g, to send a letter, asking
for reenforcements including all the spare Dogs at the ranch.

During the two days' wait we rested our Horses, shot some game, and
prepared for a harder hunt. Late on the second day the new Dogs
arrived--eight beauties--and raised the working pack to fifteen.

The weather now turned much cooler, and in the morning, to the joy of
the wolvers, the ground was white with snow. This surely meant success.
With cool weather for the Dogs and Horses to run; with the big Wolf not
far away, for he had been heard the night before; and with tracking
snow, so that once found he could not baffle us,--escape for him was
impossible.

We were up at dawn, but before we could get away, three men came riding
into camp. They were the Penroof boys back again. The change of weather
had changed their minds; they knew that with snow we might have luck.

"Remember now," said King, as all were mounting, "we don't want any but
Badlands Billy this trip. Get him an' we kin bust up the hull
combination. It is a five-and-a-half-inch track."

And each measured off on his quirt handle, or on his glove, the exact
five and a half inches that was to be used in testing the tracks he
might find.

Not more than an hour elapsed before we got a signal from the rider who
had gone westward. One shot: that means "attention," a pause while
counting ten, then two shots: that means "come on."

King gathered the Dogs and rode direct to the distant figure on the
hill. All hearts beat high with hope, and we were not disappointed.
Some small Wolf tracks had been found, but here at last was the big
track, nearly six inches long. Young Penroof wanted to yell and set out
at full gallop. It was like hunting a Lion; it was like finding
happiness long deferred. The hunter knows nothing more inspiring than
the clean-cut line of fresh tracks that is leading to a wonderful
animal, he has long been hunting in vain. How King's eye gleamed as he
gloated over the sign!

IX

RUN DOWN AT LAST

It was the roughest of all rough riding. It was a far longer hunt than
we had expected, and was full of little incidents, for that endless
line of marks was a minute history of all that the big Wolf had done
the night before. Here he had circled at the telephone box and looked
for news; there he had paused to examine an old skull; here he had
shied off and swung cautiously up wind to examine something that proved
to be an old tin can; there at length he h