hotguns, but we found
they were so wary that the mere movement of opening the door to get out
would frighten them, and we had very limited success for the first few
nights. Another difficulty we encountered was shooting in the dark. If
you have never tried it, and ever do, you will find it exceedingly
difficult to get any kind of an aim, and you have to fire promiscuously
at the sound rather than the object.

We remedied this trouble, however, by taking out a light of glass from
the back window, and building a rest that bore directly on the carcass,
so that we could poke our guns through the opening, settle them on the
rest, and blaze away into the gloom. We brought our bed up to the
window, so that we could shoot without getting out of it, while snugly
wrapped up in our blankets. After this our luck improved, and after each
discharge we would rush out, armed with a tomahawk, dispatch the wounded
wolves, and collect the dead ones, until we had slaughtered forty-two of
them. We skinned them, and sold the pelts to the traders for
seventy-five cents a piece, which money was the first of our earnings.

It was not long before we ceased to depend on wolf hunting for a living,
as immigration soon poured in, and money became plenty. I remember soon
after of having seventeen hundred dollars in gold buried in an oyster
can under the shanty.

I lived on this prairie for eleven years, and never was happier at any
period of my life, and feel assured that I can safely say that no other
man ever enjoyed the luxury of hunting wolves in bed.

The pleasure of narrating such adventures for the present generation is,
in this instance, marred by the reflection that both Captain Dodd and my
old friend Garvie were killed by the Indians in 1862, the former while
gallantly fighting at the battle of New Ulm, and the latter at the
Yellow Medicine Agency, on the first day of the outbreak.

[Illustration]

THE POISONED WHISKY.

I was told by a gentleman at my club the other day that he had read in
some magazine that the British army had blown open the tomb of the Mahdi
in upper Africa, and had mutilated the body, cutting off the head and
sending it to England in a kerosene can. I could hardly believe the
story, but he vouched for having read it in a reputable publication, and
being a strong hater of the English, affirmed his unqualified faith in
the statement. Notwithstanding his position, it seemed to me incredible
that such an act