158 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



rapidly on three legs for days at a time, or until it dies of 

 starvation. 



There are so many wolves in the Far West, and there 

 are so many good opportunities for driving them, that wolf- 

 hunting must yet become a stirring pastime, one which will 

 afford a virile pleasure, and, at the same time, prove of ben- 

 efit to farmers and stock-raisers. As the animals can be 

 pursued at nearly all seasons, and every farm is open to 

 horsemen, wolf-hunting ought to become there what fox- 

 hunting is in Great Britain ; and doubtless it will be so 

 when the country gets settled up, and people have a little 

 spare time to devote to the pleasures of the chase. 



Can the wolf be domesticated and made useful to man, 

 is a question which might be asked here ; and, from what 

 I heard in the West, it seems probable that it can, for a 

 hunter there had one that would chase a deer as well as 

 any stag-hound, while it could also compare in pace with it, 

 and had great endurance. It was so tame that it ran with 

 a small pack of hounds which he owned, and so obedient 

 that it answered his call promptly. He thought wolves 

 had few equals for hunting large animals, such as the elk, 

 or wapiti, moose, deer, wild-boar, and others, as they pounce 

 upon the quarries and cut the hamstring, and, once crippled 

 in that quarter, their formidable weapons are not very dan- 

 gerous to their agile enemies. The lupine hunter does not 

 always come off first best in a contest, however, as an inci- 

 dent related by a Western pioneer will show. This charac- 

 teristic story was told to a party of men who were discuss- 

 ing the merits of wild pigs, and, as a type of the Western- 

 er's descriptive power, is one of the best I ever heard or 

 read. The speaker was one of those old farmers who lived 

 some time in the wilderness, and he commenced his story 

 in the following quaint manner : " One day, while passing 

 along the bottoms, I seen such a sight of hogs as I never 

 did see. Thar they stood, and squirmed, with their bristles 

 up, and steam a risin' out o' their bodies, and their eyes 

 a flashin', and teeth a champin' ; a mass of bilin' mad hogs, 

 who was a screamin' and a shakin' 'em selves with rage. 



