The exhilarating element of danger in trap robbing, which appeals so
strongly to the coyote, held no fascination for Shady. She was vastly
trap-wise but used her knowledge solely for self-preservation. Every
scrap of meat on the range represented possible pain or death to her and
she found no sport in close investigation with its attendant risks. She
was entirely dependent upon Breed, feeling a sense of security in his
nearness, but weighed down by the vast unknown which seemed to close in
upon her whenever the 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 savagery, his bleak
outlook on life undiluted by a single ray of that humor which is so
evident in every act of the dog and the prairie wolf; and this
difference of temperament was reflected in his voice, apparent to the
ears of the animal world, apparent to Collins only in the different way
in which his subconscious mind reacted to his howl. Collins, having once
defined Breed's note, its sound so identical with that of the wolf howl
yet so dissimilar in the elusive feeling which accompanied it, had no
further doubt that he could thereafter identify Breed by his howl.
"You, Breed! I've got your number now," he said. "I could pick you out
from amongst a hundred wolves." This was merely a casual assertion, a
self-congratulation over having solved the puzzle, and the Coyote
Prophet made it without a thought that the day would ever come when he
might have opportunity to file it among prophecies fulfilled.
The wolf howl affected Shady in a similar way, its stark savagery
clashing discordantly with the dog strain in her. She felt the grating
along her spine, and the hair rose with it. There was an air of
expectancy among the coyotes. Heads were raised between mouthfuls and
all eyes were repeatedly turned toward the hills. It was the first time
that Shady had heard the cry of one of the big gray hunters. She noted
the tension among her new friends without reading its portent. Of them
all, Breed seemed the only one unaffected. One by one the coyotes left
the feast, then the remaining few sidled hurriedly away as a huge dog
wolf moved swiftly across the flat. His pace slowed as he neared the
kill and he halted ten feet away, his quivering nose taking stock of the
two who fed there.
Shady's long run through the sage had whipped her soft fur full of sage
dust, its sharp scent nearly obliterating the conglomerate smell of the
cabin which usually clung to her. The reek of coyote scent and fresh
blood that permeated the spot still further concealed it, and though the
wolf caught the peculiar odor he could not trace its source to her
without closer inspection. He was hungry and advanced to the meat,
tearing off huge bites and gulping them down till the wire edge of his
hunger was appeased, then sidled cautiously round the steer to nose the
mating she-wolf. As he neared her his eyes peered over her at Breed.
That foreign odor which he had noted he now traced to Shady, but having
once accepted her it did not trouble him. Shady flinched away from him
and Breed's lips writhed up and cupped away from his ivory fangs. There
was no mistaking the snarl that accompanied this baring of his teeth and
the gray wolf moved back to the opposite side of the steer.
Thereafter both wolves ate sparingly and each watched for the least
hostile move in the other. The coyote pack ringed in close, awaiting the
departure of the timber wolf. He frequently turned his head and favored
the closer ones with a baleful stare, the move always accompanied by a
flattening of his ears, and the ones so fixed by his appraising eye
shrank deeper into the sage. Each time this occurred his head swung
abruptly back toward Breed.
Shady feared and hated the wolf. If she thought of him in human words
she would have given him the name of Flatear, and with good reason. In
coyote, fox and wolf the ears are even more expressive than the eyes. A
wolf's ears work when he sleeps, one of them inclining toward the least
sound that reaches him. When awake his ears seem to work automatically
in conjunction with nose and eyes, tipping sharply forward and turning
in the direction of any strange object or questionable scent that
excites his curiosity. And the flattening of the ears is indicative of
his mood, preceding even the snarl, their backward angle an accurate
gauge of his intent. It seemed to Shady that the big wolf's ears were
chronically laid as he regarded Breed. She was unversed in the ways of
her wild kinsfolk and could not know that the yellow wolf and the gray
were sparring for the advantage of the first blow in the savage fight
that would soon be waged for the right of proprietorship,--herself as
the prize.
Both wolves centered their attention on the main issue and waited only
for an opening. Shady and the restless coyotes out in the sage were
forgotten, each wolf conscious only of his foe. Those others mattered
not at all, for there were certain known laws which all past experience
had proved unalterable. She-wolves showed small concern over the clashes
of rival males; coyotes never fought with their big gray cousins, and
there were no other wolves about. The issue was squarely up to them.
Each time that Breed appeared off guard for a split second the gray wolf
laid his ears, the involuntary betrayal of muscles tensing for the fatal
spring; and Breed's own flattening ears each time evidenced his
readiness to counter. Shady sensed the enmity between them without
knowing the inevitable result. Her mode of fighting was the impulsive
way of the dog, the act almost simultaneous with the desire, and this
protracted, cold-blooded calculation was new to her.
Breed gave an opening at last, turning and reaching for a bite of meat,
and exposing the unprotected side of his neck. Flatear struck for it
without a sound, driving straight across the steer with all his weight
behind the gleaming rows of teeth. Breed dropped flat and as his enemy
swept over him he swung his head up and sidewise in a terrible slash
that tore an ugly rent in the gray wolf's paunch. They whirled face to
face,--and both were treated to a series of tremendous surprises which
shattered all previous convictions.
Shady harked back to the ways of her domestic ancestors, to the custom
of dashing into a neighborhood dog fight and mauling the one strange dog
in the lot, regardless of sex,--and Breed had been her friend long
before he had become her mate. Flatear was the one strange dog to Shady,
and he found himself assailed by a screeching fury who fought without
care or caution, her sole aim being to sink her teeth in any available
part of him. As he leaped away from this unnatural she-wolf he was met
by a second surprise. The coyote pack had learned to strike when the
leader struck. Peg flashed round a sage and laid open his flank, and as
he whirled to face this new enemy Cripp slashed him from behind. Three
coyotes darted past Breed and before he had recovered from the shock of
the surprise his enemy had fled.
Flatear did not flee from fear but from an overwhelming sense of the
whole world gone mad, the shattering of tradition and the overthrow of
natural laws. The chaos in his mind sent him flying from this insane
place within six seconds after his first attack. A mating she-wolf had
been transformed into a she-fiend and in the same second he had been
mobbed by coyotes. No doubt he believed with Collins that strange things
had come to pass of late in the ranks of the coyote tribe. Flatear
headed back for the hills out of which he had come, and as he ran his
bewilderment crystallized into a consuming hatred for the strange yellow
wolf, the hybrid beast who had upset the established order of things. He
did not know that Breed himself had been so nearly paralyzed with sheer
astonishment that he had not joined the attack.
The coyotes settled once more to the enjoyment of their interrupted
banquet. Breed little realized that he had made a mortal enemy, one who
would not merely attempt to deprive him of his mate during the running
moon as would any other unattached dog wolf, but one whose enmity was
for the individual and who had marked him for the slaughter when next
they met, regardless of time or season.