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The prairie-wolves are considerably smaller than their brethren of the woods. They travel in large packs, a solitary one being seldom seen. Their skins are of no value. The Indians will not waste their powder upon them, and they therefore multiply so greatly, that some parts of the country are completely overrun by them.
Their note is a bark like that of a terrier-dog repeated three times, and then prolonged into a true wolf's howl. I have heard farm-house dogs utter a very similar bark. Prairie-wolves have all the ferocity of their race, but no creature could be more cowardly.
They were "coyotes," or small prairie-wolves; but though small, they exhibit wonderful activity and power of swallowing. By the time we got up to the brutes they had devoured every particle of the deer, and nothing remained but a well-picked skeleton, from which they slunk off when we were almost close enough to knock them over with the butts of our guns.
But they were like prairie-wolves around the dying bison; the retreating force lay helpless in their hands; two new foes took the place of every one that fell. Each day's horrors surpassed those of the last. The camp-followers died in hundreds from cold and starvation, their frost-bitten feet refusing to support them.
And then, when they get to be old, they turn back into prairie-wolves again, and that all the wolves that the officers bait with their dogs used to be Frenchmen, once."
The mean little prairie-wolves gathered, and barked, and snarled, in the distance. Nearer, the big wolves howled like great dogs, their long howl occasionally breaking into a bark; and farther and farther off, away in the extremest distance, they could hear other wolves, whose hollow-sounding cry seemed like an echo of their more fortunate brethren, nearer the game.
This was instantly fired at him; and the animal, after rocking about a while on his spread legs, fell gently to the earth. Of course he had proved himself too tough to be eatable by anything but prairie-wolves, and we were about to leave him as he lay. Ike, however, had no idea of gratifying these sneaking creatures at so cheap a rate.
Of course we became curious to learn the cause of his antipathy to the prairie-wolves; for we knew he had an antipathy, and it was that that had induced him to commit such wholesale havoc among these creatures. It was from this circumstance he had obtained the soubriquet of "wolf-killer." By careful management, we at last got him upon the edge of the stray, and quietly pushed him into it.
"Bah!" cried Basil, now breaking silence, "it's only a pack of prairie-wolves. Who cares for their howling?" The minds of all were thus set at rest. They had no fear of prairie-wolves; which, though fierce enough when attacking some poor deer or wounded buffalo, are afraid of anything in the shape of man; and will skulk off, whenever they think the latter has any intention to attack them.
They are more cautious when following a caravan of California emigrants, where there are plenty of "greenhorns" and amateur-hunters ready to fire at anything. Prairie-wolves are also constant attendants upon the "gangs" of buffalo. They follow these for hundreds of miles in fact, the outskirts of the buffalo herd are, for the time being, their home.
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