talked to him again, gesturing with her hands, and almost sobbing
under the stress of the emotion that possessed her. His elation
turned swiftly to the old dread as he watched the change in her
face. Apprehension--a grim certainty--gripped hold of him.
Something terrible had happened to her--a thing that had racked
her soul and that filled her eyes with the blaze of a strange
terror as she struggled to make him understand. And then she broke
down, and with a sobbing cry covered her face with her hands.

Out in the corral Philip heard Bram Johnson's laugh. It was a
mockery--a challenge. In an instant every drop of blood in his
body answered it in a surge of blind rage. He sprang to the stove,
snatched up a length of firewood, and in another moment was at the
door. As he opened it and ran out he heard Celie's wild appeal for
him to stop. It was almost a scream. Before he had taken a dozen
steps from the cabin he realized what the warning meant. The pack
had seen him and from the end of the corral came rushing at him in
a thick mass.

This time Bram Johnson's voice did not stop them. He saw Philip,
and from the doorway Celie looked upon the scene while the blood
froze in her veins. She screamed--and in the same breath came the
wolf-man's laugh. Philip heard both as he swung the stick of
firewood over his head and sent it hurling toward the pack. The
chance accuracy of the throw gave him an instant's time in which
to turn and make a dash for the cabin. It was Celie who slammed
the door shut as he sprang through. Swift as a flash she shot the
bolt, and there came the lunge of heavy bodies outside. They could
hear the snapping of jaws and the snarling whine of the beasts.
Philip had never seen a face whiter than the girl's had gone. She