at this note Shady
laid her ears and growled.

The cheers and the hammering hoofs came closer and Breed fixed his eyes
on the edge of the flat bench spread out for half a mile before him. A
coyote spurted from the mouth of a draw off to the left of Breed's
position and raced across the flat. He was stretched out and running his
best, but before he had covered two hundred yards five great wolfhounds
poured out of the draw. They were slender and long-coupled, capable of
tremendous speed, and before the coyote passed below Breed the lead dog
was but a few lengths behind.

For the most part the dogs ran silently and wasted no breath in
senseless clamor, but occasionally one of them loosed an eager yelp, the
sound as thin and keen as his body. A dozen riders streamed across the
flat on furiously running horses, cheering as they came. The coyote
doubled to evade the snapping jaws of the foremost dog, and as he turned
another struck him. He rolled over twice, and when he gained his feet he
faced his enemies. He knew the game was up but he went down
fighting,--fighting against odds without a whine; and Breed watched five
savage dogs mauling a limp dead thing that ten seconds past had been his
valued friend. These strange beasts did not move off as the men rode up,
and Breed realized with a shock that the men did not ride with the
purpose of killing them; that they were leagued together and that the
dogs were the creatures of men the same as sheep and cows were their
property.

He stole down the far slope, keeping the high ground between himself and
the horsemen. Shady followed him closely, moving furtively and with many
backward glances, her tail tucked almost between her legs, and Breed,
accustomed to Shady's indifference to the approach of riders, wondered
at this sudden reversal of her usual ways.

But it was not the men that roused Shady's fear; above all other things
she feared and hated dogs. The few that had followed their masters to
Collins' house had always sensed the wild blood in her, and at the first
opportunity they had pounced on her with intent to kill. Shady had found
friends among the coyotes and had found only hostility among dogs.
Savagery is only relative, according to the views of the one who
pronounces upon it, and from Shady's experience she was right in her
judgment that the ultimate limit of savagery was reached only in the
dog.

The owner of the dog pack lived some ten miles from Collins and the