CHAPTER VII
One day after we had selected our new camp, I took my rod along andwandered into the wonderful forest of ancient trees. There I seatedmyself on a log to think over my experience. Somehow my own trials andambitions seemed small, trivial and not worth while when I looked uponthose grand trees standing silently on guard as they were standing whenColumbus was busy smashing a hard-boiled egg to make it stand on end.Yes, naturalists tell us some of these same trees were standing beforethe New Testament was written and then as now their branches concealedtheir lofty tops and formed a screen through which the powerful rays ofthe noon-day sun are filtered, refined and subdued to a dreamy twilightbelow, a twilight in which the soft green mosses and lace-like fernsthrive into luxuriant growth.
It was so still and quiet in that forest that the silence seemed to hurtmy ears and I found myself listening to see if I could not hear the deepdark blue blossoms of the fringed gentians whispering scandals about theflaming Indian paint brushes that flourished in the opening in the woodswhere the sun's ray could reach and warm the dark earth. As I listened Icould not help but speculate a great deal as to the possibilities of theodd old man of this forest being in some way connected with my father'shistory, but the story of the wolf-man as given to me by my bigcompanion was so varied and so mixed with the superstitions of theIndians and trappers who had come in contact with him, or had seen himand his weird wolf pack roaming the mountains, that I could not in anyway take it as the basis for a solution of the problem.
Indeed, the more Big Pete told me the less I believed that this strangeand probably mad man could be my father. In truth, the only real clueor even faint reason I had for believing that he owned the missing"Patrick Mullen" was because this gun at a distance seemed to correspondwith the description of the Mullen's gun. It was a faint clue indeed andsometimes seemed not worth investigation. Yet when I began to doubt thepossibility an unexplained impulse or force kept urging me on to believethat if I but persisted and found an opportunity to examine this gun itwould prove to be the one I sought, and if I had a chance to talk tothis strange Wild Hunter much of the mystery that surrounded my ownbabyhood would be cleared up, so I found myself earnestly longing for areal interview with this mysterious creature.
The more I thought of it the more I was inclined to believe that I wason the right track, until at last convinced that this was so, I criedaloud, "I have found him!"
"Who! Who!" queried a startled owl, as it peered down at me from itshiding place in the dense foliage of a cedar far above.
"Never mind who, you old rascal," I laughingly replied, and picking upmy fishing-rod I parted the underbrush to start on my way through thewood for some trout, but suddenly halted when I found myself staringinto the face of a huge timber wolf. The beast's lips were drawn backdisplaying its gleaming fangs, its back hair was as erect as the croppedmane of a pony, its mongolian eyes shone green through their narrowslits and its whole attitude seemed to say, "Well, now that you havefound me, what do you propose to do?"
Now, boys, do not make any mistake about me, I am not a hero and neverposed as one; in truth my timidity at times amounts to cowardice, a factwhich I usually keep to myself, but I never was afraid of wolves until Iso unexpectedly met this one. It is needless to say that I have no hairon my back, it is as bare as that of any other fellow's, nevertheless,on this occasion I could distinctly feel my bristles rise from the napeof my neck to the end of my spine, just the same as those on theoblique-eyed, shaggy monster whose snapping teeth were so near my face.
Everybody is familiar with the fact that people who have had limbsamputated often complain of pains or itching in the missing members. Mymissing back hair, the hair which my ancestors lost by the slow processof evolution, the hair which grew on the back of the "missing link,"stood on end at the sight of this wolf. However, this fear was butmomentary and when my courage returned I lifted my rod case in athreatening manner, and the wolf slunk away as noiselessly as a shadow,and like a shadow faded out of sight in the dim twilight of the ancientforest. When I reached the open land beyond the forest another surpriseawaited me.
Surely this is heaven, I thought as I waded knee-deep among thebeautiful flowers of the prairie, starting the sharp pin-tailed grouse,prairie chickens and sage grouse from their retreats and sending themeadow-larks skimming away over flowering billows. Reaching anelevation where I could peer beyond the crests of one of the "groundswells" which furrowed the sea of nodding blossoms, I saw through thestems of the plants, a part of the prairie at first concealed from view,and there appeared to be numerous irregular boulders of dark brown stonescattered around among the vegetation, and the boulders were moving!
Careful scrutiny, however, proved them to be not stones but livebuffalo. Big Pete had often told me that these animals lived unmolestedby him in the park; but when I realized that I was looking at betweenthree and four hundred real buffalo my heart gave a great jump of joy. Itried to view them so as to take in their details, but the apparentlyshapeless masses of dark reddish brown wool appeared to have none,unless indeed the comical fur trousers with frayed bottoms on theirfront legs might be called detail.
Even the faces of the beasts were so concealed by masks of knotted woolthat at first I could distinguish neither eyes, noses, horns or ears;but in spite of their ragged trousers and their masked faces, the bisonare sublime in their mighty strength and ponderous proportions, and asthis was the first wild herd I had ever seen and one of the very few, ifnot the only one, then extant, I viewed them with the keenest interest.
But the scattered bunches of antelope, which I now noticed were dottingthe plains around the buffalo, appealed to my love of the beautiful.Knowing that in other localities these charming little creatures arerapidly being slaughtered and steadily decreasing in numbers and thatall attempts to breed them in captivity have so far failed, they at onceabsorbed my attention to the exclusion of their larger neighbors.
When we moved our camp to the far side of the lake, Big Pete told methat I could find plenty of trout streams beyond the timber belt, and healso informed me that I could there see the walls of the park andsatisfy myself that there was but one trail leading into the preserve.
I do not now recall the sort of walls that were pictured in my mind orknow what I really expected to see enclosing Darlinkel's Park, but I doknow that when I suddenly emerged from the dark forests into the sunlitprairie, the scene which greeted my vision was not the one painted by myimagination.
Before me stretched an open plain surrounded by mountains arisingabruptly from a bed of many colored flowers; they were the same rangeswhose snow-covered peaks formed a feature of the landscape at the lakeand at our first camp.
Here, however, their appearance was different, as different as the darkforest from the open sunlit prairie. The scene at first did not seemreal, it had a sort of a drop-curtain effect that was as familiar to meas the row of footlights and gilded boxes, but never did I expect to seethose delicate tints, that blue atmosphere, the fresco colored rocks andall the theatrical properties of a drop-curtain duplicated in nature,yet here it was before me, not a detail wanting, even the impossiblemammoth bed of gaudy flowers at the foot of the mountain was here andthe numerous cascades had not been forgotten. Well, it does seemwonderful to me that unknown theatrical daubers should know so much moreof nature than the public for whom they paint.
But, nature is a bolder artist than even the daring scenic painters; infront of me was a prairie of flowers, acres and acres of waving,undulating masses of color; thousands of Arizona wyetha (wildsunflowers) mingled with the brilliant tips of the fire-weed and clumpsof odorous and delicately colored horsemint. There were other flowersunfamiliar to me and hundreds of big blossoms of what I took to be amember of the primrose family. It was in this garden that the buffaloand antelope were grazing.
An old buck antelope saw me and I instantly dropped to the ground andwas concealed by the flowering vegetation. I wanted to see the homelife of these animals, but was disappo
inted because of the attention Ihad attracted. When first discovered the does were browsing with headsdown and the kids were playing tag with one another, every once in awhile spreading the white hair on their rumps and then lowering the"white flag" again, they apparently used it as a Morse signal system oftheir own. But now they were all alert and facing me; the bucks had seensomething and that something had suddenly disappeared. This must beinvestigated, so they circled round hesitatingly; the apparition mightbe a foe but still they _must_ satisfy their curiosity and discover whatit was of which they had had a moment's glimpse and thus they approachednearer and ever nearer to my place of concealment.
Soon, however, I became aware of the fact that the antelope hadunaccountably lost all thought of me and were deeply interested insomething else which from their actions I concluded to be recognized asan enemy. It was now apparent that if Big Pete did not hunt theprong-horns someone or something else _did_ hunt them.
As a bunch broke away from the scattered groups and came in mydirection, making great leaps over the prairie, I detected the cause oftheir panic in the form of a huge eagle which was keeping pace with andflying over the fleeing prong-horns.
The bird was not more than a dozen feet above the animals' backs and invain did the poor creatures try to distance their pursuer. At lengththey scattered, each one taking a course of his own. Then the bird did astrange thing. It singled out the largest buck and persistentlyfollowing him, it came directly towards me and passed within ten feet ofmy ambush, the broad wings of the antelope's relentless foe casting adark shadow over the straining muscles of the beautiful animal's back. Iwas tempted to drive the bird away or shoot at it with my revolver, butthe thought that I had seen that bird before restrained me and the factthat it pursued a strong, healthy buck instead of selecting a weaker andmore easy prey convinced me that this eagle had been trained to the huntand was not a wild[2] bird, for the immutable law that "labor followsthe line of least resistance" holds good with all wild creatures. It wasnot long before I had to use my field glasses to follow the chase andthen I discovered that the poor prong-horn was showing signs of fatigue.It had made a grave error in dashing up an incline and the eagle fromhis position above knew that the time had come to strike and, like athunderbolt, it fell, striking its hooked talons in the graceful neck ofthe terror-stricken antelope.
[Footnote 2: The late Howard Eaton of Wolf, Wyoming, watched an eagle hunt down a prong-horned buck.--EDITOR.]
Hoping to get a nearer view of the last tragedy, I hastened towards thespot and before I was aware of my position, found myself close to theherd of buffalo. I then saw that these beasts being unaccustomed toman, did not fear him, but on the contrary meant to show fight. As Icame to a sudden halt the old bulls began to paw the earth, throwing thedirt up over their backs and bellowing with a low vibrating roar thatwas terror-inspiring. Then they dropped to their knees, rolled on theirbacks, got up, shook themselves, licked their noses, "rolled up theirtails" into stiff curves, put down their heads and came at me. The cowswith their hair standing on end like angry elks and bellowing loudlywere not behind their lords in aggressiveness and the comical littlecalves came bouncing along after their dame.
Was I frightened? That depends upon one's definition of the word. I wasnot panic-stricken, but to say that I was not _excited_ when I saw thoseanimated masses of dark brown wool come roaring and thundering at mewould be to make boast that no one who has had a similar experiencewould believe.
Fortunately, not far behind me was the hollow or gully alreadymentioned and I bolted over the edge of it. As soon as the bankconcealed my person I ran as I never ran before taking a course at rightangles to my original one and leeward of the herd, and at last, out ofbreath, I rolled over in the weeds and lay there panting and strainingmy ears to hear the snorting beasts.
My chest felt dry, hot and oppressed from forced and labored breathing,and had the buffalo discovered me I do not think I could have runanother step. But the big brutes halted at the edge of the bank andseeing no one in sight walked around pawing and throwing up great cloudsof dust and in their rage apparently daring me to come forth. Like asmall boy when he hears a challenge from a gang of toughs, I decidedthat I did not want to fight and lay as quiet as possible among thesunflowers until I had regained my breath. When the buffalo wanderedback to their original pasture land I, like a coyote, slunk away andconsoled myself with the thought that although I had had my run for mymoney, at least, I had seen the death of the antelope even if I did missagain seeing the Wild Hunter "collar his game," as Big Pete would havecalled the act of securing it. Besides this I had a real excitingadventure with good red-blooded American animals and learned the lessonthat large horned beasts which have not been taught to fear man areexceedingly dangerous to man.
The Black Wolf Pack Page 7