Raymond S. Spears

“ He had wrapped some bright tinfoil around a trap pan and set the trap under water at the coon runway. A fool brown coon had wondered what in the world shone so in the sparkling fight of the moon, and felt the tinfoil with its paw to release the trap jaws and thus come to its doom.
Now he found some of his wolf traps bedeviled. There was a wolf with a badly twisted paw which visited Conklin’s traps to show contempt for the human’s efforts. This fellow was a male who at some time had pulled away from a trap, the hurt hind-foot now dragging as he walked. He did not travel with other wolves. ”

“ He gnawed bones when he found fresh ones. He dug roots to eat them. He patiently pulled needles of prickly-pear to eat the fruit and green lobes. He slept where weariness overtook him. Now and again Conklin saw where other wolves had chased this crippled beast, and in one place where five or six coyotes had circled around the unfortunate, making proud of their daring in plaguing a lobo which had fallen to low estate. But this outcast lobo followed the trapper’s fines and dragged his most cunningly placed traps to expose them wherever they were hidden. ”

“ The rattling of the chains and the whining of the victims spread the alarm throughout the Wolf Dens that a trapper had come. The tracks of Lop-Ear and his pack grew old. The band had gone romping away, Conklin wondering whether his presence had alarmed and warned them to leave permanently or whether it was just the chance of their going on another raid.
As soon as he found the raiders had departed he set traps throughout their home range. He knew meat or food bait would be futile. The animals ate nothing they did not themselves kill. ”