On arriving in Snowy Gulch, Ben's first efforts were to inquire in regard to horses. Both pack and saddle animals, he learned, were to be hired of Sandy McClurg, the owner of the general store and leading citizen of the village; and at once he made his way to confer with him.

"Most of my mustangs are rented out," the merchant informed him when they met in the rear of the general store, "but if you can get along with three, I guess I can fix you up. You can pack two of 'em, and ride the third."

"Good enough," Ben agreed. "And after I once get in, I'd like to turn back two of them, and maybe all three—to save the hire and the bother of taking care of them. I suppose, after the fashion of cayuses, they'll leg it right home."

"Just a little faster than a dog. Horses don't much care to grub their food out of them spruce forests. They're good plugs, so of course I don't want to rent 'em to any one who'll abuse 'em, or take 'em on too hard trips. Where are you heading, if the question's fair?"

"Through Spruce Pass and down into the Yuga River."

"Prospecting, eh? There's been quite a movement down that way lately, considering it never was anything but a pocket country. By starting early you can make it through in a day. And you said your name was—"

"Darby. Ben Darby."

The merchant opened his eyes. "Not the Ben Darby that took all the prizes at the meet at Lodge Pole—"

Ben's rugged face lit with the brilliancy of his smile. "The same Darby," he admitted.

"Well, well! I hope you'll excuse them remarks about abusing the horses. If I had known who you was, 'Wolf' Darby, I'd have known you knew how to take care of cayuses. Take 'em for as long as you want, or where you want. And when did you say you was going?"

"First thing to-morrow."

"Well, you're pretty likely to have companionship on the road, too. There is another party that is going up that way either to-morrow or the day after. Pretty lucky for you."

"I'm glad of it, if he isn't a tenderfoot. That must be a pretty thickly settled region—where I'm heading."

"On the contrary, there's only three human beings in the whole district—and there's a thousand of square miles back of it without even one. These three are some men that went up that way prospecting some time ago, and this other party will make four." He paused, smiling. "Yes, I think you will enjoy this trip to-morrow, after you see who it is. I'd enjoy it, and I'm thirty years older than you are."

Ben's thought was elsewhere, and he only half heard. "All right—I'll be here before dawn to-morrow and get the horses. And now will you tell me—where Steve Morris lives? I've got some business with him."

"Right up the street—clear to the end of the row." McClurg's humor had quite engulfed him by now, and he chuckled again. "And if I was you, I'd stop in the door just this side—and get acquainted with your fellow traveler."

"What's his name?" Ben asked.

"The party is named Neilson."

Unfortunately the name had no mental associations for Ben. It wakened no interest or stirred no memories. He had read the letter the copy of which he carried but once, and evidently the name of the man Ezram had been warned against had made no lasting impression on Ben's mind.

"All right. Maybe I'll look him up."

Ben turned, then made his way up the long, straggly row of unpainted shacks that marked the village street. A few moments later he was standing in the Morris home, facing the one friend that Hiram Melville had possessed on earth.

Ben stated his case simply. He was the partner of Hiram's brother, he said, and he had been designated to take care of Fenris and such other belongings as Hiram had left. Morris studied his face with the quiet, far-seeing eyes of a woodsman.

"You've got means of identification?" he asked.

Ben realized with something of a shock that he had none at all. The letter he carried was merely a copy without Hiram's signature; besides, he had no desire to reveal its contents. For an instant he was considerably embarrassed. But Morris smiled quietly.

"I guess I won't ask you for any," he said. "Hiram didn't leave anything, far as I know, except his old gun and his pet. Lord knows, I'd let anybody take that pet of his that's fool enough to say he's got any claim to him, and you can be sure I ain't going to dispute his claim."

"Fenris, then, is,—something of a problem?"

"The worst I ever had. His old gun is a good enough weapon, but I'm willing to trust you with it to get rid of Fenris. If you don't turn out to be the right man, I'll dig up for the gun—and feel lucky at that. I won't be able to furnish another Fenris, though, and I guess nobody'll be sorry. And if I was you—I'd take him out in a nice quiet place and shoot him."

He turned, with the intention of securing the gun from an inner room. He did not even reach the door. It was as if both of them were struck motionless, frozen in odd, fixed attitudes, by a shrill scream for help that penetrated like a bullet the thin walls of the house.

Instinctively both of them recognized it, unmistakably, as the piercing cry of a woman in great distress and terror. It rose surprisingly high, hovered a ghastly instant, and then was almost drowned out and obliterated by another sound, such a sound as left Ben only wondering and appalled.

The sound was in the range between a growl and a bay, instantly identifying itself as the utterance of an animal, rather than a human being. And it was savage and ferocious simply beyond power of words to tell. Ben's first thought was of some enormous, vicious dog, and yet his wood's sense told him that the utterance was not that of a dog. Rather it contained that incredible fierceness and savagery that marks the killing cries of the creatures of the wild.

He heard it even as he leaped through the door in answer to the scream for aid. His muscles gathered with that mysterious power that had always sustained him in his moments of crisis. He took the steps in one leap, Morris immediately behind him.

"Fenris is loose," he heard the man say. "He'll kill some one----!"

Ben could still hear the savage cries of the animal, seemingly from just behind the adjoining house. A girl's terrified voice still called for help. And deeply appalled by the sounds, Ben wished that the rifle, such a weapon as had been his trust since early boyhood, was ready and loaded in his hands.

He raced about the house; and at once the scene, in every vivid detail, was revealed to him. Pressed back against the wall of a little woodshed that stood behind her house a girl stood at bay,—a dark-eyed girl whose beautiful face was drawn and stark-white with horror. She was screaming for aid, her fascinated gaze held by a gray-black, houndlike creature that crouched, snarling, twenty yards distant.

Evidently the creature was stealing toward her in stealthy advance more like a stalking cat than a frenzied hound. Nor was this creature a hound, in spite of the similarity of outline. Such fearful, lurid surface-lights as all of them saw in its fierce eyes are not characteristic of the soft, brown orbs of the dog, ancient friend to man, but are ever the mark of the wild beast of the forest. The fangs were bared, gleaming in foam, the hair stood erect on the powerful shoulders; and instantly Ben recognized its breed. It was a magnificent specimen of that huge, gaunt runner of the forests, the Northern wolf. Evidently from the black shades of his fur he was partly of the Siberian breed of wolves that beforetime have migrated down on the North American side of Bering Sea.

A chain was attached to the animal's collar, and this in turn to a stake that had been freshly pulled from the ground. This beast was Fenris,—the woods creature that old Hiram Melville had raised from cubdom.

There could be no doubt as to the reality of the girl's peril. The animal was insane with the hunting madness, and he was plainly stalking her, just as his fierce mother might have stalked a fawn, across the young grass. Already he was almost near enough to leap, and the girl's young, strong body could be no defense against the hundred and fifty pounds of wire sinew and lightning muscle that constituted the wolf. The bared fangs need flash but once for such game as this. And yet, after the first, startled glance, Ben Darby felt himself complete master of the situation.

No man could tell him why. No fact of his life would have been harder to explain, no impulse in all his days had had a more inscrutable origin. The realization seemed to spring from some cool, sequestered knowledge hidden deep in his spirit. He knew, in one breathless instant, that he was the master—and that the girl was safe.

He seemed to know, again, that he had found his ordained sphere. He knew this breed,—this savage, blood-mad, fierce-eyed creature that turned, snarling, at his approach. He had something in common with the breed, knowing their blood-lusts and their mighty moods; and dim, dreamlike memory reminded him that he had mastered them in a long war that went down to the roots of time. Fenris was only a fellow wilderness creature, a pack brother of the dark forests, and he had no further cause for fear.

"Fenris!" he ordered sharply. "Come here!" His voice was commanding and clear above the animal's snarls.

There followed a curious, long instant of utter silence and infinite suspense. The girl's scream died on her lips: the wolf stood tense, wholly motionless. Morris, who had drawn his knife and had prepared to leap with magnificent daring upon the wolf, turned with widening eyes, instinctively aware of impending miracle. Ben's eyes met those of the wolf, commanding and unafraid.

"Down, Fenris," Ben said again. "Down!"

Then slowly, steadily, Ben moved toward him. Watching unbelieving, Morris saw the fierce eyes begin to lose their fire. The stiff hair on the shoulders fell into place, tense muscle relaxed. He saw in wonder that the animal was trembling all over.

Ben stood beside him now, his hand reaching. "Down, down," he cautioned quietly. Suddenly the wolf crouched, cowering, at his feet.

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