This article originally appeared in the May 1917 issue of Outing.
The average Montana ranch furnishes sufficient occupation to keep a man busy during most of the light hours of about six and a half days a week, and when the half day of “rest and gladness” that marks the Sabbath afternoon comes around, one is as apt as not to saddle up and combine business with pleasure in a “wolving” expedition.
Refugee by Dan Metz. Oil on canvas, 30 x 26 inches.
“Wolving,” be it explained, consists in ranging the hills intent upon the extermination of that wily depredator of calves, the timber wolf, and his more furtive, but almost equally destructive, cousin, the coyote.
Hence, it was perfectly natural that a balmy Sunday afternoon in August should find Spike and me mounted for the chase and trotting out through the corrals in a cloud of fine dust. Spike carried his .30-30 in a scabbard beneath his stirrup leather, but I, at the last moment, had discarded my .44 for a .22 in the hope of bagging a few young sage hens en route.
As we passed the bunkhouse, Barney, the big red setter that belonged to the boss, rose from his place in the sun, stretched smoothly and fell in behind.
“Go home, B…,” I began perfunctorily.
“Aw, let him come,” said Spike; “it’ll do him good to range a little. He won’t scare nothin’.” So Barney accompanied us, coursing gaily about the prairie, now sniffing judicially at a gopher hole, now jumping high to snap at a passing butterfly.
We didn’t expect to find much that afternoon and we didn’t really care. It was pleasant enough to swing along with the breeze fanning a breath of sagebrush and the prairies stretching, far and dun, to the blue mountains out across the Missouri.
As we rode, the talk ran on a lone wolf of phenomenal size and a peculiar silver-white coloring, who, tradition said, reappeared every three years to take his toll of the “Lazy S” cattle.
“I ain’t never saw him myself,” said Spike, “but old Bill was tellin’ today that it was just three years ago this summer he killed that ‘Ajax’ yearlin’ the old man put so much stock in. I reckon, if we could smoke up that boy, it would tickle the boss some. They do say the brute’s been comin’ back since 1897 and killed mo’ cattle than you could brand in a mo’nin’.
Spike rolled thoughtfully in his saddle and dug in his vest pocket for “makin’s.”
We rode on in amicable silence until our way brought us out upon the bench of the “Woody” butte. From the edge of the shelving plateau where we halted, the land dropped away abruptly for some 300 feet, opening up a wide stretch of close-cropped bottom land, scored here and there with shallow coulees and dotted with grazing white-faces.
Spike swept the expanse with practiced eye and cursed explosively. “Them glasses,” he jerked, indicating the binoculars that he had often jeered at me for carrying.
Once possessed of them, he gazed long and earnestly, while I sought, in vain, to ascertain the object of his interest.
“Look a’ there,” he said, handing the glasses to me at last, “the dark spot, just to the left of the draw!”
I brought the binoculars to bear and made out the recumbent body of a thoroughbred calf.
“Now a bit to the right,” said Spike, and, as I shifted my field of vision, I caught a flicker of movement among the sagebrush, which resolved itself into a skulking, dirty-white figure.
“The old devil himself,” said Spike with profane elaboration; “this is a chance in a million. I’ll ride down this draw,” he continued, “and try to come up the wind at him, so’s to get a shot. You stay on the bench and try to keep him off the butte. Get it?”
He was off in a flash, his wiry little buckskin sliding on its haunches down the precipitous side of the hill.
I rode leisurely along the edge of the declivity with a watchful eye on the little drama taking place on the plain below. Reports of the old brute’s sagacity were not exaggerated, for no sooner did the puncher emerge on the plain below than the object of his attention dropped its tail and resolved itself into a gray streak along the prairie. As Spike afterward expressed it, “he sure made a noise like one parallel o’ latitude encircling the hemisphere.”
Spike had his eyes open and his spurs were in the buckskin’s ribs before the wolf had taken his third jump. Then it was even money for about two miles around the base of the butte, with just a shade in favor of the horse.
Following around the butte, my pony ran into a rockslide, and, before he could pick his way through, the wolf had turned and quartered up the slope in front of us toward a grove of quaking asp, high on the rocky side. Spike had set his pony at the hill, and the gamy beast was struggling up among the rocks with convulsive heaves, but the slope was evidently too much for him after the long spurt.
I dug spurs into my own animal and cursed the ineffectual .22 that clattered at my saddle.
Mr. Wolf reached the quaking asp grove and paused. Right there he committed a very human, but incidentally fatal error in tactics. Calmly he seated himself on his haunches; gently lolled out about five inches of pink tongue and smiled as provoking a smile as I have ever beheld on the visage of man or beast.
Got him!
I measured the distance with my eye, grunted hopelessly, and cast a dejected eye at Spike. He was off his horse like lightning, kneeling and, even as I looked, he fired.
I shook my head, then “Gawd!” said Spike, and his face was suffused with delighted astonishment, “Gawd, I got him.”
I whirled to look up the slope. There rolled Mr. Wolf on his back, snarling savagely and snapping at a wide dark stain on his right shoulder. I was on the ground in an instant and tearing up the slope like a charge up San Juan Hill, but before I could get to him, the wounded beast was up and crashing through the quaking asps toward the rocks above.
I plunged after, fighting my way blindly through the thicket, and at the end of three minutes’ thrashing and struggling, emerged on the rocks and cast a quick glance about. The quarry was nowhere in sight. Far down the slope was Spike struggling manfully upward with the weight of his angora chaps, and, leading him by about 20 jumps, was Barney.
I whistled for the dog and then carefully surveyed the broken rock about me. By the time Barney had reached my side, I was rewarded by the sight of a crimson sprinkle, not yet dried, and farther on a dark smirch where the wounded shoulder had scraped a projecting corner.
Barney sniffed the fresh blood trail and drooped dejectedly. His lack of enthusiasm in the face of my excitement was heart-rending. I set upon him with every canine exhortation and adjuration I could summon, and finally, with great reluctance, he dropped his nose and set off, gingerly sniffing a zigzag course among the rocks, up and around toward the rugged cliffs on the west side.
I followed eagerly, and every now and then was rewarded by a glimpse of the tell-tale crimson.
For perhaps a quarter of a mile we picked our way along the treacherous rocks. Then, when the precipitous ledge towered almost above us, Barney suddenly stopped, raised his head, dropped his tail and emitted a most piteous whine.
I exhorted him again. I begged, commanded, cursed and prayed him, but all in vain. He stood on one foot and then on the other, and whined to melt a heart of stone, but another step he would not stir. Finally, I reverted from praying to cursing and clambered on alone in the general direction in which Barney was pointed, but before I had gone a dozen yards, I became aware of a yawning crevice in the cliff before me, and realized that we had tracked our game to ground.
The opening that faced me was triangular in shape, some four feet wide by perhaps three high, and running deep into the ledge, with something of an upward slant that prevented a view of the inner recesses. A smear of blood on the right side of the cavity indicated that the inhabitant had recently entered.
I looked at the toiling Spike far down the hill; once more cast depreciating eyes on my .22, and then suddenly decided that the wolf must be dead already, and that Spike had achieved enough glory for one afternoon without crawling into the bowels of the earth after him. So down I dropped on hands and knees and, pushing the little gun before me, advanced gingerly and with trepidation.
The place was fearfully dark with my body blocking the entrance and smelt abominably of carrion.
I had advanced a little over the length of my body when a savage snarl just in front of me apprized me of the disconcerting fact that I still had a rather lively adversary to contend with. I seriously considered retreat, in fact had begun stealthily to retrace my path, when suddenly a dry, sinister buzz resounded throughout the little cavern.
I started wildly at the sound and hastily gathered in my outlying extremities. Then, cramping my head back over my shoulder with difficulty, I perceived that a large rattlesnake had crawled out of a crevice and lay coiled in the mouth of the cave.
Even as I looked, another vicious snarl emanated from the depths and I heard the stirring of a recumbent body.
As I look back, the situation offers humorous aspects. Under the press of circumstances it appealed to me in no such light.
“One at a time,” I thought doggedly, “and the biggest first.” Thereupon I advanced my little gun and loosed a pellet into the shadows.
There was a yelp of pain, a confused scuffling, and I pumped three more shots into the gloom before a heavy body hurtled against the end of my gun. Fortunately the weapon was well braced against my shoulder and met the charge squarely.
I heard the click of strong teeth, felt a foul breath on my face, and even as I realized that the beast had run with gaping jaws full onto the barrel of my rifle, I pulled the trigger desperately.
Almost simultaneous with the report I felt a sharp tap on the heel of my boot, and for a moment I fancied that Spike had arrived and was following me in. Then the relaxation of pressure on my gun-muzzle brought my attention back to the wolf.
A faint, convulsive scratching came from the place where he had fallen, soon giving place to oppressive silence.
I strained my eyes through the gloom but could distinguish nothing. Then, convinced that I had, at least temporarily, disposed of that case, my mind reverted with a sickening sensation to the rattler.
I realized that I must keep my legs doubled up and be very quiet, and, just as that realization dawned on me, became aware that, in my excitement, I had extended them again to their full length. “Thank God,” I thought, “old Spike must have scared the snake away.” Once more I shot a cramped regard back over my shoulder and to my great delight the rattler had actually disappeared.
Gingerly, and with many an apprehensive backward glance, I withdrew from that hole and, when I stood erect again in the sunlight, it would have been a toss-up to tell whether my fervent ejaculations constituted an oath or a prayer.
“Where the hell you been?” shouted Spike from below, where he stood by the cowering dog.
“Come up and see,” I returned, too full for further words.
“In there?” he asked, arriving, out of breath. “He’s dead then?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not so sure of it that I’d crawl in again for 50 dollars.”
Spike looked me over, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “You look perturbed,” he said, “don’t be a clam, what went on?”
“Let’s settle this first,” I said, “then we’ll have the whole story.”
So, after a preliminary shot from the .30-30 and a careful search for lurking reptiles. Spike crawled in, lighting matches as he went, and shortly emerged dragging our gigantic prey by one leg, stone dead.
I pried his gory jaws apart and found in the back of his mouth, a small bullet hole penetrating fairly to the base of the brain. Along the roof of his mouth ran a long scratch traced by the front sight of the little gun.
“What’che find?” asked Spike impatiently.
I showed him the scar and proceeded to recount, with feeling, the incident of the cave.
“But what became of the snake?” I added, in conclusion. “You didn’t scare him away after all.”
“’Course I didn’t,” said Spike. He ruminated at length. Finally—“let’s see your boot heel,” he said suddenly.
I lifted my foot, and, fair in the bottom of my high heel, were two small parallel punctures.
“Broke his fangs off,” marveled Spike, thoughtfully examining, “and he was a big one too.”
The puncher rose to his full height and eyed me up and down during a reflective pause. “Boy,” he said at last, with conviction, “you’ve had as much luck in the last half hour as most people cram into a regular lifetime.”
Taking all things into consideration, I concluded that Spike was right.