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Hers answered proudly that, half-breed though she was, he was to her only a wolfer, of less interest than Black, the leader of her father's dog train. He picked up the key and left, wild thoughts whirling through his mind. He loved her. Of what use was it trying longer to disguise it from himself. Of the inferior blood she might be, yet his whole being went out to her in deep desire.
When she spoke there was the throb of contemptuous anger in her voice. "It's a great thing to be a man." "Like to crawfish, would you?" She swung on him, eyes blazing. "No. I don't ask any favors of a wolfer." She spat the word at him as though it were a missile. The term was one of scorn, used only in speaking of the worst of the whiskey-traders.
Thirty miles east along this Hardpan Spur was his home territory and he followed along the base of it. Not till within ten miles of Collins' cabin did he howl. The wolfer heard it, and again he had the feeling that he could almost name that peculiarity in Breed's note, but before he could give it expression the solution was slipping away from him as always before.
Wolfer has been successful in transplanting the mucous membranes of frogs, rabbits, and pigeons to a portion of mucous membrane previously occupied by cicatricial tissue, and was the first to show that on mucous surfaces, mucous membrane remains mucous membrane, but when transplanted to skin, it becomes skin.
The old wolfer sat huddled in his furs before the fire, dreading to enter the little tent to crawl into his sleeping bag alone with his thoughts; for the white madness was driving its iron into his soul and striking at his reason. His mind coined queer white couplets; the white wolf pack and the white ice pack, a whole world shrouded in white night.
Rumors of a gold strike sent men stampeding toward the fabled spot, a long journey to the north and east. Three parties crossed over the old trail past Collins' shack. The old wolfer caught the fever and followed the last of them. Before he left he made one last prophecy.
The number of coyotes in Collins' territory had been cut down by half and only the wisest were left. As they grew more trap-wise the wolfer increased the cunning of his sets. Clearly marked cow trails crossed through every low saddle in the foothills and Collins studded these with traps.
Collins turned in his blankets and peered through the window at the black bulk of the mountains to the north of him, towering clear and distinct in the brilliant moonlight. "If you come down out of those hills I'll stretch your pelt," the wolfer stated. "I'll pinch your toes in a number four."
Her mind clung to the shadowy excuse that he had been a wolfer, although the Indians looked on him now as a good friend and a trader who would not take advantage of them. Angus McRae himself had said there was no better citizen in the Northland. No, she could not hold Tom Morse in contempt as she would have liked.
He took it coolly, his strong white teeth flashing in a derisive smile. "Then this wolfer won't offer any, Miss McRae." It was the last word that passed between them till they reached the buffalo-hunter's camp. If he felt any compunctions, she read nothing of the kind in his brown face and the steady stride carrying her straight to punishment.
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