Pete would say.

"Reckon we had better swipe some of that elk before the coyotes get at it," growled Pete. "The wild mountainman knows the good parts, but an elk is an elk, and one wild man, even if he is a giant, can't carry off all the good meat, not by a long shot."

"He may come back," I suggested.

"Not he," said Pete. "He's too stuck up for that. When he wants more, them tha' black demons and that voodoo bird of his'n will get 'em for him, and he's a hanging his long legs off'ner a rock some whar smoking a long cigar."

"Dod rot him," growled Pete. "Why couldn't he leave a piece of hide to carry the meat in and the stomach to cook it in? That's the fust time I ever stayed long 'nough to see him collar his meat, though they say he do eat the game raw, but I reckon that's a lie, leastwise he didn't do't this time."

With a good square meal of the locoed hunter's elk under our belts and a rousing camp fire before which to toast our shins, both the big westerner and I felt a little more natural and comfortable, but our conversation turned again to this wild hunter of the mountains.

I could see that the mysterious old man with his wolf pack and eagle aroused almost every possible form of superst.i.tion in Big Pete and I confess that I was not free from some of it myself. The guide was certain that the man was either a ghost or a reincarnated devil, and he displayed no uncertain signs of awe.

"I tell you," said Pete, "he's a devil. He's over a hundred years old, for my dad says he seed him, an' an Injun before dad's time told him about him. They are all skeered t' death o' him. An' I don't blame 'em.

He's a sh.o.r.e enough hant and them tha' houn's o' his'n is devils in wolf skins. Jumping Gehoosaphats, ef they shed ever cut my trail I reckon I'd just lay right down an' die," and Big Pete actually shuddered at the possibility.

"Why, young feller," he went on, "that ol' man shoots gold bullets out o' a real Patrick Mullen gun."

"A Mullen gun, Pete?" I cried, "how do you know, man; speak for goodness sake!"

"I don't know it's a Patrick Mullen and guess it tain't one 'cause a Patrick Mullen rifle would cost a thousand or more. But the old Injun, Beaver Tail, says, someone told his father and his father told him that et is a Patrick Mullen gun an' is a special make inlaid with gold and silver, an' all ornamented up, an' built for an ol' muzzle-loadin'

flint-lock. Now Mullen never made no flint-lock rifles that I hear'n tell of, his specialty be shotguns an' if he made this rifle I'm ganderplucked if I cud tell how this spook got it."

"Unless the wild Hunter might be a relative of old Patrick Mullen," I said, thinking aloud, and gasping at the thought, for the description of the rifle somehow impressed me again with the possibility that this wild man of the mountains might himself be Donald Mullen, and _my own father!_

"Why do you say that, kid?" asked Big Pete with a queer look in his eyes.

"Oh, I don't know, I was just wondering to myself. But what makes you think he's a supernatural being, and, Pete, does this wild loony hunter look at all like me?"

"Super what? Say when did you swallow a dictionary?-Oh, you mean what makes me think he's a devil. No, he don't favor you none," he added with a grin, "he's a _handsome_ devil, although he's done terrified every white man, an' Injun, in these parts half t' death, so most of 'ems afeared to come back here at all. Men have gone in the park jest to get this wild man's scalp, but they've done come back scared yaller an' they ain't opened their trap much about him since nuther. They do say he spits fire an' chaws his meat offen the bone an' then cracks the bones like a dog an' swallers it all. They do say, too, that he roars like forty devils with their tails cut off when he gits mad an' some say as when he wants t' git som wha' in a hurry he jest grabs aholt o' the feet o' tha' there thunder bird and she flies off with him and draps him anywha' he asks her to-Nope, I hain't seen none of these things myself but others say they has, an' believe me, I'm plumb cautious when travelin' these parts alone. Howsomever, he hain't yet skeered me 'nough to make my ha'r come out by the roots," said Pete with a yawn. "There, kick that back log over so's the fire can lick at t'other side; now let's turn in."

CHAPTER IV

Big Pete and I spent several weeks in our charming little camp at the lower end of the park, for my guide decided that despite the recent presence of the wild hunter, here would be a good place to get a shot at some black-tail deer. In fact we saw signs of those animals all about and my guide was only looking for fresh indication to start out on our last hunt before we made our way deeper into the wilderness.

On the third day of our stay I was returning to camp with my shotgun over my shoulder and a brace of sage grouse in my hand, when I came upon Big Pete in a swail about a mile from camp. He was bending low and examining fresh signs when he saw me.

"Howdy, kid, here's some doin's. Shall we foller him?"

"Of course, Pete; what are we here for, the mountain air?" I answered.

"No," answered Pete, in his deep, low voice, "we're here for game," and off he started, but slowly and with great caution. I felt impatient, but restrained myself, saying nothing and continued to follow my big guide who now moved with the most painstaking care. Not a twig broke beneath his moccasins as with panther-like step and crouching form he led me through a lot of young trees over a rocky place until we struck a small spring with a soft muddy margin. Here Pete came to a sudden halt. I asked him why he did not go on, and he pointed to a ledge of rock that ran up the mountain side diagonally with a flat, natural roadbed on top, graded like a stage road but unlike a traveled road, ending in a bunch of underwood and brush about a hundred yards ahead.

Above the ledge of the rocks was a steep declivity of loose shale sprinkled over with large and small boulders of radically different formations, and in no manner resembling the friable, uncertain bed upon which they rested.

These boulders undoubtedly showed the result of the grinding and polishing of an ancient, slow-moving glacier, but some other force had deposited them in the present position.

"He's in tha'," whispered Pete.

"Who, the wild mountain man?" I asked.

"No," answered my guide, "th' grizzly."

"The what?" I almost shouted.

"Th' grizzly," answered Pete; "what do you think we've been following?"

"Black-tailed deer," I said softly, with my eyes glued on the thicket.

"Well, tenderfoot, here's the trail of that tha' _deer_, and he hain't been gone by here mor'n nor a week ago, nuther."

I looked and there in the soft mud was the print of a foot, a human-looking foot, but for the evenness in the length of the toes and the sharpness and length of the toe nails. Yes, there was another difference, and that was the size. It was the footprint of a savage Hercules, the track of an enormous grizzly bear, and the soft mud that had dripped from the big foot was still undried on the leaves and gra.s.s when Pete pointed it out to me.

"Well, Pete, don't forget your promise that I am to have first shot at all big game," I whispered with my best effort at coolness, but my heart was thumping against my ribs at a terrific rate.

"But-why, bless you old man!" I whispered excitedly as I looked at my gun, "I am armed only with a shotgun."

"Tha's all right," replied the big trapper complacently; then, with a quick motion, he whipped out his keen-edged knife and s.n.a.t.c.hing one of my cartridges he severed the sh.e.l.l neatly between the two wads which separated the powder and shot; that is, a wad in each piece of the cartridge was exposed by the cut.

Guided by the faint longitudinal seam where the edges of the colored paper join on the sh.e.l.l, Big Pete carefully fitted the two parts of the cartridge together exactly as they were before being cut apart. Breaking my gun, he slipped the mutilated ammunition into the unchoked barrel.

"Tha'," he grunted, "tha's better than a bullet at short range, an'll tar a hole in old Ephraim big enough to put your arm through."

He cut two more in the same manner, saying, "Be darned kerful not to get excited and put them in your choke barl, or tha' may be trouble."

Hunting a grizzly with a shotgun and bird shot was not my idea of safe sport, but I was too much of a moral coward to acknowledge to Pete that I was frightened. Pete examined his gun, ran his finger over the cartridges in his belt, and went through all the familiar motions which to him were unconscious but always foretold danger ahead.

"You drap on your prayer hinges behind that tha' n.i.g.g.e.r head," said Pete, "and you will have a dead shot at the brute, an' I'll go up and roll a stone down the mountain side and follow it as fast as I kin, so as to be ready to help you if you need it; but you ought to drap him at first shot at short range. Yer must drap him, yer must or I allow tha'll be a right smart of a sc.r.a.p here, and don't yer forget it!"

"This is no Christmas turkey shooting, young feller, so look sharp," and with a noiseless tread Pete vanished in the wood, while I with beating heart and bulging eyes watched the thicket at the end of the ledge. I had not long to wait before I heard a blood-curdling yell and then crash! crash! crash! came a big boulder tearing down the mountain side.

It reached a point just over the thicket, struck a small pine tree, broke the tree and leaped high into the air, then crashed into the middle of the brush.

Following with giant leaps came Big Pete Darlinkel down the rocky declivity, but I only looked that way for one instant, then my eyes were again fixed on the thicket, and in my excitement I arose to a standing position. There was but a momentary silence after the fall of the boulder before I heard the rustling of sticks and leaves, saw the top of the bushes sway as some heavy body moved beneath, then there appeared a head, and what a head it was! Bigger than all outdoors! I aimed my gun, but my body swayed and the end of my shotgun described a large circle in the air. I knew that my position was serious, but my nerves played me false.

I had never before faced a grizzly. I heard Big Pete's voice calling to me to drop behind the rock, but I only stood there with a dogged stupidity, trying to aim my gun at a mark which seemed to me as big almost as a barn-door.

I heard Pete give a sudden cry then there was a rattle of stones and dirt on the ledge in front of the mountain of brownish hair that was advancing in sort of side leaps or bounds like a big ball.

The bear came to a sudden stop, and to my horror I saw the form of my friend shoot over the edge of the overhanging rock right in the path of the grizzly. It all flashed through my mind in a moment. Pete in his haste to reach me had lost control of himself and slid with the rolling stones and dirt over the mountain side, a fall of at least twenty-five feet!

Instantly my nerve returned and I rushed madly up the incline to rescue my companion. I bounded between the branches of some stout saplings, they parted as my body struck them but sprung together again before my leg had cleared the V-shaped opening.

My foot was imprisoned and I fell with a heavy thud on my face. For an instant I was dazed, but even in my dazed state I was fully conscious of Pete's impending peril, and I kicked and struggled blindly to free myself. My gun had been flung from my hand in my fall and was out of my reach. Then to my horror I heard the howl the wolf gives when game is in sight, and even half blind as I was I saw dark, dog-like forms sweep by me; I heard the scream of an eagle; I heard a snarling and yelping, the sounds of a struggle-I ceased to kick, wiped the blood from my eyes and looked ahead.

There lay Big Pete Darlinkel, dead or unconscious, and within ten feet of him stood the giant bear surrounded by a vicious pack of gaunt red-mouthed wolves. The bear made a rush and a shadow pa.s.sed over the ground; I heard the sound of a large body rushing swiftly through the air, and an immense eagle struck the bear like a thunderbolt; at the same instant the wolves attacked him from all sides; then there was a whistle keen and clear; the wolves retreated; the bird again soared aloft; the bear made several pa.s.ses in the air in search of the bird, fell forward again on all fours, rose on its hind legs and killed a wolf with one sweep of its great paw.