Page:Patches (1928).pdf/152

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gallery of them, so the Washington government keeps a catalog of the most destructive animals, and Two Toes' record was the most formidable in the department. It consisted of a long story of his ravages and several photographs of him which a government hunter had taken one day when he was armed with a telephoto instead of a rifle. There were also drawings of his peculiar track. Only once in his adventurous life had he ever fallen into a trap and then he had stumbled upon it in an out-of-the-way place when fleeing from an enemy. This misfortune had cost him the two middle toes on his right fore-foot and wherever he went he left the peculiar trail of this club foot. There were really two toes and a dewclaw on this foot, but the latter did not show in a dirt trail so he was usually referred to as Old Two Toes.

Before he had been on the Crooked Creek ranch for twenty-four hours, he and his band had killed half a dozen calves and three or four yearlings.

Hank Brodie had at once recognized that the ranch had some bad visitors and it was not many days before he discovered the peculiar trail of Old Two Toes; then he knew they were in for trouble.

He sent to the nearest drug store for a supply of arsenic and strychnine. All of the carcasses of the animals that had been killed were doctored with poison. He also cut pieces of meat from these carcasses and