Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/138

 imaginative minds of novices in the woods. Animals who had lived in localities little frequented by man had sometimes approached him out of curiosity. He had seen deer draw near and stamp excitedly at this strange two legged beast—many such evidences as that—but to be followed was something entirely new. To be followed by a wolf, the one creature who avoids man scent like a pestilence, was almost incredible to Moran. It upset all the convictions formed by years of study.

This beast must be a dog. Moran turned back until he reached a long drift that stretched far up the slope along the sheltered side of a gulch and started up to find the track where the wolf had crossed. The tracks of dogs and wolves are so similar that even experts can not always be sure. The wolf track is slightly, almost imperceptibly longer than that of some dogs but the large, wolfish types of dogs incline also to that shape of track.

One thing Moran knew. A wolf’s track would be evenly spaced and placed one directly before the other in a straight line and show no trace of the wavering, scrambling gait of the dog. But some of the wolfish breeds of dogs inherit this wolf gait and the one glimpse had proven that the animal was of that kind.