THE WOLF. 50 



Gen. Putnam's adventure with a wolf. 



several lambs and kids. This dreadful havoc was 

 committed by a she-wolf, which, with her annual 

 whelps, had for several years infested the neigh- 

 bourhood. The whelps were commonly destroy- 

 ed by the vigilance of the hunters, but the old 

 one was too sagacious to come within reach of 

 gun-shot; and upon being closely pursued, she 

 would generally fly to the western woods, and 

 return the next winter with another litter of 

 whelps. 



This animal, at length, became such an intole- 

 rable nuisance, that Mr. Putnam and five of his 

 neighbours agreed to hunt alternately, until they 

 could destroy her; and t\vo of them, in rotation, 

 were to be constantly in pursuit. It was known, 

 that, having lost the toes from one foot, by a steel 

 trap, she made one track shorter than the other. 

 By this vestige the pursuers recognized, in a 

 light snow, the route of the wolf. Having fol- 

 lowed her to Connecticut river, and found she 

 had turned back toward Pomfret, they immedi- 

 ately returned, and by ten o'clock next morning,, 

 the blood-hounds had driven her into a cave 

 about three miles distant from Mr. Putnanrs 

 house. The people soon assembled with dogs, 

 guns, straw, fire, and sulphur, to attack their 

 common enemy, and several attempts were made 

 to dislodge her from the den, but the hounds 

 came back wounded and intimidated ; and neither 

 'fhe smoke of bla/ing straw, rior the fumes of 



