72 
CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
In the foothills and mountains of southern Europe, cattle¬ 
men were sorely troubled by reason of the constant and ex¬ 
pensive depredations of a marauding wolf that had become 
sufficiently man-wise to elude all efforts, of whatever nature, 
devised by man to effect his destruction. Early in life he had 
met with the sad experience which served to sharpen his wits, 
and which might easily have accounted for his turning outlaw. 
A steeltrap had gotten a strong hold upon one of his fore feet 
and while he escaped from its firm grasp, he left the middle 
toes of this foot in the jaws of the trap, with the result that he 
was forever thereafter marked wherever he went, since he left % 
a rack resembling that of some animal with a cloven hoof. 
Therefore, he avoided at all costs spots which presented the 
appearance of having been frequented by men. He viewed with 
suspicion every single spot trodden which bore the slightest 
signs that a trap might be concealed there. Efforts were made 
to poison him with tempting pieces of beef and lamb, but no 
matter how hungry, he would pass all such by. When he made 
a kill, he would not soon return to the same spot, nor would 
he eat a second time from the same carcass. Such precautions 
on his part only served to make his presence in any community 
all the more expensive to cattle men. He chose for himself 
only the sleekest and choicest of every flock attacked, and 
finally acquired the practice of killing for the sheer joy derived 
from the sport. He was pursued by individual hunters wher¬ 
ever he chose to roam and often by small hunting parties, but 
his craftiness proved too much for either men or hounds. Men 
vied with each other for the honor of bringing in his pelt. On 
a few occasions hunters had gained mere glimpses of him and 
had even taken a few shots at him from the hip, but always 
without results. 
When the crimes charged to him had totaled thousands of 
dollars and the fame of Old Split-Foot, as he had come to be 
known, had extended far and wide, cattle men and lovers of 
the chase concluded that the time was opportune to stage one 
of the greatest hunts ever undertaken in their entire region. 
All the hunters within a radius of many miles were apprised 
of the plan. When he had again left his tell-tale tracks about 
