Baxter Springs news., 1917-07-26


Untn now only the terror OF being
alone In the pit Of darkness that en-
veloped her had oppressed Gray Wolf.
With afternoon came hunger. II 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 II evaded her,
Even n ground.mouse that she cor
nered under u root, and dug out with
her paws, escaped her fangs.
Thirty-slx hours before this Kazan
and Gray Wolf had left half Of their
last kill q 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 II. In her was
developed to Its finest point that sixth
sense Of the animal kingdom, the sense
OF Orientation, and AZ straight as q
pigeon might have winged Its 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 moose birds and bush Jays
had carried away. Hungrily Gray Wolf
turned back to the river.
That night she slept again where
Kazan had lain. and three times she
called for him without answer. A
heavy dew fell. and 1t drenched the
last yestige Of her mates scent out
Of the sand. But still through the
day that followed, and the day that
followed that. blind Gray Wolf clung
TO the narrow rim Of white sand. On
the fourth day her hunger reached q
point where she gnawed 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 "esh. II was one Of the big north
ern river clans. She paved II ashore,
shifting at the hard shell. Then she
crunched It between her teeth. She
had never tasted sweeter meat than
that which she found inside, 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. It set her quivering with q
strange new misunderstanding
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 II 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. on there
across the barren, far beyond the
outer edge of the northern timber line
was home. And of 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. 1t
came from beyond that, and in O fash
Ing vision there rose through her blind
ness picture of the towering Sun
Rock, Of the winding trail that led
to 1t, and the cabin on the plain. II
was there that blindness had come to
her. 1t was there that day had ended.
Aad eternal night had begun. And
It was there that she had mothered
her first-born. Nature had registered
these things so that they could never
be wiped out Of her memory, and when
the call came 1t was from the sunlit
world where she had last known light
and life and had last seen the moon
and the stars In the blue night Of the
skies.
And to that call she responded, leav-
Ing the river and Its food behind her
straight out into the face of darkness
and starvation, no longer fearing death
or the emptiness Of the world she
could not see; for ahead of her, two
hundred miles away, she could see the
Sun Rock, the winding trail, the nest
Of her first-bOrn between the two big
Kazan!
ITO be continuedl