CHAPTER III
To say that the whole spectacle that I had just witnessed startled mewould be stating it mildly indeed. The strange appearance of this big,powerful, smooth shaven man in a buckskin hunting costume with a retinueof black wolves and a trained eagle, the mysterious manner of hishunting and his coming and going, aroused in me great interest andcuriosity and I could realize the effect it evidently had upon BigPete's superstitious mind in spite of the fact that the big fellow wasaccustomed to facing almost any sort of danger. As for me, I could notmyself prevent the creeping chills from running down my spine whenever Ithought 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 connectedwith my father? I wondered, and as I wondered I found that a vague fearof this mad man who despite his reputed age seemed as youthful and asagile as a man in his thirties, was gripping me. Perhaps the strangenessof the wilderness park added to my awe, for certainly one could expectalmost anything supernatural to happen in the twilight of the forest ofgiant trees, whose interlacing branches overhead shut out the light ofheaven.
Recovering somewhat from my astonishment and surprise, I realized thatwhat I had witnessed, strange though it appeared, was not a supernaturaloccurrence. I knew that it was a real gun I had heard, real smoke I hadseen, real man, real bird, real elk, and real wolves.
"But, Pete," I exclaimed, as a sudden thought struck me, "what's becomeof our dogs?"
"Better ask them black fiends up the mountains. I reckon you won't seethem tha' hounds of yours agin."
And I never did, but having hunted the wolf with cowboys and having beena witness to their extraordinary biting power, I knew the fate that mustnecessarily befall a couple of ordinary hounds when overtaken by half adozen full-grown wolves. On such occasions we do not spend much time ingrief over a loss of any kind, "it taint according to mountain law,"Pete would say.
"Reckon we had better swipe some of that elk before the coyotes get atit," growled Pete. "The wild mountainman knows the good parts, but anelk is an elk, and one wild man, even if he is a giant, can't carry offall 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 forhim, and he's a hanging his long legs off'ner a rock some whar smoking along cigar."
"Dod rot him," growled Pete. "Why couldn't he leave a piece of hide tocarry the meat in and the stomach to cook it in? That's the fust time Iever stayed long 'nough to see him collar his meat, though they say hedo eat the game raw, but I reckon that's a lie, leastwise he didn't do'tthis time."
With a good square meal of the locoed hunter's elk under our belts and arousing camp fire before which to toast our shins, both the bigwesterner and I felt a little more natural and comfortable, but ourconversation turned again to this wild hunter of the mountains.
I could see that the mysterious old man with his wolf pack and eaglearoused almost every possible form of superstition in Big Pete and Iconfess that I was not free from some of it myself. The guide wascertain that the man was either a ghost or a reincarnated devil, and hedisplayed 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 himabout him. They are all skeered t' death o' him. An' I don't blame 'em.He's a shore enough hant and them tha' houn's o' his'n is devils in wolfskins. Jumping Gehoosaphats, ef they shed ever cut my trail I reckon I'djust lay right down an' die," and Big Pete actually shuddered at thepossibility.
"Why, young feller," he went on, "that ol' man shoots gold bullets outo' a real Patrick Mullen gun."
"A Mullen gun, Pete?" I cried, "how do you know, man; speak for goodnesssake!"
"I don't know it's a Patrick Mullen and guess it tain't one 'cause aPatrick Mullen rifle would cost a thousand or more. But the old Injun,Beaver Tail, says, someone told his father and his father told him thatet is a Patrick Mullen gun an' is a special make inlaid with gold andsilver, an' all ornamented up, an' built for an ol' muzzle-loadin'flint-lock. Now Mullen never made no flint-lock rifles that I hear'ntell of, his specialty be shotguns an' if he made this rifle I'mganderplucked if I cud tell how this spook got it."
"Unless the wild Hunter might be a relative of old Patrick Mullen," Isaid, thinking aloud, and gasping at the thought, for the description ofthe rifle somehow impressed me again with the possibility that this wildman of the mountains might himself be Donald Mullen, and _my ownfather!_
"Why do you say that, kid?" asked Big Pete with a queer look in hiseyes.
"Oh, I don't know, I was just wondering to myself. But what makes youthink he's a supernatural being, and, Pete, does this wild loony hunterlook at all like me?"
"Super what? Say when did you swallow a dictionary?--Oh, you mean whatmakes me think he's a devil. No, he don't favor you none," he added witha grin, "he's a _handsome_ devil, although he's done terrified everywhite man, an' Injun, in these parts half t' death, so most of 'emsafeared to come back here at all. Men have gone in the park jest to getthis wild man's scalp, but they've done come back scared yaller an' theyain't opened their trap much about him since nuther. They do say hespits fire an' chaws his meat offen the bone an' then cracks the boneslike a dog an' swallers it all. They do say, too, that he roars likeforty devils with their tails cut off when he gits mad an' some say aswhen he wants t' git som wha' in a hurry he jest grabs aholt o' the feeto' tha' there thunder bird and she flies off with him and draps himanywha' he asks her to--Nope, I hain't seen none of these things myselfbut others say they has, an' believe me, I'm plumb cautious whentravelin' these parts alone. Howsomever, he hain't yet skeered me 'noughto 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; nowlet's turn in."