The Western Trapper of To-Day. 
Though by no means as picturesque as in the 
early days, when he was in the advance guard of 
civilization, the trapper has by no means disap¬ 
peared from the scene in the West. “Wolfers,” 
who make a specialty of hunting wolves and 
coyotes, but who pick up any other pelts that 
offer, are to be found on the cattle and sheep 
had bought some property and had also taken up 
a valuable island in the Yellowstone River, where 
he was building a home. Jim’s income for years 
was believed to be good, and he retired from the 
trapping business in middle life with a com¬ 
petency. 
In Southwestern Wyoming one of the most 
successful trappers is Will Mitchell, whose ser¬ 
vices are in demand among the stockmen in that 
bar for thrusting in the old wolf's mouth when 
she makes her last stand. The wolf usually re¬ 
fuses to fight—for the ferocity of these animals 
is greatly exaggerated by imaginative writers— 
and the wolfer finds it easy to dispatch her with 
a blow of the hatchet. If she does show fight, the 
sharp iron bar is thrust into her open mouth and 
the hatchet does the rest. When bounties are 
high, a raid on a wolf den in which there is a 
WILL MITCHELL ON HIS TRAPPING GROUNDS. 
Coyote and Wolf Skins. Wolf-dog Puppies in His Arms. 
ranges, making good incomes and living a wild, 
free life that is full of charm. 
Many professional wolf hunters may be found 
in Montana and Wyoming, where the live-stock 
industry is of great importance, and where stock- 
men welcome a skilled trapper and afford him 
substantial aid in the matter of finances. It has 
been my good fortune to camp with several of 
these wolfers, and without exception they have 
been found to be shrewd, sensible men, fond of 
human companionship and by no means the 
hermit types that their lonely occupation would 
lead one to believe. One of these men, known 
in Southeastern Montana as “Jim,” and whose 
surname is not given, out of respect to his desire 
for anonymity, spent years trapping on the Crow 
Indian reservation, where thousands of cattle and 
sheep graze on lands that are leased by stockmen 
from the Indian owners. The last time I met 
Jim was at Huntley, Mont., where the trapper 
part of the State and in Northwestern Colorado. 
Like other successful Western trappers, Mitchell’s 
outfit is very complete. He has a strong covered 
wagon of the prairie schooner type, in which he 
carries his" supply of traps. Two strong horses, 
to pull his wagon, and a good saddle horse, make 
up his livestock, though when I saw him a Sea¬ 
son or two ago in the vicinity of Baggs, Wyo., he 
had a tame she-wolf and some wolf-dog puppies 
as part of his official family. 
The wolfer’s greatest time of activity is in the 
spring, when the wolf-puppies arrive. It is easier 
then to track the she-wolves home, after they 
have made a raid on a sheep camp or pulled down 
a big steer on the cattle range. The wolfer thinks 
nothing of crawling into a wolf den and engag¬ 
ing in a tussle with the old one. The only 
weapons carried are a hatchet and an iron bar— 
the hatchet for widening the walls of the passage¬ 
way in case they are too narrow, and the iron 
litter of puppies will net the wolfer a handsome 
sum. 
It is in trapping wolves and coyotes, however, 
that the wolfers show their greatest skill, and 
here their years of experience in the ways of 
wild animals is turned to good account. No matter 
how skilfully a trap may .be set, a wolf or coyote 
will not venture near as long as the smell of 
man-handled steel is not killed. The wolfers 
generally possess secret formulas for some mix¬ 
ture to be spread on the traps, which is said to 
kill the scent. Some of these formulas are 
handed dawn from one generation of trappers to 
another, and no doubt some of them were used 
by the old-timers in the days of the Hudson’s 
Bay Company and the American Fur Company. 
A trapper generally picks up a cadet—some 
likely young fellow who wants to learn the 
trapping business—and after the cadet has served 
a few seasons’ apprenticeship and has shown that 
