“The coyotes are here,” Grace informed her. “Don’t be alarmed. They cannot harm us if we keep together and don’t get panic-stricken.”
“Silence, please!” ordered White. “We will proceed. Pick your way.”
They had reached a point further on when the guide halted them.
“Look!” he said in a low tone of voice.
The Overlanders gazed on a scene such as they had never gazed upon before.
A pack of coyotes were milling and snarling at the carcass of the suspended bear. They were leaping and rending the bear’s flesh, springing upon each other in their frenzy, biting and tearing their fellows.
A long-drawn howl from the forest was followed by a chorus of yelps. The air seemed full of hoarse wails.
“Wolves!” announced the guide briefly. “You can talk now. Your voices can’t be heard by those beasts with all this uproar. How do you like it?”
“It is terrible!” murmured Elfreda.
“Perhaps, but that is the way, not only of the beasts, but of man, though man is more cruel. Life is a survival of the fittest. Look at the trees and you have the answer. The tall ones are the vigorous ones; the runts—”