choice. Away we went as
before, hoping, yet fearing that we were not on the right track. The
Dogs ran well, very fast indeed. This was a bad sign, King said, but we
could not get sight of the track because the Dogs overran it before we
came.

After a two-mile run the chase led upward again in snow country; the
Wolf was sighted, but to our disgust, we were on the track of the
smallest one.

"I thought so," growled young Penroof. "Dogs was altogether too keen
for a serious proposition. Kind o' surprised it ain't turned out a
Jack-rabbit."

Within another mile he had turned to bay in a willow thicket. We heard
him howl the long-drawn howl for help, and before we could reach the
place King saw the Dogs recoil and scatter. A minute later there sped
from the far side of the thicket a small Gray-wolf and a Black One of
very much greater size.

"By golly, if he didn't yell for help, and Billy come back to help him;
that's great!" exclaimed the wolver. And my heart went out to the brave
old Wolf that refused to escape by abandoning his friend.

The next hour was a hard repetition of the gully riding, but it was on
the highlands where there was snow, and when again the pack was split,
we strained every power and succeeded in keeping them on the big
"five-fifty track," that already was wearing for me the glamour of
romance.

Evidently the Dogs preferred either of the others, but we got them
going at last. Another half hour's hard work and far ahead, as I rose
to a broad flat plain, I had my first glimpse of the Big Black Wolf of
Sentinel Butte.

"Hurrah! Badlands Billy! Hurrah! Badlands Billy!" I shouted in salute,
and the others took up the cry.

We were on his track at last, thanks to himself. The Dogs joined in
with a louder baying, the Greyhounds yelped and made straight for him,
and the Horses sniffed and sprang more gamely as they caught the
thrill. The only silent one was the black-maned Wolf, and as I marked
his size and power, and above all his long and massive jaws, I knew why
the Dogs preferred some other trail.

With head and tail low he was bounding over the snow. His tongue was
lolling long; plainly he was hard pressed. The wolvers' hands flew to
their revolvers, though he was three hundred yards ahead; they were out
for blood, not sport. But an instant later he had sunk from view in the
nearest sheltered canyon.

Now which way would he go, up or down the canyon? Up was toward his
mountain, down was be