t. On peeping out
from behind the last pine, I found I had calculated pretty well, for
there was the hollow, the big windfall, with its round, starfish-shaped
roots exposed to the bright sun, and near that, the carcass. Sure
enough, pulling hard at it, was the gray-white wolf I recognized as my
"lofer."

But he presented an exceedingly difficult shot. Backing down the ridge,
I ran a little way to come up behind another tree, from which I soon
shifted to a fallen pine. Over this I peeped, to get a splendid view of
the wolf. He had stopped tugging at the horse, and stood with his nose
in the air. Surely he could not have scented me, for the wind was
strong from him to me; neither could he have heard my soft footfalls on
the pine needles; nevertheless, he was suspicious. Loth to spoil the
picture he made, I risked a chance, and waited. Besides, though I
prided myself on being able to take a fair aim, I had no great hope
that I could hit him at such a distance. Presently he returned to his
feeding, but not for long. Soon he raised his long, fine-pointed head,
and trotted away a few yards, stopped to sniff again, then went back to
his gruesome work.

At this juncture, I noiselessly projected my rifle barrel over the log.
I had not, however, gotten the sights in line with him, when he trotted
away reluctantly, and ascended the knoll on his side of the hollow. I
lost him, and had just begun sourly to call myself a mollycoddle
hunter, when he reappeared. He halted in an open glade, on the very
crest of the knoll, and stood still as a statue wolf, a white,
inspiriting target, against a dark green background. I could not stifle
a rush of feeling, for I was a lover of the beautiful first, and a
hunter secondly; but I steadied down as the front sight moved into the
notch through which I saw the black and white of his shoulder.

Spang! How the little Remington sang! I watched closely, ready to send
five more missiles after the gray beast. He jumped spasmodically, in a
half-curve, high in the air, with loosely hanging head, then dropped in
a heap. I yelled like a boy, ran down the hill, up the other side of
the hollow, to find him stretched out dead, a small hole in his
shoulder where the bullet had entered, a great one where it had come
out.

The job I made of skinning him lacked some hundred degrees the
perfection of my shot, but I accomplished it, and returned to camp in
triumph.

"Shore I knowed you'd plunk him," said Jim