was set and one that was sprung and
harmless.

The clank of the trap chain delayed his attack. He feared that the thing
which clamped his enemy's foot might leap out and seize his own. The
killer circled his victim, and the yellow wolf turned round and round in
the same spot, keeping his bared fangs toward his foe. The trap chain
kinked and twisted till it gave him less than a foot of play. Only his
insane hatred of Breed led Flatear to brave his horror of that sound of
grating steel,--but he came in close at last, crouched and sprang. Breed
leaned sharply to one side and met him with a side slash of teeth but
the weight of his enemy threw him and he felt the killer's teeth cut
cleanly into his shoulder and slide along the bone. Flatear reversed his
snap so swiftly that it seemed but a double swing of his head, yet the
second swing drove his teeth along Breed's neck and laid open a six-inch
gash. As Breed struggled to his feet the wolf's fangs sliced at his
throat and ripped it open but not deep enough to kill. A loop of the
kinked trap chain was tightened on Flatear's toes by Breed's convulsive
backward dodge, and a ghastly fear that he himself was trapped swept
through him, transcending even the lust to kill the yellow wolf. He made
one wild leap for safety,--and the tightening kink cracked his toes and
threw him, the same lurch dragging Breed down with him, and they rolled
into a furious tangle of clashing teeth and rattling steel.

Out in the night the coyotes were moving in from all directions in
answer to the call Breed had sent out ten seconds before the steel jaws
gripped him. Shady was trotting leisurely up to the saddle to meet her
lord and mate,--the mate whose life was flowing out through a score of
ugly rents. Breed's strength was ebbing fast, and he no longer had the
power to put killing force behind his teeth. Flatear snapped aimlessly,
his mind half crazed by that fearsome pinching of the chain on his toes.
He felt it loosen and slip off, and he leaped clear of the spot.

A shape moved over the edge of the saddle and the next instant Shady
drove straight at the gray assassin, raging as she came, the dog in her
boiling to the surface. Before she reached him a yellow streak split the
night and Peg's teeth crunched on the wolf's hind leg, the little
coyote's deadly silence contrasting queerly with Shady's fighting
shrieks.

The big wolf fled from this combined attack, one hind leg sagging as he
ran, the