SOURCE: "The Werewolf" (Western Story Magazine, December 18, 1926) by Max Brand (Fredrick Phillip Faust)

DESCRIPTION: "...To make all sure, presently he heard a faint whine, and it drew before his imagination the dreadful picture of an old wolf, gray with years, his back arched and his belly gaunt, and his grinning mouth showing only a single fang for murder."

PLOT: Christopher Royal kills the younger brother of a renowned gunman and finds himself too much a coward to meet him with guns. he flees to the woods where he encounters an old Indian who tells him about the werewolf that has dogged his steps for decades. Royal in turn is terrified by the ghostly wolf, so much so that when the gunman finds him he faces and kills him without any fear. Later Christopher finds the old Indian with his throat torn out and the young man flees the woods. He hears the werewolf and shoots. Only then does he find that it isn't a werewolf but his old hound, Lurcher, who has followed him from the ranch. Christopher carries the dog to safety, paying the local vet $2000 to save the dog's life. No longer a coward, Christopher marries his girl and lives a good life.

WEREWOLF FACTS: The Indian version of the werewolf is explained by the old Indian man. There are two kinds of werewolves: a man becoming a wolf or a wolf becoming a man. If a man acts brutally he can devolve into a stupid monster. The other kind is a wolf that must kill a marked man  to transform himself into a man. This wolf will haunt a man forever until he rips out his throat. The marked man cannot die except by this beast.

INTERESTING FACTS: Faust consulted with Carl Jung as well as his own shrink in London for this story. He was interested in superstition and psychology. The story plays the usual games of non-Fantasy writers, using weird tales techniques but explaining away the monsters at the end. Still, not a bad "weird western".