IN THE FAR WEST. 121 



thousand cured skins, and as they realize from one and a 

 half to two dollars each, it is evident that the business is 

 profitable if the season is even indifferently good. 



When the majority of these men receive their money, they 

 spend it in the most reckless manner, and when it is exhausted 

 they disappear from the settlements and are not seen again 

 until the following spring-, when they return to renew their 

 debauch. Where they go to after their spree no person seems 

 to know; but, from their character, one might infer that they 

 wandered about like the animal with which they are so closely 

 identified. A few of them, however, are wise enough to keep 

 their money, and they soon retire for good from the business, 

 or seek a more congenial occupation. I knew one "wolfer" 

 to save up eight thousand dollars in five years, and when I last 

 saw him he was a prosperous merchant in a western city. 

 Another whom I met in Montana was a man of intelligence, a 

 keen sportsman, a good amateur naturalist, and a successful 

 stock-raiser. He cultivated a farm in spring and summer, and 

 hunted in winter; but his greatest wealth, in his own estima- 

 tion, consisted in an interesting family, and after them in his 

 herds of mustangs and horned cattle. He had a thorough 

 knowledge of the character of the wolf, and so much contempt 

 did he have for it that he could only compare it to an Indian. 

 Although he destroyed many with strychnine, yet his greatest 

 amusement was to hunt them with a pack of half a do/en 

 huge, fierce hounds, which seemed to be a cross between the deer- 

 hound and the blood-hound. These were bred by a Scotch 

 halt-breed in British America, their parents having been ob- 

 tained from an officer in the British army. They were power- 

 ful animals which would run either by sight or scent, and any 

 one of which was almost a match for a wolf either in strength or 

 stride; but they were difficult to manage, being so intractable 

 and bad tempered that he could not strike them without 

 arousing their anger to such an extent that they were liable to 

 attack him. This forced him to always go armed when hunt- 

 ing them, and to wear a sabre bayonet, so keenly sharpened, 

 that he could cleave the head of one open with a blow i!' 

 neeessarv. I'sol'ul as he found them, lie thought them too 



