Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

 

South Bend [Ind.] Tribune.

     The readers of the Tribune will remember our several times mentioning during the past three years the terrible depredations made on flocks of sheep on Harris Prairie by a gray wolf. The wolf was often seen, but was so sly that hunters seldom got a shot at her. Twice her litters were captured, but she escaped, and her inroads on the flocks in the vicinity have aggregated a loss to the farmers of over $1,000, as Mr. Michael Smith estimates.

     On Wednesday of last week some of the old hunters assembled for the purpose of giving her chase, and it was agreed to keep up the hunt until she was captured. The hunt continued all day Wednesday and far into the night. The dogs routed her out of her lair, but she was so fleet-footed that she soon distanced them, and though seen several times no one got a shot at her. On Thursday morning the chase was resumed. Sometimes the wolf would be found near Edwardsburg, and then again down on the prairie, running though, most always in a circle. On Friday Mr. Micheal Smith got sight of her running across one of his fields, and was within a few rods of the game, but unluckily had left his gun a short distance off, and was armed with only an ax. Saturday morning John Shrimp and his companion started her from the top of a hay-stack on the Catholhe farm. The chase was kept up all that day, and also on Sunday and Monday. Monday afternoon she was tracted to Mr. Smith’s woods, which were surrounded by the entire hunting force. Fon Quimby’s hounds started her up and pertinciously pursued her until she finally attempted to break from the woods near where Quimby was stationed. He discharged both barrels of his gun at her. One slug went directly through her body, from which the blood spurted in a great stream, and, running a few rods, she dropped dead in her tracks.

     The wolf measured about three and a half feet in height, and was over six feet long. Her favorite method of killing sheep was to run with the flock, grasp a sheep by the neck with her jaws, suck the blood, and then polish off another and another until her appetite was sated. She had been known to kill six or eight sheep in one night, and had become such a terror in the neighborhood that some of the farmers sold their flocks. The farmers were so rejoiced over the capture and death of the wolf that they made up a purse of $10 for the boys, and naturally look for the County Commissioners to do something about the matter.