his haunches and the
greyhounds ranged themselves around him some twenty yards off, forming
a ring which forbade his retreat, though they themselves did not dare
touch him. However the end was at hand. In another moment Old Abe and
General Grant came running up at headlong speed and smashed into the
wolf like a couple of battering-rams. He rose on his hind-legs like a
wrestler as they came at him, the greyhounds also rising and bouncing up
and down like rubber balls. I could just see the wolf and the first big
dog locked together, as the second one made good his throat-hold. In
another moment over all three tumbled, while the greyhounds and one or
two of the track-hounds jumped in to take part in the killing. The big
dogs more than occupied the wolf's attention and took all the punishing,
while in a trice one of the greyhounds, having seized him by the
hind-leg, stretched him out, and the others were biting his undefended
belly. The snarling and yelling of the worry made a noise so fiendish
that it was fairly bloodcurdling; then it gradually died down, and the
second wolf lay limp on the plains, killed by the dogs, unassisted.
This wolf was rather heavier and decidedly taller than either of the big
dogs, with more sinewy feet and longer fangs.

I have several times seen wolves run down and stopped by greyhounds
after a break-neck gallop and a wildly exciting finish, but this was
the only occasion on which I ever saw the dogs kill a big, full-grown
he-wolf unaided. Nevertheless various friends of mine own packs that
have performed the feat again and again. One pack, formerly kept at
Fort Benton, until wolves in that neighborhood became scarce, had nearly
seventy-five to its credit, most of them killed without any assistance
from the hunter; killed moreover by the greyhounds alone, there being
no other dogs with the pack. These greyhounds were trained to the
throat-hold, and did their own killing in fine style; usually six or
eight were slipped together. General Miles informs me that he once
had great fun in the Indian Territory hunting wolves with a pack of
greyhounds. They had with the pack a large stub-tailed mongrel, of
doubtful ancestry but most undoubted fighting capacity. When the wolf
was started the greyhounds were sure to overtake it in a mile or two;
they would then bring it to a halt and stand around it in a ring until
the fighting dog came up. The latter promptly tumbled on the wolf,
grabbing him anywhere, a