, and prepared supper. After
this he went into the tent, and when he came out he carried a blanket
under his arm. He chuckled as he stood for a moment over Kazan.

"We're not going to sleep in there to-night, old hoy," he said. "I don't
like what you've found in the west wind. It may he a--_thunder-storm!_"
He laughed at his joke, and buried himself in a clump of stunted
_banskians_ thirty paces from the tent. Here he rolled himself in his
blanket, and went to sleep.

It was a quiet starlit night, and hours afterward Kazan dropped his nose
between his forepaws and drowsed. It was the snap of a twig that roused
him. The sound did not awaken the sluggish Dane but instantly Kazan's
head was alert, his keen nostrils sniffing the air. What he had smelled
all day was heavy about him now. He lay still and quivering. Slowly,
from out of the _banskians_ behind the tent, there came a figure. It was
not the little professor. It approached cautiously, with lowered head
and hunched shoulders, and the starlight revealed the murderous face of
Sandy McTrigger. Kazan crouched low. He laid his head flat between his
forepaws. His long fangs gleamed. But he made no sound that betrayed his
concealment under a thick _banskian_ shrub. Step by step Sandy
approached, and at last he reached the flap of the tent. He did not
carry a club or a whip in his hand now. In the place of either of those
was the glitter of steel. At the door to the tent he paused, and peered
in, his back to Kazan.

Silently, swiftly--the wolf now in every movement, Kazan came to his
feet. He forgot the chain that held him. Ten feet away stood the enemy
he hated above all others he had ever known. Every ounce of strength in
his splendid body gathered itself for the spring. And then he leaped.
This time the chain did not pull him back, almost neck-broken. Age and
the elements had weakened the leather collar he had worn since the days
of his slavery in the traces, and it gave way with a snap. Sandy turned,
and in a second leap Kazan's fangs sank into the flesh of his arm. With
a startled cry the man fell, and as they rolled over on the ground the
big Dane's deep voice rolled out in thunderous alarm as he tugged at his
leash. In the fall Kazan's hold was broken. In an instant he was on his
feet, ready for another attack. And then the change came. He was
_free_. The collar was gone from his neck. The forest, the stars, the
whispering wind were all about him. _Here_ were men,