gather more information .
First we spoke to the train conductor about the derailment and learned that there was no monster springing into the Engine room or lingering about , but that someone had piled scrap metal on the track . The railroad detective who perished , it seems , was investigating some local vandal . We also learned that the small person who disappeared was a bone collector , marketing the commodities of the American Bison .
Things were not lining up . Werewolves were known to behave like beasts — hunting , eating , devouring . What we were dealing with here was calculated . I began to think something was amiss .
The evening came soon enough , and it was time to find the old woman who had said she would meet us by the stables . The air was dry , and the sun was low . You could hear some lay-by fence rattling in the wind . We saw the old woman standing there in the middle of the corral . Her beautiful blanket was like a shroud or darkness in the low light , and the beads filled the darkness with twinkling , like the stars of the sky . She held out her hand to us .
A creature leapt from the shadows and jumped on her . She dropped to her knees struggling , subdued by the figure of a wolf !
" A wolf !" I breathed , barely able to contain myself . It seemed abnormally large . Was it ... could it be ...? Or , no , it was a man ! Or ...
I did not expect there to be such difficulty in recognizing a werewolf .
I held my gun to the ready but Percy let out a scream , reaching for his pistol in such a panic that he almost clubbed a nearby horse with the barrel . He fired his gun at the werebeast , and though he came quite prepared for the encounter by equipping his gun with silver bullets , the beast was unmoved . It continued to wrestle that woman to the ground , until it crushed her in its arms .