Wolfs Head

Wolf's Head, by

Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) This eBook is
for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Wolf's Head 1911
Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23549]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOLF'S
HEAD ***

Produced by David Widger

WOLF'S HEAD
By Charles Egbert Craddock
1911
It might well be called the country of the outlaw, this vast tract of dense

mountain forests and craggy ravines, this congeries of swirling torrents
and cataracts and rapids. Here wild beasts lurked out their savage lives,
subsisting by fang and prey,--the panther, the bear, the catamount, the
wolf,--and like unto them, ferocious and fugitive, both fearsome and
afraid, the man with a "wolf's head," on which was set a price, even as
the State's bounty for the scalps of the ravening brutes.
One gloomy October afternoon, the zest of a group of sportsmen, who
had pitched their camp in this sequestered wilderness, suffered an
abatement on the discovery of the repute of the region and the
possibility of being summoned to serve on a sheriff's posse in the
discharge of the grimmest of duties.
"But he is no outlaw in the proper sense of the term. The phrase has
survived, but the fact is obsolete," said Seymour, who was both a prig
and a purist, a man of leisure, and bookish, but a good shot, and vain of
his sylvan accomplishments. "Our law places no man beyond the pale
of its protection. He has a constitutional right to plead his case in
court."
"What is the reward offered to hale him forth and force him to enjoy
that privilege--five hundred dollars?" asked Bygrave, who was a
newspaper man and had a habit of easy satire.
"Of course he would never suffer himself to be taken alive." Purcell's
vocation was that of a broker, and he was given to the discrimination of
chances and relative values. "Therefore he is as definitely caput
lupinum as any outlaw of old. Nobody would be held accountable for
cracking his 'wolf's head' off, in the effort to arrest him for the sake of
the five hundred dollars. But, meantime, how does the fellow contrive
to live!"
"Jes by his rifle, I reckon," replied the rural gossip whom intrusive
curiosity occasionally lured to their camp-fire. "Though sence that thar
big reward hev been n'ised abroad, I'd think he'd be plumb afraid ter
fire a shot. The echoes be mighty peart these dumb, damp fall days."
The old jeans-clad mountaineer had a certain keen spryness of aspect,

despite his bent knees and stooped shoulders. His deeply grooved,
narrow, thin face was yet more elongated by the extension of a high
forehead into a bald crown, for he wore his broad wool hat on the back
of his head. There was something in his countenance not dissimilar to
the facial contour of a grasshopper, and the suggestion was heightened
by his persistent, rasping chirp.
"That's what frets Meddy; she can't abide the idee of huntin' a human
with sech special coursers ez money reward. She 'lows it mought tempt
a' evil man or a' ignorant one ter swear a miser'ble wretch's life away.
Let the law strengthen its own hands--that's what Meddy say. Don't
kindle the sperit of Cain in every brother's breast. Oh, Meddy is plumb
comical whenst she fairly gits ter goin', though it's all on account of
that thar man what war growed up in a tree."
The dryadic suggestions of a dendroidal captivity flashed into
Seymour's mind with the phrase, and stimulated his curiosity as to
some quaint rural perversion of the legend.
But it was grim fact that the old mountaineer detailed in answer to the
question, as he sat on a log by the fire, while the sportsmen lay on the
ground about it and idly listened.
"One day--'t war 'bout two year' ago--thar war a valley-man up hyar
a-huntin' in the mountings with some other fellers, an' toward sunset he
war a-waitin' at a stand on a deer-path up thar nigh Headlong Creek,
hopin' ter git a shot whenst the deer went down to drink. Waal, I reckon
luck war ag'in' him, fer he got nuthin' but durned tired. So, ez he waited,
he grounded his rifle, an' leaned himself ag'in' a great big tree ter rest
his bones. And presently he jes happened ter turn his head, an', folks!
he seen a sight! Fer thar, right close ter his cheek, he looked into a
skellington's eye-sockets. Thar war