As the young hunters gazed, other lights attracted their attention, causing them to hold their guns in readiness. These lights were very different from those of the insects. They were low down near the surface of the ground. They were round, of a fiery green lustre, and appeared in motion. Now they remained shining steadily for some moments, then they disappeared, but immediately shone out afresh in some other place. There were many of them moving about. They were not fire-flies.
Our hunters knew what they were—they were the eyes of animals—of wild beasts! This they knew, but no more. What sort of animals they might be was a thing about which they were all three ignorant; and this uncertainty very naturally filled them with dread. They might be bears, wolverines, or panthers.
The boys talked in whispers, looking to the locks of their pieces, and preparing themselves for the worst. They were, of course, already seen by the animals, sitting as they did in the light of the fire. Marengo stood by, looking into the darkness, and at intervals uttering the growl with which he was accustomed to hail the presence of an enemy.
The shining eyes appeared to multiply. All at once a dog was heard to utter three distinct barks. Was it a dog? No. The long and piteous howl that followed told that the animal was no dog, but a wolf—the barking-wolf (Canis latrans). The moment it had ceased, another took up the strain, and then another and another, until the woods rang on all sides with their hideous howls. This did not come from any particular side, but seemed everywhere; and as the boys looked into the dark aisles between the tree-trunks, they could perceive glancing eyes—a perfect circle of them all around!
“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. This, however, is seldom the case, as the prairie hunter does not care to waste a bullet upon them; and they are often permitted to follow, and squat themselves unmolested around the hunter’s camp, within reach of his rifle.
The prairie-wolves are much smaller than any other species of wolf found in America. They are not much larger than English terriers, and quite as cunning as the English fox. They can hardly be caught or trapped in any way—though they can be easily run down with horses and dogs. They are of a dull, reddish hue, mixed with a grizzle of white hairs. This is their usual colour, though, like other animals, there are varieties. They have thick bushy tails, black at the tips, and one-third the length of their bodies. They resemble the dogs found among the prairie Indians, of which they are, no doubt, the progenitors. They are met with throughout all the regions from the Mississippi westward to the Pacific, and southward into Mexico. They hunt in packs, like the jackals; and will run down deer, buffaloes, or any other animals which they think they can master. They dare not attack a buffalo in the herd, though packs of them always follow a drove of these animals. They wait until some one gets separated—a young calf, or, perhaps, a decrepit old bull—which they fall upon and worry to pieces. They follow all parties of hunters and travellers—taking possession of a camp-ground, the moment its occupants have moved out, and devouring every scrap of eatables that may have been left behind. They will, even, sometimes steal into the camp by night, and appropriate the very morsel which the hunter had designed for his breakfast in the morning. This sometimes leads to a spirit of retaliation; and the indignant hunter, growing less provident of his powder and lead, cracks away until he has laid several of them stretched along the grass.
They are more numerous than any other species of American wolves; and on this account—having so many mouths to feed, and so many stomachs to satisfy—they often suffer from extreme hunger. Then, but not till then, they will eat fruits, roots, and vegetables—in short, anything that may sustain life.
These wolves take their trivial name from their being met with principally on the great prairies of the west—although other species of American wolves are found in the prairie country as well as they. They are sometimes called “barking” wolves; because, as we have noticed, the first two or three notes of their howl resemble the bark of a dog. It ends, however, in a prolonged and disagreeable scream.
“I am glad it is they,” said Lucien, in reply to Basil’s remark. “It is well it is no worse. I was afraid it was our friends, the javalies, who had come to pay us a visit.”