But what thoughts were conjured up in the guide’s brain by the unexpected sight of this ranch could not be interpreted from the expression of his countenance, for that showed no more trace of emotion than an American Indian at the torture stake, or the marble face of a Greek god. Presently he shifted his pose, threw back his head, and Big Pete’s eyes were fixed on the valley in front of us, as with distended nostrils he sniffed the mountain air, his brows contracted to a frown, his eyes lost their gentle angelic look and seemed to change from China blue to a cold steel color, and his tightly closed mouth had a stern expression about the corners which appeared altogether out of keeping with the occasion.
“Rot my hide!” he exclaimed, “if I hain’t had a neighbor all these years and never knowed it. Waugh! Some emigrant—terrification seize him!—has found another park an’ squatted, t’ain’t more’n eight miles as a crow flies from mine, nuther, Le-loo.” He looked at the sun and muttered. “Hang me, but ’tis t’other end of my own park,” then he paused a moment and added fiercely, “if these geysers know when they are well off, they’ll steer shy of Darlinkel Park. If I catch ’em scoutin’ ’round my claim, I’ll send ’em a-hoppin’.”
“Bless me, you are neighborly,” exclaimed a voice in smooth, even tones.
“What!” said Pete, looking sternly at me. “Did you speak?”
“I said nothing,” I replied.
Big Pete’s countenance changed and he ran his hands over the cartridges in his belt in the old familiar manner, and with a motion quicker than I can describe it, whipped out his revolvers and wheeled about face, at the same time snapping out the words, “Throw up your hands!”
CHAPTER XVII
We were standing on the surface of a flat table-rock, which jutted out from the face of the towering cliff and overhung the valley that was spread out like a map beneath us. About twenty feet back from the edge of the rock was a pile of debris heaped up against the face of the cliff; but the remaining surface of the stone was clean bare and weather-beaten. The talus against the cliff was composed of loose fragments of stone and other products of wash and erosion. This was overgrown with a thicket of stunted shrubs, wry-necked goblin thistles and murderous devil’s clubs. These bludgeon-shaped plants, thickly covered with sharp thorns, reared aloft their weapons as if in menace to all living things; the unstable ground and thorny thicket formed the only shelter where we could be ambushed in the rear, and it was not a likely spot to be chosen for such a purpose by man or beast.
When Big Pete wheeled about face with his trusty revolvers in hand, I quickly followed his example, and our mutual surprise may be imagined when we found ourselves gazing in the faces of a semicircle of gigantic wolves. The animals were squatting on their haunches at the foot of the talus, their wicked slant eyes fixed upon us and their red tongues lolling out from their cavernous mouths.
I cannot tell why, whether it was the state of my nerves or the effect of the rare air of the high altitude, or what, but I felt no fear at facing this strange wolf pack. Indeed, to me they appeared all to be laughing and their red tongues lolled from their open mouths in a very humorous fashion.