Two or three miles to our
left the foot-hills rose sheer and bare, with clumps of black pine and
cedar in their gorges. We rode over gently rolling prairie, with here
and there patches of brush in the bottoms of the slopes around the dry
watercourses.
At last we reached a somewhat deeper valley in which the wolves were
harbored. Wolves lie close in the daytime and will not leave cover if
they can help it; and as they had both food and water within we knew
it was most unlikely that this couple would be gone. The valley was a
couple of hundred yards broad and three or four times as long, filled
with a growth of ash and dwarf elm and cedar, thorny underbrush choking
the spaces between. Posting the cowboy, to whom he gave his rifle, with
two greyhounds on one side of the upper end, and old man Prindle with
two others on the opposite side, while I was left at the lower end to
guard against the possibility of the wolves breaking back, the Judge
himself rode into the thicket near me and loosened the track-hounds to
let them find the wolves' trail.
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