St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-04-13
WESTERN ADVENTURE.
A Thrilling Time With Wolves in
Canon in Utah.

| IdChltSS waste ny pack OF swapping,
snarling, cowardly, hungry and sharp
: fanged wolves?" inquired Harry Yount,
the noted Wyoming trapper, hunter,
/ scout and Indian fighter, as starter
for one of the choicest yarns i'm his
| repertoire of Western tales of adj
| venture.
g No, thought not. Few men have
been, and being chased by prairie
wolves is peril which devoutly wish
my wors st enemy, white or red, may
| never be compelled to experience.
| IF l remember correctly, it was in
| March, 1865, that the overland freight
train for which | was night-herding
was showed inIat Echo canon, Utah,
for three weeks or more. Naturally we
ran short of provisions, and at the end
! of fifteen days absolute starvation grimIy
threatened the party.
| Scarcity of food, however, was
| really secondary affliction. Tom Dins-
more, the fiend in charge Of the outfit,
was part owner in the concern, and /
firmly believe that he wept over the
| demise of every mule which SuccumDed
| to lack of food and the indeScribable
| cold.
This man, Or the devil in human
| guise, compelled his subordinates to
use blankets. which were their indiyid-
ual property, to shield the mules from
the chilly blasts. We exercised in order
/ to maintain the circulation of blood, and
! heartily cursed the foreman when out
of his hearing. Stories of adventure
| similar to our own were repeated. Can
/, nibalism was limited at by implication,
and mutiny was advised by several of
| the more courageous of the desperate
| | rampnhar CT oil xf hot ol>
this time Arctic explorers came in for a
share of abuse. We felt that they had
set frightfully bad example.
The tortuOus pangs of hunger made
! more bitter the feeling against Dins-
more, and finally it assumed tangible
shape. In council we blamed him for
! all our miStOrtunes. From this condi-
ton of affairs it did not require a great
! deal OF reasoning, or even an eXtraOrdi-
| nary exercise of our dulled faculties. to
! draw the inference that an avaricious
brute was slowly but certainly method
Icaily numbering tWenty-Seven innocent
| men, and his own son one of the num-
| Der.
Made desperate by the gloomy out
look, cold wave that destroyed the Or
! binary mercury thermometer, and the
lnhuman course of a gouliSh being
| whose love of gold overpowe red and
crushed out all consideration for the
welfare of his fellow men, we concluded
to hang our foreman. On second
thought, and at the mildly urged sug-
gestlon OF his son. we agreed to give
| DinSmOre fair trial.
Attorneys were Selected, jury
drawn, evidence taken, arguments
made, verdict returned and sentence
passed by the judge, who happened to
be man about my size, age and gen.
eral appearance.
Five minutes after the verdict was
announced DinSmOre was hanged to a
rude gallOws made by planting wagon
tongues in the snow.
1.-The victim of that remarkable court
uttered not a word throughout the pro-
ceeding, and have since come to the
belief that he was insane all the time.
| His treatment of the team SterS was i'll
COMPREHENSIVE severe, and entirely
without reason. He would not even
+, permit us to slaughter one of his be-
loved mules, and fed the four-footed
! animals better from a small store of
corn than he did the men.
| 'Three months after the execution
the entire tWenty-Seven men were ar
| raigned before the criminal court in
Salt Lake, charged with the murder of
| Dlnsmore. Our spokesman recited the
facts OF the case in a highly dramatic
| style.and the prosecution moved for our
| discharge. l have since thought that
| Dlnsmore might possibly have been
| forced to act In Difference to our wishes.
but half-famished men will invariably
resort to violence where mild force or
| studied persuasion might better serve
| their desired ends.
But [ started to tell you something
| about wolves, and will finish soon, for
| its growing late. Five days after we cut
| Off DinSmore it became painfully evil
| dent that, unless supplies were soon
/ forthcoming from some source, all must
perish. The mules had nearly all been
| slaughtered, but their flesh was not all
to our liking. We had burned our cargo,
| Which was furniture. and a majority of
| the wagons had been disposed of in the
same manner. At terribly earnest
family council, I,on account of physique,
experience and familiarity with the
| region, was selected to proceed to Salt
Lake and secure aid.
bright and early the next morning
strapped on "a pair of SnowshOes,
stretched my stiffened limbs, and
started on my journey. which / esti-
| mated at not less than $50 miles. /
the afternoon of the fourth day out
sighted the Mormon capital from a
mountain peak. This put me in
| splendid humor, although still about
! forty miles from the city. Half an hour
| later, as | emerged from a ravine, a
demonstrating prairie wolf scam
| pered across my path not more than a
100 yards in advance of me, and circled
to my rear. He was quickly joined by
another, and then the brutes seemed to
| spring from holes in the ground, so rap
hIxr1 In,
the pack had increased to fifty of the
gau ut and saqage brutes. Ali eyed me
viciously, and Tapped their strong jaws
with their long tongues, e Violently in
| anticipation of rare feast.
II realized that safety lay in flight,
and increased my speed. They also
moved more rapidly. [ had a good
lead, and felt tina It l could hold it for a
time, but those yelps made my hair
raise, and l will acknowledge that | be-
! came pretty nerv OILS. l was now NOV
ing over the hard surface of the solid
snow at a terrific pace. No half-savage
| Norwegian coaStiEg down his native
| hills could have overtaken me. now
bethought myself of my armory-a pair
OF splendid siy-shooters-and drew one
from my belt. 1t would have been
| suicide to Slackcn my speed and take
| aim at my purSuerS, and | was content
with an occasional random shot into the
pack. They were so numerous and close
| together that twelve bullets disposed of
| eleven of the frightened brutes. When
ever one fell the remainder would halt
an instant, tear the remains to pieces
and devonr the last shred. Then. with
more groWls and snaps and snarls, they
| were upon my heels hotter than ever.
| NOW l weakened, and immediately
| after firing my last shot and dropping
| the second revolver, reached into my
boot for q large dirk knife. which | al