Trail and Camp- Fire 



are always some who cannot be persuaded to 

 touch a bait. The old she-wolves teach their 

 cubs, as soon as they are able to walk, to avoid 

 man's trace in every way, and to look out for 

 traps and poison. 



In consequence, though most cow-punchers 

 carry poison with them, and are continually 

 laying out baits, and though some men devote 

 most of their time to poisoning for the sake 

 of the bounty and the fur, the results are not 

 very remunerative. The most successful wolf- 

 hunter on the Little Missouri for the past year 

 was a man who did not rely on poison at all, but 

 on dogs. He is a hunter named Massingale, 

 and he always has a pack of at least twenty 

 hounds. The number varies, for a wolf at bay 

 is a terrible fighter, with jaws like that of a 

 steel trap and teeth that cut like knives, so that 

 the dogs are continually disabled and some- 

 times killed, and the hunter has always to be 

 on the watch to add animals to his pack. It 

 is not a pack that would appeal, as far as 

 looks go, to an Old-World huntsman, but it 

 is thoroughly fitted for its own work. Most 

 of the dogs are greyhounds, whether rough 

 or smooth haired, but many of them are big 



mongrels, part greyhound and part some other 



216 



