he double roar of the gun and Shady's agonized yelps. Her later
cry to gather the pups indicated the general direction of her flight.
Then the steady tonguing of the hound broke forth. Breed flanked the
dog's route till he drew abreast of him. The baying voice filled the
valley and echoed among the rims till it seemed that the whole breadth
of the hills was filled with dogs, but Breed knew that the sound came
from but one. He could hear no sounds of man, and he dropped swiftly in
behind Buge to decipher the signs of the trail. There were the hot
tracks of Shady and the pups, the hound's tracks on top of theirs, and
no man had come that way. Breed spurted ahead and sighted the dog, and
swung out to flank him and get the wind.

Buge ran with his nose close to the ground. He was gaining on his prey,
and his mind was so wholly centered on the trail that he was unaware of
the deadly yellow wolf that ran almost abreast of him and forty yards
downwind. Breed was puzzled as to how to handle the situation that
confronted him. He feared the hound, believing that an ally of man might
be endowed with man's strange power for harm. The dog was a slow,
cumbersome animal and Breed knew that Shady was far speedier, yet he
wished the spotted beast would quit her trail. He saw Buge's nose lifted
from the trail as he caught the warm body scent from close at hand. The
dog ran now with head held high, the body scent reeking in his nostrils.
Then Breed saw Shady and the pups running under the trees a hundred
yards ahead. The steady baying rose to a slobbering bellow as the hound
followed his prey by sight. The gap narrowed, and Breed could see his
slavering jaws, the froth drooling stringily back across his shoulders.
The last pup was running desperately a bare twenty yards ahead,--and
then the great hound was suddenly thrown off his feet as a fighting
yellow devil struck him from the side without a sound to announce his
rush. Breed's shoulder had caught him fairly in the middle of a stride
and the shock of the impact slammed him down six feet away; as Buge
landed heavily on his side two flashing rows of teeth closed on his
throat and sliced into it, and his life was torn out with the yellow
wolf's backward wrench.

Then Breed ran on after Shady and the pups, knowing now that a single
short-haired dog, despite the terrifying volume of his voice, was no
formidable antagonist for a wolf when once caught outside the radius of
man's protection.