Jan. 4, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
9 
ing forward over the pommel of his Mexican 
saddle, touching the pony’s heaving flanks with 
the rowel of his huge spurs, he sprang like an 
arrow from the bow, and in three bounds ap¬ 
peared to be in the full spring of his stride. 
Over clumps of sweet myrtle, through hidden 
pools in the grass, over rabbit burrows and 
gopher holes, he swung with the sure-footed 
stride of the prairie bred cow horse, now taking 
a coulee like a bird in flight, now swerving to 
avoid a mound, too abrupt to be mounted with¬ 
out a stumble, or loss of speed, with ears 
pointed forward, and eyes on the pack ahead, he 
swept the miles behind him. 
Ten minutes of this grueling pace—or possi¬ 
bly fifteen—and Jules gave voice to the hunt 
call, “Yip-yip-yip-yeah. Yip-yip-ye-a-ah” and 
Blue, true to his training, slackened his pace. 
“A-ah-yip-yip-ye-ah-yip,” came the answer, and 
another rider took after the dogs, while Jules 
walked his sobered mount over to where the 
other riders reined in their impatient ponies. 
“He runnin’ good. He dun turn at Simms 
ranch; wat you t’ink ?” 
“Reckon so; lots ob de fellahs be thar, en 
he won’t hev no chanct teh geet pas, en they’ll 
hev sum moah houn’s, suah. Wondah whar he’ll 
bay? Las taim we dun run heem clean pas the 
firs’ relay, en ouah ponies purty nigh guv out 
foah he bayed. Dogs dun played too. So ole 
loupe crawl inteh er bush er prickly pear teh 
tek er res’, en wen ther dorgs geet thah he 
plum stiff. Joe DeGraw jes keeck him out wid 
he foot, but no fight lef’ in heem. Fust dorg 
grab heem dun throated heem quick. Look laike 
eet ’bout taime we hear dem houn’s er cornin’. 
Say, that ain’t er bunch er mavericks ovah yender 
near Big Gulch ? Bon sacre ! Dat’s dem; cum on.” 
All three put spurs to their ponies and took 
after the crowd that was now following the 
pack, now augmented to twice their number, two 
or three mongrels giving constant tongue. As 
the chase tailed out each group of horsemen 
joined the rout as it passed their stations, the 
fresher horses taking the lead, while those some¬ 
what spent fell behind, but kept the pack in 
sight and hearing. 
The pace was as furious as ever, but the wolf 
was showing signs of anxiety and beginning to 
labor, for he had covered some twelve good 
miles since the chase began. Besides, his wander¬ 
ings of the night, and his orgy of calf flesh, made 
traveling heavy and his wind short. Now Buz¬ 
zard Roost Marsh is near, and the wily rascal 
hopes to attain to the high cut grass and cane 
of its solitudes and melt from view of the baffled 
pack. Calling on his rapidly exhausting strength 
he makes a spurt that distances the hounds, and 
almost reaches the outlying clumps of cane, 
when a couple of fresh dogs burst from behind, 
one of them in full cry, followed by a rider on 
a fresh pony. Baffled, the wolf whirls for the 
open prairie, but his forces are spent, his loll¬ 
ing tongue and foam-flecked jowl tells the tale. 
As the dogs close the distance between them, he 
suddenly checks his course in a patch of high 
bunch grass, and with gleaming green-flamed 
eyes and snapping jaws awaits their coming. The 
first hound, unable to check his speed in time, 
overshoots him, but, as he passes, makes a 
slashing snap at the crouching form that serves 
partly to turn him. When the second dog, run¬ 
ning some distance behind his mate, making bet¬ 
ter calculation of his speed, attempts to seize 
him by the throat, there is an exciting flurry 
of dog and wolf, and the hound retreats with 
shrill cries of distress and a badly ripped side. 
The first dog now comes back, but cautiously 
both fence for an opening, the wolf snarling and 
snapping, and the hound circling and giving 
tongue, while the horsemen cheer them on. 
Now, the leaders of the pack arrive and join 
the attack, circling and nipping, but the quarry 
still holds them off. They are veterans, these 
old hounds, and well, know the power of those 
long gray jaws if the attack is miscalculated. 
Now, some of the younger dogs come up and 
dash wildly in, only to be flung howling aside 
with mangled flanks or gashed throats. Riders 
circle about with whoop and yell, ropes uncoiled 
from saddle horns are whirled by eager hands, 
but the hounds press too close to allow of a 
successful throw. Fecy LaBlanc breaks from the 
circle, and with well directed blows with the 
lash of his long cow whip forces the dogs aside 
until within striking distance of the wolf which, 
exhausted and semi-paralyzed, can only stagger 
round and round among the circling hounds, 
and by a sharp blow across the eyes and muzzle 
stuns him. As he pitches forward the hounds 
swarm upon him, tearing, worrying and throt¬ 
tling out the last spark of life, until dispersed 
by blows of whip and ropes. Then the slain 
is duly scalped; a piece of fur including his ears 
is shorn from the skull, to be duly presented 
at the county seat for bounty claim, and the 
carcass left for buzzards and other scavengers. 
The riders disperse again to their stations, 
and the dogs are taken further afield in search 
of another wolf, which is duly jumped out among 
the mounds where a too extended gorge dur¬ 
ing the morning had induced a sense of false 
security and a long nap, which was broken by 
the bay of the hounds as they sighted the place 
of his kill, betrayed by the circling buzzards 
gathering to finish the carcass ere rendered 
noxious by the noonday sun. 
Another exciting race followed, to end as be¬ 
fore in the death and scalping of la loupe. Then 
as noontime had long passed and both ponies 
and hunters were tired out and fagged, the 
various groups scatter and head for the farms, 
discussing on the way the haps and mishaps of 
the chase, the memories of other famous runs, 
the hounds, whose records formed epics, and of 
wolves, whose cunning often put dogs and hun¬ 
ters’ skill at naught season after season—La 
Loup Blanche and La Loup Garou. 
Ancient Landmarks 
New though this country is, it has a history 
—even though a brief one. Yet the most of 
us, absorbed in the affairs of our daily life, think 
or know little about that history. Every now 
and then something comes up to remind us of 
a past, absurdly recent from the point of view 
of the old world, but for us something of the 
long ago. 
It is only a few years since we told in 
Forest and Stream of the finding near Man- 
dan, North Dakota, a fragment of clay rock 
on which had been scratched a number of names 
and a date. The date was 1849. 
The stone is yellowish-brown in color, about 
7^4 inches long by 5 inches at its widest part, 
and is soft enough readily to be cut by a knife. 
It is a river-worn boulder, smooth on one side 
and a little weathered and roughened on the 
other. Fragments have been knocked from the 
surface in several places, as is shown by the 
engraving which we print, and where these 
fragments have been knocked away, smooth 
places are left which bear interesting marks. 
There are a number of names, “H. C. Dent, 
Ind”; “Shrope, 1849”; “Clark”; “Bennett”; 
“Mooney, Mo.”; “D. Russell, N. Y”; “Hed- 
den”; “Nolon”; “Illingworth”; “Leland”; “Jud- 
son”; “Kid”; “T. D”; “D. R”; “M.” On the 
pitted or roughened surface are letters “Me Ca” 
and some other vague marks, apparently the be¬ 
ginning of the name McCarthy. 
The stone soon after it was discovered passed 
into possession of Maj. Geo. H. Bingenheimer, 
of Mandan, North Dakota, and it was to his 
kindness that Forest and Stream owed the op¬ 
portunity of illustrating the record. 
Here then is a register nearly sixty years old 
of some party of travelers, hunters, trappers or 
traders, who once were encamped on Heart 
River, near its junction with the Missouri. 
Long before the date written on this stone, 
trading posts had been established on the 
Missouri River as far as the head of naviga¬ 
tion, and travel on the stream was more or less 
regular. It was six years before this that 
Audubon had gone up the Missouri to the 
mouth of the Yellowstone and spent two 
months at Fort Union. Yet—except for the fur 
traders, and their engagees—the line of west¬ 
ward travel which had been traversed by traders, 
trappers, explorers, missionaries and now was 
being traveled by immigrants, passed far to the 
southward, starting from Independence, Mo., 
and for a time following the old Santa Fe trail. 
It is perhaps fair to infer that the men whose 
names are written on this stone were employees 
of the American Fur Company, or of some one 
of the opposite companies which were con¬ 
stantly being started on the river. The register 
is astonishingly full; there are the names of the 
signers, the States from which some of them 
came, the year in which the inscriptions were 
made. 
When Forest and Stream printed an ac¬ 
count of the finding of this record, it suggested 
that some one of the men whose names were 
written there, or at least some one who knew 
one or more of these men might yet be living; 
and this proved to be the fact. Only a few 
weeks later we received a letter from Mr. Theo. 
Louis, of Louisville, Wis., stating that he had 
known McCarthy at Ft. Union, and at Ft. 
Pierre, in the year 1852. The name Illingworth 
suggests a young Englishman of similar name 
—Ellingsworth, Illingsworth—formerly at Ft. 
Union, and spoken of by Audubon in his jour¬ 
nals as well as by Larpenteur in his biography 
edited by Dr. Cones. Mr. Louis in his letter 
