open
fields. In the pastures the cattle, roused by the glare in the sky,
stamped and snorted at him as he passed, and now and then a man's
voice yelled at him angrily as his long form tore through flowerbeds
or trellised vines. He had no idea of avoiding the farmhouses, for he
had at first no fear of men; but at length an alert farmer got a long
shot at him with a fowling-piece, and two or three small leaden
pellets caught him in the hind quarters. They did not go deep enough
to do him serious harm, but they hurt enough to teach him that men
were dangerous. Thereupon he swerved from the uncompromising straight
line of his flight, and made for the waste places. When the light of
the fire had quite died out behind him, the first of the dawn was
creeping up the sky; and by this time he had come to a barren region
of low thickets, ragged woods, and rocks thrusting up through a
meagre, whitish soil.

Till the sun was some hours high Lone Wolf pressed on, his terror of
the fire now lost in a sense of delighted freedom. By this time he was
growing hungry, and for an instant the impulse seized him to turn back
and seek his master. But no, that way lay the scorching of the flames.
Instead of turning, he ran on all the faster. Suddenly a rabbit
bounded up, almost beneath his nose. Hitherto he had never tasted
living prey, but with a sure instinct he sprang after the rabbit. To
his fierce disappointment, however, the nimble little beast was so
inconsiderate as to take refuge in a dense bramble thicket which he
could not penetrate. His muzzle, smarting and tender from the fire,
could not endure the harsh prickles, so after prowling about the
thicket for a half-hour in the wistful hope that the rabbit might come
out, he resumed his journey. He had no idea, of course, where he
wanted to go, but he felt that there must be a place somewhere where
there were plenty of rabbits and no bramble thickets.

Late in the afternoon he came upon the fringes of a settlement, which
he skirted with caution. In a remote pasture field, among rough
hillocks and gnarled, fire-scarred stumps, he ran suddenly into a
flock of sheep. For a moment he was puzzled at the sight, but the
prompt flight of the startled animals suggested pursuit. In a moment
he had borne down the hindermost. To reach for its throat was a sure
instinct, and he feasted, with a growing zest of savagery, upon the
hot flesh. Before he realized it, he was dragging the substantial
remn