Omaha daily bee., 1896-12-05
4 REAL MOLE HUNT.
Thirty Animals Cornercd. but Broi.
the Line and Escaped.

| ~
| the Line and Escaped.
! The timber wolf is very unsocable in his
| habits, extremely suspicious of every other
| living thing, and about as hard to get next
| to- as any creature on earth, says writer
| in the Minneapolis journal. He always lies
hidden in the depths of swamp during the
| day and prowls around at night seeking
| something to devour Like the Indian, he is
| always hungry and will eat anything he can
| bite. If his courage equal to his strength
| he would be extremely dangerous to hunt
but as lie is afraid OF his own shadow, eX-
| cept when in large packs and mad with
| hunger, he is usually regarded with con
| tempt by the woodsmen. However, a cor
nered wolf, like any other cornered coward
| Is a dangerous customer to handle. And
when he does fight he does so with des-
perate recklessness which has cost many
good dog his life. And then he dies game
at last He will die under the teeth of the
dog with never a whimper and, a gen
eral thing, with his mouth full of his civil
lied relatives.
But to our nunt. We started Christmas
eve. taking every man who could get away
and about forty dogs, more or less, of every
breed known to men, from bloodhound to
terrier. Among our dogs were five or six
bulldogs and bull terriers which would have
better been left behind as having far more
zeal than discretion. We reached Suttons
ranch about midnight, and when the first
faint gray streaks of dawn appeared had
Il
which we intended to drive and in which we
could hear the wolves bowling as If there
were a million of them.
But wolves. like the frogs of the cam
paign chestnut, make far more noise than
their number warrants. We had been re
infOrced by all the farmers in the neighbor-
hood the crews of the two lumber camps
near by and a dozen Indians, who joined
us without the formality of waiting for
an invitation. probably in the hope that
some Of us might get lest and they get the
job of finding us. At the signal of three
gunshOts from different borders of the
swamp, we started to drive 1t.
We closed in as uniformly as possible in
tending to drive our prey to the center of
the swamp, whence they were certain to
make break for lherty-and then the fun
would come in. 1t came all right enough.
We must have incosed thirty of the wolves
in our ring, and when they made a desper-
8 tie charge to get through. the scene was
simply beyond description. The air was full
of lead, whirling snow, dogs. rabbits and
wolves. Every man simply fired as fast as
he could pull the trigger and at anything
that didn't look like a man, hoping ii might
prove wolf, but willing to take liberal
chances-which willingness may account for
the fact that we bagged as many dogs as
wolves. There was about five minutes of
the worst confusion you ever saw and then
things began to quiet down a little and we
could get an idea of where we were at"
The wolves had broken the line and escaped
with the exception of eight-that was GER
tain at all events. As many of our dogs had
gone hence, having intercepted lead intended
for wolves, or, 1t might be- in the tur-
moil on general principles. Five dogs had
struck to the wolves trail and probably have
been taken into the lupine tribe for they
never came back.
Personally Conducted Excursions