The wolf is the arch type of ravin,the beast of waste and desolation.
It is still found scattered thinly throughout all the wilder portions of the United States,but has everywhere retreated from the advance of civilization.
Wolves show an infinite variety in color,size,physical formation,and temper.Almost all the varieties intergrade with one another,however,so that it is very difficult to draw a hard and fast line between any two of them.Nevertheless,west of the Mississippi there are found two distinct types.One is the wolf proper,or big wolf,specifically akin to the wolves of the eastern States.The other is the little coyote,or prairie wolf.The coyote and the big wolf are found together in almost all the wilder districts from the Rio Grande to the valleys of the upper Missouri and the upper Columbia.
Throughout this region there is always a sharp line of demarkation,especially in size,between the coyotes and the big wolves of any given district;but in certain districts the big wolves are very much larger than their brethren in other districts.In the upper Columbia country,for instance,they are very large;along the Rio Grande they are small.Dr.Hart Merriam informs me that,according to his experience,the coyote is largest in southern California.In many respects the coyote differs altogether in habits from its big relative.For one thing it is far more tolerant of man.In some localities coyotes are more numerous around settlements,and even in the close vicinity of large towns,than they are in the frowning and desolate fastnesses haunted by their grim elder brother.
Big wolves vary far more in color than the coyotes do.I have seen white,black,red,yellow,brown,gray,and grizzled skins,and others representing every shade between,although usually each locality has its prevailing tint.The grizzled,gray,and brown often have precisely the coat of the coyote.The difference in size among wolves of different localities,and even of the same locality,is quite remarkable,and so,curiously enough,is the difference in the size of the teeth,in some cases even when the body of one wolf is as big as that of another.I have seen wolves from Texas and New Mexico which were undersized,slim animals with rather small tusks,in no way to be compared to the long-toothed giants of their race that dwell in the heavily timbered mountains of the Northwest and in the far North.As a rule,the teeth of the coyote are relatively smaller than those of the gray wolf.
Formerly wolves were incredibly abundant in certain parts of the country,notably on the great plains,where they were known as buffalo wolves,and were regular attendants on the great herds of the bison.
Every traveller and hunter of the old days knew them as among the most common sights of the plains,and they followed the hunting parties and emigrant trains for the sake of the scraps left in camp.Now,however,there is no district in which they are really abundant.The wolfers,or professional wolf-hunters,who killed them by poisoning for the sake of their fur,and the cattlemen,who likewise killed them by poisoning because of their raids on the herds,have doubtless been the chief instruments in working their decimation on the plains.In the '70's,and even in the early '80's,many tens of thousands of wolves were killed by the wolfers in Montana and northern Wyoming and western Dakota.Nowadays the surviving wolves of the plains have learned caution;they no longer move abroad at midday,and still less do they dream of hanging on the footsteps of hunter and traveler.Instead of being one of the most common they have become one of the rarest sights of the plains.A hunter may wander far and wide through the plains for months nowadays and never see a wolf,though he will probably see many coyotes.However,the diminution goes on,not steadily but by fits and starts,and moreover,the beasts now and then change their abodes,and appear in numbers in places where they have been scarce for a long period.In the present winter of 1892-'93big wolves are more plentiful in the neighborhood of my ranch than they have been for ten years,and have worked some havoc among the cattle and young horses.
The cowboys have been carrying on the usual vindictive campaign against them;a number have been poisoned,and a number of others have fallen victims to their greediness,the cowboys surprising them when gorged to repletion on the carcass of a colt or calf,and,in consequence,unable to run,so that they are easily ridden down,roped,and then dragged to death.
