The devil wolf

Chapter One

The afternoon sun blazed down with persistent fury on the little white-washed station of Dover, which stood a solitary blot on an otherwise guiltless landscape.

The scene was one of typified silence and stagnation. In front of the station browsed a lean, weary-looking horse, harnessed to a rude sort of wagon, and in the shade cast by the little wooden station lay the driver asleep, his head resting in a peculiarly unpleasant twist upon his arm. His snores were the only sounds that dis¬ turbed the silence.

Inside the station, the same inactivity reigned. With his feet resting comfortably on the pine table, combi¬ nation station-master-ticket-agent-switchman-and-telegrapher Williams drowsed over a battered copy of a luridbacked novel, although he had long ago become oblivious to the exigencies of the persecuted heroine. His head drooped forward on his chest and he, like the driver out¬ side, was sleeping the sleep of the righteous on a warm afternoon.

Several large, blue-bottle flies buzzed unheeded against the dusty window panes, and the watch lying on the table in front of him ticked away the minutes, but Williams slept on until a long whistle in the distance brought him stumbling to his feet. He glanced at the watch and was agreeably surprised to find that, contrary to all precedent, Number Three was on time. He hurried to the door to call a greeting to the trainmen and receive the express packages; also to attend to the wants of any passengers who might descend, although passengers were rare things to Williams, as usually they preferred riding the seven¬ teen miles further down the line to Versailles, with its larger accommodations. Only passengers for Willowlake descended at Dover, and then, not unless they were confident that friends or relatives would be there to meet them.

“On time today, Jim,” he called facetiously to the engineer. “How come? Somebody grease the track?”

“No,” retorted the engineer with heavy sarcasm, “we merely managed to side-track all the fool station-masters who keep us waiting while they try to kid us. And in¬ stead of standing there trying to think of something clever to say, you had better be attending to your duties.” He sent a meaning glance over Williams’ shoulder as the train pulled out, and that gentleman turned to see the cause of it.

A young lady had just emerged from the one passenger coach that Number Three boasted and on seeing Wil¬ liams, she promptly set down the suit-case which she had picked up.

“Are you the station-master?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Has my brother-in-law arrived yet?”

“No, ma’am. Were you expecting him?’’

“He was to meet me here to drive me over to Willowlake. You probably know him—Arthur Wilbur, the prosecuting attorney.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know him. No, ma’am, he hasn’t got here yet. It has been raining, though, and the roads are pretty bad. This is the first time the sun has been out in three days and I don’t think it will last very long, either. The clouds are gathering for another storm, I guess. But he’ll probably be here in a few minutes.”

The frown, which had appeared on the young lady’s forehead at first learning of her brother’s failure to arrive, increased in depth and darkness. She looked down the road and then at Williams. “I suppose there is nothing to do but wait.”

She brushed past him and went into the little station where she seated herself on the white-enamelled kitchen chair, carefully dusting it, however, with her handker¬ chief before doing so. Williams entered after her, bringing the abandoned suit-case and travelling bag, and set them down beside her chair. Then with an ostenta¬ tious air, he seated himself at the table and endeavored to give the impression of being simply overwhelmed with work. He assiduously made out unnecessary reports and rattled the keys of the telegraph instrument. It all looked very systematic and business-like, although the young lady might not have been quite so impressed, had she known that instead of having to do with the weighty affairs of the railroad, he was merely inform¬ ing a fellow-operator forty miles down the line that “a cross between Lillian Russell and the Venus de Milo, with red hair and a fourteen degrees below zero manner, has just dropped into Dover station from Number Three. Sister-in-law of the P. A. at Willowlake. Anything of importance down at your end?” But there was no hint of facetiousness on Williams’ solemn countenance and the young lady appeared duly impressed with the arduous duties connected with the arrival of Number Three.

Having sent his message and received, grave-eyed and unsmiling, the “Wish you luck” of his fellow-operator, Williams stole a glance at his visitor. She was twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, a bit above medium height, slender and exceedingly well dressed in a dark green linen suit. Under the white sailor hat, with the white veil thrown carelessly back, little tendrils of red gold hair escaped in unruly fashion and blew about her face. It was a lovely face, Williams thought, though it was beyond his powers of observation to say in just what the loveliness lay; whether it was in the clear brown eyes, with their hint of hidden dreams, or the finely curved sensitive mouth. Her eyes, Williams thought after his stolen glimpse, were the center of it all; it was they that imparted the look of quiet radiance to the face. But over and above the young lady’s mere physical beauty was something else that puzzled Williams, some¬ thing that he had never met before. There was a superb impersonality about her, that invested her as something fine and high and set her apart and above the rest of the world.

Had Williams known that the young lady was Miss Eugenia Appleton, occupant of the chair of philosophy at Dearborn College, he might have been able to account for that something better than he did.

The young lady, on her part, was not quite so curious, for she did not deign Williams even a second glance. She did, however, examine the little station idly, as one who had nothing better to do, and her glance took in the withered orange peel under the pine table, the luridbacked novel, old newspapers in the wire waste basket, and the badly neglected calendars, some of them still basking in all the splendor of New Year’s Day. Finally, her gaze rested on a placard pasted on the wall. It bore a somewhat sinister import and the young lady read it through twice. Then she turned to Williams.

“Is he a real bandit?” she asked in an interested tone.

He followed her gaze to the placard on the wall. “You mean the Devil Wolf, ma’am? Yes, ma’am, he aims to be, and if you had been out here at the time the Creektown train robbery occurred, some months ago, you would have said he was succeeding in his aims with what the French call perfect eclat.”

Either because she was interested or because the heat was less intense when you talked than when you sat still and watched through the open door the sizzling road, Miss Appleton pursued the subject.

“Who is he? Why haven’t they put a name on the placard ?”

“I should think you would know all about the Devil Wolf, seeing the prosecuting attorney is your brother-in-law. He’s the one who is worried the most over the Devil Wolf. Of course, it’s really the sheriff’s funeral, but somehow or other your brother-in-law got saddled with it. He’s the one who put up those placards. You see . . .” Williams swung around in the swivel chair so that he could face his visitor. There was an animated tone in his voice as of one who approaches a favorite subject. “There never was a bandit around these parts just like the Devil Wolf. There was Buck Anderson, of course, who got away with three bank robberies and a couple of hold-ups before they got him, but you see what killed Buck was that everybody knew who he was. Well,” his voice sank to a low whisper as though the Devil Wolf might be within hearing, “no one knows who the Devil Wolf is. No one knows what his name is nor what he looks like, nor where he stays, nor anything about him. Why, there isn’t anyone in all Willowlake or any of the surrounding towns but who might be the Devil Wolf. He might be me or he might be your brother-in-law or the Methodist minister, or the superin¬ tendent of the orphan asylum. There’s no telling.”

Miss Appleton was visibly impressed and Williams felt the compliment. “Has no one ever seen him?” she asked.

“Well, ma’am,” answered Williams judiciously, “if to see a tall figure in a long black cloak and wearing a heavy black mask, is to see the Devil Wolf, why, then, of course, he has been seen. By the crew on the Creektown ex¬ press, for instance. That’s all there is to see. With Buck Anderson, it was just a question of catching him. We had known him as a boy, you might say, knew what he looked like, and that he had a haunt somewhere along the river, but with the Devil Wolf, it’s different. When he gets to The Hills,—you can just see the tops of them through the door there, ma’am,—why, he just slips into them and vanishes.”

“And has no one ever been suspected?” asked Miss Appleton.

Williams laughed shortly. “Why, it’s getting so you can’t do anything without being suspected of being the Devil Wolf. There was Guthrie Johnson. About a month after the American Security Bank was robbed, Guthrie bought a motor car and then everyone said that he must be the Devil Wolf because how could he buy a $2,000 car on $25.00 a week? They took to watching him, and everybody was excited in Willowlake, but just when the police thought they had it all figured out, the paymaster of the Dancing Bell copper mine was held up, and that same night Guthrie was helping out at a water¬ melon social at the Methodist church so, of course, it could not be his work. Afterwards, they found that he had received a little legacy when his grandmother died. Oh, there have been plenty of suspects but just when they think they have it all proved, something will happen right when the suspected fellow is in the midst of a lot of people, and of course, you can’t suspect anyone after that. It’s a funny thing and I’m not denying that I have enough curiosity to want to know who the Devil Wolf is and how he works. Yes, ma’am, it certainly is a mystery.”

“So it seems.” Miss Appleton had apparently lost all interest in the subject of the Devil Wolf for she rose, went to the door, and looked up and down the road.

“I can’t understand why my brother-in-law doesn’t come.” She took a peep at her tiny wrist watch. “It is an hour past train time.”

“Only forty minutes, ma’am,” corrected Williams, looking at the watch on the table. “Those wrist watches never do keep good time.”

Miss Appleton, with an angry movement entirely out of place in an occupant of a chair of philosophy, adjusted the hands of her watch and took another look down the white dusty road.

“Did you tell them you were coming, ma’am?”

Miss Appleton’s look was withering. “I would be the more apt not to neglect that little formality inasmuch as neither my sister nor her husband are mind-readers,” she said icily.

Williams squirmed uncomfortably and studied the dust on the floor.

“They should have received my letter yesterday/’ con¬ tinued Miss Appleton in a slightly milder tone. “Or, this morning, at the latest.”

“This morning?” Williams looked up quickly. “Then I am sorry, ma’am,” he said deeply apologetic, “but there isn’t a chance of your people having received it. The postmaster didn’t deliver any mail this morning; he had other and more important business to attend to.”

“What,” snapped Miss Appleton, “could be more im¬ portant than the delivery of the United States mail?”

“Twins,” answered Williams laconically. Then, as though to relieve the anxiety natural under the circum¬ stances, “Mother and twins are doing well.”

“Does that mean,” asked Miss Appleton darkly, “that my sister does not know I am coming today?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid so,” said Williams meekly. His face betrayed his real concern for her plight. All at once his eyes brightened. “Why not telegraph your sister and wait here?”

“Is the telegraph service at Willowlake any better than the postal service ?” asked Miss Appleton suspiciously.

“It isn’t so very bad, ma’am,” returned Williams, with just the trace of a grin. “Luke Manning is kind of slow, but—”

“How long will it take my sister or her husband to drive over from Willowlake with the roads as bad as they are ?”

“About two hours—maybe longer.”

“I am not going to wait,” said Miss Appleton firmly.

“Isn’t there any other possible way to get over to Willowlake? Who hauls baggage here? ,,

“Well, there isn’t much to haul, ma’am. Most people, you see, ride down to Versailles and change cars there for Willowlake. No one gets off here unless they know someone will meet them. Of course, it’s shorter over to Willowlake this way, than when you change cars at Versailles. But when there is any hauling to do, Pete usually does it.”

“And where is Pete?”

Williams pointed an eloquent finger toward the snoring bundle of rags in the shade. “There he is, ma’am, but he won’t be able to drive for you.”

“Ill?”

“Drunk.”

“I thought this country was dry,” snapped Miss Ap¬ pleton.

Williams shook his head. “I reckon it is, according to the statutes. God only knows where Pete gets it.”

Without deigning to answer, Miss Appleton took her suit-case and started for the door. Williams followed her wonderingly. When they reached the little platform in front of the station, Miss Appleton let the suit-case stand and turned to Williams. “Put it in the cart,” she commanded.

“Are you going to drive Old Bess ?” he asked.

“I don’t know what the horse’s name is, but I am going to drive it,” answered Miss Appleton determinedly.

ii

“I wouldn’t advise you to, ma’am.”

“Why not?” she asked with raised eyebrows. “The horse looks perfectly gentle—in fact, it looks subdued.”

“Oh, Old Bess is all right, but,” he shifted uneasily before Miss Appleton’s direct gaze. “Ladies don’t drive around Willowlake alone any more, not since the Devil Wolf—”

“Does he stalk abroad even in the daytime seeking whom he might devour?” she inquired ironically.

“He held up the cashier of the American Security bank at four o’clock in the afternoon,” answered Williams imperturbably. “What’s more, you are the prosecuting attorney’s sister-in-law, and it’s the prosecuting attorney who has gone out after him. The Devil Wolf isn’t the kind to overlook a thing like that.”

“But he doesn’t know who I am; he doesn’t know I am coming,” protested Miss Appleton. “If no one has received my letter, how can anyone know I am coming?”

Williams shrugged his shoulders. “There isn’t much going on in Willowlake the Devil Wolf doesn’t know about.”

Miss Appleton hesitated a few moments as though con¬ sidering the question. “I am not afraid of your bandit,” she said finally. “Put the suit-case in.”

“And that isn’t all, ma’am,” continued Williams. “There’s a storm coming up and they come up suddenly out here. Notice how sticky warm it is and those clouds over there—”

“I am not afraid of a thunderstorm.”

Williams gave it up. “You certainly are lucky to be that courageous, ma’am.”

Miss Appleton looked at him quickly. There had been veiled irony in his tone, but the eyes that met hers were guilelessness itself. She flushed slightly and sprang into the rickety conveyance, jerking up the reins in a way that made old Bess open her sleepy eyes.

“How far is it from here to Willowlake?”

“About thirteen miles—as the crow flies.”

“How far is it the way I have to go ?”

“About eighteen.”

There was genuine concern in Miss Appleton’s eyes. “There ought to be a shorter cut,” she said severely, looking at him as though implying that he was seeking to withhold information from her.

“There is,” he answered, “but you don’t want to take it.”

“Why not?”

“It leads through The Hills—and the Devil Wolf isn’t caught yet.”

Miss Appleton turned on him with unphilosophical fury. “I was reared,” she said icily, “to regard the United States as the home of the brave. I trust I will never again meet a human being so fearful of another as you are of this bandit.”

“That’s all right, ma’am,” said Williams in a grieved tone, “but you weren’t here when the Creektown express i3

was robbed. There was a guard on the train, and the Devil Wolf got away with $17,000.”

Miss Appleton settled the reins over Old Bess’s back. “If you have finished relating to me the details of a crime in which I can have absolutely no interest,” she said coldly, “will you kindly direct me to the road that leads through The Hills? I am not afraid of your bandit.”

“You can follow this road until it forks,” directed Williams sullenly. “If you want to go through The Hills, take the right fork, but if you don’t—and no one will blame you if you don’t—take the left fork. You can put the wagon up at Willowlake and I’ll have Pete go over after it. I sure hope you get there all right, ma’am,” his tone was charity itself. “Both roads lead right into Willowlake, though the one through The Hills is shorter, of course. When you get there, anyone will show you where your brother-in-law lives. If you meet the Devil Wolf—”

The last few words were spoken into empty space for Miss Appleton had already got Old Bess into motion.

Williams looked after her appreciatively. “They don’t make them any prettier nor any spunkier,” he mused, “but, ye gods, she can sure make a man squirm with that look of hers. Not afraid of the bandit, huh? Guess she would be if she met him once.” He kicked Pete but was unable to waken him and reentered the little station. Soon the keys of the telegraph instrument were clicking madly, and the fellow-operator forty miles down the line grinned as he ticked the message off:

“The lady wouldn’t wait for her brother-in-law and has gone off by her high lonesome into The Hills on her way to Willowlake. I tried to tell her about the Devil Wolf, but she didn’t scare much. I’ll say this much: if she meets him and gives him only one of the looks she has been handing me for the last half hour, there’ll be a shrivelled up Devil Wolf lying around The Hills some¬ where tomorrow.”

Chapter Two

The Hills clustered thickly together, cowering like a flock of frightened sheep. They did not burst candidly into view, but stole stealthily upon the scene; not timidly or shyly, but crouching low to earth like beaten curs. Si* lent and forbidding, there was something a bit uncanny in the way they hugged each other, seeming to close in upon the spectator with the ugly intentions of wolves at bay; and wolves they looked, too—hungry and snarling, with bared fangs, lean-sided, panting with lust for blood.

They had none of the beauty of hills. Here were no grass-covered slopes where children lie and dream their youth away; here were no bubbling rills tripping merrily over tiny smooth-washed pebbles and whispering soft nothings to slender rushes; here were no tall straight trees that seemed to brush open the gates of Heaven. Lean, barren, rock-ribbed and scraggy of top were The Hills—fairy-tale hills, hills that spoke of hollow caves and elves and gnomes working industriously at their hid¬ den forges. Low and stubby in form, they were mere ugly mounds. A learned, calculating geologist would have spoken didactically of mineralic conditions that for¬ bade any growth; a dreamer would have said that the tiny inhabitants had made them purposely repellant so that no inquisitive person would sit there and, musing, hear the 15 i6 sound of their tiny blazing forges where they made yel¬ low gold and forged sparkling diamonds. Their slopes were barren of all green beauty and the brooks that moaned in and out of the huge rocks were as wistfully meager as the children of the poor in large cities. As for the trees, they but poorly covered the naked sides, and were only half-hearted growths, stunted, one might have thought, by an evil hand. They, like the heights on which they grew, belonged to a necromantic world, seem¬ ing to conceal in their crooked, ugly trunks, the souls of disobedient mortals who had become too saucy with the gods.

It was no wonder, thought Miss Appleton, as Old Bess jogged lazily along the narrow rocky road, that the people of Willowlake avoided The Hills. They were not com¬ panionable hills with outstretched arms that welcomed, but were like dragons, guarding their secrets against all comers.

The vexation she had felt at the postmaster’s negli¬ gence had melted away beneath the warmth of the seren¬ ity that never deserted her for any length of time. One teaches philosophy to hopeful young women for the space of four years and one becomes imbued with a sense of it. It had become a part of Eugenia Appleton’s character, and was the secret of the thing that had puzzled Williams.

Now she let the reins slip over Old Bess’s back, while she listened to the message from the stunted Hills. She who had compared one philosophy with another, knew that there was no postulate ever established which held out the charm that these ugly heights offered with their nude slopes, twisted trees, and mysterious message.

It was just the place for the Devil Wolf. He was evidently a philosopher, this outlaw with a price on his head, for who, besides a philosopher, would see the re¬ lationship between The Hills which frankly rebelled against all balance of law and order in the realm of nature and a man who disputed as he did the balance of society? He was a rough, uncouth man, of course, but behind the low criminal intellect was a glimmering of the great truth,—the first tiny sprout of the seed of Relativity. The world would come to it finally.

The sun which had been shining brightly a moment before, with all the fervor of afternoon heat, withdrew itself behind a cloud and Eugenia, glancing apprehen¬ sively at the heavens, remembered the station agent’s warning of the approach of a thunderstorm, and saw that he had been right. A heavy bank of dark gray clouds had arisen in the west and catching up with the sun had obscured it. The twisted trees began to shake as with an ague and their sparsely leaved branches to whisper uneasily to one another of the coming storm.

She gathered up the reins that she had let fall and tried to urge Old Bess to a more active pace, but age and gen¬ eral lassitude were both against any inclination the old mare might have had to hasten her steps and she still plodded wearily along between the low hills.

The clouds increased in numbers; heavy, dark, rain¬ laden, they hung overhead like a bad omen of what was i8 surely to follow and Eugenia began to look around for some possible shelter. But where to find shelter, she thought, among these barren empty hills? The trees, with their niggard foliage, offered no more protection against the storm than the open road.

She had never seen a storm come with the rapidity of this one. Five minutes before the sun had been shining brightly, the air had been warm and dry, and save for some clouds along the horizon, nothing seemed further off than a storm. Now the sun was lost behind thick dark clouds and the winds hinted of the rain to come. She did not know how far she had come, nor how many more miles lay between her and her sister’s house, but she was certain she would be drenched before she reached it.

The first heavy drops were beginning to fall when she espied, halfway up one of the low hills, the mass of overhanging rocks that formed a rude cave and the cluster of stunted trees beside it. Here was only negative shelter unless the cave-like place under the rocks was larger than it looked, but the cave would prove better than the open road, and it would be only a matter of a few minutes. From the Appearance of the skies, there would be only one of those swift downpours which are quickly over with.

Knowing that it would be next to impossible to get Old Bess to climb even the low hill, Eugenia climbed out of the wagon, tied the old mare loosely to an old twisted tree at the foot of the hill, and then taking her suit-case i9 and travelling bag, she proceeded up the slope. The rocks afforded her foothold and in a few moments, she stood under the overhanging roof of rocks, and found to her surprise that it was really a wonderful shelter. There was even a seat, a long rock some two feet long. But one must creep even to the very wall before one escaped the wind-driven rain.

She had told Williams rightly that she was not afraid of a thunderstorm and it was with curiosity, not fear, that she watched it. Out here amid The Hills, an approaching thunderstorm was a far different thing to the kind she used to watch from her tower room at Dear¬ born College. There the straight, nicely pruned poplar trees had bent themselves under the blasts of wind and rain, but even then had seemed to be precise about it, as everything about Dearborn College was precise. The wind that had howled around the tower room had been a precise wind and the rain that dashed itself against the window panes had seemed a precise rain. But oiut here The Hills that rebelled against nature seemed to imbue everything with their revolutionary sentiments; and the wind and the rain and the thunder and the lightning all seemed to have a dash of rebellion in them. There was a spark of malice in the lightning and a bit of sullen anger in the thunder; the rain was an impetuous demogogue and the wind had an aggravating tendency to nag.

Eugenia crouched against the rocks and gave herself up to the beauty of the fairy-tale storm. She felt a momentary pity for Old Bess but noticing the old mare’s resigned attitude, decided that she was used to Pete’s drunken vagaries and accustomed to all weather. At any rate, she stood under the tree at the foot of the hill and browsed the sparse blades of wet grass.

To Eugenia’s surprise, the storm, instead of spending itself in a half hour or so, increased in ferocity; the lightning became more vivid, and the thunder more ter¬ rific. Boulders, loosened sometimes by the rain that rushed in torrents down the rocky slopes, and sometimes by the crashes of the thunder that shook The Hills, went hurtling down the hillside and fell in the road like dead giants. Rotten branches of half-dead trees were twisted off by the raging wind and flung sometimes from one low hill to the other.

From her more or less dry nook, Eugenia watched it all, half wishing she had remained in the little station at Dover and telegraphed her sister, and then glad she had not done so, for Jane, she remembered, hated thunderstorms.

She glanced at her wrist watch and felt reassured. It was only four-thirty and even though the storm kept up for another hour, she would still have time to reach Willowlake before dark, for she had already gone more than halfway, she felt sure.

In the meantime, Old Bess, not so well sheltered as Eugenia, was growing restless under the unceasing flashes and rumblings. At one time, the old mare even reared on her hind feet and Eugenia wondered a bit doubtfully whether she had bound her securely enough. She had only twisted the reins around the tree in a loose knot, for she had never dreamed the storm would attain its pres¬ ent proportions.

Suddenly there came a crash of thunder that seemed in its ferocity to uproot The Hills. Eugenia herself started up with a slight cry and Old Bess, paralyzed by the deafening shriek, stood still for a moment, then reared with all the impetuosity of her youthful days, shook herself free of the reins and, led away by terror, abandoned herself to a mad flight along the rocky road. For a few feet, she dragged the old wagon behind her, then it caught against a young sapling and lay there on its side, while Old Bess fled down the narrow road between The Hills.

Eugenia started forward as though to try to catch the fleeing animal, but the downpour of rain stopped her and she crept back under the sheltering rocks again. Alone in The Hills—amid a fierce tempest—and night only a few hours away. And they would not come searching for her, either. Williams imagined her safely on her way to Willowlake, and Jane and Arthur could not know of her arrival. If the rain would cease, she would start walking, of course; still—there was the Devil Wolf.

She had not thought of the redoubtable outlaw for some time; now she suddenly remembered all Williams had told her. She forgot her own speculations as to his philosophy and remembered only the fact that he had robbed the Creektown express some months before and that everyone in Willowlake feared him. She had saicj bravely enough that she was not afraid of a bandit, but that had been under the warm sunshine and on the road to Willowlake.