that he was compelled to tie the rope in a hard knot to the pommel of his saddle.  His horse was a wheeler on the rope, so Juan dismounted to pet his buck.  While he held on to the rope assisting his horse, an Eagle Chief man slipped up and cut the rope through the knot, and the next moment a Mexican was burning the grass, calling on saints and others to come and help him turn the antelope loose.  When the rope had burned its way through his gloved hands, he looked at them in astonishment, saying, “That was one bravo buck.  How come thees rope untie?” But there was none to explain, and an antelope was dragging thirty-five feet of rope in a frantic endeavor to overtake his band.

The line had been closing gradually until at this juncture it had been condensed to about five miles, or a horseman to every fifty feet.  Wolves had been sighted numerous times running from covert to covert, but few had shown themselves to the flank line, being contented with such shelter as the scraggy plum brush afforded.  Whenever the beaters would rout or sight a wolf, the yelling would continue up and down the line for several minutes.  Cave and his well-formed circle of beaters were making good time; Reese on the left flank was closing and moving forward, while the line under Lynch was as impatient as it was hilarious.  Miller made the circle every half hour or so; and had only to mention it to pick any horse he wanted from the entire line for a change.

By one o’clock the drive had closed to the entrance of the pocket, and within a mile and a half of the termination.  There was yet enough cover to hide the quarry, though the extreme point of this horseshoe was a sand bar with no shelter except driftwood trees.  Edwards and his squad were at their post across the river, in plain view of the advancing line.  Suddenly they were seen to dismount and lie down on the brink of the cut-bank.  A few minutes later chaos broke out along the line, when a band of possibly twenty wolves left their cover and appeared on the sand bar.  A few rifle shots rang out from the opposite bank, when they skurried back to cover.

Shooting was now becoming dangerous.  In the line was a horseman every ten or twelve feet.  All the captains rode up and down begging the men to cease shooting entirely.  This only had a temporary effect, for shortly the last bit of cover was passed, and there within four hundred yards on the bar was a snarling, snapping band of gray wolves.

The line was halted.  The unlooked-for question now arose how to make the kill safe and effective.  It would be impossible to shoot from the opposite bank without endangering the line of men and horses.  Finally a small number of rifles were advanced on the extreme left flank to within two hundred yards of the quarry, where they opened fire at an angle from the watchers on the opposite bank.  They proved poor marksmen, overshooting, and only succeeded in wounding a few and forcing several to take to the water, so that it became necessary to recall the men to the line.