The next morning they started out with dogs, guns, and brimstone. The dogs chased the wolf into her cave, but came running out again torn and yelping. Putnam and the men built a fire in the cave-entrance. They threw on brimstone which gave out choking fumes. They threw on straw which made a thick smoke. But there were no signs of the wolf. All was quiet in the cave.
It grew to be nearly ten o’clock at night. Putnam tried once more to make his dog enter the cave, but he would not stir. Putnam, then, asked his negro man to go in and shoot the beast. But the black man, shivering with fright, refused to crawl in.
Putnam grew angry. In spite of all that his neighbours could say, he threw off his coat and lighted a torch. Then, tying a rope around his legs, he gave the end to his friends, saying when he signaled to pull him out.
In he went, headfirst, holding the lighted torch before him. Stooping, he groped his way into the body of the cave. The torch made a dim circle of light; all the rest of the den was in terrifying darkness. Silence like death was around him.
He cautiously proceeded onward to an ascent. As he was slowly climbing it on hands and knees, he discovered the glaring eyeballs of the she-wolf just in front of him. Startled at the sight of the flaming torch, she gnashed her teeth and gave a sullen growl.
Putnam kicked the rope, and his friends, who were listening with painful anxiety and who heard the growling of the beast, pulled him out so quickly that his shirt was stripped over his head and his body was badly cut.
After he had adjusted his clothes, he loaded his gun with buckshot. Then holding the torch in one hand and the gun in the other, he entered again. This time the wolf assumed a still more fierce and terrible aspect, howling, rolling her eyes, and snapping her teeth. Then she dropped her head between her legs making ready to spring.
At this moment Putnam raised his gun and fired.
Stunned by the noise and suffocated with smoke, he felt himself being jerked backward out of the cave. His friends had heard the shot, and were pulling the rope.
He rested a few moments in the fresh air, while letting the smoke dissipate. Then in he went a third time.