seemed small, trivial and not worth while when I looked upon
those grand trees standing silently on guard as they were standing when
Columbus was busy smashing a hard-boiled egg to make it stand on end.
Yes, naturalists tell us some of these same trees were standing before
the New Testament was written and then as now their branches concealed
their lofty tops and formed a screen through which the powerful rays of
the noon-day sun are filtered, refined and subdued to a dreamy twilight
below, a twilight in which the soft green mosses and lace-like ferns
thrive into luxuriant growth.

It was so still and quiet in that forest that the silence seemed to hurt
my ears and I found myself listening to see if I could not hear the deep
dark blue blossoms of the fringed gentians whispering scandals about the
flaming Indian paint brushes that flourished in the opening in the woods
where the sun's ray could reach and warm the dark earth. As I listened I
could not help but speculate a great deal as to the possibilities of the
odd old man of this forest being in some way connected with my father's
history, but the story of the wolf-man as given to me by my big
companion was so varied and so mixed with the superstitions of the
Indians and trappers who had come in contact with him, or had seen him
and his weird wolf pack roaming the mountains, that I could not in any
way take it as the basis for a solution of the problem.

Indeed, the more Big Pete told me the less I believed that this strange
and probably mad man could be my father. In truth, the only real clue
or even faint reason I had for believing that he owned the missing
"Patrick Mullen" was because this gun at a distance seemed to correspond
with the description of the Mullen's gun. It was a faint clue indeed and
sometimes seemed not worth investigation. Yet when I began to doubt the
possibility an unexplained impulse or force kept urging me on to believe
that if I but persisted and found an opportunity to examine this gun it
would prove to be the one I sought, and if I had a chance to talk to
this strange Wild Hunter much of the mystery that surrounded my own
babyhood would be cleared up, so I found myself earnestly longing for a
real interview with this mysterious creature.

The more I thought of it the more I was inclined to believe that I was
on the right track, until at last convinced that this was so, I cried
aloud, "I have found him!"

"Who! Who!" queried a startled ow