er they continued to circle. Where a few moments
before there had been the snapping of jaws and the rending of flesh
there was now silence. Soft-footed and soft-throated mongrel dogs from
the South would have snarled and growled, but Kazan and the wolf were
still, their ears laid forward instead of back, their tails free and
bushy.

Suddenly the wolf struck in with the swiftness of lightning, and his
jaws came together with the sharpness of steel striking steel. They
missed by an inch. In that same instant Kazan darted in to the side, and
like knives his teeth gashed the wolf's flank.

They circled again, their eyes growing redder, their lips drawn back
until they seemed to have disappeared. And then Kazan leaped for that
death-grip at the throat--and missed. It was only by an inch again, and
the wolf came back, as he had done, and laid open Kazan's flank so that
the blood ran down his leg and reddened the snow. The burn of that
flank-wound told Kazan that his enemy was old in the game of fighting.
He crouched low, his head straight out, and his throat close to the
snow. It was a trick Kazan had learned in puppyhood--to shield his
throat, and wait.

Twice the wolf circled about him, and Kazan pivoted slowly, his eyes
half closed. A second time the wolf leaped, and Kazan threw up his
terrible jaws, sure of that fatal grip just in front of the forelegs.
His teeth snapped on empty air. With the nimbleness of a cat the wolf
had gone completely over his back.

The trick had failed, and with a rumble of the dog-snarl in his throat,
Kazan reached the wolf in a single bound. They met breast to breast.
Their fangs clashed and with the whole weight of his body, Kazan flung
himself against the wolf's shoulders, cleared his jaws, and struck again
for the throat hold. It was another miss--by a hair's breadth--and
before he could recover, the wolf's teeth were buried in the back of
his neck.

For the first time in his life Kazan felt the terror and the pain of the
death-grip, and with a mighty effort he flung his head a little forward
and snapped blindly. His powerful jaws closed on the wolf's foreleg,
close to the body. There was a cracking of bone and a crunching of
flesh, and the circle of waiting wolves grew tense and alert. One or the
other of the fighters was sure to go down before the holds were broken,
and they but awaited that fatal fall as a signal to leap in to the
death.

Only the thickness of hair and hide on the