Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-01-22

Gray Wolf had come down TO drink
ENpeCtantly and confidently he looked
about MIN for Gray Wolf whining softly,
and WaEging his tail He began to search
Tor her scent. but rains had washed even
her footprints from the clean sand All
that day he searched for her along the
llNer ana out on the | lain. He went to
where they had killed thC.r last rabbit
lie shifted at the buyhcs where the poison
bats had hung. Again and again he sat
back on his launches and sent ont his
matt. : cry to her. And slowly. as he did
these things, nature was workiu i'm him
that miracle Of the wild which the Creos
have named the spirit call" As ii had
worked in Gray Wolf. 50 now II stirred
the blood of kazan. With the going Of
the sun and tie sNr rnpin about him of
shadowy night, he turned more and more
to the south and cast His whole world
was made up of the trails over which he
had hunted. Beyond those placcs he did
not know that there was such thing as
existence And I'm that world small IN his
understanding of things, was GRAY Wolf
lie could not miss her That world in
his comprehension OF it. ran from the
McFarlaue I'm a marrow rail through the
forests and over the plains to the little
valley from which the AYERS had driven
them. If Gray Wolf was not hcre-sne
was there, aud tirclessly resumed his
VN'SN OF OtI.
Not until the stars were fading out Of
the sky again, and gray day was giving
place to night, did exhaustion and hunger
stop him. He killed a rabbit and for
hours after he had feasted he lay close
to his kill and slept Then he went on.
The fourth night he came to the little
valley between the two ridges and under
the stars. more brilliant now i'm the chill
clearncss of the early autumn nights, he
followed the creek down into their old
swamp home 1t was broad day when he
reached the edge Of the great beaver
pond that now completely surrounded the
windfall under which Gray Wolfs second
born had come into the world. Broken
Tooth and the other beavers had wrought
big change In what had once been his
home and Gray VOLTS and for many
minutes Kazan stood silent and notion
less at the edge of the pond. smiling the
air heavy with the unpleasant odor of
the usurpers. Guti now his spirit had re-
maincd unhrokcu. FoOtsorc, with thinned
sides and gaunt head, he Circlcd slowly
through the swamp All that day he
searched, And his crest lay Hat now,
and there was a hunted look in the droop
of his shoulders and in the shifting look
of his eyes. Gray Wolf was gone.
Slowly nature was impinging that fact
upon him. She had passed out of his
world and out of his life, and he was
filled with loneliness and "A grief so
great that the forest seemed strange, and
the stiffness of the wild thing that
now oppressed and frightened him. once
more the dog in him was mastering the
wolf. With Gray Wolf he had possessed
the world of freedom, Without her, that
world was so big and strange and empty
that it appalled, him. Late I'm the after
noon he came upon little pile of
crushed clam shells on the shore OF the
stream H. shifted At thcm-turned
away-went back, and shifted again. 1t
was where Gray Wolf had made a last
feast In the swamp before continuing
south. But the scent she had left behind
was not strong enough to tell kazan, and
for "A second time he turned away, That
night he skunk under log, and cried
himself to sleep, Deep in the night he
greved in his uneasy slumbcr. like
child.
CONTINUED MONDAY.