Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/165

Rh ,—scarcely three miles from the camp and squarely across the ridge.

He got up and started on with the great hounds. At first they were curiously silent and alert. They did not frisk and run as in the first hour on the trail, and to a casual eye their excitement had died within them. For the moment they seemed perfectly under control. Yet Fargo watched them, wondering. They were moving with a peculiar stealth, and once the man caught the unmistakable glare of their yellow-green wolfine eyes in the moonlight.

At that instant Ben, the old pack leader, spoke in the silence. It was a sharp bay, and momentarily every dog stood lifeless. And then with a wild cry they darted into the shadows.

Fargo whistled frantically, but the pack didn't seem to hear. Their loud and savage bays obscured all sound. Oaths fell from the man's lips—sounds scarcely less savage than the bay of the dogs themselves—and at first he could see nothing but failure for his scheme.

It might be, however, that they were right and he was wrong. The dogs were not heading toward the sheep camp. But it was wholly possible that the flock had fed out far that day, had found another drinking place, and thus had not returned to the vicinity of Silver Creek; and the hounds were already on their trail. This theory had to include the death of the wounded shepherd dog, for the first instinct of the animal likely