“My foreman, here, is witness to it all,” raged on Garry, in the same breath. “He’ll test’fy how you d’prived me of my rifle, by trick’ry; and then—”
“Don’t go pirootin’ off with the idee I put Friend Garry’s gun out of c’mission, jes’ to save Treve from the death he’s deservin’,” orated Joel, to his dizzy partner. “I didn’t crave to have outsiders come here an’ give me orders. And if I help you hide Treve away somewheres or ship him East to my nephew, before the sheriff gets here, it’ll only be because—”
The advent of two new figures, around the corner of the barns, cut short the dual flood of oratory.
Toni, the Basque chief herder of the Dos Hermanos ranch, came into view. He was bent far forward under the weight of something that was balanced across his spine and which dangled lifelessly to either side of his ox-like shoulders.
Close behind him walked a smaller man, in soiled khaki and puttees; a repeating rifle slung by a bandolier athwart his back.
At sight and scent of the thing, carried by the big herdsman, Treve abandoned his puzzled efforts to make out what all the din and elocution were about. Wheeling, he bared his teeth and lowered his blood-stained head.
Then and only then did his human companions make out the nature of Toni’s burden. It was the scarred and lifeless body of a giant gray wolf.
The partners, at the same time, recognized the slender khaki-clad rifleman who moved lightly along in the herdsman’s wake. Twice, on his journeys, this man had stopped at the ranch for a meal. For hundreds of miles in all directions, he was known and admired.
For this was Eleazar Wilton, of the “Hunters’ and Trappers’ Service,” operated by the governmental Biological Survey;—one of the best shots in the West; and a huntsman who had done glorious work from Texas to northern Wyoming, in ridding the range country of predatory wolves. His fame was sung at a score of campfires and bunkhouses. He was a royally welcome guest wherever he might choose to set foot.
At sight of him, now, Bob Garry shouted aloud: