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 assembled 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 shore,
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 glass 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 massive 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 mass 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 assumed 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 shore 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 arsenal.
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 assumed, 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.
[Illustration: 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 carcass of the elk to remind us of the
strange episode.