and made the buttes around re-echo so that Jake could not tell where it
came from; but someone else there was that heard and did know whence it
came. The Dog's courage revived on hearing something like a far-away
shout. Again he sprang at the little one, but again the mother balked
him with her own body, and then they closed in deadly struggle. "Oh, if
Saddleback would only come!" But no one came, and now she had no further
chance to call. Weight is everything in a closing fight, and Tito soon
went down, bravely fighting to the last, but clearly worsted; and the
Hound's courage grew with the sight of victory, and all he thought of
now was to finish her and then kill her helpless baby in its turn. He
had no ears or eyes for any other thing, till out of the nearest sage
there flashed a streak of grey, and in a trice the big-voiced coward
was hurled back by a foe almost as heavy as himself--hurled back with a
crippled shoulder. Dash, chop, and staunch old Saddleback sprang on him
again. Tito struggled to her feet, and they closed on him together. His
courage fled at once when he saw the odds, and all he wanted now was
safe escape--escape from Saddleback, whose speed was like the wind,
escape from Tito, whose baby's life was at stake. Not twenty jumps away
did he get; not breath enough had he to howl for help to his master in
the distant hills; not fifteen yards away from her little one that he
meant to tear, they tore him all to bits.

And Tito lifted the rescued young one, and travelling as slowly as she
wished, they reached the new-made den. There the family safely reunited,
far away from danger of further attack by Wolver Jake or his kind.

And there they lived in peace till their mother had finished their
training, and every one of them grew up wise in the ancient learning of
the plains, wise in the later wisdom that the ranchers' war has forced
upon them, and not only they, but their children's children, too. The