She knew that the moon and the stars had looked down on that thing that always meant death--the challenge to the right of mate.

With her luring coyness, whining and softly muzzling his shoulder and neck, she tried to draw Kazan away from the pad-beaten circle in which the bull lay.

Kazan's answer was an ominous rolling of smothered thunder deep down in his throat.

He lay down beside her, licked her blind face swiftly, and faced the stranger dogs.
The moon sank lower and lower and at last dropped behind the western forests.

The stars grew paler.