Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/96

 was no longer a distinct longing for each of them personally, but was manifested only in the absolute need of companionship in some form.

He therefore lingered near Two Ocean Pass. The camp was no longer a phantom camp but very real. He avoided these men by day but when any one of them chanced to be abroad in the hills at night, Flash flanked his trail, testing him with nose and ear, much as a criminologist would have studied his facial characteristics and the shape of his head.

Food was scarce, and Flash foraged a precarious living, a scant half portion of his usual rations. An occasional snow-shoe rabbit or blue grouse were the only living things he found. He grew thin and gaunt, his flanks pinched up in odd contrast to the deep chest, and his eyes were sunk in hollowed sockets.

The days were warm and by the second week in May there were green patches showing through the white in the broad open meadows of the Thoroughfare and the Yellowstone, the hardy new grass peeping through within a few hours after the melting down of the drifts. Flash prepared to leave this country of loneliness and little meat.

He left Two Ocean Pass and when he came to