the restless coyotes out in the sage
+were forgotten, each wolf conscious only of
+his foe. Those others mattered not at all,
+for there were certain known laws which all
+past experience had proved unalterable. She-wolves
+showed small concern over the clashes
+of rival males; coyotes never fought with
+their big gray cousins, and there were no other
+wolves about. The issue was squarely up
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>Each time that Breed appeared off guard for
+a split second the gray wolf laid his ears, the
+involuntary betrayal of muscles tensing for
+the fatal spring; and Breed's own flattening
+ears each time evidenced his readiness to
+counter. Shady sensed the enmity between
+them without knowing the inevitable result.
+Her mode of fighting was the impulsive way
+of the dog, the act almost simultaneous with
+the desire, and this protracted, cold-blooded
+calculation was new to her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Breed gave an opening at last, turning and
+reaching for a bite of meat, and exposing the
+unprotected side of his neck. Flatear struck
+for it without a sound, driving straight across
+the steer with all his weight behind the gleaming
+rows of teeth. Breed dropped flat and
+as his enemy swept over him he swung his
+head up and sidewise in a terrible slash that
+tore an ugly rent in the gray wolf's paunch.
+They whirled face to face,&mdash;and both were
+treated to a series of tremendous surprises
+which shattered all previous convictions.</p>
+
+<p>Shady harked back to the ways of her
+domestic ancestors, to the custom of dashing
+into a neighborhood dog fight and mauling
+the one strange dog in the lot, regardless of
+sex,&mdash;and Breed had been her friend long before
+he had become her mate. Flatear was the
+one strange dog to Shady, and he found himself
+assailed by a screeching fury who fought
+without care or caution, her sole aim being
+to sink her teeth in any available part of him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>
+As he leaped away from this unnatural she-wolf
+he was met by a second surprise. The
+coyote pack had learned to strike when the
+leader struck. Peg flashed round a sage and
+laid open his flank, and as he whirled to face
+this new enemy Cripp slashed him from
+behind. Three coyotes darted past Breed
+and before he had recovered from the shock
+of the surprise his enemy had fled.</p>
+
+<p>Flatear did not flee from fear but from an
+overwhelming sense of the whole world gone
+mad, the shattering of tradition and the overthrow
+of natural laws. The chaos in his
+mind sent him flying from this insane place
+within six seconds after his first attack. A
+mating she-wolf had been transformed into
+a she-fiend and in the same second he had
+been mobbed by coyotes. No doubt he
+believed with Collins that strange things had
+come to pass of late in the ranks of the coyote
+tribe. Flatear headed back for the hills out
+of which he had come, and as he ran his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span>
+bewilderment crystallized into a consuming
+hatred for the strange yellow wolf, the
+hybrid beast who had upset the established
+order of things. He did not know that Breed
+himself had been so nearly paralyzed with
+sheer astonishment that he had not joined
+the attack.</p>
+
+<p>The coyotes settled once more to the enjoyment
+of their interrupted banquet. Breed
+little realized that he had made a mortal
+enemy, one who would not merely attempt
+to deprive him of his mate during the running
+moon as would any other unattached dog wolf,
+but one whose enmity was for the individual
+and who had marked him for the slaughter
+when next they met, regardless of time or
+season.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+
+<p>The number of coyotes in Collins' territory
+had been cut down by half and only the wisest
+were left. As they grew more trap-wise the
+wolfer increased the cunning of his sets.
+Clearly marked cow trails crossed through
+every low saddle in the foothills and Collins
+studded these with traps. After once his
+scent was cold the coyotes had nothing to
+warn them of these sets, but trail trapping
+is largely chance and not productive of great
+results.</p>
+
+<p>Breed saw one coyote in a trail trap and he
+forswore the following of cow trails. The
+coyotes soon learned to avoid them. Collins
+noted the absence of coyote tracks on trails
+that had once been padded thick with them
+and the wolfer chuckled over this evidence
+of their resourcefulness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Some of Breed's pack had fallen victims
+to the trap line but their places had been
+filled by new recruits, every one trap-wise
+to the last degree. But even these found it
+increasingly difficult to retain their lives.</p>
+
+<p>A new menace hovered over every coyote
+that ranged near the foot of the Hardpan
+Spur, a menace that filled the hardiest prairie
+wolf with dread. Many a lone coyote was
+suddenly startled by a huge shape that leaped
+for him and bore him down. None thus
+attacked lived to spread the warning and the
+only knowledge the others had of the lurking
+fiend was the finding of old friends, stiff and
+dead, their throats gashed open by savage
+teeth. The tracks and scent round these
+murder spots identified the slayer.</p>
+
+<p>Flatear spent his days high in the hills and
+at night he dropped to the low country to
+perpetrate his unnatural crimes. Coyotes
+had violated the customs of centuries and
+turned their teeth against him. He now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span>
+wreaked vengeance for this affront. There
+were no wolves to answer his call, so Flatear
+no longer howled, but prowled the range
+without a sound to warn prospective victims,
+a silent assassin that struck without notice.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a week he had left a long trail
+of victims behind but not one of Breed's pack
+was among them. Those that had pack-hunted
+with the yellow wolf and learned the
+advantages of combined attack in killing
+heavy game now put that same knowledge
+to good use for their own protection, sufficient
+evidence of the quick adaptability with which
+coyotes rise to meet any new emergency.</p>
+
+<p>Mated pairs now ran close when hunting,
+sometimes traveling in fours. Flatear soon
+discovered that the teamwork of a pair of
+fighting coyotes was more than a match for
+even his great prowess and his kills grew fewer.</p>
+
+<p>Cold fear clutched every coyote that caught
+a fugitive scent of the gray killer, but Breed
+did not share this dread. He was Flatear's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>
+match in size and strength and so was not
+concerned. Breed could not know that Flatear's
+hatred had become almost an obsession;
+that night after night the slayer was craftily
+trailing him and that killing coyotes was but
+a side line to lighten the hours of a protracted
+stalk for Breed himself. Flatear was a
+veteran warrior and he waited only for an
+opportunity to attack when he should find
+Breed alone. Nose and ears kept him apprised
+of the yellow wolf's whereabouts, but
+usually there were coyotes running with him
+and invariably the tracks of the she-fury were
+mingled with those of her mate. Breed was
+untroubled by any thought that sudden death
+lurked in wait for him the first time he should
+run alone through the sage.</p>
+
+<p>While Flatear plied his bloody trade and
+made the nights fearsome for the coyotes,
+men found one more method of harrying
+them by day.</p>
+
+<p>The first Breed knew of this danger was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>
+one day when he lay with Shady on a high
+point of ground. There were many things
+about Shady which he could not fathom.
+From the first he had found much of mystery
+in her. She insisted on traveling in broad
+daylight whenever the notion seized her and
+she seemed not to share his fear of horsemen,
+often rising incautiously from her bed for
+a better view of them, careless of the risk of
+their seeing her.</p>
+
+<p>Shady cocked her ears alertly at a distant
+sound, and the same note, faint as it was,
+roused Breed from his nap. Somewhere off
+across the foothills several men had raised
+their voices in a wild outburst of cheers.
+This sounded again and again, each time
+from a point nearer to where Breed lay. A
+band of antelope sped past without following
+their usual custom of stopping to look back.
+Breed caught the vibrations of pounding hoofs,
+the sound of many hard-running horses
+blended in one. Through it all he heard an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span>
+occasional note that was strange to him, a
+shrill, sharp note that had something of the
+wolf in it, yet which he knew was not made by
+any beast he had met before. And at this
+note Shady laid her ears and growled.</p>
+
+<p>The cheers and the hammering hoofs came
+closer and Breed fixed his eyes on the edge
+of the flat bench spread out for half a mile
+before him. A coyote spurted from the
+mouth of a draw off to the left of Breed's
+position and raced across the flat. He was
+stretched out and running his best, but before
+he had covered two hundred yards five great
+wolfhounds poured out of the draw. They
+were slender and long-coupled, capable of
+tremendous speed, and before the coyote
+passed below Breed the lead dog was but
+a few lengths behind.</p>
+
+<p>For the most part the dogs ran silently
+and wasted no breath in senseless clamor,
+but occasionally one of them loosed an eager
+yelp, the sound as thin and keen as his body.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>
+A dozen riders streamed across the flat on
+furiously running horses, cheering as they
+came. The coyote doubled to evade the
+snapping jaws of the foremost dog, and as
+he turned another struck him. He rolled
+over twice, and when he gained his feet he
+faced his enemies. He knew the game was
+up but he went down fighting,&mdash;fighting
+against odds without a whine; and Breed
+watched five savage dogs mauling a limp dead
+thing that ten seconds past had been his
+valued friend. These strange beasts did not
+move off as the men rode up, and Breed
+realized with a shock that the men did not
+ride with the purpose of killing them; that
+they were leagued together and that the dogs
+were the creatures of men the same as sheep
+and cows were their property.</p>
+
+<p>He stole down the far slope, keeping the
+high ground between himself and the horsemen.
+Shady followed him closely, moving
+furtively and with many backward glances,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span>
+her tail tucked almost between her legs, and
+Breed, accustomed to Shady's indifference
+to the approach of riders, wondered at this
+sudden reversal of her usual ways.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not the men that roused Shady's
+fear; above all other things she feared and
+hated dogs. The few that had followed their
+masters to Collins' house had always sensed
+the wild blood in her, and at the first opportunity
+they had pounced on her with intent
+to kill. Shady had found friends among the
+coyotes and had found only hostility among
+dogs. Savagery is only relative, according
+to the views of the one who pronounces upon
+it, and from Shady's experience she was
+right in her judgment that the ultimate limit
+of savagery was reached only in the dog.</p>
+
+<p>The owner of the dog pack lived some ten
+miles from Collins and the whole countryside
+had assembled to witness the first race.
+There were fewer riders in each chase as the
+novelty wore off but the days were few when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span>
+the owner failed to take the dogs out for a run.
+Wolfhounds run only by sight and coyotes
+are slippery prey, doubling and twisting on
+their trails to throw their pursuers off, so the
+result was always in doubt and every chase
+did not yield a coyote pelt.</p>
+
+<p>After that first day Breed did not wait for
+the dogs to draw near but started off the
+instant he found that they were coming his
+way. It was Shady's habit of daylight traveling
+that led Breed into grave danger within
+a week after the dog pack had made their
+first run. He followed Shady down the bed
+of a gulch which screened their movements
+from prying eyes but at the same time served
+to shut out all the various signs by which
+Breed received long-range warnings. As
+they loitered along the bottom of the draw
+the antelope bands were flashing the danger
+sign; range cows on the ridges all stood
+facing the same way; everywhere coyotes
+were scurrying for cover, but all these things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>
+passed over Breed's head. A coyote flipped
+into the gulch and he did not tarry but passed
+Breed with merely a sidelong look and
+vanished round a bend.</p>
+
+<p>Breed was instantly alert. He darted to
+the rim of the draw and looked warily about
+him. There was not an antelope in sight
+and no cows grazed in the little basin that
+flanked the gulch at the point where he left
+it; not a sign to warn him of the source of
+the danger. He ran for the crest of a ridge
+for a better view,&mdash;and the next instant he
+was in full flight back the way he had come,
+for as he sky-lined himself on the ridge five
+sharp-eyed wolfhounds a quarter of a mile
+away had darted toward him. He knew that
+they had seen him and were coming, that
+death was sweeping down on him.</p>
+
+<p>He turned up the gulch and followed it
+toward the hills, Shady running her best to
+keep up with him. The dogs fanned out to
+look for him as they topped the ridge. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>
+upper end of the draw widened to blend into
+a broad mesa and the hounds caught sight
+of the two wolves as they headed out across
+the flat. Breed had held his lead but a clean
+race of over a mile confronted him, the flat
+affording not one shred of cover. He swung
+his head slightly to one side as he ran, one
+backward-rolling eye taking in every detail
+of what transpired behind him.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the five specks increase their speed
+and knew that they had sighted him again;
+they angled slightly and he watched them
+draw gradually together, their courses converging
+on the center of his line of flight till
+they were once more running well bunched,&mdash;and
+gaining.</p>
+
+<p>His lead was being steadily cut down, the
+gap perceptibly lessened; the specks showed
+larger with every backward glance till every
+dog was clearly visible. Shady was fleet but
+her speed was no match for Breed's and he
+would not leave her. The high-pitched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span>
+sinister yelps sounded from behind him as
+the eager dogs closed up, putting forth every
+effort to end the race before the wolves reached
+the choppy badland breaks at the far edge
+of the flat. Shady's pace was lagging, and
+they gained the first gulch of the broken
+country a bare fifty yards ahead of the leading
+hound.</p>
+
+<p>The gulch feathered out into a maze of
+branching draws and Shady lost Breed on
+the first sharp turn and ran on alone while
+the dogs streamed past after the yellow wolf.</p>
+
+<p>Breed slowed his pace, fear for Shady's
+life surmounting even the fear for his own,
+but as the lead dog flashed into view without
+any sound of a fight behind him, Breed knew
+that his mate was safe and he turned on the
+reserve speed he had not been free to use
+while she ran with him.</p>
+
+<p>The country ahead was a tangle of small
+flat-tops, crisscrossed by a network of badland
+washes and cut-bank draws, and for two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>
+miles he eluded the dog pack by sheer brainwork
+and cunning. But the hounds pressed
+him hard. Their speed was greater than his
+own and each time they lost sight of him
+they spread out both ways. Whenever he
+crossed a flat-top bench some one of them
+always sighted him and bored straight for
+the spot, and his team-mates, noting this
+sudden burst of speed, wheeled as one and
+fell in behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's one aim was to reach the hills,
+knowing that once among the trees he could
+shake them off. His course led him ever
+nearer to the base of the spur but he knew
+at last that he could not make his goal. His
+muscles had lost their spring and his breath
+came in leaky gasps; the dogs would pull
+him down on the first sagebrush slopes of the
+hills before he could gain the shelter of the
+trees.</p>
+
+<p>He broke cover and started up the last long
+sloping bench that led to the base of the spur.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span>
+The mouth of every gulch behind him seemed
+to belch forth a dog and they raced across
+the bench, spread out for two hundred yards.</p>
+
+<p>Then Breed sprung one last desperate trick,&mdash;a
+coyote trick. A badland wash intersected
+the flat squarely across his route and
+Breed leaped to the bed of it and fled fifty
+yards along its course, then flashed into a
+narrow coulee that led straight back toward
+the dogs. The draw was shallow, with
+scarcely sufficient depth to cover him, but
+the dogs did not suspect and as they darted
+on ahead Breed doubled back through the
+very center of the pack. He ran with the
+last of his strength, crept from the sheltering
+coulee and leaped into the center of a heavy
+clump of sage where he crouched flat and
+peered out at the puzzled dogs. Of all the
+beasts there are but few with the brains to
+plan such a coup and the nerve to carry it
+through when winded and played out,&mdash;and
+with certain death the penalty for a single<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span>
+slip. The ruse would not have fooled a trail
+hound for an instant, but with sight-hunting
+coursers it worked.</p>
+
+<p>Breed watched the dogs swing wide and
+scour the country off to the right of him till
+they appeared as swift-skimming dots in the
+distance. Then one of them lined out with
+increased speed as he topped a ridge. One
+after another Breed saw them flash over the
+skyline and disappear.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+
+<p>Shady's first impression after taking the
+wrong turn in the coulee was one of vast
+relief at having evaded the dogs. The recovery
+of her breath was accompanied by a
+vague sense of loss which rapidly deepened
+into an ache of loneliness so oppressive that
+her whole spirit was weighed down by it.
+She started up through the long crescent-shaped
+neck of badlands that partially encircled
+Collins' cabin and extended clear to
+the foot of the spur, knowing that this was
+Breed's favorite route when making for the
+hills. She moved slowly and with many
+halts, cocking her head sidewise and tilting
+her ears for some sound of her mate. She
+came out into a funnel-shaped basin that
+sloped down from the first sharp rise of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>
+spur. The small end of it formed a saddle
+between two knobs, leading to Collins' shack
+as through a natural gateway.</p>
+
+<p>Shady trotted to the saddle and gazed down
+at the wolfer's cabin five hundred yards away,
+the spot which had meant home to her over
+the greatest part of her life. The door stood
+invitingly open. She turned and saw the
+five dogs pouring down the funnel of the
+basin. The sudden purposeful increase of
+speed which Breed had noticed as the dogs
+left his field of view had been occasioned by
+the sight of Shady standing in the notch.</p>
+
+<p>Without an instant's hesitation Shady
+headed straight for that open door, a haven
+of refuge which had served her well in the past
+when assailed by the dogs of visiting ranchers.
+The dogs were jaded and Shady was fresh,
+and she reached her goal without their gaining
+an inch.</p>
+
+<p>Collins sat smoking his pipe when he was
+startled by the frenzied entrance of his former<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>
+pet. Shady failed to pause for greetings but
+made one mad leap from the door and slid
+to the farthest corner under the wolfer's bunk.</p>
+
+<p>Collins grunted with surprise and for a space
+of five seconds his brain refused to function
+with its usual snap. Then he rose and crossed
+to the door to discover the reason for Shady's
+headlong <a name="home_coming" id="home_coming">home-coming</a>,&mdash;and slammed it
+shut with but a single second to spare.</p>
+
+<p>One dog rose on his hind feet, standing
+higher than a man, and savagely raked the
+door from top to bottom with his claws while
+another opened his jaws wide and closed them,
+his teeth splintering across the smooth surface
+as he sought to gnaw his way inside. The
+remaining three circled the cabin, sniffing
+explosively at the cracks between the logs.
+Shady was seized with a fit of excessive
+shivering induced by these dread sounds, and
+Collins heard her hind leg-joints beating
+a spasmodic tattoo on the cabin floor. Then
+he turned on his ready grin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Just one split second more," he said,
+"and they'd have surged in here and wrecked
+this plant for fair,&mdash;and that's a fact!"</p>
+
+<p>That night when Breed sent out his call
+for Shady there was no answering cry. He
+called again and again, an agony of longing
+and entreaty in his tones. A sickening dread
+entered his soul,&mdash;the fear that his mate
+had been caught in a trap, shot by some rider
+or killed in some other way by man. He
+little suspected that Shady was at that instant
+resting her head on a man's knee and
+enjoying the feel of his fingers scratching
+behind her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Good old Shady," Collins said, roughing
+her head between his hands. "You're a
+renegade now, old girl,&mdash;a she-outlaw, that's
+what you are. You've gone over to the wild
+bunch, and men will be out after your scalp;
+and they'll get it too. You'll go ambling
+up to some man and he'll blow you up.
+You won't stick with me now unless I keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>
+you chained. You'll go back to 'em,&mdash;and
+if you're lucky you may go right on living
+for mebbe a month. You don't know the
+ropes out there and they'll pick you up."</p>
+
+<p>Shady suddenly stiffened at Breed's first
+cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't need to be afraid of that," Collins
+assured her. "That's old Breed. He won't
+bother you. It must be hell, Shady, to be
+born astraddle of a fence like you, afraid of
+tame dogs and the wild bunch too."</p>
+
+<p>Breed howled again and Shady moved to the
+door and whined, scratching and sniffing along
+the crack. Her uneasiness increased with
+every howl. She clawed so vigorously at
+the door that it rattled on the hinges; then
+her pent-up emotions sought partial relief
+in action and she ran in crazy circles about the
+cabin, weaving in and out among the furniture
+at top speed, running over and under
+the bunk and leaping over chairs, then brought
+up in front of Collins and gazed pleadingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>
+up into his face. The Coyote Prophet regarded
+her speculatively.</p>
+
+<p>"I read you wrong, Shady," he said.
+"You're not afraid of Breed&mdash;you want
+to go to him, that's what; he's a friend of
+yours. Surely now, an old savage like him
+didn't go and take up with a little misfit like
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Breed's voice sounded again and Shady
+raised her own, the whole cabin ringing with
+her long-drawn howl. Up in the funnel basin
+Breed had picked up her trail and was trying
+to work it out from among the trails left by
+the dogs. He stopped abruptly and listened.
+A strange muffled sound had reached him,
+hollow and drumlike, but there was a familiar
+chord in it, and Breed swept ahead on Shady's
+trail, his hope of finding her alive renewed.</p>
+
+<p>"You're mated up with that yellow wolf,"
+Collins stated. "Two freaks paired up! If
+you track round with Breed you may live
+longer than I thought. He'll show you how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>
+to beat the game." The Coyote Prophet
+crossed to the door and opened it. "Go to it,
+Pet," he said. "He's a-calling you." But
+the last remark was addressed to a streak that
+vanished into the night.</p>
+
+<p>Shady met Breed in the notch and frisked
+wildly around him. Breed's delight in this
+reunion was as deep as hers but he was more
+dignified and staid, his emotions less openly
+apparent. All through the night Shady held
+so close to him as to brush against him
+frequently as they ran.</p>
+
+<p>Shady rapidly absorbed much of Breed's
+caution. Two days after their race with the
+dogs Shady had occasion to revise her estimates
+of horsemen. Twice in the same day,
+after imprudently showing herself in the open,
+she heard the vicious reports of their guns
+and the balls tossed up spurts of earth about
+her. Thereafter she followed Breed's lead
+in all such cases. Breed's way was the wolf
+way, recognizing no individuals among men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span>
+but classing them as a dangerous whole.
+Shady, having lived among them, knew them
+as individuals, but this knowledge was soon
+blurred and she too acquired the views of
+the wild things toward men and lumped them
+as a whole. There was but one reservation.
+She placed Collins, the one man who had
+been kind to her, in a class by himself.</p>
+
+<p>This eccentricity was the source of much
+worry to Breed. Shady could see no good
+reason why she should not revisit Collins
+when the mood so moved her. One night
+she turned abruptly from her course and
+headed for the twinkling lights of the wolfer's
+cabin. Breed turned with her. Cripp and
+Peg, each with his mate, ran on either flank.
+The coyotes stopped two hundred yards from
+the house but Shady held straight ahead.
+Breed tried to dissuade her but to no avail.
+He nipped her sharply, and its only effect
+was to cause her to tuck her tail and spurt
+for the house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Breed stopped twenty yards away, every
+nerve quivering from excitement over this
+suicidal move. He heard Shady scratch at
+the door. It swung back and a flood of light
+streamed out into the night. Breed heard
+a man's voice booming out a welcome; saw
+his mate jump up and put her paws against
+him, their outlines framed in the lighted
+doorway. Then the door closed and his mate
+was inside with a man, the arch enemy of all
+wolves. Breed whirled and fled. He ran
+blindly and at high-pressure speed as if he
+fled before an actual enemy. All his sense of
+balance was thrown out of gear, the fitness
+of things upset, and he felt his reason tottering.
+For his ear, attuned to receive the meaning of
+all animal sounds, could detect the least
+tremor of menace in any animal note; when
+a range bull bellowed Breed knew whether
+the tones held invitation to his cows or
+husked a warning to some intruder that had
+strayed over into his chosen range. In any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>
+animal voice the quiver of anger or fear was
+easily apparent to him; and there had been
+no vibrations of anger in the man's tones, only
+those of friendliness.</p>
+
+<p>The coyotes were hard pressed to keep
+abreast of him, and after a wild race of some
+four miles he wheeled abruptly and retraced
+his course, the longing for his mate combining
+with curiosity to draw him irresistibly back
+to the spot where this impossible thing had
+transpired.</p>
+
+<p>His pace slackened as he neared the house,
+then increased as he heard Shady's voice.
+Shady had met Breed in the notch after her
+first visit to the cabin and she naturally
+assumed that she would find him there again.
+She repaired to the spot at once after leaving
+the cabin and waited for him to come.</p>
+
+<p>For three nights in succession Shady made
+her pilgrimage to meet her one friend among
+the world of men. Breed could not unravel
+the mystery of these visits. He could only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>
+know the actual that reached him over the
+trails of his physical senses. Sights, scents
+and sounds were facts to him. Those senses
+combined to show him that the unnatural
+visits were real,&mdash;that Shady actually entered
+the lair of a man and came back smelling
+strong of him. Yet when she was with him
+Breed felt a sense of unreality in his memories
+of those visits, partaking of the same vague
+qualities that dreams possessed for him after
+waking.</p>
+
+<p>But he fathomed it at last, evidence that
+his brain came from his coyote mother, a
+brain that is capable of constructive reasoning,
+of taking two facts which the physical
+senses have verified and evolving a third from
+them,&mdash;the association of ideas.</p>
+
+<p>His nose told him that there was something
+in Shady's scent that was similar to that left
+by the dog pack. His eyes had proved that
+those dogs were the companions of men.
+Eyes, ears and nose testified that Shady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>
+visited the haunts of men and was accepted
+as a friend. His nose further told him that
+Shady was half coyote, and her voice added
+proof of this. From out this fragmentary
+assortment of facts Breed found a satisfactory
+answer. He knew that Shady was of the wild,
+yet that she was also linked with the world
+of men, thus combining two things which in
+the past had seemed widely separate, a chasm
+too wide to span, dividing the animals of the
+wild from those belonging to man.</p>
+
+<p>Each recurring visit confirmed this fact.
+Shady missed two nights, but on the third
+she headed for the cabin with the coming
+of night. The comparative warmth of early
+winter had given way to the gripping, penetrating
+cold of January. Breed's appetite
+increased with a corresponding drop in temperature
+and he was hungry. But from
+Shady's actions he knew that she was seized
+with one of those queer lapses which called
+her back to former ways and he delayed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span>
+hunt until she should return from this trip.
+The coyotes had all mated and the season
+for pack-hunting was past, yet many of them
+still rallied to his call; but on this night he
+lingered in the notch and waited for Shady to
+come back to him before summoning the pack.</p>
+
+<p>He prowled uneasily about the narrow
+saddle, and in his nervousness over Shady's
+protracted absence he forgot the danger of
+following cow trails and padded restlessly up
+and down those which threaded through the
+gap. And as he waited for her a mortal enemy
+found the chance he had sought so long and
+began stalking him from behind.</p>
+
+<p>Flatear dropped from the hills to follow
+his ruthless trade and as he swung down the
+funnel basin Breed's scent was wafted to his
+nose. The breeze held up the slope,&mdash;he
+had the wind on the yellow wolf. He shifted
+across the wind but it carried no coyote scent.
+His victim was alone. Flatear followed up
+the drifting current of scent and sighted Breed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span>
+at a hundred yards. His feet made no sound
+and the wind held right; the breed-wolf was
+unaware of his approach.</p>
+
+<p>Breed saw a sudden flow of light from the
+cabin and knew that Shady was leaving it to
+come back to him. He sent forth the rally
+call to the pack and turned to trot along a cow
+trail. He gave a sudden mighty leap into
+the air and crashed down four feet away as
+he struck the end of the chain swiveled to
+the trap that had crushed his foot.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Breed's great paw had not squarely centered
+the trap and the jaws clamped on but
+two toes. He fought the trap with all his
+strength, backing up to gain slack in the
+chain, then throwing all his weight and force
+into his spring as he launched himself into
+the air, only to be jerked violently to the
+ground at the end of the chain.</p>
+
+<p>Four times he sprang, and four times the
+breath was almost jarred from his body
+as he smashed down on his side. As he
+rose from the last spring he suddenly stiffened,
+standing rigidly in one spot while every
+hair rose along his spine. Twenty feet away
+a great gray shape loomed in the sage.
+Breed knew it was the midnight killer who
+had left such sinister evidence of his handiwork<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span>
+scattered along the foot of the hills,&mdash;and
+there was no doubt of his purpose. The
+yellow wolf was handicapped and knew that
+he had no chance, but he did not storm and
+rage aloud as a dog would have done; his
+was the coyote way. He backed up inch by
+inch till he stood above the trap stake, and
+this move gave him a four-foot striking
+range each way.</p>
+
+<p>Flatear did not fear traps with the full
+knowledge of their powers and limitations
+as the coyotes did, but with the superstitious
+dread of the wolf. In common with
+all his kind he had merely avoided instead of
+investigating this danger, and now his understanding
+could not distinguish between a
+trap that was set and one that was sprung
+and harmless.</p>
+
+<p>The clank of the trap chain delayed his
+attack. He feared that the thing which
+clamped his enemy's foot might leap out and
+seize his own. The killer circled his victim,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>
+and the yellow wolf turned round and round
+in the same spot, keeping his bared fangs
+toward his foe. The trap chain kinked and
+twisted till it gave him less than a foot of
+play. Only his insane hatred of Breed led
+Flatear to brave his horror of that sound of
+grating steel,&mdash;but he came in close at last,
+crouched and sprang. Breed leaned sharply
+to one side and met him with a side slash of
+teeth but the weight of his enemy threw him
+and he felt the killer's teeth cut cleanly into
+his shoulder and slide along the bone. Flatear
+reversed his snap so swiftly that it seemed
+but a double swing of his head, yet the second
+swing drove his teeth along Breed's neck and
+laid open a six-inch gash. As Breed struggled
+to his feet the wolf's fangs sliced at his throat
+and ripped it open but not deep enough to
+kill. A loop of the kinked trap chain was
+tightened on Flatear's toes by Breed's convulsive
+backward dodge, and a ghastly fear
+that he himself was trapped swept through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span>
+him, transcending even the lust to kill the
+yellow wolf. He made one wild leap for
+safety,&mdash;and the tightening kink cracked
+his toes and threw him, the same lurch dragging
+Breed down with him, and they rolled
+into a furious tangle of clashing teeth and
+rattling steel.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the night the coyotes were moving
+in from all directions in answer to the call
+Breed had sent out ten seconds before the
+steel jaws gripped him. Shady was trotting
+leisurely up to the saddle to meet her lord
+and mate,&mdash;the mate whose life was flowing
+out through a score of ugly rents. Breed's
+strength was ebbing fast, and he no longer
+had the power to put killing force behind his
+teeth. Flatear snapped aimlessly, his mind
+half crazed by that fearsome pinching of the
+chain on his toes. He felt it loosen and slip
+off, and he leaped clear of the spot.</p>
+
+<p>A shape moved over the edge of the saddle
+and the next instant Shady drove straight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
+at the gray assassin, raging as she came, the
+dog in her boiling to the surface. Before she
+reached him a yellow streak split the night
+and Peg's teeth crunched on the wolf's hind
+leg, the little coyote's deadly silence contrasting
+queerly with Shady's fighting shrieks.</p>
+
+<p>The big wolf fled from this combined attack,
+one hind leg sagging as he ran, the
+muscle torn raggedly across by Peg's one
+snap. Once more Breed was indebted to
+Shady and his coyote followers.</p>
+
+<p>But Breed was far gone. He struggled
+to rise but fell back again and lay still, the
+blood oozing from the rents in his tattered
+pelt. He raised his head and looked at
+Shady, and for a single instant his mouth
+opened and his red tongue lolled out in
+friendly greeting, showing his spirit still
+intact even though his body was slit in
+ribbons; then he lowered it flat between his
+paws and moved nothing but his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Shady crept close to him and licked his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>
+wounds. The coyote pack came up in pairs
+and circled about their stricken leader, some
+of them squatting on their haunches as they
+regarded his plight, others moving restlessly
+about; all of them silent as the grave,
+the only sound in the notch being Shady's
+continuous low wails as she implored her
+mate to rise and follow her.</p>
+
+<p>The bitter frost claimed Breed's swollen
+foot and stiffened it, numbing all sense of
+pain. He felt comfortable and content.
+Then Peg moved up and sniffed critically
+at the trapped foot. He set his teeth in it
+but Breed did not flinch. The three-legged
+coyote crouched beside him and turned his
+head sidewise, the right side of his jaws flat
+on the trap, his teeth sliding along the cold
+steel and shearing away the frozen flesh.
+The leg was dulled to all sensations and Breed
+felt no pain. Shady viewed this amputation
+closely and whined with anxiety as it
+proceeded. Peg sliced the meat from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>
+two toes, set his teeth firmly across the bones
+and crunched just once. Then he hooked
+one forepaw over the trap and scratched it
+away from Breed's sprawling hind leg, two
+severed toes remaining in the trap.</p>
+
+<p>Peg's lips and gums along the right side
+of his face were seared and burned from
+contact with the chilled steel of the trap,
+raw patches of flesh showing where the skin
+had adhered to the frosted springs and had
+been wrenched loose. He nursed these
+wounds with his hot tongue, and fiery twinges
+of pain racked him but he did not whine. He
+curled up and slept for an hour, then rose
+and nipped Breed's flank. The cold had
+stopped the flow of blood from Breed's cuts
+and the pain of the nip roused him from the
+stupor. He struggled to his feet and stood
+swaying while Shady bounced around him
+with joyous yelps. Then he set off for the
+hills, moving at a walk, with his head drooping
+weakly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next morning Collins stood and looked
+down at the two great toes in the trap.</p>
+
+<p>"Pegged him," he said. "Pegged old
+Breed. He'll be minus two hind toes from
+now on out&mdash;but he could lose two toes
+off each foot and still beat the game. The
+whole coyote tribe must have been up here to
+look him over from the number of tracks."</p>
+
+<p>When Collins returned to his shack he
+found six stockmen awaiting him. The
+stampede of the sheep and the big kill made
+by Breed's pack up in the hills had enraged
+the sheepmen. They had confidently expected
+that some man would collect Breed's
+scalp on a fresh tracking snow, but while
+every rider had scoured the foothills for
+Breed's tracks after every storm, no man had
+cut his trail. After gorging on warm meat
+at night a wolf runs sluggishly the following
+day; his muscles lack snap and his wind is
+leaky, and a good horse can wear him down.
+Twice in his first year Breed had been harried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span>
+far across the foothills by hard-running horses,
+and now the first spitting flakes of a coming
+storm brought recollections of those desperate
+races and roused his uneasiness to such a
+pitch that he set off for the hills and remained
+there till the wind had piled the snow and
+cleared long stretches which made tracking
+from a running horse impossible.</p>
+
+<p>The sheepmen at the cabin informed Collins
+of the big killing and their tale was punctuated
+by every possible epithet applicable
+to the coyote tribe. Collins, owning no
+sheep, was in a position to view the killing
+in a more philosophical light than they.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't rightly blame 'em," he said.
+"Men raise up sheep to kill 'em in cold
+blood; coyotes kill 'em when they're hungry.
+Two sides to it, 'cording to whether
+you're a coyote or a man."</p>
+
+<p>The stockmen stated the purpose of their
+visit. Their association had raised the
+bounties, making it profitable for wolfers to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>
+hunt even in the summer months when
+pelts were unprime and valueless; the price
+for spring pups had been raised to equal the
+reward posted for adults; and now the association
+would furnish free poison for all
+wolfers and advocated its use all through the
+year. They stated their belief that this system,
+if followed ruthlessly, would result
+in the practical extermination of prairie
+wolves. They rested their case and anxiously
+awaited the Coyote Prophet's verdict
+on their plan. Collins shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Part of it's good," he told them, "and
+part of it's dead wrong. Anyhow you can't
+kill 'em all. I've told you so for twenty
+year and I stand on what I've said. There'll
+be a million coyotes left to howl when the
+last man dies. The raise on summer bounties
+is a good move&mdash;a man can afford to kill
+shedders at that price; and the pup bounty
+will set men to digging out their dens. But
+your main plan was laid out by men that don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span>
+savvy the coyote mind." Collins leaned forward
+and tapped one forefinger in the open
+palm of his other hand to emphasize his
+point.</p>
+
+<p>"You let this all-year poison idea slide!
+You mark me&mdash;if you try that on you'll
+lose; more ways than one. I know 'em!
+A coyote will take a chance on guns and
+traps, but he's superstitious about these
+strychnine baits. After a few turn up on the
+range with a dose of it the rest will quit your
+line. Your traps won't show one catch.
+There's only one time to use it and that's
+after you've bait trapped and trail trapped
+till only the wisest are left. Then shoot
+the whole range full of poison; get it all
+out at once and knock off all you can. Then
+take your poison up and quit! You hear
+me,&mdash;quit! Then they'll sort of halfway
+forget before another year and you can spring
+it again. But I'm a-telling you the facts,&mdash;if
+you leave poison scattered round loose for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>
+six months you'll see coyotes increasing fast
+and there'll be hell to pay amongst your
+sheep; you'll break behind two ways at
+once. There'll be just enough that forget
+themselves and take on a poison feed to
+keep the rest in the notion of passing up all
+dead meat. They won't even touch bloats
+or winter-killed stock. When they're hungry
+they'll make a kill,&mdash;and they'll work
+on your sheep."</p>
+
+<p>"I've stripped off three times more pelts
+than any wolfer that's mixed poison with his
+traps. Now my trap line is played out and
+I'm going to throw poison into 'em for a
+month,&mdash;and quit."</p>
+
+<p>As Breed lay convalescing from his wounds
+he reviewed the dangers of his chosen range,
+not knowing that the one horror which he
+feared more than all else combined was
+about to sweep through the foothills. His
+former attitude toward Flatear had been
+one of aversion for his gruesome practices,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>
+but with no touch of personal enmity. But
+the gray wolf had not only pounced on him
+at a season when mating was past and dog
+wolves at peace, but had almost torn him to
+shreds while he was helpless in the grip of a
+trap. Breed now felt a terrible hatred growing
+in him, a desire to kill the slinking gray
+beast as soon as he gained sufficient strength
+to take his trail.</p>
+
+<p>Breed was too weak to hunt but there was
+enough of the coyote in Shady to lead her to
+rustle food for her mate. For five days
+Breed lived wholly upon the chunks of meat
+which Shady purloined from the frozen bait
+piled against Collins' shack,&mdash;the meat which
+he intended to poison and strew all across the
+range as soon as he had finished taking up
+his traps. On the sixth night Shady found
+that the whole of the great stack of meat
+had entirely vanished and near morning she
+returned without food.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's strength had flowed steadily back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>
+to him and he craved meat. By noon his
+hunger was a hollow ache. Then suddenly
+he knew that there was meat two miles west
+of him. The wind was square at his back
+so he could not possibly have scented it, and
+any man who had seen him rise from his bed
+and head for meat that lay two miles downwind
+would have charged the act to that
+mysterious intuitive knowledge that animals
+are supposed to have.</p>
+
+<p>There is one sure way by which men of
+the open locate animal carcasses: the location
+of winter-killed stock or range cows
+mired down in an alkali bog is pointed out
+to them at a distance of several miles. Game
+wardens make use of it to locate the illegal
+kills of poachers, and rangers to locate the
+kills of cougars and wolves. In all countries
+there are meat-eating birds and their flights
+reveal much to practiced eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's mysterious information came from
+seeing an eagle pitch down far to the west of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span>
+him. Two minutes later another swooped
+from another angle. Ravens and magpies
+winged toward the spot,&mdash;and Breed set
+off at once toward the converging lines of
+their flight. His hunger overcame his dislike
+for daylight traveling, but he held to
+high ground instead of the valleys.</p>
+
+<p>He came to the edge of a shallow basin
+devoid of all vegetation except an occasional
+spear of grass, chalk-white patches on
+the surface of the earth showing it to be an
+alkali sink. A hundred yards beyond the
+last tongue of sage that reached out into it
+Breed could see a quarter of beef, two eagles
+jealously guarding it. Magpies and ravens
+flitted about, waiting for their share of the
+feast. One of the eagles made frequent moves
+to scatter them when they came too close,
+rushing at them with a queer hopping run,
+his wings half spread and trailing back.
+Breed could plainly hear the snapping of his
+powerful beak.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The larger eagle suddenly took flight,
+rising with awkwardly flapping wings and
+cutting eccentric loops and curves, each dip
+calling forth a raucous scream. He fought
+his way to a height of two hundred yards,
+then lost all muscular control and fell loosely
+to the ground, his mate taking wing as he
+smashed down on the flat.</p>
+
+<p>A vague dread seized Breed. He watched
+the magpies close in to the feed. A score of
+them took the air at half-minute intervals,
+fluttered wildly and with a spasmodic jerking
+of their long tails and pitched down in
+death. The rest of them left the meat.
+Breed's mind again proved capable of associating
+ideas, of constructing theories from
+known facts. The birds had been alive.
+There were no clanking traps or sound of gunshots
+to account for it,&mdash;yet they had died.
+Their crazy flappings had been in sharp contrast
+to their usual grace when in the air.
+Their actions had not been normal, and Breed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span>
+someway thought of the ways of poisoned
+coyotes. He had never seen a poisoned
+horse or cow, or till now a poisoned bird,&mdash;had
+always believed it an affliction of coyotes
+alone; yet he felt the quickening of long
+dormant fears. He knew that meat was
+poisoned and he would not go near. He
+drew farther back in the sage and rested till
+night.</p>
+
+<p>He started out with Shady at dusk and they
+were joined by Peg and his mate, the four of
+them hunting together. Peg killed a jack
+and Breed's share of it partially satisfied the
+gnawing of his hunger. As he traveled on
+he sampled the wind for some sign of the
+gray killer. It had narrowed down to a feud
+between the yellow wolf and the gray, an
+undying hatred, and whenever they next
+met there would be one of them whose trail
+the coyotes would never again cross on the
+range.</p>
+
+<p>Then all thought of hunger, all thought of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>
+his feud with Flatear, everything but stark
+horror was suddenly swept from Breed's
+mind. A horrid, racheting cough sounded
+from straight ahead. A coyote whisked into
+the open and bounced toward them with
+bucking leaps, strangling and gagging as he
+came, then whirled and snapped at himself,
+the froth dripping and foaming from his
+jaws and the moonlight reflecting from his
+set, staring eyes. They drew away from him
+and he writhed on the ground in nasty convulsions,&mdash;stiffened
+and stretched out with
+his eyes bulging from their sockets and glaring
+forth in death.</p>
+
+<p>Breed headed for the hills and Shady and
+the two coyotes clung close to his flanks, as
+if numbers relieved the horror of the thing
+they had just seen.</p>
+
+<p>Three times before they reached the hills
+they were terrified by the appearance of
+former friends who had suddenly been
+stricken into foaming maniacs. Breed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>
+turned on the first rise of the hills and howled.
+The members of the coyote pack read the
+message. Breed was bidding farewell to the
+land of sage. Perhaps he knew that he would
+never see the gray foothills again.</p>
+
+<p>Six pairs of coyotes gathered toward his
+cry. They had seen much and lived to pass
+their knowledge on. Every one of them had
+run the gauntlet of rifle fire; they had been
+hounded by dogs. Most of them had been
+maimed by traps,&mdash;and now this affliction
+that turned coyotes mad with a single bite of
+meat.</p>
+
+<p>They followed Breed back into the hills,
+a wise band, the pick of the coyote tribe and
+well able to cope with new conditions and
+teach their future pups the work of pioneering
+in strange countries which lay ahead of
+them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Breed found the hills buried deep under a
+blanket of snow. In the low country the
+drifts lay only in the gulches and the more
+sheltered spots but up in the lodgepole valleys
+and the heavy stands of spruce on the slopes
+the white covering seemed endless and unbroken.
+The dogs killed the meat for the
+whole pack, for at this season the she-coyotes
+were unfitted for the strenuous work of pulling
+down heavy game. For the same reason
+they were unable to travel long distances
+in the snow. Breed too was disinclined to
+move rapidly. His foot had healed but the
+swollen leg was weak and tender. The pack
+averaged less than twenty miles a day.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a week Breed's old home
+was more than a hundred miles behind and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>
+he was well up in the backbone of the hills.
+He came out upon a mighty divide and gazed
+off across a rolling country extending fifty
+miles each way, all of it high but ringed in
+by still more lofty ranges, their ragged saw-teeth
+standing gaunt and grim against the
+sky. There were broad, open meadows spread
+out before him, great areas devoid of trees,
+intersected by timbered ridges and rolling
+parks where the stand of spruce was dotted.
+The whole of it lay under a four-foot layer of
+snow and gleamed dead white and lusterless,
+but even so its aspect was more inviting
+than the gloomy forest through which they
+had come.</p>
+
+<p>The open-loving coyotes elected to remain
+in this land rather than penetrate the questionable
+beyond. As they crossed the open
+spaces the racy smell of the sage leaked
+through the packed drifts underfoot and they
+knew that parts of these valleys were carpeted
+with the same brush that clothed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span>
+foothills of their home land. This was the
+summer range of the elk herds and once well
+down the slope of the divide they found a
+country that seemed devoid of game.</p>
+
+<p>After advancing in loose formation for five
+miles without any coyote finding a promising
+trail, Breed caught a fugitive scent of meat.
+He circled and looped, now catching it, then
+losing it again. The broad valley stood white
+and silent, gripped in a dead calm, and the few
+vagrant breezes were imperceptible, merely
+the sluggish drift of local air pockets that
+shifted a few feet and settled.</p>
+
+<p>The yellow specks that moved in pairs
+far out across the snow fields slowed and
+halted, changed their routes and headed
+toward the leader who was questing about
+with uplifted nose. Then Breed dropped
+his head and ran with nose close to the
+snow, twisting and turning in one locality
+of less than a hundred yards in extent. The
+eyes of every advancing coyote were fastened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span>
+on Breed. They saw him stop abruptly
+and shove his nose into the snow, and the
+little puff of steam which rose around his
+head as he breathed hard into the drift was
+clearly visible to them all. They put on more
+speed as he began to dig, and when the first
+of them reached him they saw a tawny expanse
+of elk hair at the bottom of the excavation.</p>
+
+<p>They tore away the snow and uncovered
+the whole carcass of a winter-killed elk that
+had been refrigerating there for months.
+Breed lingered near this spot for three days,
+the coyotes bedding near by in pairs, and up
+here where there were no men they fed in the
+daytime whenever so inclined. There was
+not an hour of the day or night when Breed
+could not see one or more coyotes tearing at
+the elk. When the last scrap of meat, hide
+and hair had been devoured and the bones
+gnawed white and clean, Breed moved on in
+search of more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There were always some few stragglers
+that lagged behind the elk herds and failed to
+start for the winter range till after the passes
+were blocked with snow. These turned back
+and starved when the grass was buried deep
+and their feet were cut and worn from pawing
+through the crust to reach it; for the elk
+is strictly a grazing animal and cannot live
+entirely by browsing on the twigs and brush
+as do moose and deer.</p>
+
+<p>For a month Breed prowled this high
+basin country, and in all that time his feet
+never once touched earth except when crossing
+some bald ridge from which the wind
+had whittled the snow. His menu consisted
+exclusively of frozen elk.</p>
+
+<p>A chinook swept the hills and held for a
+week, the hot wind melting and packing the
+drifts and clearing the more exposed slopes
+free of snow. The pack had split up and
+scattered in pairs, each she-coyote selecting
+some likely spot and remaining in that vicinity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The first day of the chinook every she-coyote
+started her den, and the sites, though
+widely separated, were identical in many
+respects. Each chose a ridge with a southeast
+exposure while higher ridges behind
+cut off the sweep of the north and west winds;
+and every den was located in a heavy clump of
+sage. This latter feature was not for the
+reason that sagebrush reminded them of
+home, but because experience had proven
+that the heaviest growths of sage were indicative
+of deep, soft soil beneath and so pointed
+to easy digging, a rule used not only by home-seeking
+coyotes but by homesteading men
+as well, and one that holds good throughout a
+half-million square miles of sagebrush country.</p>
+
+<p>Shady too had settled on an open ridge and
+now spent much of her time there, but this
+seemed more from a disinclination to travel
+and a dislike of bedding in snow than from a
+definite purpose of excavating a den. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span>
+puzzled Breed. Shady leaned more to the
+casual dog way of trusting that a suitable
+spot would present itself on the day when
+her pups should arrive; yet there was enough
+of the coyote in her to cause her to scratch
+out a shallow nest in a sunny spot. This
+act was more for present comfort, however,
+than from any intent to make provision for
+the future.</p>
+
+<p>Peg and Cripp had always clung more
+tenaciously to Breed than had the others of
+the pack and Peg had settled on a ridge not
+more than two miles away; but Cripp was
+no longer to be found. It had been long
+since his voice had been raised in answer to
+Breed's call and he had not come back into
+the hills with the coyote pack. Breed missed
+the trusty follower who had run with him on
+so many hunts, and day after day he expected
+to catch a trace of Cripp in the wind
+or to hear his friendly voice at night, but the
+crippled coyote never came.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Peg was now Breed's sole companion at
+night, except when their mates joined them
+at the two frozen elk carcasses in the bottoms
+between their home ridges, and the two of
+them explored the surrounding country together.
+Peg's lips were scarred along the
+right side of his face, the price of Breed's
+liberty. There are close ties between animals,
+a myriad proofs of friendships and
+enmities, the same as among men, and it may
+be that the act which had brought Peg those
+honorable scars had helped to cement the
+bond between himself and the yellow wolf.
+Whether or not they had means of discussing
+Cripp's absence, there can be no doubt that
+they missed the genial old rogue that had been
+their running mate for so many months and
+that they wondered at his fate.</p>
+
+<p>Breed visited Peg's home ridge during the
+height of the chinook. Peg's mate was a
+silky-haired coyote, her fur fluffy and long.
+Fluff lay sprawled contentedly in the sunshine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>
+while her mate worked on the den.
+She growled uneasily at Breed as he peered
+down the hole. A shower of dirt greeted him
+and he drew away as Peg backed from the
+den and shook the dirt from his fur. Fluff
+took her turn at the work but soon tired of
+it, and Peg started in as soon as she left off.
+A she-coyote picks her own den site and
+starts the hole, but because she is easily exhausted
+near denning time it falls to the
+dog to complete the den.</p>
+
+<p>When Breed returned to Shady he found
+her scratching leisurely at the nest she had
+scooped out. It was merely a raking of the
+surface to loosen and soften the bed which
+was smooth and glazed from her having
+bedded there when her fur was wet; but
+Breed read it as a tentative start toward
+making a permanent home.</p>
+
+<p>When Shady ceased her aimless scratching
+Breed edged her aside and tore at the soft
+earth with his paws. He had buried himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>
+to the hips before he drew back. Shady
+entered and critically inspected the hole,
+then immediately backed out. That was the
+extent of her interest. It may have occurred
+to Breed that his mate's shifts at digging
+were extremely brief, but nevertheless
+he persisted till he had tunneled a curving
+entrance eight feet long and hollowed out
+a nest eighteen inches high by three feet
+across. All well-ordered she-coyotes have
+at least two, and the majority of them three
+openings leading from their homes. Shady
+failed to indicate the direction which she
+wished these emergency tunnels to take so
+Breed laid them out according to plans of
+his own. By the time the den was completed
+the chinook wind had cooled, and
+winter tightened down over the hills once
+more, freezing the surface dirt so solidly as
+to make excavating impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Breed repaired to the last frozen elk carcass
+in his neighborhood and found Peg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span>
+there before him. An hour later a she-coyote
+came to the feed. She sprawled
+flat in the snow and tore ravenously at the
+frozen meat. Her eyes were hollowed from
+hard journeying and lack of food. Breed
+knew her for Cripp's mate and he momentarily
+expected to see his friend. When her
+hunger was appeased she faced back toward
+the divide over which she had come and
+howled; then, as if knowing her cry would
+go unanswered, she turned and left them as
+abruptly as she had come. She had no time
+to lose and she could not dig a den, yet she
+planned the best she knew. There would
+be no mate to rustle food for her, and meat
+would be the first essential while her pups
+were young. Five miles beyond Breed's
+home ridge she found an elk drifted deep
+under the snow in the heavy timber. She
+crawled into the heart of a windfall jam,
+choosing one where the lay of the land would
+prevent her being drowned out when the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
+drifts should melt, and stayed there till her
+five pups were born.</p>
+
+<p>When Breed returned home near morning
+he heard queer squeals issuing from the
+yawning mouth of the den. Shady's doglike
+faith that a place would somehow be provided
+for the great event had been justified
+and she had taken possession of the den which
+her wild mate had so carefully prepared.</p>
+
+<p>Shady wandered no more with Breed, but
+stayed at home in the den, and for the first
+week all that Breed saw of her was a brief
+glimpse of her nose as she came to the mouth
+of the hole, seized the elk meat which he
+brought as an offering and backed down out
+of sight with it. After that he occasionally
+saw the whole of her but these views were
+hasty. Whenever Shady emerged from the
+den her tail barely cleared the mouth of it
+before she twisted back and dived headlong
+from sight, panic-stricken lest some mishap
+had befallen the pups during her long eight-foot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
+trip from them to daylight. After two
+days of hourly excursions of this sort she
+spent a few moments outside the den, and
+thereafter these periods were lengthened until
+she remained on the warm slope fully as
+much as in the den.</p>
+
+<p>Night after night Breed heard the howls
+of the lone she-coyote that had denned in the
+windfall. Always she faced toward the land
+that had been her home. A she-coyote
+whose mate is killed after the running moon
+will raise her pups alone and refuse to accept
+another mate; yet the howls she sent
+out were calls for a mate, and from this
+Breed knew that she did not believe that Cripp
+was dead. He pondered long over this mystery
+of why Cripp still lived but did not join
+his mate.</p>
+
+<p>The supply of elk meat rapidly diminished
+and at last was gone. The only carcass
+Breed could locate within ten miles was the
+one near the windfall, and the widowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>
+mother defended that furiously against all
+comers. The warm days of early March
+had turned it stale and putrid but it was
+all she had.</p>
+
+<p>Every waking second of Breed's time was
+spent on the meat trail. An occasional
+blue grouse or snowshoe hare was the largest
+game he found. That the coyotes were
+faring as poorly he knew from the signs he
+crossed each day in the hills. He found the
+tracks of dog coyotes many miles from their
+dens and always the signs showed that they
+had been working out some cold rabbit trail.
+Breed found the tracks of many bobcats in
+the hills and these appeared to have been
+wandering aimlessly. But Breed knew that
+the noses of cat beasts are not keen enough to
+work out any but the warmest trails; that
+this accounted for his seldom finding signs
+that a cat had trailed a rabbit, and that their
+apparently crazy way of traveling was in
+reality a systematic shifting across the air<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>
+currents in search of the warm body scent of
+their prey. Several times Breed picked up a
+hot cat track and followed it at top speed but
+the big bobs held mainly to the heavy timber
+and always took refuge in a tree.</p>
+
+<p>When Breed's pups were three weeks old
+he had his first look at them when Shady
+came from the den on a warm afternoon and
+a swarm of fluffy little creatures toddled
+after her. There were eight of them, all
+with heavy frames that gave promise of their
+attaining almost as great size as their father,
+and there were strips of dark fur along their
+backs. After that first trip they spent much
+time romping and quarreling on the sunny
+side hill.</p>
+
+<p>A pair of golden eagles had nested on the
+rough face of a pinnacle that rose from the
+floor of the valley near its head, some five
+miles from Breed's home ridge. These
+mighty birds soared far out over the divide
+and returned with meat for their fledglings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span>
+in the nest. Their pealing screams often
+split the silence of the valley. Shady paid
+small heed to them but Breed often cast a
+wary eye aloft when the screams sounded
+from close at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Shady was stretched comfortably before the
+den one day, watching the pups scattered
+out along the ridge, when she became aware
+of a faint rushing sound such as the first
+puffs of a fresh wind make when they strike
+the trees some distance away. This increased
+to a humming roar. She looked up
+to see a huge shape driving down upon a pup
+with incredible velocity, swooping at a sharp
+angle, the great wings spread wide and hissing
+through the air as the big bird tipped
+dizzily from side to side. Within two seconds
+after the first droning sound had reached
+Shady's ears she saw the eagle strike his claws
+through a pup and start up the valley on
+lazily flapping wings. Shady raced madly
+under him and raged until the valley echoed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span>
+to her fury. Then she quieted and watched
+till he was but a tiny speck off toward the
+nesting peak, the dead pup dangling loosely
+from the talons that had struck clear through
+his slender body, the hind claw on each
+foot meeting and interlocking with one front
+claw in a grip which nothing short of the
+actual severing of a leg tendon could break.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter Shady knew why Breed showed
+uneasiness when an eagle screamed near the
+den.</p>
+
+<p>The pups knew every note of their mother's
+voice and obeyed it implicitly. They
+would be asleep in the den when a note would
+summon them forth to play, every pup
+tumbling hurriedly out; she would give
+another cry when they were playing carelessly
+in the open, the tone being so nearly identical
+with that of the first that a man might hear
+it a hundred times and detect no difference,
+yet every pup would dive headlong for the
+nearest hole.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Shady learned to watch for the eagles.
+Nearly always it was a shadow which warned
+her first. She would see a swiftly moving
+black speck gliding over the snow fields or
+darting along the slopes of the ridges that
+flanked the valley and she instantly issued a
+warning to the pups, knowing that where
+there was a shadow there must be a bird
+above. Sometimes Breed saw the birds first
+and called. Shady relayed the danger signal
+to her young, and even if she was half a
+mile away the pups made a prompt and
+desperate spurt for the den.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+
+<p>The snow melted slowly in the high country
+but by mid-April a few bare spots showed in
+the more open meadows, the hardy mountain
+grass sending forth green shoots. The rabbits
+were drawn from the timbered ridges to
+nibble these first spring dainties. The surface
+of the drifts showed thousands of tiny mouse
+tracks,&mdash;the mice that had lived deep under
+the snow, subsisting on food previously stored,
+now coming forth to swarm into these first
+cleared patches.</p>
+
+<p>The pups had grown large and strong and
+were able to follow their parents on the meat
+trail, and they soon learned to catch their own
+mice. The drifts in the passes had packed
+so firmly as to afford good footing and the
+game was coming back to the summer range.
+After the first few had made the crossing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span>
+rest followed their trails and the main tide
+of the elk migration set in, great droves of
+cows boiling through all the passes and
+streaming down into the green spots in the
+meadows. There was now meat in plenty,
+and the yelping barks of the cows sounded in
+the valleys that had been wrapped in white
+silence for so many months; but there was
+not a sound from the bulls; the antlered
+lords whose ringing challenges had filled the
+whole expanse of the hills the previous fall
+seemed voiceless now. These old fellows
+had remained up among the high bald ridges,
+their new antler growth tender in its velvet
+sheath, and nothing would be heard from them
+till after the porous growth had hardened
+and their points were polished for the next
+rutting time.</p>
+
+<p>The wolf family returned to the den no
+more, except perhaps for a casual inspection
+when their wanderings chanced to lead them
+to the neighborhood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The bears had come from their long sleep
+and left the dens. There were black and
+brown bears and monster grizzlies roaming
+in the meadows. At first the diet of these
+huge beasts consisted almost entirely of grass
+and twigs but their appetites rapidly increased
+and it was no unusual thing for a bear to
+appropriate one of Breed's kills.</p>
+
+<p>Breed did not fear bears, knowing that
+their speed was less than his own and that they
+were harmless so long as he did not molest
+them and come into too close quarters. He
+accepted this stealing of his meat as part of
+the established order of things and always
+moved away when a bear came swaying
+leisurely up to his kill.</p>
+
+<p>Shady, on the contrary, had a wholesome
+fear of bears and was excited at their approach,
+but at the same time she could not view their
+thieving ways in such a philosophical light
+and her resentment rankled deeper with each
+recurring theft.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The wolf family returned to a kill to find
+a great silvertip feeding there. Shady's rage
+boiled over and she swept down upon him
+with a furious burst of barking. She would
+have halted short of him but there was no
+need. Breed was profoundly amazed to see
+the mighty baldface flee down the slope with
+Shady in full cry behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Breed knew that bears did not fear him,
+even though his fighting ability far surpassed
+that of his mate, yet a grizzly fled at the first
+sound of her voice. This deepened his respect
+for Shady; the mate who was so helpless in
+many respects was surprisingly resourceful
+in others.</p>
+
+<p>It was not known to Breed that bears had
+learned to dread the bellowing of a pack of
+trail hounds in the hills through knowledge
+that men followed close behind, and that the
+dog note in Shady's voice stirred up visions
+of a man with a magazine gun on their trail.
+But while the reason was not clear to Breed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span>
+the fact that the mightiest grizzly took flight
+before his mate was repeatedly proved to
+him, and after once learning her power Shady
+permitted no bear to deprive her family of its
+meat.</p>
+
+<div class="link">
+   <a id="page_167_th">&nbsp;</a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="center">
+   <a href="images/page_167.jpg" >
+     <img src="images/page_167_th.jpg"
+        alt="" />
+   </a>
+   <p class="caption">As the summer advanced the pups learned to pack-hunt with Breed. <i><a href='#Page_167'>Page 167</a>.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>As the summer advanced the pups learned
+to pack-hunt with Breed. The coyote howls
+at night were now confined to messages between
+mate and mate or between mother and
+pups. The life they led was essentially a
+family life and they had no interests outside
+of the family circle. Breed's cry to rally
+a pack was never raised, for his own domestic
+duties were many; and if he had sent forth
+the summons none would have answered it.
+He sometimes met Peg and ran with him for
+a while, but these visits were infrequent and
+brief, each having pressing business of his own.</p>
+
+<p>Breed one day caught the scent of a coyote
+upwind from him. This in itself was nothing
+unusual but there was something vaguely
+familiar about it, something that roused old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span>
+memories, and suddenly he thought of Cripp.
+He traced up the scent and as he topped the
+ridge he stopped short and bared his teeth,
+the hair rising along his spine. A horrid nightmare
+of a thing rose from its bed and leered at
+him. The hair had slipped from its body,
+leaving the skin shiny and slate-blue. The
+ears and head were furred, and the legs;
+tufts of hair sprouted from the shoulders and
+along the spine, but flanks and sides were
+bare and the long tail was rat-like, its joints
+showing through the tight-stretched skin.
+The lips were drawn back and revealed the
+blue gums receding from loosened teeth. This
+was the result of poison that had failed to kill.</p>
+
+<p>Breed knew this grisly apparition for Cripp.
+The scent was there, and the warped foreleg.
+Cripp did not recognize his friend. His
+mind was clouded and the light of insanity
+gleamed in his sunken eyes. Breed whirled
+and fled, and a weird cry sounded behind
+him,&mdash;the eerie howl of a maniac.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All through the summer the coyotes shunned
+the specter of living death that plodded
+silently up and down the valleys and the
+ridges. When it came suddenly through the
+trees, drawn by the scent of a fresh kill, some
+coyote family scattered swiftly and left the
+feast. Cripp was as apt to howl in broad
+daylight as at night, and the sounds were
+meaningless, the unintelligible jargon of an
+idiot. Every coyote within hearing bristled
+with fear whenever Cripp's jabbering reached
+their ears.</p>
+
+<p>In the background of Breed's mind the
+purpose to slay Flatear still persisted, but
+his duties prevented his spending the time
+to hunt for him. Occasional wolf howls were
+heard back here in the hills, the calls of
+strays that had drifted down from the north,
+following the line of the hills and keeping well
+back from the dangers of the low country.
+Each time he heard the wolf note the urge
+to kill was strengthened in Breed. He had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>
+heard Flatear's voice but once and so was
+unable to identify him by ear alone but must
+receive added testimony through eyes or nose.
+Twice he left his family to investigate the
+source of these cries. One came from a lone
+female; the other from a big gray dog wolf
+who had mated with a coyote, and there were
+five pups trailing after the oddly assorted
+pair. These pups were much like Breed's
+own and they gave proof that the coyote
+strain was stronger than the wolf. Their
+language was that of their mother. The only
+trace of wolf parentage was shown in their
+greater size and the dark fur of their backs.
+Breed's search for his old enemy proved fruitless.
+Many things of which Breed was unaware
+had taken place on his old home range
+since he had left it, and Flatear, terrified by
+the latest of these events, had slunk away to
+the north.</p>
+
+<p>Collins' prediction had been verified. The
+coyotes in the low country where poison had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>
+been strewn broadcast on the range had
+suddenly turned from stale meat as from
+disease. Much of their food supply had
+come from bloated sheep, from locoed horses,
+and from cows that had eaten larkspur and
+died, but they would no longer touch these
+carcasses. Deprived of this source of food,
+their kills became more frequent and they
+grew bolder in their raids on calves and sheep.</p>
+
+<p>Then a new and appalling menace reared its
+ugly head in the foothills, striking not at
+coyotes alone but at every living thing.
+There were many coyotes such as Cripp,
+with the hair slipped from their hides,&mdash;the
+ones that had survived a dose of poison but
+were unable to shake off its devastating after
+effects. Hydrophobia broke out among these
+and they ran amuck, striking alike at friends
+and foes. Sound coyotes were turned into
+frothing fiends that helped to spread the wave
+of madness that swept across three States.
+Horses and cows died by hundreds and it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span>
+no unusual thing for one mad coyote to bite
+fifty head of sheep in a single night. The
+five dogs that had harried Breed were themselves
+infected when they pulled down a mad
+coyote, and they drove poisoned fangs into
+forty head of stock before the last of the five
+was run down and shot.</p>
+
+<p>There was but one ray of hope in the whole
+dangerous business and men seized on that.
+Mad coyotes lost their cunning and ran
+stupidly on some chosen course, biting every
+living thing that crossed their trails, but
+refusing to be turned aside even to avoid an
+approaching man. Riders poured through
+the foothills on fleet horses, shooting down
+the stricken ones, all other business suspended
+till this menace had been stamped out. And
+through it all the ravages among the wily
+coyotes were far less than among domestic
+stock.</p>
+
+<p>The spreading of coyotes over new territory,
+which had been only gradual before, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>
+accelerated by the poison and madness that
+had blighted the foothills. Thickly settled
+districts far to the east, where coyotes had
+formerly appeared but infrequently, were
+now invaded by great numbers. Poison and
+traps could not be used effectively against
+them in localities where there were dogs on
+every farm, and the coyotes were safer there
+than on the open range. Reports that reached
+Collins showed that for eight hundred miles
+south along the base of the hills the coyotes
+were quitting the flats and roaming through
+the fastnesses of the Rockies.</p>
+
+<p>Breed noted the steady flow of strange
+coyotes into the high basins of his new range.
+In the late summer his pups dropped one by
+one from the family circle, going off on some
+business of their own. During the latter part
+of August Breed was conscious of a vague
+sense of loneliness. This grew more pronounced
+and then suddenly he knew! The
+rally call for the pack rolled through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span>
+valleys and echoed among the peaks, and
+from far and near he heard familiar voices
+raised in answer. The parental responsibilities
+were over for one season, the pups
+gone forth on their own, and the members
+of the pack were free to follow the yellow wolf.</p>
+
+<p>As Breed ran through the hills the pack
+gathered, and each coyote fell into his old
+place. Peg and his mate ran close on the
+right of Breed,&mdash;but the place on the left
+was vacant.</p>
+
+<p>Cripp was coming, however. The cry for
+the pack had penetrated the fog that obscured
+his reason and touched a responsive chord
+buried deep beneath. That cry was meant
+for him. The coyotes made a kill and feasted,
+but before their hunger had been satisfied
+a living skeleton came moving toward them,
+and they scattered wildly and left the meat
+to Cripp.</p>
+
+<p>Several strange coyotes joined Breed's pack
+and these new members seemed possessed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span>
+of some haunting fear. Breed noted their
+constant air of expectancy and the intent
+regard with which they favored every coyote
+that drew near to them. They seemed always
+suspicious that some friend would suddenly
+turn upon them, and whenever some eager
+coyote clashed his teeth while feeding, these
+strangers that had come so recently from the
+low country started uneasily at the sound.</p>
+
+<p>Night after night Cripp followed the pack
+and came to the kill. The coyotes all avoided
+him but the strangers were assailed with a
+ghastly dread of his grinning mask, and their
+fears were communicated to the rest of the
+pack. Breed himself caught it. An air of
+tense watchfulness pervaded their gatherings,
+a guarding against some menace as yet unknown
+but which the actions of the strangers
+indicated might be upon them at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>After a week of this sort of thing Breed and
+Shady were bedded on a ridge slope that
+flanked a broad meadow when Breed saw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span>
+a moving speck at the far edge of it. It
+proved to be a coyote, though at first its
+peculiar gait denied this. He came straight
+on across the open, and Breed saw one of
+his new friends trot from a willow clump in
+the meadow, take one look at the advancing
+stranger and become galvanized into a flitting
+streak that left the valley. Even at that
+distance his deadly fear was evident, and
+Breed knew that the unknown danger had
+become actual and was embodied in the queer-gaited
+coyote that was coming toward him.</p>
+
+<p>He ran with an automaton-like stiffness,
+never changing his course, and occasionally
+stumbling as if unaware of the character of
+the ground over which he passed. His head
+swung out slightly to either side and he
+snapped each time. There was something
+sinister in every move, as if his body was
+driven on without conscious volition, actuated
+by some dreadful, unclean force. Breed knew
+it for some sort of poisoning, and his muscles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span>
+bunched for flight. Shady barked angrily
+as if to drive the thing away. Then Breed
+saw a hairless travesty of a coyote move out
+of a draw and halt directly in the path of the
+mad coyote. Cripp stood there grinning
+till he felt the other's teeth score his unprotected
+hide; then he whirled and snapped
+back at him. The mad coyote kept straight
+on and Cripp followed at his own queer
+shambling gait. He drew close and ran
+alongside, and for a hundred yards they exchanged
+slashes in a senseless sort of way.
+Breed could see the blood oozing from the
+fur of the mad coyote's neck, and the blobs
+of white foam sliding down Cripp's shiny hide.
+Then the mad coyote fell and Cripp kept on
+for another ten yards before he missed him.
+He wheeled and returned, stumbled and fell
+and crawled back to his foe, and they lay
+there toothing one another in an impersonal,
+detached way, as if it did not matter.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's soul revolted at this scene and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>
+fled the spot. When he raised his howl that
+night he was twenty miles farther north, but
+the coyote pack answered from close at hand.
+Many of them witnessed the same scene from
+adjacent slopes of the valley. The others
+had viewed similar sights, and there was a
+general coyote movement north through the
+mountains, a widespread exodus ahead of the
+madness that was creeping up into the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Breed had formerly been imbued with the
+home-loving nature of the coyote, and this
+had led him to restrict his wanderings to a
+comparatively limited area instead of ranging
+hundreds of miles in all directions after the
+manner of wolves. This love of a permanent
+home range now operated in a peculiar way.
+All ties were severed behind him, the land he
+loved bristling with such a wide variety of
+dangers as to preclude all possibility of his
+return. The wanderlust which now seized
+him appeared a complete reversal of his
+former desire to remain in one vicinity where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span>
+every topographical feature was to him a
+familiar landmark; but in reality this very
+wanderlust was an expression of home love;
+every step he took away from his old range
+was unconsciously actuated by the desire
+to find some new spot which would take the
+place of the old.</p>
+
+<p>For two weeks these wanderings were
+erratic and uncontrolled by any conscious
+purpose. He roamed on the Shoshone and
+the Thoroughfare, the Yellowstone and the
+Buffalo Fork of the Snake, then swung back
+across the Sunlight Peaks. Shady had acted
+queerly of late, frequently leaving Breed for
+hours at a time and climbing to some commanding
+point from which she would look
+far off across the hills, as if seeking something
+which was always just beyond the
+range of her vision; but she always came
+back to him. Breed found nothing out of
+the way in this. Mated coyotes were prone
+to follow separate trails for hours, even days,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>
+and then meet again. Shady had clung to
+him persistently, refusing to be out of his
+sight except when at the den with her pups,
+and this new manifestation seemed a natural
+one to Breed, an evidence that his mate had
+come to trust in her ability to shift for herself
+in the wild. But it was not this. Now that
+her pups had been schooled and sent out to
+face the world alone, Shady hungered to see
+the man who had raised her from a pup, and
+to feel his fingers scratching behind her ears.</p>
+
+<p>As the pack straggled out among the ragged
+Sunlight Peaks Shady looked down across
+the lower slopes; one valley opened into
+another in an interminable procession and
+far down across the spruce tops a rift between
+two flanking hills afforded a view of the low
+country, shimmering in the sun. Sand Coulee
+Basin, her old home! And a variegated mass
+in the distance marked the Rainbow Buttes,
+rising isolated and alone from out the badlands.
+Shady struck a swift gliding trot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>
+and dropped down the slope, disappearing
+in the first twisted masses of <a name="timber_line" id="timber_line">timber-line</a>
+spruce.</p>
+
+<p>For the first few hours after her departure
+Breed gave it no thought, but when she failed
+to turn up he grew increasingly uneasy. Ten
+hours and he called to her and there was no
+reply, twelve and he circled to pick up her
+trail but it had cooled. He prowled the peaks
+for three days and nights, disconsolate and
+lonely, even though in close touch with the
+coyote pack, and sending out call after call
+for his mate. Shady had spent the first two
+days in almost continuous travel, put in a
+single hour with the Coyote Prophet, reveling
+in the feel of his exploring fingers and the
+friendly sound of his voice; then she departed
+as suddenly as she had come and spent two
+more days in reaching the summit of the
+Sunlight Peaks where she had left her mate,
+for after all his hold on her was far more
+gripping than that exercised by the man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She heard Breed's lonely cry and answered
+it, and an hour later she was frisking about
+him with doggish enthusiasm. The yellow
+wolf accepted her lavish display of affection
+with dignity; his joy in the reunion was
+a match for her own, but the wolf in him was
+unequal to matching the effusiveness of the
+dog in her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+
+<p>All through the Yellowstone country the
+evidence of Breed's teachings was apparent
+on every hand. The progeny of the members
+of his original band had been taught pack-hunting
+by their parents, as they themselves
+had learned the art from Breed. For a
+hundred miles each way from Two Ocean
+Pass the hills were full of the disciples of the
+yellow wolf. The elk now fled from coyotes
+as once they had fled from wolves. The
+coyotes brought all their native trickery
+and resourcefulness into play and made pack-hunting
+a very different affair from that
+practiced by timber wolves. They did not
+hunt bunched, but scattered, saving their own
+strength and wearing down that of their
+prey. When an elk was singled out the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span>
+coyotes relayed him and kept him on the
+move. Whenever he attempted a straightaway
+flight some coyote flashed out in front
+of him to turn him back, and he was headed
+through bogs and spongy ground on the slides
+at the foot of old snow drifts until his strength
+was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's movements now lost their aimlessness,
+and each day found him a few miles
+farther north. The home love in him was
+working, but he himself was unconscious of
+the fact that he was seeking some land that
+would answer all requirements. It was not
+given to him to plan largely for the future,
+and each move was occasioned by the dissatisfaction
+with the country in which he
+found himself, rather than from any definite
+idea of mapping out a course for a permanent
+range and there establishing his home.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless he held steadily to the north
+and the faithful pack moved with him.
+Other coyotes flanked their line of march,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>
+urged on by fear of the madness that lay
+behind and finding courage for their pioneering
+in the fact that every night they heard
+the howls of the coyote pack ahead.</p>
+
+<p>The game herds were milling restlessly
+in high basins. The blacktail bucks had
+short new coats of sleek blue-gray; they had
+shed the long hair of the previous season,&mdash;the
+season of short blue, the Short Blue Moon
+of the Northwest Indian tribes. Broad vistas
+of the low country showed through revealing
+gaps in the hills, marked by the blue-gray
+tinge of the sage; a pale haze hung in the
+hills and turned distant green spruce slopes
+to silvery blue; the rivers had long since
+passed the flood tide of melting drifts, and
+were cleared of the roily effects of late summer
+rains, and lakes and streams, now free of
+sediment, showed blue-green to their very
+depths; the high peaks were held in silhouette
+against a clear blue sky. Everything showed
+a touch of blue,&mdash;such is the Short Blue Moon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And the love-making time of the antlered
+tribes is ushered in with the season of short
+blue. As Breed moved north the whistling
+snorts of lovelorn bucks reached his ears day
+after day. The clarion bugles of challenging
+bulls was promise of meat in plenty. Bighorn
+rams squired their bands of ewes on the
+plateaus and pinnacles above timber line.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's course was by no means a straight
+line. Hunts drew him to the east and west
+and frequently back to the south, but the
+general trend of it all was a northward migration
+for the coyote pack. Some days
+they gained twenty miles, some but three or
+four, and on others they lost ground. At
+the end of a month the land of the Yellowstone
+was a hundred miles southeast.</p>
+
+<p>The big gray wolves were more plentiful
+here, but scattered and not traveling in packs.
+At every wolf howl Breed felt the old hatred
+of Flatear surge up in him, but though he
+frequently met wolves none of them proved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span>
+to be his enemy. The big grays showed
+only a casual interest in coyotes, evidencing
+neither enmity nor delight at any chance
+meeting, indifference the keynote of their
+attitude.</p>
+
+<p>Autumn blended into early winter and the
+gain toward the north was less apparent,
+Breed lingering in the vicinity of good hunting
+grounds as he found them, moving on
+when the supply of meat diminished. He
+held to the main divide of the Rockies, and
+when the heavy storms of midwinter set in,
+he was well across Montana and nearing the
+Canadian line. The deep snowfall had driven
+the game down out of the peaks to the lower
+valleys of the hills and Breed was forced to
+follow. He moved westward across the South
+Fork of the Flathead to the Kootenai Range.
+There were fewer elk here than in the Yellowstone,
+living in scattered bunches and not
+congregating in droves of hundreds on the
+winter feed grounds. Deer ranged the Kootenai<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>
+country in plentiful numbers and Breed
+elected to stay. Mating was close at hand
+and the northward movement halted.</p>
+
+<p>Stray coyotes drifted continually up from
+the south and joined the ranks of the pack,
+and there were stray wolves crossing the
+range from the Flathead to Swan River and
+back. Many of these mated with the unattached
+coyotes as they straggled north.
+Breed's pack was rapidly thinned down,
+pairs dropping out to den till at last only Peg
+and Fluff were left.</p>
+
+<p>When the chinook set in Fluff chose a den
+site and stopped. Breed held on for another
+five miles, then Shady refused to travel. She
+picked her own site and showed a keener interest
+in home building than she had the
+season past, working short shifts to relay
+Breed on the digging, and the three tunnels
+that led to this new nest hole were longer
+and more elaborately curved and twisted
+than those of the old den on the Yellowstone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span>
+The last day of February seven pups came to
+share the den with Shady.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the pack had denned to the
+south and few encroached on Breed's hunting
+territory. Deer were still plentiful, even
+after a winter of hard hunting, and he found
+little difficulty in supplying meat. There
+was but one flaw in his contentment.</p>
+
+<p>One day when the pups were a month old
+and had recently been out for their first romp
+Breed hunted across the divide and down the
+western slope of the Kootenais. He stood
+on a ridge in the gathering dusk when he was
+suddenly aware that other hunters were
+abroad before him. His eye caught flashes
+of white through the green of the spruce on the
+opposite slope. He knew that a band of deer
+had been startled to sudden flight, that the
+jerky gleams of white were the brief exposures
+of the underparts of their tails as they were
+upflung in hurdling windfalls. The wind
+was wrong and Breed could not catch the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span>
+scent. He traced their course through the
+timber by their white flags and saw three
+deer break cover and start out across a long
+narrow opening on the slope, the path of
+a snowslide that had stripped a lane through
+the trees on the steep side hill, its trail a clean
+split in the solid green of the spruce. In the
+center of the slide the lead deer suddenly
+collapsed and the sharp report of a rifle rolled
+across the hills.</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of the shot Breed heard a few
+deep-chested dog notes half a mile down the
+narrow valley. He looked that way and saw
+a slender tongue of smoke curling lazily above
+the trees around a bend. The deep note was
+strange to him, but again the association of
+ideas came to his aid. Shady's occasional
+fits of barking and her strange ways; the
+wolf hounds that had belonged to men and
+had chased him in Sand Coulee Basin; this
+note that rose in answer to a rifle shot and
+came from near the smoke that denoted a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span>
+cabin. Breed himself was unconscious of
+assorting these ideas, but he knew that the
+hoarse note came from some dog beast that
+belonged to man.</p>
+
+<div class="link">
+   <a id="page_191_th">&nbsp;</a>
+</div>
+<div class="center">
+   <a href="images/page_191.jpg" >
+     <img src="images/page_191_th.jpg"
+        alt="" />
+   </a>
+   <p class="caption">Breed was compelled to hunt farther from home as the deer quit the valleys. <i><a href='#Page_191'>Page 191</a>.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A lone prospector had built his cabin on
+the west slope of the Kootenais, and hereafter
+Breed avoided this vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>When the pups were six weeks old Shady
+felt the call to help Breed rustle food and she
+hunted by herself in the neighborhood of the
+den, but her earnest efforts were unavailing,
+as there was no small game and she was
+unable to stalk a deer.</p>
+
+<p>Breed was compelled to hunt farther from
+home as the deer quit the valleys to descend
+to the foothills for the first nips of green grass.
+One morning, when far south of the den,
+he heard again the note of the hound. It rose
+and fell, an eager bellow that moved slowly
+through the hills, and Breed did not like the
+music. This same baying reached him on
+three other days. The reason for all this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span>
+uproar was beyond his comprehension, but
+from the fact that it came from a dog he knew
+that it meant no good for the wild things.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after he first heard this strange
+sound he came face to face with a pair of
+coyotes that had run with his pack. Their
+air was one of dejection and there was no
+springiness in their gait. From their dispirited
+manner Breed knew that tragedy
+had overtaken his friends, that some calamity
+had befallen their pups. Later he met a
+second pair, a dog coyote and a she-wolf,
+and they too were traveling aimlessly, their
+family torn from them. But Breed had no
+way of linking these disasters with the music
+of the trail hound. The prospector kept
+a single hound and when he found a fresh
+wolf kill in the spring he put the dog on the
+tracks that led from it, keeping him in leash,
+and the hound led him to the den. He had
+found good hunting near his cabin this spring,
+as the hills were full of the dens of the small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span>
+yellow wolves that had turned up in such
+numbers the preceding winter, but his activities
+so far had been confined to the country
+that lay south of Breed's range.</p>
+
+<p>Breed led the pups forth for a few short
+trips as their strength increased. In his
+hunts toward the south he frequently crossed
+the trails of other coyotes that had led their
+offspring out for a ramble. At least one
+out of every three families were breeds, and
+the pups were uniform. They were heavier
+than coyotes and their backstrips were dark;
+but their language was pure coyote, their
+voices perhaps slightly deeper and with fuller
+volume, but the change was so slight as to
+escape detection from the ears of man. These
+pups were the same sort of hybrids as Breed,
+their parental strains identical, yet among
+them all he found only one with his own
+qualities, the coyote fur and the voice of the
+wolf. In all others this was reversed.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's own pups grew strong and active,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span>
+capable of covering ten miles of rough hill
+country in a single night, and the family
+would soon have left the den but that Shady
+indulged in one of her flighty streaks,&mdash;a
+streak prompted by the dog strain in her
+rising temporarily above the wild.</p>
+
+<p>She had hunted tirelessly but had failed
+to bring home a scrap of meat. Her hopes
+ran high and she ranged continually farther
+from the den till she eventually crossed over
+the divide for a look at the west slope. The
+breeze held steadily from the west and Shady
+caught a whiff of wood smoke and moved
+toward it to investigate. She scouted along
+the edge of the timber, watching the cabin
+in the little clearing for signs of life. It
+appeared deserted. She crossed to it and
+sniffed at a crack,&mdash;then fled for her life.
+At the first sniff there came a deafening bellow
+and a great hound surged round the corner
+of the house.</p>
+
+<p>As Shady fled she rolled her eyes back,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span>
+coyote fashion, for a glimpse behind. She
+noted that the hound seemed to have trouble
+in getting started, and once back in the
+timber she stopped. She heard the rattle of
+a chain,&mdash;the hound was anchored! From
+long experience in the past Shady knew the
+futility of striving to break a chain. The
+dog was powerless to harm her. Even if he
+should free himself it would avail him nothing;
+these slow running hounds were known to her,
+and their speed was no match for her own.</p>
+
+<p>Shady returned to the cabin and peered
+round one corner at the raging hound whose
+six-foot chain prevented his clearing the next
+corner by more than a foot. She moved along
+the side of the house till within ten feet of
+him and sat down, her tongue lolling out
+contentedly as she watched the frenzied
+hound almost strangle himself in his efforts
+to reach her.</p>
+
+<p>A flutter of canvas caught her eye and she
+rose with her forefeet against the logs as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span>
+stretched her nose up toward it. The prospector
+had rolled the cloth round a ten-pound
+piece of fresh venison to keep the flies from
+it. Shady sprang and seized it, swinging
+clear of the ground, all four feet braced against
+the logs, then fell sprawling as the nail from
+which it was suspended bent and allowed the
+cord to slip. She started off across the open,
+and the first fold of canvas flapped loosely
+under her feet and tripped her. Halfway
+to the timber the meat dropped out and she
+took it, leaving the cloth behind; something
+over an hour later she turned up at the den
+with the first meat she had ever furnished for
+her own pups.</p>
+
+<p>The prospector returned to his cabin and
+while still a mile away he heard the bellowing
+of the dog. The first sight that greeted him
+was the canvas, flapping limply in the open,
+and he found Shady's dust tracks round the
+cabin, and swore. He ducked hurriedly into
+the house and reappeared with a shotgun,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span>
+unsnapped the chain from the cabin wall
+and resnapped it in his belt, and he was off,
+with the eager hound tugging ahead of him
+on Shady's trail.</p>
+
+<p>Shady, elated by her first success, had left
+the den for another hunt. As she swung back
+toward home she heard the steady bellow of
+a hound and put on full speed ahead. The
+baying ceased except for an occasional bark,
+and when Shady came to the last fringe of
+trees along the ridge she saw a man standing
+at the den. The hound was chained to a
+single tree some thirty yards away and she
+knew there was naught to fear from him.
+The man started excavating with a light
+miner's pick and a short-handled shovel
+which he unslung from his back. In half an
+hour he had opened one tunnel till he could
+peer into the den hole. Then he unwound
+a strange instrument from about his waist,
+a wolfer's "feeler", three strands of wire
+twisted into a pliable cable ten feet long, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>
+three ends of the strands extending forklike
+a bare two inches beyond the cable braid at
+one end. This simple invention eliminates
+much tedious excavation work, the sensitive
+tool following the curves of the branching
+tunnels which each wolf pup makes for himself
+as soon as he is able to dig. Shady
+prowled along the edge of the timber and
+viewed these preparations suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>The man inserted the end of the feeler in
+a hole that led off the main cavity of the den,
+and advanced it by gentle thrusts, twisting
+it as he pushed to clear the forks. There
+was not a sound from the den. The feeler
+would go no farther. He grasped it flat
+between the palms of his hands and twirled
+the cable rapidly from right to left. There
+was a sudden spitting explosion of baby
+snarls from the depths of the hole. The
+man gave one tentative tug and felt resistance,
+then hauled the feeler in hand over hand
+and drew forth a fighting pup, the three tines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span>
+twisted firmly into his soft fur. The hound
+opened up excitedly; the short pick swept
+up and down,&mdash;and the pup was a lifeless
+heap.</p>
+
+<p>Terror and rage flooded Shady in equal
+parts. She gave one sharp cry,&mdash;and the
+other two openings disgorged a shower of
+frightened pups that scattered toward the
+timber as so many flushed partridges, fleeing
+in response to their mother's sharp command,
+and Shady raged straight at the
+man!</p>
+
+<p>The prospector was an old hand at rifling
+wolf dens. Occasionally a pup would dart
+from another exit, and the shotgun was an
+effective weapon with which to check his
+flight. But never had he seen such a mad
+outpouring of pups as this, and in all his long
+life in the hills a she-wolf had never rushed
+him, even in defense of her pups. Shady's
+charge was reversed so suddenly as to appear
+that she turned a flip in mid-air when she saw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span>
+the man's hand stretch forth and lift the
+shotgun from the ground, for she knew well
+its purpose and its power.</p>
+
+<p>The thunderous roar of black powder
+sounded behind her and a charge of heavy
+shot raked her hips and loins as she gained
+the trees. Shot pierced both ears and furrowed
+along her skull. The man turned and
+pulled the second barrel at the rearmost pup
+and he went down limply, a puff of fur flung
+into the air above him, his life snuffed out
+in a single instant as the heavy charge pulverized
+him from end to end.</p>
+
+<p>A piercing series of yelps issued from the
+timber as Shady gave voice to her agony.
+The prospector nodded. The mystery was
+cleared; for he knew that he might shoot
+a wolf or coyote to mincemeat and neither
+would make a sound.</p>
+
+<p>"A dog," he said. "A renegade. I should
+have knowed it all along; her stealing thataway
+right alongside of Buge; and her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>
+bristling up to me&mdash;no wolf would carry on
+like that."</p>
+
+<p>He strode to the tree and unleashed the
+hound.</p>
+
+<p>"Go to it, Buge!" he said. "Go clean up
+them pups."</p>
+
+<p>As the dog sped into the timber a sharp
+note sounded from far down the slope. Shady
+had partially recovered her upset faculties
+and called the pups, and they gathered swiftly
+to her and ran their best. Even in her
+crippled state Shady could have outrun the
+trail hound, for her wounds had not yet had
+time to stiffen, but the pups could scarcely
+hold their own, and the dog's endurance was
+far greater.</p>
+
+<p>Breed was returning to the den with a
+ragged chunk of venison when he heard the
+double roar of the gun and Shady's agonized
+yelps. Her later cry to gather the pups indicated
+the general direction of her flight.
+Then the steady tonguing of the hound broke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span>
+forth. Breed flanked the dog's route till
+he drew abreast of him. The baying voice
+filled the valley and echoed among the rims
+till it seemed that the whole breadth of the
+hills was filled with dogs, but Breed knew
+that the sound came from but one. He could
+hear no sounds of man, and he dropped swiftly
+in behind Buge to decipher the signs of the
+trail. There were the hot tracks of Shady
+and the pups, the hound's tracks on top of
+theirs, and no man had come that way.
+Breed spurted ahead and sighted the dog,
+and swung out to flank him and get the wind.</p>
+
+<p>Buge ran with his nose close to the ground.
+He was gaining on his prey, and his mind
+was so wholly centered on the trail that he
+was unaware of the deadly yellow wolf that
+ran almost abreast of him and forty yards
+downwind. Breed was puzzled as to how to
+handle the situation that confronted him.
+He feared the hound, believing that an ally
+of man might be endowed with man's strange<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>
+power for harm. The dog was a slow,
+cumbersome animal and Breed knew that
+Shady was far speedier, yet he wished the
+spotted beast would quit her trail. He saw
+Buge's nose lifted from the trail as he caught
+the warm body scent from close at hand.
+The dog ran now with head held high, the
+body scent reeking in his nostrils. Then
+Breed saw Shady and the pups running under
+the trees a hundred yards ahead. The steady
+baying rose to a slobbering bellow as the
+hound followed his prey by sight. The gap
+narrowed, and Breed could see his slavering
+jaws, the froth drooling stringily back across
+his shoulders. The last pup was running
+desperately a bare twenty yards ahead,&mdash;and
+then the great hound was suddenly
+thrown off his feet as a fighting yellow devil
+struck him from the side without a sound to
+announce his rush. Breed's shoulder had
+caught him fairly in the middle of a stride
+and the shock of the impact slammed him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>
+down six feet away; as Buge landed heavily
+on his side two flashing rows of teeth closed
+on his throat and sliced into it, and his life
+was torn out with the yellow wolf's backward
+wrench.</p>
+
+<p>Then Breed ran on after Shady and the
+pups, knowing now that a single short-haired
+dog, despite the terrifying volume of his voice,
+was no formidable antagonist for a wolf when
+once caught outside the radius of man's
+protection.</p>
+
+<p>Night settled down over the hills as Breed
+came to the end of Shady's trail and found her
+lying in a half-swoon with the pups crouching
+near. Breed felt that he was leaving this
+country to return no more, and almost unconsciously
+he raised the call for the pack,
+knowing that the pack season was far in the
+future, yet longing to hear the voices of his
+friends. Far to the south a pair of coyote
+voices answered him, and still beyond them,
+so far that the sound did not reach Breed's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span>
+ears, a second pair of coyotes relayed the
+message that the yellow leader called.</p>
+
+<p>Breed urged Shady on, but in three miles
+the wolf family was forced to lay over for
+a rest. Here a pair of coyotes overtook
+them. The slow march was resumed with
+frequent halts for rest, and before morning two
+other pairs of coyotes caught up with them,
+and these were all members of the original
+pack that had hunted together in Sand Coulee
+Basin. Just at dawn the dog coyote Breed
+had met some time earlier in the spring
+brought his she-wolf mate and joined the
+band. All of the new arrivals had lost their
+pups through the efforts of the hound that
+Breed had slain, and they were free to follow
+where the leader willed.</p>
+
+<p>Breed moved east across the Flathead and
+for two days he urged Shady on relentlessly
+till they were far up the sheltering slopes of
+the main divide. Shady then took shelter
+in a windfall, and for the next three days she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>
+refused to move. Her wounds stiffened and
+festered from imbedded shot, and she was
+dry and feverish. Three stray coyotes crossed
+the Flathead and joined those that prowled
+within a few miles of Shady's retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The third night Breed heard a well-known
+voice far down the slope and he threw all
+the force of his lungs into a welcoming cry.</p>
+
+<p>A coyote invariably deserts a den that is
+neared by man. Peg had discovered Breed's
+rifled den and his keen nose interpreted the
+signs. He had heard the leader's call and
+wondered why it had been raised so early
+in the year. He followed the sign till he
+found the body of the hound. It was morning
+when he reached his own home, and the
+following night Peg and Fluff had led their
+pups off in the general direction taken by
+Breed. The trail had cooled, but in moist
+and sheltered spots he found sufficient trace
+to guide him, and in the heavy timber where
+the great drifts lingered he could follow it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span>
+by sight. Then at last he heard Breed's
+voice above him and an hour later Peg and
+Fluff led six half-grown pups to the windfall.</p>
+
+<p>When Shady was once more able to travel
+Breed led the way to the north, the band
+not traveling together, but every coyote's
+course laid out to accord with Breed's, and
+within hailing distance so that each might
+apprise the others of his whereabouts at
+night. When the pups were old enough to
+shift for themselves Breed had crossed the
+Canadian line and was two hundred miles
+north of it along the great divide that marks
+the boundary between British Columbia and
+Alberta.</p>
+
+<p>All along this route clear from the Yellowstone
+there had been coyote country to the
+east of him. The prairie wolves had long
+since populated the valleys of the Musselshell,
+and, farther north, the Marias River
+and the Breast. There were coyotes east
+of him now, running the prairies of Alberta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span>
+and Saskatchewan, but he had at last arrived
+at a point west of the extreme northern
+limits of the coyote range. All over the
+continent to the south and east of him pioneering
+coyotes were pushing on into new
+lands: they had penetrated the hill country
+of Pennsylvania to the east, and south almost
+to Panama; but it had fallen to the lot of
+the yellow wolf to lead the way for the horde
+that was invading the northwest hills.</p>
+
+<p>During the first storm of the early fall
+Breed pulled down a yearling mountain
+sheep on a high plateau. A motley crew
+answered the meat call. Breed, the yellow
+hybrid, Shady, the half-blood renegade, and
+four pairs of coyotes born in Sand Coulee
+Basin; the dog coyote with his timber-wolf
+mate and several of Breed's and Shady's
+conglomerate pups; all were there to feed.
+And when the bones were picked Breed led
+his nondescript band on into the unmapped
+wilds of the British Columbia hills.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+
+<p>Wolfing was no longer profitable in the
+foothills and Collins pulled up stakes and left.
+He loaded his belongings on his pack horses
+and journeyed far to the north. Later he
+sold his horses and traveled by canoe, and
+after a roundabout course he pre&euml;mpted an
+old cabin between the Laird Fork of the
+Mackenzie and the head of Peace River.
+The climate was moist and the underbrush
+growth was often so dense as to force him to
+hack out a trail in spots as he laid out his
+trap line. The side hills were matted tangles
+and the valleys shaking bogs, and Collins had
+little love for his new surroundings. There
+were no cheery sounds at night, only the howls
+of wolves. In midwinter of his first season
+in the north he was roused out of a sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>
+sleep, certain that somewhere close at hand
+a coyote had howled. During the brief gray
+light of the following day Collins stopped
+and gazed long at a small, wolf-like track in
+the snow.</p>
+
+<p>"Coyote!" he announced triumphantly.
+"It was him that howled."</p>
+
+<p>Twenty yards farther on he crossed a
+second coyote track, and for half a mile there
+were trails pointing to the north. There
+was one that showed evidence of a missing
+foot, a peg-leg such as those he had often
+seen on the open range. Then Collins halted
+and studied the next two trails that appeared
+side by side. One was a wolf track, and there
+were two toes missing from one hind foot.
+The smaller tracks were evenly spaced, and
+placed one before the other in a straight line
+after the manner of coyote and wolf, but ten
+feet beyond where Collins stood the trail
+showed the wavering gait of the dog with
+an occasional track out to either side. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span>
+sudden mist blurred Collins' eyes and he
+dashed it off with the back of his mitts.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Shady," he said. "Old Shady and
+that yellow Breed,&mdash;both still alive and
+way off up here." Collins threw back his
+head and sent forth the clear piercing whistle
+that he had used to summon Shady in the
+long ago. Three times the shrill blast, long
+and sustained, was sent far out across the
+snowy hills.</p>
+
+<p>Three miles to the north Shady lay curled
+up with Breed. She suddenly raised her
+head. Breed too opened his eyes and cocked
+one ear to listen. Shady was conscious of
+no actual sound. Some faint vibration
+reached her ears and seemed to play upon
+some chord deep within; the impressions
+were hazy and indistinct, yet she was aware
+of a vague sense of loss, a wave of something
+akin to homesickness, and she whimpered
+softly, then closed her eyes and slept.</p>
+
+<p>Collins heard more and more coyotes howl,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span>
+and in the next two months he had brief
+glimpses of perhaps a dozen as they moved
+across some opening. At least half of these
+seemed larger than the coyotes he had known,
+and they had dark fur on their backs. The
+Coyote Prophet studied long over these strange
+things. The coyote voices roused an ache
+for the homely cabin in Sand Coulee Basin
+a thousand miles to the south; and each
+time one howled he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going back. Once it comes spring
+I'll make tracks out of here. This here's
+no fit country for a white man, and me&mdash;I'm
+going back."</p>
+
+<p>But Collins did not go back with the opening
+up of spring. Rumors of a gold strike
+sent men stampeding toward the fabled spot,
+a long journey to the north and east. Three
+parties crossed over the old trail past Collins'
+shack. The old wolfer caught the fever and
+followed the last of them. Before he left
+he made one last prophecy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He predicted that the hill coyotes of the
+northwest from the Yukon to the Yellowstone
+would be larger and have dark fur on their
+backs from frequent infusions of wolf blood;
+that within a dozen years the fur markets
+would distinguish between these dark silky-furred
+ones and the woolly yellow coyotes
+of the plains. He scrawled this message on
+a wrinkled scrap of paper, signed it, tacked
+it on the wall, and started off down the trail.</p>
+
+<p>A month later a party of five men stopped
+overnight in the deserted cabin. One of
+them deciphered the queer scrawl.</p>
+
+<p>"Crazy," he announced. "Some old coot
+went off his nut from being holed up alone&mdash;and
+this is all he left."</p>
+
+<p>A tall lean man whose warped legs betrayed
+his sage-country origin leaned over and studied
+the signature.</p>
+
+<p>"Collins," he mused. "Now whoever
+would have figured to cut his trail up here?
+He maybe was crazy,&mdash;but anyway, I'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span>
+bet five hundred that scrap of paper will
+pan out just like it says."</p>
+
+<p>A hundred miles beyond the cabin Breed
+and Shady were educating their third litter
+of pups. The nature of the country had
+prevented the excavating of a proper den and
+Shady had taken possession of a windfall.
+Breed was vastly disgusted with this new
+land, heartily sick of being shut in by the
+interminable hills and of traveling through
+swampy jungles of tall brush, and he was
+glad when the pups were old enough to shift
+for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>He gathered the pack and started on, his
+course this time more east than north, and
+he covered better than twenty miles each
+day with a definite purpose of leaving behind
+him this country so thickly overlaid with
+brush that its effect upon him was almost
+a feeling of suffocation. He came out into
+the lower hills and crossed occasional open
+spots. Then, after ten days, he crossed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span>
+through a rolling country and just at dusk
+came out on the shoulder of a hill; before
+him lay broad stretches of low plains, open
+meadows alternating with strips of heavy
+timber, the whole a wonderful park-like landscape
+swimming in the twilight. From nearby
+hills he heard the coyotes beginning to
+tune up, and each one was facing toward the
+plains, the first spot they had seen in three
+years which reminded them of home. Breed
+led the way and brought his band out into
+the first reaches of the Mackenzie Barrens
+that stretched back among the trees.</p>
+
+<p>Breed found no trap lines here, and there
+were no mad coyotes or poison baits. Another
+two days and the trees were left behind,
+open country stretching ahead as far as his
+eye could reach; the brush was stunted and
+reminded him of sage; there were clumps
+of dwarf spruce much like the twisted cedars
+of the badland brakes, and thickets of stunted
+willows such as those that sprouted from every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span>
+side-hill spring in Sand Coulee Basin. It was
+like a <a name="homecoming" id="homecoming">homecoming</a> after being exiled for
+three long years,&mdash;and Breed was content
+at last as he bedded on a knoll. The range
+was once more dotted with stock&mdash;only
+these were wild caribou&mdash;and old habits
+cropped out in Breed; he knew there were no
+men here, yet all through the short two-hour
+day he frequently raised his head and his
+eyes swept the range for signs of the devilish
+riders. When he left his bed he found fresh
+evidence that he was home, that Sand Coulee
+Basin could not be farther away than over
+the next tongue of high ground; for he had
+not traveled a mile before he smelled coyote
+blood and traced it upwind to find an old
+friend stiffened in death, and with her throat
+slit open,&mdash;the work of the silent assassin
+that had terrorized the foothills of Hardpan
+Spur.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's hatred of Flatear had been dulled
+with time. He had met hundreds of wolves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>
+since the fight in the notch, and at first he
+had sought for his enemy, but later this
+search had been manifested only by a careful
+investigation of each new wolf he met, a
+vague suspicion that the big gray might be
+an enemy; but this had become almost a
+mechanical process rather than a distinct
+impression of why he should expect to find
+an enemy among wolves.</p>
+
+<p>Animal memories are a mixture of impressions
+received through the senses of
+hearing, sight and smell, and after a considerable
+lapse of time it requires the coordination
+of all three of these senses to
+reconstruct the thought in its entirety. The
+sight of the slain coyote filled Breed with
+rage but lacking a definite object upon which
+to vent it. The scent around the spot further
+enraged him, and the picture of the great
+gray beast swam nebulously in his mind.
+A wolf howl sounded close at hand and stirred
+still another long-dormant pool of impressions;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span>
+the whole crystallized into a distinct
+likeness of Flatear,&mdash;and Breed was off on
+the hunt for his ancient enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Flatear saw a great yellow wolf rushing
+down on him and he whirled and bared his
+teeth. The gray wolf weighed a hundred
+pounds, Breed slightly over ninety. They
+circled cautiously for an opening, hind parts
+tensed and drooping, ears laid flat and lips
+drawn back to expose the yellow tusks.
+Flatear sprang first and Breed met the open
+mouth with his own. The clash of teeth
+sounded far across the barrens and silent
+shapes changed their direction and moved
+toward the sound. Three times Breed took
+the force of the drive on his teeth and the
+jaws of both wolves dripped blood. A wolf
+came slipping up to watch, and two breeds of
+the yellow wolf's pack stationed themselves
+ten yards away. Three more wolves appeared;
+then Peg and Fluff came to the scene
+and Peg moved behind Flatear and crouched.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Breed's snarl warned him off. The three-legged
+coyote was old and hoary, in his
+fifteenth year and with but a short span of
+life ahead; his teeth were rounded and worn
+down but his spirit was stout, and he longed
+to mix it with the wolf. His leader's order
+held him back, but he remained the nearest
+of the lot, watching every move of the combat
+as if appointed judge of it.</p>
+
+<p>Flatear rushed time and again, using his
+greater weight to batter down his antagonist's
+guard, but Breed gave back each time and
+Flatear's driving shoulder never reached its
+mark and his teeth were met with teeth.
+Breed was losing ground and Flatear pressed
+him hard. The yellow wolf seemed to have
+but one style of defense and no heart for
+attack. The fight was a mere procession
+of retreats before Flatear's heavy drives, and
+the gray wolf grew accustomed to this monotonous
+defense, and his attacks were unconsciously
+conformed to it, becoming equally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span>
+mechanical, his one purpose to wear his enemy
+down by sheer strength and weight.</p>
+
+<p>And when Breed, instead of cringing away,
+struck at him with every ounce of his ninety
+pounds, Flatear was unprepared. He had
+started his spring and Breed's counter drive
+was aimed so low that his chest skimmed the
+ground. Flatear slashed savagely downward
+but the yellow wolf's head was well under
+him, and even as Flatear's teeth grazed
+Breed's shoulder his forward sweep was
+checked in mid-air as powerful jaws closed on
+a foreleg with a sickening crunch of bones.
+The opposing weights of both wolves pivoted
+on that one leg, and in addition to the fracture
+Flatear's whole side and shoulder were
+wrenched clear to his spine.</p>
+
+<p>There was an uneasy movement among
+the spectators, now numbering more than a
+score, wolves and coyotes for the first time in
+history mingling to witness the settling of
+a personal feud. Peg now sat down contentedly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span>
+his tongue lolling out in a satisfied
+grin.</p>
+
+<p>Breed's tactics changed and he wheeled
+round his disabled enemy with lightning
+feints; then his shoulder struck Flatear
+with a solid smash that crumpled him and
+he went down with Breed's teeth at his windpipe.
+His end was of the sort which he himself
+had handed to so many others,&mdash;and
+the new range was safe for coyotes.</p>
+
+<p>The silent spectators were startled by a
+faint whining sound. This whimpering grew
+louder and the wolves slunk away but the
+coyote pack remained. Breed's sudden hunt
+for Flatear had caught Shady unprepared,
+but she had finally cut his trail and was following
+it to the spot.</p>
+
+<p>For three months Breed saw no more of
+wolves, and when next he did see them the
+beasts were white. He had led the pack
+to the basin of the Copper River at the edge
+of the Arctic Circle. Their travels were over,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>
+and they now ranged a limited area of less
+than a hundred miles in extent. Except
+that no high hills flanked their new home,
+its features were much like the old. There
+were no longer any days and nights, but a
+seemingly endless period of varying degrees
+of twilight, and the rolling hills were deep
+with snow.</p>
+
+<p>Breed had met many new animals since
+leaving the land of the Yellowstone; he had
+known moose and goats in British Columbia,
+caribou on the barrens and the iron-gray
+sheep at the head of the Nelson. Now there
+were strange shaggy beasts with hair that
+hung nearly to the ground, and they came
+out of the north in small droves, the white
+wolves traveling on the flanks of the herds.
+He found musk ox easy prey and there was no
+lack of meat.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after the first of these appeared
+Breed and Shady topped a ridge and saw the
+one thing necessary to make the image of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span>
+old home complete. A light twinkled some
+half a mile away, as Breed and Shady had so
+often seen the lights of Collins' cabin. Shady
+whined as she looked at it and Breed raised
+his voice and howled. As if in answer to the
+howl a shrill whistle floated to them and
+Shady at once slipped from Breed's side and
+headed for the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Collins had turned back from the fabled
+gold fields, heartsick for the sight of his
+native foothills, disgusted with the Arctic
+night and a flat white world, and with two
+companions he had braved the terrors of a
+winter journey and headed into the south.
+They traveled light, supplies for three packed
+on a single sled, drawn by six dogs. Food
+had run low and for a week they had been
+forced to subsist on starvation rations; one
+more day and they would have killed a dog,&mdash;and
+then they crossed the trail of a musk
+ox herd. There was now food in plenty but
+Collins' mental exhaustion did not vanish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span>
+with returning physical strength. He was
+obsessed with the idea that he would never
+see the sagebrush hills again and his companions
+could not rouse him.</p>
+
+<p>They fastened the dogs in a clump of
+dwarfed spruce and built a small fire on the
+downwind side of the trees.</p>
+
+<p>The old wolfer sat huddled in his furs
+before the fire, dreading to enter the little
+tent to crawl into his sleeping bag alone with
+his thoughts; for the white madness was
+driving its iron into his soul and striking
+at his reason. His mind coined queer white
+couplets; the white wolf pack and the white
+ice pack,&mdash;a whole world shrouded in white
+night.</p>
+
+<p>His companions had looked upon the white
+madness before; had seen men die from
+the deadly monotony of it all. It was conceivable
+that a book of bright pictures, anything
+with warm colors might penetrate the
+pall of white fog that clouded his brain and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span>
+shatter the obsession, reinstating reason on
+its tottering throne. But there was only
+the howling of white wolves out across the
+white snow fields. Then a wolf howl sounded
+from close at hand.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to pierce Collins' stupor and
+strike some memory filed long ago in
+his subconscious mind, and he suddenly
+straightened and glared at them.</p>
+
+<p>"I can pick him out from amongst a thousand
+wolves," he stated. "There's no wolf
+shiver to that howl. It's a yellow wolf!
+As yellow as gold, not a damned white hair
+on him anywheres! It's Breed, the yellow
+wolf of Sand Coulee Basin&mdash;there's color
+come into this white hell hole at last!"</p>
+
+<p>A shrill whistle pealed from his lips and his
+companions shook their heads. Then the
+wolf howled again and they stiffened with
+surprise as a score of wild voices answered.
+The sounds were new to them and the snowy
+waste was filled with bewilderingly different<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span>
+inflections that ripped back and forth through
+opposing waves of sound till it seemed that
+jeering cachinnations rose from a thousand
+fiends.</p>
+
+<p>They read the gleam in Collins' eyes and
+his disjointed utterances as a sign of hopeless
+madness,&mdash;but in reality it was returning
+sanity. A new warmth stole over him, and
+the certainty that he would win through.</p>
+
+<p>"Here they come," he said. "The little
+yellow devils! They've spread from the
+Arctic to the Neck, like I always knowed
+they would. There's music a white man can
+listen to&mdash;the music of the little yellow
+wolves."</p>
+
+<p>Then the two men sat silent and wondered
+if they themselves were mad. For the dogs
+were snarling and straining at their leashes
+in the scrub spruce, and a strange yellow
+she-wolf with a strip of dark fur along her
+back came creeping toward the fire. Her
+eyes regarded the two men suspiciously and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>
+one ear tipped toward the dogs beyond. She
+slipped up and rested her head on Collins'
+knee, enjoyed his friendly voice and rubbing
+fingers for a single minute, then vanished in
+the night as the yellow breed-wolf called
+his pack.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yellow Horde, by Hal G. Evarts
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,3967 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yellow Horde, by Hal G. Evarts
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Yellow Horde
+
+Author: Hal G. Evarts
+
+Illustrator: Charles Livingston Bull
+
+Release Date: April 17, 2008 [EBook #25082]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YELLOW HORDE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sarah Thomson and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
++-------------------------------------------------------------+
+|Transcriber's Note: Variations in hyphenation are preserved. |
+|Specifically, "homecoming" vs. "home-coming" and "timberline"|
+|vs. "timber-line".                                           |
++-------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+THE YELLOW HORDE
+
+
+[Illustration: When dawn lifted the shadows from the low country, Breed
+was prowling along the first rim of the hills.
+
+FRONTISPIECE. _See page 6._]
+
+
+
+
+  THE YELLOW HORDE
+  BY HAL G. EVARTS
+
+
+  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+  CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL
+
+
+  TORONTO
+  McCLELLAND AND STEWART
+  1921
+
+
+
+
+  _Copyright, 1921,_
+  BY HAL G. EVARTS.
+
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+  Published April, 1921
+
+
+  Norwood Press
+  Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co.
+  Norwood, Mass., U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  When dawn lifted the shadows from the low
+  country, Breed was prowling along the first rim
+  of the hills                                     _Frontispiece_
+
+  The elk migration had begun                           PAGE   63
+
+  As the summer advanced the pups learned to
+  pack-hunt with Breed                                        167
+
+  Breed was compelled to hunt farther from home
+  as the deer quit the valleys                                191
+
+
+
+
+THE YELLOW HORDE
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The wolfer lay in his cabin and listened to the first few night sounds
+of the foothills. The clear piping notes of migrating plover floated
+softly down to him, punctuated by the rasping cry of a nighthawk. A
+coyote raised his voice, a perfect tenor note that swept up to a wild
+soprano, then fell again in a whirl of howls which carried amazing
+shifts of inflection, tearing up and down the coyote scale. One after
+another added his voice to the chorus until it seemed that the swelling
+volume could be produced by no less than a full thousand musical prairie
+wolves scattered through the foothills for a score of miles.
+
+Wild music to the ears of most men, the song of flat wastes and deserts
+and limitless horizons, freighted with a loneliness which is
+communicated to man in a positive ache for companionship,--and which
+carries a wealth of companionship in itself for those who have lived so
+long under the open skies that the song of the desert choir comes to
+them as a lullaby.
+
+It moved Collins, the wolfer, to quiet mirth. Always it affected him
+that way, this first clamorous outburst of the night. He read in it a
+note of deep-seated humor, the jeering laughter of the whole coyote
+tribe mocking the world of men who had sworn to exterminate their kind.
+
+"The little devils!" Collins chuckled. "The little yellow devils! Men
+can't wipe 'em out. There'll be a million coyotes left to howl when the
+last man dies."
+
+From this oft-repeated prophecy Collins was known to every stockman in
+three States as the Coyote Prophet, the title a jeering one at first,
+then bestowed with increasing respect as men saw many of his prophecies
+fulfilled. The coyote's larger cousin, the wolf, ranged the continent
+over while the coyote himself was strictly a prairie dweller. For twenty
+years Collins had predicted that wolves would disappear in settled
+districts while the coyote would survive; not only survive but increase
+his range to include the hills and spread over the continent from the
+Arctic to the Gulf. There were rumors of coyotes turning up in Indiana.
+Then came the tale that a strange breed of small yellow wolves had
+appeared in Michigan. Those sheepmen who summered their sheep in the
+high valleys of the western mountains complained that stray coyotes quit
+the flats and followed them into the hills to prey upon the flocks. The
+buffalo wolves that had once infested the range country were gone and it
+was seldom that any of the big gray killers turned up on the open range
+except when the pinch of cold and famine drove a few timber wolves down
+from the north. Men saw these things and wondered if all of Collins'
+sweeping prophecies would come to pass. In the face of conditions that
+had placed a value on the coyote's pelt and a bounty on his scalp, there
+was no apparent decrease in the numbers of the yellow horde from year to
+year.
+
+Collins listened to the coyote clamor and knew that they had come to
+stay. The concert was suddenly hushed as a long-drawn wolf howl, faint
+from distance, drifted far out across the range. Collins turned in his
+blankets and peered through the window at the black bulk of the
+mountains to the north of him, towering clear and distinct in the
+brilliant moonlight.
+
+"If you come down out of those hills I'll stretch your pelt," the wolfer
+stated. "I'll pinch your toes in a number four."
+
+The wolf whose howl had occasioned this assertion was even then
+considering the possibilities of which Collins spoke. Men called those
+of his kind breed-wolves, half coyote and half wolf. He stood on the
+high divide which was the roughly separating line between the haunts of
+the two tribes whose blood flowed in his veins,--all wolf except for the
+yellow fur that marked him for a breed. The coyote voices lifted to him
+and Breed read them as the call of kind; for although he had spent the
+past ten months with the wolf tribe of his father his first friendships
+had been formed among his mother's people on the open range. The acrid
+spice of the sage drifted to his nostrils and combined with the coyote
+voices to fill him with a homesick urge to revisit the land of his
+birth.
+
+But he would not go down. Breed knew well the dangers of the open range;
+the devilish riders who made life one long gamble for every wolf that
+appeared; he had gruesome recollections of the many coyotes he had seen
+in traps. But those things gave him small concern. It was still another
+menace--the poison baits put out by wolfers--which held him back. Not
+that he feared poison for himself, but coyotes writhing in convulsions
+and frothing at the mouth had always filled him with a terrible dread.
+It was an epidemic of this sort which had driven him to leave the
+sagebrush land of the coyotes for the heavily timbered country of the
+wolves. The memory of it lingered with him now. Would he find these
+stricken, demented creatures there?
+
+Breed moved down the south slope of the hills at last, the sage scent
+luring the coyote in him, but moved slowly and with many halts
+occasioned by the wolf suspicion which urged him to turn back. When dawn
+lifted the shadows from the low country, Breed was prowling along the
+first rim of the hills.
+
+Two dirt-roofed log cabins showed as toy houses, small from distance,
+and he could see the slender threads of smoke ascending from others, the
+houses themselves beyond the scope of his vision. The range was taking
+on fall shades, the gray of the sage relieved by brown patches of open
+grasslands and splotches of color where early frosts had touched the
+birch and willow thickets that marked each side-hill spring. Tiny dark
+specks moved through it all. Meat! It had been long since Breed had
+tasted beef, and his red tongue lolled out and dripped in anticipation
+of the coming feast.
+
+But he would not go down until night. Twice during the early evening
+Breed howled, and Collins, down in the choppy country below, turned his
+glasses toward the spot to see what manner of wolf this was who howled
+in the broad light of day. The second time he located Breed. The yellow
+wolf stood on the rims half a mile above, looming almost life-size in
+the twelve-power lens. Collins noted the yellow fur.
+
+"A breed-wolf," he said. "The most cunning devil that ever made a track.
+He'll never take on a feed of poison bait or plant his foot on a trap
+pan. He'll come down--and I'll ride him out on the first tracking snow."
+
+Just at dusk Breed howled again and dropped down to the broken country
+at the base of the hills, skirting the flats and holding to the roughest
+brakes, then swung out across the rolling foothills.
+
+The wind soon brought him the message that coyotes were just ahead and
+he traced the scent upwind, anxious for the first sight of his former
+running mates. Two coyotes scattered swiftly before his approach, each
+carrying his own piece of a jack rabbit which the pair had caught and
+torn apart. Breed did not follow but held steadily on in search of more.
+The urge for companionship was even stronger than hunger, and he sought
+to satisfy the stronger craving first. Twice more he veered into the
+wind, and both times the coyotes slipped away as he advanced. He
+followed the line of one's retreat and the coyote whirled and fled like
+a yellow streak in the moonlight. Breed was puzzled by all this, but the
+craving for food had grown so strong as to crowd out all else, and he
+abandoned the hunt for friends to hunt for meat instead.
+
+Out in the center of a broad flat bench a mile across Breed made out a
+group of slowly moving specks which he knew for cows, and he headed
+toward them, taking advantage of the cover afforded by every clump of
+sage as he crept up to a yearling steer that lagged behind the rest. He
+had hunted heavy game animals with the wolves, animals with every sense
+alert to detect the approach of the big gray killers, and he fully
+expected the steer to break into full flight at the first warning of his
+presence. He had almost forgotten the stupidity of the cows on the open
+range and the ease with which he had torn them down when hunting them
+with his wolf father long before. He made his final rush and drove his
+teeth deep into one hind leg before his prey had even quickened his
+gait. The steer lurched into an awkward gallop and bawled with fright as
+the savage teeth cut through muscles and hide. Breed lunged for the same
+spot again; once more and the leg was useless, the hamstrings cut, and
+it sagged loosely with every step. He slashed at the other leg. Within a
+hundred yards of the start the steer pitched down, bracing his foreparts
+off the ground with his two front feet, and even as he fell the yellow
+wolf drove for his throat.
+
+Then Breed circled his kill, looking off in all directions to make sure
+that there was no route by which men might approach unseen. He stretched
+forth his head and cupped his lips as he sent his tribal call rolling
+across the range, the message that here was meat for all of his kind who
+would come and feed. A score of coyote voices answered from far and
+near.
+
+Collins heard the dread cry and knew that the wolf had made a kill. He
+knew too that whenever the wolf note was heard, all other sounds were
+stilled as if every living creature expected to hear an answering cry
+and waited for it to come before resuming their own communications. The
+fact that the coyotes answered the cry assured Collins that it was the
+breed-wolf that had howled; that coyote ears had read a note of their
+own kind in the sound, a note which even his experienced ears could not
+detect.
+
+The yellow wolf tore at the warm meat and waited,--waited for his coyote
+kinsmen to join him at the feast. He howled again and they answered,
+reading invitation to coyote as well as to wolf in the sound, but they
+would not come in. An old dog coyote trotted up and down the crest of a
+slight rise of ground two hundred yards downwind. Another joined him,
+then a third, and in less than an hour there was a half score of coyotes
+circling the spot. Breed could see dim shapes moving across the open
+places and padding on silent feet over the cow trails that threaded the
+sage. Surely they would come in. The shadowy forms were restless, never
+still, and prowled round and round him, but they would not join him at
+the kill.
+
+Breed was mystified by this strange thing. Here was meat yet the
+meat-eaters would not come in and feed. Coyotes had fed with him long
+ago but shunned him now. Breed could not know that then he had been
+accepted as one of them, having grown to maturity among them and so
+become known to every coyote on his range; that they had forgotten him
+as an individual, as he had also forgotten them. If there were any old
+friends among those who circled round him now he did not know them as
+such, only as a companionable whole; and they knew him for a wolf,--a
+wolf at least in size and strength. There was a coyote note in his call
+but not one of them would venture in to feed with the great yellow beast
+that was tearing the steer.
+
+At last a grizzled old dog coyote drew up to within ten yards. He had
+lived to the limit of all experiences which a coyote can pass through
+and still survive. He had even known the crushing grip of a
+double-spring trap, a Newhouse four. This misadventure had occurred in
+midwinter when the range was gripped by bitter frost. The cold had
+numbed the pain and congealed the flesh to solid ice. He had cut through
+the meat with his keen-pointed teeth, and one desperate wrench had
+snapped the frozen bone and freed him. There were many of his kind so
+maimed, and the wolfers, abbreviating the term peg-legs, called these
+three-footed ones "pegs."
+
+A second coyote joined Peg near the steer. He too had lived long and
+hard. He had been shot at many times and wounded twice. A shattered
+foreleg had healed with an ugly twist, the foot pointing inside and
+leaving only the prints of two warped toe pads when it touched the
+ground.
+
+Peg and Cripp circled twice round the steer at a distance of thirty
+feet. They had known other breeds and had found that some would share
+their kills. Breed went out to greet them and they sidled away as he
+advanced, stopping when he stopped and turning to face him. Cripp
+allowed him to draw close, his teeth bared in warning against a too
+effusive greeting, while Peg drew swiftly in behind the wolf. The
+peg-leg coyote stretched forth his nose for one deep sniff, then sprang
+ten feet away as Breed whirled. Cripp drew up for a similar sniff as
+Breed faced Peg, then leaped away as Peg had done. Nature has endowed
+the members of each animal tribe with a different scent, and most
+animals identify enemies and friends with nose instead of eyes. That one
+deep inhalation had assured the two coyotes that there was a strain of
+their own scent mingled with that of the wolf. They grew bolder and
+stalked stiffly about him, appraising his qualities with eye and nose.
+When Breed returned to the feed they followed a few steps behind. At
+first they kept the body of the steer between them, then lost all
+restraint and accepted Breed as a brother coyote from whom they had
+nothing to fear.
+
+An hour before dawn Breed left the spot and traveled back to the edge of
+the hills where he bedded for the day. He was full fed and satisfied
+with life. It was not until night closed down about him that he was
+conscious of the single flaw in his content, the one thing lacking to
+complete it all. Breed loosed the hunting cry but there was no answering
+call. He tried again without success. When with the wolves he had longed
+for the smell of the sage, the scent that spoke of home to him, and the
+mocking voices of the coyotes. Now that he had all these he missed the
+muster cry of the pack, hungered to hear the aching wails coming from
+far across the timbered hills, penetrating to the farthest retreats of
+the antlered tribes and sounding a warning to all living things that the
+hunt-pack was about to take the meat trail. But he knew that coyotes did
+not hunt in packs; that they hunted singly or in pairs, killing more by
+stealth than strength; clever stalkers and the most intelligent
+team-workers and relayers in the world, but lacking the weight and
+driving force to tear down a steer,--calves their largest prey.
+
+Breed howled again and started on the hunt alone. Even then, though he
+did not know it, his pack was gathering to him. The two wise old coyotes
+who had fed with him the night before knew that wherever they found the
+big breed-wolf, there they would also find meat. They had started up at
+his first call and Peg was coming swiftly from the south, Cripp from the
+west. Breed had not traveled far before he was aware that other hunters
+were abroad and running with him, swinging wide on either flank. Here
+was his pack! At first he was not sure, but whenever he wheeled or
+veered from his course the two coyotes altered their routes to accord
+with his. He ran on for miles, thrilled with the knowledge that his
+queer pack followed loyally where he led, and when at last he singled
+out a steer the two veteran coyotes angled swiftly in and ran but a few
+yards on either side of him.
+
+Then Breed sounded the meat call,--and two jeering coyote voices
+launched into full cry and howled with him. And Collins, the Coyote
+Prophet, for the first time in all his experience heard wolf and coyote
+howl in unison over the same kill.
+
+Every night thereafter Breed's pack of two ran with him on the hunt and
+always there were the dim shapes circling the kill, padding restlessly
+through the sage as they waited for the yellow wolf to leave so they
+could swarm in and pick the bones.
+
+At first Breed had retired to the edge of the hills to spend his days,
+but his habits were changed through long immunity until his days as well
+as nights were spent in the open country; but his caution was never
+relaxed and he bedded on the crest of some rise of ground which afforded
+a clear field of view for miles in all directions. He frequently saw
+some of the devilish riders and occasionally one drew uncomfortably near
+his retreat, but always veered away before discovering his presence. His
+days were untroubled except by the memories of poisoned coyotes which
+persisted in his mind. When he slept his dreams often reverted to these
+poisoned horrors, and their death rattles sounded in his ears and his
+feet twitched in imaginary flight as he sought to put distance between
+himself and these haunting demons. Breed knew that poison was some evil
+exercised by man, but its workings were shrouded in mystery. Traps he
+could understand,--and rifle shots; for although this latter force was
+peculiar, yet there was sound. He understood only those things which to
+him were real and actual, things communicated through his physical
+senses. Poison seemed some sort of intangible magic, an evil spell
+wrought by man, and which transformed sound coyotes into diseased fiends
+in the space of seconds.
+
+Always he waked snarling from these dreams, and always he was vastly
+puzzled by the abrupt change from night death scenes to the daylight
+calm of the open range. For dreams too were beyond his comprehension.
+They were actual scenes and scents and sounds to him,--then vanished. It
+was only natural that his greatest waking terror should stalk through
+his dreams, two mysteries combined to haunt him. Also it was inevitable
+that these dreams should eventually link up with the personal equation.
+
+Breed slept one day on the crest of a knoll and suddenly it was night
+instead of noon, and Cripp and Peg were leaping about him in a frenzy,
+their frothing jaws snapping on the empty air in their madness. He faced
+them with bared fangs,--and it was noon once more, but the two old
+coyotes stood before him in reality, their own noses wrinkled in snarls
+which answered his menacing actions and warned him off. The same old
+baffling wave which flooded Breed after each of these recurring dreams
+engulfed him now. Peg and Cripp were as sane as himself, yet a moment
+past they had been stricken before his very eyes. It had been very real,
+and Breed started suddenly from the knoll and headed for the base of the
+hills five miles away, nor did he stop until he was far back among their
+sheltering ridges.
+
+With the coming of the night he felt the loss of the two old coyotes who
+had traveled with him for the past three weeks. They had been normal
+when he saw them last and as this latter impression was the stronger he
+knew that he would find them untouched by madness; yet the vividness of
+the dream lingered with him and held him back from the low country. He
+howled once and started on a solitary hunt through the hills. The cry
+drifted faintly to the flats below and reached the ears of Cripp and
+Peg. They started instantly in the direction from which it came.
+
+The chain of hills in which Breed hunted was but an outcropping spur,
+extending thirty miles eastward at right angles from the main bulk of
+the hills, and he found no meat. The elk and deer were high up in the
+parent range and would stay there until heavy snows drove them down to
+winter in the valleys of the lower hills. Breed worked up the slope
+until he reached the crest of the divide. He prowled along the bald
+ridge, undecided which course to take, then whirled and faced back in
+the direction from which he had come. Five miles below him a coyote had
+raised his voice; another answered. By traveling steadily Cripp and Peg
+had covered much ground since Breed's first cry of the night had reached
+their ears and the two coyotes were ten miles within the first folds of
+the hills and still seeking the yellow wolf, the leader of the pack.
+
+Breed cupped his lips, his head stretched forth and his muzzle depressed
+to a line slightly below the peak of his shoulders as he sent forth the
+hunting cry to summon his loyal band. An hour later Cripp and Peg were
+with him, the three of them swinging west along the divide toward the
+rough mass of the main range of hills. Morning found them climbing
+through a matted jungle of close-growing spruce and down-timber.
+
+Breed chose a ridge that lifted above the trees and there curled up for
+the day in a clump of stunted sage. Coyotes hunt in the full glare of
+the noonday sun as readily as at night and Cripp and Peg slept a bare
+two hours before starting once more on the hunt. They found small game
+less abundant in the high hills than in the flats and they scoured the
+surrounding timber without success, returning at last to bed down near
+Breed on the open ridge. Hunger drove Breed from his bed before the sun
+had set and he headed deeper into the hills, the two coyotes following,
+even though they had small liking for this country which seemed devoid
+of meat.
+
+The yellow wolf sampled the cross currents of air which drifted in from
+each branching gulch. He crossed the cold trail scent of several deer
+but was in no mood for following a long trail so passed them by. It was
+the actual warm body scent he sought. He stopped suddenly with uplifted
+nose. The shifting breezes had carried the deer scent to his
+nostrils,--one brief flash and it was gone. Breed tacked back and forth
+across the wind, caught it again and held it, following the ribbon of
+scent upwind as easily as a man would follow a blazed trail through the
+timber. Two hundred yards from the start he sighted his prey, a
+fork-horn buck grazing slowly along under the trees. Breed turned his
+eyes to either side to determine the location of Cripp and Peg but they
+had suddenly vanished from sight.
+
+He crept toward the fork-horn, standing without the moving of a muscle
+whenever the young buck lifted his head, advancing swiftly when he
+dropped it again to feed. The wind held steadily from the deer to him
+and Breed drew up to within fifty feet. The buck lifted his head and
+looked off in all directions, not from present uneasiness but from his
+never-failing caution, then reached for another bite of grass, and even
+as the downward motion was started Breed launched forward in a silent
+rush.
+
+The fork-horn caught one backward slanting glimpse of him and fled just
+as the wolf's teeth clashed a bare inch short of his hamstring, and
+Breed was off in pursuit of an animal whose speed matched his own. This
+prey was no awkwardly galloping steer but a nimble beast that swept
+ahead in twenty-foot bounds, and after fifty yards Breed was still ten
+feet behind. Then a yellow streak darted over a windfall jam and Peg
+flashed at the buck. The deer turned almost at right angles in his
+fright, and as he turned Breed's teeth slashed his leg, but not deep
+enough to cripple, and the chase was on again. Another fifty yards and
+Cripp leaped from behind a spruce trunk and struck gamely for a leg
+hold. The flying speed of the buck jerked him clear of the ground, broke
+the hold of his teeth and threw him end over end. But he had retarded
+the deer for one half-second and the yellow wolf closed his jaws on a
+leg with all the force he could throw into the drive. Breed too was
+thrown, but the deer was turned again and running with less than half
+his former speed, one hind leg powerless. Peg was angling across to turn
+him still another time but Breed overhauled him first and slashed at the
+other leg, and as the deer rolled downhill the three-legged coyote
+dodged the churning hoofs and fastened on his throat.
+
+Collins had journeyed far into the hills to replenish his supply of
+meat. It was scarcely dark under the trees when he heard the breed-wolf
+and two coyotes howl together,--thirty miles back in the heart of the
+hills!
+
+"There now!" he exclaimed. "I've been telling 'em right along that the
+coyotes would take to the hills some day. Those breed-wolves--they'll
+teach 'em to live in the hills."
+
+When Breed had eaten his fill from the deer he headed back for the low
+country. The effect of the mad dream was waning before the fact that Peg
+and Cripp were with him in reality, sane and normal in every way. The
+three of them were sluggish and heavy with meat and they traveled slowly
+with frequent halts for sleep.
+
+The following night Breed's howl sounded again in the foothills and a
+score of coyotes answered him from far and near. The coyote tribe had
+learned that when the yellow wolf prowled the range there would be fresh
+beef for all. Each night the number of shadowy forms that padded through
+the sage round his kills increased, waiting until the wolf should leave
+and they could close in and finish it to the last mouthful. They grew
+bolder from the fact that two of their own kind fed with Breed, and on
+the first night after his return from the hills three others found
+courage to come in and feed upon his kill before he left it. Within a
+week he was accepted unreservedly as a member of the coyote clan.
+
+Each succeeding evening Breed found more and more coyotes gathering
+swiftly toward him at the first hunting cry of the night, spreading out
+over a quarter-mile front and running with him on the chase, knowing
+there would be meat in plenty at the end of the run.
+
+Collins noted a curious change in the coyote signs in his immediate
+neighborhood. He still found their tracks singly or in pairs, where they
+wandered in all directions through the sage in their hunts for jacks, or
+padded thick round some spot where they had killed a calf, but he soon
+discovered that whenever he found a track which the breed-wolf had left
+the night before he had only to swing out to the right or left to find
+the trails of many coyotes pointing in the same direction,--a general
+movement of coyotes over a wide front. Collins had heard many tales of
+late which accorded with a prophecy he had made long ago; for three
+hundred miles north and south men who rode back into the mountains
+reported seeing coyotes far back in the very heart of them and of
+hearing their howls from among the highest peaks. His prediction that
+coyotes would take to the hills and feel as much at home high above
+timberline as in the flats had come to pass.
+
+Collins studied long over the many coyote trails which always paralleled
+the tracks of the yellow wolf and made still another prophecy,--that
+breed-wolves would teach the coyotes to hunt in packs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+No man who has lived long in the open and observed the ways of animals
+and birds doubts that each tribe has a language of its own,--the
+vocabulary of cadence and inflection. A man may watch a marsh teeming
+with waterfowl, their contented chuckles filling his ears; then every
+wing will lift at once, every bird roused to sudden flight by the change
+of a single note so faint that it makes no impression on the ear of the
+watching man, yet sufficient to warn the birds as surely as a gunshot. A
+widely scattered bunch of range cows will graze placidly for hours, and
+suddenly every head will be raised and every cow gaze off in the same
+direction.
+
+Coyotes catch all finely shaded inflections and interpret them as
+unerringly as a man notes the difference between a bawling cow and a
+blatting sheep. Mate communicates with mate through all the coyote
+refrains of the night; half-grown coyotes answer their mother's voice
+but are silent when another calls. All that wild outburst in which men
+read only an uproar of meaningless savagery is in reality the
+intelligent conversation of the coyote nation.
+
+Breed's range covered fifty miles each way and there were some two
+hundred coyotes who used the same strip or whose range overlapped his
+own, and of these there were but few who had not at one time or another
+profited by some of his kills. Breed knew the voice of every coyote in
+the little band that made up his pack. Even when their notes reached him
+faintly through a maze of other howls his ears identified their voices
+as certainly as the eyes of man pick out the faces of his friends among
+a crowd. Those coyotes in whom dog ancestry was less than four
+generations removed betrayed that fact to him when they howled.
+
+There are those who believe that the shepherds and police dogs sprang
+originally from the jackal. In any event, there are more dogs that
+revert to the wild bunch from these wolfish types than from all other
+kinds combined. The gulf between shepherd and coyote is not wide, and
+except when raiding coyotes and stock-guarding dogs meet in a clash of
+interests they are more apt to mate than to fight.
+
+Throughout the whole of Breed's range there was but one note which
+puzzled him,--and it was not the ancestry but the present habits of the
+one who made the sound that baffled him. The parental mixture was
+plainly evidenced in the voice. It was the cry of a she-wolf, a
+half-blood coyote and dog, and Breed heard her howl night after night
+yet could not locate her. He would answer her cry and announce that he
+was coming, but always she evaded him. When he picked up her trail and
+followed it persistently, it invariably led him toward an isolated
+cabin. The wolf in him held him back from too close an approach to the
+homes of men. When he stopped she called again from up near the
+twinkling windows of the house. There was a lonesome note in her cry,
+and it was furtive, carrying both fear and invitation in its tones as if
+the she-wolf felt herself an outcast and both longed and dreaded to
+break down the bars between her wild relatives and herself.
+
+And she was an outcast, without doubt. Collins had trailed her mother, a
+renegade shepherd, to the den. He had turned in the rest of the pups for
+bounty, keeping her for a pet. She was slightly heavier than a coyote
+and the fur of her back was dark, the badge of shepherd parentage. The
+yellow underfur showed through the black guard hairs of her back-strip
+when the wind ruffled it, the black shading to yellow on flanks and
+sides, and from this Collins called her Shady.
+
+Shady's relations with men and beasts were unsatisfactory in the
+extreme. Stockmen hate the coyote with an intensity that they show
+toward no other animal, and with good reason, for the coyote meets them
+on a more equal footing than other beasts, his strategy outrivaling that
+of men. He repays their cruelties against his kind by killing their
+sheep and calves in broad daylight and executing a well-covered retreat
+before the owners can exact the penalty, then returning at night to
+raise his jeering laughter almost under the windows of his enemies.
+
+Collins had no stock, his business being that of killing coyotes, and he
+found far more to admire than to despise in the qualities of his prey
+and so did not accord coyotes the undying hatred shown them by other
+men. In his gruff way he was kind to Shady. Those who came to his cabin
+were mainly stockmen and they hated Shady cordially. That she sprang
+from a renegade sheep dog, a traitor to her kind, was even more
+condemnatory in their eyes than the coyote part of her.
+
+The coyotes, less averse to the proximity of man, had investigated
+Shady's case by drawing nearer to the cabin than Breed would go and so
+were no longer curious about her. Breed was almost two years old yet he
+knew nothing of dogs. His mother had ranged a limited strip of country
+in which only two men made their homes and neither had owned dogs. When
+north with the wolves he had met none of his domestic cousins except
+those renegades or breeds that were of the wild. He had crossed the
+trails of others at rare intervals. Therefore he did not know dogs as
+allies of men and so enemies to himself; rather Shady seemed some
+extra-shy wolf creature yet with sufficient courage to range in close to
+men. She seemed a daring adventurer to Breed.
+
+It was partly this curiosity which piqued his interest in her. Then too
+he recognized in her a freak type,--as he himself was a freak. Each
+stood for the first generation of a new breed, the equally divided
+parental strains not yet dulled and blended by further crosses, and so
+each of them recognized something outstanding and unusual in the other.
+
+At first their knowledge was confined to what each learned of the other
+by ear alone, unaided by the testimony of other senses. Breed never once
+caught sight of her, and the trail scent which she left behind told him
+little except that she was half coyote and half dog, as he already knew.
+
+For a month he answered her howls, his curiosity unassuaged. And as
+Breed puzzled over Shady's voice, so Collins puzzled over Breed's.
+Collins had heard him howl more than a hundred times and knew that there
+was some slight difference between his voice and the pure wolf note. He
+had made a close study of animal sounds and knew them well. He knew
+Shady's voice from that of other coyotes. Her variations were less
+sharply defined; more sustained than the bewildering staccato of the
+coyote and with a slightly coarser tone. Collins knew that he should be
+able to detect that peculiarity in Breed's howl,--a difference which he
+felt was there but could not place. There were times when the solution
+rose to the very surface of his mind and struggled for interpretation
+into readable thought, but always it eluded him in the end.
+
+Shady came to listen for Breed's voice among the multitude of other
+sounds, and in some small measure she felt acquainted with the yellow
+wolf. She missed his voice on those nights when he hunted in some far
+corner of his range and the familiar cry failed to reach her.
+
+This sense of familiarity led her at last to wait for a sight of him.
+Breed traveled one night toward the howl which always had the power to
+draw him, and he suddenly saw Shady fifty yards ahead. She would permit
+of no nearer approach, fleeing before him as he came on, stopping when
+Breed stopped, but always keeping that fifty-yard gap between. Every
+night for a week Breed strove to narrow the breach, but without success;
+but Shady's doubts were wearing down before his constant advances and
+she found no menace in his actions. She eventually allowed Breed to draw
+near and they viewed one another at a distance of ten yards. Their
+course through the sage was a series of eccentric loops as each circled
+repeatedly downwind to catch the other's scent.
+
+Then their relations were reversed, Breed the retiring one, Shady the
+aggressive. There was the scent of the stables, a horsy smell that clung
+to Shady and which Breed could not understand. There seemed too some
+vague taint of man about her which held him back. Shady grew bolder in
+the face of his timidity, and Breed's new-found suspicion eventually
+waned before her friendly insistence. Their friendship once established
+they romped together night after night.
+
+Shady was puzzled over the fact that this new playmate invariably left
+her early in the night. These meetings took place before Breed raised
+his voice to summon the coyote pack for the nightly hunt. He would break
+off in the middle of a race and send out the call, then leave the
+wondering Shady to her own devices for the rest of the night.
+
+His curiosity satisfied, Breed answered her invitations less often and
+she saw him only at infrequent intervals; and there was a reason for
+this flagging interest. Wolves and coyotes mate for life, or till one or
+the other of a pair falls victim to the wiles of man. When once a pair
+is broken the survivor will not take unto himself another mate till the
+next running time of wolves. There were pairs of coyotes running
+together in Breed's pack; there were also single she-coyotes and single
+dogs, but while the mated ones were as devoted as ever before, these
+single ones had only a general interest in the others, their attitude
+uninfluenced by the lure of sex. And Shady, hampered by her relations
+with man and so unable to follow Breed's leadership at will, exercised
+less influence over him than either Peg or Cripp.
+
+Breed killed abundantly, the coyotes picking the last morsel of each
+victim before dawn. Often he killed twice in one night. Word had spread
+that a breed-wolf had turned up on the range and was running with the
+coyotes. Private rewards were added to the State bounty till a total of
+two hundred dollars was posted as the price on his scalp. Every rider
+kept a sharp lookout for the breed; yet so great was his caution that
+except for that first day of his return, when Collins had seen him on
+the rims, no man had set eyes on the yellow wolf.
+
+Breed's watchfulness for traps and poison baits had waned from the fact
+that he found none of either on the range, and he now gave them scarce a
+thought. On the other hand his caution to avoid horsemen was quickened
+from seeing many of them and his vigilance in that particular was never
+relaxed. He chose his beds with care and he slept so lightly that the
+least sound penetrated his consciousness and carried its message to his
+brain. The shrill cachinnations of a prairie dog, the shriek of a
+burrowing owl or the bawling of a range cow; any of these usual sounds
+of the open failed to rouse him; but invariably he knew when a man was
+dangerously near. If the menace was upwind and within reasonable
+distance, his nose detected it. At times the creak of saddle leather
+reached his ears or the sound of the horse's hoofs warned him.
+
+This hoof reading was a curious thing. Breed could not tell why he knew
+when a horse was ridden, but invariably he did. If walking, the feet of
+an iron-shod horse struck pebbles and rocks with a metallic sound and
+Breed was suspicious of all horses that wore shoes; but usually a rider
+traveled at a steady trail trot. It was not the way of loose horses to
+strike a steady, regular gait and hold it, and the even vibrations of a
+shuffling trail trot beat through all other sounds and warned him that a
+horseman was near.
+
+Men grossly underestimate the keen physical senses of the animal world,
+being loath to credit them with finer sense perceptions than those
+possessed by man, dulled by countless centuries of disuse. A coyote can
+scent the tracks left by a bird long hours past; the smell of fresh
+blood is hot in his nostril a full half-mile downwind while the nose of
+man could scarce detect it at a distance of two feet. His ears, attuned
+to receive the delicately shaded tone inflections of coyote converse,
+catch vibrations of sound far too fine to make the least impression on
+the ears of man. And it is through these sense impressions that animals
+are warned at distances which men believe impossible without the aid of
+some subtle intuition or sixth sense. They speak of these things as
+animal instinct and let it go at that.
+
+In addition to this Breed had many other ways of protection at his
+command; he usually knew of the approach of man long before the direct
+message reached him over the paths of his own physical senses,--this
+from his vast knowledge of the ways of animals and birds and his ready
+understanding of their widespread systems of communications. Their
+actions frequently put him on guard before his own senses apprised him
+of the actuality of the danger.
+
+These things, coupled with his own habits and backed by coyote
+intelligence, made Breed an animal most difficult to stalk.
+
+Collins knew the wolf habit of bedding on a rise of ground. He knew too
+that the dog who turns round and round before lying down is not merely
+chasing his tail but instead is exhibiting a relic of his wild
+ancestors' way of rising frequently from his bed and turning to look off
+in all directions before resuming it. Day after day Collins swept the
+range with powerful glasses and through his knowledge and persistence he
+located Breed at last.
+
+Breed lay on the crest of a knoll. Peg and Cripp were hunting in the
+shallow basin below him and he watched with keen interest the diabolical
+cunning of his two chief followers. Peg ranged in the open while Cripp
+paralleled his course, moving along just behind the wave of a low ridge.
+A long-eared jack rabbit bounced from his bed in front of Peg and fled
+swiftly for a hundred yards, then halted to look back as he discovered
+that he was not pursued. He reared on his haunches, forefeet clear of
+the ground, as he watched the coyote who had veered away from him and
+was now questing aimlessly through the stunted sage. Peg turned toward
+him again and the jack bounced away toward the ridge, stopping again as
+Peg swung away. From his point of vantage Breed could see the cunning
+Cripp keeping even with the jack, following closely its every move and
+peering at it through the scattered sage that topped the ridge. Peg,
+apparently unconscious that there was meat in sight, rambled in erratic
+tacks that crowded the rabbit toward the ridge. Breed saw a crouching
+shape slip behind a sage within ten feet of the jack, whose eyes were
+occupied with Peg. There was a flash of yellow as Cripp struck him and
+the dying squall of the big hare floated to Breed's ears. He rose from
+his bed in excitement, then paused to sweep the country with his gaze
+before resuming his nap.
+
+Collins had seen! From the point of a commanding ridge five miles away
+he had centered his binoculars on the yellow wolf. The wolfer's horse
+grazed in the bottom of a gulch, his reins trailing loose, and Collins
+moved swiftly down to him and swung to the saddle. He had covered less
+than two hundred yards before Breed, five miles away, knew that a man
+rode toward him!
+
+The pronghorn antelope has a most peculiar signal system of his own. He
+is furnished with a white patch on his rump, the hair long and stiff,
+and when alarmed, instead of bristling his neck roach as do other
+animals, the antelope bristles this white rump patch. The sun strikes
+light from the glistening hair and every antelope within view follows
+suit; the warning is flashed from band to band till every antelope
+throughout an area of many miles knows that some man is abroad on the
+plains.
+
+Whenever a band of antelopes sported within view of Breed his eyes
+flickered open for frequent glimpses of them. Ten minutes after the two
+coyotes had killed the jack Breed opened his eyes for a view of a
+pronghorn buck that had taken his stand on a low ridge half a mile away.
+Breed caught the danger signal and was instantly alert. For as far as
+his eye could reach he could see the glistening points of light which he
+knew for antelope flashes. The whole antelope tribe was facing toward
+the danger and so pointed out its direction for Breed. It is this sort
+of signaling which men will not understand, preferring instead to credit
+an animal, warned at a distance of many miles, with some mysterious
+occult knowledge.
+
+A band of antelope joined the buck on the ridge and fled with him toward
+Breed, stopped to look back, stamping their feet excitedly, then swept
+on past as a rider topped the ridge they had just left.
+
+Breed flattened in his nest, resting his head between his paws. It was
+not his way to rush off in panicky flight across the open at the first
+glimpse of man, but rather the coyote way of remaining motionless till
+the enemy had passed, or slipping away unseen if he came too close. The
+horseman came on at an angle that would take him three hundred yards to
+one side, then altered his course and angled the other way. He stopped
+to look over a bunch of cows, shifted again to view another bunch and
+circled round it; came on again but turned to head a stray steer back
+toward the rest. Collins was using the same tactics in approaching Breed
+that the two coyotes had so recently used to stalk the jack. He seemed
+about to pass two hundred yards away but lifted his horse into a keen
+run and whirled him straight for the point of the knoll, then shifted
+his course again to round the shoulder of the little hill instead of
+over its crest, knowing that Breed was running at top speed down the
+opposite slope. He pulled the horse back on his haunches and flung from
+the saddle with the first glimpse of the fleeing wolf.
+
+Breed did not stop to look back as most other animals would have done
+but ran with every ounce of his speed. He flinched away from the sharp
+crack near his head as a rifle ball passed him and the crash of the
+report reached his ears. The next shot struck close behind and the
+biting gravel stung him as the ricochet hissed past within an inch of
+him. He held straight ahead but resorted to the coyote ruse of flipping
+from side to side in sharp tacks, his tail snapping jerkily outward to
+balance him on the turns. Bullets ripped through the sage about him as
+Collins emptied his gun. Then he was safe on the far side of a swell and
+Collins was grinning ruefully at a wolfless landscape.
+
+"Coyote stuff!" he said. "A man might as well gun up the corkscrew
+flight of a jacksnipe as to pour lead through the gaps in a
+side-steppin' freak like that. But you, Breed,--you better keep your eye
+on me. The Coyote Prophet is out for your scalp--so walk soft, old
+boy,--walk soft."
+
+Breed struck a swift, gliding trot and held it clear to the base of the
+hills, stopping only when far up the first slope of them to sweep the
+low country for sight of his enemy. That night when he raised his howl
+it reached the ears of perhaps a hundred coyotes far out across the
+flats and immediately thereafter there was a strange movement in the
+coyote tribe. The majority of them rambled in all directions on personal
+business or pleasures of their own but through it all, strung out over a
+five-mile front, more than a dozen coyotes were running swiftly toward
+the hills. They were not to be turned aside but held their course,
+gathering to the wolf who had led them to many a kill,--willing to
+follow wherever he should lead. An hour later, when Breed raised his
+voice from the divide, a wave of coyote answers rose in unison and when
+he headed toward the parent range there were fourteen coyotes traveling
+with him through the hills. They moved together, but not as man
+understands that term, for they did not travel closely grouped. Some
+were half a mile to either side and some far behind, and there were gaps
+of several hundred yards in the line. Their trails sometimes shifted and
+crossed, but noses and ears kept them well informed as to the locality
+and actions of the rest.
+
+They entered the rough mass of the main range and pushed on, traveling
+in this loose formation. Toward morning Breed stopped and listened to a
+far-off sound which reached him. Every coyote in the pack had also
+stopped to listen, their red tongues circling hungrily along their lips
+as they caught the significance of the sound.
+
+There were no sheep on Breed's immediate range. Trouble between the
+cowmen and those who grazed sheep had been temporarily adjusted by
+apportioning the range. Sheep now grazed far to the south but the cowmen
+allowed the privilege of pastoral transportation across the cattle strip
+twice a year for those who summered their sheep in the hills. The snows
+were late in falling and the flocks had been held correspondingly late
+high in the hills.
+
+Breed had known sheep in the past,--and this was the sound of sheep. Two
+herders had combined their bands to work them down to the low country
+and the camp tender stayed to help them with the crossing. Breed
+listened long to the droning undertone, the maddening blat of five
+thousand woollies on the bed ground, its querulous volume persisting
+through the sound of water and wind and drifting to him across a
+distance of five miles. Then he stretched forth his head and issued his
+hunting cry.
+
+The savage peal ripped through the plaintive chant of the sheep as the
+prow of a canoe cuts sluggish water, and traveling against the current
+of sound it reached the ears of the camp tender who rolled over in his
+blankets and cursed. There was a half-minute cessation of the baa and
+blat, and before it was resumed the tender had prodded the two herders
+into wakefulness.
+
+"Better sleep with one eye open," he advised. "There's a wolf in the
+hills. Just crossing through, mebbe--but anyhow you better stay awake to
+hold the sheep while I fire a shot to scare him off if he comes too
+close. He'll put 'em off the bed ground and scatter 'em if he slips past
+the dogs."
+
+The cry sounded again, this time less than a mile away, and a clamor of
+coyote howls rose with it.
+
+"Coyotes!" the tender exclaimed. "Night shooting won't scare those
+cunning devils off,--they know a man can't see at night. It sounds like
+they was running in a pack, and enough of 'em to make a noise like as if
+the whole damn coyote nation had took to the hills. Wonder how come
+they're pranking round with a wolf? They'll likely only hang along to
+cut out some strays--but if they do come in close in a mob like that,
+it's good night, sheep! Them shaller-brained woollies will take to the
+peaks."
+
+The sheep had risen from their beds and were huddled close. The tender
+and herders stood with drawn guns and the three dogs bristled savagely
+and turned their gaze toward the timbered slope that rose on one side of
+the open side-hill bench that served as a bed ground. There was a
+movement among the sheep; the fleecy mass buckled and surged as those on
+the outer edge turned and sought safety by plowing toward the
+close-packed center. The three men stationed themselves in a triangle
+three hundred yards apart, hoping to steady the sheep and hold them. The
+dogs circled swiftly round the milling horde, driving merciless teeth
+into every panic-stricken sheep who sought to quit the flock. The whole
+mass suddenly crowded off to one side and all three dogs sped round to
+hold them.
+
+One herder saw a flitting streak leave the timber edge and glide toward
+the sheep; another; there was no moon and he could not be sure. His gun
+barked twice as a dozen shadowy forms crossed the open, strung out for
+two hundred yards. Then hell broke loose on the bed ground.
+
+The fear-crazed horde streamed past the other herder and the tender.
+They shouted and struck out with heavy staffs, trying to stem the tide
+and turn it back. The resistless sea of fleece surged on and was
+swallowed in the gloom of the heavy timber down the slope. And in the
+center of it all Breed and the coyote pack were working.
+
+They ripped through the mob and split it; drove through again. The sheep
+split into a hundred small detachments and blundered on under the trees.
+The men stumbled through the down-timber windfalls and their shouts and
+the frantic barking of the dogs rose above the clamor of the sheep,--but
+there was not a sound from the yellow killers who had started the
+stampede. Every coyote knew the location of the men and each one singled
+out a stray band for his own and swept ahead with it. The dogs worked
+like fiends but the marauders were in too great force for them. Whenever
+a dog bore down upon a coyote the raider fled straight away from the
+sheep and their blats recalled the dog to duty. The mad wave rolled down
+the slope and up the next.
+
+The first light of dawn revealed each of the three dogs holding a large
+band of sheep. The two herders and the camp tender had each rounded up a
+smaller bunch. They worked their separate ways back toward the bed
+ground, gathering strays along the way. The camp tender held them in the
+open while the two herders and the dogs combed the surrounding hills for
+stragglers; and as they worked they cursed the coyote and his ways. It
+was no unusual thing in their experience for a few coyotes to fly at a
+bunch of sheep and scatter them, cutting out a few that straggled away
+from the protection of men and dogs, but this savage attack in pack
+formation and the harrying of five thousand head of sheep far through
+the hills was new to them.
+
+All through the morning they rounded stragglers toward the flock and
+shortly after noon they headed the tired sheep down toward the
+foothills, fearing a repetition of the stampede. Just at dusk they
+milled the sheep and bedded them on a ridge in the low country, a mile
+from the base of the timbered hills.
+
+The camp tender looked them over with practiced eye and shook his head.
+
+"There's no chance to make a count now," he said. "But when we do make
+one it's dollars to dimes that we'll tally out two hundred short."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Collins had waited till the fur was prime and the flesh side of the
+coyote pelt showed flint white before throwing out his trap line. He
+made the first set three hundred yards from the cabin, choosing the spot
+with care, for he knew that the last place a coyote would enter was the
+one where guiding clumps of sage formed an inviting lane across the
+traps. He selected an open spot instead and dismounted on a sheep pelt
+spread flat upon the ground; with a hand-axe he hewed out a triangular
+trap bed a foot across by three inches deep, placing every shred of
+fresh earth removed from it in a canvas sack; then he fitted a heavy
+Newhouse four in place with both springs bent far to the rear and drove
+a slender steel pin out of sight through the swivel ring of the chain.
+He smoothed a piece of canvas under the jaws and over the pan and poured
+the soft earth over it all, filling it level with the surface and
+tamping it firmly with his fingers except that within the six-inch
+circle of the jaws. From a second sack he sifted dust over the spot till
+it matched the surrounding flat, remounted and leaned from the saddle to
+recover the sheep pelt on which he had knelt and used it as a fan to
+whip the dust of the flat into curling eddies which settled back so
+uniformly as to defy the eyes of any man to detect the location of the
+trap. The surplus earth removed from the hole he carried away to be
+emptied far from the spot. For Collins knew the qualities of his prey
+and a good wolfer leaves no sign. He had used no foolish scent to
+disguise his own, knowing that the heat of day and the frost of night
+would diffuse his scent and obliterate all trace of it, the same as an
+animal's trail grows cold in time, while any foreign odor lingering
+longer than his own would only serve as a guide for the cunning prey he
+sought.
+
+The wisdom of the fox has furnished theme for song and legend, and only
+those who have followed the trap line for both fox and coyote know that
+Reynard's vaunted brain is but a dry sponge when compared to the
+knowledge-soaked brain of the prairie wolf. It is the way of the coyote
+to live near man, confident that his own cunning will offset that of his
+arch enemy and lead him unscathed through all the contrivances men may
+employ for his destruction. Collins knew that the fox was only trap-shy
+while the coyote was--vast difference between the two--trap-wise; that
+he would go to a bait, knowing the traps were there, and risk his life
+in an effort to uncover them and so leave evidence behind that he was
+keener than his foe.
+
+At the end of a week Collins had thrown out three pear-shaped loops of
+traps, each line with a length of twenty miles, the whole a clover-leaf
+effect with his cabin as the base. He had used no bait until his scent
+should have been blotted out round his traps, not from fear that coyotes
+would not approach the bait while his scent was fresh but from certain
+knowledge that they would approach too soon, locate his traps and
+uncover them. When the third trap circle was complete he started back
+over the first and baited the sets, then commenced the steady routine of
+riding one string each day and thus covering his entire line in three
+days.
+
+Shady frequently accompanied Collins on these trips and when he made a
+trap set she sat down some distance away and watched him with full
+understanding of what he was about; for Shady's past experience with
+traps had been large. She had seen Collins take many a coyote from his
+traps. Twice she had slipped away to steal the bait from some set near
+the cabin and both times had felt the sudden deadly clutch of steel jaws
+on her foot, remaining in their grip till Collins had released her. She
+had seen coyotes dead and bloated from eating poison baits,--and meat
+was now a danger signal to Shady, not a lure. She would touch no food
+except that which she obtained at the cabin.
+
+The trap line had yielded many coyote pelts while Breed was still in the
+hills and he knew nothing of the widespread mortality among the coyotes
+in his absence or the dangers which lurked in wait for him on his
+return.
+
+There were two hundred sheep scattered for miles through the hills and
+Breed and the coyote pack found easy killing. Winter had claimed the
+lofty peaks, while but little snow had fallen below timber line.
+
+Breed sensed the coming storm. The movements of the elk herds told him
+it would be a heavy one. It was nearing the end of the elk rutting moon
+but the bulls were still bugling. Breed heard the clear bugle note of an
+old herd bull, the piercing sound reaching him from many miles back
+among the snowy peaks. It was closely followed by others. The elk
+migration had begun; the herds were evacuating the lofty basins of their
+summer range and boiling out through the high passes of the peaks before
+the snowfall of the coming storm should block them in,--coming down to
+winter in the lower valleys of the hills.
+
+[Illustration: The elk migration had begun. _Page 63._]
+
+The certainty with which animals gauge a coming storm is cited as proof
+of that mysterious instinct with which men credit them; yet this
+information may reach them through known laws. Breed knew of it from the
+elk movements, and it is probable that the elk in turn were warned from
+some similarly natural source,--perhaps from atmospheric changes, more
+likely from the flight of migratory birds.
+
+A marshland may be empty of certain species of ducks in the fall; then
+suddenly a flock will pitch down out of the blue, followed by another
+and another till the whole sky is streaked with the oncoming horde. They
+will feed and start on, the belated arrivals not even alighting but
+holding straight ahead. The flight ceases as suddenly as it commenced
+and inevitably a storm drives down out of the north in the wake of the
+flocks. But this is not instinct. The storm strikes those birds that
+have remained farthest north and as they scurry ahead of it the more
+southerly ones take wing. Many ducks fly at rates of speed that are well
+over a hundred miles an hour and so can distance the swiftest storms.
+Even the ears of man may detect the difference between the
+wing-whistlers of a flock of mallards or other slow-flying ducks and the
+humming screech of redhead or canvasback hurtling through the night with
+tremendous speed; and animals note such things more readily than man.
+
+In any event Breed knew of the coming storm many hours before the first
+soft flakes fell and melted on his yellow coat. He took shelter under
+the low-hanging branches of a stunted spruce and slept. It snowed for
+two days and throughout that time there was little sound in the hills.
+Each coyote in the pack had sought out a similar shelter, the mated
+pairs bedding together, the others singly. No one of them howled during
+the storm. The elk and deer held to their beds without a sound. The few
+stragglers who had not yet crossed out through the passes were the only
+ones that moved, pushing on through the storm, and the herd bulls
+traveling with them bugled to hold their cows together; but the
+snow-filled air deadened these distant sounds. And for two days Breed
+heard nothing but the soft hissing of the snow through the branches or
+the groaning of overburdened trees. The third night a big gray owl
+hooted gruffly an hour before dawn, and as if dispersed by the sound of
+his voice the last gray clouds scudded past and the stars flamed from
+the steel-blue sky of night.
+
+A savage wind sprang up with the sun, shrieking along the exposed ridges
+and rippling the valleys of lodgepole pine, hurling its force against
+the spruce slopes. For another day Breed heard only the howl of the
+gale, the snow sliding from the swaying branches and the sudden crash of
+falling trees,--not a sound of life. The fury of the wind abated toward
+night and an hour after dark there was a sudden lull followed by one
+last rush of wind, leaving the white hills wrapped in a vast silence.
+
+Breed heard a single bugle note of a young bull, the last he was to hear
+for another ten months, for the mating time of the antlered tribes had
+been ushered out with the storm. The gray owls hooted the warning that
+they would soon set forth on silent wings to strike down any small
+creature that moved across the white carpet under the trees. The elk
+were working back up to the bald ridges that had been blown free of
+snow. All the night-feeders of the wild prowled in search of food after
+the fast.
+
+Breed raised the hunting cry and the coyote pack answered roll call.
+They were gaunt and their flanks were pinched up and hollowed from the
+three-day famine. They ran silently and with but a single purpose,
+spurred on by hunger. A coyote far out on one flank of the pack winded a
+bunch of elk and headed for them. The elk accorded him scarcely a glance
+as he drew near. In an earlier day, before the white man had invaded the
+foothills, the elk herds had wintered there, but the coyotes had not
+molested them; of late a few coyotes had invaded the high country, the
+summer range, but the elk did not fear them.
+
+The coyote howled, one short eager blast, and angled in between the herd
+and a straggler on the edge of it, a yearling elk, a spike bull, his
+first antler growth consisting of two pointed spikes eighteen inches
+long. He was not alarmed,--but it was a new kind of coyote that faced
+him now, one that had learned pack hunting under the leadership of the
+yellow wolf.
+
+The coyote made a swift lunge and drove his teeth in one hind leg. The
+young bull whirled and aimed a sweeping slash of his polished spears,
+intent upon impaling his foe; and as he turned a second coyote flashed
+from behind a tree and slashed him. The bull whirled again and struck
+wickedly with a smashing forefoot. The rest of the elk had stopped to
+gaze in amazement at this strange scene,--at coyotes attacking an elk.
+
+Every coyote in the pack had altered his course at that short howl,
+wheeling as at a command. Yellow shapes had appeared as if by magic and
+were sliding under the trees on silent feet and circling the bull. There
+was something sinister and purposeful in this concerted action and the
+rest of the elk milled about uneasily and at last turned and trotted
+off. The spike bull fought with hoof and horn, but at every turn a
+coyote slashed him from behind, striking always at the hamstring. His
+rage turned to fear and he fled. He struck the heavy four-foot drifts
+where the wind had scoured the snow from the ridge above and sifted it
+deep in the timber. His sharp hoofs and heavier weight let him deep into
+the snow while the coyotes padded easily along, their feet sinking in
+but a few inches. He tired himself with desperate charges at some coyote
+that always eluded him while others drove fangs in him from behind. More
+coyotes joined the running fight and he was far gone before Breed drove
+through the pack and struck him with all the force of a killing wolf. He
+spent the last of his ebbing strength in a whirlwind of furious
+fighting, then went down and the yellow horde swarmed over him. They fed
+long and when they left the feast they were no longer gaunt. Flanks had
+filled out and paunches sagged heavily, nearly touching the snow. The
+following night they returned to the kill and finished it. Then Breed
+headed back for the open sagebrush foothills. The immediate fear of
+being shot had departed, leaving only the lesson as a reminder of his
+narrow escape.
+
+The pack reached the edge of the hills in the first morning light and
+many of them kept on, but Breed, more averse to daylight traveling than
+they, would not venture down till night. The low country lay spread out
+below him, ragged patches of brown alternating with those of dirty
+white, the wind having scoured the snow from open grass-country and
+piled it to the tops of the sage in the heavier clumps and in long
+drifts trailing away downwind behind them, or packed it in the depths of
+badland washes and cracks. The powdery snow had been swept from the open
+before it had time to melt and the dry air of the hill country had
+sucked up what little moisture remained, leaving the flats almost as
+dusty as before.
+
+With nightfall Breed descended to the tongue of the foothills that
+reached up into the notch formed by the outcropping spur where it joined
+the main range at right angles. Thirty miles east along this Hardpan
+Spur was his home territory and he followed along the base of it. Not
+till within ten miles of Collins' cabin did he howl. The wolfer heard
+it, and again he had the feeling that he could almost name that
+peculiarity in Breed's note, but before he could give it expression the
+solution was slipping away from him as always before. He could feel the
+odd quality but it defied analysis in words.
+
+Shady too had heard the call and answered it. Breed started toward her
+but stopped abruptly and tested the wind. The scent of stale meat played
+on his nostrils and he veered aside to investigate. He moved along a cow
+trail and peered from the edge of the sage at a ten-pound chunk of meat
+that lay in the center of an open flat. He knew what that meant.
+Suspicion flooded him and every hair tingled as he realized that this
+was the work of man. Traps! No coyote on the range would have found need
+to look twice at the tempting morsel to know that it had not come there
+by accident but had been placed by some man as a coyote lure.
+
+Breed, springing as he did from two wise tribes, had been educated in
+two schools. His coyote mother had led him to meat, knowing men had put
+it there to bait her, and she had taught him to detect the most
+cunningly buried trap. Later he had practiced this art himself. The old
+dog wolf who was his father had followed one simple rule which served
+him well. He killed each meal as he felt the need of it and would touch
+no other food, not even returning to previous kills of his own. Breed
+was possessed of both traits in moderation, inclining to either for long
+periods as his moods varied. Breed moved to within ten feet of the meat
+and extended one forepaw, feeling cautiously through the carpet of dust,
+then pushed it two inches ahead. For a solid hour that paw was not once
+lifted from the ground except when the other was pushed forward to
+replace it. He moved ahead an inch at a time, the edging forepaws
+feeling through the dust for the least sign of loosened earth beneath.
+He knew that the crushing jaws of a trap yawned beneath the surface
+somewhere near the meat. His eyes swept every inch of ground for a sign
+that differed from the rest and his nose quested for a spot which held
+the taint of man. A faint trace of it pervaded the place, coming mainly
+from the bait itself and almost blotted by the meat scent.
+
+Cripp and Peg watched every move from a distance of ten feet. Two young
+coyotes had come to the spot and one of them worked in toward the bait
+from the opposite side, using the same tactics as those employed by
+Breed. At the end of an hour Breed stood within three feet of his goal
+and the out-stretched paw suddenly touched yielding earth. He scratched
+gently along the edge of this softened spot; a claw scraped some solid
+substance and the moonlight glinted on a point of naked steel. Breed
+pushed his paw beneath it and gently lifted till half of a deadly
+four-pound trap showed above the dust. He looked long at it, then veered
+past it to the bait; and the young coyote edged in from the other side.
+Breed's feet did not shift an inch as he tore a mouthful from the meat,
+but the young coyote across from him strained to drag the whole of it
+from the spot. It was wired solidly to a stake and he shifted far to
+either side in his vain efforts to dislodge it. There was a hissing
+grate of loosened springs and the young coyote felt the bone-shattering
+snap of a trap as it closed on his foot. Breed whirled and leaped ten
+feet away, from which point he watched the struggles of his ill-fated
+friend. In his desperate struggles to free himself the young coyote
+leaped clear across the meat and the trap that Breed had unearthed
+closed on another foot. Breed circled uneasily round the spot, powerless
+to help the coyote that was stretched full length between two traps, yet
+he lingered till an hour before dawn.
+
+This experience quickened old fears in Breed. Memories of past horrors,
+long dormant but not forgotten, welled up out of his mind to increase
+his caution, and fresh pangs were added by similar discoveries on each
+succeeding night. The whole range seemed studded with fearsome traps and
+the odor of stale meat was borne on every breeze. There were few nights
+when he did not find some animal fast in one of these man-made snares.
+Each new victim acted differently, according to the characteristics of
+its kind. Breed found a badger in a trap and the animal ceased his
+struggle long enough to wrinkle his nose and hiss at Breed with a thick
+snakelike sound. The badger's forepaws were more than twice the size of
+his hind feet, and were fitted with heavy two-inch claws, while those of
+the hind feet measured but half an inch. He was caught by one hind foot,
+leaving the powerful spading forks of the forepaws free to work. He had
+always found safety by burrowing in the ground and so now, in his last
+extremity, he turned to digging and plowed every inch of the surface
+within reach. He settled on one spot at last and burrowed from sight.
+Breed watched the heaving dirt till it ceased to move as the badger
+settled comfortably in fancied security, buried to the full limit of the
+trap chain.
+
+Some nights later Breed passed a cross fox that had strayed down from
+the high country and had stepped into one of Collins' traps. The fox was
+never still, weaving in and out, looping and turning round the pin that
+held the trap; lashed into constant movement by his native nervousness
+but making no strenuous efforts to break loose. Later the same night he
+found a bobcat. The big cat made no move save a slight creasing of his
+facial muscles preparatory to a snarl if the wolf drew near. The first
+pain had dulled and he rested quietly, lacking the hardihood to stretch
+his own flesh and bones in a struggle against the trap.
+
+But Breed always found a trapped coyote fighting,--fighting silently and
+gamely to the last heartbeat. Coyotes are high in the scale of
+intelligence and so each one has an individuality of his own. One would
+surge time after time against the chain, driving savagely to the end of
+it. Another would grind his teeth against the cold steel till his jaws
+dripped blood, while a third would amputate the mangled foot. But
+whatever the method, the basic fact was the same,--no coyote waited
+submissively for his fate but waged a ceaseless, desperate fight for
+freedom.
+
+All these things heightened Breed's suspicions. He felt the reassertion
+of wolfish caution within him, driving out the coyote desire to outwit
+man. Three times he unearthed the traps and stole the bait. Then he
+refused to go near stale meat. He was nauseated by the smell of it and
+merely avoided instead of investigating the spots from which the scent
+came to him. And this was not through fear of traps--he retained full
+confidence in his ability to detect them--but from the fact that
+wherever he had found traps in the past he had also found poison and so
+these two were associated together in his mind.
+
+Throughout a whole month of accustoming himself to these new conditions,
+Breed had visited Shady but twice. He had the companionship of coyotes
+to fill his time and the lonesome howls of the she-wolf were unanswered.
+It is the stock dog without steady occupation that reverts to the wild.
+Mere inactivity, even if coupled with kindness, is insufficient to still
+his natural restlessness and fill his life; he must have careful
+training and active employment to be content,--and Shady was half wild.
+
+The mating time of wolves was drawing near and Breed caught the new note
+in Shady's voice. He dropped all other business to hurry to her. Though
+the season was yet some time ahead they knew its nearness and each
+recognized in the other a possible future mate.
+
+Collins thought of Shady more as a pet than as a dog and so had not
+troubled to train her. The wild traits in her were as apparent in
+maturity as they had been in infancy--even more pronounced--and chief
+among these was her natural aptitude for stealing. She pillaged Collins'
+stores and even sneaked food from the table when his back was turned, as
+her wild ancestors for many generations had stolen his bait. Collins
+curbed this propensity, not by judicious training which would eliminate
+it, but by the simple process of chaining her to the cabin wall when he
+left for a trip and did not wish her to accompany him. So it was not
+strange that Shady viewed thieving from the standpoint of expediency.
+Those who came to Collins' cabin predicted a bad end for Shady.
+
+That insistent note in her voice was more pronounced as the season
+neared and Breed tingled to the sound of it. The frequency of his visits
+increased till they were of nightly occurrence instead of semi-monthly.
+He used every wolfish inducement to lure her away from the vicinity of
+the twinkling lights that marked the abode of man. She longed to follow
+him into the wild but could not bring herself to face its terrors. Breed
+longed to follow her when she left him but could not bring himself to
+face the horrors which must lurk near the haunts of men. These clashing
+outlooks upon life held them apart. The wild represented safety for
+Breed, its dangers known to him and accepted as a part of it and not to
+be greatly feared. Those dangers were the work of man, and by natural
+consequence Breed assumed that their numbers and deadliness increased in
+proportion as he drew nearer the homes of men, the house itself the most
+dangerous of all. Shady's mode of life had taught her the reverse of
+this; that complete safety lay in the cabin and its immediate vicinity,
+the known and unknown terrors of the wild increasing in ever-widening
+circles dependent upon the distance from the refuge of the cabin that
+was home to her.
+
+The season had started and some few coyotes had paired, yet Breed could
+not induce Shady to follow him. The preceding winter her desire for
+motherhood had been thwarted. Collins had chained her to the cabin for a
+month. Coyotes are without the wolf suspicion which fills their larger
+cousins with fear of human habitations, and they are prone to
+investigate them at night while a wolf will not approach. Several dog
+coyotes had braved the dangers of Collins' cabin in answer to Shady's
+howls. Her soft whimpering had roused the wolfer each time this occurred
+and every new admirer had been greeted with a charge of buckshot as he
+slipped toward the house, three dog coyotes having paid for their
+temerity with their lives.
+
+The Coyote Prophet intended the same imprisonment for Shady the present
+season but he neglected it one day too long. He came from the cabin, a
+collar and chain in his hand, only to see Shady slip away into the dusk.
+A minute later she howled.
+
+Breed heard it. Every fiber of him quivered to the sound. It was the
+mating call!
+
+Collins whistled in vain. There was no answering whimper from Shady. But
+the habit of obedience was strong in her and she lingered within sound
+of it. Breed came nearer than ever before, his fears dulled by the
+message she had sent him. Collins came from the house again and whistled
+shrilly. Breed shrank from the sound and drew back as Shady trotted a
+short distance toward the house; she answered the whistle with an uneasy
+whine and Collins moved in the direction from which it came, coaxing as
+he advanced.
+
+Fear flooded Breed. It spurred him to sudden rushes of flight which were
+halted in a few stiff bounds as the longing for Shady cried out against
+his leaving her. Then came the clanking of the chain in Collins' hand.
+It was the clank of a trap chain to Breed,--and he was off. That same
+sound, its meaning so different for each of them, resulted in flight for
+both. Shady ran with him through the night, and once started it was not
+so hard to keep on. And as she ran she transferred her trust from
+Collins to Breed, giving herself entirely into his keeping to lead her
+through the unknown perils which lay ahead,--and she ran close to him,
+her nose almost touching his flank.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The exhilarating element of danger in trap robbing, which appeals so
+strongly to the coyote, held no fascination for Shady. She was vastly
+trap-wise but used her knowledge solely for self-preservation. Every
+scrap of meat on the range represented possible pain or death to her and
+she found no sport in close investigation with its attendant risks. She
+was entirely dependent upon Breed, feeling a sense of security in his
+nearness, but weighed down by the vast unknown which seemed to close in
+upon her whenever the gap between them exceeded the span of one leap.
+She would not touch any food other than that which he provided.
+
+The coyotes clustered round the steer that Breed pulled down a few hours
+after luring Shady from the cabin and she viewed them suspiciously,
+warning them off by repeated growls. Peg and Cripp edged in to feed.
+Shady's protest rose frenziedly and she raged at them but did not
+attack, and the two old coyotes eyed her warily as they ate. She noted
+that Breed accepted their presence and she quieted and patterned her
+actions according to her mate's.
+
+The rest of the pack came in. Her uneasiness persisted and for an hour
+she ate but little, edging away from physical contact with those who
+crowded about her. She pressed close to Breed's side and whirled to snap
+at any coyote who attempted to wedge between them, but her suspicions
+subsided as she found that these nips were never returned. Whenever a
+dog coyote was inclined to make friendly advances to Shady a low growl
+from Breed warned him from her side. The sense of strangeness, of having
+been catapulted from a sheltered life into the midst of a growling mob,
+wore off and Shady rapidly accustomed herself to these new conditions.
+
+The feast was but half finished when the head of every coyote in the
+pack was raised at once and the shuffling feet and grinding jaws were
+stilled as a timber wolf howled from the slope of the Hardpan Spur. All
+animal sounds were suspended till the last ripples of Breed's answering
+cry died away; then lesser beasts, having preserved strict silence while
+two mighty hunters spoke, resumed their own interrupted communications.
+
+The Coyote Prophet heard the two cries, and that baffling quality in
+Breed's voice was instantly clear to him, as was the reason why he had
+never before been able to give it name. He had quested for the
+difference with his ear,--and the difference lay in the feel of the
+sound. Collins had felt the crawling of his flesh and the roughening of
+his skin at the gray wolf's cry; for a man may hear that note every
+night of his life and the wolf shiver will shake his frame the last time
+it sounds as surely as it does the first. It is not fear; no man can
+name it; but the wolf shiver is as inseparably linked with the wolf howl
+as the involuntary gasp is linked with a dash of ice water on the spine.
+And Collins knew that that quality was lacking in Breed's cry. The
+personality of the gray wolf was marked by absolute savagery, his bleak
+outlook on life undiluted by a single ray of that humor which is so
+evident in every act of the dog and the prairie wolf; and this
+difference of temperament was reflected in his voice, apparent to the
+ears of the animal world, apparent to Collins only in the different way
+in which his subconscious mind reacted to his howl. Collins, having once
+defined Breed's note, its sound so identical with that of the wolf howl
+yet so dissimilar in the elusive feeling which accompanied it, had no
+further doubt that he could thereafter identify Breed by his howl.
+
+"You, Breed! I've got your number now," he said. "I could pick you out
+from amongst a hundred wolves." This was merely a casual assertion, a
+self-congratulation over having solved the puzzle, and the Coyote
+Prophet made it without a thought that the day would ever come when he
+might have opportunity to file it among prophecies fulfilled.
+
+The wolf howl affected Shady in a similar way, its stark savagery
+clashing discordantly with the dog strain in her. She felt the grating
+along her spine, and the hair rose with it. There was an air of
+expectancy among the coyotes. Heads were raised between mouthfuls and
+all eyes were repeatedly turned toward the hills. It was the first time
+that Shady had heard the cry of one of the big gray hunters. She noted
+the tension among her new friends without reading its portent. Of them
+all, Breed seemed the only one unaffected. One by one the coyotes left
+the feast, then the remaining few sidled hurriedly away as a huge dog
+wolf moved swiftly across the flat. His pace slowed as he neared the
+kill and he halted ten feet away, his quivering nose taking stock of the
+two who fed there.
+
+Shady's long run through the sage had whipped her soft fur full of sage
+dust, its sharp scent nearly obliterating the conglomerate smell of the
+cabin which usually clung to her. The reek of coyote scent and fresh
+blood that permeated the spot still further concealed it, and though the
+wolf caught the peculiar odor he could not trace its source to her
+without closer inspection. He was hungry and advanced to the meat,
+tearing off huge bites and gulping them down till the wire edge of his
+hunger was appeased, then sidled cautiously round the steer to nose the
+mating she-wolf. As he neared her his eyes peered over her at Breed.
+That foreign odor which he had noted he now traced to Shady, but having
+once accepted her it did not trouble him. Shady flinched away from him
+and Breed's lips writhed up and cupped away from his ivory fangs. There
+was no mistaking the snarl that accompanied this baring of his teeth and
+the gray wolf moved back to the opposite side of the steer.
+
+Thereafter both wolves ate sparingly and each watched for the least
+hostile move in the other. The coyote pack ringed in close, awaiting the
+departure of the timber wolf. He frequently turned his head and favored
+the closer ones with a baleful stare, the move always accompanied by a
+flattening of his ears, and the ones so fixed by his appraising eye
+shrank deeper into the sage. Each time this occurred his head swung
+abruptly back toward Breed.
+
+Shady feared and hated the wolf. If she thought of him in human words
+she would have given him the name of Flatear, and with good reason. In
+coyote, fox and wolf the ears are even more expressive than the eyes. A
+wolf's ears work when he sleeps, one of them inclining toward the least
+sound that reaches him. When awake his ears seem to work automatically
+in conjunction with nose and eyes, tipping sharply forward and turning
+in the direction of any strange object or questionable scent that
+excites his curiosity. And the flattening of the ears is indicative of
+his mood, preceding even the snarl, their backward angle an accurate
+gauge of his intent. It seemed to Shady that the big wolf's ears were
+chronically laid as he regarded Breed. She was unversed in the ways of
+her wild kinsfolk and could not know that the yellow wolf and the gray
+were sparring for the advantage of the first blow in the savage fight
+that would soon be waged for the right of proprietorship,--herself as
+the prize.
+
+Both wolves centered their attention on the main issue and waited only
+for an opening. Shady and the restless coyotes out in the sage were
+forgotten, each wolf conscious only of his foe. Those others mattered
+not at all, for there were certain known laws which all past experience
+had proved unalterable. She-wolves showed small concern over the clashes
+of rival males; coyotes never fought with their big gray cousins, and
+there were no other wolves about. The issue was squarely up to them.
+
+Each time that Breed appeared off guard for a split second the gray wolf
+laid his ears, the involuntary betrayal of muscles tensing for the fatal
+spring; and Breed's own flattening ears each time evidenced his
+readiness to counter. Shady sensed the enmity between them without
+knowing the inevitable result. Her mode of fighting was the impulsive
+way of the dog, the act almost simultaneous with the desire, and this
+protracted, cold-blooded calculation was new to her.
+
+Breed gave an opening at last, turning and reaching for a bite of meat,
+and exposing the unprotected side of his neck. Flatear struck for it
+without a sound, driving straight across the steer with all his weight
+behind the gleaming rows of teeth. Breed dropped flat and as his enemy
+swept over him he swung his head up and sidewise in a terrible slash
+that tore an ugly rent in the gray wolf's paunch. They whirled face to
+face,--and both were treated to a series of tremendous surprises which
+shattered all previous convictions.
+
+Shady harked back to the ways of her domestic ancestors, to the custom
+of dashing into a neighborhood dog fight and mauling the one strange dog
+in the lot, regardless of sex,--and Breed had been her friend long
+before he had become her mate. Flatear was the one strange dog to Shady,
+and he found himself assailed by a screeching fury who fought without
+care or caution, her sole aim being to sink her teeth in any available
+part of him. As he leaped away from this unnatural she-wolf he was met
+by a second surprise. The coyote pack had learned to strike when the
+leader struck. Peg flashed round a sage and laid open his flank, and as
+he whirled to face this new enemy Cripp slashed him from behind. Three
+coyotes darted past Breed and before he had recovered from the shock of
+the surprise his enemy had fled.
+
+Flatear did not flee from fear but from an overwhelming sense of the
+whole world gone mad, the shattering of tradition and the overthrow of
+natural laws. The chaos in his mind sent him flying from this insane
+place within six seconds after his first attack. A mating she-wolf had
+been transformed into a she-fiend and in the same second he had been
+mobbed by coyotes. No doubt he believed with Collins that strange things
+had come to pass of late in the ranks of the coyote tribe. Flatear
+headed back for the hills out of which he had come, and as he ran his
+bewilderment crystallized into a consuming hatred for the strange yellow
+wolf, the hybrid beast who had upset the established order of things. He
+did not know that Breed himself had been so nearly paralyzed with sheer
+astonishment that he had not joined the attack.
+
+The coyotes settled once more to the enjoyment of their interrupted
+banquet. Breed little realized that he had made a mortal enemy, one who
+would not merely attempt to deprive him of his mate during the running
+moon as would any other unattached dog wolf, but one whose enmity was
+for the individual and who had marked him for the slaughter when next
+they met, regardless of time or season.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The number of coyotes in Collins' territory had been cut down by half
+and only the wisest were left. As they grew more trap-wise the wolfer
+increased the cunning of his sets. Clearly marked cow trails crossed
+through every low saddle in the foothills and Collins studded these with
+traps. After once his scent was cold the coyotes had nothing to warn
+them of these sets, but trail trapping is largely chance and not
+productive of great results.
+
+Breed saw one coyote in a trail trap and he forswore the following of
+cow trails. The coyotes soon learned to avoid them. Collins noted the
+absence of coyote tracks on trails that had once been padded thick with
+them and the wolfer chuckled over this evidence of their
+resourcefulness.
+
+Some of Breed's pack had fallen victims to the trap line but their
+places had been filled by new recruits, every one trap-wise to the last
+degree. But even these found it increasingly difficult to retain their
+lives.
+
+A new menace hovered over every coyote that ranged near the foot of the
+Hardpan Spur, a menace that filled the hardiest prairie wolf with dread.
+Many a lone coyote was suddenly startled by a huge shape that leaped for
+him and bore him down. None thus attacked lived to spread the warning
+and the only knowledge the others had of the lurking fiend was the
+finding of old friends, stiff and dead, their throats gashed open by
+savage teeth. The tracks and scent round these murder spots identified
+the slayer.
+
+Flatear spent his days high in the hills and at night he dropped to the
+low country to perpetrate his unnatural crimes. Coyotes had violated the
+customs of centuries and turned their teeth against him. He now wreaked
+vengeance for this affront. There were no wolves to answer his call, so
+Flatear no longer howled, but prowled the range without a sound to warn
+prospective victims, a silent assassin that struck without notice.
+
+At the end of a week he had left a long trail of victims behind but not
+one of Breed's pack was among them. Those that had pack-hunted with the
+yellow wolf and learned the advantages of combined attack in killing
+heavy game now put that same knowledge to good use for their own
+protection, sufficient evidence of the quick adaptability with which
+coyotes rise to meet any new emergency.
+
+Mated pairs now ran close when hunting, sometimes traveling in fours.
+Flatear soon discovered that the teamwork of a pair of fighting coyotes
+was more than a match for even his great prowess and his kills grew
+fewer.
+
+Cold fear clutched every coyote that caught a fugitive scent of the gray
+killer, but Breed did not share this dread. He was Flatear's match in
+size and strength and so was not concerned. Breed could not know that
+Flatear's hatred had become almost an obsession; that night after night
+the slayer was craftily trailing him and that killing coyotes was but a
+side line to lighten the hours of a protracted stalk for Breed himself.
+Flatear was a veteran warrior and he waited only for an opportunity to
+attack when he should find Breed alone. Nose and ears kept him apprised
+of the yellow wolf's whereabouts, but usually there were coyotes running
+with him and invariably the tracks of the she-fury were mingled with
+those of her mate. Breed was untroubled by any thought that sudden death
+lurked in wait for him the first time he should run alone through the
+sage.
+
+While Flatear plied his bloody trade and made the nights fearsome for
+the coyotes, men found one more method of harrying them by day.
+
+The first Breed knew of this danger was one day when he lay with Shady
+on a high point of ground. There were many things about Shady which he
+could not fathom. From the first he had found much of mystery in her.
+She insisted on traveling in broad daylight whenever the notion seized
+her and she seemed not to share his fear of horsemen, often rising
+incautiously from her bed for a better view of them, careless of the
+risk of their seeing her.
+
+Shady cocked her ears alertly at a distant sound, and the same note,
+faint as it was, roused Breed from his nap. Somewhere off across the
+foothills several men had raised their voices in a wild outburst of
+cheers. This sounded again and again, each time from a point nearer to
+where Breed lay. A band of antelope sped past without following their
+usual custom of stopping to look back. Breed caught the vibrations of
+pounding hoofs, the sound of many hard-running horses blended in one.
+Through it all he heard an occasional note that was strange to him, a
+shrill, sharp note that had something of the wolf in it, yet which he
+knew was not made by any beast he had met before. And at this note Shady
+laid her ears and growled.
+
+The cheers and the hammering hoofs came closer and Breed fixed his eyes
+on the edge of the flat bench spread out for half a mile before him. A
+coyote spurted from the mouth of a draw off to the left of Breed's
+position and raced across the flat. He was stretched out and running his
+best, but before he had covered two hundred yards five great wolfhounds
+poured out of the draw. They were slender and long-coupled, capable of
+tremendous speed, and before the coyote passed below Breed the lead dog
+was but a few lengths behind.
+
+For the most part the dogs ran silently and wasted no breath in
+senseless clamor, but occasionally one of them loosed an eager yelp, the
+sound as thin and keen as his body. A dozen riders streamed across the
+flat on furiously running horses, cheering as they came. The coyote
+doubled to evade the snapping jaws of the foremost dog, and as he turned
+another struck him. He rolled over twice, and when he gained his feet he
+faced his enemies. He knew the game was up but he went down
+fighting,--fighting against odds without a whine; and Breed watched five
+savage dogs mauling a limp dead thing that ten seconds past had been his
+valued friend. These strange beasts did not move off as the men rode up,
+and Breed realized with a shock that the men did not ride with the
+purpose of killing them; that they were leagued together and that the
+dogs were the creatures of men the same as sheep and cows were their
+property.
+
+He stole down the far slope, keeping the high ground between himself and
+the horsemen. Shady followed him closely, moving furtively and with many
+backward glances, her tail tucked almost between her legs, and Breed,
+accustomed to Shady's indifference to the approach of riders, wondered
+at this sudden reversal of her usual ways.
+
+But it was not the men that roused Shady's fear; above all other things
+she feared and hated dogs. The few that had followed their masters to
+Collins' house had always sensed the wild blood in her, and at the first
+opportunity they had pounced on her with intent to kill. Shady had found
+friends among the coyotes and had found only hostility among dogs.
+Savagery is only relative, according to the views of the one who
+pronounces upon it, and from Shady's experience she was right in her
+judgment that the ultimate limit of savagery was reached only in the
+dog.
+
+The owner of the dog pack lived some ten miles from Collins and the
+whole countryside had assembled to witness the first race. There were
+fewer riders in each chase as the novelty wore off but the days were few
+when the owner failed to take the dogs out for a run. Wolfhounds run
+only by sight and coyotes are slippery prey, doubling and twisting on
+their trails to throw their pursuers off, so the result was always in
+doubt and every chase did not yield a coyote pelt.
+
+After that first day Breed did not wait for the dogs to draw near but
+started off the instant he found that they were coming his way. It was
+Shady's habit of daylight traveling that led Breed into grave danger
+within a week after the dog pack had made their first run. He followed
+Shady down the bed of a gulch which screened their movements from prying
+eyes but at the same time served to shut out all the various signs by
+which Breed received long-range warnings. As they loitered along the
+bottom of the draw the antelope bands were flashing the danger sign;
+range cows on the ridges all stood facing the same way; everywhere
+coyotes were scurrying for cover, but all these things passed over
+Breed's head. A coyote flipped into the gulch and he did not tarry but
+passed Breed with merely a sidelong look and vanished round a bend.
+
+Breed was instantly alert. He darted to the rim of the draw and looked
+warily about him. There was not an antelope in sight and no cows grazed
+in the little basin that flanked the gulch at the point where he left
+it; not a sign to warn him of the source of the danger. He ran for the
+crest of a ridge for a better view,--and the next instant he was in full
+flight back the way he had come, for as he sky-lined himself on the
+ridge five sharp-eyed wolfhounds a quarter of a mile away had darted
+toward him. He knew that they had seen him and were coming, that death
+was sweeping down on him.
+
+He turned up the gulch and followed it toward the hills, Shady running
+her best to keep up with him. The dogs fanned out to look for him as
+they topped the ridge. The upper end of the draw widened to blend into a
+broad mesa and the hounds caught sight of the two wolves as they headed
+out across the flat. Breed had held his lead but a clean race of over a
+mile confronted him, the flat affording not one shred of cover. He swung
+his head slightly to one side as he ran, one backward-rolling eye taking
+in every detail of what transpired behind him.
+
+He saw the five specks increase their speed and knew that they had
+sighted him again; they angled slightly and he watched them draw
+gradually together, their courses converging on the center of his line
+of flight till they were once more running well bunched,--and gaining.
+
+His lead was being steadily cut down, the gap perceptibly lessened; the
+specks showed larger with every backward glance till every dog was
+clearly visible. Shady was fleet but her speed was no match for Breed's
+and he would not leave her. The high-pitched sinister yelps sounded from
+behind him as the eager dogs closed up, putting forth every effort to
+end the race before the wolves reached the choppy badland breaks at the
+far edge of the flat. Shady's pace was lagging, and they gained the
+first gulch of the broken country a bare fifty yards ahead of the
+leading hound.
+
+The gulch feathered out into a maze of branching draws and Shady lost
+Breed on the first sharp turn and ran on alone while the dogs streamed
+past after the yellow wolf.
+
+Breed slowed his pace, fear for Shady's life surmounting even the fear
+for his own, but as the lead dog flashed into view without any sound of
+a fight behind him, Breed knew that his mate was safe and he turned on
+the reserve speed he had not been free to use while she ran with him.
+
+The country ahead was a tangle of small flat-tops, crisscrossed by a
+network of badland washes and cut-bank draws, and for two miles he
+eluded the dog pack by sheer brainwork and cunning. But the hounds
+pressed him hard. Their speed was greater than his own and each time
+they lost sight of him they spread out both ways. Whenever he crossed a
+flat-top bench some one of them always sighted him and bored straight
+for the spot, and his team-mates, noting this sudden burst of speed,
+wheeled as one and fell in behind him.
+
+Breed's one aim was to reach the hills, knowing that once among the
+trees he could shake them off. His course led him ever nearer to the
+base of the spur but he knew at last that he could not make his goal.
+His muscles had lost their spring and his breath came in leaky gasps;
+the dogs would pull him down on the first sagebrush slopes of the hills
+before he could gain the shelter of the trees.
+
+He broke cover and started up the last long sloping bench that led to
+the base of the spur. The mouth of every gulch behind him seemed to
+belch forth a dog and they raced across the bench, spread out for two
+hundred yards.
+
+Then Breed sprung one last desperate trick,--a coyote trick. A badland
+wash intersected the flat squarely across his route and Breed leaped to
+the bed of it and fled fifty yards along its course, then flashed into a
+narrow coulee that led straight back toward the dogs. The draw was
+shallow, with scarcely sufficient depth to cover him, but the dogs did
+not suspect and as they darted on ahead Breed doubled back through the
+very center of the pack. He ran with the last of his strength, crept
+from the sheltering coulee and leaped into the center of a heavy clump
+of sage where he crouched flat and peered out at the puzzled dogs. Of
+all the beasts there are but few with the brains to plan such a coup and
+the nerve to carry it through when winded and played out,--and with
+certain death the penalty for a single slip. The ruse would not have
+fooled a trail hound for an instant, but with sight-hunting coursers it
+worked.
+
+Breed watched the dogs swing wide and scour the country off to the right
+of him till they appeared as swift-skimming dots in the distance. Then
+one of them lined out with increased speed as he topped a ridge. One
+after another Breed saw them flash over the skyline and disappear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Shady's first impression after taking the wrong turn in the coulee was
+one of vast relief at having evaded the dogs. The recovery of her breath
+was accompanied by a vague sense of loss which rapidly deepened into an
+ache of loneliness so oppressive that her whole spirit was weighed down
+by it. She started up through the long crescent-shaped neck of badlands
+that partially encircled Collins' cabin and extended clear to the foot
+of the spur, knowing that this was Breed's favorite route when making
+for the hills. She moved slowly and with many halts, cocking her head
+sidewise and tilting her ears for some sound of her mate. She came out
+into a funnel-shaped basin that sloped down from the first sharp rise of
+the spur. The small end of it formed a saddle between two knobs, leading
+to Collins' shack as through a natural gateway.
+
+Shady trotted to the saddle and gazed down at the wolfer's cabin five
+hundred yards away, the spot which had meant home to her over the
+greatest part of her life. The door stood invitingly open. She turned
+and saw the five dogs pouring down the funnel of the basin. The sudden
+purposeful increase of speed which Breed had noticed as the dogs left
+his field of view had been occasioned by the sight of Shady standing in
+the notch.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation Shady headed straight for that open
+door, a haven of refuge which had served her well in the past when
+assailed by the dogs of visiting ranchers. The dogs were jaded and Shady
+was fresh, and she reached her goal without their gaining an inch.
+
+Collins sat smoking his pipe when he was startled by the frenzied
+entrance of his former pet. Shady failed to pause for greetings but made
+one mad leap from the door and slid to the farthest corner under the
+wolfer's bunk.
+
+Collins grunted with surprise and for a space of five seconds his brain
+refused to function with its usual snap. Then he rose and crossed to the
+door to discover the reason for Shady's headlong home-coming,--and
+slammed it shut with but a single second to spare.
+
+One dog rose on his hind feet, standing higher than a man, and savagely
+raked the door from top to bottom with his claws while another opened
+his jaws wide and closed them, his teeth splintering across the smooth
+surface as he sought to gnaw his way inside. The remaining three circled
+the cabin, sniffing explosively at the cracks between the logs. Shady
+was seized with a fit of excessive shivering induced by these dread
+sounds, and Collins heard her hind leg-joints beating a spasmodic tattoo
+on the cabin floor. Then he turned on his ready grin.
+
+"Just one split second more," he said, "and they'd have surged in here
+and wrecked this plant for fair,--and that's a fact!"
+
+That night when Breed sent out his call for Shady there was no answering
+cry. He called again and again, an agony of longing and entreaty in his
+tones. A sickening dread entered his soul,--the fear that his mate had
+been caught in a trap, shot by some rider or killed in some other way by
+man. He little suspected that Shady was at that instant resting her head
+on a man's knee and enjoying the feel of his fingers scratching behind
+her ears.
+
+"Good old Shady," Collins said, roughing her head between his hands.
+"You're a renegade now, old girl,--a she-outlaw, that's what you are.
+You've gone over to the wild bunch, and men will be out after your
+scalp; and they'll get it too. You'll go ambling up to some man and
+he'll blow you up. You won't stick with me now unless I keep you
+chained. You'll go back to 'em,--and if you're lucky you may go right on
+living for mebbe a month. You don't know the ropes out there and they'll
+pick you up."
+
+Shady suddenly stiffened at Breed's first cry.
+
+"Don't need to be afraid of that," Collins assured her. "That's old
+Breed. He won't bother you. It must be hell, Shady, to be born astraddle
+of a fence like you, afraid of tame dogs and the wild bunch too."
+
+Breed howled again and Shady moved to the door and whined, scratching
+and sniffing along the crack. Her uneasiness increased with every howl.
+She clawed so vigorously at the door that it rattled on the hinges; then
+her pent-up emotions sought partial relief in action and she ran in
+crazy circles about the cabin, weaving in and out among the furniture at
+top speed, running over and under the bunk and leaping over chairs, then
+brought up in front of Collins and gazed pleadingly up into his face.
+The Coyote Prophet regarded her speculatively.
+
+"I read you wrong, Shady," he said. "You're not afraid of Breed--you
+want to go to him, that's what; he's a friend of yours. Surely now, an
+old savage like him didn't go and take up with a little misfit like
+you."
+
+Breed's voice sounded again and Shady raised her own, the whole cabin
+ringing with her long-drawn howl. Up in the funnel basin Breed had
+picked up her trail and was trying to work it out from among the trails
+left by the dogs. He stopped abruptly and listened. A strange muffled
+sound had reached him, hollow and drumlike, but there was a familiar
+chord in it, and Breed swept ahead on Shady's trail, his hope of finding
+her alive renewed.
+
+"You're mated up with that yellow wolf," Collins stated. "Two freaks
+paired up! If you track round with Breed you may live longer than I
+thought. He'll show you how to beat the game." The Coyote Prophet
+crossed to the door and opened it. "Go to it, Pet," he said. "He's
+a-calling you." But the last remark was addressed to a streak that
+vanished into the night.
+
+Shady met Breed in the notch and frisked wildly around him. Breed's
+delight in this reunion was as deep as hers but he was more dignified
+and staid, his emotions less openly apparent. All through the night
+Shady held so close to him as to brush against him frequently as they
+ran.
+
+Shady rapidly absorbed much of Breed's caution. Two days after their
+race with the dogs Shady had occasion to revise her estimates of
+horsemen. Twice in the same day, after imprudently showing herself in
+the open, she heard the vicious reports of their guns and the balls
+tossed up spurts of earth about her. Thereafter she followed Breed's
+lead in all such cases. Breed's way was the wolf way, recognizing no
+individuals among men but classing them as a dangerous whole. Shady,
+having lived among them, knew them as individuals, but this knowledge
+was soon blurred and she too acquired the views of the wild things
+toward men and lumped them as a whole. There was but one reservation.
+She placed Collins, the one man who had been kind to her, in a class by
+himself.
+
+This eccentricity was the source of much worry to Breed. Shady could see
+no good reason why she should not revisit Collins when the mood so moved
+her. One night she turned abruptly from her course and headed for the
+twinkling lights of the wolfer's cabin. Breed turned with her. Cripp and
+Peg, each with his mate, ran on either flank. The coyotes stopped two
+hundred yards from the house but Shady held straight ahead. Breed tried
+to dissuade her but to no avail. He nipped her sharply, and its only
+effect was to cause her to tuck her tail and spurt for the house.
+
+Breed stopped twenty yards away, every nerve quivering from excitement
+over this suicidal move. He heard Shady scratch at the door. It swung
+back and a flood of light streamed out into the night. Breed heard a
+man's voice booming out a welcome; saw his mate jump up and put her paws
+against him, their outlines framed in the lighted doorway. Then the door
+closed and his mate was inside with a man, the arch enemy of all wolves.
+Breed whirled and fled. He ran blindly and at high-pressure speed as if
+he fled before an actual enemy. All his sense of balance was thrown out
+of gear, the fitness of things upset, and he felt his reason tottering.
+For his ear, attuned to receive the meaning of all animal sounds, could
+detect the least tremor of menace in any animal note; when a range bull
+bellowed Breed knew whether the tones held invitation to his cows or
+husked a warning to some intruder that had strayed over into his chosen
+range. In any animal voice the quiver of anger or fear was easily
+apparent to him; and there had been no vibrations of anger in the man's
+tones, only those of friendliness.
+
+The coyotes were hard pressed to keep abreast of him, and after a wild
+race of some four miles he wheeled abruptly and retraced his course, the
+longing for his mate combining with curiosity to draw him irresistibly
+back to the spot where this impossible thing had transpired.
+
+His pace slackened as he neared the house, then increased as he heard
+Shady's voice. Shady had met Breed in the notch after her first visit to
+the cabin and she naturally assumed that she would find him there again.
+She repaired to the spot at once after leaving the cabin and waited for
+him to come.
+
+For three nights in succession Shady made her pilgrimage to meet her one
+friend among the world of men. Breed could not unravel the mystery of
+these visits. He could only know the actual that reached him over the
+trails of his physical senses. Sights, scents and sounds were facts to
+him. Those senses combined to show him that the unnatural visits were
+real,--that Shady actually entered the lair of a man and came back
+smelling strong of him. Yet when she was with him Breed felt a sense of
+unreality in his memories of those visits, partaking of the same vague
+qualities that dreams possessed for him after waking.
+
+But he fathomed it at last, evidence that his brain came from his coyote
+mother, a brain that is capable of constructive reasoning, of taking two
+facts which the physical senses have verified and evolving a third from
+them,--the association of ideas.
+
+His nose told him that there was something in Shady's scent that was
+similar to that left by the dog pack. His eyes had proved that those
+dogs were the companions of men. Eyes, ears and nose testified that
+Shady visited the haunts of men and was accepted as a friend. His nose
+further told him that Shady was half coyote, and her voice added proof
+of this. From out this fragmentary assortment of facts Breed found a
+satisfactory answer. He knew that Shady was of the wild, yet that she
+was also linked with the world of men, thus combining two things which
+in the past had seemed widely separate, a chasm too wide to span,
+dividing the animals of the wild from those belonging to man.
+
+Each recurring visit confirmed this fact. Shady missed two nights, but
+on the third she headed for the cabin with the coming of night. The
+comparative warmth of early winter had given way to the gripping,
+penetrating cold of January. Breed's appetite increased with a
+corresponding drop in temperature and he was hungry. But from Shady's
+actions he knew that she was seized with one of those queer lapses which
+called her back to former ways and he delayed the hunt until she should
+return from this trip. The coyotes had all mated and the season for
+pack-hunting was past, yet many of them still rallied to his call; but
+on this night he lingered in the notch and waited for Shady to come back
+to him before summoning the pack.
+
+He prowled uneasily about the narrow saddle, and in his nervousness over
+Shady's protracted absence he forgot the danger of following cow trails
+and padded restlessly up and down those which threaded through the gap.
+And as he waited for her a mortal enemy found the chance he had sought
+so long and began stalking him from behind.
+
+Flatear dropped from the hills to follow his ruthless trade and as he
+swung down the funnel basin Breed's scent was wafted to his nose. The
+breeze held up the slope,--he had the wind on the yellow wolf. He
+shifted across the wind but it carried no coyote scent. His victim was
+alone. Flatear followed up the drifting current of scent and sighted
+Breed at a hundred yards. His feet made no sound and the wind held
+right; the breed-wolf was unaware of his approach.
+
+Breed saw a sudden flow of light from the cabin and knew that Shady was
+leaving it to come back to him. He sent forth the rally call to the pack
+and turned to trot along a cow trail. He gave a sudden mighty leap into
+the air and crashed down four feet away as he struck the end of the
+chain swiveled to the trap that had crushed his foot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Breed's great paw had not squarely centered the trap and the jaws
+clamped on but two toes. He fought the trap with all his strength,
+backing up to gain slack in the chain, then throwing all his weight and
+force into his spring as he launched himself into the air, only to be
+jerked violently to the ground at the end of the chain.
+
+Four times he sprang, and four times the breath was almost jarred from
+his body as he smashed down on his side. As he rose from the last spring
+he suddenly stiffened, standing rigidly in one spot while every hair
+rose along his spine. Twenty feet away a great gray shape loomed in the
+sage. Breed knew it was the midnight killer who had left such sinister
+evidence of his handiwork scattered along the foot of the hills,--and
+there was no doubt of his purpose. The yellow wolf was handicapped and
+knew that he had no chance, but he did not storm and rage aloud as a dog
+would have done; his was the coyote way. He backed up inch by inch till
+he stood above the trap stake, and this move gave him a four-foot
+striking range each way.
+
+Flatear did not fear traps with the full knowledge of their powers and
+limitations as the coyotes did, but with the superstitious dread of the
+wolf. In common with all his kind he had merely avoided instead of
+investigating this danger, and now his understanding could not
+distinguish between a trap that was set and one that was sprung and
+harmless.
+
+The clank of the trap chain delayed his attack. He feared that the thing
+which clamped his enemy's foot might leap out and seize his own. The
+killer circled his victim, and the yellow wolf turned round and round in
+the same spot, keeping his bared fangs toward his foe. The trap chain
+kinked and twisted till it gave him less than a foot of play. Only his
+insane hatred of Breed led Flatear to brave his horror of that sound of
+grating steel,--but he came in close at last, crouched and sprang. Breed
+leaned sharply to one side and met him with a side slash of teeth but
+the weight of his enemy threw him and he felt the killer's teeth cut
+cleanly into his shoulder and slide along the bone. Flatear reversed his
+snap so swiftly that it seemed but a double swing of his head, yet the
+second swing drove his teeth along Breed's neck and laid open a six-inch
+gash. As Breed struggled to his feet the wolf's fangs sliced at his
+throat and ripped it open but not deep enough to kill. A loop of the
+kinked trap chain was tightened on Flatear's toes by Breed's convulsive
+backward dodge, and a ghastly fear that he himself was trapped swept
+through him, transcending even the lust to kill the yellow wolf. He made
+one wild leap for safety,--and the tightening kink cracked his toes and
+threw him, the same lurch dragging Breed down with him, and they rolled
+into a furious tangle of clashing teeth and rattling steel.
+
+Out in the night the coyotes were moving in from all directions in
+answer to the call Breed had sent out ten seconds before the steel jaws
+gripped him. Shady was trotting leisurely up to the saddle to meet her
+lord and mate,--the mate whose life was flowing out through a score of
+ugly rents. Breed's strength was ebbing fast, and he no longer had the
+power to put killing force behind his teeth. Flatear snapped aimlessly,
+his mind half crazed by that fearsome pinching of the chain on his toes.
+He felt it loosen and slip off, and he leaped clear of the spot.
+
+A shape moved over the edge of the saddle and the next instant Shady
+drove straight at the gray assassin, raging as she came, the dog in her
+boiling to the surface. Before she reached him a yellow streak split the
+night and Peg's teeth crunched on the wolf's hind leg, the little
+coyote's deadly silence contrasting queerly with Shady's fighting
+shrieks.
+
+The big wolf fled from this combined attack, one hind leg sagging as he
+ran, the muscle torn raggedly across by Peg's one snap. Once more Breed
+was indebted to Shady and his coyote followers.
+
+But Breed was far gone. He struggled to rise but fell back again and lay
+still, the blood oozing from the rents in his tattered pelt. He raised
+his head and looked at Shady, and for a single instant his mouth opened
+and his red tongue lolled out in friendly greeting, showing his spirit
+still intact even though his body was slit in ribbons; then he lowered
+it flat between his paws and moved nothing but his eyes.
+
+Shady crept close to him and licked his wounds. The coyote pack came up
+in pairs and circled about their stricken leader, some of them squatting
+on their haunches as they regarded his plight, others moving restlessly
+about; all of them silent as the grave, the only sound in the notch
+being Shady's continuous low wails as she implored her mate to rise and
+follow her.
+
+The bitter frost claimed Breed's swollen foot and stiffened it, numbing
+all sense of pain. He felt comfortable and content. Then Peg moved up
+and sniffed critically at the trapped foot. He set his teeth in it but
+Breed did not flinch. The three-legged coyote crouched beside him and
+turned his head sidewise, the right side of his jaws flat on the trap,
+his teeth sliding along the cold steel and shearing away the frozen
+flesh. The leg was dulled to all sensations and Breed felt no pain.
+Shady viewed this amputation closely and whined with anxiety as it
+proceeded. Peg sliced the meat from the two toes, set his teeth firmly
+across the bones and crunched just once. Then he hooked one forepaw over
+the trap and scratched it away from Breed's sprawling hind leg, two
+severed toes remaining in the trap.
+
+Peg's lips and gums along the right side of his face were seared and
+burned from contact with the chilled steel of the trap, raw patches of
+flesh showing where the skin had adhered to the frosted springs and had
+been wrenched loose. He nursed these wounds with his hot tongue, and
+fiery twinges of pain racked him but he did not whine. He curled up and
+slept for an hour, then rose and nipped Breed's flank. The cold had
+stopped the flow of blood from Breed's cuts and the pain of the nip
+roused him from the stupor. He struggled to his feet and stood swaying
+while Shady bounced around him with joyous yelps. Then he set off for
+the hills, moving at a walk, with his head drooping weakly.
+
+The next morning Collins stood and looked down at the two great toes in
+the trap.
+
+"Pegged him," he said. "Pegged old Breed. He'll be minus two hind toes
+from now on out--but he could lose two toes off each foot and still beat
+the game. The whole coyote tribe must have been up here to look him over
+from the number of tracks."
+
+When Collins returned to his shack he found six stockmen awaiting him.
+The stampede of the sheep and the big kill made by Breed's pack up in
+the hills had enraged the sheepmen. They had confidently expected that
+some man would collect Breed's scalp on a fresh tracking snow, but while
+every rider had scoured the foothills for Breed's tracks after every
+storm, no man had cut his trail. After gorging on warm meat at night a
+wolf runs sluggishly the following day; his muscles lack snap and his
+wind is leaky, and a good horse can wear him down. Twice in his first
+year Breed had been harried far across the foothills by hard-running
+horses, and now the first spitting flakes of a coming storm brought
+recollections of those desperate races and roused his uneasiness to such
+a pitch that he set off for the hills and remained there till the wind
+had piled the snow and cleared long stretches which made tracking from a
+running horse impossible.
+
+The sheepmen at the cabin informed Collins of the big killing and their
+tale was punctuated by every possible epithet applicable to the coyote
+tribe. Collins, owning no sheep, was in a position to view the killing
+in a more philosophical light than they.
+
+"You can't rightly blame 'em," he said. "Men raise up sheep to kill 'em
+in cold blood; coyotes kill 'em when they're hungry. Two sides to it,
+'cording to whether you're a coyote or a man."
+
+The stockmen stated the purpose of their visit. Their association had
+raised the bounties, making it profitable for wolfers to hunt even in
+the summer months when pelts were unprime and valueless; the price for
+spring pups had been raised to equal the reward posted for adults; and
+now the association would furnish free poison for all wolfers and
+advocated its use all through the year. They stated their belief that
+this system, if followed ruthlessly, would result in the practical
+extermination of prairie wolves. They rested their case and anxiously
+awaited the Coyote Prophet's verdict on their plan. Collins shook his
+head.
+
+"Part of it's good," he told them, "and part of it's dead wrong. Anyhow
+you can't kill 'em all. I've told you so for twenty year and I stand on
+what I've said. There'll be a million coyotes left to howl when the last
+man dies. The raise on summer bounties is a good move--a man can afford
+to kill shedders at that price; and the pup bounty will set men to
+digging out their dens. But your main plan was laid out by men that
+don't savvy the coyote mind." Collins leaned forward and tapped one
+forefinger in the open palm of his other hand to emphasize his point.
+
+"You let this all-year poison idea slide! You mark me--if you try that
+on you'll lose; more ways than one. I know 'em! A coyote will take a
+chance on guns and traps, but he's superstitious about these strychnine
+baits. After a few turn up on the range with a dose of it the rest will
+quit your line. Your traps won't show one catch. There's only one time
+to use it and that's after you've bait trapped and trail trapped till
+only the wisest are left. Then shoot the whole range full of poison; get
+it all out at once and knock off all you can. Then take your poison up
+and quit! You hear me,--quit! Then they'll sort of halfway forget before
+another year and you can spring it again. But I'm a-telling you the
+facts,--if you leave poison scattered round loose for six months you'll
+see coyotes increasing fast and there'll be hell to pay amongst your
+sheep; you'll break behind two ways at once. There'll be just enough
+that forget themselves and take on a poison feed to keep the rest in the
+notion of passing up all dead meat. They won't even touch bloats or
+winter-killed stock. When they're hungry they'll make a kill,--and
+they'll work on your sheep."
+
+"I've stripped off three times more pelts than any wolfer that's mixed
+poison with his traps. Now my trap line is played out and I'm going to
+throw poison into 'em for a month,--and quit."
+
+As Breed lay convalescing from his wounds he reviewed the dangers of his
+chosen range, not knowing that the one horror which he feared more than
+all else combined was about to sweep through the foothills. His former
+attitude toward Flatear had been one of aversion for his gruesome
+practices, but with no touch of personal enmity. But the gray wolf had
+not only pounced on him at a season when mating was past and dog wolves
+at peace, but had almost torn him to shreds while he was helpless in the
+grip of a trap. Breed now felt a terrible hatred growing in him, a
+desire to kill the slinking gray beast as soon as he gained sufficient
+strength to take his trail.
+
+Breed was too weak to hunt but there was enough of the coyote in Shady
+to lead her to rustle food for her mate. For five days Breed lived
+wholly upon the chunks of meat which Shady purloined from the frozen
+bait piled against Collins' shack,--the meat which he intended to poison
+and strew all across the range as soon as he had finished taking up his
+traps. On the sixth night Shady found that the whole of the great stack
+of meat had entirely vanished and near morning she returned without
+food.
+
+Breed's strength had flowed steadily back to him and he craved meat. By
+noon his hunger was a hollow ache. Then suddenly he knew that there was
+meat two miles west of him. The wind was square at his back so he could
+not possibly have scented it, and any man who had seen him rise from his
+bed and head for meat that lay two miles downwind would have charged the
+act to that mysterious intuitive knowledge that animals are supposed to
+have.
+
+There is one sure way by which men of the open locate animal carcasses:
+the location of winter-killed stock or range cows mired down in an
+alkali bog is pointed out to them at a distance of several miles. Game
+wardens make use of it to locate the illegal kills of poachers, and
+rangers to locate the kills of cougars and wolves. In all countries
+there are meat-eating birds and their flights reveal much to practiced
+eyes.
+
+Breed's mysterious information came from seeing an eagle pitch down far
+to the west of him. Two minutes later another swooped from another
+angle. Ravens and magpies winged toward the spot,--and Breed set off at
+once toward the converging lines of their flight. His hunger overcame
+his dislike for daylight traveling, but he held to high ground instead
+of the valleys.
+
+He came to the edge of a shallow basin devoid of all vegetation except
+an occasional spear of grass, chalk-white patches on the surface of the
+earth showing it to be an alkali sink. A hundred yards beyond the last
+tongue of sage that reached out into it Breed could see a quarter of
+beef, two eagles jealously guarding it. Magpies and ravens flitted
+about, waiting for their share of the feast. One of the eagles made
+frequent moves to scatter them when they came too close, rushing at them
+with a queer hopping run, his wings half spread and trailing back. Breed
+could plainly hear the snapping of his powerful beak.
+
+The larger eagle suddenly took flight, rising with awkwardly flapping
+wings and cutting eccentric loops and curves, each dip calling forth a
+raucous scream. He fought his way to a height of two hundred yards, then
+lost all muscular control and fell loosely to the ground, his mate
+taking wing as he smashed down on the flat.
+
+A vague dread seized Breed. He watched the magpies close in to the feed.
+A score of them took the air at half-minute intervals, fluttered wildly
+and with a spasmodic jerking of their long tails and pitched down in
+death. The rest of them left the meat. Breed's mind again proved capable
+of associating ideas, of constructing theories from known facts. The
+birds had been alive. There were no clanking traps or sound of gunshots
+to account for it,--yet they had died. Their crazy flappings had been in
+sharp contrast to their usual grace when in the air. Their actions had
+not been normal, and Breed someway thought of the ways of poisoned
+coyotes. He had never seen a poisoned horse or cow, or till now a
+poisoned bird,--had always believed it an affliction of coyotes alone;
+yet he felt the quickening of long dormant fears. He knew that meat was
+poisoned and he would not go near. He drew farther back in the sage and
+rested till night.
+
+He started out with Shady at dusk and they were joined by Peg and his
+mate, the four of them hunting together. Peg killed a jack and Breed's
+share of it partially satisfied the gnawing of his hunger. As he
+traveled on he sampled the wind for some sign of the gray killer. It had
+narrowed down to a feud between the yellow wolf and the gray, an undying
+hatred, and whenever they next met there would be one of them whose
+trail the coyotes would never again cross on the range.
+
+Then all thought of hunger, all thought of his feud with Flatear,
+everything but stark horror was suddenly swept from Breed's mind. A
+horrid, racheting cough sounded from straight ahead. A coyote whisked
+into the open and bounced toward them with bucking leaps, strangling and
+gagging as he came, then whirled and snapped at himself, the froth
+dripping and foaming from his jaws and the moonlight reflecting from his
+set, staring eyes. They drew away from him and he writhed on the ground
+in nasty convulsions,--stiffened and stretched out with his eyes bulging
+from their sockets and glaring forth in death.
+
+Breed headed for the hills and Shady and the two coyotes clung close to
+his flanks, as if numbers relieved the horror of the thing they had just
+seen.
+
+Three times before they reached the hills they were terrified by the
+appearance of former friends who had suddenly been stricken into foaming
+maniacs. Breed turned on the first rise of the hills and howled. The
+members of the coyote pack read the message. Breed was bidding farewell
+to the land of sage. Perhaps he knew that he would never see the gray
+foothills again.
+
+Six pairs of coyotes gathered toward his cry. They had seen much and
+lived to pass their knowledge on. Every one of them had run the gauntlet
+of rifle fire; they had been hounded by dogs. Most of them had been
+maimed by traps,--and now this affliction that turned coyotes mad with a
+single bite of meat.
+
+They followed Breed back into the hills, a wise band, the pick of the
+coyote tribe and well able to cope with new conditions and teach their
+future pups the work of pioneering in strange countries which lay ahead
+of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Breed found the hills buried deep under a blanket of snow. In the low
+country the drifts lay only in the gulches and the more sheltered spots
+but up in the lodgepole valleys and the heavy stands of spruce on the
+slopes the white covering seemed endless and unbroken. The dogs killed
+the meat for the whole pack, for at this season the she-coyotes were
+unfitted for the strenuous work of pulling down heavy game. For the same
+reason they were unable to travel long distances in the snow. Breed too
+was disinclined to move rapidly. His foot had healed but the swollen leg
+was weak and tender. The pack averaged less than twenty miles a day.
+
+At the end of a week Breed's old home was more than a hundred miles
+behind and he was well up in the backbone of the hills. He came out upon
+a mighty divide and gazed off across a rolling country extending fifty
+miles each way, all of it high but ringed in by still more lofty ranges,
+their ragged saw-teeth standing gaunt and grim against the sky. There
+were broad, open meadows spread out before him, great areas devoid of
+trees, intersected by timbered ridges and rolling parks where the stand
+of spruce was dotted. The whole of it lay under a four-foot layer of
+snow and gleamed dead white and lusterless, but even so its aspect was
+more inviting than the gloomy forest through which they had come.
+
+The open-loving coyotes elected to remain in this land rather than
+penetrate the questionable beyond. As they crossed the open spaces the
+racy smell of the sage leaked through the packed drifts underfoot and
+they knew that parts of these valleys were carpeted with the same brush
+that clothed the foothills of their home land. This was the summer range
+of the elk herds and once well down the slope of the divide they found a
+country that seemed devoid of game.
+
+After advancing in loose formation for five miles without any coyote
+finding a promising trail, Breed caught a fugitive scent of meat. He
+circled and looped, now catching it, then losing it again. The broad
+valley stood white and silent, gripped in a dead calm, and the few
+vagrant breezes were imperceptible, merely the sluggish drift of local
+air pockets that shifted a few feet and settled.
+
+The yellow specks that moved in pairs far out across the snow fields
+slowed and halted, changed their routes and headed toward the leader who
+was questing about with uplifted nose. Then Breed dropped his head and
+ran with nose close to the snow, twisting and turning in one locality of
+less than a hundred yards in extent. The eyes of every advancing coyote
+were fastened on Breed. They saw him stop abruptly and shove his nose
+into the snow, and the little puff of steam which rose around his head
+as he breathed hard into the drift was clearly visible to them all. They
+put on more speed as he began to dig, and when the first of them reached
+him they saw a tawny expanse of elk hair at the bottom of the
+excavation.
+
+They tore away the snow and uncovered the whole carcass of a
+winter-killed elk that had been refrigerating there for months. Breed
+lingered near this spot for three days, the coyotes bedding near by in
+pairs, and up here where there were no men they fed in the daytime
+whenever so inclined. There was not an hour of the day or night when
+Breed could not see one or more coyotes tearing at the elk. When the
+last scrap of meat, hide and hair had been devoured and the bones gnawed
+white and clean, Breed moved on in search of more.
+
+There were always some few stragglers that lagged behind the elk herds
+and failed to start for the winter range till after the passes were
+blocked with snow. These turned back and starved when the grass was
+buried deep and their feet were cut and worn from pawing through the
+crust to reach it; for the elk is strictly a grazing animal and cannot
+live entirely by browsing on the twigs and brush as do moose and deer.
+
+For a month Breed prowled this high basin country, and in all that time
+his feet never once touched earth except when crossing some bald ridge
+from which the wind had whittled the snow. His menu consisted
+exclusively of frozen elk.
+
+A chinook swept the hills and held for a week, the hot wind melting and
+packing the drifts and clearing the more exposed slopes free of snow.
+The pack had split up and scattered in pairs, each she-coyote selecting
+some likely spot and remaining in that vicinity.
+
+The first day of the chinook every she-coyote started her den, and the
+sites, though widely separated, were identical in many respects. Each
+chose a ridge with a southeast exposure while higher ridges behind cut
+off the sweep of the north and west winds; and every den was located in
+a heavy clump of sage. This latter feature was not for the reason that
+sagebrush reminded them of home, but because experience had proven that
+the heaviest growths of sage were indicative of deep, soft soil beneath
+and so pointed to easy digging, a rule used not only by home-seeking
+coyotes but by homesteading men as well, and one that holds good
+throughout a half-million square miles of sagebrush country.
+
+Shady too had settled on an open ridge and now spent much of her time
+there, but this seemed more from a disinclination to travel and a
+dislike of bedding in snow than from a definite purpose of excavating a
+den. This puzzled Breed. Shady leaned more to the casual dog way of
+trusting that a suitable spot would present itself on the day when her
+pups should arrive; yet there was enough of the coyote in her to cause
+her to scratch out a shallow nest in a sunny spot. This act was more for
+present comfort, however, than from any intent to make provision for the
+future.
+
+Peg and Cripp had always clung more tenaciously to Breed than had the
+others of the pack and Peg had settled on a ridge not more than two
+miles away; but Cripp was no longer to be found. It had been long since
+his voice had been raised in answer to Breed's call and he had not come
+back into the hills with the coyote pack. Breed missed the trusty
+follower who had run with him on so many hunts, and day after day he
+expected to catch a trace of Cripp in the wind or to hear his friendly
+voice at night, but the crippled coyote never came.
+
+Peg was now Breed's sole companion at night, except when their mates
+joined them at the two frozen elk carcasses in the bottoms between their
+home ridges, and the two of them explored the surrounding country
+together. Peg's lips were scarred along the right side of his face, the
+price of Breed's liberty. There are close ties between animals, a myriad
+proofs of friendships and enmities, the same as among men, and it may be
+that the act which had brought Peg those honorable scars had helped to
+cement the bond between himself and the yellow wolf. Whether or not they
+had means of discussing Cripp's absence, there can be no doubt that they
+missed the genial old rogue that had been their running mate for so many
+months and that they wondered at his fate.
+
+Breed visited Peg's home ridge during the height of the chinook. Peg's
+mate was a silky-haired coyote, her fur fluffy and long. Fluff lay
+sprawled contentedly in the sunshine while her mate worked on the den.
+She growled uneasily at Breed as he peered down the hole. A shower of
+dirt greeted him and he drew away as Peg backed from the den and shook
+the dirt from his fur. Fluff took her turn at the work but soon tired of
+it, and Peg started in as soon as she left off. A she-coyote picks her
+own den site and starts the hole, but because she is easily exhausted
+near denning time it falls to the dog to complete the den.
+
+When Breed returned to Shady he found her scratching leisurely at the
+nest she had scooped out. It was merely a raking of the surface to
+loosen and soften the bed which was smooth and glazed from her having
+bedded there when her fur was wet; but Breed read it as a tentative
+start toward making a permanent home.
+
+When Shady ceased her aimless scratching Breed edged her aside and tore
+at the soft earth with his paws. He had buried himself to the hips
+before he drew back. Shady entered and critically inspected the hole,
+then immediately backed out. That was the extent of her interest. It may
+have occurred to Breed that his mate's shifts at digging were extremely
+brief, but nevertheless he persisted till he had tunneled a curving
+entrance eight feet long and hollowed out a nest eighteen inches high by
+three feet across. All well-ordered she-coyotes have at least two, and
+the majority of them three openings leading from their homes. Shady
+failed to indicate the direction which she wished these emergency
+tunnels to take so Breed laid them out according to plans of his own. By
+the time the den was completed the chinook wind had cooled, and winter
+tightened down over the hills once more, freezing the surface dirt so
+solidly as to make excavating impossible.
+
+Breed repaired to the last frozen elk carcass in his neighborhood and
+found Peg there before him. An hour later a she-coyote came to the feed.
+She sprawled flat in the snow and tore ravenously at the frozen meat.
+Her eyes were hollowed from hard journeying and lack of food. Breed knew
+her for Cripp's mate and he momentarily expected to see his friend. When
+her hunger was appeased she faced back toward the divide over which she
+had come and howled; then, as if knowing her cry would go unanswered,
+she turned and left them as abruptly as she had come. She had no time to
+lose and she could not dig a den, yet she planned the best she knew.
+There would be no mate to rustle food for her, and meat would be the
+first essential while her pups were young. Five miles beyond Breed's
+home ridge she found an elk drifted deep under the snow in the heavy
+timber. She crawled into the heart of a windfall jam, choosing one where
+the lay of the land would prevent her being drowned out when the drifts
+should melt, and stayed there till her five pups were born.
+
+When Breed returned home near morning he heard queer squeals issuing
+from the yawning mouth of the den. Shady's doglike faith that a place
+would somehow be provided for the great event had been justified and she
+had taken possession of the den which her wild mate had so carefully
+prepared.
+
+Shady wandered no more with Breed, but stayed at home in the den, and
+for the first week all that Breed saw of her was a brief glimpse of her
+nose as she came to the mouth of the hole, seized the elk meat which he
+brought as an offering and backed down out of sight with it. After that
+he occasionally saw the whole of her but these views were hasty.
+Whenever Shady emerged from the den her tail barely cleared the mouth of
+it before she twisted back and dived headlong from sight, panic-stricken
+lest some mishap had befallen the pups during her long eight-foot trip
+from them to daylight. After two days of hourly excursions of this sort
+she spent a few moments outside the den, and thereafter these periods
+were lengthened until she remained on the warm slope fully as much as in
+the den.
+
+Night after night Breed heard the howls of the lone she-coyote that had
+denned in the windfall. Always she faced toward the land that had been
+her home. A she-coyote whose mate is killed after the running moon will
+raise her pups alone and refuse to accept another mate; yet the howls
+she sent out were calls for a mate, and from this Breed knew that she
+did not believe that Cripp was dead. He pondered long over this mystery
+of why Cripp still lived but did not join his mate.
+
+The supply of elk meat rapidly diminished and at last was gone. The only
+carcass Breed could locate within ten miles was the one near the
+windfall, and the widowed mother defended that furiously against all
+comers. The warm days of early March had turned it stale and putrid but
+it was all she had.
+
+Every waking second of Breed's time was spent on the meat trail. An
+occasional blue grouse or snowshoe hare was the largest game he found.
+That the coyotes were faring as poorly he knew from the signs he crossed
+each day in the hills. He found the tracks of dog coyotes many miles
+from their dens and always the signs showed that they had been working
+out some cold rabbit trail. Breed found the tracks of many bobcats in
+the hills and these appeared to have been wandering aimlessly. But Breed
+knew that the noses of cat beasts are not keen enough to work out any
+but the warmest trails; that this accounted for his seldom finding signs
+that a cat had trailed a rabbit, and that their apparently crazy way of
+traveling was in reality a systematic shifting across the air currents
+in search of the warm body scent of their prey. Several times Breed
+picked up a hot cat track and followed it at top speed but the big bobs
+held mainly to the heavy timber and always took refuge in a tree.
+
+When Breed's pups were three weeks old he had his first look at them
+when Shady came from the den on a warm afternoon and a swarm of fluffy
+little creatures toddled after her. There were eight of them, all with
+heavy frames that gave promise of their attaining almost as great size
+as their father, and there were strips of dark fur along their backs.
+After that first trip they spent much time romping and quarreling on the
+sunny side hill.
+
+A pair of golden eagles had nested on the rough face of a pinnacle that
+rose from the floor of the valley near its head, some five miles from
+Breed's home ridge. These mighty birds soared far out over the divide
+and returned with meat for their fledglings in the nest. Their pealing
+screams often split the silence of the valley. Shady paid small heed to
+them but Breed often cast a wary eye aloft when the screams sounded from
+close at hand.
+
+Shady was stretched comfortably before the den one day, watching the
+pups scattered out along the ridge, when she became aware of a faint
+rushing sound such as the first puffs of a fresh wind make when they
+strike the trees some distance away. This increased to a humming roar.
+She looked up to see a huge shape driving down upon a pup with
+incredible velocity, swooping at a sharp angle, the great wings spread
+wide and hissing through the air as the big bird tipped dizzily from
+side to side. Within two seconds after the first droning sound had
+reached Shady's ears she saw the eagle strike his claws through a pup
+and start up the valley on lazily flapping wings. Shady raced madly
+under him and raged until the valley echoed to her fury. Then she
+quieted and watched till he was but a tiny speck off toward the nesting
+peak, the dead pup dangling loosely from the talons that had struck
+clear through his slender body, the hind claw on each foot meeting and
+interlocking with one front claw in a grip which nothing short of the
+actual severing of a leg tendon could break.
+
+Thereafter Shady knew why Breed showed uneasiness when an eagle screamed
+near the den.
+
+The pups knew every note of their mother's voice and obeyed it
+implicitly. They would be asleep in the den when a note would summon
+them forth to play, every pup tumbling hurriedly out; she would give
+another cry when they were playing carelessly in the open, the tone
+being so nearly identical with that of the first that a man might hear
+it a hundred times and detect no difference, yet every pup would dive
+headlong for the nearest hole.
+
+Shady learned to watch for the eagles. Nearly always it was a shadow
+which warned her first. She would see a swiftly moving black speck
+gliding over the snow fields or darting along the slopes of the ridges
+that flanked the valley and she instantly issued a warning to the pups,
+knowing that where there was a shadow there must be a bird above.
+Sometimes Breed saw the birds first and called. Shady relayed the danger
+signal to her young, and even if she was half a mile away the pups made
+a prompt and desperate spurt for the den.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The snow melted slowly in the high country but by mid-April a few bare
+spots showed in the more open meadows, the hardy mountain grass sending
+forth green shoots. The rabbits were drawn from the timbered ridges to
+nibble these first spring dainties. The surface of the drifts showed
+thousands of tiny mouse tracks,--the mice that had lived deep under the
+snow, subsisting on food previously stored, now coming forth to swarm
+into these first cleared patches.
+
+The pups had grown large and strong and were able to follow their
+parents on the meat trail, and they soon learned to catch their own
+mice. The drifts in the passes had packed so firmly as to afford good
+footing and the game was coming back to the summer range. After the
+first few had made the crossing the rest followed their trails and the
+main tide of the elk migration set in, great droves of cows boiling
+through all the passes and streaming down into the green spots in the
+meadows. There was now meat in plenty, and the yelping barks of the cows
+sounded in the valleys that had been wrapped in white silence for so
+many months; but there was not a sound from the bulls; the antlered
+lords whose ringing challenges had filled the whole expanse of the hills
+the previous fall seemed voiceless now. These old fellows had remained
+up among the high bald ridges, their new antler growth tender in its
+velvet sheath, and nothing would be heard from them till after the
+porous growth had hardened and their points were polished for the next
+rutting time.
+
+The wolf family returned to the den no more, except perhaps for a casual
+inspection when their wanderings chanced to lead them to the
+neighborhood.
+
+The bears had come from their long sleep and left the dens. There were
+black and brown bears and monster grizzlies roaming in the meadows. At
+first the diet of these huge beasts consisted almost entirely of grass
+and twigs but their appetites rapidly increased and it was no unusual
+thing for a bear to appropriate one of Breed's kills.
+
+Breed did not fear bears, knowing that their speed was less than his own
+and that they were harmless so long as he did not molest them and come
+into too close quarters. He accepted this stealing of his meat as part
+of the established order of things and always moved away when a bear
+came swaying leisurely up to his kill.
+
+Shady, on the contrary, had a wholesome fear of bears and was excited at
+their approach, but at the same time she could not view their thieving
+ways in such a philosophical light and her resentment rankled deeper
+with each recurring theft.
+
+The wolf family returned to a kill to find a great silvertip feeding
+there. Shady's rage boiled over and she swept down upon him with a
+furious burst of barking. She would have halted short of him but there
+was no need. Breed was profoundly amazed to see the mighty baldface flee
+down the slope with Shady in full cry behind him.
+
+Breed knew that bears did not fear him, even though his fighting ability
+far surpassed that of his mate, yet a grizzly fled at the first sound of
+her voice. This deepened his respect for Shady; the mate who was so
+helpless in many respects was surprisingly resourceful in others.
+
+It was not known to Breed that bears had learned to dread the bellowing
+of a pack of trail hounds in the hills through knowledge that men
+followed close behind, and that the dog note in Shady's voice stirred up
+visions of a man with a magazine gun on their trail. But while the
+reason was not clear to Breed, the fact that the mightiest grizzly took
+flight before his mate was repeatedly proved to him, and after once
+learning her power Shady permitted no bear to deprive her family of its
+meat.
+
+[Illustration: As the summer advanced the pups learned to pack-hunt with
+Breed. _Page 167._]
+
+As the summer advanced the pups learned to pack-hunt with Breed. The
+coyote howls at night were now confined to messages between mate and
+mate or between mother and pups. The life they led was essentially a
+family life and they had no interests outside of the family circle.
+Breed's cry to rally a pack was never raised, for his own domestic
+duties were many; and if he had sent forth the summons none would have
+answered it. He sometimes met Peg and ran with him for a while, but
+these visits were infrequent and brief, each having pressing business of
+his own.
+
+Breed one day caught the scent of a coyote upwind from him. This in
+itself was nothing unusual but there was something vaguely familiar
+about it, something that roused old memories, and suddenly he thought of
+Cripp. He traced up the scent and as he topped the ridge he stopped
+short and bared his teeth, the hair rising along his spine. A horrid
+nightmare of a thing rose from its bed and leered at him. The hair had
+slipped from its body, leaving the skin shiny and slate-blue. The ears
+and head were furred, and the legs; tufts of hair sprouted from the
+shoulders and along the spine, but flanks and sides were bare and the
+long tail was rat-like, its joints showing through the tight-stretched
+skin. The lips were drawn back and revealed the blue gums receding from
+loosened teeth. This was the result of poison that had failed to kill.
+
+Breed knew this grisly apparition for Cripp. The scent was there, and
+the warped foreleg. Cripp did not recognize his friend. His mind was
+clouded and the light of insanity gleamed in his sunken eyes. Breed
+whirled and fled, and a weird cry sounded behind him,--the eerie howl of
+a maniac.
+
+All through the summer the coyotes shunned the specter of living death
+that plodded silently up and down the valleys and the ridges. When it
+came suddenly through the trees, drawn by the scent of a fresh kill,
+some coyote family scattered swiftly and left the feast. Cripp was as
+apt to howl in broad daylight as at night, and the sounds were
+meaningless, the unintelligible jargon of an idiot. Every coyote within
+hearing bristled with fear whenever Cripp's jabbering reached their
+ears.
+
+In the background of Breed's mind the purpose to slay Flatear still
+persisted, but his duties prevented his spending the time to hunt for
+him. Occasional wolf howls were heard back here in the hills, the calls
+of strays that had drifted down from the north, following the line of
+the hills and keeping well back from the dangers of the low country.
+Each time he heard the wolf note the urge to kill was strengthened in
+Breed. He had heard Flatear's voice but once and so was unable to
+identify him by ear alone but must receive added testimony through eyes
+or nose. Twice he left his family to investigate the source of these
+cries. One came from a lone female; the other from a big gray dog wolf
+who had mated with a coyote, and there were five pups trailing after the
+oddly assorted pair. These pups were much like Breed's own and they gave
+proof that the coyote strain was stronger than the wolf. Their language
+was that of their mother. The only trace of wolf parentage was shown in
+their greater size and the dark fur of their backs. Breed's search for
+his old enemy proved fruitless. Many things of which Breed was unaware
+had taken place on his old home range since he had left it, and Flatear,
+terrified by the latest of these events, had slunk away to the north.
+
+Collins' prediction had been verified. The coyotes in the low country
+where poison had been strewn broadcast on the range had suddenly turned
+from stale meat as from disease. Much of their food supply had come from
+bloated sheep, from locoed horses, and from cows that had eaten larkspur
+and died, but they would no longer touch these carcasses. Deprived of
+this source of food, their kills became more frequent and they grew
+bolder in their raids on calves and sheep.
+
+Then a new and appalling menace reared its ugly head in the foothills,
+striking not at coyotes alone but at every living thing. There were many
+coyotes such as Cripp, with the hair slipped from their hides,--the ones
+that had survived a dose of poison but were unable to shake off its
+devastating after effects. Hydrophobia broke out among these and they
+ran amuck, striking alike at friends and foes. Sound coyotes were turned
+into frothing fiends that helped to spread the wave of madness that
+swept across three States. Horses and cows died by hundreds and it was
+no unusual thing for one mad coyote to bite fifty head of sheep in a
+single night. The five dogs that had harried Breed were themselves
+infected when they pulled down a mad coyote, and they drove poisoned
+fangs into forty head of stock before the last of the five was run down
+and shot.
+
+There was but one ray of hope in the whole dangerous business and men
+seized on that. Mad coyotes lost their cunning and ran stupidly on some
+chosen course, biting every living thing that crossed their trails, but
+refusing to be turned aside even to avoid an approaching man. Riders
+poured through the foothills on fleet horses, shooting down the stricken
+ones, all other business suspended till this menace had been stamped
+out. And through it all the ravages among the wily coyotes were far less
+than among domestic stock.
+
+The spreading of coyotes over new territory, which had been only gradual
+before, was accelerated by the poison and madness that had blighted the
+foothills. Thickly settled districts far to the east, where coyotes had
+formerly appeared but infrequently, were now invaded by great numbers.
+Poison and traps could not be used effectively against them in
+localities where there were dogs on every farm, and the coyotes were
+safer there than on the open range. Reports that reached Collins showed
+that for eight hundred miles south along the base of the hills the
+coyotes were quitting the flats and roaming through the fastnesses of
+the Rockies.
+
+Breed noted the steady flow of strange coyotes into the high basins of
+his new range. In the late summer his pups dropped one by one from the
+family circle, going off on some business of their own. During the
+latter part of August Breed was conscious of a vague sense of
+loneliness. This grew more pronounced and then suddenly he knew! The
+rally call for the pack rolled through the valleys and echoed among the
+peaks, and from far and near he heard familiar voices raised in answer.
+The parental responsibilities were over for one season, the pups gone
+forth on their own, and the members of the pack were free to follow the
+yellow wolf.
+
+As Breed ran through the hills the pack gathered, and each coyote fell
+into his old place. Peg and his mate ran close on the right of
+Breed,--but the place on the left was vacant.
+
+Cripp was coming, however. The cry for the pack had penetrated the fog
+that obscured his reason and touched a responsive chord buried deep
+beneath. That cry was meant for him. The coyotes made a kill and
+feasted, but before their hunger had been satisfied a living skeleton
+came moving toward them, and they scattered wildly and left the meat to
+Cripp.
+
+Several strange coyotes joined Breed's pack and these new members seemed
+possessed of some haunting fear. Breed noted their constant air of
+expectancy and the intent regard with which they favored every coyote
+that drew near to them. They seemed always suspicious that some friend
+would suddenly turn upon them, and whenever some eager coyote clashed
+his teeth while feeding, these strangers that had come so recently from
+the low country started uneasily at the sound.
+
+Night after night Cripp followed the pack and came to the kill. The
+coyotes all avoided him but the strangers were assailed with a ghastly
+dread of his grinning mask, and their fears were communicated to the
+rest of the pack. Breed himself caught it. An air of tense watchfulness
+pervaded their gatherings, a guarding against some menace as yet unknown
+but which the actions of the strangers indicated might be upon them at
+any moment.
+
+After a week of this sort of thing Breed and Shady were bedded on a
+ridge slope that flanked a broad meadow when Breed saw a moving speck at
+the far edge of it. It proved to be a coyote, though at first its
+peculiar gait denied this. He came straight on across the open, and
+Breed saw one of his new friends trot from a willow clump in the meadow,
+take one look at the advancing stranger and become galvanized into a
+flitting streak that left the valley. Even at that distance his deadly
+fear was evident, and Breed knew that the unknown danger had become
+actual and was embodied in the queer-gaited coyote that was coming
+toward him.
+
+He ran with an automaton-like stiffness, never changing his course, and
+occasionally stumbling as if unaware of the character of the ground over
+which he passed. His head swung out slightly to either side and he
+snapped each time. There was something sinister in every move, as if his
+body was driven on without conscious volition, actuated by some
+dreadful, unclean force. Breed knew it for some sort of poisoning, and
+his muscles bunched for flight. Shady barked angrily as if to drive the
+thing away. Then Breed saw a hairless travesty of a coyote move out of a
+draw and halt directly in the path of the mad coyote. Cripp stood there
+grinning till he felt the other's teeth score his unprotected hide; then
+he whirled and snapped back at him. The mad coyote kept straight on and
+Cripp followed at his own queer shambling gait. He drew close and ran
+alongside, and for a hundred yards they exchanged slashes in a senseless
+sort of way. Breed could see the blood oozing from the fur of the mad
+coyote's neck, and the blobs of white foam sliding down Cripp's shiny
+hide. Then the mad coyote fell and Cripp kept on for another ten yards
+before he missed him. He wheeled and returned, stumbled and fell and
+crawled back to his foe, and they lay there toothing one another in an
+impersonal, detached way, as if it did not matter.
+
+Breed's soul revolted at this scene and he fled the spot. When he raised
+his howl that night he was twenty miles farther north, but the coyote
+pack answered from close at hand. Many of them witnessed the same scene
+from adjacent slopes of the valley. The others had viewed similar
+sights, and there was a general coyote movement north through the
+mountains, a widespread exodus ahead of the madness that was creeping up
+into the hills.
+
+Breed had formerly been imbued with the home-loving nature of the
+coyote, and this had led him to restrict his wanderings to a
+comparatively limited area instead of ranging hundreds of miles in all
+directions after the manner of wolves. This love of a permanent home
+range now operated in a peculiar way. All ties were severed behind him,
+the land he loved bristling with such a wide variety of dangers as to
+preclude all possibility of his return. The wanderlust which now seized
+him appeared a complete reversal of his former desire to remain in one
+vicinity where every topographical feature was to him a familiar
+landmark; but in reality this very wanderlust was an expression of home
+love; every step he took away from his old range was unconsciously
+actuated by the desire to find some new spot which would take the place
+of the old.
+
+For two weeks these wanderings were erratic and uncontrolled by any
+conscious purpose. He roamed on the Shoshone and the Thoroughfare, the
+Yellowstone and the Buffalo Fork of the Snake, then swung back across
+the Sunlight Peaks. Shady had acted queerly of late, frequently leaving
+Breed for hours at a time and climbing to some commanding point from
+which she would look far off across the hills, as if seeking something
+which was always just beyond the range of her vision; but she always
+came back to him. Breed found nothing out of the way in this. Mated
+coyotes were prone to follow separate trails for hours, even days, and
+then meet again. Shady had clung to him persistently, refusing to be out
+of his sight except when at the den with her pups, and this new
+manifestation seemed a natural one to Breed, an evidence that his mate
+had come to trust in her ability to shift for herself in the wild. But
+it was not this. Now that her pups had been schooled and sent out to
+face the world alone, Shady hungered to see the man who had raised her
+from a pup, and to feel his fingers scratching behind her ears.
+
+As the pack straggled out among the ragged Sunlight Peaks Shady looked
+down across the lower slopes; one valley opened into another in an
+interminable procession and far down across the spruce tops a rift
+between two flanking hills afforded a view of the low country,
+shimmering in the sun. Sand Coulee Basin, her old home! And a variegated
+mass in the distance marked the Rainbow Buttes, rising isolated and
+alone from out the badlands. Shady struck a swift gliding trot and
+dropped down the slope, disappearing in the first twisted masses of
+timber-line spruce.
+
+For the first few hours after her departure Breed gave it no thought,
+but when she failed to turn up he grew increasingly uneasy. Ten hours
+and he called to her and there was no reply, twelve and he circled to
+pick up her trail but it had cooled. He prowled the peaks for three days
+and nights, disconsolate and lonely, even though in close touch with the
+coyote pack, and sending out call after call for his mate. Shady had
+spent the first two days in almost continuous travel, put in a single
+hour with the Coyote Prophet, reveling in the feel of his exploring
+fingers and the friendly sound of his voice; then she departed as
+suddenly as she had come and spent two more days in reaching the summit
+of the Sunlight Peaks where she had left her mate, for after all his
+hold on her was far more gripping than that exercised by the man.
+
+She heard Breed's lonely cry and answered it, and an hour later she was
+frisking about him with doggish enthusiasm. The yellow wolf accepted her
+lavish display of affection with dignity; his joy in the reunion was a
+match for her own, but the wolf in him was unequal to matching the
+effusiveness of the dog in her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+All through the Yellowstone country the evidence of Breed's teachings
+was apparent on every hand. The progeny of the members of his original
+band had been taught pack-hunting by their parents, as they themselves
+had learned the art from Breed. For a hundred miles each way from Two
+Ocean Pass the hills were full of the disciples of the yellow wolf. The
+elk now fled from coyotes as once they had fled from wolves. The coyotes
+brought all their native trickery and resourcefulness into play and made
+pack-hunting a very different affair from that practiced by timber
+wolves. They did not hunt bunched, but scattered, saving their own
+strength and wearing down that of their prey. When an elk was singled
+out the coyotes relayed him and kept him on the move. Whenever he
+attempted a straightaway flight some coyote flashed out in front of him
+to turn him back, and he was headed through bogs and spongy ground on
+the slides at the foot of old snow drifts until his strength was gone.
+
+Breed's movements now lost their aimlessness, and each day found him a
+few miles farther north. The home love in him was working, but he
+himself was unconscious of the fact that he was seeking some land that
+would answer all requirements. It was not given to him to plan largely
+for the future, and each move was occasioned by the dissatisfaction with
+the country in which he found himself, rather than from any definite
+idea of mapping out a course for a permanent range and there
+establishing his home.
+
+Nevertheless he held steadily to the north and the faithful pack moved
+with him. Other coyotes flanked their line of march, urged on by fear of
+the madness that lay behind and finding courage for their pioneering in
+the fact that every night they heard the howls of the coyote pack ahead.
+
+The game herds were milling restlessly in high basins. The blacktail
+bucks had short new coats of sleek blue-gray; they had shed the long
+hair of the previous season,--the season of short blue, the Short Blue
+Moon of the Northwest Indian tribes. Broad vistas of the low country
+showed through revealing gaps in the hills, marked by the blue-gray
+tinge of the sage; a pale haze hung in the hills and turned distant
+green spruce slopes to silvery blue; the rivers had long since passed
+the flood tide of melting drifts, and were cleared of the roily effects
+of late summer rains, and lakes and streams, now free of sediment,
+showed blue-green to their very depths; the high peaks were held in
+silhouette against a clear blue sky. Everything showed a touch of
+blue,--such is the Short Blue Moon.
+
+And the love-making time of the antlered tribes is ushered in with the
+season of short blue. As Breed moved north the whistling snorts of
+lovelorn bucks reached his ears day after day. The clarion bugles of
+challenging bulls was promise of meat in plenty. Bighorn rams squired
+their bands of ewes on the plateaus and pinnacles above timber line.
+
+Breed's course was by no means a straight line. Hunts drew him to the
+east and west and frequently back to the south, but the general trend of
+it all was a northward migration for the coyote pack. Some days they
+gained twenty miles, some but three or four, and on others they lost
+ground. At the end of a month the land of the Yellowstone was a hundred
+miles southeast.
+
+The big gray wolves were more plentiful here, but scattered and not
+traveling in packs. At every wolf howl Breed felt the old hatred of
+Flatear surge up in him, but though he frequently met wolves none of
+them proved to be his enemy. The big grays showed only a casual interest
+in coyotes, evidencing neither enmity nor delight at any chance meeting,
+indifference the keynote of their attitude.
+
+Autumn blended into early winter and the gain toward the north was less
+apparent, Breed lingering in the vicinity of good hunting grounds as he
+found them, moving on when the supply of meat diminished. He held to the
+main divide of the Rockies, and when the heavy storms of midwinter set
+in, he was well across Montana and nearing the Canadian line. The deep
+snowfall had driven the game down out of the peaks to the lower valleys
+of the hills and Breed was forced to follow. He moved westward across
+the South Fork of the Flathead to the Kootenai Range. There were fewer
+elk here than in the Yellowstone, living in scattered bunches and not
+congregating in droves of hundreds on the winter feed grounds. Deer
+ranged the Kootenai country in plentiful numbers and Breed elected to
+stay. Mating was close at hand and the northward movement halted.
+
+Stray coyotes drifted continually up from the south and joined the ranks
+of the pack, and there were stray wolves crossing the range from the
+Flathead to Swan River and back. Many of these mated with the unattached
+coyotes as they straggled north. Breed's pack was rapidly thinned down,
+pairs dropping out to den till at last only Peg and Fluff were left.
+
+When the chinook set in Fluff chose a den site and stopped. Breed held
+on for another five miles, then Shady refused to travel. She picked her
+own site and showed a keener interest in home building than she had the
+season past, working short shifts to relay Breed on the digging, and the
+three tunnels that led to this new nest hole were longer and more
+elaborately curved and twisted than those of the old den on the
+Yellowstone. The last day of February seven pups came to share the den
+with Shady.
+
+The rest of the pack had denned to the south and few encroached on
+Breed's hunting territory. Deer were still plentiful, even after a
+winter of hard hunting, and he found little difficulty in supplying
+meat. There was but one flaw in his contentment.
+
+One day when the pups were a month old and had recently been out for
+their first romp Breed hunted across the divide and down the western
+slope of the Kootenais. He stood on a ridge in the gathering dusk when
+he was suddenly aware that other hunters were abroad before him. His eye
+caught flashes of white through the green of the spruce on the opposite
+slope. He knew that a band of deer had been startled to sudden flight,
+that the jerky gleams of white were the brief exposures of the
+underparts of their tails as they were upflung in hurdling windfalls.
+The wind was wrong and Breed could not catch the scent. He traced their
+course through the timber by their white flags and saw three deer break
+cover and start out across a long narrow opening on the slope, the path
+of a snowslide that had stripped a lane through the trees on the steep
+side hill, its trail a clean split in the solid green of the spruce. In
+the center of the slide the lead deer suddenly collapsed and the sharp
+report of a rifle rolled across the hills.
+
+At the sound of the shot Breed heard a few deep-chested dog notes half a
+mile down the narrow valley. He looked that way and saw a slender tongue
+of smoke curling lazily above the trees around a bend. The deep note was
+strange to him, but again the association of ideas came to his aid.
+Shady's occasional fits of barking and her strange ways; the wolf hounds
+that had belonged to men and had chased him in Sand Coulee Basin; this
+note that rose in answer to a rifle shot and came from near the smoke
+that denoted a cabin. Breed himself was unconscious of assorting these
+ideas, but he knew that the hoarse note came from some dog beast that
+belonged to man.
+
+A lone prospector had built his cabin on the west slope of the
+Kootenais, and hereafter Breed avoided this vicinity.
+
+When the pups were six weeks old Shady felt the call to help Breed
+rustle food and she hunted by herself in the neighborhood of the den,
+but her earnest efforts were unavailing, as there was no small game and
+she was unable to stalk a deer.
+
+[Illustration: Breed was compelled to hunt farther from home as the deer
+quit the valleys. _Page 191._]
+
+Breed was compelled to hunt farther from home as the deer quit the
+valleys to descend to the foothills for the first nips of green grass.
+One morning, when far south of the den, he heard again the note of the
+hound. It rose and fell, an eager bellow that moved slowly through the
+hills, and Breed did not like the music. This same baying reached him on
+three other days. The reason for all this uproar was beyond his
+comprehension, but from the fact that it came from a dog he knew that it
+meant no good for the wild things.
+
+A few days after he first heard this strange sound he came face to face
+with a pair of coyotes that had run with his pack. Their air was one of
+dejection and there was no springiness in their gait. From their
+dispirited manner Breed knew that tragedy had overtaken his friends,
+that some calamity had befallen their pups. Later he met a second pair,
+a dog coyote and a she-wolf, and they too were traveling aimlessly,
+their family torn from them. But Breed had no way of linking these
+disasters with the music of the trail hound. The prospector kept a
+single hound and when he found a fresh wolf kill in the spring he put
+the dog on the tracks that led from it, keeping him in leash, and the
+hound led him to the den. He had found good hunting near his cabin this
+spring, as the hills were full of the dens of the small yellow wolves
+that had turned up in such numbers the preceding winter, but his
+activities so far had been confined to the country that lay south of
+Breed's range.
+
+Breed led the pups forth for a few short trips as their strength
+increased. In his hunts toward the south he frequently crossed the
+trails of other coyotes that had led their offspring out for a ramble.
+At least one out of every three families were breeds, and the pups were
+uniform. They were heavier than coyotes and their backstrips were dark;
+but their language was pure coyote, their voices perhaps slightly deeper
+and with fuller volume, but the change was so slight as to escape
+detection from the ears of man. These pups were the same sort of hybrids
+as Breed, their parental strains identical, yet among them all he found
+only one with his own qualities, the coyote fur and the voice of the
+wolf. In all others this was reversed.
+
+Breed's own pups grew strong and active, capable of covering ten miles
+of rough hill country in a single night, and the family would soon have
+left the den but that Shady indulged in one of her flighty streaks,--a
+streak prompted by the dog strain in her rising temporarily above the
+wild.
+
+She had hunted tirelessly but had failed to bring home a scrap of meat.
+Her hopes ran high and she ranged continually farther from the den till
+she eventually crossed over the divide for a look at the west slope. The
+breeze held steadily from the west and Shady caught a whiff of wood
+smoke and moved toward it to investigate. She scouted along the edge of
+the timber, watching the cabin in the little clearing for signs of life.
+It appeared deserted. She crossed to it and sniffed at a crack,--then
+fled for her life. At the first sniff there came a deafening bellow and
+a great hound surged round the corner of the house.
+
+As Shady fled she rolled her eyes back, coyote fashion, for a glimpse
+behind. She noted that the hound seemed to have trouble in getting
+started, and once back in the timber she stopped. She heard the rattle
+of a chain,--the hound was anchored! From long experience in the past
+Shady knew the futility of striving to break a chain. The dog was
+powerless to harm her. Even if he should free himself it would avail him
+nothing; these slow running hounds were known to her, and their speed
+was no match for her own.
+
+Shady returned to the cabin and peered round one corner at the raging
+hound whose six-foot chain prevented his clearing the next corner by
+more than a foot. She moved along the side of the house till within ten
+feet of him and sat down, her tongue lolling out contentedly as she
+watched the frenzied hound almost strangle himself in his efforts to
+reach her.
+
+A flutter of canvas caught her eye and she rose with her forefeet
+against the logs as she stretched her nose up toward it. The prospector
+had rolled the cloth round a ten-pound piece of fresh venison to keep
+the flies from it. Shady sprang and seized it, swinging clear of the
+ground, all four feet braced against the logs, then fell sprawling as
+the nail from which it was suspended bent and allowed the cord to slip.
+She started off across the open, and the first fold of canvas flapped
+loosely under her feet and tripped her. Halfway to the timber the meat
+dropped out and she took it, leaving the cloth behind; something over an
+hour later she turned up at the den with the first meat she had ever
+furnished for her own pups.
+
+The prospector returned to his cabin and while still a mile away he
+heard the bellowing of the dog. The first sight that greeted him was the
+canvas, flapping limply in the open, and he found Shady's dust tracks
+round the cabin, and swore. He ducked hurriedly into the house and
+reappeared with a shotgun, unsnapped the chain from the cabin wall and
+resnapped it in his belt, and he was off, with the eager hound tugging
+ahead of him on Shady's trail.
+
+Shady, elated by her first success, had left the den for another hunt.
+As she swung back toward home she heard the steady bellow of a hound and
+put on full speed ahead. The baying ceased except for an occasional
+bark, and when Shady came to the last fringe of trees along the ridge
+she saw a man standing at the den. The hound was chained to a single
+tree some thirty yards away and she knew there was naught to fear from
+him. The man started excavating with a light miner's pick and a
+short-handled shovel which he unslung from his back. In half an hour he
+had opened one tunnel till he could peer into the den hole. Then he
+unwound a strange instrument from about his waist, a wolfer's "feeler",
+three strands of wire twisted into a pliable cable ten feet long, the
+three ends of the strands extending forklike a bare two inches beyond
+the cable braid at one end. This simple invention eliminates much
+tedious excavation work, the sensitive tool following the curves of the
+branching tunnels which each wolf pup makes for himself as soon as he is
+able to dig. Shady prowled along the edge of the timber and viewed these
+preparations suspiciously.
+
+The man inserted the end of the feeler in a hole that led off the main
+cavity of the den, and advanced it by gentle thrusts, twisting it as he
+pushed to clear the forks. There was not a sound from the den. The
+feeler would go no farther. He grasped it flat between the palms of his
+hands and twirled the cable rapidly from right to left. There was a
+sudden spitting explosion of baby snarls from the depths of the hole.
+The man gave one tentative tug and felt resistance, then hauled the
+feeler in hand over hand and drew forth a fighting pup, the three tines
+twisted firmly into his soft fur. The hound opened up excitedly; the
+short pick swept up and down,--and the pup was a lifeless heap.
+
+Terror and rage flooded Shady in equal parts. She gave one sharp
+cry,--and the other two openings disgorged a shower of frightened pups
+that scattered toward the timber as so many flushed partridges, fleeing
+in response to their mother's sharp command, and Shady raged straight at
+the man!
+
+The prospector was an old hand at rifling wolf dens. Occasionally a pup
+would dart from another exit, and the shotgun was an effective weapon
+with which to check his flight. But never had he seen such a mad
+outpouring of pups as this, and in all his long life in the hills a
+she-wolf had never rushed him, even in defense of her pups. Shady's
+charge was reversed so suddenly as to appear that she turned a flip in
+mid-air when she saw the man's hand stretch forth and lift the shotgun
+from the ground, for she knew well its purpose and its power.
+
+The thunderous roar of black powder sounded behind her and a charge of
+heavy shot raked her hips and loins as she gained the trees. Shot
+pierced both ears and furrowed along her skull. The man turned and
+pulled the second barrel at the rearmost pup and he went down limply, a
+puff of fur flung into the air above him, his life snuffed out in a
+single instant as the heavy charge pulverized him from end to end.
+
+A piercing series of yelps issued from the timber as Shady gave voice to
+her agony. The prospector nodded. The mystery was cleared; for he knew
+that he might shoot a wolf or coyote to mincemeat and neither would make
+a sound.
+
+"A dog," he said. "A renegade. I should have knowed it all along; her
+stealing thataway right alongside of Buge; and her bristling up to
+me--no wolf would carry on like that."
+
+He strode to the tree and unleashed the hound.
+
+"Go to it, Buge!" he said. "Go clean up them pups."
+
+As the dog sped into the timber a sharp note sounded from far down the
+slope. Shady had partially recovered her upset faculties and called the
+pups, and they gathered swiftly to her and ran their best. Even in her
+crippled state Shady could have outrun the trail hound, for her wounds
+had not yet had time to stiffen, but the pups could scarcely hold their
+own, and the dog's endurance was far greater.
+
+Breed was returning to the den with a ragged chunk of venison when he
+heard the double roar of the gun and Shady's agonized yelps. Her later
+cry to gather the pups indicated the general direction of her flight.
+Then the steady tonguing of the hound broke forth. Breed flanked the
+dog's route till he drew abreast of him. The baying voice filled the
+valley and echoed among the rims till it seemed that the whole breadth
+of the hills was filled with dogs, but Breed knew that the sound came
+from but one. He could hear no sounds of man, and he dropped swiftly in
+behind Buge to decipher the signs of the trail. There were the hot
+tracks of Shady and the pups, the hound's tracks on top of theirs, and
+no man had come that way. Breed spurted ahead and sighted the dog, and
+swung out to flank him and get the wind.
+
+Buge ran with his nose close to the ground. He was gaining on his prey,
+and his mind was so wholly centered on the trail that he was unaware of
+the deadly yellow wolf that ran almost abreast of him and forty yards
+downwind. Breed was puzzled as to how to handle the situation that
+confronted him. He feared the hound, believing that an ally of man might
+be endowed with man's strange power for harm. The dog was a slow,
+cumbersome animal and Breed knew that Shady was far speedier, yet he
+wished the spotted beast would quit her trail. He saw Buge's nose lifted
+from the trail as he caught the warm body scent from close at hand. The
+dog ran now with head held high, the body scent reeking in his nostrils.
+Then Breed saw Shady and the pups running under the trees a hundred
+yards ahead. The steady baying rose to a slobbering bellow as the hound
+followed his prey by sight. The gap narrowed, and Breed could see his
+slavering jaws, the froth drooling stringily back across his shoulders.
+The last pup was running desperately a bare twenty yards ahead,--and
+then the great hound was suddenly thrown off his feet as a fighting
+yellow devil struck him from the side without a sound to announce his
+rush. Breed's shoulder had caught him fairly in the middle of a stride
+and the shock of the impact slammed him down six feet away; as Buge
+landed heavily on his side two flashing rows of teeth closed on his
+throat and sliced into it, and his life was torn out with the yellow
+wolf's backward wrench.
+
+Then Breed ran on after Shady and the pups, knowing now that a single
+short-haired dog, despite the terrifying volume of his voice, was no
+formidable antagonist for a wolf when once caught outside the radius of
+man's protection.
+
+Night settled down over the hills as Breed came to the end of Shady's
+trail and found her lying in a half-swoon with the pups crouching near.
+Breed felt that he was leaving this country to return no more, and
+almost unconsciously he raised the call for the pack, knowing that the
+pack season was far in the future, yet longing to hear the voices of his
+friends. Far to the south a pair of coyote voices answered him, and
+still beyond them, so far that the sound did not reach Breed's ears, a
+second pair of coyotes relayed the message that the yellow leader
+called.
+
+Breed urged Shady on, but in three miles the wolf family was forced to
+lay over for a rest. Here a pair of coyotes overtook them. The slow
+march was resumed with frequent halts for rest, and before morning two
+other pairs of coyotes caught up with them, and these were all members
+of the original pack that had hunted together in Sand Coulee Basin. Just
+at dawn the dog coyote Breed had met some time earlier in the spring
+brought his she-wolf mate and joined the band. All of the new arrivals
+had lost their pups through the efforts of the hound that Breed had
+slain, and they were free to follow where the leader willed.
+
+Breed moved east across the Flathead and for two days he urged Shady on
+relentlessly till they were far up the sheltering slopes of the main
+divide. Shady then took shelter in a windfall, and for the next three
+days she refused to move. Her wounds stiffened and festered from
+imbedded shot, and she was dry and feverish. Three stray coyotes crossed
+the Flathead and joined those that prowled within a few miles of Shady's
+retreat.
+
+The third night Breed heard a well-known voice far down the slope and he
+threw all the force of his lungs into a welcoming cry.
+
+A coyote invariably deserts a den that is neared by man. Peg had
+discovered Breed's rifled den and his keen nose interpreted the signs.
+He had heard the leader's call and wondered why it had been raised so
+early in the year. He followed the sign till he found the body of the
+hound. It was morning when he reached his own home, and the following
+night Peg and Fluff had led their pups off in the general direction
+taken by Breed. The trail had cooled, but in moist and sheltered spots
+he found sufficient trace to guide him, and in the heavy timber where
+the great drifts lingered he could follow it by sight. Then at last he
+heard Breed's voice above him and an hour later Peg and Fluff led six
+half-grown pups to the windfall.
+
+When Shady was once more able to travel Breed led the way to the north,
+the band not traveling together, but every coyote's course laid out to
+accord with Breed's, and within hailing distance so that each might
+apprise the others of his whereabouts at night. When the pups were old
+enough to shift for themselves Breed had crossed the Canadian line and
+was two hundred miles north of it along the great divide that marks the
+boundary between British Columbia and Alberta.
+
+All along this route clear from the Yellowstone there had been coyote
+country to the east of him. The prairie wolves had long since populated
+the valleys of the Musselshell, and, farther north, the Marias River and
+the Breast. There were coyotes east of him now, running the prairies of
+Alberta and Saskatchewan, but he had at last arrived at a point west of
+the extreme northern limits of the coyote range. All over the continent
+to the south and east of him pioneering coyotes were pushing on into new
+lands: they had penetrated the hill country of Pennsylvania to the east,
+and south almost to Panama; but it had fallen to the lot of the yellow
+wolf to lead the way for the horde that was invading the northwest
+hills.
+
+During the first storm of the early fall Breed pulled down a yearling
+mountain sheep on a high plateau. A motley crew answered the meat call.
+Breed, the yellow hybrid, Shady, the half-blood renegade, and four pairs
+of coyotes born in Sand Coulee Basin; the dog coyote with his
+timber-wolf mate and several of Breed's and Shady's conglomerate pups;
+all were there to feed. And when the bones were picked Breed led his
+nondescript band on into the unmapped wilds of the British Columbia
+hills.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Wolfing was no longer profitable in the foothills and Collins pulled up
+stakes and left. He loaded his belongings on his pack horses and
+journeyed far to the north. Later he sold his horses and traveled by
+canoe, and after a roundabout course he preempted an old cabin between
+the Laird Fork of the Mackenzie and the head of Peace River. The climate
+was moist and the underbrush growth was often so dense as to force him
+to hack out a trail in spots as he laid out his trap line. The side
+hills were matted tangles and the valleys shaking bogs, and Collins had
+little love for his new surroundings. There were no cheery sounds at
+night, only the howls of wolves. In midwinter of his first season in the
+north he was roused out of a sound sleep, certain that somewhere close
+at hand a coyote had howled. During the brief gray light of the
+following day Collins stopped and gazed long at a small, wolf-like track
+in the snow.
+
+"Coyote!" he announced triumphantly. "It was him that howled."
+
+Twenty yards farther on he crossed a second coyote track, and for half a
+mile there were trails pointing to the north. There was one that showed
+evidence of a missing foot, a peg-leg such as those he had often seen on
+the open range. Then Collins halted and studied the next two trails that
+appeared side by side. One was a wolf track, and there were two toes
+missing from one hind foot. The smaller tracks were evenly spaced, and
+placed one before the other in a straight line after the manner of
+coyote and wolf, but ten feet beyond where Collins stood the trail
+showed the wavering gait of the dog with an occasional track out to
+either side. A sudden mist blurred Collins' eyes and he dashed it off
+with the back of his mitts.
+
+"It's Shady," he said. "Old Shady and that yellow Breed,--both still
+alive and way off up here." Collins threw back his head and sent forth
+the clear piercing whistle that he had used to summon Shady in the long
+ago. Three times the shrill blast, long and sustained, was sent far out
+across the snowy hills.
+
+Three miles to the north Shady lay curled up with Breed. She suddenly
+raised her head. Breed too opened his eyes and cocked one ear to listen.
+Shady was conscious of no actual sound. Some faint vibration reached her
+ears and seemed to play upon some chord deep within; the impressions
+were hazy and indistinct, yet she was aware of a vague sense of loss, a
+wave of something akin to homesickness, and she whimpered softly, then
+closed her eyes and slept.
+
+Collins heard more and more coyotes howl, and in the next two months he
+had brief glimpses of perhaps a dozen as they moved across some opening.
+At least half of these seemed larger than the coyotes he had known, and
+they had dark fur on their backs. The Coyote Prophet studied long over
+these strange things. The coyote voices roused an ache for the homely
+cabin in Sand Coulee Basin a thousand miles to the south; and each time
+one howled he said:
+
+"I'm going back. Once it comes spring I'll make tracks out of here. This
+here's no fit country for a white man, and me--I'm going back."
+
+But Collins did not go back with the opening up of spring. Rumors of a
+gold strike sent men stampeding toward the fabled spot, a long journey
+to the north and east. Three parties crossed over the old trail past
+Collins' shack. The old wolfer caught the fever and followed the last of
+them. Before he left he made one last prophecy.
+
+He predicted that the hill coyotes of the northwest from the Yukon to
+the Yellowstone would be larger and have dark fur on their backs from
+frequent infusions of wolf blood; that within a dozen years the fur
+markets would distinguish between these dark silky-furred ones and the
+woolly yellow coyotes of the plains. He scrawled this message on a
+wrinkled scrap of paper, signed it, tacked it on the wall, and started
+off down the trail.
+
+A month later a party of five men stopped overnight in the deserted
+cabin. One of them deciphered the queer scrawl.
+
+"Crazy," he announced. "Some old coot went off his nut from being holed
+up alone--and this is all he left."
+
+A tall lean man whose warped legs betrayed his sage-country origin
+leaned over and studied the signature.
+
+"Collins," he mused. "Now whoever would have figured to cut his trail up
+here? He maybe was crazy,--but anyway, I'll bet five hundred that scrap
+of paper will pan out just like it says."
+
+A hundred miles beyond the cabin Breed and Shady were educating their
+third litter of pups. The nature of the country had prevented the
+excavating of a proper den and Shady had taken possession of a windfall.
+Breed was vastly disgusted with this new land, heartily sick of being
+shut in by the interminable hills and of traveling through swampy
+jungles of tall brush, and he was glad when the pups were old enough to
+shift for themselves.
+
+He gathered the pack and started on, his course this time more east than
+north, and he covered better than twenty miles each day with a definite
+purpose of leaving behind him this country so thickly overlaid with
+brush that its effect upon him was almost a feeling of suffocation. He
+came out into the lower hills and crossed occasional open spots. Then,
+after ten days, he crossed through a rolling country and just at dusk
+came out on the shoulder of a hill; before him lay broad stretches of
+low plains, open meadows alternating with strips of heavy timber, the
+whole a wonderful park-like landscape swimming in the twilight. From
+nearby hills he heard the coyotes beginning to tune up, and each one was
+facing toward the plains, the first spot they had seen in three years
+which reminded them of home. Breed led the way and brought his band out
+into the first reaches of the Mackenzie Barrens that stretched back
+among the trees.
+
+Breed found no trap lines here, and there were no mad coyotes or poison
+baits. Another two days and the trees were left behind, open country
+stretching ahead as far as his eye could reach; the brush was stunted
+and reminded him of sage; there were clumps of dwarf spruce much like
+the twisted cedars of the badland brakes, and thickets of stunted
+willows such as those that sprouted from every side-hill spring in Sand
+Coulee Basin. It was like a homecoming after being exiled for three long
+years,--and Breed was content at last as he bedded on a knoll. The range
+was once more dotted with stock--only these were wild caribou--and old
+habits cropped out in Breed; he knew there were no men here, yet all
+through the short two-hour day he frequently raised his head and his
+eyes swept the range for signs of the devilish riders. When he left his
+bed he found fresh evidence that he was home, that Sand Coulee Basin
+could not be farther away than over the next tongue of high ground; for
+he had not traveled a mile before he smelled coyote blood and traced it
+upwind to find an old friend stiffened in death, and with her throat
+slit open,--the work of the silent assassin that had terrorized the
+foothills of Hardpan Spur.
+
+Breed's hatred of Flatear had been dulled with time. He had met hundreds
+of wolves since the fight in the notch, and at first he had sought for
+his enemy, but later this search had been manifested only by a careful
+investigation of each new wolf he met, a vague suspicion that the big
+gray might be an enemy; but this had become almost a mechanical process
+rather than a distinct impression of why he should expect to find an
+enemy among wolves.
+
+Animal memories are a mixture of impressions received through the senses
+of hearing, sight and smell, and after a considerable lapse of time it
+requires the coordination of all three of these senses to reconstruct
+the thought in its entirety. The sight of the slain coyote filled Breed
+with rage but lacking a definite object upon which to vent it. The scent
+around the spot further enraged him, and the picture of the great gray
+beast swam nebulously in his mind. A wolf howl sounded close at hand and
+stirred still another long-dormant pool of impressions; the whole
+crystallized into a distinct likeness of Flatear,--and Breed was off on
+the hunt for his ancient enemy.
+
+Flatear saw a great yellow wolf rushing down on him and he whirled and
+bared his teeth. The gray wolf weighed a hundred pounds, Breed slightly
+over ninety. They circled cautiously for an opening, hind parts tensed
+and drooping, ears laid flat and lips drawn back to expose the yellow
+tusks. Flatear sprang first and Breed met the open mouth with his own.
+The clash of teeth sounded far across the barrens and silent shapes
+changed their direction and moved toward the sound. Three times Breed
+took the force of the drive on his teeth and the jaws of both wolves
+dripped blood. A wolf came slipping up to watch, and two breeds of the
+yellow wolf's pack stationed themselves ten yards away. Three more
+wolves appeared; then Peg and Fluff came to the scene and Peg moved
+behind Flatear and crouched.
+
+Breed's snarl warned him off. The three-legged coyote was old and hoary,
+in his fifteenth year and with but a short span of life ahead; his teeth
+were rounded and worn down but his spirit was stout, and he longed to
+mix it with the wolf. His leader's order held him back, but he remained
+the nearest of the lot, watching every move of the combat as if
+appointed judge of it.
+
+Flatear rushed time and again, using his greater weight to batter down
+his antagonist's guard, but Breed gave back each time and Flatear's
+driving shoulder never reached its mark and his teeth were met with
+teeth. Breed was losing ground and Flatear pressed him hard. The yellow
+wolf seemed to have but one style of defense and no heart for attack.
+The fight was a mere procession of retreats before Flatear's heavy
+drives, and the gray wolf grew accustomed to this monotonous defense,
+and his attacks were unconsciously conformed to it, becoming equally
+mechanical, his one purpose to wear his enemy down by sheer strength and
+weight.
+
+And when Breed, instead of cringing away, struck at him with every ounce
+of his ninety pounds, Flatear was unprepared. He had started his spring
+and Breed's counter drive was aimed so low that his chest skimmed the
+ground. Flatear slashed savagely downward but the yellow wolf's head was
+well under him, and even as Flatear's teeth grazed Breed's shoulder his
+forward sweep was checked in mid-air as powerful jaws closed on a
+foreleg with a sickening crunch of bones. The opposing weights of both
+wolves pivoted on that one leg, and in addition to the fracture
+Flatear's whole side and shoulder were wrenched clear to his spine.
+
+There was an uneasy movement among the spectators, now numbering more
+than a score, wolves and coyotes for the first time in history mingling
+to witness the settling of a personal feud. Peg now sat down
+contentedly, his tongue lolling out in a satisfied grin.
+
+Breed's tactics changed and he wheeled round his disabled enemy with
+lightning feints; then his shoulder struck Flatear with a solid smash
+that crumpled him and he went down with Breed's teeth at his windpipe.
+His end was of the sort which he himself had handed to so many
+others,--and the new range was safe for coyotes.
+
+The silent spectators were startled by a faint whining sound. This
+whimpering grew louder and the wolves slunk away but the coyote pack
+remained. Breed's sudden hunt for Flatear had caught Shady unprepared,
+but she had finally cut his trail and was following it to the spot.
+
+For three months Breed saw no more of wolves, and when next he did see
+them the beasts were white. He had led the pack to the basin of the
+Copper River at the edge of the Arctic Circle. Their travels were over,
+and they now ranged a limited area of less than a hundred miles in
+extent. Except that no high hills flanked their new home, its features
+were much like the old. There were no longer any days and nights, but a
+seemingly endless period of varying degrees of twilight, and the rolling
+hills were deep with snow.
+
+Breed had met many new animals since leaving the land of the
+Yellowstone; he had known moose and goats in British Columbia, caribou
+on the barrens and the iron-gray sheep at the head of the Nelson. Now
+there were strange shaggy beasts with hair that hung nearly to the
+ground, and they came out of the north in small droves, the white wolves
+traveling on the flanks of the herds. He found musk ox easy prey and
+there was no lack of meat.
+
+A few days after the first of these appeared Breed and Shady topped a
+ridge and saw the one thing necessary to make the image of the old home
+complete. A light twinkled some half a mile away, as Breed and Shady had
+so often seen the lights of Collins' cabin. Shady whined as she looked
+at it and Breed raised his voice and howled. As if in answer to the howl
+a shrill whistle floated to them and Shady at once slipped from Breed's
+side and headed for the fire.
+
+Collins had turned back from the fabled gold fields, heartsick for the
+sight of his native foothills, disgusted with the Arctic night and a
+flat white world, and with two companions he had braved the terrors of a
+winter journey and headed into the south. They traveled light, supplies
+for three packed on a single sled, drawn by six dogs. Food had run low
+and for a week they had been forced to subsist on starvation rations;
+one more day and they would have killed a dog,--and then they crossed
+the trail of a musk ox herd. There was now food in plenty but Collins'
+mental exhaustion did not vanish with returning physical strength. He
+was obsessed with the idea that he would never see the sagebrush hills
+again and his companions could not rouse him.
+
+They fastened the dogs in a clump of dwarfed spruce and built a small
+fire on the downwind side of the trees.
+
+The old wolfer sat huddled in his furs before the fire, dreading to
+enter the little tent to crawl into his sleeping bag alone with his
+thoughts; for the white madness was driving its iron into his soul and
+striking at his reason. His mind coined queer white couplets; the white
+wolf pack and the white ice pack,--a whole world shrouded in white
+night.
+
+His companions had looked upon the white madness before; had seen men
+die from the deadly monotony of it all. It was conceivable that a book
+of bright pictures, anything with warm colors might penetrate the pall
+of white fog that clouded his brain and shatter the obsession,
+reinstating reason on its tottering throne. But there was only the
+howling of white wolves out across the white snow fields. Then a wolf
+howl sounded from close at hand.
+
+It seemed to pierce Collins' stupor and strike some memory filed long
+ago in his subconscious mind, and he suddenly straightened and glared at
+them.
+
+"I can pick him out from amongst a thousand wolves," he stated. "There's
+no wolf shiver to that howl. It's a yellow wolf! As yellow as gold, not
+a damned white hair on him anywheres! It's Breed, the yellow wolf of
+Sand Coulee Basin--there's color come into this white hell hole at
+last!"
+
+A shrill whistle pealed from his lips and his companions shook their
+heads. Then the wolf howled again and they stiffened with surprise as a
+score of wild voices answered. The sounds were new to them and the snowy
+waste was filled with bewilderingly different inflections that ripped
+back and forth through opposing waves of sound till it seemed that
+jeering cachinnations rose from a thousand fiends.
+
+They read the gleam in Collins' eyes and his disjointed utterances as a
+sign of hopeless madness,--but in reality it was returning sanity. A new
+warmth stole over him, and the certainty that he would win through.
+
+"Here they come," he said. "The little yellow devils! They've spread
+from the Arctic to the Neck, like I always knowed they would. There's
+music a white man can listen to--the music of the little yellow wolves."
+
+Then the two men sat silent and wondered if they themselves were mad.
+For the dogs were snarling and straining at their leashes in the scrub
+spruce, and a strange yellow she-wolf with a strip of dark fur along her
+back came creeping toward the fire. Her eyes regarded the two men
+suspiciously and one ear tipped toward the dogs beyond. She slipped up
+and rested her head on Collins' knee, enjoyed his friendly voice and
+rubbing fingers for a single minute, then vanished in the night as the
+yellow breed-wolf called his pack.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yellow Horde, by Hal G. Evarts
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