“Not me, Jimmy; it’s plain United States I’m giving you, sure I am,” the other insisted.
“But there ain’t no great call for wolf pelts, like there is for black fox and ’coon, and otter, and skunks and that sort of thing. How d’ye s’pose this Wolf Harkness makes it pay?”
“Oh! that’s easy,” replied Amos, carelessly. “You see, he kills off a certain number of his stock once in so often and sells the skins. Then later on they reckon that he collects the bounty for wolf scalps from the State.”
“But say, that looks kind of queer for any man to raise pests, and then expect to make the State pay him so much for every one he kills,” Jimmy remarked, shaking his head as though he found it difficult to believe.
“Don’t know how he manages,” the boy continued. “Heard some say that the law, it left a loophole for such practices, and that they couldn’t stop him. Others kind of think he sells the scalps to some hunter, who collects for the same. But everybody just knows Harkness does get a heap of cash out of his queer business.”
“Ever been to his pen and seen his stock?” asked Jimmy.
“Yes, once I happened that way, but the smell drove me away. There must have been thirty or more wolves in the stockade right then, and they looked like they was pretty nigh starved, too. I dreamed that night they broke loose and got me cornered in an empty cabin. I barred the door, but they pushed underneath and clumb through the broken windows, and everywhere I looked I saw red tongues and pale yellow eyes! Then I woke up, and was scared near stiff, for there was a pair of eyes in the dark right alongside me in the loft at home. But say, that turned out to be only our old black cat.”
All of them laughed with Amos, as though they could fully appreciate the scare he must have received on that occasion.
The subject of the wolf farm seemed to have interested Jimmy intensely, for he went on asking more questions concerning the raising of the animals, what they were fed on, the price of wolf pelts, and a lot more along the same lines until finally Harry turned to Ned and complained.
“Tell him to change the subject, won’t you, Ned? He’ll have the lot of us dreaming we’re beset by a horde of wolves. And you’d better make him draw all the charges out of his gun to-night, because he’s sure to sit up and begin blazing away, to keep from being dragged off. Jimmy’s got a big imagination, you know, and every once in a while it runs away with him.”
“Tell me,” announced Jimmy, rather indignantly, “who’s got a better right to be askin’ questions about the habits of the animals than me, who’s a member of that same Wolf Patrol? How can you expect a feller to give the right kind of a howl when he wants to signal to his mates, unless he finds out all these things.”
“Oh! if that’s the worst you are after, Jimmy, go ahead and find out,” Jack was heard to say, condescendingly. “I thought you had a more serious scheme in that head of yours than just accumulating knowledge.”
Jimmy turned and looked at him suspiciously.
“And what did you think I had up me sleeve, if it’s a fair question?” he asked.
“Why, you see,” began Jack, with a twinkle in his eye, “I was afraid that you might want to invest what money you’ve got saved in starting a wolf ranch of your own, or trying to buy this old man Harkness out. I supposed that was why you wanted to know the exact value of wolf hides, and what the State paid bounty on scalps. But I’m just as glad to find that you’re not bothering your head over the business part of the game. Perhaps you’d like to meet up with this Harkness, thinking he might give you a chance to shoot his collection of hungry wolves. That would be a snap for a fellow who hates the beasts like you do, and has made a vow to never let one get past him, when he had a gun handy or a stone to heave.”
Jimmy only grinned. He did not know whether Jack was joking or not, but there seemed to be something complimentary in his way of talking; and Jimmy was not at all averse to being known as a champion wolf killer.
“I only hope I get a chance to see this Harkness and his bunch of slick critters before we quit this neck of the woods,” he remarked. “But as I ain’t a butcher you needn’t think that I’d ask him to let me cut down his list with my new Marlin gun. Out in the open I’m death on the sneakers every time; but it’d go against my grain to knock ’em over, when they hadn’t got any show for their money. I never could do the axe business for a chicken at home, even when we were livin’ in the country.”
“Oh! well, you must excuse me for speaking of such a thing, Jimmy,” said Jack, with assumed gravity; “I was mistaken, that’s all, in sizing you up. Appearances are often deceitful, you know, and things don’t always turn out as they seem. Now, few people looking at you would ever dream that they were gazing on a marvelous phenomenon. I guess you caught that trick from association with Ned, here,” and Jack might have continued along that vein still further had he not been nudged sharply by the scout master, and heard Ned mutter:
“Mum’s the word, Jack. Don’t tell all you know!”
This brought him to his senses, for he remembered that there was a stranger present, and that it had been decided not to expose their full hand to the gaze of Amos, at least for the present.
In this fashion the time passed.
All of the scouts were in a humor to vote that one of the most delightful camps they had ever been in. Perhaps this partly arose from the great contrast it afforded when compared with recent nights passed under the most trying of conditions, when crossing the desert, and the terrible valley lying to the east of it.
Amos had a blanket along with him. Apparently the lad was accustomed to sleeping by himself on the open plain, and always went prepared. Things were not as pleasant as they might be at his cabin home, frequently enough; and besides this, he must be possessed of a wandering nature, feeling perfectly satisfied to take care of himself, and capable of doing it, too.
They were still lying around the dying fire, and each waiting for some one else to take the lead in mentioning such a thing as going to sleep, when Amos suddenly sat upright.
Ned noticed that he had his head cocked on one side, and appeared to be in the attitude of listening for a repetition of some sound that may have struck his acute hearing.
“There it comes again,” Amos remarked. “You see, the wind has veered around that way more or less; but say, twelve miles as the crow flies is pretty hefty of a distance to hear that pack give tongue, seems to me.”
Ned had caught it that time.
“You must mean the wolves that Harkness keeps shut up in his pen for breeding purposes, is that it, Amos?” he inquired.
“Nothing more nor less than that,” came the reply.
“There, I caught it as plain as anything then!” acknowledged Jimmy, with a vein of triumph and satisfaction in his voice, as though he did not mean to be left at the post, when the whole bunch was running swiftly.
“Whew! they do make a racket, when they’re excited, for a fact!” declared Jack.
“Is it the wolves you’re talking about?” asked Harry.
“Don’t you be hearing the noise beyond there?” Jimmy asked him. “P’raps now, meat is so scarce that the old man’s put his pets on half rations, and the whoopin’ we hear is meant for a protest.”
“Well, what of that?” Jack wanted to know; “I guess you’d raise a bigger howl than that, Jimmy, if we tried to put you on half rations. I can fancy how you’d be trying to lift the roof off, and they’d have to call the fire company out to soak you with their hose so as to make you stop. But don’t get alarmed, Jimmy, because none of us have any intention that way.”
They sat there and listened for several minutes. No doubt, Jimmy was endeavoring to picture in his mind what the den of trapped wolves must look like; and at the same time, he was promising himself once more to try and visit the