At sight of him, now, Bob Garry shouted aloud: “Here’s the man who’ll do the job you tricked me out of doing! Cap’n Wilton, this dog has kilt eleven of my sheep! I call on you, in the name of the law, to put a bullet through his head. I’d ’a’ done it myself; if these fellers hadn’t fooled me out of it. He--” “This dog, here?” asked Wilton in his quietly uninterested voice; as he strolled past Toni and up to Treve. “Yep! That’s the one!” trumpeted Garry. “See? He’s still got their blood all over him. And his forefoot’s bit and chawed where my collie died fighting him. There’s other bitemarks on him, too. He--” Royce and Fenno, by common consent, moved in front of their imperilled chum. But, before either of them could speak, Wilton interrupted Garry’s harangue by stepping past the two partners and laying his bronzed hands on Treve’s blood-streaked head. There was greeting--almost benediction--in the gesture. At the touch, Treve left off growling at the huge dead wolf which Toni was laying on the ground, nearby; and glanced quickly up at the stranger who had offered him this unwonted familiarity. At what he read behind Wilton’s steady eyes, the collie’s glint of suspicion softened to friendliness. His tail wagged, hospitably; and he laid his cut head against the huntsman’s khaki knee. Meantime, Wilton was turning to the gesticulating Garry. “They ‘fooled you’ out of shooting this collie, did they?” he asked. “Then it was the luckiest bit of fooling done in Dos Hermanos County for a long time. I was afraid of something like that. So I came on here, as soon as I could. I got that double-sized herder to give me a lift with the wolf; so we could get here quicker.” He nodded over his shoulder, as he spoke. The others, for the first time, took full cognizance of the wolf that Toni was stretching out on the muddy ground. The giant animal measured well over six feet from muzzle to tail-tip. His hide was plentifully scored with olden wounds and with very new gashes. But it was Bob Garry who, with a gasp of amaze, pointed out the beast’s most striking peculiarity. His left forefoot was gone. It had been cut off, clean, at the ankle-joint. The injury had occurred long ago, for the skin and the hair had grown over the wound. “Ever hear of him?” asked Wilton. Nobody answered. Wilton continued: