r's elk under our belts and a
rousing camp fire before which to toast our shins, both the big
westerner and I felt a little more natural and comfortable, but our
conversation turned again to this wild hunter of the mountains.

I could see that the mysterious old man with his wolf pack and eagle
aroused almost every possible form of superstition in Big Pete and I
confess that I was not free from some of it myself. The guide was
certain that the man was either a ghost or a reincarnated devil, and he
displayed no uncertain signs of awe.

"I tell you," said Pete, "he's a devil. He's over a hundred years old,
for my dad says he seed him, an' an Injun before dad's time told him
about him. They are all skeered t' death o' him. An' I don't blame 'em.
He's a shore enough hant and them tha' houn's o' his'n is devils in wolf
skins. Jumping Gehoosaphats, ef they shed ever cut my trail I reckon I'd
just lay right down an' die," and Big Pete actually shuddered at the
possibility.

"Why, young feller," he went on, "that ol' man shoots gold bullets out
o' a real Patrick Mullen gun."

"A Mullen gun, Pete?" I cried, "how do you know, man; speak for goodness
sake!"

"I don't know it's a Patrick Mullen and guess it tain't one 'cause a
Patrick Mullen rifle would cost a thousand or more. But the old Injun,
Beaver Tail, says, someone told his father and his father told him that
et is a Patrick Mullen gun an' is a special make inlaid with gold and
silver, an' all ornamented up, an' built for an ol' muzzle-loadin'
flint-lock. Now Mullen never made no flint-lock rifles that I hear'n
tell of, his specialty be shotguns an' if he made this rifle I'm
ganderplucked if I cud tell how this spook got it."

"Unless the wild Hunter might be a relative of old Patrick Mullen," I
said, thinking aloud, and gasping at the thought, for the description of
the rifle somehow impressed me again with the possibility that this wild
man of the mountains might himself be Donald Mullen, and _my own
father!_

"Why do you say that, kid?" asked Big Pete with a queer look in his
eyes.

"Oh, I don't know, I was just wondering to myself. But what makes you
think he's a supernatural being, and, Pete, does this wild loony hunter
look at all like me?"

"Super what? Say when did you swallow a dictionary?--Oh, you mean what
makes me think he's a devil. No, he don't favor you none," he added with
a grin, "he's a _handsome_ devil, although he's done terrified every
whit