Wild Animals I Have Known | Page 4

to New York, as my Manitoban friends will remember.
And my old friend, the owner of Tan, will learn from these pages how
his dog really died.
The Mustang lived not far from Lobo in the early nineties. The story is
given strictly as it occurred, excepting that there is a dispute as to the
manner of his death. According to some testimony he broke his neck in
the corral that he was first taken to. Old Turkeytrack is where he cannot
be consulted to settle it.
Wully is, in a sense, a compound of two dogs; both were mongrels, of
some collie blood, and were raised as sheep-dogs. The first part of
Wully is given as it happened, after that it was known only that he
became a savage, treacherous sheep-killer. The details of the second
part belong really to another, a similar yaller dog, who long lived the
double-life---a faithful sheep-dog by day, and a bloodthirsty,
treacherous monster by night. Such things are less rare than is supposed,
and since writing these stories I have heard of another double-lived
sheep-dog that added to its night amusements the crowning barbarity of
murdering the smaller dogs of the neighborhood. He had killed twenty,
and hidden them in a sandpit, when discovered by his master. He died
just as Wully did.
All told, I now have information of six of these Jekyll-Hyde dogs. In
each case it happened to be a collie.
Redruff really lived in the Don Valley north of Toronto, and many of
my companions will remember him. He was killed in i88g, between the
Sugar Loaf and Castle Frank, by a creature whose name I have
withheld, as it is the species, rather than the individual, that I wish to
expose.
Silverspot, Raggylug, and Vixen are founded on real characters.
Though I have ascribed to them the adventures of more than one of

their kind, every incident in their biographies is from life.
The fact that these stories are true is the reason why all are tragic. The
life of a wild animal always has a tragic end.
Such a collection of histories naturally suggests a common thought--a
moral it would have been called in the last century. No doubt each
different mind will find a moral to its taste, but I hope some will herein
find emphasized a moral as old as Scripture--we and the beasts are kin.
Man has nothing that the animals have not at least a vestige of, the
animals have nothing that man does not in some degree share.
Since, then, the animals are creatures with wants and feelings differing
in degree only from our own, they surely have their rights. This fact,
now beginning to be recognized by the Caucasian world, was first
proclaimed by Moses and was emphasized by the Buddhist over 2,000
years ago.
ERNEST THOMPSON SET0N
LOBO The King of Currumpaw
I
CUBRUMPAW is a vast cattle range in northern New Mexico. It is a
land of rich pastures and teeming flocks and herds, a land of rolling
mesas and precious running waters that at length unite in the
Currumpaw River, from which the whole region is named. And the
king whose despotic power was felt over its entire extent was an old
gray wolf.
Old Lobo, or the king, as the Mexicans called him, was the gigantic
leader of a remarkable pack of gray wolves, that had ravaged the
Currumpaw Valley for a number of years. All the shepherds and
ranchmen knew him well, and, wherever he appeared with his trusty
band, terror reigned supreme among the cattle, and wrath and despair
among their owners. Old Lobo was a giant among wolves, and was
cunning and strong in proportion to his size. His voice at night was

well-known and easily distinguished from that of any of his fellows. An
ordinary wolf might howl half the night about the herdsman's bivouac
without attracting more than a passing notice, but when the deep roar of
the old king came booming down the canon, the watcher bestirred
himself and prepared to learn in the morning that fresh and serious
inroads had been made among the herds.
Old Lobo's band was but a small one. This I never quite understood, for
usually, when a wolf rises to the position and power that he had, he
attracts a numerous following. It may be that he had as many as he
desired, or perhaps his ferocious temper prevented the increase of his
pack. Certain is it that Lobo had only five followers during the latter
part of his reign. Each of these, however, was a wolf of renown, most
of them were above the ordinary size, one in particular, the second in
command, was a veritable giant, but even he was far below the leader
in