Away back in the spring of '92 a wolver was "wolving" on the east side
of the Sentinel Mountain that so long was a principal landmark of the
old Plainsmen. Pelts were not good in May, but the bounties were high,
five dollars a head, and double for She-wolves. As he went down to the
creek one morning he saw a Wolf coming to drink on the other side. He
had an easy shot, and on killing it found it was a nursing She-wolf.
Evidently her family were somewhere near, so he spent two or three days
searching in all the likely places, but found no clue to the den.
Two weeks afterward, as the wolver rode down an adjoining cañon, he saw
a Wolf come out of a hole. The ever-ready rifle flew up, and another
ten-dollar scalp was added to his string. Now he dug into the den and
found the litter, a most surprising one indeed, for it consisted not of
the usual five or six Wolf-pups, but of eleven, and these, strange to
say, were of two sizes, five of them larger and older than the other
six. Here were two distinct families with one mother, and as he added
their scalps to his string of trophies the truth dawned on the hunter.
One lot was surely the family of the She-wolf he had killed two weeks
before. The case was clear: the little ones awaiting the mother that
was never to come, had whined piteously and more loudly as their
hunger-pangs increased; the other mother passing had heard the Cubs;
her heart was tender now, her own little ones had so recently come, and
she cared for the orphans, carried them to her own den, and was
providing for the double family when the rifleman had cut the gentle
chapter short.
Many a wolver has dug into a wolf-den to find nothing. The old Wolves
or possibly the Cubs themselves often dig little side pockets and off
galleries, and when an enemy is breaking in they hide in these. The
loose earth conceals the small pocket and thus the Cubs escape. When
the wolver retired with his scalps he did not know that the biggest of
all the Cubs, was still in the den, and even had he waited about for
two hours, he might have been no wiser. Three hours later the sun went
down and there was a slight scratching afar in the hole; first two
little gray paws, then a small black nose appeared in a soft sand-pile
to one side of the den. At length the Cub came forth from his hiding.
He had been frightened by the attack on the den; now he was perplexed
by its condition.
It was thrice as large as it had been and open at the top now. Lying
near were things that smelled like his brothers and sisters, but they
were repellent to him. He was filled with fear as he sniffed at them,
and sneaked aside into a thicket of grass, as a Night-hawk boomed over
his head. He crouched all night in that thicket. He did not dare to go
near the den, and knew not where else he could go. The next morning
when two Vultures came swooping down on the bodies, the Wolf-cub ran
off in the thicket, and seeking its deepest cover, was led down a
ravine to a wide valley. Suddenly there arose from the grass a big
She-wolf, like his mother, yet different, a stranger, and instinctively
the stray Cub sank to the earth, as the old Wolf bounded on him. No
doubt the Cub had been taken for some lawful prey, but a whiff set that
right. She stood over him for an instant. He grovelled at her feet. The
impulse to kill him or at least give him a shake died away. He had the
smell of a young Cub. Her own were about his age, her heart was
touched, and when he found courage enough to put his nose up and smell
her nose, she made no angry demonstration except a short half-hearted
growl. Now, however, he had smelled something that he sorely needed. He
had not fed since the day before, and when the old Wolf turned to leave
him, he tumbled after her on clumsy puppy legs. Had the Mother-wolf
been far from home he must soon have been left behind, but the nearest
hollow was the chosen place, and the Cub arrived at the den's mouth
soon after the Mother-wolf.
A stranger is an enemy, and the old one rushing forth to the defense,
met the Cub again, and again was restrained by something that rose in
her responsive to the smell. The Cub had thrown himself on his back in
utter submission, but that did not prevent his nose reporting to him
the good thing almost within reach. The She-wolf went into the den and
curled herself about her brood; the Cub persisted in following. She
snarled as he approached her own little ones, but disarming wrath each
time by submission and his very cubhood, he was presently among her
brood, helping himself to what he wanted so greatly, and thus he
adopted himself into her family. In a few days he was so much one of
them that the mother forgot about his being a stranger. Yet he was
different from them in several ways--older by two weeks, stronger, and
marked on the neck and shoulders with what afterward grew to be a dark
mane.
Little Duskymane could not have been happier in his choice of a
foster-mother, for the Yellow Wolf was not only a good hunter with a
fund of cunning, but she was a Wolf of modern ideas as well. The old
tricks of tolling a Prairie Dog, relaying for Antelope, houghing a
Bronco or flanking a Steer she had learned partly from instinct and
partly from the example of her more experienced relatives, when they
joined to form the winter bands. But, just as necessary nowadays, she
had learned that all men carry guns, that guns are irresistible, that
the only way to avoid them is by keeping out of sight while the sun is
up, and yet that at night they are harmless. She had a fair
comprehension of traps, indeed she had been in one once, and though she
left a toe behind in pulling free, it was a toe most advantageously
disposed of; thenceforth, though not comprehending the nature of the
trap, she was thoroughly imbued with the horror of it, with the idea
indeed that iron is dangerous, and at any price it should be avoided.
On one occasion, when she and five others were planning to raid a Sheep
yard, she held back at the last minute because some newstrung wires
appeared. The others rushed in to find the Sheep beyond their reach,
themselves in a death-trap.
Thus she had learned the newer dangers, and while it is unlikely that
she had any clear mental conception of them she had acquired a
wholesome distrust of all things strange, and a horror of one or two in
particular that proved her lasting safeguard. Each year she raised her
brood successfully and the number of Yellow Wolves increased in the
country. Guns, traps, men and the new animals they brought had been
learned, but there was yet another lesson before her--a terrible one
indeed.
About the time Duskymane's brothers were a month old his foster-mother
returned in a strange condition. She was frothing at the mouth, her
legs trembled, and she fell in a convulsion near the doorway of the
den, but recovering, she came in. Her jaws quivered, her teeth rattled
a little as she tried to lick the little ones; she seized her own front
leg and bit it so as not to bite them, but at length she grew quieter
and calmer. The Cubs had retreated in fear to a far pocket, but now
they returned and crowded about her to seek their usual food. The
mother recovered, but was very ill for two or three days, and those
days with the poison in her system worked disaster for the brood. They
were terribly sick; only the strongest could survive, and when the
trial of strength was over, the den contained only the old one and the
Black-maned Cub, the one she had adopted. Thus little Duskymane became
her sole charge; all her strength was devoted to feeding him, and he
thrived apace.
Wolves are quick to learn certain things. The reactions of smell are
the greatest that a Wolf can feel, and thenceforth both Cub and
foster-mother experienced a quick, unreasoning sense of fear and hate
the moment the smell of strychnine reached them.