Trail and Camp-Fire 



calf. In consequence, farmers and ranchers 

 kill them whenever the chance offers ; but they 

 do no damage which is very appreciable when 

 compared with the ravages of their grim big 

 brother, the gray wolf, which in many sections 

 of the West is now a veritable scourge of the 

 stock-men. 



The big wolves shrink back before the 

 growth of the thickly settled districts, and in 

 the Eastern States they often tend to disap- 

 pear even from districts that are uninhabited, 

 save by a few wilderness hunters. They have 

 thus disappeared almost entirely from Maine, 

 the Adirondacks, and the Alleghanies, although 

 here and there they are said to be returning 

 to their old haunts. Their disappearance is 

 rather mysterious in some instances, for they 

 are certainly not all killed off. The black bear 

 is much easier killed, yet the black bear holds 

 its own in many parts of the land from which 

 the wolf has vanished. No animal is quite so 

 difficult to kill as is the wolf, whether by poison 

 or rifle or hound. Yet, after a comparatively 

 few have been slain, the entire species will per- 

 haps vanish from certain localities. 



But with all wild animals, it is a noticeable 

 fact that a course of contact with man continu- 



212 



