[CHAPTER I. A Rift in the Lute]
[CHAPTER II. The Mark of the Beast]
[CHAPTER III. As it Was in the Beginning]
[CHAPTER IV. In the Midst of Alarums]
[CHAPTER V. "Her Heart Won't Be Broke None"]
[CHAPTER VI. The Man and the Woman]
[CHAPTER VII. Belshazzar]
[CHAPTER VIII. The Passing of a Cloud]
[CHAPTER IX. In Part Payment]
[CHAPTER X. That Which Is Cæsar's]
[CHAPTER XI. Frenzied Finance]
[CHAPTER XII. Not Strictly According To Program]
[CHAPTER XIII. A Laugh in the Night]
[CHAPTER XIV. A Fair Field and No Favors]
[CHAPTER XV. Great Expectations]
[CHAPTER XVI. The Song of the Wolf]
[CHAPTER XVII. The Frowning Goddess Smiles]
[CHAPTER XVIII. In the House of Potiphar]
[CHAPTER XIX. Mutual Assistance]
[CHAPTER XX. A Passage at Arms]
[CHAPTER XXI. The Widening Chasm]
[CHAPTER XXII. The Renunciation]
[CHAPTER XXIII. Belshazzar Comes Back To Stay]
"When a man gets through playin' thu goat he gin'rally feels some obligated to act the sheep foh a spell, so's to even up thu deal."
Red McVey
THE SONG OF THE WOLF
CHAPTER I
A RIFT IN THE LUTE
Everything else was in harmony. If the sky turquoise was a shade or two paler than the prescribed robin's-egg, it blended perfectly with the unpronounced greens of the sprouting grass and the uncertain olive of the budding sagebrush. On the crest of the distant divide a silver-gray wreath of aspens lay against the tawny cheek of the mountain as daintily as an otter-fur collarette on the neck of a girl. Even the darker girdle of spruce and pine, lower down, lost its harsh individuality, merging insensibly into the faded umbers, sepias, lavenders and tans of the graduating background where the rocks and buckbrush fell away to the open slopes beneath.
On the vega below, the alkaline scars, as yet uncalcined by the sun's fires into glaring chalkiness, gave no offense in their moist neutrality, and the coyote slinking dejectedly among the deserted prairie-dog mounds was, in his ash-colored surtout, as inconspicuous as the long wan shadows cast by the weak spring sun. In the hollow of the foothill's arm lay a little lake, fed by a brook born in heights so remote that its purl was deduced rather than heard, and over all lay the soft glow of the fading twilight, accentuated by the subtle incense of the young year's breath.