Meanwhile the great wolf dog, The Ghost, more wolf indeed than dog, had fled through the night without pause. In his mind all was a sad jumble. He had fled from the call of his master for a good and definite reason. He had seen clearly from the beginning that it was the will of the master that he become kind to men and the creatures of men.
That scent, which he loathed and dreaded the most, the scent of man, so keen in the wind and so strong under foot, making the hair of all beasts of prey prickle and ruff up, that very scent, according to the apparent will of the master, was the thing which should make The Ghost kindly to those who possessed it. Their servants he must not kill; themselves he must regard with awe.
Therefore he fled through the night at his best long-distance pace. He discovered ere long that his muscles were not what they had once been. He had done no real running in the company of Bull Hunter. To one who could kill, eat full, sleep, and do an easy fifty miles, all within the space of twenty-four hours, what was a paltry thirty miles a day, at the end of which he was fed by the master? The pads of his feet were soft. His wind was not sound. The story of the trail, told in a hundred and a thousand scents, was dim and often almost illegible, for his nostrils had been clogged and dulled by the soot of camp fires. Decidedly he was not his old self.
One thing was certain: The dogs would not accept him, and Bull Hunter would not accept the wolves. Between wolf and man he must take his choice, and he hunted now for his kind. Many a word came to his nostrils of rabbit and chipmunk and birds and coyotes and foxes, and once he followed for half a dozen miles a promising scent, only to find at the end of the trail a little prairie wolf which fled madly at his coming.
The Ghost turned upwind in disgust from such a quarry. He gave himself a mile or two of terrific running to make him forget the shame of his mistake, and at the end of it, without warning scent, he dropped suddenly upon the thing he sought.
Half a dozen lobos fed on the carcass of two new-slain calves, in which the life was still hot. The moon was a dim sickle cutting through the trees on the peak above. By its uncertain light The Ghost viewed his fellows and was glad at heart. He dropped upon his haunches and gave voice to the hunting call which had more than once passed, wailing and shivering, through the mountains and made apprehensive ranchers reach for their rifles and curse the darkness which screened the marauder. But far better was it known to the other big loafer wolves. More than one had felt his teeth, and there were few of the others who had not seen him fight. One bay was enough to send the six wolves in the hollow, leaping away from their meat, apprehensive and on the alert.
The Ghost looked on with immense satisfaction, and having stared his full and seen that not one of the band dared go back to its food, until his orders were known, he dropped down into the hollow at a lazy jog trot.
When he came near he saw that there were three youngsters, two females and a scarred old veteran of a leader. Few loafer wolves could gather a pack to themselves, but this one-eared hero, in his strength and wisdom, had proved the exception. He made a pace forward from his companions as The Ghost came to a halt over the first carcass and stared about him. But the forward step of the leader was not a challenge. It was merely a feeble attempt to assert his dignity in the eyes of his followers, and knowing that, The Ghost despised a fight which would have been murder. Besides, he was too wise to battle for pleasure, knowing full well that the weakest yearling wolf may ruin the fiercest of his elders by a lucky bite that severs a tendon.
However, it was well to assert his mastery, even with the weak. It might be his pleasure to lead this pack, and, if that proved to be his will, he might as well begin now. A hungry yearling ventured toward the second carcass. The Ghost sent him back with a terrible snarl. Only the veteran of many a wild fight could know the art of such a snarl. The yearling leaped back with his tail between his legs, and The Ghost sauntered carelessly toward the body of the second dead calf.
He had barely reached it when a low-pitched snarl from the old leader made him stop, quivering. For that whining snarl of fear and rage meant, in wolf talk, man. The Ghost jerked his head to one side, but the wind carried to his nostrils only the pure scent of the grass and the trees. He glanced back at the others and started in astonishment.
They had formed in a loose semicircle, “One Ear” in the center, with a female on either side, and on the flanks were the yearlings. They moved slowly forward, crouching low to the ground, with necks and heads stretched straight out, their noses pointing toward him; and now from every throat came that same whining snarl which meant man.
The Ghost glared in astonishment. Was it possible that they were about to attack him en masse, as wolves attack a dog? He settled back as if for a leap, and at once the six divided and crouched lower, but they still advanced. He sent his longest and greatest hunting cry, ringing and filling the hollow. But though they paused until the last echo died away, the advance began again the next moment.
Then he understood. It was the scent of man that lingered on him. More than that perhaps, he had learned from his society with man the ways of a dog. With fear and rage The Ghost watched that silent advance of his fellows.
Suddenly one of the she-wolves coughed and darted at him to catch his flank. The Ghost sprang high and far. His aim was not the she-wolf, but the cunning old leader who had kept discreetly in the background. High over him sprang The Ghost. It was a trick he had learned in his youth in a battle with a terrible old wolfhound, which nearly cost him his life, for the hound had the art of vaulting above an enemy and snapping as he shot by, an improvement on the old wolf method of cutting from the side.
It worked now like a charm. The teeth of The Ghost sank into the back of One Ear’s neck, and the shock spun The Ghost straight over in mid-air, before his teeth tore loose, yet he landed on his feet, and he landed running. To make one attack in the face of any odds was the part of valor. To run with all his might from six hostile members of his own kind was the part of extreme wisdom, and The Ghost was wise.
The yearlings, who are sprinters par excellence, nearly caught him in the first two hundred yards, but after that he drew smoothly away. One Ear himself was too badly hurt to follow, and the she-wolves quickly lost interest. In a mile the pursuit ended, and The Ghost drew down his pace to the tireless lope.
He had escaped a great danger, he had inflicted a severe wound without return, and that, in the wolf code, is the greatest happiness. But in spite of his triumph, the heart of The Ghost was aching. He had been outcast by his brothers!
He reached the buildings of a squatter a few miles farther on, pitifully small sheds in the midst of the wilderness of mountains. Here, in a little outer corral, he found a sleek young two-year-old colt asleep. The Ghost leaped the fence and then paused to grin at the simplicity of the thing. It needed only one soft growl to waken the colt and bring him in terror to his feet, still blind with sleep. Then he could dive under and cut the throat of the horse with a bite.
Pausing to enjoy the thing in prospect, The Ghost cleansed his fur, then circled the colt slowly. The stupid creature was so deep in sleep that The Ghost could sniff within a fraction of an inch of his hide without alarming him. And still he delayed the snarl that was to rouse the victim for the slaughter. He sat down on his haunches with lolling tongue and pondered. It was strange, this reluctance to kill. Continually in the back of his brain was the thought of black Diablo and the many games that they had played together. Of course it had been most perfect when the master had played with them. He knew how to direct the game. In truth those had been happy days!
But he was an outcast from them. He had fled from the master’s voice, and having once offended, he would never be accepted again. Even so, he was also an outcast from the society of other wolves. Then what place remained to him?