Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1894 — The Gray Wolf of America. [ARTICLE]

The Gray Wolf of America.

Of the very few instances of the gray wolf attacking man, one is related by John Fannin, in the ever-inter-esting columns of Forest and Stream, of a Mr. King, who was a timber-hunt-er in British Columbia. Once, when traveling quite alone through an immense forest, searching for the best timber, and camping wherever night overtook him, Mr. King suddenly found himself surrounded by a pack of between forty and fifty gray wolves. They thought they “had him foul," and would lunch at his expense; but they made one slight mistake. Instead of being armed only with an ax, as they supposed, he- had a good repeating rifle and plenty of cartridges. "Well,” said Mr. King, “the fight, if it could be called one, lasted about half an hour. Then a few of them broke away into the timber and commenced howling, which had the effect of drawing the rest after them, when the whole band started away on the full jump, howling as went. I found sixteen of their number dead, and probably not a few were wounded." As a rule tho gjftiv wolf soon disappears from setwdd regions. In the United States there is probably not one wolf to-day whore twenty years ago there were, fifty. Tho killing of the ranchmen's cattle, colts, and sheep was not to be to’erated, and a bounty was put on the gray wolf’s head, with fatal effect. Moro deadly than the stool trap or the Winchester, the strychnine bottle was universally brought to bear upon his most vulnerable point—his ravenous appetite. Even during the last days of the buffalo in Montana, the hunters poisoned wolves by hundreds for their pelts, which were worth from $3 to $6 each. Now it is a very difficult matter to find a gray wolf, even in the wild West, and in Montana and Wyoming they are almost as scarce as bears.—St. Nicholas.