would provide for him once more.

It had formerly been his ambition to pass for a "bad man," though he
found it difficult to maintain that reputation among the unbelieving
citizens of Sulphide, who knew that he valued his own skin far too
highly to risk it seriously. He had been wont to call himself "The
Wolf," desiring to be known by that title as sounding sufficiently
fierce and "bad," and being of a most unprepossessing appearance, with
his matted hair, retreating forehead, long, sharp nose and projecting
ears, he did represent a wolf pretty well--though, still better, a
coyote.

As the people of Sulphide, however, declined to take him at his own
valuation, greeting his frequent outbreaks of simulated ferocity with
derisive jeers--even the small boys used to scoff at him--he was reduced
to practising his arts upon strangers, which he always hastened to do
when he thought it was not likely to be dangerous. Unluckily for him,
though, he once tried one of his tricks upon an inoffensive newcomer,
with a result so unexpected and unwelcome that his only desire
thereafter was that people should forget that he had ever called himself
"The Wolf"--a desire in which his many acquaintances, whether
working-men or loafers, readily accommodated him. But as they playfully
substituted the less desirable title of "The Yellow Pup," Long John
gained little by the move.

It happened in this way: There came out from New York at one time a
young fellow named Bertie Van Ness, a nephew of Marsden, the cattle man,
some of whose stock we were feeding that winter. He arrived at Sulphide
by coach one morning, and before going on to Marsden's he stepped into
Yetmore's store to buy himself a pair of riding gauntlets. Long John was
in there, and seeing the well-dressed, dapper little man, with his white
collar and eastern complexion--not burned red by the Colorado sun, as
all of ours are--he winked to the assembled company as much as to say,
"See me take a rise out of the tenderfoot," sidled up to Bertie, who was
a foot shorter than himself, leaned over him, and putting on his worst
expression, said, in a harsh, growling voice, "I'm 'The Wolf.'"

It was a trick that had often been successful before: peace-loving
strangers, not knowing whom they had to deal with, would usually back
away and sometimes even take to their heels, which was all that Long
John desired. In the present instance, however, the "bad man"
miscalculated. The little stranger