The Voice of the Pack

cared to strike off through the thickets with no guide except his own sense of direction. The ridges are too many, and they look too much alike. It is very easy to walk in a great c

om his frontiersmen ancestors, an

with shovels and picks. Possibly half a dozen white men, in all, had ever walked along it. It was just

Dan could scarcely cover with his open hand. All manner of deer, from seasonal fawns with spotted coats and wide, startled eyes to the great bull elk, monarch of the forest, had passed that way before

natured and ordinarily all he wants to do is sleep in the leaves and grunt and soliloquize and hunt berries. But woe to the man or beast who meets him in a rough-and-tumble fight. Unlike his great cousin the Grizzly, that American Adamzad that not only walks like a man but kills cattle l

as high, he would immediately quit the territory. But it doesn't work out in practice. Nine times out of ten there will be a dozen Woofs in the same neighborhood, no two of equal size, yet they hunt their berries and rob their bee trees in perfect peace. Perh

s a rather singular coincidence. Along about four he would usually find himself wandering up that way. Strangely enough, at the same time, it was true that she had an irresistible impulse to go down and sit in the green ferns beside the same sp

rting home," the girl would always say. "You're not a h

ble to take care of himself,-and that was the last thing on earth that he wanted her to think. He understood her well enough to know that her standards were the st

trudging over the hills with it, and few experiences in his life had ever yielded such unmitigated pleasure as the sight of her, glowing white and red, as she took off its wrapping paper. It was a jolly old gift, he recollected.-And when she had seen it, she fairly leaped at him. Her warm, round arms around his neck, and the softest, loveliest lips in the world pressed his. But in those da

n't do that!"

You did it to me! Is th

t. For remembering me-for being so good-and co

sed as naturally as she did anything else, and the kiss meant exactly what she said it did and no more. But the fac

, a penetrating quality all their own. A mathematician cannot walk over a mountain trail pondering on the fourth dimension when some living creature is consistently cracking brush in the thickets beside him. Human natur

instinctively he practiced this attainment as soon as he got out into the wild. The creature was fully one hundred yards dis

sight, might crack brush as freely; but a wolf pack would also bay to wake the dead. Of course it might

ed animal putting two feet down at the same instant. Dan had learned to wait. He stood perfectly s

y sportsmen who had penetrated to this far land. The footfall was much too heavy for Snowbird. The steps were evidently on another trail tha

conceal himself if it became necessary. Then h

, the soiled, slouchy clothes, the rough hair, the intent, dark features. It was a man about his own age, his own height, but weighing

m at first glance. Only one clump of thicket sheltered him. But because Dan had learned the lesson of standing still, because his oli

de, and the way he kept such a sharp lookout in all directions. Yet he never glanced to the trail for deer tracks, a

is hunting. It was the same process,-a cautious, silent advance in the trail of prey. He had to walk

brush along the trail. Now and then he glanced up at the tree t

ing a piece of dead pine into fine shavings. Now he was gathering pine needles and small twigs

is old trade,-set