pple, and the chase was on again. Another fifty yards and
Cripp leaped from behind a spruce trunk and struck gamely for a leg
hold. The flying speed of the buck jerked him clear of the ground, broke
the hold of his teeth and threw him end over end. But he had retarded
the deer for one half-second and the yellow wolf closed his jaws on a
leg with all the force he could throw into the drive. Breed too was
thrown, but the deer was turned again and running with less than half
his former speed, one hind leg powerless. Peg was angling across to turn
him still another time but Breed overhauled him first and slashed at the
other leg, and as the deer rolled downhill the three-legged coyote
dodged the churning hoofs and fastened on his throat.

Collins had journeyed far into the hills to replenish his supply of
meat. It was scarcely dark under the trees when he heard the breed-wolf
and two coyotes howl together,--thirty miles back in the heart of the
hills!

"There now!" he exclaimed. "I've been telling 'em right along that the
coyotes would take to the hills some day. Those breed-wolves--they'll
teach 'em to live in the hills."

When Breed had eaten his fill from the deer he headed back for the low
country. The effect of the mad dream was waning before the fact that Peg
and Cripp were with him in reality, sane and normal in every way. The
three of them were sluggish and heavy with meat and they traveled slowly
with frequent halts for sleep.

The following night Breed's howl sounded again in the foothills and a
score of coyotes answered him from far and near. The coyote tribe had
learned that when the yellow wolf prowled the range there would be fresh
beef for all. Each night the number of shadowy forms that padded through
the sage round his kills increased, waiting until the wolf should leave
and they could close in and finish it to the last mouthful. They grew
bolder from the fact that two of their own kind fed with Breed, and on
the first night after his return from the hills three others found
courage to come in and feed upon his kill before he left it. Within a
week he was accepted unreservedly as a member of the coyote clan.

Each succeeding evening Breed found more and more coyotes gathering
swiftly toward him at the first hunting cry of the night, spreading out
over a quarter-mile front and running with him on the chase, knowing
there would be meat in plenty at the end of the run.

Collins noted a curious change in