I have several times seen wolves run down and stopped by greyhounds after a break-neck gallop and a wildly exciting finish, but this was the only occasion on which I ever saw the dogs kill a big, full-grown he-wolf unaided.  Nevertheless various friends of mine own packs that have performed the feat again and again.  One pack, formerly kept at Fort Benton, until wolves in that neighborhood became scarce, had nearly seventy-five to its credit, most of them killed without any assistance from the hunter; killed moreover by the greyhounds alone, there being no other dogs with the pack.  These greyhounds were trained to the throat-hold, and did their own killing in fine style; usually six or eight were slipped together.  General Miles informs me that he once had great fun in the Indian Territory hunting wolves with a pack of greyhounds.  They had with the pack a large stub-tailed mongrel, of doubtful ancestry but most undoubted fighting capacity.  When the wolf was started the greyhounds were sure to overtake it in a mile or two; they would then bring it to a halt and stand around it in a ring until the fighting dog came up.  The latter promptly tumbled on the wolf, grabbing him anywhere, and often getting a terrific wound himself at the same time.  As soon as he had seized the wolf and was rolling over with him in the grapple the other dogs joined in the fray and dispatched the quarry without much danger to themselves.

During the last decade many ranchmen in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, have developed packs of greyhounds able to kill a wolf unassisted.  Greyhounds trained for this purpose always seize by the throat; and the light dogs used for coursing jack-rabbits are not of much service, smooth or rough-haired greyhounds and deer-hounds standing over thirty inches at the shoulder and weighing over ninety pounds being the only ones that, together with speed, courage, and endurance, possess the requisite power.

One of the most famous packs in the West was that of the Sun River Round Club, in Montana, started by the stockmen of Sun River to get rid of the curse of wolves which infested the neighborhood and worked very serious damage to the herds and flocks.  The pack was composed of both greyhounds and deer-hounds, the best being from the kennels of Colonel Williams and of Mr. Van Hummel, of Denver; they were handled by an old plainsman and veteran wolf-hunter named Porter.  In the season of ’86 the astonishing number of 146 wolves were killed with these dogs.  Ordinarily, as soon as the dogs seized a wolf, and threw or held it, Porter rushed in and stabbed it with his hunting-knife; one day, when out with six hounds, he thus killed no less than twelve out of the fifteen wolves started, though one of the greyhounds was killed, and all the others were cut and exhausted.  But often the wolves were killed without his aid.  The first time the two biggest hounds—­deer-hounds or wire-haired greyhounds—­were tried, when they had been at the ranch only three days, they performed