he gap between them exceeded the span of one leap.
She would not touch any food other than that which he provided.

The coyotes clustered round the steer that Breed pulled down a few hours
after luring Shady from the cabin and she viewed them suspiciously,
warning them off by repeated growls. Peg and Cripp edged in to feed.
Shady's protest rose frenziedly and she raged at them but did not
attack, and the two old coyotes eyed her warily as they ate. She noted
that Breed accepted their presence and she quieted and patterned her
actions according to her mate's.

The rest of the pack came in. Her uneasiness persisted and for an hour
she ate but little, edging away from physical contact with those who
crowded about her. She pressed close to Breed's side and whirled to snap
at any coyote who attempted to wedge between them, but her suspicions
subsided as she found that these nips were never returned. Whenever a
dog coyote was inclined to make friendly advances to Shady a low growl
from Breed warned him from her side. The sense of strangeness, of having
been catapulted from a sheltered life into the midst of a growling mob,
wore off and Shady rapidly accustomed herself to these new conditions.

The feast was but half finished when the head of every coyote in the
pack was raised at once and the shuffling feet and grinding jaws were
stilled as a timber wolf howled from the slope of the Hardpan Spur. All
animal sounds were suspended till the last ripples of Breed's answering
cry died away; then lesser beasts, having preserved strict silence while
two mighty hunters spoke, resumed their own interrupted communications.

The Coyote Prophet heard the two cries, and that baffling quality in
Breed's voice was instantly clear to him, as was the reason why he had
never before been able to give it name. He had quested for the
difference with his ear,--and the difference lay in the feel of the
sound. Collins had felt the crawling of his flesh and the roughening of
his skin at the gray wolf's cry; for a man may hear that note every
night of his life and the wolf shiver will shake his frame the last time
it sounds as surely as it does the first. It is not fear; no man can
name it; but the wolf shiver is as inseparably linked with the wolf howl
as the involuntary gasp is linked with a dash of ice water on the spine.
And Collins knew that that quality was lacking in Breed's cry. The
personality of the gray wolf was marked by absolute savager