on the plains or on my ranch I have had shots at
wolves, always obtained by accident and always, I regret to say, missed.
Often the wolf when seen was running at full speed for cover, or else
was so far off that though motionless my shots went wide of it. But once
have I with my own rifle killed a wolf, and this was while travelling
with a pack train in the mountains. We had been making considerable
noise, and I never understood how an animal so wary permitted our near
approach. He did, nevertheless, and just as we came to a little stream
which we were to ford I saw him get on a dead log some thirty yards
distant and walk slowly off with his eyes turned toward us. The first
shot smashed his shoulders and brought him down.

The wolf is one of the animals which can only be hunted successfully
with dogs. Most dogs however do not take at all kindly to the pursuit.
A wolf is a terrible fighter. He will decimate a pack of hounds by rabid
snaps with his giant jaws while suffering little damage himself; nor are
the ordinary big dogs, supposed to be fighting dogs, able to tackle him
without special training. I have known one wolf to kill a bulldog which
had rushed at it with a single snap, while another which had entered the
yard of a Montana ranch house slew in quick succession both of the large
mastiffs by which it was assailed. The immense agility and ferocity
of the wild beast, the terrible snap of his long-toothed jaws, and the
admirable training in which he always is, give him a great advantage
over fat, small-toothed, smooth-skinned dogs, even though they are
nominally supposed to belong to the fighting classes. In the way that
bench competitions are arranged nowadays this is but natural, as there
is no temptation to produce a worthy class of fighting dog when the
rewards are given upon technical points wholly unconnected with the
dog's usefulness. A prize-winning mastiff or bulldog may be almost
useless for the only purposes for which his kind is ever useful at all.
A mastiff, if properly trained and of sufficient size, might possibly be
able to meet a young or undersized Texas wolf; but I have never seen a
dog of this variety which I would esteem a match single-handed for one
of the huge timber wolves of western Montana. Even if the dog was the
heavier of the two, his teeth and claws would be very much smaller and
weaker and his hide less tough. Indeed I have known of but one dog which
single-handed encountered and slew