pursuit may scatter and leave each one stranded 

 alone in a bad place; in such case each will suffer 

 from lonesomeness, even though it endure the 

 cold and defy enemies. Most animals, even 

 those that are normally solitary, appear to want 

 society during emergencies. 



A deep snow is sometimes followed by a brief 

 thaw, then by days of extreme cold. The snow 

 crusts, making it almost impossible for big game 

 to move, but encouragingly easy for wolves to 

 travel and to attack. Of course, long periods 

 separate these extremely deadly combinations. 

 Probably the ordinary loss of big game from 

 wolves and mountain lions is less than is imag- 

 ined. 



Some years ago an old Ute Indian told me 

 that during a winter of his boyhood the snow 

 for weeks lay " four ponies deep " over the Rocky 

 Mountains, and that "most elk die, many 

 ponies die, wolves die, and Indian nearly die 

 too." A "Great Snow" of this kind is terrible 

 for wild folk. 



Snow and cold sometimes combine to do their 

 worst. The snow covers everything deeply; 



268 



