. His eyes were red. There was a droop to
his neck and shoulders that spoke no longer of the unconquerable
fighting spirit that had been a part of him for nearly a score of years.
No longer was he lord of the wilderness about him; no longer was there
defiance in the poise of his splendid head, or the flash of eager fire
in his bloodshot eyes. His breath came with a gasping sound that was
growing more and more distinct. A hunter would have known what it meant.
The stiletto-point of the younger bull's antler had gone home, and the
old bull's lungs were failing him. More than once Gray Wolf had heard
that sound in the early days of her hunting with the pack, and she
understood. Slowly she began to circle about the wounded monarch at a
distance of about twenty yards. Kazan kept at her side.

Once--twice--twenty times they made that slow circle, and with each turn
they made the old bull turned, and his breath grew heavier and his head
drooped lower. Noon came, and was followed by the more intense cold of
the last half of the day. Twenty circles became a hundred--two
hundred--and more. Under Gray Wolf's and Kazan's feet the snow grew hard
in the path they made. Under the old bull's widespread hoofs the snow
was no longer white--but red. A thousand times before this unseen
tragedy of the wilderness had been enacted. It was an epoch of that life
where life itself means the survival of the fittest, where to live means
to kill, and to die means to perpetuate life. At last, in that steady
and deadly circling of Gray Wolf and Kazan, there came a time when the
old bull did not turn--then a second, a third and a fourth time, and
Gray Wolf seemed to know. With Kazan she drew back from the hard-beaten
trail, and they flattened themselves on their bellies under a dwarf
spruce--and waited. For many minutes the bull stood motionless, his
hamstrung quarter sinking lower and lower. And then with a deep
blood-choked gasp he sank down.

For a long time Kazan and Gray Wolf did not move, and when at last they
returned to the beaten trail the bull's heavy head was resting on the
snow. Again they began to circle, and now the circle narrowed foot by
foot, until only ten yards--then nine--then eight--separated them from
their prey. The bull attempted to rise, and failed. Gray Wolf heard the
effort. She heard him sink back and suddenly she leaped in swiftly and
silently from behind. Her sharp fangs buried themselves in the bull's
nostrils, and with