“Ever tell you about Pecos Bill an’ the time he rid a Kansas cyclone clear through these parts an’ on into Arizony? He came so fast an’ raised up such a dust he carried a part o’ Texas clear into New Mexico. You c’n see it there yet, down in the corner. Pecos Bill he could step clear over that peak yonder an’ never notice it, accordin’ to them that seed him at the time, an’ he flavored his beans with tarantulas.” Amidst the laugh that followed, Ole Hossfoot Cantnor spoke up from the bench by the fireplace where he sat working at a piece of leather, as he always was. “I kin tell ye a tale more stranger than that, an’ a true one. You recollec’, Jim, that the last bounty the Govinmint put on the Custer wolf brought the price on that outlaw’s head up to five hundid dollars. Well, Bill Marsden, owner the Bar X, swears, or has swore, to git that animal for six or seven years past. “Bill’s killed a couple litters of the old Lobo but can’t get the wolf himself. He’s tore up more prize ewes for Bill, an’ more yearlin’s, than they could keep track of. Sixty sheep one night that bloody devil killed an’ et nary a bite hisself. “But he’s too cute for all of ’em, hunters and trappers. Won’t touch pizen, won’t let his pack bite bait. Smells a trap under a snowfall. Many’s the trap he’s sprung with his forepaw. I seed him with my field glasses, a-strikin’ as light an’ powerful as a cat an’ then jumpin’ away. “He’s four inches between the eyes, an’ his paws’re as big’s my hand, an’ it ain’t no trouble at all to him to fell a two-year-old bull by hisself. “Well, Marsdens has got a little girl, on’y one left o’ six babies. She’s up in the mountings last summer durin’ the drouth, at the ranger’s cabin. Plays with his police dog. Strays off one day an’ gits lost. But they’s a cloud burst bustin’ the drouth that night an’ the ranger’s off over the mountain an’ don’t find it out till next mornin’. “They starts out on a hunt, fearin’ to hope, what with the rain an’ the wolves, and Bill scared she’s fallen into a trap he rigged for the Lobo. Found the trap sprung all right, but no Lobo, no Lutie. “Well, to make a long story short, they finds her, asleep, in a cave, with the Custer wolf lyin’ down beside her. “Bill shoots, thinkin’ maybe she’s dead. But she’s all right. Wakes up as the wolf leaps outen the cave, an’ up over the rocks an’ gits away agin. An’ the little girl cries after her ‘doggie’; seems she’d been playin’ with him in the woods. Give him water when he was caught in the trap; rolled off a log Bill rigged so he got free; an’ when the rain burst, the Lobo carries her in his teeth to an ole lair. “Bill swears he’ll never set hand nor hound to him agin.” “Well, I always did say there was more dog than coyote in a lobo,” Dad observed. “Come on, boys, give us some songs. Let’s have some music for remembrance. Mother here looks a little sad.”