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Show wj ee ran I . MMIMIMI g.m... . . m II -HI ll'lllli lm m ' I just opened, and It might be that Dan would want to procure one of these creatures. "Hut I'm not sure I want to hunt her." an told him. "You speak of them as being so beautiful " "They are beautiful and your grandfather would never hunt tliein, el titer, except for meat. But maybe you'll change your mind when you see a buck. Besides, we might run Into a lynx or a panther. But not very likely, like-ly, without dogs." They trudged up, over the carpet of pine needles. . They fought their way through a thicket of huckbrush. Once they saw the gray squirrels in the tree tops. And before Lennox had as much as supposed they were near the haunts of big game, n yearling doe sprang up from Its bed In the thickets. For an Instant she stood motionless, presenting n perfect target. It was evident thai she had heard the sound of the approaching hunters, but had not as yet located or Identified them with her near-sighted eyes. Lennox whirled to find Dan standing very still, peering along the barrel of his ride. But he didn't shoot. The deer, Slicing Lennox move, leaped Into her terror-pace that astounding run that is one of the fastest ga Its in the whole animal world. In the wink of an eye she was out of sight. "Why didn't you shoot?" Lennox demanded. de-manded. "Shoot? It was a doe, wasn't it?" "Good Lord, of course it was a doe ! But there are no game laws that go hack this far. Besides you aimed at It." "I aimed just to see if I could catch it through my sights. And I could. My glasses, sort of made It blur but Influence upon him. The wild was calling to him, wakening Instincts long smothered in cities, but sure and true as ever. It was the beginning of regeneration. Voices of the long past were speaking to him. and the Failings once more had begun to run true to form. Inherited tendencies were in a moment changing this weak, diseased youth lnro a frontiersman and wilderness inhabitant such as bis ancestors had been before him. They were slipping along over the pine needles, their eyes intent on the trail ahead. And then Lennox saw r curious thing. He beheld Dan suddenly sud-denly stop In the trail and turn his eyes toward a heavy thicket that lay perhaps one hundred yards to their right. For an instant he looked til-most til-most like a wild creature himself. His head was lowered, as If he were listening. lis-tening. His muscles were set and readv. Lennox had prided himself that he had retained all the powers of his five senses, and that few men in the mountains moun-tains had keener ears than he. Yet It was truth that at first he only knew the silence, and the stir and pulse of his own blood. He assumed then that Dan was watching something that from lils position, twenty feet behind, he could not see. He tried to probe the thickets with his eyes. Then Dan, whispered. Ever so soft a sound, but yet distinct in the alienee. al-ienee. "There's something living In that thicket." Then Lennox heard It, too. As they stood still, the sound became ever clearer and more pronounced. Some living creature was advancing toward them ; and twigs were cracking beneath be-neath its feet. The sounds were rather rath-er subdued, and yet, as the aninal approached, ap-proached, both of them instinctively knew that they were extremely loud for the usual footsteps of any of the wild creatures. "What is it?" Dan asked quietly. Lennox was so intrigued by the sounds that he was not even observant observ-ant of the peculiar, subdued quality In Den's voice. Otherwise, he would have wondered at It. "I'm free to confess I don't know," he said. "It's booming right tow-ard us, like most animals don't care to do. Of course It may be a human being. You must watch out for that." They waited. The sound ended. They stood straining for a long moment mo-ment without speech. "That was the dumdest thing !" Lennox went on. "Of course it might have been a bear you never know what they're going to do. It might have got sight of us and turned off. But I can't believe that it was just a deer " But then his words chopped squarely square-ly off in his throat. The plodding advance ad-vance commenced again. And the next instant a gray form revealed Itself It-self at the edge of the thicket. It was Graycoat the coyote, half-blind half-blind with his madness, and desperate des-perate in his agony. There was no more deadly thing in all the hills than he. Even the bite of a rattlesnake would have been welcomed wel-comed beside his. He stood a long instant, and all his instincts and reflexes re-flexes that would have ordinarily made him flee in abject terror were thwarted and twisted by the fever of his madness. lie stared a moment at the two figures, and his red eyes could not interpret them. They were simply foes, for it was true that when this racking agony was upon him, even lifeless trees seemed foes sometimes. He seemed eerie and unreal as be gazed at them out of his burning eyes; and the white foam gathered at his fangs. And then, wholly without warning, he charged down at them. He came with unbelievable speed. The elder Lennox cried once in warning warn-ing and cursed himself for venturing ventur-ing forth on the ridge without a gun. He was fully twenty feet distant from Dan ; yet he saw in an instant his only course. This was no time to trust their lives to the marksmanship of an amateur. He sprang toward Dan, intending to wrench the weapon from, his hand. But he didn't achieve his purpose. At the first step his foot caught in a projecting root, and he was shot to his face on the trail. But a long life in the wilderness had developed Lennox's Len-nox's reflexes to an abnormal degree ; many crises had. taught him muscle and nerve control ; and only for a fraction of an instant, a period of time that few instruments are fine enough to measure, did he lie supinely upon the ground. He rolled on. Into a position of defense. Rut he knew now he could not reach the younger man before the mad coyote would be upon them. The matter was out of his hands. Everything depended on the aim and self-control of the tenderfoot. tender-foot. Dan Failing's tiue marksmanship marks-manship proves that he is not the weakling he is supposed to be on several occasions in the next installment of "The Voice of the Pack." (TO BJi CUNT1NUKD.J g: Q SYNOPSIS. Warned by hl.s phy.sU;! 'in tda t h-lias h-lias not more than six nxir.tha to live, Jan Fulling alt a cJ(;Hprjri(lt:ntIy ' on a park bnc:li, wondering where t he should upend tho.se six months. Memories of hla grandfather and a deep love for all things of the wild help him In reaching a det-i-Blon. In a lare southern Oregon city he meetH people who had i k nown arni loved his grandfather, a famous frontiersman. lie makes ; hLs home with Silas hen n ox, a typical typ-ical westerner. The only .other ! members of the household are I I-ennox'a son, "U!1I." and dangli- ter, "Snowbird." Their abode is ' hi the Umpqua divide, and there Falling plans to live out the short spin of life which he has been . told is his. From the first Falling's health shows a marked improve-l improve-l merit, and in the companionship of f.ennox and his son and daughter he fits into the woods life as if he had been born to it. Uy quick thinking and a remarkable dlsplny of "nerve" he saves Lennox's life and Ills own when they are attacked at-tacked by a mad coyote. Lennox declares he is a reincarnation of ids gi n nd father, Dan Failing , whose fame as a woodsman Is a household word. a u CHAPTER III Continued. 5 Dan saw the door close behind him, and he had an Instant's glimpse of the long sweep of moonlit ridge that stretched beneath the window. Then, nil at once, seemingly without warning, warn-ing, It simply blinked out. Not until the next morning did he really know why. Insomnia was an old acquaintance acquaint-ance of Dan's, and he had expected to have some trouble In getting to sleep. Ills only real trouble was waking up ngaln when Lennox called him to breakfast. He couldn't believe that the light at his window shade was really that of morning. "Good Heavens!" his host exploded. "You sleep the sleep of the just." Dan was about to tell him that on the contrary he was a very nervous sleeper, but lie thought better of it. Something had surely happened to his Insomnia. The next instant he even forgot to wonder about it in the realization reali-zation that his tired body had been wonderfully refreshed. He had no dread now of the long tramp up the ridge that his host had planned. But first came target practice. In Dan's baggage he had a certain very plain but serviceable sporting rifle of nhout thirty-forty caliber a gun that the information department of the large sporting-goods store in Gitche-npolis Gitche-npolis had recommended for his purpose. pur-pose. Kxcept for the few moments in the store, Dan had never held a ride In his hands. The first shot he hit the trunk of a five-foot pine at thirty paces. "But I couldn't very well have missed It !" he replied to Lennox's cheer. "You see, I aimed at the middle mid-dle but 1 just grazed the edge." The second shot was not so good, missing the tree altogether. And it was a singular thing that he aimed longer and tried harder on this shot than on the first. The third time he tried still harder, and made by far the worst shot of all. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "I'm getting worse all the time." Lennox didn't know for sure. But tie made a long guess. "It might ho beginner's luck," he said, "hut I'm inclined in-clined to think you're trying too hard. Take it easier depend more on your Instincts." Dan's reply was to lift the rifle tightly to bis shoulder, glance quickly along the trigger and tire. The bullet struck within one inch of the center of fhe pine. For a long second Lennox, gazed at him 'n open-mouthed astonishment. "My stars, boy!" he cried at last. "Was I mistaken in thinking you were ,1 born tenderfoot after all? Can it ho that a little of your old grandfather's grandfa-ther's skill has been passed down to you? But yon can't do it again." But Dan did do it again. If anything, any-thing, the bullet was a little nearer the center. And then he aimed at a more distant tree. But the hammer snapped down ineffectively in-effectively on the breech. He turned with a look of question. "Your gun only holds five shots." Lennox explained. Reloading, D;:n tried a more difficult target a trunk almost one hundred yards distant. Of course It would have been only child's play to an experienced hunter: but to a tenderfoot It was a difficult mark Indeed. Twice out of four shots Dan bit the tree trunk, and one of his two hits was practically a bull's-eye. His two misses were the result of the same mistake he had made before-attempting before-attempting to hold his aim too long. Dan and Lennox started together up (he long slope of the ridge. Dan tilone armed; Lennox went with him polely us a guide. The (h "eaivi i3 "There's S'mething Living in That Thicket." I think perhaps that I could " have shot it. But I'.m not going to kill does. There must be some reason for the game laws, or they wouldn't exist." "You're a funny one. Come three thousand miles to hunt and then pass up the first deer you see. You could almost have been your grandfather, to have done that. He thought killing deer needlessly wfi almost as bad as killing a man. They are beautiful things, aren't they?" Dan answered him with startling emphasis. But the look that he wore said more than his words. They trudged on. and Lennox grew thoughtful. He was recalling the picture pic-ture that be bad seen when he had whirled to look nf Dan, immediately after the deer bad leaped from Its bed. It puzzled him a little. He had turned to find the younger man in a perfect posture to shoot, his feet placed in exactly the position that ycar of experience had taught Lennox Len-nox was-correct ; and withal, absolutely absolute-ly motionless. What many hunters take years to learn. Dan had seemed to know by instinct. Could it be, after all, that this slender weakling, even now bowed down with a terrible malady, hail inherited the true frontiersman's fron-tiersman's instincts of his ancestors? The result of this thought was at least to hover in the near vicinity of a certain conclusion. That conclusion was that at least a few of the characteristics char-acteristics of his grandfather had been passed down to Dan. It meant that possibly, If time remained, he would not turn out such a weakling, after all. Of course his courage, his nerve, had yet to be tested; but the fact remained that long generations of frontiersmen ancestors had left tils |