The Yellow Horde

by Hal G. Evarts

And when Breed, instead of cringing away, struck at him with every ounce of his ninety pounds, Flatear was unprepared. He had started his spring and Breed's counter drive was aimed so low that his chest skimmed the ground. Flatear slashed savagely downward but the yellow wolf's head was well under him, and even as Flatear's teeth grazed Breed's shoulder his forward sweep was checked in mid-air as powerful jaws closed on a foreleg with a sickening crunch of bones. The opposing weights of both wolves pivoted on that one leg, and in addition to the fracture Flatear's whole side and shoulder were wrenched clear to his spine.

There was an uneasy movement among the spectators, now numbering more than a score, wolves and coyotes for the first time in history mingling to witness the settling of a personal feud. Peg now sat down contentedly, his tongue lolling out in a satisfied grin.

Breed's tactics changed and he wheeled round his disabled enemy with lightning feints; then his shoulder struck Flatear with a solid smash that crumpled him and he went down with Breed's teeth at his windpipe. His end was of the sort which he himself had handed to so many others,—and the new range was safe for coyotes.

The silent spectators were startled by a faint whining sound. This whimpering grew louder and the wolves slunk away but the coyote pack remained. Breed's sudden hunt for Flatear had caught Shady unprepared, but she had finally cut his trail and was following it to the spot.

For three months Breed saw no more of wolves, and when next he did see them the beasts were white. He had led the pack to the basin of the Copper River at the edge of the Arctic Circle. Their travels were over, and they now ranged a limited area of less than a hundred miles in extent. Except that no high hills flanked their new home, its features were much like the old. There were no longer any days and nights, but a seemingly endless period of varying degrees of twilight, and the rolling hills were deep with snow.

Breed had met many new animals since leaving the land of the Yellowstone; he had known moose and goats in British Columbia, caribou on the barrens and the iron-gray sheep at the head of the Nelson. Now there were strange shaggy beasts with hair that hung nearly to the ground, and they came out of the north in small droves, the white wolves traveling on the flanks of the herds. He found musk ox easy prey and there was no lack of meat.

A few days after the first of these appeared Breed and Shady topped a ridge and saw the one thing necessary to make the image of the old home complete. A light twinkled some half a mile away, as Breed and Shady had so often seen the lights of Collins' cabin. Shady whined as she looked at it and Breed raised his voice and howled. As if in answer to the howl a shrill whistle floated to them and Shady at once slipped from Breed's side and headed for the fire.

Collins had turned back from the fabled gold fields, heartsick for the sight of his native foothills, disgusted with the Arctic night and a flat white world, and with two companions he had braved the terrors of a winter journey and headed into the south. They traveled light, supplies for three packed on a single sled, drawn by six dogs. Food had run low and for a week they had been forced to subsist on starvation rations; one more day and they would have killed a dog,—and then they crossed the trail of a musk ox herd. There was now food in plenty but Collins' mental exhaustion did not vanish with returning physical strength. He was obsessed with the idea that he would never see the sagebrush hills again and his companions could not rouse him.

They fastened the dogs in a clump of dwarfed spruce and built a small fire on the downwind side of the trees.

The old wolfer sat huddled in his furs before the fire, dreading to enter the little tent to crawl into his sleeping bag alone with his thoughts; for the white madness was driving its iron into his soul and striking at his reason. His mind coined queer white couplets; the white wolf pack and the white ice pack,—a whole world shrouded in white night.