ded.

On one occasion, when she and five others were planning to raid a Sheep
yard, she held back at the last minute because some newstrung wires
appeared. The others rushed in to find the Sheep beyond their reach,
themselves in a death-trap.

Thus she had learned the newer dangers, and while it is unlikely that
she had any clear mental conception of them she had acquired a
wholesome distrust of all things strange, and a horror of one or two in
particular that proved her lasting safeguard. Each year she raised her
brood successfully and the number of Yellow Wolves increased in the
country. Guns, traps, men and the new animals they brought had been
learned, but there was yet another lesson before her--a terrible one
indeed.

About the time Duskymane's brothers were a month old his foster-mother
returned in a strange condition. She was frothing at the mouth, her
legs trembled, and she fell in a convulsion near the doorway of the
den, but recovering, she came in. Her jaws quivered, her teeth rattled
a little as she tried to lick the little ones; she seized her own front
leg and bit it so as not to bite them, but at length she grew quieter
and calmer. The Cubs had retreated in fear to a far pocket, but now
they returned and crowded about her to seek their usual food. The
mother recovered, but was very ill for two or three days, and those
days with the poison in her system worked disaster for the brood. They
were terribly sick; only the strongest could survive, and when the
trial of strength was over, the den contained only the old one and the
Black-maned Cub, the one she had adopted. Thus little Duskymane became
her sole charge; all her strength was devoted to feeding him, and he
thrived apace.

Wolves are quick to learn certain things. The reactions of smell are
the greatest that a Wolf can feel, and thenceforth both Cub and
foster-mother experienced a quick, unreasoning sense of fear and hate
the moment the smell of strychnine reached them.

IV

THE RUDIMENTS OF WOLF TRAINING

With the sustenance of seven at his service the little Wolf had every
reason to grow, and when in the autumn he began to follow his mother on
her hunting trips he was as tall as she was. Now a change of region was
forced on them, for numbers of little Wolves were growing up. Sentinel
Butte, the rocky fastness of the plains, was claimed by many that were
big and strong; the weaker must move out, and with them Yellow Wolf and
the Dusky Cub