d these things so that they could never
be wiped out of her memory, and when the call came it was from the
sunlit world where she had last known light and life and had last seen
the moon and the stars in the blue night of the skies.

And to that call she responded, leaving the river and its food behind
her--straight out into the face of darkness and starvation, no longer
fearing death or the emptiness of the world she could not see; for ahead
of her, two hundred miles away, she could see the Sun Rock, the winding
trail, the nest of her first-born between the two big rocks--_and
Kazan_!

CHAPTER XXV

THE LAST OF McTRIGGER

Sixty miles farther north Kazan lay at the end of his fine steel chain,
watching little Professor McGill mixing a pail of tallow and bran. A
dozen yards from him lay the big Dane, his huge jaws drooling in
anticipation of the unusual feast which McGill was preparing. He showed
signs of pleasure when McGill approached him with a quart of the
mixture, and he gulped it between his huge jaws. The little man with the
cold blue eyes and the gray-blond hair stroked his back without fear.
His attitude was different when he turned to Kazan. His movements were
filled with caution, and yet his eyes and his lips were smiling, and he
gave the wolf-dog no evidence of his fear, if it could be called fear.

The little professor, who was up in the north country for the
Smithsonian Institution, had spent a third of his life among dogs. He
loved them, and understood them. He had written a number of magazine
articles on dog intellect that had attracted wide attention among
naturalists. It was largely because he loved dogs, and understood them
more than most men, that he had bought Kazan and the big Dane on the
night when Sandy McTrigger and his partner had tried to get them to
fight to the death in the Red Gold City saloon. The refusal of the two
splendid beasts to kill each other for the pleasure of the three hundred
men who had assembled to witness the fight delighted him. He had already
planned a paper on the incident. Sandy had told him the story of Kazan's
capture, and of his wild mate, Gray Wolf, and the professor had asked
him a thousand questions. But each day Kazan puzzled him more. No amount
of kindness on his part could bring a responsive gleam in Kazan's eyes.
Not once did Kazan signify a willingness to become friends. And yet he
did not snarl at McGill, or snap at his hands when they came within