“By the great horn spoon, Le-loo!” cried he, looking up for a moment, “we’ve wiped out the pack, and now that the scrap is over here comes the Injuns. I calculate our friend here is a dead one; Pluto has chewed him to pieces. Come, lend a hand and we will see what we can do for the poor old man; he certainly did put up a glorious fight.”
Reaching down I gathered the old man’s legs in my arms, and with Big Pete supporting his head and shoulders, we carried him into my room and laid him on the feather bed under the savagely ornamented tester.
Big Pete was all action then, and I helped as best I could. The Scout ripped one of the homespun sheets into ribbons and with these made bandages and proceeded to stay the flow of blood from the old man’s lacerated throat. He worked hard and long and now and then he would shake his head dubiously. Presently he muttered, “’Taint much use, Ol’ Timer, I guess yore a goner. Yore goneta pass over t’ Divide this time, I guess. That tha’ Pluto fiend done chewed you up fer further orders.”
At this the old man opened his eyes, and a grim smile wrinkled his now ashen face.
“I knew he’d do it some day, and I think he got me this time. The Mewan Indians call the giant wolf “Too-le-ze” and that is also the name they gave me, but I am not a werwolf, a loup-garou or a Too-le-ze. I was only their master but now their victim.
“I feared that Pluto, as I call him, or Too-le-ze, was strong and treacherous and that is why I ruled him with an iron hand. He’s got me this time. I guess it had to end this way—give me a cup of water.”
He then fixed his gaze on me and I noticed that he no longer had that worried, haunted look which had heretofore characterized him.
“So you are Donald’s son—well, when I heard Pluto stalking you I knew that it was you or your uncle that the beast would get; it was fate that made me slip and fall, and once down the wolf saw his long-looked-for opportunity and instantly availed himself of it. But the good Lord was not going to allow me to bring bad luck to both you and your father, boy. Yes, I am Fay Mullen and I caused the death of your father, and my brother. I bear the brand of Cain.
“We were crossing a steep bank of snow at the foot of a cliff, and being both tired and hungry we were bickering and quarreling over nothing. I should have remembered that your father was but just recovering from an attack of nervous prostration, but I did not; we had been months in the mountains prospecting and the unprofitable toil and loneliness must have got on my nerves. At any rate, after some hot, unbrotherly language, we agreed to part company.
“We sat down on the snow and divided our outfit by lot. I got the flint-lock Patrick Mullen, the fierce Great Dane and the gentle little donkey; your father got the packhorse and the Winchester rifle.