Badlands Billy 
Dogs with men to back them. He was not 
walking, but tottering upward; the Dogs be- 
hind in line, were now doing a little better, 
were nearing him. We could hear them gasp- 
ing; we scarcely heard them bay —they had no 
breath for that; upward the grim procession 
went, circling a spur of the Butte and along a 
ledge that climbed and narrowed, then dropped 
for a few yards to a shelf that reared above 
the canon. The foremost Dogs were closing, 
fearless of a foe so nearly spent. 
Here in the narrowest place, where one 
wrong step meant death, the great Wolf turned 
ana faced them. With fore-feet braced, with 
head low and tail a little raised, his dusky mane 
/ a-bristling, his glittering tusks laid bare, but ut- 
VA / , tering no sound that we could hear, he faced the 
j ; crew. His legs were weak with toil, but his 
/ neck, his jaws, and his heart were strong, 
/ | and—now all you who love the Dogs had better 
| close the book—on—up and down—fifteen to 
| one, they came, the swiftest first, and how it 
was done, the eye could scarcely see, but even 
| as a stream of water pours on a rock to be 
splashed in broken jets aside, that stream of 
on 160 
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