the cow-punchers looked upon it as a part of the day's work.
Late in February when the sun had mounted higher in the heavens and its rays were warmer the snow would melt in sheltered spots on warm days. Then a very perceptible odor from these pathetic little piles of snow was noticed on the spring air.
It was to the call of such an allurement as this that Two Toes the Terrible led his band of seven grizzled hunters over the mountains that hemmed in the Crooked Creek ranch on the north and down onto the upper plateau. Two Toes was by far the most destructive wolf that had ever harassed the cattle growers of the northwest. In four states bounties were set upon his scalp by both county governments and private corporations. The aggregate of these bounties was fifteen hundred dollars so it will be well understood that the stock men wished to get rid of him. He had killed sheep by the thousands in South Dakota. He and his band would steal upon the sheep when they were bunched for the night and the shepherds were asleep and they would scatter before the onset of the wolves like chaff before the wind. Then for several days they would go about killing the small bands of unfortunate sheep. They had been known to kill as many as three hundred in a single night, while for the shepherd to find twenty or thirty terribly mangled
