WOLF-COURSING 



125 



very plentiful throughout this region, closely following 

 the huge herds of buffaloes. The white men who fol- 

 lowed these herds as professional buffalo-hunters were 

 often accompanied by other men, known as wolfers, who 

 poisoned these wolves for the sake of their fur. With the 

 disappearance of the buffalo the wolves diminished in 

 numbers so that they also seemed to disappear. Then in 

 the late eighties or early nineties the wolves began again 

 to increase in numbers until they became once more as 

 numerous as ever and infinitely more wary and difficult 

 to kill ; though as they were nocturnal in their habits they 

 were not often seen. Along the Little Missouri and in 

 many parts of Montana and Wyoming this increase was 

 very noticeable during the last decade of the nineteenth 

 century. They were at that time the only big animals 

 of the region which had increased in numbers. Such an 

 increase following a previous decrease in the same region 

 was both curious and interesting. I never knew the 

 wolves to be so numerous or so daring in their assaults 

 upon stock in the Little Missouri country as in the years 

 1894 to 1896 inclusive. I am unable wholly to account 

 for these changes. The first great diminution in the num- 

 bers of the wolves is only partially to be explained by 

 the poisoning; yet they seemed to disappear almost every- 

 where and for a number of years continued scarce. Then' 

 they again became plentiful, reappearing in districts 

 from whence they had entirely vanished, and appearing 

 in new districts where they had been hitherto unknown. 

 Then they once more began to diminish in number. In 

 northwestern Colorado, in the White River country, cou- 



