IN THE FAR WEST. 131 



with and without the cheerful music of hounds, I have found 

 the chase much more exciting than a run after a fox, as a 

 person has no feeling for the fugitive, and he likes to practise 

 his revolver on it as it scuds away. When mounted Indians 

 pursue a pack of wolves, they make a surround, drive the 

 animals into the centre, and then shoot away until they have 

 slain all that have not run the gauntlet. They prefer to trap 

 them, however, to any other mode of capture, as it is a saving 

 of time and energy. A wolf caught by the leg will gnaw it 

 off rather than be made a prisoner, but before attempting that 

 it will try to run away with the trap, and if successful in this 

 it will travel rapidly on three legs, for days at a time, or until 

 it dies of starvation. 



There are so many wolves in the Far West, and so many 

 good opportunities for driving them, that wolf-hunting 

 must yet become a stirring pastime, one which will afford 

 a virile pleasure, and, at the same time, prove of benefit 

 to farmers and stock-raisers. As the animals can be pursued 

 at nearly all seasons, and every farm is open to horsemen, wolf- 

 hunting ought to become there what fox-hunting is in Great 

 Britain, and doubtless it will be so when the country gets 

 settled up, and people have a little spare time to devote to the 

 pleasures of the chase. 



Can the wolf be domesticated and made useful to man is a 

 question which might be asked here ; and from what I heard in 

 the West it seems probable that it can, for a hunter there had 

 one that would chase a deer as well as any stag-hound, while it 

 could also compare in pace with it, and had great endurance. 

 It was so tame that it ran with a small pack of hounds which 

 he owned, and so obedient that it answered his call promptly. 

 He thought wolves had few equals for hunting large animals, 

 such as the elk, or wapiti, moose, deer, wild boar, and others, as 

 they pounce upon the quarries and cut the hamstring, and 

 once crippled in that quarter their formidable weapons are not 

 very dangerous to their agile enemies. The lupine hunter 

 does not always come off first best in a contest however, as an 

 incident related by a Western pioneer will show. This charac- 

 teristic story was told to a party of men who were discussing 



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