“Moseyed, by gum! I’ll be tarnally tarnashuned if that terri-fa-ca-cious spook hain’t pulled out!” was the exclamation that awakened me the morning after our adventure with the bear.

Lazily opening my eyes I gazed a moment at the sun just peeping over the mountain, then closed them again; but when I attempted to change my position a sharp pain in my ankle thoroughly awakened me. Still I lay quiet because it was some time before I could collect my scattered senses and separate in my mind the real incident and the dream phantasms.

The pain in my ankle, the swelled and irritated condition of my nose plainly proved to me that there was no dream about my injuries, but I discovered that my head and leg were neatly bandaged with strips of fine linen. I sat for a while busily collecting the incidents of the past twenty-four hours, arranging them in my mind in their proper order and place. I cut out the dream portion from the realities with very little trouble until I reached the part where I had awakened in the night and had seen the wolves, the eagle and the Wild Hunter. I could not be sure whether that was a dream or reality. Had I seen this strange old man with his eagle and his wolf pack beside our camp fire or had I dreamed it? Had this hobgoblin man, who might be my own father, rescued me from death at the claws of the grizzly and bound my wounds for me, or was that but a dream too? Had not Big Pete saved me perhaps and cared for me afterward?

“Pete, old fellow,” I said presently, rising to my elbow, “who brought me to camp? Who killed that bear? Who saved our lives?”

“The Wild Hunter,” replied Pete gravely. “He bathed my head with some sort of good smelling stuff and, though I am as heavy as a dead buffaler, toted me to camp; he ’lowed that I was all sort of shuk up and a little hazy; he fixed my blanket, then he fotched you in on his shoulders just as if you was a dead antelope, fixed you up with bandages torn from handkerchiefs in your pocket, gave you a drink which you didn’t seem to appreciate, but just swallowed like you were asleep, then he laid you out. I had my eye peeled on him but he said nary a word, an’ when we wuz both all comfortable he pulled out a long cigar, sot down by the fire and was smoking tha’ with his bird and his wolves around him when I went to sleep.

“He cut his bullets out, as he allus does,” muttered Pete a little while later.

“Who cut what bullets?” I asked.

“Whomsoever cud I mean but th’ Wild Hunter, and wha’s tha’ been any bullets lately but in th’ b’ar?” queried my companion.

“Yes, of course,” I admitted, “but why do you suppose he cut out the bullets?”

“Wal, I reckon tha’ might be right scarce and he haster be kinder sparing with them. I calculate you’d like to have a hatful of them balls, leastwise most folks would; cause the Wild Hunter don’t use no common low-flung lead for his bullets, no-sir-ree bob-horsefly! Tain’t good ’nuff for a high-cock-alorum like him—he shoots balls of virgin gold!”

But I was more interested in what had become of this strange man than in the sort of projectiles rumor said that he used in his gun and so dismissed the subject with a request for further information about our rescuer.

“This morning when I opened my peepers,” Pete continued, “I t’ought maybe the Wild Hunter had only gone off on a tramp; but he’s done clared out for good, and tuk his wolves and bird with him. I’m some glad he took th’ wolves, I don’t sorter like the look of their mean eyes; they do say that he is a wolf himself and the head of the pack.”

“What’s that, Pete? Steady, old man, now let’s go slow.”“All right; tha’s wha’ I mean ter do. ’Cause it hain’t a varmint natur’ to help men folks, and he done helped us, and no mistake, and left us the bulk of the b’ar too,—only took the claws, teeth and tenderloin or two for himself and pack; that is, if he be a wolf. But we will settle that if your foot will let you walk a bit.”

“How far?” I asked.

“Only over yan way to the first piece of wet ground, and the trail leads down to tha’ spring tha’, and tha’ is quite a right smart bit of muddy swail beyont.”

“All right, I’ll try it,” I exclaimed. But I could not touch my foot on the ground, and it was not until my guide had made me a crutch of a forked branch, padded with a piece of fur, that I was able to go limping along after Big Pete.

We followed the trail left by the Wild Hunter to the spring. The trail after that was plain, even to my inexperienced eyes; and when we reached the muddy spot the print of the moccasined feet and the dog-like tracks of the wolves were distinctly visible.

But look at Big Pete!

As motionless as a statue, with a solemn face he stoops with a rigid figure pointing to the trail! I hastened to his side and saw that the moccasin prints ceased in the middle of an open, bare, muddy place and beyond were nothing but the dog-like tracks of the wolves.

I looked up and all around; there were no overhanging branches that a man could swing himself upon, no stones that he could leap upon—nothing but the straggling bunches of ferns; but here in this open spot the Wild Hunter vanished.

We walked back in silence, for I had nothing to say, and Pete did not volunteer any further information.