The Black Wolf Pack

by Daniel Carter Beard

Closer and closer sounded the stealthy, dragging noise, and I heard a hand feel softly for the latch of the front door and could hear fingers scraping ever so softly over the wood surface of the other side. A slight rattle told me that the hand had found the latch and that presently the door would be flung open. With my revolver ready I waited developments and braced myself for the attack.

The door flew open wide, and the voice of the Wild Hunter cried,

“Pluto, you fiend, down! down! I say!”

But this time the huge brute did not obey and the command was answered by a low rebellious growl, a scratching of feet on the puncheons, and a heavy thud of someone falling told me that the final struggle for the leadership of the black wolf pack had begun.

Then burst upon the stillness of the night such an uproar that for a moment I thought the whole pack was mixed in the fight, but at length I heard Pluto’s snarling, rumbling growl, answered by the distant howl of the wolf pack, followed immediately by a close-by yell that chilled my blood; after this came Big Pete’s war cry, then the crash of falling objects, shrieks and growls and savage yells.

I had flung myself forward, and there in the pitch darkness of the doorway of the hall I felt and heard rather than saw the lean twisting bodies of the Wild Hunter and Pluto clasped in a life and death struggle on the floor. I feared to use my revolver, as it would have been impossible to tell whether I was shooting the hunter or the wolf.

Suddenly a light burst upon the scene. Big Pete’s absence was explained; he had secured a lantern and holding it aloft with his left hand, with a six-shooter in his right, he paused a moment over the struggling figures. By the light of the lantern one could see that the Wild Hunter was on his back struggling with the giant beast which he was trying to choke with his two hands, while the wolf’s teeth were seeking the throat of the man. It was a terrible scene but it was no time to waste in horror. The efforts of the hunter to free himself from his terrible assailant would have been of little avail but for the assistance of Big Pete, for the wolf was shaking the wild man from side to side with terrific force, very much the same as a bull-terrier might shake a cat.

Pete wasted no time but placing the muzzle of his gun against the wolf’s head he fired, then shouted to me, “Look behind you.”

As I wheeled about I found that I was facing the rest of the pack. Pluto reared upon his hind legs, clawed the air frantically in his death struggle, and fell with a thud across his master’s body, but Pete and I were now concentrating our fire on the snarling, leaping bodies of the wolf pack. Fortunately the death of Pluto and the silence of the Wild Hunter seemed to discourage the pack, they evidently missed their leaders and this gave us the advantage, for if they had rushed us we undoubtedly would have fallen victims to their savage teeth.

In the melee the lantern was upset and the struggle ended in darkness as it began, but when things quieted down and Pete relit the lantern there were only two wolves which were alive and they were fiercely attacking each other. We soon dispatched them, however, and then devoted our attention to the Wild Hunter over whose body Big Pete was now bending.