Billy Whiskers, Jr.

by Frances Trego Montgomery

SEVERAL DAYS after this when Billy was out in the mountains he noticed that it grew suddenly cold and that light flurries of snow began to blow and swirl through the mountain passes. He climbed to the top of a peak whence he could get a good view of the clouds and saw, advancing from the direction of the main range, a terrible black cloud that was hurling snow and sleet on the mountains and valleys as it came.

It took him but a moment to decide what to do, for he knew if the young lambs were caught out in such a severe storm they would be frozen to death. So he turned back to the flock and told them to follow him as quickly as they could and not to stop to take even a mouthful of grass. He led them into the deepest, most sheltered cañon he could find and told them to stand close together so as to keep each other as warm as possible and to be careful to see that the young sheep and lambs were on the inside where it would be the warmest.

Here they stood while the storm raged and blew over and above the cañon, but the sheep were so sheltered that scarcely any snow fell on them, as the force of the wind carried it over. It grew darker and darker and time to go home, but Billy said:

“We will have to stay here all night. It will never do to go out in such a storm onto the open prairie. Half of you would perish with the cold before you got across the valley.”

So there they stayed in their little sheltered nook undisturbed until about midnight, when they were startled by hearing the weird yelping bark of a pack of prairie wolves coming straight down the cañon. This threw the sheep into a terrible panic, for they knew that same pack of wolves only too well; they had made raids on them before and carried off a baby lamb and now and then an old sheep.

Now Billy had never met or even seen a wolf in his life, but he had absolutely no fear of them, as he knew they were too much like dogs to be afraid of. Still he did not know how he would come out fighting a whole pack by himself, and from the sound of their voices it seemed as if there must be at least fifty of them.

“Now all you rams that have horns make a circle around the sheep, and if a wolf tries to get through in order to get at a young sheep, fight for your lives and theirs and don’t give up and run off. While you do this I will run here and there wherever I think a wolf is most likely to break through your circle and kill them one by one, for I am not afraid of any wolf I ever heard of.”

This stand of Billy’s gave them more courage, but they were so accustomed to turn tail and run at the approach of danger that Billy was afraid they would do so now at the first sight they got of the wolves.

All this time the wolves had been drawing nearer and nearer, until now only the bend of the pass separated them from the flock.

Soon the yellowish light of seven pairs of eyes glared through the blackness. This was met by the fiery red light in Billy Jr.’s eyes. The trembling sheep dared not move nor look up. Not so Billy! His eyes fairly blazed defiance, and with a snort of rage he bounded on the leader of the pack and killed him before he knew what had struck him. Billy was so black the wolves could not see him; all they could see were the red balls of fire that seemed to be here, there, and everywhere, the most deadly balls they had ever come in contact with, for wherever they appeared a wolf lay dead the next moment.