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.