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 That evening by the long table in the ranch house he told the story to an excited audience. He told it well, not omitting any of the high-lights in Patches' performance. When he had finished Big Bill brought his fist down upon the table with a blow that made the dishes rattle.

"By heaven, gents, it is jest as I thought," he said. "I knowed it all the time but I reckon it is easier to prophesy after a thing is over that it is before it happens, but I knowed it jest the same.

"That air Patches has been camping on the trail of that old lobo wolf these two weeks. Whenever he came out in the open, he and his hosses were right after him a-wearing him down and pestering the life out'n him. They were waiting for the right opening to come and when he trotted into Piñon Valley he was as good as dead.

"Don't ever tell me again that a hoss ain't got some reasoning power. I knowed they have and they've got hoss sense besides, and that's more than some folks got."

When they came to weigh and measure the lobo wolf all the cow-punchers were amazed at his dimensions, for he stood thirty-five inches at his shoulders and weighed one hundred and forty-two pounds. When we remember that a large timber wolf only weighs about ninety pounds it will be seen that Two Toes was a giant among his fellows. The loss of their