The stage pulled up in front of a typical western saloon, post office and general store. There was the usual crowd of prospectors, gamblers, cow punchers and trappers a.s.sembled to meet the incoming stage. When I scrambled off the top of the old-fashioned coach, and before I had time to shake the alkali dust from my clothes, or moisten my dry and cracked lips, a typical western bully approached me roaring the verses of a song with which he evidently intended to terrify me,

"He blowed into Lanigan swinging a gun A new one, A blue one, A colt's forty-one, An' swearing Declaring Red Rivers 'ud run Down Alkali Valley, An' oceans of gore 'ud wash sudden death On the sage brush sh.o.r.e, An' he shot a big hole-"

He got no further with the song. Another man stepped out from the crowd, a very tall, powerful man who would have attracted attention in any garb in any place by his distinguished appearance, who with little ceremony rudely brushed the roughneck to one side, and my instinct told me the handsome stranger could be no other than Big Pete Darlinkel.

My! my! what a man he was! Looked as if he just stepped out of one of Fred Remington's pictures, or Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, or slipped from between the leaves of a volume of Captain Mayne Reid's "Scalp Hunters"-Big Pete was evidently a hold-over from another age. He would have fitted perfectly and with nicety in a picture of Davy Crockett's men down in old Texas. He seemed, however, perfectly at home in this border town, and I noted that the most hard-boiled and toughest men in the crowd treated him with marked respect and deference.

Pete was a wilderness fop and a dandy, and evidently was as careful of his clothes as a West Point cadet. In dress he affected the old-fashioned picturesque garb of the mountains. His appearance filled me with wonder and admiration; he stood six feet two or three inches in his moccasins, straight as an arrow and lithe as a cat.

His costume consisted of a tunic of dressed deer skin, smoked to the softness of the finest flannels. He wore it belted in at the waist, but open at the breast and throat where it fell back like a sailor's collar into a short cape covering the shoulders. Underneath was the undershirt of dressed fawn skin; his leggins and moccasins were of the same material as his hunting shirt, and on his head he wore a fox skin cap; the fox's head adorned with gla.s.s eyes ornamented the front and the tail hung like a drooping plume over the left shoulder.

Big Pete Darlinkel was a blonde, and his golden hair hung in sunny curls upon his ma.s.sive shoulders; a light mustache, soft yellow beard, with a pair of the deepest, clearest, most innocent baby-like blue eyes, all made a face such as an angel might have after years of exposure to sun and wind.

Not only are Big Pete's revolvers gold mounted, but the shaft of his keen-edged knife is rich with figures, rings, and stars filed from gold coins and set in the horn. The very stock of his long, single-barreled rifle is inlaid like an Arab's gun, and, as for his buckskin hunting suit, it is a ma.s.s of embroidery and colored quills from his beaded moccasins to the fringed cape of his shirt.

Big Pete was a dandy, fond of color, fond of display; yet in spite of all this he wore absolutely nothing for decoration alone, but every article of use about his person was ornamented to an oriental degree.

Gaudy and rich as his costume was when viewed in detail, as a whole it harmonized not only with Pete, his hair, his complexion, his weapons, but with whatever natural objects surrounded him.

Big Pete also seemed to know me instinctively and approached with a graceful and swinging step; holding out his hand he greeted me in a low, soft, well-modulated voice with, "Howdy, kid; yes, I'm Big Pete and allow you are the tenderfoot dude from New York what wants to shoot big game, an' reckon you'd like to meet the wild mountain man? Well, he's a queer one, I tell you. He's got us all buffaloed out this-a-way, most of us don't care to meet him close up and we give him wide range when we cut his trail."

That was Big Pete's greeting. Of course, I had not told him of my real interest in this mysterious man of the mountains, only suggesting that I would like to do some big game shooting and see the spooky hunter.

"Well," I answered, "I would like to get a record elk head to take home to dad. As for the mountain wildman, I wish you'd tell me more about him, he is awfully interesting."

"Tell you more? Well, sho, I reckon I can tell you more than most people round these parts for he makes my game park his stampin' grounds every onct in a while, an' let me tell you he hunts some peculiar, he do, he's half man and half wolf-but shucks, I won't spoil the show, you will see how he hunts for yourself if you stay here long. Glory be, but he's got me some bashful and shy. But mosey along and I'll hist yore stuff on this here cayuse while you let them tha' dogs out of their chicken coop boxes. You can cache your dude duds in the Emporium general store over yonder next to Squinty Quinn's saloon, an' then we're off for the hills.

I'll yarn about this Wild Hunter while we hit the trail."

An hour spent in Grave Stone gave me an opportunity to wash myself and change my clothes for some that would be more substantial for out-of-door wear, start several letters east telling of my safe arrival, buy the things I had overlooked, store my surplus clothes with the postmaster at the general store, and repack my kit for pony travel.

Then, after watching Big Pete skilfully throw the diamond hitch, we were off for the hills and our first camp. I hoped that I was on my way to find my real father and unravel the mystery that surrounded my strange babyhood. But I little guessed what adventures I was to have or the strange things I was to see before my quest was ended.

We traveled fast all the remaining portion of the afternoon and toward evening we made camp and for the first time in my life I slept under the sky. At the end of the fifth day we reached the secret and narrow opening of a big valley or "park" in the midst of a wild tumble of mountains. Big Pete said we would pitch our tent in the park.

"Tha's plenty of signs 'round too an' if we loosen t' dogs p'raps we kin stir up a mountain lion or collar some fresh meat t' start camp with,"

said he as he slid off his horse and took the leashes off the dogs.

It took us but a short time to arrange our camp, then Big Pete followed by the frisking dogs slipped silently into the woods. He was gone scarcely a quarter of an hour when he reappeared again without the dogs, motioned for me to get my gun and follow him.

"Tha's elk signs all bout," he said, "an' the muts broke away on a fresh trail. Now you an' me'll climb through that draw yonder and hide out on the runway till they drive an elk in gun shot. Come along."

I followed eagerly and presently we had climbed through a thickly grown poplar grove and found a suitable hiding place among the small poplars.

We had the wind right and a clear view of most of the open park. Big Pete stooped down and motioned for me to do likewise.

I quietly crouched beside him and waited-waited until my legs were cramped, waited until the dampness from the moss struck through the heavy soles of my tenderfoot shoes and chilled my feet; waited until my arm was so numb that it felt like a piece of lead-then, in spite of the danger of incurring Big Pete's displeasure and in spite of my dread of being thought a dude tenderfoot, I changed my position, rubbed life into my arm and a.s.sumed an easier pose.

In front of us was a small lake, deep, dark and unruffled. All around the edge was a natural wharf formed from the gigantic trunks of trees which had fallen for ages into the lake and been washed by wind and waves and forced by winter ice into such regular order and position along the sh.o.r.e that their arrangement looked like the work of men. Back of this wharf and all about was the wilderness of silent wood; a wilderness enclosed by a wall of mountains, whose lofty heads were uplifted far above the soft white clouds that floated in the blue sky overhead and were mirrored in the lake below. An eagle, on apparently immovable wings, soared over the lake in spiral course. As I watched the bird its wings seemed suddenly endowed with life. At the same instant my guide gave a low grunt of warning.

"What is it?" I asked in a whisper, for there was a strange expression in my companion's eyes.

"It's-it's him, so help me!-Keep yer ears open and yer meat-trap shut!" growled Pete.

I did so. The trained ear of the hunter had detected the sound of crackling twigs and swishing branches made by some animals in rapid motion.

"Ah!" I exclaimed, "the dogs. You startled me; I thought it was Indians."

"I wish it was nothing wuss," muttered my guide, as he examined his weapons with a critical eye and loosened the cartridges for his revolvers in his belt to make sure that they would be easy to pluck out.

"Those hain't our dogs, mister," he remarked after he had examined his whole a.r.s.enal.

As I again fixed my attention on the noise, in place of the resonant voice of the hounds, I heard nothing but the crackling of branches, with an occasional half-suppressed wolf-like yelp.

Big Pete turned pale and muttered, "It's them for sartin; it's them agin! And I hain't been drinkin', nuther!"

Big Pete Darlinkel remained crouching in exactly the same pose he had first a.s.sumed, but his face looked sallow and worn. I marveled. Was this big westerner really awed by the situation we were facing? What disaster impended?

My guide's eyes were fixed upon an opening in the woods and I knew that something would soon bound from that spot. I could hear the crashing of brush and half-suppressed wolf-like yelps, followed by a pause, then a rushing noise, and out leaped as beautiful a bull elk as I had ever seen-in fact the first I had ever seen at close range in his native wilderness. I had only time to take note of his muscular neck, clean cut limbs, his grand branching antlers, and-not my dogs but a pack of _immense black wolves_ at his heels before I instinctively brought my gun to my shoulder. But before I could draw a bead Big Pete struck it, knocking the muzzle up.

"Hist!" he exclaimed, pointing to the bird.

The eagle screamed, descended like a thunderbolt and skilfully avoiding the branching antlers, struck the bull, driving one talon into the neck and the other into the back, flapping its huge wings as it tore with its beak at the body of the elk like a trained "_bear coote_."

I was thunderstruck. The evident partnership of the wolves and bird needed explanation and it was not long in coming. A shrill whistle pierced the air, the black wolves immediately ceased to worry the elk, the eagle soared overhead, and for an instant the elk stood confused, then leaped high in the air and fell dead. The next moment I heard the crack of a rifle and saw a puff of blue smoke across the lake.

"That's no ghost," I said, when partly recovered from my astonishment.

"Wait," said Pete laconically.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The eagle screamed, descended like a thunderbolt ... and struck the bull]

Not long afterward there was a movement among the wolves and, noiselessly as a panther the figure of a man lithe and youthful in every movement slipped to the side of the dead elk. He made no noise, uttered no word to the fierce black animals that sat with their red tongues hanging from their panting jaws, but without a moment's hesitation whipped out a knife and with a dexterity and skill that brought the color to Big Pete's face, proceeded to take the coat off the wapiti, while the great eagle perched upon the branching antlers. The skin was removed and with equal dexterity all the best parts of the meat were skilfully detached and packed in the green hide, after which, removing a large slice of red flesh, the strange hunter held up one finger. One of the wolves gravely walked up to him, received the morsel, gulped it down and retired. Each in turn was fed, then the great bird flopped on his shoulder and was fed from his hand, and before I could realize what had happened the man, the wolves and the eagle had disappeared, leaving nothing but the dismembered carca.s.s of the elk to remind us of the strange episode.

CHAPTER III

To say that the whole spectacle that I had just witnessed startled me would be stating it mildly indeed. The strange appearance of this big, powerful, smooth shaven man in a buckskin hunting costume with a retinue of black wolves and a trained eagle, the mysterious manner of his hunting and his coming and going, aroused in me great interest and curiosity and I could realize the effect it evidently had upon Big Pete's superst.i.tious mind in spite of the fact that the big fellow was accustomed to facing almost any sort of danger. As for me, I could not myself prevent the creeping chills from running down my spine whenever I thought of the wild man.

Could it be possible that this strange, half-wild man of the mountains, this killer, this master of a wolf pack, could be in any way connected with my father? I wondered, and as I wondered I found that a vague fear of this mad man who despite his reputed age seemed as youthful and as agile as a man in his thirties, was gripping me. Perhaps the strangeness of the wilderness park added to my awe, for certainly one could expect almost anything supernatural to happen in the twilight of the forest of giant trees, whose interlacing branches overhead shut out the light of heaven.

Recovering somewhat from my astonishment and surprise, I realized that what I had witnessed, strange though it appeared, was not a supernatural occurrence. I knew that it was a real gun I had heard, real smoke I had seen, real man, real bird, real elk, and real wolves.

"But, Pete," I exclaimed, as a sudden thought struck me, "what's become of our dogs?"

"Better ask them black fiends up the mountains. I reckon you won't see them tha' hounds of yours agin."

And I never did, but having hunted the wolf with cowboys and having been a witness to their extraordinary biting power, I knew the fate that must necessarily befall a couple of ordinary hounds when overtaken by half a dozen full-grown wolves. On such occasions we do not spend much time in grief over a loss of any kind, "it taint according to mountain law,"