THE SHADOW OF THE DESERT 73 



driven deep down under the covers of the bed, 

 as the north wind went howling through the stiff 

 pines outside my window, or some neighbor's 

 dog sat baying at the moon. 



It matters little what happens to a boy after he 

 has finished " Robinson Crusoe " and closed the 

 covers of " Bad Lands Bill ; or. The Bucket of 

 Blood." It is too late for wolves after that. After 

 that he might be eaten alive by wolves without 

 knowing what was rending him. Years, growth, 

 knowledge, experience — what is it all but the 

 soul of childhood being clothed upon with clay ? 

 — the lolling, panting wolf-pack through the 

 timbered bottoms of the imagination taking shape 

 as a slinking coyote in the greasewood of the 

 desert? Blessed is the man who had packs of 

 wolves after him as a child, for his coyotes will 

 never become jackals and foxes, and if there is a 

 coyote in the desert he shall see a wolf! 



But any one might see a coyote here. The crea- 

 ture's tracks were plain in the sand. He lurked be- 

 hind every rise we topped, in every gully we cut, 

 beyond every flat we crossed. By and by we 

 fled through the caked and cracked bottom of 

 some evaporated alkali lake, rounded a low rim 



