Long before the end of that week Wade loved Fox and decided that he was a wonderful animal.  Fox liked to hunt, but it did not matter what he hunted.  That depended upon the pleasure of his master.  He would find hobbled horses that were hiding out and standing still to escape detection.  He would trail cattle.  He would tree squirrels and point grouse.  Invariably he suited his mood to the kind of game he hunted.  If put on an elk track, or that of deer, he would follow it, keeping well within sight of the hunter, and never uttering a single bark or yelp; and without any particular eagerness he would stick until he had found the game or until he was called off.  Bear and cat tracks, however, roused the savage instinct in him, and transformed him.  He yelped at every jump on a trail, and whenever his yelp became piercing and continuous Wade well knew the quarry was in sight.  He fought bear like a wise old dog that knew when to rush in with a snap and when to keep away.  When lions or wildcats were treed Fox lost much of his ferocity and interest.  Then the matter of that particular quarry was ended.  His most valuable characteristic, however, was his ability to stick on the track upon which he was put.  Wade believed if he put Fox on the trail of a rabbit, and if a bear or lion were to cross that trail ahead of him, Fox would stick to the rabbit.  Even more remarkable was it that Fox would not steal a piece of meat and that he would fight the other dogs for being thieves.

Fox and Kane, it seemed to the hunter in his reflective foreshadowing of events at White Slides, were destined to play most important parts.

* * * * *

Upon a certain morning, several days before October first—­which date rankled in the mind of Wade—­he left Moore’s cabin, leading a pack-horse.  The hounds he had left behind at the ranch, but Fox accompanied him.

“Wade, I want some elk steak,” old Belllounds had said the day before.  “Nothin’ like a good rump steak!  I was raised on elk meat.  Now hyar, more’n a week ago I told you I wanted some.  There’s elk all around.  I heerd a bull whistle at sunup to-day.  Made me wish I was young ag’in!...  You go pack in an elk.”

“I haven’t run across any bulls lately,” Wade had replied, but he did not mention that he had avoided such a circumstance.  The fact was Wade admired and loved the elk above all horned wild animals.  So strange was his attitude toward elk that he had gone meat-hungry many a time with these great stags bugling near his camp.

As he climbed the yellow, grassy mountain-side, working round above the valley, his mind was not centered on the task at hand, but on Wilson Moore, who had come to rely on him with the unconscious tenacity of a son whose faith in his father was unshakable.  The crippled cowboy kept his hope, kept his cheerful, grateful spirit, obeyed and suffered with a patience that was fine.  There had been no improvement in