“Big-Foot,” the King Wolf of San Juan

•* Big-Foot," the King Woolf of San Juan By Albert R. Lyman, Editor "San Juan Record." When "Big-Foot" got his puppy eyes open and ventured to look out of the den where he and his little brothers were born, he saw the wild hills of a cattle range in southwestern Colorado. To the southeast rose the stately La Plattas from whose snowy heights came the Dolores river, rippling away towards the dis- tant Utah line. "Big-Foot" had no name in those days, his feet were small, his legs wabbly, and as he played and scuffled with the other pups showing his tiny white fangs, and regarding them, from his innocent baby eyes, he was as nice a little doggie as a boy could want to own. Into that den his great, furry mother came cmietly from the mysterious outside; she brought unspoken accounts of a world where creatures hunt and are hunted. The young wolves sniffed the red stains on her chin, and lapped at it with their tiny tongues. When they began to want more than the milk she gave them, she ate special meals at the place of the kill, to be recalled from her stomach in the den for their benefit. Later she brought flesh reeking with rich blood, and if her stay away was long, as it sometimes happened, they ventured out from their rocky walls to look, to listen, and to sniff the wind with their sharp noses in the air. But let no one suppose the least semblance of endearment animated these puppies, one for the other, for in one of their rough games, when one of their little brothers got hurt, and bled, they set on him in fierce cannibal style and ate him up. Farther and farther they wandered from the den as the summer advanced, and in the early autumn, they lost track of their mother. Then "Big-Foot" had such a love for hunting by himself, that he became estranged from his brothers and faced the problems of his wolf life alone. Part of his problem was to make a successful hunt, but the greater part of it, the more vital and the more difficult part, was to maintain his safety from the creatures who hunted him, with their deadly weapons and their cunning snares. His enemies were men, men who rode swift horses, who carried long-range guns, set ugly traps in the most unexpected places, and put poison in anything a wolf might want to eat.

"BIG FOOT," THE KING WOLF OF SAN JUAN 17 "Big-Foot" made it a point to give the horses no chance for an even race with him, he kept out of range of the guns, he made sure against traps by avoiding the tracks of men, and to be sure his meat was pure, he killed it himself. His brothers, likewise, and all his race, killed their own meat, and the cow-punchers of disappointment grew desperate in anger as the destruction increased among their cattle. They couldn't run the wolves down; they had tried it in vain; neither could they find them, to shoot them; the beasts wouldn't be trapped, and if they ate poison, they simply recalled it as their mother had recalled their early meals, and received no harm. But one thing the cow men could do: they could get the riders from the neighboring ranges to help, and make a clean roundup of the country. Into some box canyon, or other safe place they would drive the whole pack and make sure of their destruction. That was in the winter of 1908, and snow lay deep on the ground. The thrilling races of that drive, the shots fired from horses, flying at full speed, the blood-stained trails, the suspense, the escape of capture, are no part of this story. With a gang of cursing cow-punchers, gaining on them as they wallowed through the drifts, ten wolves were headed for the Dolores river; and, plunging into the floating ice they swam across to the south side. Among them was "Big-Foot," and the devoted she wolf whom he loved. On the range in San Juan county, Utah, great tracks ap- peared, as if the coyote family might have been enlarged. Worse still, a slaughter began among the cattle, and word went out that wolves infested both desert and mountain. Some people refused to believe, but the report was too true. They offerer', rewards, small rewards at first, inducing the Piutes to take up the hunt, and a few trappers spread poison or arranged trap lines to small purpose. One wolf fell victim to this campaign, but the reward was trifling, the exterminating process went on half-heartedly, and the wolf tribe grew in numbers. At length the tremendous loss aroused the cow men of San Juan to the real magnitude of the danger; they sent to Oregon for Roy Mussleman and his part- ner, Harry Scisson, professional trappers. The two strangers came with their traps, in 1916, and were directed to Elk Mountain where a certain great wolf with his mate had been operating in the region of Peavine Spring, and had come to be known as the Peavine Wolf. For the mountain the trappers headed. Placing their traps with all due care, and baiting with scent, they waited eagerly, sure of a catch, nor felt surprise when they made it in the Forest Pasture at Kigaly. It was a female, the famous monarch's mate. . The Peavine wolf in sorrow and anger fought the dogs

IK IMPROVEMENT ERA of the trappers, daring them and worrying them night after night. Through the tall timber, and from groves of aspen and maple, tli. \ heard his hoarse call, long and melancholy, which Deceived no answer! Then he attacked the dogs again. The world was empty; she who swam with him through the icy cur- rent of the Dolores was slain, they had baited their traps with her body. Accepting his challenge, Mussleman and Scisson pursued after his threatening voice; and, keeping just out of their sight, he led them on, mile after mile, to the Notch. When they saw the chase was hopeless, he followed them back, mak- ing his presence known by angry tones in their rear. The scent which had lured his mate to her death, became an offense to him; he avoided it studiously; and, turning in his wrath from all baits and attractions of the trappers, he killed for revenge, he killed with an avidity and a certainty and a regularity which made him known and hated the country over. When the cattle went to the winter range in October, he followed. His ominous track appeared in the sand of Comb Wash, on the windy hills of Slick Horn, and in the white-sage swales of Cow Tank. From each quarter he wras reported by a different name; to some he was the Slick Horn wolf, to others the Comb Wash wolf, and to still others, the Big Wolf. When investigation proved all these to be one and the same animal, which made a round of the country several hundred miles in circumference every ten days, killing some choice ani- mal every day, the cow men offered a reward of a thousand dollars for his capture. Then he became The Reward Wolf, and his notoriety spread to surrounding states. While all these developments dragged through the months and into the years, Roy Mussleman, now following his trap lines alone, camped on the trail of the coveted monster, and assured his friends, when he happened to see them, the prize would be his in due time. To him the famous wolf was "Big-Foot," and nothing more, the same that dared him on to the Notch when he caught its mate at Kigaly. And Roy knew "Big-Foot" as he knew the old horses he rode and packed; that is, he knew the old wolf's nature and habits, the country it liked best, and even the feelings of its fierce, broken heart. But, as to its physical power, he could only guess from the size of its track. In that guess he fell short, for when his plans, his special scent, and his stratagems sprung a number four trap on "Big-Foot's" ankle, the old fighter with the strength of a mule pulled out of it, and went away the wiser for his experience. The amount that "lobo" learned from each contact with men, would do credit to men themselves. Having pulled a trap from the innocent looking dust, he seemed to comprehend the

"BIG FOOT," THE KING WOLF OF SAN JUAN 19 whole system; he knew where the trap lay, as if he could see it. Surely he had no idea of going into print when he chose his superlative method of contempt for that steel thing hidden there for his capture. Mussleman changed his whole program of operation, mixed a new scent, and laid his traps away from the trails and the passes, putting them on the most unlikely side of any tree or rock, and caught the king-wolf again. Again he pulled out of the trap; and again — and again — necessitating a new scent and a new plan eight different times. Everybody had a feverish eagerness to capture "Big-Foot." Not only for the prizes and rewards amounting to twelve hun- dred dollars, but to be first in a race where many struggled for the lead. Letters from New York City made special bids on the coveted fur, and trappers from afar answered the lure of San Juan; not only men did so, but also one woman, who by the way did credit in her line to the general excellence of her sex. To be sure a prize of three hundred waited for any wolf caught in the county, but four times that amount for the cap- ture of the old king. He was hunted by the Utes and the Navajos, Tie was coveted by every man who had a gun or a trap or a day to spare. As to the cow men themselves, they wearied of feeding him at such tremendous expense, and stood ready with but half a chance to follow him with rope or rifle. The Scorup cow-punchers chased him on West Elk, and followed him in relays, till his long, red tongue hung like a red rag from the corner of his panting mouth, but he reached the rocky breaks, leaving them to hunt for his track. When he followed the herds across the San Juan to the winter range on the reservation, Jean Powell and the Navajos burnt his trail in a whooping, lathering race. Rawhide quirts, cut through the hair of cayuses, pinto and buckskin, and wiry hoofs beat in a noisy cavalcade across the desert. It was to no purpose, the fleeing thing crossed a distant ridge still out of rifle range, and his track led to broken ledges, defying further pursuit. Floyd Nielson and Harry Scisson recognized his track on the east slope of the ridge, and, spurring up to get a shot, crashed on and on through brush and trees, noting with satis- faction how his great claws sank deeper and deeper in the earth as he increased his efforts to escape them. Three miles — surely they must be near him, and they urged their horses; four, six, seven miles; he was making for the opening called Snow Flat, and there they could use their high power gun. When at the end of eight miles they emerged from the trees, gun in hand, reeking and panting in desperate exhaustion, the great "lobo" entered the forest on the other side, his hair standing erect on

20 IMI'K(>\ I MINT EH \ liis withers, and sure proof in his gait that he felt the strain. Hut the horses were dead on their feet, a continuous forest of rocks and trees lay ahead, and the king wolf entered it unmo- [ested. \ hile all these spasmodic efforts went forward, by people from home and abroad, Mussleman went on trapping and study- ing the game where he and the wild things matched wits for the -(alps and cloaks which the wild things wore. Though his traps wouldn't hold the outlaw chief, he caught and collected <>n six other wolves, and as to bob-cats and coyotes, he brought in their pelts by the pack-loads. "Yet living with these creatures, and studying and knowing their ways, he hated to destroy them at all, and when he found a harmless animal struggling in the cruel jaws of his trap, he gave his ready pity, full reign to set it free. Even of skunks he said, "1 always let 'em <;o if they ain't too light on the trigger." Ife knocked the ants off the wood before putting it in his fire. Perhaps as true a shot as ever entered San Juan, he rejoiced in the life and liberty of flying and creeping things, and when rid- ing in a car after night from Blanding to Monticella, compli- mented- the driver on turning slightly to miss a trembling mouse which stopped confused in the glaring headlight before them. "Big-Foot" defied all comers, making his rounds with un- failing destruction, and announcing in hoarse tones on the night air of the wilderness, his grief, his anger, and his determination to live for revenge. The wolf-way of hamstringing its victim, and then tearing the helpless creature's jugular, was too mild for him: rushing to it, he reached its entrails with one terrible thrust, and feasted on their fat while the terrified animal ran bellowing frantically after its mates. His bite meant death to any cow, and many a fat carcass showed but a few green teeth marks as evidence against him. Two females, widdowed by Roy's traps, followed and fawned after the wolf king in vain. His mate was dead; she who plunged with him into the floating ice of the Dolores could never be replaced. All this and more was plain to Mussleman, and harking by his lone camp-fire to the cry from hill or can- yon, he understood the tone of woe, and admired the general- ship of his splendid antagonist. The thought that their contest must be to the death, was the worst feature of the game. "Rig-Foot" killed something eveiy day, a yearling, a two- year-old, and sometimes a grown cow, but always the fattest animal in the bunch. Yet he deigned to eat but once from the carcass, however fine its quality, leaving the rest for the avari- cious pack of coyotes following always at a safe distance be- hind him. He hated them as he hated all else, and when in saucy banter they mocked the tones of his grief and lonliness,

"BIG FOOT," THE KING WOLF OF SAN JUAN 21 the wrath in his roar echoed far away in the night. If he found them caught in traps, he settled his long fangs in their bowels, he broke their legs, he shook thein in fury till their necks came loose at the socket. Mussleman depended no more on number four traps to hold the old chief, but ordering a set of ponderous size weigh- ing nine pounds each, he began again matching wits in the won- derful game. One of these traps caught a wild cow, and she struggled for- ward with blood in her eye to meet him when he appeared. Having no rope, but being all his name suggests in spite of his size, he took her by the nose and the horns and twisted her head till she fell, but when he tried to open the great steel jaws she sprang up, and, quoting his words, they "went round and round!" He threw her twice after that, and tied her feet with a pair of horse hobbles while he removed the huge trap. Once free, though with the hobbles still buckled on one foot, she sprang up again and made matters more interesting than before. Fearing she would get caught somewhere and die, he shot the strap from her ankle with his rifle. That was in March, 1920. He was camped on the ridge, and the line of his big traps lay across the Slickhorn country, where the lone king had been making his way eastward from Grand Gulch. But his other traps, at different places and far away, sometimes claimed his attention three or four days at a time. On the twenty-fourth the old monarch approached the trap line, traveling parallel with the trail, but never placing in it his wary feet. When he caught a suggestive scent he turned from his course to a harmless looking bush, still safely three feet from the beaten track. It was a careless moment, a moment when sorrow and trial had weakened his wondrous vigilance. Up from the innocent dust jumped the great steel jaws, gripping his brawny ankle in a savage vise. With a snarl of anger and pain he sprang from the place, expecting to drag his clog till it caught, and then wrench himself free as before. It was staked solid. At the end of the chain he came to a sud- den and painful stop with the ugly thing biting harder than ever. He settled his powerful jaws on it, only to chip his white fangs and cut his foaming lips. With the whole sum of his angry force at a focus he bolted as from captivity, to be hurled violently on the ground. He struck at the steel thing, he ut- tered the most awful imprecation known to his fierce nature, and painted it from end to end with his hot blood. Night came on, and day, and night again, and yet he fought and growled in desperation, thrusting his raw lips and lacerated tongue against the sharp edges of his unrelenting shackles, and the faint