236 Hunting the Grisly 



should interfere with his big dogs, for by 

 themselves they would surely "make the wolf 

 feel sicker than a stuck hog."' Our shaggy 

 ponies racked along at a five-mile gait over 

 the dewy prairie grass. The two big dogs 

 trotted behind their master, grim and fero- 

 cious. The track-hounds were tied in couples, 

 and the beautiful greyhounds loped lightly 

 and gracefully alongside the horses. The 

 country was fine. A mile to our right a small 

 plains river wound in long curves between 

 banks fringed with cottonwoods. Two or 

 three miles to our left the foothills rose sheer 

 and bare, with clumps of black pine and cedar 

 in their gorges. We rode over gently rolling 

 prairie, with here and there patches of brush 

 at the bottoms of the slopes around the dry 

 watercourses. 



At last we reached a somewhat deeper val- 

 ley, in which the wolves were harbored. 

 Wolves lie close in the daytime and will not 

 leave cover if they can help it; and as they 

 had both food and water within we knew it 

 was most unlikely that this couple would be 

 gone. The valley was a couple of hundred 

 yards broad and three or four times as long, 

 filled with a growth of ash and dwarf elm and 

 cedar, thorny underbrush choking the spaces 



