ling
Blanca, for by using her as a decoy I might have secured him the next
night.

I gathered in all the traps I could command, one hundred and thirty
strong steel wolf-traps, and set them in fours in every trail that led
into the canon; each trap was separately fastened to a log, and each log
was separately buried. In burying them, I carefully removed the sod and
every particle of earth that was lifted we put in blankets, so that
after the sod was replaced and all was finished the eye could detect no
trace of human handiwork. When the traps were concealed I trailed the
body of poor Blanca over each place, and made of it a drag that circled
all about the ranch, and finally I took off one of her paws and made
with it a line of tracks over each trap. Every precaution and device
known to me I used, and retired at a late hour to await the result.

Once during the night I thought I heard Old Lobo, but was not sure of
it. Next day I rode around, but darkness came on before I completed the
circuit of the north canon, and I had nothing to report. At supper one
of the cowboys said, "There was a great row among the cattle in the
north canon this morning, maybe there is something in the traps there."
It was afternoon of the next day before I got to the place referred to,
and as I drew near a great grizzly form arose from the ground, vainly
endeavoring to escape, and there revealed before me stood Lobo, King of
the Currumpaw, firmly held in the traps. Poor old hero, he had never
ceased to search for his darling, and when he found the trail her body
had made he followed it recklessly, and so fell into the snare prepared
for him. There he lay in the iron grasp of all four traps, perfectly
helpless, and all around him were numerous tracks showing how the cattle
had gathered about him to insult the fallen despot, without daring to
approach within his reach. For two days and two nights he had lain
there, and now was worn out with struggling. Yet, when I went near him,
he rose up with bristling mane and raised his voice, and for the last
time made the canon reverberate with his deep bass roar, a call for
help, the muster call of his band. But there was none to answer him,
and, left alone in his extremity, he whirled about with all his strength
and made a desperate effort to get at me. All in vain, each trap was a
dead drag of over three hundred pounds, and in their relentless fourfold
grasp, with great steel jaws on every foot, and the