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Ghost Dog - Epilogue by Watson's Bull Pup (Frank Coffman)
 
 
And here may well end the story of the original terrier. But perhaps not. The years were not many when the Sepoys noted a change in the breed of wolves; for some were seen with splashes of brown on head and muzzle, and with a rift of white centring down the chest. But more remarkable than this, they tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the pack. They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning greater than they, stealing from their camps in all seasons defying their bravest soldiers on patrol.

Nay, the tale grows worse. Soldiers there are who fail to return to the camp, and there have been those whom the lowly villagers find dead with throats slashed cruelly open and with terrier prints about them in the mud -- smaller than any wolf. And women there are who become sad when the word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spirit came to select that region for an abiding-place.

In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that region, of which the Sepoys do not know. It is a small, brown and white coated wolf, like, and yet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses the region alone, moving from the area about Kanpur and coming down into an open space not far from a temple just north of Madras. As a shaft of moonlight enters the temple, reflecting the glint of gold, the tiny shadow howls long and low.

But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight leaping miniscule yet mighty among his fellows, his small throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.

 


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