Kazan by James Oliver Curwood
page 41 of 213 (19%)
page 41 of 213 (19%)
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remains of an old camp, Kazan's teeth were bared in snarling hatred of
the man-scent that had been left behind. Growing in him there was a desire for vengeance--vengeance for his own hurts, and for Gray Wolf's. He tried to nose out the man-trail under the cover of fresh snow, and Gray Wolf circled around him anxiously, and tried to lure him deeper into the forest. At last he followed her sullenly. There was a savage redness in his eyes. Three days later the new moon came. And on the fifth night Kazan struck a trail. It was fresh--so fresh that he stopped as suddenly as though struck by a bullet when he ran upon it, and stood with every muscle in his body quivering, and his hair on end. It was a man-trail. There were the marks of the sledge, the dogs' feet, and the snow-shoeprints of his enemy. Then he threw up his head to the stars, and from his throat there rolled out over the wide plains the hunt-cry--the wild and savage call for the pack. Never had he put the savagery in it that was there to-night. Again and again he sent forth that call, and then there came an answer and another and still another, until Gray Wolf herself sat back on her haunches and added her voice to Kazan's, and far out on the plain a white and haggard-faced man halted his exhausted dogs to listen, while a voice said faintly from the sledge: "The wolves, father. Are they coming--after us?" The man was silent. He was not young. The moon shone in his long white beard, and added grotesquely to the height of his tall gaunt figure. A girl had raised her head from a bearskin pillow on the sleigh. Her dark eyes were filled beautifully with the starlight. She was pale. Her hair |
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