Ranching in the Bad Lands. 21 



thousand head of stock during winter. Then we hold in 

 about equal abhorrence the granger who may come in to 

 till the land, and the sheep-owner who drives his flocks 

 over it. The former will gradually fill up the country to 

 our own exclusion, while the latter's sheep nibble the grass 

 off so close to the ground as to starve out all other 

 animals. 



Then we suffer some loss in certain regions very 

 severe loss from wild beasts, such as cougars, wolves, 

 and lynxes. The latter, generally called " bob-cats," 

 merely make inroads on the hen-roosts (one of them 

 destroyed half my poultry, coming night after night with 

 most praiseworthy regularity), but the cougars and wolves 

 destroy many cattle. 



The wolf is not very common with us ; nothing like 

 as plentiful as the little coyote. A few years ago both 

 wolves and coyotes were very numerous on the plains, and 

 as Indians and hunters rarely molested them, they were 

 then very unsuspicious. But all this is changed now. 

 When the cattle-men came in they soon perceived in the 

 wolves their natural foes, and followed them unrelent- 

 ingly. They shot at and chased them on all occasions, 

 and killed great numbers by poisoning ; and as a conse- 

 quence the comparatively few that are left are as wary and 

 cunning beasts as exist anywhere. They hardly ever 

 stir abroad by day, and hence are rarely shot or indeed 

 seen. During the last three years these brutes have killed 

 nearly a score of my cattle, and in return we have poi- 

 soned six or eight wolves and a couple of dozen coyotes ; 

 yet in all our riding we have not seen so much as a single 



