Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/15

 “There goes the balance of your family, pup,” said Moran. “You’re an orphan now.”

Kinney, leading two pack horses from which dangled the remains of the rest of the wolf family, was just disappearing in the direction of his camp and the last den of loboes in the badlands had fallen victims to the ranchmen’s bounty war.

The father was a mighty lobo, almost a packload for one horse; the mother was a half-breed, crossed between a coyote and a dog. The rifled den had yielded a freakish lot of pups, as if each clashing strain of ancestry had struggled to perpetuate its own. One was a fluffy, yellow, coyote pup; two a strange mixture of wolf and dog; while the fourth was a blue-gray Scotch sheep dog, with shaggy face and a white splash on the breast. The one which Moran held between his knees was pure lobo from tip to tip. Only in his yellow coyote eyes did a trace of off color strain crop out.

“You’re the prize pup of the lot,” said Moran. “How about it, old fellow? Are you going to make friends with me?”

For answer the lobo pup writhed around in his wrappings and made one swift slash at his captor’s face.

“You’re a game little youngster and as quick as