The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1926-07-02
Chapter EX-Continued
wNU Service

and whined, and always he picked out
accurately the direction in which the
abin lay. But he did not turn back.
AS the night heightened, his search
for that mysterious something which
he had not found continued. His hun
ger, even with the fading-out of the
moon and the coming of the gray
dawn, was not sufficiently keen to
make him hunt for food.
1t was cold, and it seemed colder
when the glow of the moon and stars
died out. Under his padded feet, es-
pecially in the open spaces, was
thick. white frost in which he left
clearly at times the imprint of his
toes and claws. He had travelled
steadily for hours, great many miles
in all, and he was tired when the first
light of the day came. And then
there came the time when, with a sud-
den sharp click of his jaws, he stopped
like shot in his tracks.
At last it had come-the meeting
with that for which he had been seek
ing. With her head toward him, and
waiting for him as he came out Of the
shadows, his scent strong in her keen
nose, stood Maheegun, the young wolf.
Baree had not smelled her, but he saw
her directly he came out of the rim of
young balsams that fringed the open.
1t was then that he stopped, and for
full minute neither Of them moved
a muscle or seemed to breathe.
There was not fortnight's differ
ence in their age and yet Maheegun
was much the smaller of the two; her
body was as long, but she was slim
mer; she stood on slender legs that
were almost like the legs of fox, and
the curve of her back was that of
slightly bent bow, sign Of swiftness
almost equal to the wind. She stood
poised for flight even as Baree adj
vanced his first step toward her, and
then very slowly her body relaxed,
: and in direct ratio as he drew near
var her ears lost their alertness and
' dropped aslant.
Baree whined. His ears were up,
his head alert, his tail aloft and bushy.
Cleverness,. if not strategy, had al
ready become part of his masculine.
superiority, end he did not immedi-
ately press the affair. He was within
five feet of Maheegun when he cas-
ually turned away from her and faced
the east, where faint penciling Of
red and gold was heralding the day.
For few moments he shifted and
looked around and pointed the wind
with much seriousness, as though i'm
pressing on his fair acquaintance-as
many twO-legged animal has done
before him-his tremendous impor-
lance in the world at large.
And Maheegun was properly i'm
pressed. Baree's bluff worked as beau
tifully as the bluffs of the two-legged
animals.
He shifted the air with such thrill
ing and suspicious zeal that Mahee-
guns ears sprang alert, and she
shifted it with him; he turned his
head from point to point so sharply
and alertly that her feminine curios-
ity. if not anxiety, made herr turn her
own head in questioning conjunction.
And when Baree whined as though
in the air he had caught a mystery
which she could not possibly under
stand, a responsive note gathered in
her throat, but smothered and low as
a woman's exclamation when she is
not quite sure whether she should in
terrupt her lord or not. At this sound,
which Baree's sharp ears caught, he
swung up to her with a light and
mincing step. and in another moment
they were smelling noses.
When the sun rose, half an hour
eater, it found them still in the small
open on the side Of the ridge, with a
deep fringe of forest under them, and
beyond that wide, timbered plain
which looked like ghostly shroud in
It's mantle of frost. Up over this
came tie first red glow Of the day,
filing the open with warmth that
grew more and more comfortable as
the sun crept higher.
Neither Baree nor Maheegun were
inclined to move for. while, and for
an hour or two they lay basking in
cup of the slope, looking down with
questing and wideawake eyes upon the
wooded plain that stretched away I'M
der them like a great sea.
Maheegun, too, had sought the hunt
pack, and like Baree had failed to
catch it. They were tired, little dis
couraged for the time, and hungry
but still alive with the, fine thrill of
anticipation, and restlessly sensitive
to the new and mysterious conscious
ness of companionship. Half dozen
times Baree got up and nosed about
Maheegun as she lay in the sun, whin-
ing to her softly and touching her
soft coat with his muzzle, but for
long time she paid little attention to
him. At last she followed him. All
that day they wandered and rested
together. Once more the night came.
1t was without moon or stars. The
snow began to fall at dusk, thickly,