The next morning, we saw where they had upset the bear-fat into the "salts." The oil had not cooled, and of course it soaked down into the loose salts. In their eagerness to get the warm grease, the rabid brutes had eaten grease and salts together.
"Well," said Ed, "some of 'em will be troubled with dyspepsia after this, that's certain."
This was Wednesday. Friday morning, Vet and I set off to go to the settlement. We followed down Mud Stream five miles, to where it entered the Penobscot. Here there was, or had recently been, open water, now only partly frozen over.
We could not get upon the river at the forks, and had to follow up the bank thirty or forty rods. We had gone only a few steps when we came upon a dead wolf, lying close down to the water's edge, among brush and drift-stuff.
"Here's one of our friends!" cried Vet, laughing.
We hauled the carcass up to the top of the bank. It was a good-sized wolf, as large as a fox-hound. We felt pretty happy, for the State then paid a bounty of eight dollars on wolf-scalps; and the hide–if we could get it off–would bring two or three dollars more.
Well, we had not gone four rods further when we came upon another wolf, curled up, dead, near the water. And–to cut the story short–we found eight dead wolves lying along that strip of open water.
The "salts" had proved a fatal meal for them.
We were not long going for Ed, and then we skinned the lot. But it was a tough job. We could not help cutting the hides considerably, and in consequence of this, we obtained but eleven dollars for these. We got seventy-six dollars in all, however, and this was a large amount for us in those hard, self-denying days.
