at it was not safe to meddle with his person. "Here,
Snap, take hold," I said, and held my quirt to him. He seized it, and
by that I lifted him to the front of my saddle and so carried him home.
I cared for him as though he had been a baby. He had shown those
Cattle-men how to fill the weak place in their pack; the Foxhounds may
be good and the Greyhounds swift and the Russians and Danes fighters,
but they are no use at all without the crowning moral force of grit,
that none can supply so well as a Bull-terrier. On that day the
Cattlemen learned how to manage the Wolf question, as you will find if
ever you are at Mendoza; for every successful Wolf pack there has with
it a Bull-terrier, preferably of the Snap-Mendoza breed.

IV

Next day was Hallowe'en, the anniversary of Snap's advent. The weather
was clear, bright, not too cold, and there was no snow on the ground.
The men usually celebrated the day with a hunt of some sort, and now,
of course, Wolves were the one object. To the disappointment of all,
Snap was in bad shape with his wound. He slept, as usual, at my feet,
and bloody stains now marked the place. He was not in condition to
fight, but we were bound to have a Wolf-hunt, so he was beguiled to an
outhouse and locked up, while we went off, I, at least, with a sense of
impending disaster. I knew we should fail without my Dog, but I did not
realize how bad a failure it was to be.

Afar among the buttes of Skull Creek we had roamed when a white ball
appeared bounding through the sage-brush, and in a minute more Snap
came, growling and stump-waggling, up to my Horse's side. I could not
send him back; he would take no such orders, not even from me. His
wound was looking bad, so I called him, held down the quirt, and jumped
him to my saddle.

"There," I thought, "I'll keep you safe till we get home." 'Yes, I
thought; but I reckoned not with Snap. The voice of Hilton, "Hu, hu,"
announced that he had sighted a Wolf. Dander and Riley, his rival, both
sprang to the point of observation, with the result that they collided
and fell together, sprawling, in the sage. But Snap, gazing hard, had
sighted the Wolf, not so very far off, and before I knew it, he leaped
from the saddle and bounded zigzag, high, low, in and under the sage,
straight for the enemy, leading the whole pack for a few minutes. Not
far, of course. The great Greyhounds sighted the moving speck, and the
usual procession strung out on the plain. It prom