CHAPTER XIV

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS

At breakfast next morning Mr. Powell said, "I suppose you boys will go out with the dogs to-day, and I wish you would go over east to where the blue stallion's bunch ranges. There's two yearlings been killed since I was over there last, and I believe it's wolves that done it. If them worthless dogs of yours would kill a few wolves instead of all these coyotes they'd come nearer earning their keep than they do."

"Well, I don't know," answered Charley, "I don't think they've done so bad. Seven wolves since Christmas is pretty good, I think; and the coyotes does a heap of mischief, and are sure worth killing.

"Well, well," said his father, "do the best you can to get these wolves. It's all right to kill the coyotes, but one wolf is worse than ten of them little fellows."

"Well, what time are you boys going to start out," said Hugh. "I expect you won't want to leave here till after dinner. I was thinking I'd go with you, but the first thing I want to do is to stretch that lion's skin, and I expect I've got to set and watch it till it begins to get dry, or else them dogs of yours will be chewing and tearing it."

"Oh," said Charley, "we'll have plenty of time to get over to the blue stallion's range if we start after dinner, and of course it might be such a thing as we'd run onto one of them wolves, if they are there. Did you see any tracks, father? or was it just the way the colts were killed?"

"No," said his father, "I didn't have no time to hunt around for sign, but it wan't nothing but wolves that killed them yearlings. If they'd only been one of them, he might have got out away from the bunch and been cut off and killed by coyotes, but that wouldn't happen twice in a few days. It's wolves, I tell you, and the chances are they've got young ones somewheres not so very far off. There's something that 'ud make it worth your while to hunt 'em. You might get a nest of young pups."

"Great Scott!" said Jack, "that would be fine." While Hugh added, "There's a chance for you, Charley, to get up the greatest pack of wolf-dogs there ever was on earth. Get a lot of wolf pups, tame 'em and train 'em to catch and kill the wild wolves."

After breakfast Charley took Jack down to the barn and showed him two litters of greyhound puppies, both very small now, but likely to be large enough next spring, Charley said, to be used with the old dogs. They were queer, blunt-nosed, thick-legged little beasts, which waddled about in most clumsy fashion.

From there the boys went down to the hen-house, where, with great pride, Charley exhibited his chickens and some pigeons--the only ones within thirty miles. He complained that the hawks killed the pigeons if they ventured far from home, but said that from repeated frights, the birds were learning to keep closer about the building.

When they reached the house again, they found Hugh busy pegging out the lion's skin. He had skinned out the head, cut off every bit of flesh and fat from the hide, and pierced a number of small holes along its margin, and was now busy with a lot of sharp pointed wooden pegs, stretching the skin on the grass, flesh side up, so that it would dry and be preserved. This was new work to Jack, and he watched it closely and asked a number of questions about it.

"You see," said Hugh in reply, "if the hide ain't stretched and dried, it ain't no good. Some folks just take and nail up a hide any way at all against the side of the house, and of course it will dry that way, but it don't dry smooth, and it's apt to get twisted and to be no account. If I take in two hides, one dried this way, and one dried on the side of a house, and try to sell them to a dealer, he'll give me more for the one that is smooth and square than he will for one that is rough and crumpled and pulled to one side. After you know how, it ain't much more trouble to do the thing right than it is to do it wrong, so I think it pays better to do it right. There's lots to drying a hide that a good many people don't know. Now, a thin hide, like this one here, glazes over quick, and don't take no time at all to dry, except maybe the lips, the feet, and the tail, but if I had a bear hide, or a beef's hide, I wouldn't stretch it out here in the hot sun to dry, or if I did, I'd build some sort of a shade over it, so that it would dry slowly. You take them hides that's right thick, and they're awful liable to burn if the sun's right hot. Now you take it when they was beaver in the country; no man ever thought of putting his fur out in the sun to dry. He hung his pelts up in the brush or in trees in the shade, and let the wind do the drying for him, and not the sun. There," he continued, as he pushed in his last peg to hold the tail straight, "Now, in an hour or two that hide will be set, so it'll hold its shape, and then you can take it up and hang it up in the barn. Now I'm going over to the creek to clean the meat off this skull. It's a big one, and you might as well take it home with you, 'long with the hide."

The work of cutting the meat from the skull, and of removing the brain, by breaking it up with a stick, did not take very long, but while it lasted Jack and Charley were much interested in watching the shoals of tiny fish which gathered in the stream, just below where Hugh was working, and fed on and fought over the fragments of brain and meat which floated down to them.

"Where in time did these fish all come from, Hugh?" asked Charley. "I never saw any fish in the creek before. It seems like they ought to be big ones here too. These little fellers are bound to grow up, I expect."

"I guess not," said Hugh. "I guess these are the little kind that don't never grow no bigger. You take these little chickadees or these little brown ground birds; you never heard of them growing as big as an eagle or goose, did you? I expect likely there's a good many different sorts of fishes, just like there's a good many sorts of birds and animals, and each sort has its own size that it grows up to be, and it don't grow no bigger. These little fellows that you see here have come from a long way down the creek. You see, the water carries down the smell of the meat and the blood, and these fish follow up the trail through the water, just the same as a dog or a coyote will follow your trail over the prairie."

"Yes, I know that's so, Hugh," said Jack. "I've seen something just like this, fishing for bluefish, down in Great South Bay."

"What's Great South Bay, and where's it at?" said Charley.

"Why, it's on the south shore of Long Island, and it opens out into the ocean. If you could see far enough, and the world wasn't round, you could look across from there to Europe."

"Jerusalem, down at the edge of the salt water!" murmured Hugh.

"Yes," said Jack, "I've been down there fishing. They anchor the boat somewhere near the channel and then chop up a lot of bunkers, that's a very oily fish, you know, and then they throw this chopped-up fish overboard, a little at a time, and it floats down with the tide and makes a long slick on the water. It looks like a long, shiny ribbon. Well, the bluefish swimming around strike this slick, and follow it up until they come near to the boat, where the fishermen have their lines out with pieces of bunker on the hooks, then the fun begins. I have seen 'em catch bluefish that were longer than my rifle barrel."

"Well, well," said Hugh; "I expect them fish is mighty good eating, too. I'd like to catch one, but what I'd like better would be to stand on the shore there, and look out over that big water and maybe see the ships go sailing by."

After a last scrape and a last shake of the now partly cleaned skull, Hugh turned to Charley and said, "Kid, have ye got any ant-hills round here, where I can put this skull for awhile? I'd like to get them ants to finish up this job for me, but I don't want to put the skull where the dogs or the coyotes or the badgers will get hold of it and pack it off."

"There's plenty of ant-hills," said Charley, "on the side hill just up the creek, and I don't think nothing will touch the skull if you put it there. Coyotes and badgers don't come round the house much and the dogs won't be likely to get up there on the hill."

"We'll chance it, I guess, anyhow," said Hugh; and they walked over to the hillside and half buried the skull in one of the largest and busiest of the ant-hills. After waiting a few moments, they saw that the new supply of food had been discovered and was being swarmed over by the eager ants, and then returning to the house, they found dinner was ready.

After dinner they saddled up and rode east over the prairie, to the range where the blue stallion held his bunch of horses. Nothing was seen on the way, for, as Charley said, the coyotes were pretty well cleared out immediately about the ranch. They had gone perhaps six miles, when a sound like the weak bark of a dog was heard from a near-by hillside, which Charley and Hugh both thought was a coyote barking. They galloped in the direction of the sound and when they topped the rise a little wolf was seen making off, more than half a mile away. It took a minute or two for the dogs to view him, but presently one of them saw him and started, and in an instant afterward the whole pack were strung out, closely followed by the riders. The speed of Pawnee gave Jack a great advantage over his companions, and he was soon but a short distance behind the heavier and slower dogs. Presently he had forged up alongside of them, and at length had passed all the hounds except the two blue ones The coyote had not run straight away, but had bent his course a little to the north, and dogs and horses, taking advantage of this turn, had cut off the corner and made a decided gain on him. Slowly but steadily the blue dogs crept up; both were running at about the same rate of speed, yet one kept three or four lengths behind the other, but both were gaining on the wolf. As they passed over a little swell in the prairie the leading dog was only a yard behind the prey, and just after Jack had come in sight of them again, both dogs put on a burst of speed, and the leading one, catching the coyote by the ham, tossed his head, and coyote and dog rolled over together. Almost at the same moment the second hound had the wolf by the throat, and, as Jack checked his horse, the big yellow dogs swept by him, and in an instant each had his hold and each stood braced back, pulling against the other five. A moment later Charley came up, and then Hugh, and all dismounted, while Charley made the hounds loose their hold, and horses and dogs stood about with lowered heads and heaving flanks.

"That fellow got too much of a start on us," said Charley, "I didn't think they'd catch him, and they wouldn't have done it either if he had not been a young one. He didn't really think they were after him until they'd come pretty close, and then it was too late for him to get away. His hide isn't very badly torn. I guess I'll take it along with me, and I'll get the bounty, even if I can't sell the hide." The time taken in skinning the wolf gave all the animals an opportunity to get their wind again, and when Charley had tied the hide on behind his saddle, all mounted and started on. Jack was full of enthusiasm for this sport. Never before had he enjoyed such a fast ride, or had before him something that he felt he must overtake, or felt so strong a sympathy with the pursuers as on this afternoon.

"Yes," said Charley, "It's lots of fun, but you want to see them when they get a good start on a wolf. Then, besides the fun of the chase, there's the excitement of the fight that's sure to take place at the end of the chase. We ran down an old wolf last fall that killed one of the dogs, crippled another, and beat off the whole pack. He ran again when we came up, but they stopped him, and we finally had to kill him with a six-shooter. The dogs would not tackle him he was so big and strong."

"I never saw anything like it," said Jack, "when that small hound, that seemed not to weigh half as much as the coyote, threw up his head, the coyote just turned a summersault and before I could think what was going to happen next, the other dog had him by the neck, and it seemed to be all over."

They had not finished exchanging opinions about this chase, when, as they rode down into a narrow gully, a great animal jumped up from the shade of a little bush, dashed across a ravine and up the other side, while yells from Charley and Hugh proclaimed this a wolf; but the dogs had disappeared over the edge of the ravine before the men got their horses started into a run. For a long way the prairie before them was smooth and level, and it seemed as if the whole chase must take place before their eyes. The dogs were running bunched up close at the heels of the wolf, the two blue dogs being only a little in the lead. Pawnee was running free, and nearly as fast as he could, for Jack never thought of checking him, or even of holding him up. The wolf seemed to be less swift than the coyote had been, and ran a little heavily, and the dogs were manifestly gaining on him, while Jack was gaining on the dogs. Very slowly but very steadily the pack, still keeping quite close together, crept up to the wolf, and at last the two blue dogs, this time side by side, forged up to his quarters. At the same moment, as it seemed, they reached out, and each catching him by a ham, gave him a little twitch and he rolled over, and before he could gain his feet was covered by the dogs. In a moment Jack was beside them, and, putting a strong pull on Pawnee, the horse plunged his forefeet into the ground, half threw himself on his haunches to stop, and Jack, unprepared for the sudden halt, flew out of the saddle, turned a summersault and came down heavily on his back, close to the struggling mass of dogs and wolf. He was a good deal jarred, but jumped to his feet and retreated a few yards. The struggle still continued, but in a moment more it was over, and the dogs had the wolf stretched out and were pulling against each other as he had seen them pull at the coyote. But there was one dog lying on the ground, breathing hard and bleeding freely from a horrible gash in his side. Charley and Hugh now came up, and the former, with his pistol in hand, stepped up to the dogs. The wolf was quite dead, but though he proved to be a young one he had badly damaged the pack before he died. Two or three of the dogs had bad cuts, and the bite that had disabled one of the yellow hounds had crushed two ribs and had probably entered the lungs, for the dog was bleeding at the mouth and nose, as an animal does that has been shot through the lungs. Charley felt badly over the injury to his pets, and declared that they could go no further that day, but that he must take the pack back to the ranch, and must carry the crippled dog on his horse. They bound up its wounds with such rough surgery as was possible, and then, placing it across Charley's horse, started slowly for the ranch.

They had gone but a mile or two when, as they were riding along, they noticed a faint odour of decaying meat. Hugh left them here, and telling them that he would soon rejoin them, rode away against the wind. Half or three quarters of an hour later he overtook them. For a little while he was busy filling and lighting his pipe, and then he turned to Charley and said, "Well, kid, if you want to start that new pack of hounds, I guess we can do it to-morrow. I have found the place where the old wolf has got her puppies, and, unless she moves them to-night, we ought to be able to dig them out to-morrow. I expect you'll all be glad to use a pick and shovel doing this, if for no other reason than to save your stock."

"Why, Hugh," said Jack, "how in the world did you find where they were?"

"Well," said Hugh, "you all noticed that smell of rotten meat back there a ways. I thought maybe it might come from the wolf's hole, or of course it might come from some animal that had died. I followed it up and it grew stronger and stronger, and at last I came to the edge of a ravine, where I could see the wolf's hole, and, from the carrion about it, I saw that they were still living there. To-morrow, if Powell feels like it, we'll go up there with the waggon and maybe get the pups."

"You bet, father'll feel like it," said Charley. "He'll do most anything to get rid of these wolves."

When they reached the ranch, the first thing to be done was to care for the wounded dogs. Two of them had to have stitches taken to close their cuts, while the one most badly hurt had his wound washed out, the fragments of shattered bone removed, and was then placed so that he could not move. There seemed a fair prospect of his recovery.

At supper that night Mr. Powell was told of the discovery of the wolf's den, and gladly promised that he would go over there with the waggon and plenty of tools, in the hope that the young wolves might be captured or destroyed.