BROWN WOLF

SHE had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass, in order to put on

her overshoes, and when she emerged from the house found her

waiting husband absorbed in the wonder of a bursting almond-bud.

She sent a questing glance across the tall grass and in and out

among the orchard trees.

"Where's Wolf?" she asked.

"He was here a moment ago." Walt Irvine drew himself away with a

jerk from the metaphysics and poetry of the organic miracle of

blossom, and surveyed the landscape. "He was running a rabbit the

last I saw of him."

"Wolf! Wolf! Here Wolf!" she called, as they left the clearing

and took the trail that led down through the waxen-belled manzanita

jungle to the county road.

Irvine thrust between his lips the little finger of each hand and

lent to her efforts a shrill whistling.

She covered her ears hastily and made a wry grimace.

"My! for a poet, delicately attuned and all the rest of it, you can

make unlovely noises. My ear-drums are pierced. You outwhistle -

"

"Orpheus."

"I was about to say a street-arab," she concluded severely.

"Poesy does not prevent one from being practical - at least it

doesn't prevent ME. Mine is no futility of genius that can't sell

gems to the magazines."

He assumed a mock extravagance, and went on:

"I am no attic singer, no ballroom warbler. And why? Because I am

practical. Mine is no squalor of song that cannot transmute

itself, with proper exchange value, into a flower-crowned cottage,

a sweet mountain-meadow, a grove of red-woods, an orchard of

thirty-seven trees, one long row of blackberries and two short rows

of strawberries, to say nothing of a quarter of a mile of gurgling

brook. I am a beauty-merchant, a trader in song, and I pursue

utility, dear Madge. I sing a song, and thanks to the magazine

editors I transmute my song into a waft of the west wind sighing

through our redwoods, into a murmur of waters over mossy stones

that sings back to me another song than the one I sang and yet the

same song wonderfully - er - transmuted."

"O that all your song-transmutations were as successful!" she

laughed.

"Name one that wasn't."

"Those two beautiful sonnets that you transmuted into the cow that

was accounted the worst milker in the township."

"She was beautiful - " he began,

"But she didn't give milk," Madge interrupted.

"But she WAS beautiful, now, wasn't she?" he insisted.

"And here's where beauty and utility fall out," was her reply.

"And there's the Wolf!"

From the thicket-covered hillside came a crashing of underbrush,

and then, forty feet above them, on the edge of the sheer wall of

rock, appeared a wolf's head and shoulders. His braced fore paws

dislodged a pebble, and with sharp-pricked ears and peering eyes he

watched the fall of the pebble till it struck at their feet. Then

he transferred his gaze and with open mouth laughed down at them.

"You Wolf, you!" and "You blessed Wolf!" the man and woman called

out to him.

The ears flattened back and down at the sound, and the head seemed

to snuggle under the caress of an invisible hand.

They watched him scramble backward into the thicket, then proceeded

on their way. Several minutes later, rounding a turn in the trail

where the descent was less precipitous, he joined them in the midst

of a miniature avalanche of pebbles and loose soil. He was not

demonstrative. A pat and a rub around the ears from the man, and a

more prolonged caressing from the woman, and he was away down the

trail in front of them, gliding effortlessly over the ground in

true wolf fashion.

In build and coat and brush he was a huge timber-wolf; but the lie

was given to his wolfhood by his color and marking. There the dog

unmistakably advertised itself. No wolf was ever colored like him.

He was brown, deep brown, red-brown, an orgy of browns. Back and

shoulders were a warm brown that paled on the sides and underneath

to a yellow that was dingy because of the brown that lingered in

it. The white of the throat and paws and the spots over the eyes

was dirty because of the persistent and ineradicable brown, while

the eyes themselves were twin topazes, golden and brown.

The man and woman loved the dog very much; perhaps this was because

it had been such a task to win his love. It had been no easy

matter when he first drifted in mysteriously out of nowhere to

their little mountain cottage. Footsore and famished, he had

killed a rabbit under their very noses and under their very

windows, and then crawled away and slept by the spring at the foot

of the blackberry bushes. When Walt Irvine went down to inspect

the intruder, he was snarled at for his pains, and Madge likewise

was snarled at when she went down to present, as a peace-offering,

a large pan of bread and milk.

A most unsociable dog he proved to be, resenting all their

advances, refusing to let them lay hands on him, menacing them with

bared fangs and bristling hair. Nevertheless he remained, sleeping

and resting by the spring, and eating the food they gave him after

they set it down at a safe distance and retreated. His wretched

physical condition explained why he lingered; and when he had

recuperated, after several days' sojourn, he disappeared.

And this would have been the end of him, so far as Irvine and his

wife were concerned, had not Irvine at that particular time been

called away into the northern part of the state. Riding along on

the train, near to the line between California and Oregon, he

chanced to look out of the window and saw his unsociable guest

sliding along the wagon road, brown and wolfish, tired yet

tireless, dust-covered and soiled with two hundred miles of travel.

Now Irvine was a man of impulse, a poet. He got off the train at

the next station, bought a piece of meat at a butcher shop, and

captured the vagrant on the outskirts of the town. The return trip

was made in the baggage car, and so Wolf came a second time to the

mountain cottage. Here he was tied up for a week and made love to

by the man and woman. But it was very circumspect love-making.

Remote and alien as a traveller from another planet, he snarled

down their soft-spoken love-words. He never barked. In all the

time they had him he was never known to bark.

To win him became a problem. Irvine liked problems. He had a

metal plate made, on which was stamped: RETURN TO WALT IRVINE,

GLEN ELLEN, SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. This was riveted to a

collar and strapped about the dog's neck. Then he was turned

loose, and promptly he disappeared. A day later came a telegram

from Mendocino County. In twenty hours he had made over a hundred

miles to the north, and was still going when captured.

He came back by Wells Fargo Express, was tied up three days, and

was loosed on the fourth and lost. This time he gained southern

Oregon before he was caught and returned. Always, as soon as he

received his liberty, he fled away, and always he fled north. He

was possessed of an obsession that drove him north. The homing

instinct, Irvine called it, after he had expended the selling price

of a sonnet in getting the animal back from northern Oregon.

Another time the brown wanderer succeeded in traversing half the

length of California, all of Oregon, and most of Washington, before

he was picked up and returned "Collect." A remarkable thing was

the speed with which he travelled. Fed up and rested, as soon as

he was loosed he devoted all his energy to getting over the ground.

On the first day's run he was known to cover as high as a hundred

and fifty miles, and after that he would average a hundred miles a

day until caught. He always arrived back lean and hungry and

savage, and always departed fresh and vigorous, cleaving his way

northward in response to some prompting of his being that no one

could understand.

But at last, after a futile year of flight, he accepted the

inevitable and elected to remain at the cottage where first he had

killed the rabbit and slept by the spring. Even after that, a long

time elapsed before the man and woman succeeded in patting him. It

was a great victory, for they alone were allowed to put hands on

him. He was fastidiously exclusive, and no guest at the cottage

ever succeeded in making up to him. A low growl greeted such

approach; if any one had the hardihood to come nearer, the lips

lifted, the naked fangs appeared, and the growl became a snarl - a

snarl so terrible and malignant that it awed the stoutest of them,

as it likewise awed the farmers' dogs that knew ordinary dog-

snarling, but had never seen wolf-snarling before.

He was without antecedents. His history began with Walt and Madge.

He had come up from the south, but never a clew did they get of the

owner from whom he had evidently fled. Mrs. Johnson, their nearest

neighbor and the one who supplied them with milk, proclaimed him a

Klondike dog. Her brother was burrowing for frozen pay-streaks in

that far country, and so she constituted herself an authority on

the subject.

But they did not dispute her. There were the tips of Wolf's ears,

obviously so severely frozen at some time that they would never

quite heal again. Besides, he looked like the photographs of the

Alaskan dogs they saw published in magazines and newspapers. They

often speculated over his past, and tried to conjure up (from what

they had read and heard) what his northland life had been. That

the northland still drew him, they knew; for at night they

sometimes heard him crying softly; and when the north wind blew and

the bite of frost was in the air, a great restlessness would come

upon him and he would lift a mournful lament which they knew to be

the long wolf-howl. Yet he never barked. No provocation was great

enough to draw from him that canine cry.

Long discussion they had, during the time of winning him, as to

whose dog he was. Each claimed him, and each proclaimed loudly any

expression of affection made by him. But the man had the better of

it at first, chiefly because he was a man. It was patent that Wolf

had had no experience with women. He did not understand women.

Madge's skirts were something he never quite accepted. The swish

of them was enough to set him a-bristle with suspicion, and on a

windy day she could not approach him at all.

On the other hand, it was Madge who fed him; also it was she who

ruled the kitchen, and it was by her favor, and her favor alone,

that he was permitted to come within that sacred precinct. It was

because of these things that she bade fair to overcome the handicap

of her garments. Then it was that Walt put forth special effort,

making it a practice to have Wolf lie at his feet while he wrote,

and, between petting and talking, losing much time from his work.

Walt won in the end, and his victory was most probably due to the

fact that he was a man, though Madge averred that they would have

had another quarter of a mile of gurgling brook, and at least two

west winds sighing through their redwoods, had Wait properly

devoted his energies to song-transmutation and left Wolf alone to

exercise a natural taste and an unbiassed judgment.

"It's about time I heard from those triolets", Walt said, after a

silence of five minutes, during which they had swung steadily down

the trail. "There'll be a check at the post-office, I know, and

we'll transmute it into beautiful buckwheat flour, a gallon of

maple syrup, and a new pair of overshoes for you."

"And into beautiful milk from Mrs. Johnson's beautiful cow," Madge

added. "To-morrow's the first of the month, you know."

Walt scowled unconsciously; then his face brightened, and he

clapped his hand to his breast pocket.

"Never mind. I have here a nice beautiful new cow, the best milker

in California."

"When did you write it?" she demanded eagerly. Then,

reproachfully, "And you never showed it to me."

"I saved it to read to you on the way to the post-office, in a spot

remarkably like this one," he answered, indicating, with a wave of

his hand, a dry log on which to sit.

A tiny stream flowed out of a dense fern-brake, slipped down a

mossy-lipped stone, and ran across the path at their feet. From

the valley arose the mellow song of meadow-larks, while about them,

in and out, through sunshine and shadow, fluttered great yellow

butterflies.

Up from below came another sound that broke in upon Walt reading

softly from his manuscript. It was a crunching of heavy feet,

punctuated now and again by the clattering of a displaced stone.

As Walt finished and looked to his wife for approval, a man came

into view around the turn of the trail. He was bare-headed and

sweaty. With a handkerchief in one hand he mopped his face, while

in the other hand he carried a new hat and a wilted starched collar

which he had removed from his neck. He was a well-built man, and

his muscles seemed on the point of bursting out of the painfully

new and ready-made black clothes he wore.

"Warm day," Walt greeted him. Walt believed in country democracy,

and never missed an opportunity to practise it.

The man paused and nodded.

"I guess I ain't used much to the warm," he vouchsafed half

apologetically. "I'm more accustomed to zero weather."

"You don't find any of that in this country," Walt laughed.

"Should say not," the man answered. "An' I ain't here a-lookin'

for it neither. I'm tryin' to find my sister. Mebbe you know

where she lives. Her name's Johnson, Mrs. William Johnson."

"You're not her Klondike brother!" Madge cried, her eyes bright

with interest, "about whom we've heard so much?"

"Yes'm, that's me," he answered modestly. "My name's Miller, Skiff

Miller. I just thought I'd s'prise her."

"You are on the right track then. Only you've come by the foot-

path." Madge stood up to direct him, pointing up the canyon a

quarter of a mile. "You see that blasted redwood? Take the little

trail turning off to the right. It's the short cut to her house.

You can't miss it."

"Yes'm, thank you, ma'am," he said. He made tentative efforts to

go, but seemed awkwardly rooted to the spot. He was gazing at her

with an open admiration of which he was quite unconscious, and

which was drowning, along with him, in the rising sea of

embarrassment in which he floundered.

"We'd like to hear you tell about the Klondike," Madge said.

"Mayn't we come over some day while you are at your sister's? Or,

better yet, won't you come over and have dinner with us?"

"Yes'm, thank you, ma'am," he mumbled mechanically. Then he caught

himself up and added: "I ain't stoppin' long. I got to be pullin'

north again. I go out on to-night's train. You see, I've got a

mail contract with the government."

When Madge had said that it was too bad, he made another futile

effort to go. But he could not take his eyes from her face. He

forgot his embarrassment in his admiration, and it was her turn to

flush and feel uncomfortable.

It was at this juncture, when Walt had just decided it was time for

him to be saying something to relieve the strain, that Wolf, who

had been away nosing through the brush, trotted wolf-like into

view.

Skiff Miller's abstraction disappeared. The pretty woman before

him passed out of his field of vision. He had eyes only for the

dog, and a great wonder came into his face.

"Well, I'll be damned!" he enunciated slowly and solemnly.

He sat down ponderingly on the log, leaving Madge standing. At the

sound of his voice, Wolf's ears had flattened down, then his mouth

had opened in a laugh. He trotted slowly up to the stranger and

first smelled his hands, then licked them with his tongue.

Skiff Miller patted the dog's head, and slowly and solemnly

repeated, "Well, I'll be damned!"

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said the next moment "I was just s'prised

some, that was all."

"We're surprised, too," she answered lightly. "We never saw Wolf

make up to a stranger before."

"Is that what you call him - Wolf?" the man asked.

Madge nodded. "But I can't understand his friendliness toward you

- unless it's because you're from the Klondike. He's a Klondike

dog, you know."

"Yes'm," Miller said absently. He lifted one of Wolf's fore legs

and examined the foot-pads, pressing them and denting them with his

thumb. "Kind of SOFT," he remarked. "He ain't been on trail for a

long time."

"I say," Walt broke in, "it is remarkable the way he lets you

handle him."

Skiff Miller arose, no longer awkward with admiration of Madge, and

in a sharp, businesslike manner asked, "How long have you had him?"

But just then the dog, squirming and rubbing against the newcomer's

legs, opened his mouth and barked. It was an explosive bark, brief

and joyous, but a bark.

"That's a new one on me," Skiff Miller remarked.

Walt and Madge stared at each other. The miracle had happened.

Wolf had barked.

"It's the first time he ever barked," Madge said.

"First time I ever heard him, too," Miller volunteered.

Madge smiled at him. The man was evidently a humorist.

"Of course," she said, "since you have only seen him for five

minutes."

Skiff Miller looked at her sharply, seeking in her face the guile

her words had led him to suspect.

"I thought you understood," he said slowly. "I thought you'd

tumbled to it from his makin' up to me. He's my dog. His name

ain't Wolf. It's Brown."

"Oh, Walt!" was Madge's instinctive cry to her husband.

Walt was on the defensive at once.

"How do you know he's your dog?" he demanded.

"Because he is," was the reply.

"Mere assertion," Walt said sharply.

In his slow and pondering way, Skiff Miller looked at him, then

asked, with a nod of his head toward Madge:

"How d'you know she's your wife? You just say, 'Because she is,'

and I'll say it's mere assertion. The dog's mine. I bred 'm an'

raised 'm, an' I guess I ought to know. Look here. I'll prove it

to you."

Skiff Miller turned to the dog. "Brown!" His voice rang out

sharply, and at the sound the dog's ears flattened down as to a

caress. "Gee!" The dog made a swinging turn to the right. "Now

mush-on!" And the dog ceased his swing abruptly and started

straight ahead, halting obediently at command.

"I can do it with whistles", Skiff Miller said proudly. "He was my

lead dog."

"But you are not going to take him away with you?" Madge asked

tremulously.

The man nodded.

"Back into that awful Klondike world of suffering?"

He nodded and added: "Oh, it ain't so bad as all that. Look at

me. Pretty healthy specimen, ain't I?"

"But the dogs! The terrible hardship, the heart-breaking toil, the

starvation, the frost! Oh, I've read about it and I know."

"I nearly ate him once, over on Little Fish River," Miller

volunteered grimly. "If I hadn't got a moose that day was all that

saved 'm."

"I'd have died first!" Madge cried.

"Things is different down here", Miller explained. "You don't have

to eat dogs. You think different just about the time you're all

in. You've never ben all in, so you don't know anything about it."

"That's the very point," she argued warmly. "Dogs are not eaten in

California. Why not leave him here? He is happy. He'll never

want for food - you know that. He'll never suffer from cold and

hardship. Here all is softness and gentleness. Neither the human

nor nature is savage. He will never know a whip-lash again. And

as for the weather - why, it never snows here."

"But it's all-fired hot in summer, beggin' your pardon," Skiff

Miller laughed.

"But you do not answer," Madge continued passionately. "What have

you to offer him in that northland life?"

"Grub, when I've got it, and that's most of the time," came the

answer.

"And the rest of the time?"

"No grub."

"And the work?"

"Yes, plenty of work," Miller blurted out impatiently. "Work

without end, an' famine, an' frost, an all the rest of the miseries

- that's what he'll get when he comes with me. But he likes it.

He is used to it. He knows that life. He was born to it an'

brought up to it. An' you don't know anything about it. You don't

know what you're talking about. That's where the dog belongs, and

that's where he'll be happiest."

"The dog doesn't go," Walt announced in a determined voice. "So

there is no need of further discussion."

"What's that?" Skiff Miller demanded, his brows lowering and an

obstinate flush of blood reddening his forehead.

"I said the dog doesn't go, and that settles it. I don't believe

he's your dog. You may have seen him sometime. You may even

sometime have driven him for his owner. But his obeying the

ordinary driving commands of the Alaskan trail is no demonstration

that he is yours. Any dog in Alaska would obey you as he obeyed.

Besides, he is undoubtedly a valuable dog, as dogs go in Alaska,

and that is sufficient explanation of your desire to get possession

of him. Anyway, you've got to prove property."

Skiff Miller, cool and collected, the obstinate flush a trifle

deeper on his forehead, his huge muscles bulging under the black

cloth of his coat, carefully looked the poet up and down as though

measuring the strength of his slenderness.

The Klondiker's face took on a contemptuous expression as he said

finally, "I reckon there's nothin' in sight to prevent me takin'

the dog right here an' now."

Walt's face reddened, and the striking-muscles of his arms and

shoulders seemed to stiffen and grow tense. His wife fluttered

apprehensively into the breach.

"Maybe Mr. Miller is right", she said. "I am afraid that he is.

Wolf does seem to know him, and certainly he answers to the name of

'Brown.' He made friends with him instantly, and you know that's

something he never did with anybody before. Besides, look at the

way he barked. He was just bursting with joy Joy over what?

Without doubt at finding Mr. Miller."

Walt's striking-muscles relaxed, and his shoulders seemed to droop

with hopelessness.

"I guess you're right, Madge," he said. "Wolf isn't Wolf, but

Brown, and he must belong to Mr. Miller."

"Perhaps Mr. Miller will sell him," she suggested. "We can buy

him."

Skiff Miller shook his head, no longer belligerent, but kindly,

quick to be generous in response to generousness.

"I had five dogs," he said, casting about for the easiest way to

temper his refusal. "He was the leader. They was the crack team

of Alaska. Nothin' could touch 'em. In 1898 I refused five

thousand dollars for the bunch. Dogs was high, then, anyway; but

that wasn't what made the fancy price. It was the team itself.

Brown was the best in the team. That winter I refused twelve

hundred for 'm. I didn't sell 'm then, an' I ain't a-sellin' 'm

now. Besides, I think a mighty lot of that dog. I've ben lookin'

for 'm for three years. It made me fair sick when I found he'd ben

stole - not the value of him, but the - well, I liked 'm like hell,

that's all, beggin' your pardon. I couldn't believe my eyes when I

seen 'm just now. I thought I was dreamin'. It was too good to be

true. Why, I was his wet-nurse. I put 'm to bed, snug every

night. His mother died, and I brought 'm up on condensed milk at

two dollars a can when I couldn't afford it in my own coffee. He

never knew any mother but me. He used to suck my finger regular,

the darn little cuss - that finger right there!"

And Skiff Miller, too overwrought for speech, held up a fore finger

for them to see.

"That very finger," he managed to articulate, as though it somehow

clinched the proof of ownership and the bond of affection.

He was still gazing at his extended finger when Madge began to

speak.

"But the dog," she said. "You haven't considered the dog."

Skiff Miller looked puzzled.

"Have you thought about him?" she asked.

"Don't know what you're drivin' at," was the response.

"Maybe the dog has some choice in the matter," Madge went on.

"Maybe he has his likes and desires. You have not considered him.

You give him no choice. It has never entered your mind that

possibly he might prefer California to Alaska. You consider only

what you like. You do with him as you would with a sack of

potatoes or a bale of hay."

This was a new way of looking at it, and Miller was visibly

impressed as he debated it in his mind. Madge took advantage of

his indecision.

"If you really love him, what would be happiness to him would be

your happiness also," she urged.

Skiff Miller continued to debate with himself, and Madge stole a

glance of exultation to her husband, who looked back warm approval.

"What do you think?" the Klondiker suddenly demanded.

It was her turn to be puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"D'ye think he'd sooner stay in California?"

She nodded her head with positiveness. "I am sure of it."

Skiff Miller again debated with himself, though this time aloud, at

the same time running his gaze in a judicial way over the mooted

animal.

"He was a good worker. He's done a heap of work for me. He never

loafed on me, an' he was a joe-dandy at hammerin' a raw team into

shape. He's got a head on him. He can do everything but talk. He

knows what you say to him. Look at 'm now. He knows we're talkin'

about him."

The dog was lying at Skiff Miller's feet, head close down on paws,

ears erect and listening, and eyes that were quick and eager to

follow the sound of speech as it fell from the lips of first one

and then the other.

"An' there's a lot of work in 'm yet. He's good for years to come.

An' I do like him. I like him like hell."

Once or twice after that Skiff Miller opened his mouth and closed

it again without speaking. Finally he said:

"I'll tell you what I'll do. Your remarks, ma'am, has some weight

in them. The dog's worked hard, and maybe he's earned a soft berth

an' has got a right to choose. Anyway, we'll leave it up to him.

Whatever he says, goes. You people stay right here settin' down.

I'll say good-by and walk off casual-like. If he wants to stay, he

can stay. If he wants to come with me, let 'm come. I won't call

'm to come an' don't you call 'm to come back."

He looked with sudden suspicion at Madge, and added, "Only you must

play fair. No persuadin' after my back is turned."

"We'll play fair," Madge began, but Skiff Miller broke in on her

assurances.

"I know the ways of women," he announced. "Their hearts is soft.

When their hearts is touched they're likely to stack the cards,

look at the bottom of the deck, an' lie like the devil - beggin'

your pardon, ma'am. I'm only discoursin' about women in general."

"I don't know how to thank you," Madge quavered.

"I don't see as you've got any call to thank me," he replied.

"Brown ain't decided yet. Now you won't mind if I go away slow?

It's no more'n fair, seein' I'll be out of sight inside a hundred

yards." - Madge agreed, and added, "And I promise you faithfully

that we won't do anything to influence him."

"Well, then, I might as well be gettin' along," Skiff Miller said

in the ordinary tones of one departing.

At this change in his voice, Wolf lifted his head quickly, and

still more quickly got to his feet when the man and woman shook

hands. He sprang up on his hind legs, resting his fore paws on her

hip and at the same time licking Skiff Miller's hand. When the

latter shook hands with Walt, Wolf repeated his act, resting his

weight on Walt and licking both men's hands.

"It ain't no picnic, I can tell you that," were the Klondiker's

last words, as he turned and went slowly up the trail.

For the distance of twenty feet Wolf watched him go, himself all

eagerness and expectancy, as though waiting for the man to turn and

retrace his steps. Then, with a quick low whine, Wolf sprang after

him, overtook him, caught his hand between his teeth with reluctant

tenderness, and strove gently to make him pause.

Failing in this, Wolf raced back to where Walt Irvine sat, catching

his coat-sleeve in his teeth and trying vainly to drag him after

the retreating man.

Wolf's perturbation began to wax. He desired ubiquity. He wanted

to be in two places at the same time, with the old master and the

new, and steadily the distance between them was increasing. He

sprang about excitedly, making short nervous leaps and twists, now

toward one, now toward the other, in painful indecision, not

knowing his own mind, desiring both and unable to choose, uttering

quick sharp whines and beginning to pant.

He sat down abruptly on his haunches, thrusting his nose upward,

the mouth opening and closing with jerking movements, each time

opening wider. These jerking movements were in unison with the

recurrent spasms that attacked the throat, each spasm severer and

more intense than the preceding one. And in accord with jerks and

spasms the larynx began to vibrate, at first silently, accompanied

by the rush of air expelled from the lungs, then sounding a low,

deep note, the lowest in the register of the human ear. All this

was the nervous and muscular preliminary to howling.

But just as the howl was on the verge of bursting from the full

throat, the wide-opened mouth was closed, the paroxysms ceased, and

he looked long and steadily at the retreating man. Suddenly Wolf

turned his head, and over his shoulder just as steadily regarded

Walt. The appeal was unanswered. Not a word nor a sign did the

dog receive, no suggestion and no clew as to what his conduct

should be.

A glance ahead to where the old master was nearing the curve of the

trail excited him again. He sprang to his feet with a whine, and

then, struck by a new idea, turned his attention to Madge.

Hitherto he had ignored her, but now, both masters failing him, she

alone was left. He went over to her and snuggled his head in her

lap, nudging her arm with his nose - an old trick of his when

begging for favors. He backed away from her and began writhing and

twisting playfully, curvetting and prancing, half rearing and

striking his fore paws to the earth, struggling with all his body,

from the wheedling eyes and flattening ears to the wagging tail, to

express the thought that was in him and that was denied him

utterance.

This, too, he soon abandoned. He was depressed by the coldness of

these humans who had never been cold before. No response could he

draw from them, no help could he get. They did not consider him.

They were as dead.

He turned and silently gazed after the old master. Skiff Miller

was rounding the curve. In a moment he would be gone from view.

Yet he never turned his head, plodding straight onward, slowly and

methodically, as though possessed of no interest in what was

occurring behind his back.

And in this fashion he went out of view. Wolf waited for him to

reappear. He waited a long minute, silently, quietly, without

movement, as though turned to stone - withal stone quick with

eagerness and desire. He barked once, and waited. Then he turned

and trotted back to Walt Irvine. He sniffed his hand and dropped

down heavily at his feet, watching the trail where it curved

emptily from view.

The tiny stream slipping down the mossy-lipped stone seemed

suddenly to increase the volume of its gurgling noise. Save for

the meadow-larks, there was no other sound. The great yellow

butterflies drifted silently through the sunshine and lost

themselves in the drowsy shadows. Madge gazed triumphantly at her

husband.

A few minutes later Wolf got upon his feet. Decision and

deliberation marked his movements. He did not glance at the man

and woman. His eyes were fixed up the trail. He had made up his

mind. They knew it. And they knew, so far as they were concerned,

that the ordeal had just begun.

He broke into a trot, and Madge's lips pursed, forming an avenue

for the caressing sound that it was the will of her to send forth.

But the caressing sound was not made. She was impelled to look at

her husband, and she saw the sternness with which he watched her.

The pursed lips relaxed, and she sighed inaudibly.

Wolf's trot broke into a run. Wider and wider were the leaps he

made. Not once did he turn his head, his wolf's brush standing out

straight behind him. He cut sharply across the curve of the trail

and was gone.