ind the club
there was a face--a brutal, fire-reddened face. It was such a face that
had driven Kazan into the wild, and as the club fell again he evaded the
full weight of its blow and his fangs gleamed like ivory knives. A third
time the club was raised, and this time Kazan met it in mid-air, and his
teeth ripped the length of the man's forearm.

"Good God!" shrieked the man in pain, and Kazan caught the gleam of a
rifle barrel as he sped toward the forest. A shot followed. Something
like a red-hot coal ran the length of Kazan's hip, and deep in the
forest he stopped to lick at the burning furrow where the bullet had
gone just deep enough to take the skin and hair from his flesh.

* * * * *

Gray Wolf was still waiting under the balsam shrub when Kazan returned
to her. Joyously she sprang forth to meet him. Once more the man had
sent back the old Kazan to her. He muzzled her neck and face, and stood
for a few moments with his head resting across her back, listening to
the distant sound.

Then, with ears laid flat, he set out straight into the north and west.
And now Gray Wolf ran shoulder to shoulder with him like the Gray Wolf
of the days before the dog-pack came; for that wonderful thing that lay
beyond the realm of reason told her that once more she was comrade and
mate, and that their trail that night was leading to their old home
under the windfall.

CHAPTER XVII

HIS SON

It happened that Kazan was to remember three things above all others. He
could never quite forget his old days in the traces, though they were
growing more shadowy and indistinct in his memory as the summers and the
winters passed. Like a dream there came to him a memory of the time he
had gone down to Civilization. Like dreams were the visions that rose
before him now and then of the face of the First Woman, and of the faces
of masters who--to him--had lived ages ago. And never would he quite
forget the Fire, and his fights with man and beast, and his long chases
in the moonlight. But two things were always with him as if they had
been but yesterday, rising clear and unforgetable above all others, like
the two stars in the North that never lost their brilliance. One was
Woman. The other was the terrible fight of that night on the top of the
Sun Rock, when the lynx had blinded forever his wild mate, Gray Wolf.
Certain events remain indelibly fixed in the minds of men; and so, in a
not very differe