icut.
This, of course, is that famous encounter with the wolf, which has since
become part and parcel not only of local tradition, but of American
history. As many generations have been familiar with this story as
related in story-books and primers, particularly during the early part
of the nineteenth century, it will now be told in the language of a
contemporary, Colonel David Humphrey, who was an aide-de-camp to
General Putnam, and also to General Washington, during the Revolutionary
War, and who wrote the first and best biography of our hero, which was
published in his lifetime. "The first years on a new farm are not exempt
from disasters and disappointments, which can only be remedied by
stubborn and patient industry. Our farmer, sufficiently occupied in
building an house and barn, felling woods, making fences, sowing grain,
planting orchards, and taking care of his stock, had to encounter in
turn the calamities occasioned by drought in summer, blast in harvest,
loss of cattle in winter, and the desolation of his sheepfold by wolves.
In one night he had seventy fine sheep and goats killed, besides many
lambs and kids wounded. This havoc was committed by a she-wolf, which,
with her annual whelps, had for several years infested the vicinity. The
young were commonly destroyed by the vigilance of the hunters, but the
old one was too sagacious to come within reach of gunshot. Upon being
closely pursued she would generally fly to the western woods, and return
the next winter with another litter of whelps. This wolf at length
became such an intolerable nuisance that Farmer Putnam entered into a
combination with five of his neighbors to hunt alternately until they
could destroy her. Two by rotation were to be constantly in pursuit. It
was known that, having lost the toes from one foot by a steel trap, she
made one track shorter than the other, and by this vestige the pursuers,
in a light snow, recognized and followed the trail of this pernicious
animal. Having followed her to the Connecticut River and found she had
turned back toward Pomfret, they immediately returned, and by ten
o'clock the next morning their bloodhounds had driven her into a den,
about three miles distant from the house of Mr. Putnam. The people soon
collected, with dogs, guns, straw, fire, and sulphur, to attack the
common enemy, and made several unsuccessful efforts to force her from
the den.

[Illustration: The Wolf Den at Pomfret, Connecticut.]

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