The Voice of the Pack

the car drove up. He was a son of his father, a strong man in body and personality. He too had heard of the elder Failing, an

ace to remove the chill that always descends with the mountain night. The whole long room wa

tone a strong man invariably uses toward an invalid. But while a moment before Dan had welco

s hardly dark yet. I'd sooner

wait till to-morrow, Dan," he replied. "Bill will have supper soon, anyway. To-morrow we'll walk up

g to try to spare myself while I

now, anyway. I'm sorry t

wbir

ed of keeping house and is working this summer. Poor Bill has to keep house for her, and no wonder he's eager to take the s

te can't ki

me of year. But as I say, Bill will take the stock down next season,

s down in

re women when they can be obtained. It was a policy started in wartimes and kept up now because it is economical and effici

son, and it's a terror-a wall of flame that races through the forests and can hardly be stopped. And maybe you don't realize how enormous this region is-literally hundreds of miles across. We're the last outpost-there are four cabins, if you can find them, in the first seventy miles back to town. So they have to put lookou

are started-from the c

careful with the cigar butts, too-even the coals of a pipe. But of course the lightnin

hy on

the real mountain man, such as your grandfather was-lives just as well, just as clean as the ranchers in the valley. Some of this kind are trappers or herders. But there's another class too-the most unbelievably shiftless, ignorant people in America. They have a few acres to raise crops, and they kill dee

untains-by the name of Cranston. Bert Cranston traps a little and makes moonshine; you'll probably see plenty of him before the trip is over. Sometime I'll tel

e they are hiring women for the work. They are more vigilant than men, less inclined to take chances, and work cheaper. These two girls have a cabin near

travel over these hi

nces either. She's a dead shot with a pistol, for one thing. She's physically strong, and every muscle is hard as nails. She used to have Shag, too-the best dog in all these mountains. She's a mountain girl, I tell you; whoever wins h

nd cold, a steak of peculiar shape, and a great bowl of purple berries to be eaten with sugar and cream. Dan's appetite was not as a rule particu

said, as it was passed to him. But the

ced that such a delicate child as he had been could not properly digest it. But all at once he decided to forego his mother's philosophies for good and all. There was certainly nothing to be gained by

he asked. "I've certa

ddle West," Lennox answered. "Maybe you've got what the scientists call an inheri

d boyishly eager to test his reaction to the great, wild huckleberries th

mories. It seemed to him that always he had stood on the hillsides, picking these berries as they grew, and staining his lips with them. But at once he pushed the thoughts out

came out upon the tree-covered ridge. The moon was just rising. They could see it casting a curious glint over the very tips of the pines. But

a moment, to really know

ed stir of his own breathing, and he was quite certain that he could hear the fevered beat of his own heart in his breast. But then slowly he began to become aware of other sounds, so faint and indistinct that he really could not be sure that he heard them. There was a faint rustle and stir, as of the tops of the pine trees far away. Possibly he heard the wind too, the faintest whisper in the world through the underbrush. And finally, most wonder

ing the soun

sn't that the question had surprised the mountaineer. Rather it was the ton

. The bears have more curiosity than they can well carry around, and they say they'll sometimes come up and put their front feet on a window sill of a house, and peer through the window. They must think men are the craziest

x! I can smell al

smell. Part of the smells are of flowers, and part of balsam, and

he mountain night. The whole scene moved him in strange, deep ways in which he had never been stirred before; it left him exultant and, in deep wells of his nature far below the usual currents of excitemen

le sound of footsteps on the ridge. Both of them turned, and Lennox laughed softl