The Black Wolf Pack Part 7

It took four whole deer-skins to furnish stuff for my buckskin shirt with the beautiful long fringes at the seams; but the whole garment was cut, sewed and finished in a day's time. It was sewed with thread made of sinew.

When it came to making the coat and trousers Big Pete spent a long time in solemn thought before he was ready to begin work on these garments; at length he looked up with a broad smile and cried:

"See here, Le-loo, I have taken a fancy to them 'ere tenderfut pants o'

your'n. Off with 'em now an' I'll jist cut out the new ones from the old uns." In vain I pleaded with him to make my trousers like his own; he would not listen to me, he insisted upon having my ragged but stylish knickerbockers to use as a pattern.

CHAPTER X

Big Pete was an expert backwoods tailor, shoemaker and shirtmaker, but these were but few of his accomplishments, not his trade; he was first, last and aways a hunter and scout. No matter what occupation seemed to engage his attention for the time it never interfered with his ability to hear, see or smell.

It was while I was going around camp minus my lower garments that I saw Pete suddenly throw up his head and suspiciously sniff the air, at the same time sharply scanning the windward side of our camp. Living so long with this strange man made me familiar with his actions and quick to detect anything unusual and I now knew that something of interest had happened. To the windward and close by us was a mound thickly covered with bullberry bushes and underbrush, and so far as could be seen there was nothing suspicious in the appearance of the thicket. Fixing my eyes on Big Pete, I saw a peculiar expression spread over his face which seemed to be half of mirth and half of wonderment, and I immediately knew that his wonderful nose had warned him of the presence of something to the windward.

Slowly and quietly he laid aside my almost finished breeches and silently stole away. It was only a few minutes before he returned with a very solemn face.

"Doggone my corn shucked bones, Le-loo, we've had a visitor but it got away mighty slick and quick. I hain't determint yit whether it wa' man er beast er both, er jist a thing wha' might change into 'tother. We'll hafter investigate later. Here git these duds on."

When I put on my new elk-hide knickerbockers with cuffs of dressed buckskin laced around my calves, and my beautiful soft buckskin shirt tucked in at the waist I began to feel like a real Nimrod, but after I added my "Moo-loch-Capo," the shooting jacket with elk-teeth b.u.t.tons, pulled a pair of shank moccasins over my feet and donned a cap made of lynx skin, I was as happy as a child with its Christmas stocking. It was a really wonderful suit of clothing; the hair of the elk hide was on the outside, and not only made the coat and breeches warmer, but helped to shed the rain. The b.u.t.tons of the elk-teeth were fastened on with thongs run through holes in their centers, and my coat could be laced up after the fashion of a military overcoat. The elk's teeth served as frogs and loops of rawhide answered for the braid that is used on military coats.

My shank moccasins were made by first making a cut around each of the hind legs of an elk, at a sufficient distance above the heels to leave hide enough for boot legs and making another cut far enough below the heels to make room for one's feet. The fresh skins when peeled off looked like rude stockings with holes at the toes. The skins were turned wrong side out, and the open toes closed by bringing the lower part, or sole, up over the opening and sewing it there after the manner of a tip to the modern shoe. When this novel foot-gear was dry enough for the purpose, Big Pete ornamented the legs with quaint colored designs made with split porcupine quills colored with dyes which Pete himself had manufactured of roots and barks.

Dressed in my unique and picturesque costume I stood upright while Pete surveyed me with the pride and satisfaction of one who had done a fine piece of work. I had now little fear of being called a tenderfoot and when I viewed my reflection in the spring I felt quite proud of my appearance.

"Come along now old scout," said Pete viewing me with the pride of an artist, "come along and let me test you on a real trail. I want to see what my teaching has done for you."

Pete led me through the underbrush to a point among the rocks.

"Tha'. A trail begins right under yore nose; let's see what you make of it," he said crisply.

Down on all fours I crept over the ground and, to my surprise and joy, I found that I could here and there detect a turned leaf the twist of which indicated the direction taken by the party who made the trail. I noticed that the bits of wood, pine cones and sticks scattered around were darker on the parts next to the ground, and it only required simple reasoning for me to conclude that when the dark side was uppermost the object had been recently disturbed and rolled over.

It was a day of great discoveries. I found that what is true of the sticks is equally true of the pebbles and a displaced fragment of stone immediately caught my eyes. With the tenacity of a bloodhound I stuck to my task until I suddenly found myself at the base of the park wall, at the foot of the diagonal fracture in the face of the cliff where I had climbed when I discovered the golden trout. As I have said, the fracture led diagonally up the towering face of the beetling precipice.

For fear that I might have made some mistake I carefully retraced my steps backward toward the bullberry bushes near the camp. On the back trail I came upon some distinct and obvious footprints in a dusty place, but so deeply interested was I in hidden signs, the slight but tell-tale disturbances of leaf and soil, that I once pa.s.sed these plainly marked tracks with only a glance and would have done so the second time had not their marked peculiarities accidentally caught my attention.

When examining the trail of this mysterious camp visitor I suddenly realized that in place of moccasin footprints I was following bear tracks, my heart ceased to beat for a moment or two before I could pull myself together and smother the prehensile footed superst.i.tious old savage in me with the practical philosophy of the up-to-date man of today.

Taking a short cut I ran back to the foot of the pa.s.s and there, on hands and knees, ascended for a hundred feet or more-the bear steps led up the pa.s.s, and yet at the beginning of the trail the feet wore moccasins. This I knew because at one place the foot-mark showed plainly in the gray alkali dust which had acc.u.mulated upon a projecting stone a few feet below the ledge. Obviously whoever the visitor was, he had entered and left by this pa.s.s. Returning to camp I sat down on a log lost in thought. My reverie was at last broken by the voice of my guide quietly remarking. "Well, Le-loo, what's your judication?"

"Pete," I said, "that bear walks on its hind-legs; there is not the sign of a forefoot anywhere along the trail. Now this could not be caused by the hind feet obliterating the tracks of the front feet, because in many places the pa.s.s is so steep that the forefeet in reaching out for support would make tracks not overlapped by the hind ones."

"That's true, Le-loo; sartin true. If you live to be a hundred years you'll make as good a trailer as the great Greaser trailer of New Mexico, Dolores Sanchez, or my old friend Bill Ha.s.sler, who could follow a six-month-old trail," replied my guide. "But," he continued, "maybe witch-bears do walk on their hind legs same as people."

"Witch be blamed!" I cried impatiently; "this is no four-legged witch nor bear either. That was a man and when he thought he would be followed he put on moccasins made from bears' paws to leave a disguised trail.

And moreover I believe that man is none other than the Wild Hunter without his wolf pack. And that pa.s.s is the pathway he takes in and out of this park. I'm going to trail him whether you want to or not. Goodbye Pete, I'll come back for you," and picking up my gun and other necessary traps, I prepared to start immediately upon my journey, for I felt that to follow this trail would not only get us out of our park prison but would lead me to the abode of the Wild Hunter, where perhaps I could talk with him and learn some of the things I was so eager to know about my parents.

Big Pete looked at me solemnly for a while, ran over the cartridges in his belt and went through all those familiar unconscious motions which betokened danger ahead, and said, "Le-loo, you are a quare critter; you're not afraid of all the werwolves, medicine ba'rs and ghosts in this world or the next, but tarnally afeared of live varmints like grizzly bars-one would think you had no religion, but, gosh all hemlock! If you can face a bear-man or a werwolf, even though all the Hy-as Ecutocks of the mountains show fight, I'll be cornfed if I don't stand by ye! Barring the Wild Hunter, I don't know as I ever ran agin a Ecutock yit; that is if he be a Ecutock. Maybe he's a Econe? Yes, I reckon that's what he is," continued Pete reflectively.

"Maybe he is a pine cone," I laughed. Then added, "Whatever he is, he knows the way out of this park of yours and I am going to follow him," I emphatically answered.

"That's howsomever!" exclaimed my guide approvingly; "but," he continued, "the mountains are kivered with snow, while it is still summer down here, so I reckon 'twould be the proper wrinkle for us to pull our things together, have a good feed and a good sleep before we start. White men start off hot-headed and I kinder like their grit, but Injuns stop and sot by the fire an' smoke an' think afore they start on a raid an' I kinder think they be wiser in this than we 'uns, so let's do as the Injuns would do. We can cache most of our stuff and turn the horses loose. Bighorn's mutton is powerful good, but tarnally shy and hung mighty high, an' billygoat is doggoned strong 'nless you know how to cook 'em. Yes, we'll eat an sleep fust an' then his for the land where the Bighorn pasture, the woolywhite goats sleep on the rocks, the whistling marmot blows his danger signal an' the pretty white ptarmigan hides hisself in the snow-banks, the home of the Ecutocks.

"What the thunder is a Ecutock, Pete?" I asked.

"An Injun devil, I reckon you'd call it; it's bad medicine," he answered soberly, and continuing in his former strain, he exclaimed:

"Whar critters like goats, sheeps and rock-chucks kin live, you bet your Hy-as muck-a-muck we kin live too!"

That night I rolled up into my blanket, filled with strange presentiments. Again the question came up: What is the source of the influence that this madman of the mountains, this wild hunter, this leader of the black wolf pack, had on me to impel me to trail him over the mountains? Was it mental telepathy? Could he really be my father?

Somehow I felt convinced that soon I would be face to face with the riddle, soon I would know the facts and the truth about my parents. It seemed unthinkable that all these weeks of wilderness travel had been for naught and that the Wild Hunter was nothing but a strange, eccentric old fellow living alone in the mountains and of no interest to me whatsoever.

CHAPTER XI

We made our start at daylight, loaded with all the necessities for a climb over the mountains. The rest of our supplies and equipment we cached, and Big Pete turned our horses loose a.s.suring me that in the spring he would come back and rope them.

The lower trail of the pa.s.s was quite well defined and we made famous progress, but the higher we climbed the more difficult the going became and more than once we were forced to pause on a ledge to rest and regain our breath.

On one ledge I got my first really close view of a bighorn sheep, and I became so excited that nothing would do but I must stalk him, despite Big Pete's a.s.surance that the wily old ram would not let me get within gun shot of him in such an exposed area.

I crawled, and wriggled, and twisted over rock and boulders for what to me seemed miles, but always the sheep kept just out of accurate shooting distance ahead of me. It was an exasperating chase, but one cannot live in the mountains for any length of time without paying more or less attention to geology; the mountaineer soon learns that stratified rock, that is rock arranged like layer cake, resting in a horizontal position on its natural bed, makes travel over its top comparatively easy, but when by the subsidence or upheaval of the earth's crust huge ma.s.ses of stone have been tilted up edgewise, it is an entirely different proposition.

In this latter case the erosion, or the wearing away, caused by trickling water, frost and snow, sharpens the edge of the rock, as a grindstone does the edge of an ax, and traveling along one of these ridges presents almost the same difficulties that travel along the edge of an upturned ax would do to a microscopic man.

But when a sportsman, for the first time in his life, has succeeded in creeping within range of a grand bighorn ram, and his bullet, speeding true, has badly wounded the game, hardships are forgotten, and if, on account of the miraculous vitality of the mountain sheep, there is danger of losing the quarry, all the inborn instinct of the predaceous beast in man's nature is aroused, and danger is a consideration not to be taken in account.

A hawk in pursuit of a barnyard fowl will follow it into the open door of the farmhouse; the hound in pursuit of the fox cares not for the approaching locomotive-being possessed by the instinct to kill-nothing is of importance to them but the capture of the game in sight. A man following a buck is governed by a like singleness of purpose.

For this reason I was scrambling along the knife-like edge of the ridge, with death in the steep treacherous slide rock on one side, death in the steep green glacier ice on the other side, and torture and wounds under my feet.

But the fever of the chase had possession of me. I had tasted blood and felt the fierce joy of the puma and the wild intoxication of a hunting wolf!

The cruel wounds inflicted by the sharp stones under my feet were unnoticed. Away ahead of me was a moving object; it could use but three legs, but that was one leg more than I had, and the ram had distanced me. After an age of time I reached the rugged, broader footing of the mountain side, and creeping up behind some sheltering rocks again fired at the fleeing ram. With the impact of the bullet the sheep fell headlong down a cliff to a projecting rock thirty feet below, where it lay apparently dead. A moment later it again arose, seemingly as able as ever, and ran along the face of the beetling rock where my eyes, aided by powerful field gla.s.ses, could perceive no foothold; then it gave a magnificent leap to a ledge on the opposite side of the narrow canyon and fell dead, out of my reach.

Spent with my long, rough run, I naturally selected the most comfortable seat in which to rest; this chanced to be a cushion of heather-like plants along the side of a fragment of rock which effectually concealed my body from view from the other side of the chasm. Here, on the verge of that impa.s.sable canyon, I sat panting and looking at the poor dead creature upon the opposite side; its right front leg was shattered at the shoulder, a bullet had pierced its lungs.

Yet, with two fatal wounds and a useless leg, the plucky creature had scaled the face of a cliff which one would think a squirrel would find impossible to traverse and made leaps which might well be considered improbable for a perfectly sound animal. The ram was dead and food for the ravens, and a reaction had taken place in my mind; I felt like a b.l.o.o.d.y murderer, and hung my head with a sense of guilt.

Presently, becoming conscious of that peculiar guttural noise, used by Big Pete when desiring caution, and looking up I was amazed to see a splendid Indian youth climb down the face of the opposite cliff, throw his arms around the dead ram's neck and burst into deep but subdued lamentation. For the first time I now saw that what I had mistaken for a blood stain on the bighorn's neck was a red collar.

Cautiously producing my field gla.s.ses I examined the collar and discovered it to be made of stained porcupine quills cleverly worked on a buckskin band. The field gla.s.ses also told me that the boy's shirt was trimmed with the same material, while a duplicate of the sheep's collar formed a band which encircled his head, confining the long black hair and preventing it from falling over his face, but leaving it free to hang down his back to a point below the waist line.

So absorbed was I in this unique spectacle that I carelessly allowed my elbow to dislodge a loose fragment of stone which went clattering down the face of the precipice. This proved to be almost fatal carelessness, for, with a movement as quick as the stroke of a rattlesnake, the lad placed an arrow to the string of a bow and sent the barbed shaft with such force, prompt.i.tude and precision that it went through my fur cap, the arrow entangling a bunch of my hair, taking it along with it.