ement of their legs. As I have told you already, a dog _gallops_, but
a cat _bounds_. The dog's legs move much faster than the cat's, but the
cat gives a bigger jump than the dog each time.

_The American Gray Wolf_

I have said that the most important wild animal of the Dog Tribe is the
wolf. Wolves are found in every continent--Europe, America, Asia, and
Africa. And there are many species of wolves in these continents. I
shall tell you more about them in another book, but now I must tell you
about the American gray wolf.

There is in the United States one of the most wonderful animals in the
world--the American gray wolf. He is perhaps the only animal in the
world _that has beaten man_!

I mean this: Man has killed off many four-footed wild animals; that is,
he has killed so many of those animals in a place, that they have _died
out_ in that place. He has not succeeded in killing off the American
gray wolf.

In some places man has almost killed off certain animals, even when he
did not _want_ to do so. He killed the animal merely for sport or for
profit--but he did not want that species of animal to die out
altogether; for then he could not have any more sport or profit from it.
And yet, the hunter killed so many of that species of animal that it
has almost died out in some places. In this manner, as I have already
told you, almost all the elephants have been killed off in parts of
Africa, for the sake of sport or for the sake of the tusks. In the same
way, the buffalo has almost disappeared from the United States.

[Illustration: Gray Wolf

From a photograph copyrighted by the New York Zoological Society.]

But in the case of the American wolf, man _wanted_ to kill him off
altogether as a race of animals; and yet he has not been able to do so.
At first the hunter may have killed the wolf only for the sake of its
fur; but in the last few years the American farmer and the ranchman have
tried to wipe out the wolf altogether as a _pest_--because the wolf
kills their sheep and cattle. And yet, the wolf flourishes in the West.
He has beaten the farmer and the ranchman.

The wonderful part of it is that the American wolf has beaten man _by
his own efforts_. And for an animal to beat man in that manner is a
great achievement.

I have told you before that one animal has to use its gifts against
another animal, to protect itself from danger; for instance, the fish
has to look out for the jaguar, and the jaguar in