Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/125

 merely scattered sluggishly to avoid him. Two or three he nipped severely. Their sudden, piteous bleats were not to be misunderstood. Then swift panic seized the flock, and they ran, frantically.

The young lambs, left sprawling and bleating behind, Bran ignored. They were too petty game for him. Moreover, he would not have touched them in any case. His murder lust could not carry him so low as that. He pranced among them wildly for a moment, just to give the quarry a start, and then, with bared fangs and eyes flaming green, he tore in pursuit.

The first that he overtook, a heavy ewe, he sprang upon like a wolf. Her knees gave way beneath her, her outstretched muzzle buried itself in the damp turf—and Bran tore her throat out as he had seen the grey dog do.

Then a strange thing happened to him. With none of the ecstasy of gratifying a mad craving, the taste of his victim's blood shocked him back to sanity. It was like a douche of iced water in his face. He stqod rigid, frozen, and stared about him like one awaking from a tremendous dream. That old wolf forbear of his had at last been glutted. The mad fire faded from his eyes. His fine tail drooped slowly, and at last went fairly between his legs, as a sense of intolerable and unpardonable guilt swept over him.