HUNTING W^l THE jf BY \ \ J THEODORE ROOSEVELT / ICopyrlght, i v :3. !• O. p. Putnam'B Sons. Published u:i ■■■>■ vi:. : lent with G. I' Putnam's Sons, N* w Yurk and t.ondon.J ii 1P I have never I known wolves to attack' I I a mail, .vet in the wilder, port ion of the far North «||§Ss|?j west 1 have heard thejn come around < amj> very dose. growling so sav agely as to make one almost reluctant to leave the eaini> tire and go out into the darkness unarmed. Once 1 was camped in (lie fall near a lonely little lake in the mountains, by the edge of quite a broad stream. Soon after night fall three' or four wolves came around camp and kept me awake by their sin ister and dismal howling. Two or tlire' times they came so close to the tire that I could hear them snap theli jaws and growl, and at one time 1 pos Itlvely thought that they intended ti try to get into camp, so excited wert they by the smell of the fresh meat After a while I hey stopped howling and then all was silent for an hour ot so. I let the fire go out and was turn lng into bed when I suddenly heard some animal of considerable size coin* down to the stream nearly opposite me find begin to splash across, first wading, then swimming. It was pitch dark, and I could not possibly see, but I felt sure It was a wolf. However after coining half-way over it changed its mind and swam back to the oppo site bank; nor did I see or hear any thing more of the night marauders. Five or six times on the plains or or my ranch I have had shots at wolves always obtained by accident and al ways, I regret to say. missed, often the wolf when seen was running at full speed for cover, or else was so far off that though motionless' my shots went wide of it. But once have 1 with my own rifle killed a wolf, and this was while travelling with a pack train in the mountains. We had been mak ing considerable noise, and I never un derstood how an animal so wary per mitted our near approach. He did nevertheless, and just as we came to little stream which we were to ford saw him get on a dead log some lirty yards distant and walk slowly .J with his eyes turned toward us. The first shot smashed his shoulders and brought him down. The wolf is one of the animals which can only be hunted successfully with dogs. Most dogs, however, do not take at all kindly to the pursuit. A wolf Is a terrible fighter. He will decimate a pack of hounds by rabid snaps with his giant jaws while suffering little damage himself; nor are the ordinary big dogs, supposed to be fighting dogs, able to tackle him without special training. I have known one wolf to kill a bulldog which had rushed at it with a single snap. The true way to kill wolves, how ever, is to hunt them with greyhounds on the great plains. Nothing more ex citing than this sport can possibly be Imagined. It is not always necessary that the greyhounds should be of abso lutely pure blood. Prize-winning dogs of high pedigree often [trove useless for the purposes. Once I had the good fortune to wit ness a very exciting hunt of this char acter among the foot-hills of the north ern Itockies. I was staying at the house of a friendly cowman, whom I will call Judge Yancy Stump. He was The worryhiii. ijrmolinij and marling' a i rc terrific. at daggers drawn with Lis nearest; neighbor, a cross-grained mountain! farmer, who may bo known as old man ; Prindie. There was one point, how-; ever, on which the two came together. They were exceedingly fond of hunt ing with hounds. The Judge had three " four track-hounds, and four of what "•lied swlft-liounds, the latter in-j one pure-bred greyhound bitch Jerful speed and temper, a dun c<- i yelping animal which was a cross between a greyhonui . -il a , hound, and two others t.iat. \ crosses between a greyhound ,t wire-haired Scotch deer-hound. 1 U man Priudie's contribution to the pack consisted of two immense brindled mongrels of great strength and fero ; eious temper. As I was very anxious to see a wolf hunt the Judge volunteerd to get one up, and asked old man I'rindle to as sist, for the sake of his two big fight ing dogs; though the very names of the latter, General (.rant and Old Abe, were gall and wormwood to the un reconstructed soul of the Judge. Still they were the only dogs anywhere around capable of tackling a savage timber wolf, and without their aid E the Judge's own high-spirited animals iran a serious risk of injury, for they were altogether too game to let any beast escape without a struggle. Luck favored us. Two wolves bad killed a calf and dragged it into a long patch of dense brush where there was r a little spring, the whole furnishing ad mirable cover for any wild beast. Ear -1 l.v in the morning we started on hor.se < back for this bit of cover, which was ? some three miles off. The party eon t slsted of the Judge, old man I'rindle. a l cowboy, myself, and the dogs. The t judge and I carried our rifles and the t cowboy his revolver, but old man Prin -1 die had nothing but a heavy whip, for he swore, with many oaths, that no one should interfere with his big dogs, for by themselves they would surely i "make the wolf feel sicker than a stuck hog." Our shaggy ponies rack ed along at a five-mile gait over the I dewy prairie grass. The two big dogs t trotted behind their master, grim and : ferocious. The track-hounds were tied ■ in couples, and the beautiful grey i hounds loped lightly and gracefully • alongside the horses. The country was i fine. A mile to our right a small plains river wound in long curves between banks fringed with eottonwoods. Two • or three miles to our left the foot-hills rose sheer and bare, with clumps of ; black pine and cedar in their gorges. I We rode over gently rolling prairie, with here and there patches of brush at the bottoms of the slopes around the dry watercourses. ' At last we reached a somewhat deep er valley, in which the wolves were i harbored. Wolves lie close in the day i time and will not leave cover if they i can help it; and as they had both food i and water within we knew il was • most unlikely that this couple would 1 be gone. The valley was a couple of hundred yards broad and three or four times as long, filled with a growth of i ash and dwarf elm and cedar, thorny 1 underbrush choking the spaces be -1 tween. Posting tire cowboy, to whom ' he gave bis rifle, with two greyhounds on one side of the upper end, and old ' man I'rindle with two others on the '< opposite side, while I was left at the lower end to guard against the possi bility of the wolves breaking back, the Judge himself rode into the thicket near me and loosened the track-hounds : to let them find the wolves' trail. The 1 big dogs also were uncoupled and al lowed togo in with the hounds. Their power of scent was very poor, but they were sure to be guided aright by the baying of the hounds, and their pres ence would give confidence to the lat ter and make them ready to rout the 1 wolves out of the thicket, which they would probably have shrunk from do ing alone. There was a moment's pause of expectation after the Judge entered the thicket with his hounds. Wo sat motionless on our horses, eagerly looking through the keen fresh morning air. Then a clamorous baying from the thicket in which both the horseman and dogs had disappeared showed that the hounds had struck the trail of their quarry and were run ning on a hot scent. For a couple of minutes we could not lie quite certain which way the game was going to break. The hounds ran zigzag through fhe brush, as we could tell by their baying, and once some yelping and a great row showed that they had come rather closer than they had expected upon at least; one of the wolves. In another minute, however, the lat ter found it too hot for them and bolted from the thicket. My first no tice of this was seeing the cowboy, who was standing by the side of his horse, suddenly throw up his rifle and fire, while the greyhounds who had been springing high in the air, half maddened by the clamor in the thicket below, for a moment dashed off the wrong way, confused by the report of the gun. I rode for all I was worth , to where the cowboy stood, and in - | stantly caught a glimpse of two j wolves, grizzled-gray and brown, which having been turned by his shot had started straight over the hill ! across the plain toward the mountains | three miles away. As soon as I saw 1 them I saw also that the rearmost of ' the couple had been hit somewhere in ; the body and was lagging behind, tin.' blood running from its flanks, while the two greyhounds were racing after | it; and at the same moment the track liounds and the big dogs burst out of the thicket, yelling savagely as they struck the bloody trail. The wolf was hard hit, and staggered as he ran. He did not have a hundred yards' sturt CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, OCTOBER i. y these gain trails, which had often become as dis tinct as ordinary foot-paths. Tin beast's footprints were perfectly pin ii In the dust, and he had lumbered aloni up the path until near the middle <> tlie hillside, where Hie ground broki away and there were hollows am boulders. Here there had been a wind fall, and the dead trees lay anion the living, piled across one another Ii All directions; while between an' around them sprouted up a thiol growth of young rpruces and otlie evergreens. The trail turned off int< the tangled .thicket, within which i was almost certain we would find ou quarry. We could still follow th< tracks, by the slight scrapes of tin claws on the bark, or by the bent a:»c broken twigs; and we advanced witl noiseless caution, slowly climbing ove the dead tree trunks and upturne* stumps, and not letting a branch rustl< or catch on our clothes. When in tin middle of the thicket we crossed wha was almost a breastwork of fallet logs, and Merrlfleld, who was leading passed by the uprigiit stem of a grea pine. As soon as he was by it IK sank suddenly on one knee, turning half round, his face fairly aflame witl excitement; and as I strode past him with my rifle at the ready, there, no ten steps off, was the great bear, slow ly rising from his bed among tin young spruces. He had heard us but apparently hardly knew exactlj where or what we were, for he rearei up on his haunches sideways to us Then he saw us and dropped dowr again on nil fours, the shaggy hair or •lis neck and shoulders seeming tc bristle as he turned towards us. At he sank down oil his forefeet I hat raised the rifle; his head was bent slightly down, and when I saw th< top of the white bead fairly betweei his small, glittering, evil eyes, I pullet trigger. Half-rising up, the huge beasi fell over on his side in the deatl throes, the hall having gone into lib brain, striking as fairly between tin eyes as if the distance had been mras ured by a carpenter's rule. The whole thing was over in twenty seconds from the time I caught sight of the game; indeed, it was over sc quickly that the grizzly did not have time to show fight at ail or come a step toward us. He was a monstrous fellow, much larger than any I have seen since, whether alive or fero tight in dead by the hunters. As near as we could estimate (for of course we had nothing with which to weigh mort than very small portions) he must have weighed about twelve hundred pounds, and though this is not as large as some of his kind are said to grow in California, it Is yet a very unusual size for a bear. He was a good deal heavier than any of our horses; and it was with the* greatest difficulty that we were able to skin him. He must have been very old, his teeth and claws being all worn down and blunted; but nevertheless he had been living in plenty, for he was as fat as a prize hog, the layers 011 his back being a finger's length in thickness. He was still in the summer coat, his hair be ' There, not tin steps off, 101.1 tin: great hear. ing short, and in color a curious brin dled brown, somewhat like that of cer tain bulldogs; while all the bears we shot afterward had the long thick win ter fur, cinnamon or yellowish brown. By the way, the name of this bear has reference to its character and not to its color, and should, I suppose, be prop erly spelt grisly—in the sense of hor rible, exactly as we speak of a "grisly spectre"—and not grizzly; but perhaps the latter way of spelling it Is too well established to he now changed. "I see." said Mrs. Starvem, "that a certain scientist claims we'll soon gel a palatable food from wood" — "Well," growled the cranky boarder "it seems impossible to get it out ol 'board.' "