staked everything on a fight, and when he felt well or a little better,
the stranger seemed to keep away.

Wahb soon found that the stranger's track was most often on the Warhouse
and the west slope of the Piney, the very best feeding-grounds. To avoid
these when he did not feel equal to fighting was only natural, and as he
was always in more or less pain now, it amounted to abandoning to the
stranger the best part of the range.

Weeks went by. Wahb had meant to go back to his bath, but he never did.
His pains grew worse; he was now crippled in his right shoulder as well
as in his hind leg.

The long strain of waiting for the fight begot anxiety, that grew to be
apprehension, which, with the sapping of his strength, was breaking
down his courage, as it always must when courage is founded on muscular
force. His daily care now was not to meet and fight the invader, but to
avoid him till he felt better.

Thus that first little retreat grew into one long retreat. Wahb had to
go farther and farther down the Piney to avoid an encounter. He was
daily worse fed, and as the weeks went by was daily less able to crush a
foe.

He was living and hiding at last on the Lower Piney--the very place
where once his Mother had brought him with his little brothers. The life
he led now was much like the one he had led after that dark day. Perhaps
for the same reason. If he had had a family of his own all might have
been different. As he limped along one morning, seeking among the barren
aspen groves for a few roots, or the wormy partridge-berries that were