It was just beginning to get light outside, and the windows were gray,
while all else in the room was still dark.
He opened the door and stepped out into the chill morning.
Then he heard a noise, but so faint that it couldn't have been that
which had disturbed him from his sound sleep, he thought.
But as the sound came nearer on the clear, thin morning air, and he
recognized it and realized its significance, he knew that it was this
fine, almost indistinguishable sound that had penetrated in some
mysterious manner to his inner ear and called him from his sleep.
It was the cry of a hungry and angry wolf.
At last he located the sound off to the east, but as yet he could see
nothing, for it was not yet light enough, and a thin mist, like a
mirage, hung over the surface of the sandy prairie and obscured the
view.
For a long time he stood listening to the long-drawn and savage howl,
thinned out by the distance and mist, but he knew that it was coming
nearer, and that the animal that was making it was not only hungry, but
that it was a master wolf. It was none of the gaunt, half-starved,
cowardly brutes that follow in the pack and take what the master wolf
leaves of the scraps of the murdered calf or sick cow or sheep which the
leaders of the pack have pulled down.
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