the details was as different as possible from that the Mother Coyote
had, and yet it came to the same thing. He recognized that the Coyote's
bark was the voice of the distressed mother trying to call him away. So
he knew the brood must be close at hand, and all he now had to do was
return in the morning and complete his search. So he made his way back
to his camp.




XII.


Saddleback thought they had won the victory. He felt secure, because the
foot-scent that he might have supposed the man to be following would be
stale by morning. Tito did not feel so safe. That two-legged beast was
close to her home and her little ones; had barely been turned aside;
might come back yet.

The wolver watered and repicketed his Horse, kindled the fire anew, made
his coffee and ate his evening meal, then smoked awhile before lying
down to sleep, thinking occasionally of the little woolly scalps he
expected to gather in the morning.

He was about to roll up in his blanket when, out of the dark distance,
there sounded the evening cry of the Coyote, the rolling challenge of
more than one voice. Jake grinned in fiendish glee, and said: "There you
are all right. Howl some more. I'll see you in the morning."

It was the ordinary, or rather _one_ of the ordinary, camp-calls of the