O-w-w-w 
Badlands Billy 
better able to face them; and before he was 
eighteen months old he had defeated all rivals 
and established himself again on his native 
ground; where he lived like a robber baron, 
levying tribute on the rich lands about him and 
finding safety in the rocky fastness. 
Wolver Ryder often hunted in that country, 
and before long, he came across a five-and-one- 
half-inch track, the foot-print of a giant Wolf. 
Roughly reckoned, twenty to twenty-five 
pounds of weight or six inches of stature is a fair 
allowance for each inch of a Wolf’s foot; this 
Wolf therefore stood thirty-three inches at the 
shoulder and weighed about one hundred and 
forty pounds, by far the largest Wolf he had ever 
met. King had lived in Goat country, and now 
in Goat language he exclaimed: ‘You bet, 
ain’t that an old Billy?” Thus by trivial 
chance it was that Duskymane was known to 
his foe, as ‘ Badlands Billy.’ 
Ryder was familiar with the muster-call of 
the Wolves, the long, smooth cry, but Billy’s 
had a singular feature, a slurring that was al- 
ways distinctive. Ryder had heard this before, 
in the Cottonwood Cajon, and when at length 
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