THE WOLF. 459 



may rest assured that I could not have been silenced with- 

 out a determined and sanguinary struggle. Long before 

 this, I had learned that it was dangerous to fall in the pres- 

 ence of even a domesticated Wolf. 



I need scarcely say that I did not trouble my amiable 

 companion to follow me any farther, lest I might get 

 another fall. With one blow of a stick which I usually 

 carried for the purpose, I laid him out ready for skinning; 

 as doubtless, in his time, he had treated many a beautiful 

 Deer prior to devouring it. 



As I have before remarked, the three Wolves which I 

 had killed formed part of a pack that, during a few weeks 

 before their tragical departure to the happy hunting- 

 grounds, had committed many serious depredations. I put 

 the succeeding two, each of which was equal in size to the 

 first one, through a similar investigating process, but failed 

 to elicit anything new. I had frequently heard the pack in 

 full cry, at night; and although, if heard close at hand, the 

 sound might have proved terrifying to persons not gifted 

 with an ear capable of appreciating Nature's magnificent 

 harmonies, so far as I am a judge of music, the moonlight 

 concert of those Wolves seemed to me to be the ne plus 

 ultra of forest harmony. 



The Madawaska River, which was once, so far as unri- 

 valed natural beauty could make it so, the rushing, foaming 

 queen of Ottawa's peerless tributaries, has along its tur- 

 bulent course many rapids and chutes of wondrous grand- 

 eur and beauty. One of those chutes, about one hundred 

 miles from the City of Ottawa, is called the Wolf Port- 

 age. It was so named on account of the Wolves chasing 

 Deer into the water at that point during winter. The 

 hunted Deer were in the habit of rushing into the rapids to 

 escape the fangs of their sanguinary pursuers. In catching 

 the Deer at the Wolf Portage, the Wolves displayed much 

 cunning. When a Deer took to water at the head, it was 

 quickly carried over the rough chute and down the rapids 

 into the gradually narrowing, ice-inclosed glade, or channel, 

 at the foot. Just at the spot- where the current drove 



