ften and
she saw him only at infrequent intervals; and there was a reason for
this flagging interest. Wolves and coyotes mate for life, or till one or
the other of a pair falls victim to the wiles of man. When once a pair
is broken the survivor will not take unto himself another mate till the
next running time of wolves. There were pairs of coyotes running
together in Breed's pack; there were also single she-coyotes and single
dogs, but while the mated ones were as devoted as ever before, these
single ones had only a general interest in the others, their attitude
uninfluenced by the lure of sex. And Shady, hampered by her relations
with man and so unable to follow Breed's leadership at will, exercised
less influence over him than either Peg or Cripp.

Breed killed abundantly, the coyotes picking the last morsel of each
victim before dawn. Often he killed twice in one night. Word had spread
that a breed-wolf had turned up on the range and was running with the
coyotes. Private rewards were added to the State bounty till a total of
two hundred dollars was posted as the price on his scalp. Every rider
kept a sharp lookout for the breed; yet so great was his caution that
except for that first day of his return, when Collins had seen him on
the rims, no man had set eyes on the yellow wolf.

Breed's watchfulness for traps and poison baits had waned from the fact
that he found none of either on the range, and he now gave them scarce a
thought. On the other hand his caution to avoid horsemen was quickened
from seeing many of them and his vigilance in that particular was never
relaxed. He chose his beds with care and he slept so lightly that the
least sound penetrated his consciousness and carried its message to his
brain. The shrill cachinnations of a prairie dog, the shriek of a
burrowing owl or the bawling of a range cow; any of these usual sounds
of the open failed to rouse him; but invariably he knew when a man was
dangerously near. If the menace was upwind and within reasonable
distance, his nose detected it. At times the creak of saddle leather
reached his ears or the sound of the horse's hoofs warned him.

This hoof reading was a curious thing. Breed could not tell why he knew
when a horse was ridden, but invariably he did. If walking, the feet of
an iron-shod horse struck pebbles and rocks with a metallic sound and
Breed was suspicious of all horses that wore shoes; but usually a rider
traveled at a steady trail trot.