"As soon as Lute came in sight they began to run, and he shot at one of them just as they were passing out of sight. A moment later one of them came in sight again and Lute shot at him. That fellow kept running for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and then settled down into a walk, and Lute knew that he was hit. He sat and watched until the wolf disappeared in some low sand-hills, and then went back to the blow-out where he had seen the old wolf, and there she was. This hole was about three feet deep and it was all Lute could do to lift her out. He said she was the biggest wolf he'd ever seen. He now got his horse and went after the wounded one. Finally he found him, and after running him a couple of miles killed him. The other black one was never seen again after that, and it's probable that Lute killed him with his second shot.
"Lute told me that he counted something like seventy head of cattle that he knew they had killed that one winter. When Lute killed the old mother and the black fellows, that bunch of coyotes was close to them. He saw them run away from the hill. The black wolf looked just about like a wolf, with a sharp nose and sharp ears. He measured seven feet from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail."
"That's one of the most interesting stories I've ever heard, Hugh; and people who don't know anything about animals, I expect, would hardly believe it."
"That's so," said Hugh. "When you're talking to people about something that they don't know anything about, they're likely to think that you're stringing 'em. You see most of us measure up everything we hear by what we've seen, or what we've heard and believe to be true; and when we hear anything outside of that little narrow range, we're mighty likely to think that people are lying to us."
"Of course, that's so," Jack assented. "I know sometimes back East I've told about common everyday things that happened here, and the people I was talking to thought at first that I was just inventing stories. Have you seen a great many of these half-breed wolves? I mean crossed between a dog and big wolves, not coyotes?"
"Yes," said Hugh; "in my time I've seen quite a number; but most of 'em had been brought up at home with their mothers. They were always timid and afraid of strangers, but they never did any particular harm around the house, except maybe to kill chickens, or something like that. Of course, a wolf—or a dog either, for the matter of that—always likes to hunt; and if anything runs, it's bound to chase it. You recollect, I reckon, some tame coyotes that Charley Powell had one while several years ago, and don't you remember that he had to kill one of them because it got into the way of killing his chickens?"
"That's so," answered Jack; "I remember that now. But I never heard that those big wolves he and Bessie had ever did any harm."
"No," replied Hugh, "neither did I."
Tulare Joe, who had been sitting by listening to this talk, now asked a question.
"Mr. Johnson, have you ever seen any black wolves in this country?"