We had many camp-fire talks while the other men were sleeping,
and then it was I learned the little that he knew about Badlands
Billy. "Six times have I seen him and the seventh will be Sunday,
you bet. He takes his long rest then." And thus on the very
ground where it all fell out, to the noise of the night wind and
the yapping of the Coyote, interrupted sometimes by the
deep-drawn howl of the hero
himself, I heard chapters of this history which, with others
gleaned in many fields, gave me the story of the Big Dark Wolf of
Sentinel Butte.


III

IN THE CANON

Away back in the spring of '92 a wolver was "wolving" on the east
side of the Sentinel Mountain that so long was a principal
landmark of the old Plainsmen. Pelts were not good in May, but
the bounties were high, five dollars a head, and double for
She-wolves. As he went down to the creek one morning he saw a
Wolf coming to drink on the other side. He had an easy shot, and
on killing it found it was a nursing She-wolf. Evidently her
family were somewhere near, so he spent two or three days
searching in all the likely places, but found no clue to the den.

Two weeks afterward, as the wolver rode down an adjoining cañon,
he saw a Wolf come out of a hole. The ever-ready rifle flew up,
and another ten-dollar scalp was added to his string. Now he dug