Part 1 (1/2)
Connie Morgan in the Fur Country.
by James B. Hendryx.
CHAPTER I
DOG, OR WOLF?
In the little cabin on Ten Bow Waseche Bill laid his week-old newspaper aside, knocked the ashes from his pipe against the edge of the woodbox, and listened to the roar of the wind. After a few moments he rose and opened the door, only to slam it immediately as an icy blast, freighted with a million whirling flakes of snow, swept the room. Resuming his seat, he proceeded very deliberately to refill his pipe. This accomplished to his satisfaction, he lighted it, crammed some wood into the little air-tight stove, and tilted his chair back against the log wall.
”Well, son, what is it?” he asked, after a few moments of silence during which he had watched his young partner, Connie Morgan, draw rag after rag through the barrel of his rifle.
”What's what?” asked the boy, without looking up.
”What's on yo' mind? The last five patches yo've drug through that gun was as clean when they come out as when they went in. Yo' ain't cleanin'
no rifle--yo' studyin' 'bout somethin'.”
Connie rested the rifle upon his knees and smiled across the little oilcloth-covered table: ”Looks like winter has come in earnest,” he said. ”Listen to her trying to tear the roof off. I've been wis.h.i.+ng it would snow for a week.”
”Snow fer a week?”
”No. Wis.h.i.+ng for a week.”
”Well, now it's come, what yo' goin' to do with it?”
”I'm going out and get that Big Ruff.”
”Big Ruff! Yo' mean kill him?”
Connie shook his head: ”No. I'm going to catch him. I want him.”
Waseche laughed: ”What in thunder do yo' want of him, even pervidin'
he's a dog, which the chances is he ain't nothin' but a wolf. An' yo'
don't even know they's any such brute rompin' the hills, nohow. Stories gits goin' that-a-way. Someone, mebbe, seen a dog or a wolf runnin' the ridge of Spur Mountain late in the evenin' so he looked 'bout half agin the size he was, an' they come along an' told it. Then someone else sees him, er another one, an' he recollects that he heard tell of a monstr'us big wolf er dog, he cain't recollect which, so he splits the difference an' makes him half-dog an' half-wolf, an' he adds a big ruff onto his neck fer good measure, an' tells it 'round. After that yo' kin bet that every tin-horn that gits within twenty mile of Spur Mountain will see him, an' each time he gits bigger, an' his ruff gits bigger. It's like a stampede. Yo' let someone pan out mebbe half a dozen ounces of dust on some crick an' by the time the news has spread a hundred mile, he's took out a fortune, an' it's in chunks as big as a pigeon's aig--they ain't nary one of them ever saw a pigeon's aig--but that's always what them chunks is as big as--an' directly the whole crick is staked an' a lot of men goes broke, an' some is killed, an' chances is, the only ones that comes out ahead is the ones that's staked an' sold out.”
”But there are real wolf-dogs--I've seen plenty of 'em, and so have you.
And there are real strikes--look at Ten Bow!”
”Yeh, look at it--but I made that strike myself. The boys down to Hesitation know'd that if I said they was colour heah it was heah. They didn't come a kihootin' up heah on the say-so of no tin-horn.”
”Yes, and there's a big wolf-dog been over on Spur Mountain for a week, too. I didn't pay any attention when I first heard it. But, Dutch Henry saw him yesterday, and today when Black Jack Demeree came up with the mail he saw him, too.”
Waseche appeared interested: ”An' did they say he was as big as a cabin an' a ruff on him like the mainsail of a whaler?”
”No, but they said he was the biggest dog they ever saw, and he has got the big ruff, all right--and he was running with two or three wolves, and he was bigger than any of them.”
”Well, if Dutch Henry an' Black Jack seen him,” agreed Waseche with conviction, ”he's there. But, what in time do yo' want of him? If he was runnin' with wolves he's buildin' him up a pack. He's a bad actor.
You take them renegade dogs, an' they're worse than wolves an' worse than dogs--an' they're smarter'n most folks.”
”That's why I want him. I want to make a leader out of him.”