192 The King of the Thundering Herd 



To the herd he was a wolf, partly feared 

 and also despised. He had been a wolf to 

 the herd all these weary weeks. Often he 

 had been obliged to skulk for his life, but 

 occasionally too a dead calf had helped him 

 to subsist when he might otherwise have 

 gone hungry. Once a bunch of a dozen 

 bulls had surrounded him just as they did 

 sometimes with an old gray wolf, and the 

 poor dog had all but lost his life. Like a 

 death-circle they had closed in with lowered 

 heads and sledge-hammer hoofs, so close- 

 planted that the beleaguered dog could not 

 escape between them. When they had 

 come within striking distance, he had 

 sprung like a flash upon the back of the 

 nearest bull, and before the astonished 

 bison knew what had happened he had 

 bounded to the back of another, and with a 

 great jump had gained the outside of the 

 death-circle and escaped with his life. 



What a long, long, lonely hunt it had 



