There were light steps on the trail. Again they were the steps of deer,--but not of the great, wary elk this time. Instead it was just a fawn, or a yearling doe at least, such a creature as had not yet learned to suspect every turn in the trail. The morning light was steadily growing, the stars were all dimmed or else entirely faded in the sky, and it would have been highly improbable that a full-grown buck in his wisdom would draw within leaping range without detecting him. But he hadn't the slightest doubt about the fawn. They were innocent people,--and their flesh was very tender. The forest gods had been good to him, after all. He peered through the thickets, and in a moment more he had a glimpse of the spotted skin. It was almost too easy. The fawn was stealing toward him with mincing steps--as graceful a creature as dwelt in all this wilderness world of grace--and its eyes were soft and tender as a girl's. It was evidently giving no thought to danger, only rejoicing that the fearful hours of night were done. The mountain lion had already sought its lair. The fawn didn't know that a worse terror still lingered at the mouth of the trail. But even as the Killer watched, the prize was simply taken out of his mouth. A gray wolf--a savage old male that also had just finished an unsuccessful hunt--had been stealing through the thickets in search of a lair, and he came out on the trail not fifty feet distant, halfway between the bear and the fawn. The one was almost as surprised as the other. The fawn turned with a frightened bleat and darted away; the wolf swung into pursuit. The bear lunged forward with a howl of rage. He leaped into the trail mouth, then ran as fast as he could in pursuit of the running wolf. He was too enraged to stop to think that a grizzly bear has never yet been able to overtake a wolf, once the trim legs got well into action. At first he couldn't think about anything; he had been cheated too many times. His first impulse was one of tremendous and overpowering wrath,--a fury that meant death to the first living creature that he met. But in a single second he realized that this wild chase was fairly good tactics, after all. The chances for a meal were still rather good. The fawn and the wolf were in the open now, and it was wholly evident that the gray hunter would overtake the quarry in another moment. It was true that the Killer would miss the pleasure of slaying his own game,--the ecstatic blow to the shoulder and the bite to the throat that followed it. In this case, the wolf would do that part of the work for him. It was just a simple matter of driving the creature away from his dead. The fawn reached the stream bank, then went bounding down the margin. The distance shortened between them. It was leaping wildly, already almost exhausted; the wolf raced easily, body close to the ground, in long, tireless strides. The grizzly bear sped behind him.