The Yellow Horde

with all his strength, backing up to gain slack in the chain, then throwing all his weight and force into his

eet 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 handic

superstitious dread of the wolf. In common with all his kind he had merely avoided instead of investigating this dan

st, 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 rip

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

e came, the dog in her boiling to the surface. Before she reached him a yellow streak split the night and Peg's teeth

ng as he ran, the muscle torn raggedly across by Peg's one snap

aised his head and looked at Shady, and for a single instant his mouth opened and his red tongue lolled out in friendly greeting, showing

some of them squatting on their haunches as they regarded his plight, others moving restlessly about; all of them silent a

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 whine

se. 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'

ood and looked down at the

n out-but he could lose two toes off each foot and still beat the game. The whole

oothills 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-ru

ctuated by every possible epithet applicable to the coyote tribe. Collins, owning no

kill 'em in cold blood; coyotes kill 'em when they're hungry.

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 th

tes 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

'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 mon

's mixed poison with his traps. Now my trap line is played out

ude 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

eat 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 fi

at 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

lkali 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 ra

ped from another angle. Ravens and magpies winged toward the spot,-and Breed set off at once toward the converging lines o

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 eagl

curves, each dip calling forth a raucous scream. He fought his way to a height of two hundred yards, then lo

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 way

ally 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 y

d 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 reflect

oyotes clung close to his flanks, as if numbers re

icken into foaming maniacs. Breed turned on the first rise of the hills and howled. The members of the coyote pack read the

n. Every one of them had run the gauntlet of rifle fire; they had been hounded by dogs. Most of them

ote tribe and well able to cope with new conditions and teach their futur