up into the hills, past the Big C and on into noble wildness that seemed far remote from all campus civilization. His brave new legs were stanch and tireless, his wind seemingly inexhaustible. Every turning brought fresh and vivid scents of soil and leaves and air, and life was shimmering and beautiful.
But a few hours of this, and Wolf realized that he was damned lonely. All this grand exhilaration was very well, but if his mate Gloria were loping by his side…And what fun was it to be something as splendid as a wolf if no one admired you? He began to want people, and he turned back to the city.
Berkeley goes to bed early. The streets were deserted. Here and there a light burned in a rooming house where some solid grind was plodding on his almost-due term paper. Wolf had done that himself. He couldn’t laugh in this shape, but his tail twitched with amusement at the thought.
He paused along the tree-lined street. There was a fresh human scent here, though the street seemed empty. Then he heard a soft whimpering, and trotted off toward the noise.
Behind the shrubbery fronting an apartment house sat a disconsolate two-year-old, shivering in his sunsuit and obviously lost for hours on hours. Wolf put a paw on the child’s shoulder and shook him gently.
The boy looked around and was not in the least afraid. “He’o,” he said, brightening up.
Wolf growled a cordial greeting, and wagged his tail and pawed at the ground to indicate that he’d take the lost infant wherever it wanted to go.
The child stood up and wiped away its tears with a dirty fist which left wide black smudges. “Tootootootoo!” he said.
Games, thought Wolf. He wants to play choo-choo. He took the child by the sleeve and tugged gently.
“Tootootootoo!” the boy repeated firmly. “Die way.”
The sound of a railway whistle, to be sure, does die away; but this seemed a poetic expression for such a toddler, Wolf thought, and then abruptly would have snapped his fingers if he’d had them. The child was saying “2222 Dwight Way,” having been carefully brought up to tell his address when lost. Wolf glanced up at the street sign. Bowditch and Hillegas; 2222 Dwight would be just a couple of blocks.
Wolf tried to nod his head, but the muscles didn’t seem to work that way. Instead he wagged his tail in what he hoped indicated comprehension, and started off leading the child.
The infant beamed and said, “Nice woof-woof.”
For an instant Wolf felt like a spy suddenly addressed by his right name, then realized that if some say “bow-wow” others might well say “woof-woof.”
He led the child for two blocks without event. It felt good, having an innocent human being like this. There was something about children; he hoped Gloria felt the same. He wondered what would happen if he could teach this confiding infant The Word. It would be swell to have a pup that would—
He paused. His nose twitched and the hair on the back of his neck rose. Ahead of them stood a dog: a huge mongrel, seemingly a mixture of St. Bernard and husky. But the growl that issued from his throat indicated that carrying brandy kegs or rushing serum was not for him. He was a bandit, an outlaw, an enemy of man and dog. And they had to pass him.
Wolf had no desire to fight. He was as big as this monster and certainly, with his human brain, much cleverer; but scars from a dogfight would not look well on the human body of Professor Wolf, and there was, moreover, the danger of hurting the toddler in the fracas. It would be wiser to cross the street. But before he could steer the child that way, the mongrel brute had charged at them, yapping and snarling.
Wolf placed himself in front of the boy, poised and ready to leap in defense. The scar problem was secondary to the fact that this baby had trusted him. He was ready to face this cur and teach him a lesson, at whatever cost to his own human body. But halfway to him the huge dog stopped. His growls died away to a piteous whimper. His great flanks trembled in the moonlight. His tail curled craven between his legs. And abruptly he turned and fled.
The child crowed delightedly. “Bad woof-woof go away.” He put his little arms around Wolf’s neck. “Nice woof-woof.” Then he straightened up and said insistently, “Tootootootoo. Die way,” and