Wolves within the bounds of the United States are not ferocious; they do not attack human beings. That they were once ferocious is probable; but years ago they learned the folly of exposing themselves to human beings.
Notwithstanding all this, the wolf is not a coward. He is brave enough when anything is to be gained by being brave. The spectacular, reckless, grand-stand bravery that is pretty certain to be accompanied by death does not appeal to the wolf. Instances are on record, however, where numbers of wolves have risked their lives in order to save or to try to save a wounded companion, either from men or from animals.
A man captured and brought home a number of wolf puppies and placed them in a box inside a high picket fence. He thought the mother might come to their rescue and prepared to entrap her. He took off a picket of the fence, and placed steel traps inside and outside the fence and in the gap. On the first night the mother did bravely come to the rescue; but she avoided all dangers and carried off her puppies.
CHAPTER XII
WINTER WAYS OF ANIMALS
On the way home one winter afternoon I came upon a beaver colony a little below timberline. In the edge of the woods I stood for a time looking out on the white smooth pond. Lines of tracks crossed it from every point of the compass. Two camp birds alighted on a tree within a few feet and looked me over. I heard a flock of chickadees going through the woods.
A lynx came out of the willow clumps on the opposite shore. He walked out on the snowy pond and headed straight for the house. He was in no hurry and stepped slowly along and climbed on top of the house. Here he sniffed a time or two, then raked the house with right forepaw. He sniffed again. Nothing in reach for him.
Climbing down off the beaver house the lynx walked around it and started for the woods near me. Catching my scent he stopped, took a look, then went full speed into the Engelmann spruce forest. Other lynx had visited the top of the beaver house and also prowled along the bottom of the dam. A number of mountain sheep had crossed the pond a day or two before.
The pond was in a deep gulch and a goodly stream of water out of sight beneath the ice and snow was running into it. The concentrated outflow burst out over the top of the south end of the dam through an eighteen-inch opening. This pond was frozen over for five months. For these five months the beaver each day had a swim or two in the water under the ice. When hungry he took a section of an aspen from the pile on the bottom of the pond. This was dragged under the ice up into the house, where it afforded a meal of canned green bark.