Smoky and the big buckskin horse was the first to see the wolves. Their ears was towards ’em as the three outlaws of the range trotted along and then stopped to look at the horses.
Smoky had never seen a wolf before, but the big old buckskin had seen too many of ’em and had scars to show for his meetings with the kind. He let a loud snort at the sight of the three grey shapes and from that Smoky got a hunch that these was more to be reckoned with than the cayotes he’d chased when he was a yearling. He had a hankering to go and give them a chase too, but the nervous way the buckskin was acting kinda warned him that it’d be best for him to stick with the bunch.
The weak and dying cattle is what had really drawed the wolves, of course they would just as soon tackle a strong animal as a weak one but the scent that scattered over the range from the dead stock and which would reach no less sensitive a nose than theirs was a lot to their liking, and they’d just drifted in to investigate.
It was below them to touch any of the carcasses they’d passed, for these was old wolves well up to the game of killing, and nothing but fresh meat would do. A good fat yearling or two year old colt is what came highest and most to their tastes, and when they skirted that ridge and spotted that little bunch of ponies in the draw below, it was the sight of them that reminded their appetites how long ago it was since they’d et last, and they’d traveled a long ways.
But it was still daylight, and according to their natural way of doing things they’d wait till night come before making the kill. They skirted on and out of sight of the horses, nosed the snow and the air to make sure that the coast was clear, and after another look at the country so they’d know it when they returned, the wolves trotted on. They showed what old timers they was as they circled well away from a carcass for fear of a trap. They’d had their toes pinched in the steel jaws, scars showed where bullets had grazed ’em, and one was still packing a piece of lead which a cowboy had fired at him from a long shot with a 30–30.
The big buckskin back there in the draw knowed their way, and it showed in his action. He’d quit pawing for grass and instead put all his attention to the tops of the ridges that was all around him and the bunch. The way them three wolves had sized up the bunch and then disappeared had made him restless and mighty spooky; and finally that draw got to be too much of a hole for him, too good a place for an enemy to come into without being seen till that enemy was too close.
The older mares showed a lot of spookiness too, which all got Smoky riled up so that he begin acting the same; and when the buckskin took the lead out of the draw to where a good look of the country around could be got, the whole bunch was mighty anxious to follow; even the little colts seemed to have the hunch that something was up; the white of their eyes showed and they stuck mighty close to their mammies’ side.
A big moon came up and the light of it reflected a path that shined on the crusted snow. The air was mighty still, still with the cold that’d gripped the range and made everything that lived and carried hoofs come to a stand, so that no air would be stirred; a breeze at that temperature would of froze stiff every standing animal in that territory.
Smoky, the buckskin, and the bunch stood on a knoll where they could see well around ’em. They looked like petrified or froze there so still they all stood; there was no sign of life from ’em excepting for an ear that moved once in a while and which was on the job to catch any sound that might come from near or far.
The “yip, yip,” and howl of a cayote was heard, another answered, and pretty soon them two filled the air with their serenading—. The echo of that hadn’t quite died down when the long, drawed out, and mournful howl of a wolf made that of the cayotes seem like a joke. The little bunch of horses on the knoll hadn’t blinked an eye while the cayotes was serenading, but at the sound of what followed, every head in the bunch went up, every ear pointed towards the sound, and the buckskin with a few others snorted.
Restlessness had got in the bunch. Smoky started out a ways and came back; then pretty soon, and keeping as close together as they could, they all begin moving. They moved on like shadows, and like more shadows three grey shapes had took up their trail.
The big buckskin had stayed in the rear of the bunch and he was first to notice the wolves. A loud whistling snort was heard from him as he landed in the middle of the bunch and kettled ’em into a stampede and the run for their lives. The cold air was split forty ways and crusted hunks of snow was sent a flying as the ponies all wild eyed broke their way thru the drifts at the edge of a ridge and run on towards the big flat.
Smoky had stampeded with the rest and kept pretty well up in the lead thru the run, but now that his blood was warming up in plowing thru the deep snow, and being that that blood was circulating more free up his neck and
