The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-11-14
WOLVES BACK IN MAINE.
LONG HoWLs THAT SET 4 GUIDE IN
THE WOODS TO THINKING.

Raids By Weivss In the Eariy Ferties sy
which the Deer were E~nterminatea aua
Domrstio Aniusais Observation-Disclosures Deiiv-
cred, Thouuh weives Killed the MESSENGER.
.It's tho howl OF q wolf, sure enough. I've
been dreadinR TO hear that sound for yoars-
ever Hince the moose and deer came back TO tho |
Maine woods said Tom Mcserve, tho guide,
to the sportsman from New York. as they sat
by night in their camp on.the edge OF Lake Chcs. |
uncook. n fortnight ago. From out the dark
moss, far up the shore, had come 10 their cars
n strange sound-a low, musical howl like tho
bayine OF a staRhound, but long prolonged and
mournful. The New York man had mover
heard a similar sound. but instinctively he sur
missed what II. was and tho guides words con-
irmed the truth Of his surmise.
There's no answering howl, that's one en-
couraRing thing" said Moserve. after listen.
ing intently for several minutes. ut shows
there's no other wolf within hearing distance.
II tho wolves. get thick in Maine lis good by
deer-and the moose'll get thinned out, and
tho caribou'l 60 away. The wolves cleared tho
Maine woods Of deer City years ago and more,
and they might do 1t again. My father has
told me tho story many q time. 1t was in
lsAl. The year before the deer had been SO
plentiful that most any man could knock one
over without going q hundred rods from his
house door, and tho farmers couldn't keep EN-
out Of their grain folds. Twelve months later
there were no deer TO DO found. Wolves from
Canada had done the business for en-. They
killed the deer, penned by the deep:snow in
their yards, by thousands They wouldn't
stop to eat the meat-just killed every deer in
n yard. sucked the blood, and went on to hunt
out q new yard. The deer down near the sea-
shore, where tho snow was light, had some
chance to get away. II worse came to worst
they could swim out to islands where the
wolves wouldn't follow them. But in the Sebea
and Moosehead Lake region for a dozen years
afterward n man might hunt for a week with
out finding so much as the track of a deer.
when the wolves had killed off the deer
they turned their attention to the farmers
cattle and sheep. There never was SO much
stock killed in that way in any other one year
in Maine, and the State treasury nearly went
bankrupt in paying for wolf scalps. 1t wasn't
farm stock only. that tho wolves attacked
when enough of EN- got together to give EN-
courage-they'd even tackle a man.. More than
one old hunter has told me of his being driven to
camp by wolves, and sometimes II was a close
call for the man to get there ahead of EN-.
shiver to hear how the wolves got alter old
Sapiel Nicola. a st. Francis Indian: on Moose,
lumber camps that drove their logs down the
Penobscot and kennebec were about the
head Of the lake. In one camp. Stewards, a
laySIuCh ROI DuTutu III, 81 lLluI lucy "tIC5 SHUT
OF fodder for the oxen they hauled all their
logs with oxen in those days-..and they'd got to
E Eeep some }bs b hsy snt from ahe st wooas r'E Tbe q iorens to
was just going to send o messenger down TO
Greenville, at the foot OF the lake. to notify
the supply store there to send some hay up TO
the camp in a hurry. when old Sapiel Nicola
came along on his way home from " hunting
trip, and the foreman got him TO take the mes
sage. The foreman wrote out an order for the
hay on a slip of paper and gave 1t to the In
Now, sapiel,' he said. don't fail to get
this note into the storekeeper's hands as quick
as you can, I've told him to give you a dollar
.".Um, all right. He get um sure, said the
Old man, and he strapped on his snowshoes and
at was late in the winter and the lake was
frozen hard. with two feet or SO of snow on the
ice. Nicola made his start early in the morn
ing dragging his long moose sled behind him
other dunnage. With the north wind at his
to cover the thirty miles to the foot Of the lake
by. nightfau: But Nicola never got to Green
through the ice in West Cove. near GreenviiIe,
saw a scrap OF paper blown BY the wind over
the the smooth moo his SNOW o"r S51,1 toward 2" ard them 3s 1n and one sS of
torn and blood stained. but the men made out
to read the writing on the paper: II was the
They left their fishing and took the paper over
to the storekeeper at Greenville. He knew BY
right, though it had come to him in a queer
way, and he loaded some teams with hay and
started EN- up inc lake LOT stewart camp as
soon as he could.
OF course, all the teaming between Green
vile and the lumber camps at that time of
year was done over the ice. The teams had
got q few miles on their way when the team.
sters saw ronething,, or to one side OF the sled
road, which they couldn't make out. 1t looked
SO queer that two Of them went over to see
what it was. They found, a moose sled set up
on end in the snow and about the foot OF it lay
seven or eight dead wolves with the bones Of a
man among EN-. In the skull Of one wolf an
axe was buried, and a broken knife blade was in
the neck OF another.
Among the bones lay a'gun with its stock
shattered ana broken. The hair and mecca
sins showed that the bones were those OF an In
dian, and the story was plain how Sapiel Nj
cola had been killed and eaten there by the
wolves, and had died fighting to the last.
1.-The teamsters had to hurry on up the lake,
and, as they went, for miles they could sec here
and there where a wolf that had been struck
by n bullet had been torn into pieces by the
other wolves, after the fashion OF the beasts
with each other and this showed what II long
running fight old Nicola had made with elm.
When at last the wolves closed In on him he
had set his long sled up in the snow. put his
back against 1t, and made his last defence.
But. strangely enough, the message he carried
from the foreman went straight TO its destina-
ton. and the oxen in Stewards camp were
saved from starving