nd brought his band out
into the first reaches of the Mackenzie Barrens that stretched back
among the trees.

Breed found no trap lines here, and there were no mad coyotes or poison
baits. Another two days and the trees were left behind, open country
stretching ahead as far as his eye could reach; the brush was stunted
and reminded him of sage; there were clumps of dwarf spruce much like
the twisted cedars of the badland brakes, and thickets of stunted
willows such as those that sprouted from every side-hill spring in Sand
Coulee Basin. It was like a homecoming after being exiled for three long
years,--and Breed was content at last as he bedded on a knoll. The range
was once more dotted with stock--only these were wild caribou--and old
habits cropped out in Breed; he knew there were no men here, yet all
through the short two-hour day he frequently raised his head and his
eyes swept the range for signs of the devilish riders. When he left his
bed he found fresh evidence that he was home, that Sand Coulee Basin
could not be farther away than over the next tongue of high ground; for
he had not traveled a mile before he smelled coyote blood and traced it
upwind to find an old friend stiffened in death, and with her throat
slit open,--the work of the silent assassin that had terrorized the
foothills of Hardpan Spur.

Breed's hatred of Flatear had been dulled with time. He had met hundreds
of wolves since the fight in the notch, and at first he had sought for
his enemy, but later this search had been manifested only by a careful
investigation of each new wolf he met, a vague suspicion that the big
gray might be an enemy; but this had become almost a mechanical process
rather than a distinct impression of why he should expect to find an
enemy among wolves.

Animal memories are a mixture of impressions received through the senses
of hearing, sight and smell, and after a considerable lapse of time it
requires the coordination of all three of these senses to reconstruct
the thought in its entirety. The sight of the slain coyote filled Breed
with rage but lacking a definite object upon which to vent it. The scent
around the spot further enraged him, and the picture of the great gray
beast swam nebulously in his mind. A wolf howl sounded close at hand and
stirred still another long-dormant pool of impressions; the whole
crystallized into a distinct likeness of Flatear,--and Breed was off on
the hunt for his ancient enemy.

Fla