Instinct is no doubt a Wolf's first and best guide, but gifted parents
are a great start in life. The dusky-maned cub had had a mother of rare
excellence and he reaped the advantage of all her cleverness. He had
inherited an exquisite nose and had absolute confidence in its
admonitions. Mankind has difficulty in recognizing the power of
nostrils. A Gray-wolf can glance over the morning wind as a man does
over his newspaper, and get all the latest news. He can swing over the
ground and have the minutest information of every living creature that
has walked there within many hours. His nose even tells which way it
ran, and in a word renders a statement of every animal that recently
crossed his trail, whence it came, and whither it went.
That power had Duskymane in the highest degree; his broad, moist nose
was evidence of it to all who are judges of such things. Added to this,
his frame was of unusual power and endurance, and last, he had early
learned a deep distrust of everything strange, and, call it what we
will, shyness, wariness or suspicion, it was worth more to him than all
his cleverness. It was this as much as his physical powers that made a
success of his life. Might is right in wolf-land, and Duskymane and his
mother had been driven out of Sentinel Butte. But it was a very
delectable land and he kept drifting back to his native mountain. One
or two big Wolves there resented his coming. They drove him off several
times, yet each time he returned he was better able to face them; and
before he was eighteen months old he had defeated all rivals and
established himself again on his native ground; where he lived like a
robber baron, levying tribute on the rich lands about him and finding
safety in the rocky fastness.
Wolver Ryder often hunted in that country, and before long, he came
across a five-and-one-half-inch track, the foot-print of a giant Wolf.
Roughly reckoned, twenty to twenty-five pounds of weight or six inches
of stature is a fair allowance for each inch of a Wolf's foot; this
Wolf therefore stood thirty-three inches at the shoulder and weighed
about one hundred and forty pounds, by far the largest Wolf he had ever
met. King had lived in Goat country, and now in Goat language he
exclaimed: "You bet, ain't that an old Billy?" Thus by trivial chance
it was that Duskymane was known to his foe, as 'Badlands Billy.'
Ryder was familiar with the muster-call of the Wolves, the long, smooth
cry, but Billy's had a singular feature, a slurring that was always
distinctive. Ryder had heard this before, in the Cottonwood Cañon, and
when at length he got a sight of the big Wolf with the black mane, it
struck him that this was also the Cub of the old Yellow fury that he
had trapped.
These were among the things he told me as we sat by the fire at night.
I knew of the early days when any one could trap or poison Wolves, of
the passing of those days, with the passing of the simple Wolves; of
the new race of Wolves with new cunning that were defying the methods
of the ranchmen, and increasing steadily in numbers. Now the wolver
told me of the various ventures that Penroof had made with different
kinds of Hounds; of Foxhounds too thin-skinned to fight; of Greyhounds
that were useless when the animal was out of sight; of Danes too heavy
for the rough country, and, last, of the composite pack with some of
all kinds, including at times a Bull-terrier to lead them in the final
fight.
He told of hunts after Coyotes, which usually were successful because
the Coyotes sought the plains, and were easily caught by the
Greyhounds. He told of killing some small Gray-wolves with this very
pack, usually at the cost of the one that led them; but above all he
dwelt on the wonderful prowess of "that thar cussed old Black Wolf of
Sentinel Butte," and related the many attempts to run him down or
corner him--an unbroken array of failures. For the big Wolf, with
exasperating persistence, continued to live on the finest stock of the
Penroof brand, and each year was teaching more Wolves how to do the
same with perfect impunity.
I listened even as gold-hunters listen to stories of treasure trove,
for these were the things of my world. These things indeed were
uppermost in all our minds, for the Penroof pack was lying around our
camp-fire now. We were out after Badlands Billy.