Hard upon his words, old Rags gave tongue and went away on a warm scent. Luck was with the hunters. Within two miles the dogs were running free, their noses in the air, making the ridges ring to their eager yelping; and a wolf, a tawny, limber-limbed wolf, smashed through a tangle of weeds and briars at the head of a gulch and streaked across the open country. The pack laid themselves out in pursuit, Shiela and the greyhounds running silently. The wolfhound was well up with the leaders. A dozen strides would have brought the quarry to bay, when a speckled gray shape burst into view beneath her feet and departed at a tangent to her line of running, heading for a shallow draw. Shiela and one greyhound swerved and dashed after him. The others of the pack kept on behind the flagging fugitive. Everything was against the gray. He was old, and the combats and the hunts of years had stiffened his muscles. He was full fed and heavy; slumbering, he had blundered into the chase when he could have lain low. The two silent things behind carried in their sinewy bodies the speed and stamina of generations of dogs whose special business in life it had been to run. A wall of earth faced them, the bank of a dried stream, and he must scale it in his flight. Well he knew that the race was over. He must fight, and as well here as elsewhere. When it comes to the last test of courage, the king of wolves is indeed a king. A rapid glance over his shoulder showed him the greyhound almost at his flank. He reached the bank by a desperate spurt, whirled, and with one rending stroke, cast back the first pursuer, coughing in the throes of death. But the shock of the charge shook him for an instant and in that fraction of time he was unprepared to withstand the crushing velocity of Shiela’s onslaught. On his hind legs, his worn fangs gleaming, he received her. She went straight for his throat, and the grip being an eminently satisfactory one, she did not release it. [Illustration: “_On his hind legs, his worn fangs gleaming, he received her_”] To and fro the big gray dragged her, over and over, tearing with his forefeet to pry her off, snapping his wide jaws in futile efforts to seize his enemy. His hind claws ripped unavailingly along the wolfhound’s sides; he writhed and twisted to gain an inch of freedom for his head--only an inch, and he could reach her shoulder. Once only Shiela growled, a deep, rumbling note of content. She knew what she had to do, and she felt this to be the right way. Slowly her jaws tightened and she hung to him soundlessly. The rasping snarls grew fainter; the tremendous heavings and lurchings slackened. The old lord of the cañon had made his last fight. It was O’Donnell who drove her off. Blown but triumphant, he raced from the slaughter of the first quarry, and gave a long whistle of incredulity at sight of the slain. “Father and son--father and son in one day,” he exclaimed. Then, “Poor Shee-la.”