The Yellow Horde

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

ed less than tw

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 r

he 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

at. He circled and looped, now catching it, then losing it again. The broad valley stood white and silent, gripped in a dead calm,

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

oyotes 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 no

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 cr

eet never once touched earth except when crossing some bald ridge from which

fts and clearing the more exposed slopes free of snow. The pack had split up and scatte

e 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 i

e 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

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 w

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

. 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

erely a raking of the surface to loosen and soften the bed which was smooth and glazed from her having b

'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 fa

d. 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 wou

he den. Shady's doglike faith that a place would somehow be provided for the great event had bee

ht 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

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 mat

within ten miles was the one near the windfall, and the widowed mother defended that furiously aga

t 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 tra

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 fat

'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 oft

y, 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 va

eed showed uneasiness when a

play, every pup tumbling hurriedly out; she would give another cry when they were playing carelessly in the open, the tone being so nearly identic

long 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