It was not the way of loose horses to
strike a steady, regular gait and hold it, and the even vibrations of a
shuffling trail trot beat through all other sounds and warned him that a
horseman was near.

Men grossly underestimate the keen physical senses of the animal world,
being loath to credit them with finer sense perceptions than those
possessed by man, dulled by countless centuries of disuse. A coyote can
scent the tracks left by a bird long hours past; the smell of fresh
blood is hot in his nostril a full half-mile downwind while the nose of
man could scarce detect it at a distance of two feet. His ears, attuned
to receive the delicately shaded tone inflections of coyote converse,
catch vibrations of sound far too fine to make the least impression on
the ears of man. And it is through these sense impressions that animals
are warned at distances which men believe impossible without the aid of
some subtle intuition or sixth sense. They speak of these things as
animal instinct and let it go at that.

In addition to this Breed had many other ways of protection at his
command; he usually knew of the approach of man long before the direct
message reached him over the paths of his own physical senses,--this
from his vast knowledge of the ways of animals and birds and his ready
understanding of their widespread systems of communications. Their
actions frequently put him on guard before his own senses apprised him
of the actuality of the danger.

These things, coupled with his own habits and backed by coyote
intelligence, made Breed an animal most difficult to stalk.

Collins knew the wolf habit of bedding on a rise of ground. He knew too
that the dog who turns round and round before lying down is not merely
chasing his tail but instead is exhibiting a relic of his wild
ancestors' way of rising frequently from his bed and turning to look off
in all directions before resuming it. Day after day Collins swept the
range with powerful glasses and through his knowledge and persistence he
located Breed at last.

Breed lay on the crest of a knoll. Peg and Cripp were hunting in the
shallow basin below him and he watched with keen interest the diabolical
cunning of his two chief followers. Peg ranged in the open while Cripp
paralleled his course, moving along just behind the wave of a low ridge.
A long-eared jack rabbit bounced from his bed in front of Peg and fled
swiftly for a hundred yards, then halted to look back as he dis