Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/226

218 would have recalled but one creature on earth,—Spot himself. He had massive horns that could strike with resistless might, sturdy legs and little clinging hoofs that could scale the face of a precipice. A lone wolf wouldn't have cared to meet old Argali on a narrow trail. Only Broken Fang himself had prowess enough to conquer him in a fair fight,—and Broken Fang usually hunted in the woods far, far below Argali's range.

But the bighorn ram had memories also; and it was because of them that he took the narrow trail down into the valleys this mid-September night. The wind—a soft little breath that had stolen up from the hills where the flock fled—had brought him a message; and it carried him back to an autumn night of two seasons before, recalling certain stirring events that had occurred upon a distant mountain side.

It was wholly possible that Bill Elkins, a herder who the following spring had gone over to Fargo and his gang, could remember that night also. But he had no real knowledge of the strange mountain drama that had taken place. His only recollection of it concerned a long and weary climb after a little band of strays that had wandered from the main band of domestic sheep and which a wolf had chased far into the distant mountains.

He did not know of the dramatic meeting that had taken place on a far-away crag that was the