THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE GOOSE 



513 



the fringed gentians and the flaming red 

 of the Indian paint brushes splash the 

 green with their vivid colors. These 

 flowers are but short-lived plants, but 

 their ancestors occupied the same spot 

 centuries ago, and who could say that 

 the Wild Hunter is not as old as the 

 trees and able to remember the original 

 pioneer ancestors of these beautiful 

 flowers. If a man is young at one hun- 

 dred and twenty-four years, why not at 

 five hundred or a thousand ? Is it not 

 possible that this phantom hunter is one 

 of the ancient weir wolves of Germany 

 who emigrated to the New World on 

 account of persecution? 



As this thought ran through my head, 

 I sprang so suddenly from my seat upon 

 a fallen log that I dropped my red case. 

 "I've found him! I've found him!'' I 

 cried. 



44 Who? Who?" queried a startled owl 

 as it peered down from its hiding place 

 in the dense foliage of a cedar far 

 above. 



"The owner of the Patrick Mullin's 

 rifle ; but — Never mind who, you old 

 rascal,'' I laughingly replied, and pick- 

 ing up my fish rod I parted the branches 

 of a sweet-scented wild syringa to start 

 on my way through the woods, but 

 halted when I found myself staring into 

 the face of a huge timber wolf. The 

 beast's lips were drawn back, displaying 

 its gleaming fangs, its back hair was 

 erect as the cropped mane of a pony, 

 its Mongolian eyes shown green through 

 their narrow slits, and its whole attitude 

 seemed to say, 44 Well, now that you 

 have found me, what do you propose 

 to do?" 



Gentle reader, do not make any mis- 

 take about the writer, he is not a hero 

 and never posed as one ; in truth, his 

 timidity at times amounts to cowardice, 

 a fact which he usually keeps to him- 

 self, but he never was afraid of a wolf 

 until he so unexpectedly met this one. 



It is needless to say that I have no 

 hair on my back, it is as bare as that 

 of any other man's, nevertheless on this 

 occasion I could distinctly feel my bris- 

 tles rise from the nape of my neck to 



the end of my spine, just the same as 

 those on the oblique-eyed, shaggy mon- 

 ster whose snapping teeth were so near 

 my face. 



Everybody is familiar with the fact 

 that people who have had limbs ampu- 

 tated often complain of pains or 

 itching in the missing members. My 

 missing back hair, the hair which my 

 ancestors lost by the slow process of 

 evolution, the hair which grew on the 

 back of the "missing link," stood on 

 end at the sight of this wolf. 



However, this fear was but momen- 

 tary, and when my courage returned 

 I lifted my rod case in a threatening 

 manner and the wolf slunk away as 

 noiselessly as a shadow, and like a shad- 

 ow faded out of sight in the dim twi- 

 light of the ancient forest. 



When we moved our camp to the far 

 side of the lake Big Pete told me that I 

 could find plenty of trout streams be- 

 yond the timber belt, and he also in- 

 formed me that I could there see the 

 walls of the park and satisfy myself 

 that there was but one trail leading 

 into the preserve. 



I do not now recall the sort of walls 

 that were pictured in my mind or know 

 what I really expected to see enclosing 

 Darlinkle's park, but I do know that 

 when I suddenly emerged from the dark 

 forests into the sunlit prairie the scene 

 which greeted my vision was not the 

 one painted by my imagination. 



Before me stretched an open plain 

 surrounded by mountains arising 

 abruptly from a bed of many colored 

 flowers ; they were the same ranges 

 whose snow-covered peaks formed a 

 feature of the landscape at the lake and 

 at our first camp. 



Here, however, their appearance was 

 different, as different as the dark for- 

 est from the open, sunlit prairie. The 

 scene at first did not seem real, it had 

 a sort of drop curtain effect that was 

 as familiar to me as the row of foot- 

 lights and gilded boxes, but never did 

 I expect to see those delicate tints, that 

 blue atmosphere, the fresco colored 

 rocks and all the theatrical properties 



