"When he did get his shot, it was just by accident. He was hunting a big black-tail deer, creeping along the ground and trying to get within shot, when he saw one of the black half-breeds standing on a sand-hill nearly a mile away. He watched him, and after a time the wolf lay down. Then Lute began to hunt him, and I expect he did some mighty careful hunting. Anyhow, he told me it took him a couple of hours to get to the foot of the hill they were on. The hill was steep, and you may guess something about what it is to climb one of those steep hills in that sand. I reckon Lute was about out of wind when he stopped to get his breath. He stood looking toward the top of the hill, when the old mother wolf, who was lying in a sand blow-out, raised up and stood with her fore feet on the bank looking down at him. "There wasn't any time to think, and he jerked his rifle to his shoulder and fired, and she disappeared. He scrambled up the hill as fast as he could, and when he got to where he could look over, he could see the two black wolves going down the side of the hill. They were jumping up on their hind legs and looking back for their mother. "As soon as Lute came in sight they began to run, and he shot at one of them just as they were passing out of sight. A moment later one of them came in sight again and Lute shot at him. That fellow kept running for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and then settled down into a walk, and Lute knew that he was hit. He sat and watched until the wolf disappeared in some low sand-hills, and then went back to the blow-out where he had seen the old wolf, and there she was. This hole was about three feet deep and it was all Lute could do to lift her out. He said she was the biggest wolf he'd ever seen. He now got his horse and went after the wounded one. Finally he found him, and after running him a couple of miles killed him. The other black one was never seen again after that, and it's probable that Lute killed him with his second shot. "Lute told me that he counted something like seventy head of cattle that he knew they had killed that one winter. When Lute killed the old mother and the black fellows, that bunch of coyotes was close to them. He saw them run away from the hill. The black wolf looked just about like a wolf, with a sharp nose and sharp ears. He measured seven feet from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail." "That's one of the most interesting stories I've ever heard, Hugh; and people who don't know anything about animals, I expect, would hardly believe it." "That's so," said Hugh. "When you're talking to people about something that they don't know anything about, they're likely to think that you're stringing 'em. You see most of us measure up everything we hear by what we've seen, or what we've heard and believe to be true; and when we hear anything outside of that little narrow range, we're mighty likely to think that people are lying to us."