28 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
over to Softfur and her cub. Both lay still on 
the rocks. He licked them again and again. 
They were dead. Swiftfoot lifted his muzzle to- 
ward the blue horizon and howled. 
There came an answering whine from up the 
mountain. He changed his tone abruptly, and 
the second cub came creeping back. It was a she 
cub, a little, part-grown Softfur. It was all that 
was left of his pack. It would grow up and be 
his mate when the spring came round again. 
Something inside of Swiftfoot made him lick the 
cub, with his bloody tongue. It drew close to 
him, with a whine like a little dog, after it had 
sniffed the dead body of its mother. Swiftfoot 
tore off a piece of dog meat and offered it food. 
That night he moved south along the range, 
the cub following him, after a good deal of urging 
and some physical coercion. The place was get- 
ting too hot, and he longed for some peaceful for- 
est where men and their hated dogs—hated 
doubly because they were really renegade wolves 
who had submitted to the slavery of the man crea- 
ture—did not know of his presence, and he could 
hunt in peace. For two nights he traveled, part 
