292 HUNTING .SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



in the vicinity, yet it is in winter, when they piuk and 

 hunt together, that the greatest danger is to be appre- 

 hended. The day previous to my proposed visit, a party 

 of thirteen (for their numbers were easily ascertained 

 by their tracks in the snow) had issued from their haunts 

 in the adjoining forest, and destroyed nearly fifty sheep 

 belonging to the gentleman with whom I was sojourning. 

 Although they had probably sucked the blood of the 

 chief part of the sheep they had killed, they of course 

 had not been able to devour the carcasses of more than 

 a fourth part; it looked as if they had slaughtered them 

 through sheer wantonness. My invitation to my friends 

 was to dine, at two o'clock; for it is not customary to 

 -keep to the extremes of fashion in the backwoods. I, 

 however, for some reason or other, saw fit to defer going 

 until evening, when, as my road lay close along the edge 

 of the swamp the wolves were known to inhabit, I stood 

 a good chance of being serenaded by their wild and 

 melancholy howlings, and probably might arouse some 

 of them from their lairs. My friends pressed me to 

 travel by daylight, but I kept my determination ; and 

 just as the shades of evening were closing in, I desired 

 my horse to be got ready ; and when the boy brought 

 him saddled to the door, he called my attention to the 

 howling of the wolves, which could be distinctly heard 

 in the exact direction of the road I had to travel, 

 although the noise seemed to proceed from a swamp at a 

 couple of miles distance. Being prepared with a stout 

 cudgel in lieu of a riding-whip, I mounted my horse, and 

 set forward, already beginning to repent of having de- 

 layed my journey until so late an hour. By the time I 



