Huntsville gazette., 1888-02-25

many buffalo. They would follow an
old bull, biting him until they had ham,
strung him, and then they would kill
and eat him. The buffalo being gone.
the sheep, cattle and small game of all
kinds suffer annually great loss from
wolves. Some counties offer as much
as two dollars per head for wolf-scalps.
A wolfer goes out into the section of
country where the wolves are thickest
and builds him cabin. He will then
kill one or two antelopes, skin them
and drag the bloody carcasses in pieces
all about the country. The meat is
then poisoned with strychnine and left
near his cabin. The wolves get on the
bloody trails and follow them up until
they come to the meat, of which they
eat heartily, and, of course. that is the
last of them. The wolfer has his bats
in all parts of the country and goes
from one place to another ''skiNning
up" A wolf pelt is worth from two to
three dollars and some large gray wolf
skins bring as much as four and five
dollars apiece. There are mary diff
ferent ways of setting wolf bats,
but the poisoned carcass of an ante
lope, dear, elk or COW is the most pop
ular method. Sometimes wolf bait is
set in candles; the wick is pulled out,
the hole filed with strychnine, and
then the candle is cut up in pieces two
or three inches long and the ends seal
ed or plugged up. This bait is set by
putting bit of stick in the ground,
splitting it at the top and putting the
piece of candle between the split por-
tions OF the stick. A wolf is very fond
of candles, and when he comes along
he jerks the bait out of the stick and
swallows it. When the candle melts
in his stomach, which it does in a few
minutes, the released strychnine takes
hold on the VOLTS vitals, and then
there is music. The wolf always
blames his trouble on his tail, and he
will spin round and round trying to
catch his tail in his mouth, as have
seen dog do when at play. He will
next stand up on his hind legs and
walk about and dance, but it all does
no good. His shrieks and cries of pain
are terrible to hear, and about the last
thing he does is to turn two or three
somersaults in the air and fall dead.
The strychnine kills them every time.
Indians do not like to kill wolves; they
think it is .bad medicine" but l never
knew an Indian yet to object to help
ing to ''skin up and they will gen
orally skin wolf whenever he is
found dead and bring the pelt to the
wolfers.
The wild-horse hunters are always
wolfers, and when they do not find
plenty of wild horses they alwa,s find
plenty of wolves and make a good
thing out of the bounty on pelts. |
have boy out with party rf wolfers
now, and he says the three of them fire.
quently kill from twenty to twenty-five
wolves per day, worth for their hide
and scalps at least seventy-6Fe dollars.
That's pretty good wages for three
men, or rather two men and boy, to
make. Although the wolfer has
home cabin where he keeps all hss
pelts, he is seldom .'at home" :" He
rides and walks all over the country.
often camping under a tree or sleeping
in the snow or on the cold ground.
His only care is to have plenty of
matches, keep near timber and look
out for "northers.
When the wolfer hunts wolves and
horses together he takes two swift po-
nies, one of which he rides and the 9th
er he leads, packed with his bedding,
grub and traps. He goes over vast
tracts of territory, and it is only by
hard riding and terrible exposure he
can hope to come up to the wild horses.
When once upon them he does not at
tempt to catch them, but kills them,
wild stallion's scalp being worth S15
among the stockmen of the region
where he ranges.
Sometimes in the summer time the
cowboys make up large parties and
90 out to hunt wild colts. On such
OCCdSlOuS IHcy Cdhc tuelI IdSSOcS, SOHI6
good riding-horses and provisions and
hunt for the band A band sighted
they creep up under cover as near as
possible, and then, mounting, give
chase. The colts, being weak, soon
fall behind the band and are lassoed
and choked into submission. The
little fellows are not hard to conquer
and when separated from their wild
companions domesticate easily, but
can never be trusted. A band of cow
boys had some colts in camp and they
became so tame they turned them loose
with the other horses. They stayed
about for day or two, but one morn
ing they were missing and were never
seen again.
A farmer who had wild colt given
to him by a cowboy put it in a lot by
his house and kept it there long time.
1t became so tame it would eat sugar
out of his hand and let him fondle it.
One day he left the bars down by acci-
dent, and in the evening it was MISS
ing. 1t was seen several miles from
home and pursued, but it escaped