“I am disappointed, gentlemen, you say nothing. Isn’t my ranch interesting to you?” demanded the Wild Hunter, with a smile. In a low smooth voice he gave some orders to a young Indian who was walking toward the stables. The Indian instantly snapped into action and hurried away as if one of the black wolf dogs were snapping at his heels, and I felt certain that it was the youth whom we had been trailing.
A hurried and very unpleasant thought flashed through my mind: What was the source of the power the Wild Hunter held over these Indians? They were not slaves in this mountain-surrounded prison; this grim, forceful but kindly wild man did not hold them through fear. He always smiled when he greeted them, but he never smiled at his wolves; when giving them orders or even looking at them, the expression of his face was stern and almost fierce. But the man had asked a question. He was expecting an answer.
“It is a wonderful place,” I managed to stammer; “who could conceive of such a remarkable ranch buried here in the heart of the wilderness?”
“It’s a ring-tailed snorter, hamstring me if it hain’t,” said Big Pete in an attempt to be enthusiastic.
“You are the first white men to see it. I think I have achieved something here in the wilds, thanks a great deal to Pluto and his strain.”
“To—to—whom,” I gasped, for to have the man actually confess an alliance with Satan rather startled me also.
The Wild Hunter chuckled in an amused manner.
“Thanks to Pluto, I said. But Pluto is that black wolf-dog over there, nevertheless. I think that the name ‘Pluto’ fits his character to a nicety.”
He pointed to the massive, deep-chested, long-haired, long-limbed, vicious looking leader of his black wolf pack where it was chained to a post. The great animal glared at his master when his name was mentioned. He crouched twenty feet away with his slanting green eyes fixed constantly on his master’s face and in them ever flared a fierce, wicked fire.
“Yes, you son of Satan, you and your hybrid whelps have helped me do all this in spite of the fact that you hate me, and would love to tear me limb from limb. You splendid, ugly brute, you are insensible to kindness!”
I noticed that whenever he looked the wolf in the face his own countenance became grim and his eyes exceedingly fierce and not unlike the wolf itself in expression.