216 Hunting the Grisly 



'8o's, many tens of thousands of wolves were 

 killed by the wolfers in Montana and north- 

 ern Wyoming and western Dakota. Nowa- 

 days the surviving wolves of the plains have 

 learned caution; they no longer move abroad 

 at midday, and still less do they dream of 

 hanging on the footsteps of hunter and trav- 

 eler. Instead of being one of the most com- 

 mon they have become one of the rarest sights 

 of the plains. A hunter may wander far and 

 wide through the plains for months nowadays 

 and never see a wolf, though he will prob- 

 ably see many coyotes. However, the dim- 

 inution goes on, not steadily but by fits and 

 starts, and, moreover, the beasts now and then 

 change their abodes, and appear in numbers 

 in places where they have been scarce for a 

 long period. In the present winter of 1892- 

 '93 big wolves are more plentiful in the neigh- 

 borhood of my ranch than they have been for 

 ten years, and have worked some havoc among 

 the cattle and young horses. The cowboys 

 have been carrying on the usual vindictive 

 campaign against them; a number have been 

 poisoned, and a number of others have fallen 

 victims to their greediness, the cowboys sur- 

 prising them when gorged to repletion on the 

 carcass of a colt or calf, and, in consequence, 



