Badlands Billy 
little piece of cotton or a tuft of feathers that 
may catch the Wolf’s eye or pique its curiosity 
and tempt it to circle on the fateful, treacher- 
ous ground. A good trapper varies his meth- 
ods continually so that the Wolves cannot learn 
his ways. ‘Their only safeguards are perpetual 
vigilance and distrust of all smells that are 
known to be of man. 
The wolver, with a load of the strongest 
steel traps, had begun his autumn work on the 
‘ Cottonwood.’ 
An old Buffalo trail crossing the river fol- 
lowed a little draw that climbed the hills to 
the level upland. All animals use these trails, 
Wolves and Foxes as well as Cattle and Deer: 
they are the main thoroughfares. <A cotton- 
wood stump not far from where it plunged to 
the gravelly stream was marked with Wolf 
signs that told the wolver of its use. Here 
was an excellent place for traps, not on the 
trail, for Cattle were here in numbers, but 
twenty yards away on a level, sandy spot he 
set four traps in a twelve-foot square. Near 
each he scattered two or three scraps of meat; 
three or four white feathers on a spear of grass 
134 
