ever he is, he
knows the way out of this park of yours and I am going to follow him," I
emphatically answered.

"That's howsomever!" exclaimed my guide approvingly; "but," he
continued, "the mountains are kivered with snow, while it is still
summer down here, so I reckon 'twould be the proper wrinkle for us to
pull our things together, have a good feed and a good sleep before we
start. White men start off hot-headed and I kinder like their grit, but
Injuns stop and sot by the fire an' smoke an' think afore they start on
a raid an' I kinder think they be wiser in this than we 'uns, so let's
do as the Injuns would do. We can cache most of our stuff and turn the
horses loose. Bighorn's mutton is powerful good, but tarnally shy and
hung mighty high, an' billygoat is doggoned strong 'nless you know how
to cook 'em. Yes, we'll eat an sleep fust an' then his for the land
where the Bighorn pasture, the woolywhite goats sleep on the rocks, the
whistling marmot blows his danger signal an' the pretty white ptarmigan
hides hisself in the snow-banks, the home of the Ecutocks.

"What the thunder is a Ecutock, Pete?" I asked.

"An Injun devil, I reckon you'd call it; it's bad medicine," he answered
soberly, and continuing in his former strain, he exclaimed:

"Whar critters like goats, sheeps and rock-chucks kin live, you bet your
Hy-as muck-a-muck we kin live too!"

That night I rolled up into my blanket, filled with strange
presentiments. Again the question came up: What is the source of the
influence that this madman of the mountains, this wild hunter, this
leader of the black wolf pack, had on me to impel me to trail him over
the mountains? Was it mental telepathy? Could he really be my father?
Somehow I felt convinced that soon I would be face to face with the
riddle, soon I would know the facts and the truth about my parents. It
seemed unthinkable that all these weeks of wilderness travel had been
for naught and that the Wild Hunter was nothing but a strange, eccentric
old fellow living alone in the mountains and of no interest to me
whatsoever.

CHAPTER XI

We made our start at daylight, loaded with all the necessities for a
climb over the mountains. The rest of our supplies and equipment we
cached, and Big Pete turned our horses loose assuring me that in the
spring he would come back and rope them.

The lower trail of the pass was quite well defined and we made famous
progress, but the higher we climbed the mo