ravenous pack tore at the dead doe. After a little he came nearer, nosed
in between two of them, and was nipped for his intrusion.

As Kazan drew back, still hesitating to mix with his wild brothers, a
big gray form leaped out of the pack and drove straight for his throat.
He had just time to throw his shoulder to the attack, and for a moment
the two rolled over and over in the snow. They were up before the
excitement of sudden battle had drawn the pack from the feast. Slowly
they circled about each other, their white fangs bare, their yellowish
backs bristling like brushes. The fatal ring of wolves drew about the
fighters.

It was not new to Kazan. A dozen times he had sat in rings like this,
waiting for the final moment. More than once he had fought for his life
within the circle. It was the sledge-dog way of fighting. Unless man
interrupted with a club or a whip it always ended in death. Only one
fighter could come out alive. Sometimes both died. And there was no man
here--only that fatal cordon of waiting white-fanged demons, ready to
leap upon and tear to pieces the first of the fighters who was thrown
upon his side or back. Kazan was a stranger, but he did not fear those
that hemmed him in. The one great law of the pack would compel them to
be fair.

He kept his eyes only on the big gray leader who had challenged him.
Shoulder to shoulder they continued to circle. Where a few moments
before there had been the snapping of jaws and the rending of flesh
there was now silence. Soft-footed and soft-throated mongrel dogs from
the South would have snarled and growled, but Kazan and the wolf were
still, their ears laid forward instead of back, their tails free and
bushy.