OUR SHIPMENT AND ITS SEQUEL. 293 



Mexicans captured this old fellow and haltered him, 

 by carbine straps, to the horns of one of the bumilo 

 carcasses, near which he sat on his haunches, with 

 eyes yellow from rage and fright. Just to stir him 

 up, we tossed him a piece of bone ; he caught it be- 

 tween his long fangs with a click that made our nerves 

 twitch. Man never appreciates the wonderful com- 

 mand that God gave him over the other animals until 

 away from his fellows, and surrounded by the wild 

 beasts of the solitudes, in all their native fierceness. 

 Here were a few mortals of us encompassed by wolves, 

 in sufficient numbers and power to annihilate our 

 party, and yet one solitary man walking toward them 

 would have put the whole brute multitude to flight. 



Although we wondered, at the time, that so many 

 wolves were gathered from a single baiting, we soon 

 learned that this success was by no means unusual. 

 At Grinnel Station, where a corporal's guard was 

 stationed, we afterward saw over forty dead wolves, 

 and most of them of the gray variety, stacked up, 

 like cord-wood, as the result of one night's poisoning 

 by the soldiers. 



The remainder of this day was devoted to stalking, 

 and resulted in our obtaining a sufficiency of robes 

 and meat to justify us in sending the two Mexican 

 wagons back with them to Hays. Our two captives, 

 tne Duffalo calf and wolf, went also. The history of 

 that shipment merits brief chronicling. 



The robes went to St. Louis, to a man who adver- 

 tised a patent way of curing such skins, " warranted 

 as good as Indian tan." Some months afterward 

 they were returned to Topeka, duly finished, and I 



