I once saw a young deer
and a wolf-cub together near the hut of the settler who had captured
both. The wolf was just old enough to begin to feel vicious and
bloodthirsty, and to show symptoms of attacking the deer. On the
occasion in question he got loose and ran towards it, but it turned,
and began to hit him with its forefeet, seemingly in sport; whereat he
rolled over on his back before it, and acted like a puppy at play. Soon
it turned and walked off; immediately the wolf, with bristling hair,
crawled after, and with a pounce seized it by the haunch, and would
doubtless have murdered the bleating, struggling creature, had not the
bystanders interfered.
Where there are no domestic animals, wolves feed on almost anything from
a mouse to an elk. They are redoubted enemies of foxes. They are easily
able to overtake them in fair chase, and kill numbers. If the fox can
get into the underbrush, however, he can dodge around much faster than
the wolf, and so escape pursuit. Sometimes one wolf will try to put a
fox out of a cover while another waits outside to snap him up.
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