alone among them and had caught the Message of the Wilderness. His sky
was the cold, sinister sky of "The Last Stand"--but it was colder, more
sinister, for it was night. A young moon hung low in the west, its face
half hidden behind a rift of scurrying snow clouds. The tiny basin was
shadowy and vague, the cut-bank a black wall touched here and there by
a quivering shaft of light.

There was no threatening cow with lowered horns and watchful eye;
there was no panic-stricken calf to whip up her flagging courage
with its trust in her.

The wolves? Yes, there were the wolves--but there were more of them.
They were not sitting in a waiting half circle--they were scattered,
unwatchful. Two of them in the immediate foreground were wrangling
over a half-gnawed bone. The rest of the pack were nosing a heap
pitifully eloquent.

As before, so now they tricked the eye into a fancy that they lived.
One could all but hear the snarls of the two standing boldly in the
moonlight, the hair all bristly along the necks, the white fangs
gleaming between tense-drawn lips. One felt tempted to brace oneself
for the rush that was to come.

For two days Chip shut himself in his room and worked through the long
hours of daylight, jealous of the minutes darkness stole from him.

He clothed the feast in a merciful shade which hid the repugnance
and left only the pathos--two long, sharp horns which gleamed in the
moonlight but were no longer threatening.