Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1915-11-25

grass close to her forepaws, and she
snapped at it, and closed her teeth OF
a rock. The muscles of her shoulder:
twitched TREMENDOUSLY and she shlver
ed as if stricken by intense cold she
was terrified by the darkness that shut
out the world from her, and she paw
ed at her closed'eyes. as If she might
open them to light. Early in the after
noon she wandered back On the plain
It was different. 1t frightened her, and
| soon she returned to the beach, and
snuggled down under the tree where
| Kazan had lain She was not brighten
ed here. The smell of Kazan was
strong about her. For an hour she
lay motionless, with her head resting
on the club clotted with his hair and
blood. Night found her still there.
And when the moon and stars came
out she crawled back into the pit in
the white sand that Kazan's body had
made under the tree.
With dawn she went down to the
edge of the stream to drink She
could not see that the day was almost
as dark as night, and that the gray
black sky was chaos Of slumberlng
storm. But she could smell the pres
ence of it in the thick air, and could
feel the forked flashes of lightning that
rolled up with the dense pail from the
south and west The distant rumbling
of thunder grew louder and she hud-
died herself again under the tree. For
hours the storm crashed over her, and
the rain fell in deluge When 1t
had finished she skunk out from her
shelter like a thing beaten. Vainly she
sought for one last scent of Kazan.
The club was washed clean. Again the
sand was white where Kazan's blood
had Redeemed it. Even under the tree
there was no sign of him left.
Until now only the terror of being
alone in the pit of darkness that envel-
oped her had oppressed Gray Wolf.
With afternoon came hunger 1t was
this hunger that drew her from the
sand bar, and she wandered back into
the plain. A dozen times she scented
game and each time it evaded her.
Even ground mouse that she cor
nered under root, and dug out with
her paws, escaped her fangs.
Thirty-six hours before this kazan
and Gray Wolf had left half Of their
last kill mile or two farther back
on the plain. The kill was one of the
big barren rabbits, and Gray Wolf
turned in its direction. She did not
require sight to find 1t! In her was
developed to its finest point the sixth
sense of the animal kingdom, the sense
of orientation, and as straight as
pigeon might have winged it's flight
she cut through the bush to the spot
where they had cached the rabbit. A
white fox had been there ahead of her
and she found only scattered bits OF
hair and fur. What the fox had left
the moosebirds and bush jays had car
ried away. Hungrily Gray Wolf turned
back to the river
That night she slept again where Ka-
ian had lain, and three times she call
ed for him without answer. A heavy
dew fell, and it drenched the last YES
t1ge of her mates scent out of the sand
But still through the day that followed
and the day that followed that, blinN
Gray Wolf chung to the narrow rim OF
white sand. On the fourth day her
hunger reached point where she
gncwed the bark from willow bushes.
1t was on this day that she made
discovery. She was drinking when her
sensitive nose touched something in
the waters edge that was smooth, and
bore faint odor of flesh. 1t was one
of the big northern river clans. She
paved it ashore, shifting at the hard
shell. Then she crunched it between
her teeth. She had never tasted sweet
er meat than that which she found in
side, and she began hunting for other
clans. She found many of them, and
ate until she was no longer hungry.
For three days more she remained on
the bar.
And then, one night. the call came to
her. 1t set her quivering with
strange new excitement - something
that may have been new hope. and
in the moonlight she trotted nervously
up and down the shining strip of sand,
facing now the north, and now the
south, and then the east and the west
- her head flung up, listening, as If
in the soft wind of the night she was
trying to locate the whispering lure
of a wonderful voice. And whatever
it was that came to her came from
out of the south and east. Off there
across the barren. far beyond the outer
edge of the northern timber line -
was home. And off there, in her brute
way, she reasoned that she must find
Kazan. The call did not come from
their old windfall home in the swamp.
It came from beyond that, and in a
flashing vision there rose through her
blindness picture of the towering Sun
Rock, of the winding trail that led to
It. and the cabin on the plain. It was
here that blindness had come to her.
t was there that day had ended and