"I had thought of that," he replied. "I thought of it--after I heard the
call. Yes, I will promise."
Joan's arms stole up about his neck.
"We loved Kazan," she whispered. "And you might kill him--or her."
Suddenly she stopped. Both listened. The door was a little ajar, and to
them there came again the wailing mate-call of the wolf. Joan ran to the
door. Her husband followed. Together they stood silent, and with tense
breath Joan pointed over the starlit plain.
"Listen! Listen!" she commanded. "It's her cry, _and it came from the
Sun Rock!_"
She ran out into the night, forgetting that the man was close behind her
now, forgetting that little Joan was alone in her bed. And to them, from
miles and miles across the plain, there came a wailing cry in answer--a
cry that seemed a part of the wind, and that thrilled Joan until her
breath broke in a strange sob.
Farther out on the plain she went, and then stopped, with the golden
glow of the autumn moon and the stars shimmering in her hair and eyes.
It was many minutes before the cry came again, and then it was so near
that Joan put her hands to her mouth, and her cry rang out over the
plain as of old:
"_Kazan! Kazan! Kazan!_"
At the top of the Sun Rock, Gray Wolf--gaunt and thinned by
starvation--heard the woman's cry, and the call that was in her throat
died away in a whine. And to the north a swiftly moving shadow stopped
for a moment, and stood like a thing of rock under the starlight. It was
Kazan. A strange fire leaped through his body. Every fiber of his brute
understanding was afire with the knowledge that here was home. It was
here, long ago, that he had lived, and loved, and fought--and all at
once the dreams that had grown faded and indistinct in his memory came
back to him as real, living things. For, coming to him faintly over the
plain, _he heard Joan's voice!_
In the starlight Joan stood, tense and white, when from out of the pale
mists of the moon-glow he came to her, cringing on his belly, panting
and wind-run, and with a strange whining note in his throat. To Joan,
Kazan was more than mere dog. Next to her husband and baby she loved
him. There passed through her mind a day when he had saved her and the
baby from the wolves--and again the scene of that other day when he had
leaped upon the giant husky that was at the throat of little Joan. . . .
As her arms hugged Kazan's great shaggy head up to her, the man heard
the whining, gasping joy of the beast.
And then there came once more across the plain Gray Wolf's mate-seeking
cry of grief and of loneliness. Swiftly, as though struck by a lash,
Kazan was on his feet. In another instant he was gone.
"_Now_ do you believe?" cried Joan pantingly. "_Now_ do you believe
in the God of my world--the God I have lived with, the God that
gives souls to the wild things, the God that--that has brought--us
all--together--once more--_home!_"
His arms closed gently about her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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