The Ghost saw a marvel. In the hand of the big man was a glint of metal which was a sure sign of the wrath of man. That glint of metal meant bullets so long as he was within range. The Ghost blinked, and then he saw that, though the symbol of wrath was in the hands of the man, there was no anger in his face. The eyes were as calm as midnight - the still, open midnight of the mountains which The Ghost might never see again!
The hunt crashed and roared over the crest and would be on them in a matter of seconds, but The Ghost did not hear it. All he was conscious of was that large, quiet face, unmoved by wrath, and the steady, watchful eyes. Something swelled in the heart of The Ghost. He did not recognize the emotion. It was a pain that had nothing to do with the body, and with it there was a lifting of the spirit. Strange hopes of he knew not what came to him; a strange security settled over him, though he could see the sharp-headed hounds bursting down the far slope to get at him.
When the hand of the man was raised The Ghost did not wince, for the instinct told him that the blow was not for him. After all, that instinct was not so strange. What was the wild wolf, a million years before, which first felt the power of the eye of a man and, flying from its enemies, crouched at the feet of one of them and whined for help?
Such a sound, at least, formed deep in the body of The Ghost, and it came, swelling his throat to bursting; not the harsh, terrible growl of a wolf, but the whine of a dog!
The big man started with an exclamation, shoved the revolver into his holster, and slammed and barred the door in the face of the onrushing pack. The Ghost heard their bodies crash against the barrier and heard their anxious claws scrape on the wood.
Chapter V
The Parley
Stern voices of command hushed, in part, the wild clamoring of the pack; The Ghost heard them scattering, heard them sniffing under the wall of the cabin behind him. He heeded them not at all. There was still power in his jaws to crush more than one throat if the worst came to the worst. It was the men who counted now, and as he heard their voices he crouched still lower, shuddering. One thing he knew distinctly. The door which would have been an impassable barrier to animals was nothing at all to the humans, and the scent of man blew sharp, overpowering, about him. Nothing could keep them away, save the power of their own kind, and that power, it seemed, lay in the huge man who now blocked the open window.
Presently others approached. The Ghost caught outlines of other men beyond the window, and, above all, there was the rider who had followed so long and so closely, the man who had outguessed him, the man whose bullet had plowed the stinging furrow in his flesh, the man whose two dogs he had killed. He was a gaunt fellow, active of foot and hand and eye. That eye now flamed. He had seen the two finest dogs in the mountains, dogs of his own rearing and his own fierce training, killed before his eyes and he wanted a return kill. He went straight to the big man.
”Stranger,” he said, “our pack is smelling around this shack on the trail of a wounded wolf. Is they a hole under the cabin he could of got into?”
“I guess not,” said the man of the cabin.
Here the other glanced past the man at the window and cried: “Boys, the wolf is inside! Stand away, partner, while I blow his head off!” And he drew his revolver.
But the big man did not stir from the window. “Look here,” he said. “Why has the wolf got to die?”
The gaunt man gasped in astonishment; his astonishment turned to anger. “You aim to get the scalp of that beast yourself, eh?”
“I don’t want his scalp,” said the other mildly. “But I don’t want somebody else to get it either.”
Fighting rage suffused the face of the hunter. “Say,” he began, “if you think you can”
Here he was interrupted by a companion who caught his arm and dragged him away, while others of the hunters pressed on to resume the strange argument with the man of the cabin.
“Look here, Steve,” whispered the pacifier, “keep your tongue under the bit, will you? Know who the big boy is?”
“No, and I don’t care,” declared Steve.
“You will in a minute. That’s Bull Hunter.”
“He’s big enough to be a bull - but the bigger they are the harder they fall.”
“You fool, that’s the man who dropped Jack Hood; and that’s the man who rode Diablo.”
“No!”
“There’s the hoss now!”
He pointed to a giant black stallion, close to seventeen hands tall, with muscles like a Hercules of horses and tapered like a sprinter. He was going uneasily to and fro in a little corral near the house. A too-inquisitive wolfhound slipped through the fence to talk to the stallion and was greeted with a snort and a tigerish rush that sent him scampering to safety, with his tail between his legs.
“Yes,” admitted Steve, convinced and uneasy. “I’ve heard about Diablo, and I guess it’s him, all right. But this Bull Hunter - what right has he got to keep me from that wolf?”
“Listen to him talk and you’ll see. Stupid-talking gent, ain’t he? I dunno much about him; just heard rumors. They say he’s pretty soft on Mary Hood. That’s Jack Hood’s daughter, the pretty one. But after he shot her father, of course he had to run for it. Between you and me they can’t keep a gent as big as Hunter from going back to the girl he loves one of these days, and when he does they’ll be a pile of trouble. I guess he’s postponing it.”
The giant at the window, in the meantime, had been listening intently to the spokesman of the hunters; and he listened with his brow puckered, and with blank, dazed eyes, as though it were hard for him to gather the meaning of the simple words.
“Maybe you dunno what you got in there,” he said to Hunter. “Maybe you dunno what that is. Ever hear of The Ghost?”
“I’m new to these parts,” said Bull Hunter gently. “But I’ve heard that The Ghost is a big lobo.”
“He is - the worst cattle-killer in the mountains; the trickiest, biggest wolf that ever trotted out to raise ruction day or night. That’s The Ghost squatting yonder in the corner.”
Bull Hunter shook his head slowly. “If he’s a wolf, how come he’s run into my house?”
It seemed to stump the spokesman for a moment. Then he said: “The Ghost was shot through the leg. The hounds was close up, and he simply was run to death and ducked into your house. But they ain’t any doubt ‘bout him. Wolf? Why, look! It’s written all over him.”
Bull Hunter turned and regarded his strange guest with that thoughtful, half-dazed wrinkling of his brows. The Ghost regarded the big man critically. He knew that the voices of the hunters were sharp, aggressive, painful, and threatening to hear; he knew that the voice of Hunter was gentle and pleasant to the ear - a voice that sent a tingle up and down his spine. Now the battery of those two pairs of eyes was turned upon him, and he dropped his head under the shock and watched them with a dangerous lifting of his lip above the fangs, and a roll of his bloodshot eyes. The cuts from the fight with the dogs had covered him with blood, and he made a terrifying figure, big enough for two wolves.
“Look at that!” exclaimed the huntsman. “You say he ain’t a wolf?”
He pointed as he spoke, and The Ghost shuddered. He was being cornered. The next time that hand went out it might bear the glint of metal which meant an explosion and then death. The Ghost looked up into the face of Bull Hunter, his sides heaved, and the new sound, the dog-whine, came from his throat. It had a strange effect on the giant. He made a long step toward The Ghost and then changed his mind and wheeled on the man outside the window.