arer his body grew
tense, his muscles hardened, and in his throat there was the low
whispering of a snarl instead of a howl. He sensed danger. He had
caught, in the voice of the wolves, the ravening note that had made
Pierrot cross himself and mutter of the loups-garous, and he crouched
down on his belly at the top of the rocky mound.

Then he saw them. They were sweeping like dark and swiftly moving
shadows between him and the forest. Suddenly they stopped, and for a
few moments no sound came from them as they packed themselves closely
on the scent of his fresh trail in the snow. And then they surged in
his direction; this time there was a still fiercer madness in the wild
cry that rose from their throats. In a dozen seconds they were at the
mound. They swept around it and past it, all save one--a huge gray
brute who shot up the hillock straight at the prey the others had not
yet seen. There was a snarl in Miki's throat as he came. Once more he
was facing the thrill of a great fight. Once more the blood ran
suddenly hot in his veins, and fear was driven from him as the wind
drives smoke from a fire. If Neewa were only there now, to fend at his
back while he fought in front! He stood up on his feet. He met the
up-rushing pack-brute head to head. Their jaws clashed, and the wild
wolf found jaws at last that crunched through his own as if they had
been whelp's bone, and he rolled and twisted back to the plain in a
dying agony. But not until another gray form had come to fill his
place. Into the throat of this second Miki drove his fangs as the wolf
came over the crest. It was the slashing, sabre-like stroke of the
north-dog, and the throat of the wolf was torn open and the blood
poured out as if emptied by the blade of a knife. Down he plunged to
join the first, and in that instant the pack swept up and over Miki,
and he was smothered under the mass of their bodies. Had two or three
attacked him at once he would have died as quickly as the first two of
his enemies had come to their end. Numbers saved him in the first rush.
On the level of the plain he would have been torn into pieces like a
bit of cloth, but on the space at the top of the KOPJE, no larger than
the top of a table, he was lost for a few seconds under the snarling
and rending horde of his enemies. Fangs intended for him sank into
other wolf-flesh; the madness of the pack became a blind rage, and the
assault upon Miki turned into a slaughter of the wolves the