where the descent was less precipitous, he joined them in the midst
of a miniature avalanche of pebbles and loose soil. He was not
demonstrative. A pat and a rub around the ears from the man, and a
more prolonged caressing from the woman, and he was away down the
trail in front of them, gliding effortlessly over the ground in
true wolf fashion.

In build and coat and brush he was a huge timber-wolf; but the lie
was given to his wolfhood by his color and marking. There the dog
unmistakably advertised itself. No wolf was ever colored like him.
He was brown, deep brown, red-brown, an orgy of browns. Back and
shoulders were a warm brown that paled on the sides and underneath
to a yellow that was dingy because of the brown that lingered in
it. The white of the throat and paws and the spots over the eyes
was dirty because of the persistent and ineradicable brown, while
the eyes themselves were twin topazes, golden and brown.

The man and woman loved the dog very much; perhaps this was because
it had been such a task to win his love. It had been no easy
matter when he first drifted in mysteriously out of nowhere to
their little mountain cottage. Footsore and famished, he had
killed a rabbit under their very noses and under their very
windows, and then crawled away and slept by the spring at the foot
of the blackberry bushes. When Walt Irvine went down to inspect
the intruder, he was snarled at for his pains, and Madge likewise
was snarled at when she went down to present, as a peace-offering,
a large pan of bread and milk.

A most unsociable dog he proved to be, resenting all their
advances, refusing to let them lay hands on him, menacing them with