Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/186

 swept away, stretching up to the parent divide, a myriad canyon heads dropping away from it. Fives miles along it, one among hundreds, the canyons which sheltered the cabin headed against this same ridge.

Flash knew the habits of men. They would be camped in the valley below along some one of the stream beds. It was not their custom to camp on ridges or away from water. He stopped, undecided whether to drop down and continue his hunt or to follow the ridge back to the cabin. His was not the mind of man, the mind which reasons out a plan of action and follows it tenaciously to the end; therefore he did not have the continuity of purpose that is solely the heritage of man. Only along certain lines, the few great natural laws that sway the flesh, was he capable of long sustained concentration, When hunger pressed him he hunted tirelessly for food. When in danger his mind was wholly concerned with escaping it. In the mating moon of his tribe he would listen to its call, the urge of the season keeping ever uppermost in his mind as he searched for a she wolf with whom to mate; and always there was running like a guiding thread through all other thoughts his great love for Betty and Moran. Every animal