[A WINTER STORY OF COLORADO.]
The wild beasts upon Hicks Mountain were limited almost entirely to the coyotes; these persisted, in spite of advancing settlement, but in this section of Colorado the grey wolf, the mountain-lion, and the bear had been practically exterminated. For five years the stock had run the hills quite unmolested. A coyote will kill sheep, but its depredations are confined otherwise to the poultry, barring now and then a sick and abandoned calf.
However, in the winter of 1905, rumors spread that the grey wolves had returned. Calves were being killed and eaten, sows mutilated, and even large steers torn about the legs and chest. One rancher discovered in the timber across the pasture from his house the remains of a yearling heifer killed only that night; whatever had attacked it had devoured it, hide and all, to the very largest bones, leaving only the scattered remnants of a skeleton.
Now, a mountain-lion would have eaten part and buried the rest; a bear would also have eaten part, and saved the rest for later; coyotes would only have gnawed and mangled the carcass; the great grey wolf alone would have worked a destruction so complete.
The ground was bare of snow, and covered with pine-needles, thus being unfavorable for tracks. Mr. Jeffries had heard no howling. Nevertheless, the grey wolf, the stockman's scourge, was blamed.
Traps were set, and poisoned meat was discreetly put out, but only the coyotes suffered, apparently. Then Ned Coswell, early one morning, while searching for a lost milk-cow, came over a little rise, and saw below him in a hollow in the park a number of wolfish animals collected about a dead body, tearing at it. Ned was unarmed, but, spurring his horse, he rode down upon them recklessly, whooping.
"There were about a dozen of them," related Ned, "and I knew they weren't wolves, because they were colored differently, more like dogs. They looked at me coming, and, boys, I didn't know for a minute whether they were going to get out of the way or not. Old Medicine Eye"—his horse—"wasn't a bit afraid; just pricked his ears and kept on, which made me think all the more they weren't wolves.
"They were dogs, boys, nothing but dogs. There was a brindled one that looked like a bulldog, and several woolly dogs, like sheep-dogs, and one big black-and-white shaggy fellow, biggest of all. They all lifted their heads, and stood staring at me, and I was beginning to think that maybe I'd been in too much of a hurry. But first one sneaked off, showing his teeth, into the brush, and another and another, and they all went, and I was mighty glad to have them go. They'd been eating at a dead steer—mine, too—but I don't know whether they'd killed it or not. I wish I'd had a gun."
After that the ranchers made it a habit again to carry a gun of some kind when out on the range. However, for a long time nobody, when armed, caught any glimpse of the wild dogs. That is likely to be the case in hunting; the unprepared frequently have the opportunities.