hed paw suddenly touched yielding earth. He scratched
gently along the edge of this softened spot; a claw scraped some solid
substance and the moonlight glinted on a point of naked steel. Breed
pushed his paw beneath it and gently lifted till half of a deadly
four-pound trap showed above the dust. He looked long at it, then veered
past it to the bait; and the young coyote edged in from the other side.
Breed's feet did not shift an inch as he tore a mouthful from the meat,
but the young coyote across from him strained to drag the whole of it
from the spot. It was wired solidly to a stake and he shifted far to
either side in his vain efforts to dislodge it. There was a hissing
grate of loosened springs and the young coyote felt the bone-shattering
snap of a trap as it closed on his foot. Breed whirled and leaped ten
feet away, from which point he watched the struggles of his ill-fated
friend. In his desperate struggles to free himself the young coyote
leaped clear across the meat and the trap that Breed had unearthed
closed on another foot. Breed circled uneasily round the spot, powerless
to help the coyote that was stretched full length between two traps, yet
he lingered till an hour before dawn.

This experience quickened old fears in Breed. Memories of past horrors,
long dormant but not forgotten, welled up out of his mind to increase
his caution, and fresh pangs were added by similar discoveries on each
succeeding night. The whole range seemed studded with fearsome traps and
the odor of stale meat was borne on every breeze. There were few nights
when he did not find some animal fast in one of these man-made snares.
Each new victim acted differently, according to the characteristics of
its kind. Breed found a badger in a trap and the animal ceased his
struggle long enough to wrinkle his nose and hiss at Breed with a thick
snakelike sound. The badger's forepaws were more than twice the size of
his hind feet, and were fitted with heavy two-inch claws, while those of
the hind feet measured but half an inch. He was caught by one hind foot,
leaving the powerful spading forks of the forepaws free to work. He had
always found safety by burrowing in the ground and so now, in his last
extremity, he turned to digging and plowed every inch of the surface
within reach. He settled on one spot at last and burrowed from sight.
Breed watched the heaving dirt till it ceased to move as the badger
settled comfortably in fancied security,