enmities, the same as among men, and it may be
that the act which had brought Peg those honorable scars had helped to
cement the bond between himself and the yellow wolf. Whether or not they
had means of discussing Cripp's absence, there can be no doubt that they
missed the genial old rogue that had been their running mate for so many
months and that they wondered at his fate.

Breed visited Peg's home ridge during the height of the chinook. Peg's
mate was a silky-haired coyote, her fur fluffy and long. Fluff lay
sprawled contentedly in the sunshine while her mate worked on the den.
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 tired of
it, and Peg started in as soon as she left off. A she-coyote picks her
own den site and starts the hole, but because she is easily exhausted
near denning time it falls to the dog to complete the den.

When Breed returned to Shady he found her scratching leisurely at the
nest she had scooped out. It was merely a raking of the surface to
loosen and soften the bed which was smooth and glazed from her having
bedded there when her fur was wet; but Breed read it as a tentative
start toward making a permanent home.

When Shady ceased her aimless scratching Breed edged her aside and tore
at the soft earth with his paws. He had buried himself to the hips
before he drew back. Shady entered and critically inspected the hole,
then immediately backed out. That was the extent of her interest. It may
have occurred to Breed that his mate'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
failed to indicate the direction which she wished these emergency
tunnels to take so Breed laid them out according to plans of his own. By
the time the den was completed the chinook wind had cooled, and winter
tightened down over the hills once more, freezing the surface dirt so
solidly as to make excavating impossible.

Breed repaired to the last frozen elk carcass in his neighborhood and
found Peg there before him. An hour later a she-coyote came to the feed.
She sprawled flat in the snow and tore r