ll and wild.

"Oh! What's that?" whispered Bo.

"That's a big gray wolf--a timber-wolf, or lofer, as he's sometimes
called," replied Dale. "He's high on some rocky ridge back there. He
scents us, an' he doesn't like it.... There he goes again. Listen! Ah,
he's hungry."

While Helen listened to this exceedingly wild cry--so wild that it made
her flesh creep and the most indescribable sensations of loneliness come
over her--she kept her glance upon Dale.

"You love him?" she murmured involuntarily, quite without understanding
the motive of her query.

Assuredly Dale had never had that question asked of him before, and
it seemed to Helen, as he pondered, that he had never even asked it of
himself.

"I reckon so," he replied, presently.

"But wolves kill deer, and little fawns, and everything helpless in the
forest," expostulated Bo.

The hunter nodded his head.

"Why, then, can you love him?" repeated Helen.

"Come to think of it, I reckon it's because of lots of reasons,"
returned Dale. "He kills clean. He eats no carrion. He's no coward. He
fights. He dies game.... An' he likes to be alone."

"Kills clean. What do you mean by that?"

"A cougar, now, he mangles a deer. An' a silvertip, when killin' a
cow or colt, he makes a mess of it. But a wolf kills clean, with sharp
snaps."

"What are a cougar and a silvertip?"

"Cougar means mountain-lion or panther, an' a silvertip is a grizzly
bear."

"Oh, they're all cruel!" exclaimed Helen, shrinking.

"I reckon. Often I've shot wolves for relayin' a deer."

"What's that?"

"Sometimes two or more wolves will run a deer, an' while one of them
rests the other will drive the deer around to his pardner, who'll, take
up the chase. That way they run the deer down. Cruel it is, but nature,
an' no worse than snow an' ice that starve deer, or a fox that kills
turkey-chicks breakin' out of the egg, or ravens that pick the eyes out
of new-born lambs an' wait till they die. An' for that matter, men are
crueler than beasts of prey, for men add to nature, an' have more than
instincts."

Helen was silenced, as well as shocked. She had not only learned a new
and striking viewpoint in natural history, but a clear intimation to the
reason why she had vaguely imagined or divined a remarkable character in
this man. A hunter was one who killed animals for their fur, for their
meat or horns, or for some lust for blood--that was Helen's definition
of a hunter, and she believe