ai 
~ ak, 
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something less tame to transpire. 
THE REGENERATION 
OF WINDY. 
CHARLES A, HARMON, 
Windy was the original Mr. Prevaricator 
from Deceptionville. Nature had built him 
for a literary genius, but a rudimentary 
education jammed his cogs; so, instead 
of committing his dreams to paper and 
taking the print line to fame, he became 
a mere vocal hot air jammer, without 
honor in his own community and habitually 
without the price. 
Concerning the usual affairs of life he 
was as truthful as the average; that is, 
whenever he found a lie convenient, ex- 
pedient or necessary he told it circum- 
spectly and discreetly. His voluntary ef- 
forts at misrepresentation were confined to 
stories of hunting scrapes and tales of his 
own fearlessness. That was his specialty; 
and, when pursuing it, he wore the prob- 
able to a frazzle and was a systematic, 
elaborate and enthusiastic liar. 
About 1885 there were more brindle 
wolves to the square mile in Oscoda coun- 
ty, Michigan, than on any other like area 
exposed to the weather. From sunset to 
sunrise, especially in the fall, the night was 
one long, hair-raising horror. The brutes 
nearly drove the deer out, sheep were a 
losing investment for the settlers, tree- 
roosting poultry never attained pot-pie ma- 
turity, and many a good hound fell a vic- 
tim to his wild brethren. More than one 
lonely land-looker and belated hunter dis- 
appeared in the dead of winter to be found 
the next spring, a mere heap of gnawed 
bones and shredded rags. 
Windy came up one fall with a party of 
hunters. They were met at Beaver lake 
by a settler who drove them across the pine 
barrens to the Ausable where they were 
to camp. It was Windy’s first hunt in the 
wilderness, and his ¢ompanions conspired 
with the settler to the end that the vital 
machinery of a defunct hog and a little bag 
of asafetida were tied by a long string to 
the reach of the wagon when they halted, 
at sundown, at Loon lake, to water the 
team. 
Windy was in his finest mood. He sat 
between the rear wheels on the grub box, 
his hat cocked up behind and pulled rakish- 
ly over his eyes. He absorbed quantities 
of red pepper whiskey. He took pot shots 
at squirrels and porkies and yearned for 
In the 
course of things, it did. 
Away off to the right, a mile or more, 
a wail as of a lost soul shuddered over the 
landscape. Hank Root grabbed the settler 
by the arm and demanded, in the name of 
an extra geographical locality, to know 
what cussed thing was yowling. Windy 
butted in and said that it was only a 
measly wolf amusing himself. Back toward 
Loon lake the stillness was convulsed by 
a hideously blended reply. The settler 
glanced uneasily along the back track and 
urged his team. The wheels chucked on 
their worn skeins, the sand screamed softly 
off the tires and the men glanced sharply 
into the closing darkness. There is a 
great loneliness of long standing invest- 
ing those Northern wastes. The plaintive 
cry of a melancholy fox came to the men 
with a softened distinctness which seemed 
somehow to fit into the rest of the big lone- 
someness. The narrow surrounding hori- 
zon, enclosing squat little pines and dis- 
couraged scrub oaks, seemed capable of pe- 
culiar atrocities. 
These men, with the exception of Windy, 
had hunted this country for many falls 
and, to them, objects and sounds would 
soon slip into their rightful places; but 
that night guns were held in hand, nerves 
tingled and the long dormant alertness of 
a savage ancestry manifested itself in 
gleaming eyes, and quick, shifty move- 
ments. Howling ringed them in. It came 
from every point of the compass, but often- 
est and most fiercely from the rear. A rab- 
bit sprang from a bunch of dried grass, 
making racket out of all proportion to his 
size and importance; the men rose as one 
and stood leaning and peering. They con- 
versed in laconic gutterals. The driver 
ental his team up, and taking 2 lanterns 
rom beneath the seat, hung one on each 
horse’s hame. 
“Don’t s’pose ther’s any danger of ’em 
tacklin’ us at this time o’ year, but I ain’t 
takin’ no chances,” he said, as he climbed 
back in. He swung the lash and drove on. 
“Feller used to drive tote team fer Loud’s 
2 years ago, wus comin’ in on runners with 
a load of beef fer the camps. He allus car- 
ried a light on the end board, one on each 
side 0’ the seat and one on each hoss; but 
he forgot to fill ’em an’ they went out an 
him jest as he got along by Lost crick. 
The wolves lit on to him an’ killed him an’ 
the hosses, an’ chawed things up gen’ly. 
Course that was in the dead of winter, but 
—g’long thar; git out 0’ here!” 
“Well, they’r follerin’ us, all right;” said 
one of the party. Windy moved un where 
there was more company. Judging by the 
sound there were anyway 7 to 17 
wolves snuffling at the scent between the 
wheel tracks behind them. They were so 
close that the undertone of protest at be- 
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