It might well be called the country of the outlaw, this vast tract ofdense mountain forests and craggy ravines, this congeries of swirlingtorrents and cataracts and rapids. Here wild beasts lurked out theirsavage lives, subsisting by fang and prey,--the panther, the bear, thecatamount, the wolf,--and like unto them, ferocious and fugitive, bothfearsome and afraid, the man with a "wolf's head," on which was set aprice, 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 hadpitched their camp in this sequestered wilderness, suffered an abatementon the discovery of the repute of the region and the possibility ofbeing summoned to serve on a sheriff's posse in the discharge of thegrimmest of duties.