Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/89



n hour before daylight Flash slipped up to the den. It was cold and silent. At sunrise of the previous day a rider had passed close to the den. Silver had run true to she-wolf form and departed with the pups as soon as he was out of sight. The day had been hot and had diffused and evaporated the scent of her trail. The night frost had finished blotting it out.

Flash had circled for miles in the effort to pick up the scent but could find no trace and there was no answer to his calls.

Far to the north Silver and the sturdy pups were traveling steadily, headed for the she wolf’s old hunting grounds from which the winter’s famine had driven her. Just at daybreak she turned on the crest of a divide and gazed back along her trail, then loosed one last wail for the mate who never came and journeyed on to the north.

Flash too, was starting for his old home—the BarT range. The third day he spent on the rim