The Yellow Horde

ense 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 n

mate. She came out into a funnel-shaped basin that sloped down from the first sharp rise of the spur. The

t 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 purposefu

which had served her well in the past when assailed by the dogs of visiting ranchers. The

of his former pet. Shady failed to pause for greetings but made one mad l

tion with its usual snap. Then he rose and crossed to the door to discover the reason f

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

nd they'd have surged in here and wrecked

nes. 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. H

d 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 k

stiffened at Br

Breed. He won't bother you. It must be hell, Shady, to be born astra

at 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 sp

nt to go to him, that's what; he's a friend of yours. Surely now, an o

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 rea

ve longer than I thought. He'll show you how to beat the game." The Coyote Prophet crossed to the door and opened it. "G

as as deep as hers but he was more dignified and staid, his emotions less openly apparent. Al

ns 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 t

r 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 fro

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

les he wheeled abruptly and retraced his course, the longing for his mate combining with cu

reed in the notch after her first visit to the cabin and she naturally assumed that she would find h

ver 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

brain that is capable of constructive reasoning, of taking two facts which the phys

ts 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

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 r

the danger of following cow trails and padded restlessly up and down those which threaded through the gap. And

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 d

forth the rally call to the pack and turned to trot along a cow trail. He gave a sudden mighty leap into the air