ed fangs,--and it was noon once more, but the two old
coyotes stood before him in reality, their own noses wrinkled in snarls
which answered his menacing actions and warned him off. The same old
baffling wave which flooded Breed after each of these recurring dreams
engulfed him now. Peg and Cripp were as sane as himself, yet a moment
past they had been stricken before his very eyes. It had been very real,
and Breed started suddenly from the knoll and headed for the base of the
hills five miles away, nor did he stop until he was far back among their
sheltering ridges.

With the coming of the night he felt the loss of the two old coyotes who
had traveled with him for the past three weeks. They had been normal
when he saw them last and as this latter impression was the stronger he
knew that he would find them untouched by madness; yet the vividness of
the dream lingered with him and held him back from the low country. He
howled once and started on a solitary hunt through the hills. The cry
drifted faintly to the flats below and reached the ears of Cripp and
Peg. They started instantly in the direction from which it came.

The chain of hills in which Breed hunted was but an outcropping spur,
extending thirty miles eastward at right angles from the main bulk of
the hills, and he found no meat. The elk and deer were high up in the
parent range and would stay there until heavy snows drove them down to
winter in the valleys of the lower hills. Breed worked up the slope
until he reached the crest of the divide. He prowled along the bald
ridge, undecided which course to take, then whirled and faced back in
the direction from which he had come. Five miles below him a coyote had
raised his voice; another answered. By traveling steadily Cripp and Peg
had covered much ground since Breed's first cry of the night had reached
their ears and the two coyotes were ten miles within the first folds of
the hills and still seeking the yellow wolf, the leader of the pack.

Breed cupped his lips, his head stretched forth and his muzzle depressed
to a line slightly below the peak of his shoulders as he sent forth the
hunting cry to summon his loyal band. An hour later Cripp and Peg were
with him, the three of them swinging west along the divide toward the
rough mass of the main range of hills. Morning found them climbing
through a matted jungle of close-growing spruce and down-timber.

Breed chose a ridge that lifted above the trees and there c