this pass. Returning to camp I sat down on a log
lost in thought. My reverie was at last broken by the voice of my guide
quietly remarking. "Well, Le-loo, what's your judication?"

"Pete," I said, "that bear walks on its hind-legs; there is not the sign
of a forefoot anywhere along the trail. Now this could not be caused by
the hind feet obliterating the tracks of the front feet, because in many
places the pass is so steep that the forefeet in reaching out for
support would make tracks not overlapped by the hind ones."

"That's true, Le-loo; sartin true. If you live to be a hundred years
you'll make as good a trailer as the great Greaser trailer of New
Mexico, Dolores Sanchez, or my old friend Bill Hassler, who could follow
a six-month-old trail," replied my guide. "But," he continued, "maybe
witch-bears do walk on their hind legs same as people."

"Witch be blamed!" I cried impatiently; "this is no four-legged witch
nor bear either. That was a man and when he thought he would be followed
he put on moccasins made from bears' paws to leave a disguised trail.
And moreover I believe that man is none other than the Wild Hunter
without his wolf pack. And that pass is the pathway he takes in and out
of this park. I'm going to trail him whether you want to or not. Goodbye
Pete, I'll come back for you," and picking up my gun and other necessary
traps, I prepared to start immediately upon my journey, for I felt that
to follow this trail would not only get us out of our park prison but
would lead me to the abode of the Wild Hunter, where perhaps I could
talk with him and learn some of the things I was so eager to know about
my parents.

Big Pete looked at me solemnly for a while, ran over the cartridges in
his belt and went through all those familiar unconscious motions which
betokened danger ahead, and said, "Le-loo, you are a quare critter;
you're not afraid of all the werwolves, medicine ba'rs and ghosts in
this world or the next, but tarnally afeared of live varmints like
grizzly bars--one would think you had no religion, but, gosh all
hemlock! If you can face a bear-man or a werwolf, even though all the
Hy-as Ecutocks of the mountains show fight, I'll be cornfed if I don't
stand by ye! Barring the Wild Hunter, I don't know as I ever ran agin a
Ecutock yit; that is if he be a Ecutock. Maybe he's a Econe? Yes, I
reckon that's what he is," continued Pete reflectively.

"Maybe he is a pine cone," I laughed. Then added, "What