Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BILL OF THE to come in behind him without being seen. He was curious, as always, to know what the master was about. He felt sure that the man would follow the beaten path through the swamps. But he didn’t. Hence it was that they came face to face in a grassy, open glade flanked by a dense thicket of alder. 3 By not so much as a quiver of his bushy tail did the big dog betray the conflicting emotions pounding through his tense body. Only his eyes softened, doglike, with mute appeal when he saw the anger that was in the man’s heart suddenly reflected in the sun browned face. Hardin, fortunately for the dog, had left his rifle at the cabin. Mumbling to him- self he searched the ground for a loose rock or a stick, but finding neither he drew his knife, cut a sturdy sapling and set about fashioning it into a club. Bill did not move. He sensed uncertainty in the man’s actions. Truth to tell, Hardin was hoping that the dog would go away. He trimmed the heavy stick in a most leisurely manner, then, as the dog still remained motionless, he ad- vanced determinedly and with fixed pur- pose, club raised. But his heart somehow wasn’t in it. He swung wildly. Missed purposely. The dog’s thick roach hair lifted automatically. He snarled. Involuntarily. Not in anger. But this outward indication of defiance was enough to rekindle the man’s smoldering rage. Next time, the club found its mark, again, and still again. The dog made no sound, but backed away slowly under the shower of blows, into the thicket, lips still lifted in a fixed snarl, but with a question- ing, appealing look in his eyes that, despite all, tempered the force that lay behind the club. Following the encounter, Hardin was sheepishly displeased with himself, ashamed, like a man after too severely beating a youngster in a fit of anger. He left off carrying the rifle, knowing in his heart that he would not shoot the dog if he had the chance. Asa matter of fact he rather hoped that Bill would one day come back to him. He convinced himself readily that the dog had learned its lesson, would never again become a killer. For witness—the sheep WILD STREAK. 307 were still there; lazy old Stub would have proved of little hindrance if the big wolf dog had really wanted another taste of fresh mutton. : That appealing look in his old friend’s eyes haunted the man for days. IV. THE sultry dog days of August brought distress in varying degrees to all wilder- ness folk. There had been no rain for weeks. A dry blight struck all green things; the poplar leaves turned prematurely yel- low and fell away; the hardy wire grass in the pasture became brown and dry. Unfit even for the sheep. With Stub’s help, Hardin drove the herd a mile farther down the valley where the feed was somewhat better. The swamp itself, usually a summer para- dise for all water loving animals, was but a morass of tangled roots and tinder dry bogs, surrounded by odorous pools of fetid green slime. On the upland slopes the rab- bits perished by the thousand. The short- age of food and water drove many moun- tain dwellers to the lowlands. Several gaunt and silent moose visited Kootenai Swamp, searched eternally among the few remain- ing mudholes for lily roots. Many wolves, lions, bear, caribou, deer, and hosts of less- er animals, all left their footprints in the newly formed runway leading to the man’s pond which was the only running water for miles about. An ever growing restless uncertainty, at- tended by a corresponding shortening of temper, affected all the beasts alike. This unsettled state of mind brought about many bloody quarrels. A caribou bull and a big cougar staged a battle to the death in Kootenai Swamp not a quarter of a mile from the cabin. A black bear and a silver- tip grizzly fought on the ridge top near the old pasture. As might be expected, the sheep formed an irresistible attraction for the hungry visitors. One and all, singly and in pairs, they investigated with longing eyes. One and all, they gauged the chances involved in breaking through the guard of that con- — fident, competent appearing beast—that was Gomichbooks (E(0)