“Well, this one does,” retorted Tom, curtly. “Leastwise he’s been seen from time to time since ever I can remember. In the old days they named the White Wolf Rancho after this monster animal. It has a charmed life. No one can kill this big fellow, altho’ lots of shots have been fired at him. And the same was true of Don Manuel de Valencia. He escaped so often that folks believed his life a charmed one. And so they called him the White Wolf.”
“I saw the white wolf once myself,” said Buck Ashley, “the real white wolf that even now, as Tom says, guards old Guadalupe and makes it best for young fellows like you, Jack Rover, to leave the squaw alone when she makes back for her hidin’ place in the mountains. I’ll never forget that morning, although it’s more or less twenty years ago. The great shaggy brute was following Guadalupe along the trail like a Newfoundland dog. In those days I was out on the hills roundin’ up some mavericks. One of the calves broke from the herd and scampered along a trail that led directly in front of the old squaw. And say, boys, would you believe it? From less than half a mile away I saw with my own eyes that monster devil of a white wolf—white as the driven snow—make one terrific mad leap and grab that yearlin’ by the neck. Guadalupe spotted me and disappeared, and the white wolf trotted after her round the bend, carryin’ the dead calf in its jaws as a cat carries a mouse.”
“Did you not shoot at the wolf?” excitedly asked Lieutenant Munson.
“Shoot, hell! What would have been the use? Didn’t you hear what Tom Baker said? White wolves have charmed lives whether they go on two legs or four.”
CHAPTER III—Feminine Attractions
TOM BAKER, the sheriff, cleared his throat. “You fellers, I’m assoomin’, are all boys. I have been loafin’ ‘round in this man’s land for forty years. I was here the day Don Manuel had been buryin’ his old father and mother from the little Mission Church, less than a quarter of a mile from where we are settin’. He was standin’ right in front of this store when young Ben Thurston and two of his ranch hands rode up. If ever I saw real bravery it was that mornin’. Don’t take much bravery to do some things heroic when you have your artillery handy, but it requires the real stuff when you’re gunless.
“Young Thurston spoke to his companions and they drew their guns and kept them leveled at Don Manuel as their boss dismounted.
“Don Manuel was one of the handsomest young fellers I ever laid my two eyes on. He walked straight up to Thurston, and notwithstandin’ the two loaded pieces of artillery was pintin’ straight at him said: