Page:Weird tales v36n07 1942-09.djvu/20

18 not Joan Jordan, but a huge dog-like beast, white-furred from slim muzzle to graceful haunches. A wolf!

Mulvaney started to get up, a cry rising in his throat. The white wolf whipped around and plunged into the creek. Joan Jordan emerged, naked and dripping.

The breath whistled out of Mulvaney's lungs. Bad night. Seeing things. The girl touched his bare shoulder with a cool, wet hand.

"You see? Now you do it!"

She pulled him to his feet, pushed him to the water's edge. Mulvaney's senses swam. It was out of all reason. He wanted to back away and run. Then he saw Joan naked in the stream, dark water gurgling about white thighs. He plunged forward.

The white wolf galloped out on the bank. Kenneth Mulvaney pawed after her. He found footing in the mud, lunged toward shore.

A thousand scents he had never known before swarmed upon his consciousness. The night was bright with a new acuteness of vision. He threw back his head to laugh aloud in sheer joy of living. Sleek, gray muzzle lifted to the moon, and Kenneth Mulvaney howled as a wolf howls, fiercely, savagely, with the eternal sorrow and loneliness of the wolf-kind.

Then he romped with the white she-wolf. The sky was a field of blazing gems, the earth a garden of Paradise. But she quickly ended their play.

"We don't run alone here. The others are waiting. Bock will be angry."

Mulvaney trotted obediently at her flank. He wanted to stay and romp, but Bock Martin said the pack must run together.

"It was different before Bock came," the she-wolf told him. "We hunted deer in the mountains. Bock came from the Outside. He made himself our leader. He insists we attack cattleand men!"

"Men have guns," he said, bringing the thought into his wolf-brain with a vicious tug.

"We don't fear guns, Kenneth. Only silver. Silver kills our kind. Men know that. When they realize what we are, they can arm against us. That is our danger from men. Another is the day. Never let dawn find you in wolf-form.”

The she-wolf quickened her pace. On the other side of a low mound, they found the wolf-pack waiting. Mulvaney stood atop the knoll, strong wolf-legs braced, gray-furred ears cocked forward, and received their voiceless greeting.

A great black wolf rose crouching from the midst of the pack and slunk forward, belly hugging the ground. Despite the change in form, Mulvaney knew that this black beast was Bock Martin. The hackles lifted on his sturdy shoulders, and he growled ominously.

"Don't!" the she-wolf whispered. "It's Bock!"

The slinking black wolf glided nearer. Mulvaney crouched, heaving loins pressed against the cool earth. The gray-furred muzzle wrinkled hatefully. Deadly fangs glinted in the moonlight.

OCK MARTIN was evil. Mulvaney sensed that now as he never had before. Had he been older and wiser in the ways of the wolf-men, Bock Martin would not have mattered. But Kenneth Mulvaney had never committed an evil in his life. It was through no fault of his he was one of the were-people. The training of his years in the orphanage was strong within him.

With hate-filled eyes and the promise of death in his snarling jaws, he awaited the sneaking advance of the sable hound of Hell.

Mulvaney had the advantage of height. When he saw the beast crouching and trembling for the leap, he launched his body forward. The wolf-people stood by