I recently had a relative send me this old story published over 50 years ago. Since it’s reached its 50 year limit, I thought I’d share it with you over the next few days. It’s quite the story!
Lost among the wolves by Mary E. Witherup in Wyoming Magazine, Vol VIII No. 2 June-July 1975, pages 36-39.
Father came in for supplies for his improvised camp in the mountains and, finding the colt dead, hitched the team to it and dragged it out on the hills. Then he cut it up and scattered it around putting strychnine on it, using it as bait to poison wolves, coyotes, mountain lions and wildcats which, at this time, infested the country and caused much loss to ranchers.
After dinner, on this particular day, Father packed up and returned to the logging camp.
It was a bright day in late March. We children played out of doors with our stick horses. When Mother came to call us in before dark, brother Donnie was nowhere to be found.
“Where did you girls see him last?” she asked.
“He rode off that way,” we pointed down the river, ‘said he was going to hunt papa’s horses.”
We all ran in that direction, shouting and calling his name. We hunted as far and as long as we could, but no Donnie. MOTHER GREW DESPERATE, Auntie had not returned;, other horses were turned out and she was afoot. She must go for help.
She brought us in, put some extra wood in the stove, then filled and lit the kerosene lamp. I remember the white look on her face as she set it in the middle of the table and turned it somewhat low; remember also the feeling of unnamed fear that came over me as I watched the unusual proceedings. Our lamps were never lit until very dark, as of necessity, we had to skimp on kerosene.
“Now girls,” she said, “do not touch the lamp or crawl on the table, and keep away from the stove. I am going to get help to find Donnie.”
She hugged us to her in an emotional clasp while she asked God, in a tear wet prayer, to take care of Donnie and us and bring us all safely back together again. The saga of Homesteading is written in the prayers, tears and trials of the women. She told Esther to take good care of the baby and was out the door and gone before we could comprehend what was really taking place.
It was growing dark and I know Mother literally ran all the way, fighting her course through the tall sagebrush, and brier patches, dodging the wild range cattle huddled in the brush along Crooked Creek, scrambling over the rocks and up hills and down ravines till she reached Ainsworths.
Luckily, here were saddle horses and men, who mounted and sped away to other ranches to spread the news and get more help. To the Helmers, the Colemans, the Bramers, the Browns, and the Vaughns, our wonderful neighbors, they went and soon had a goodly posse on the way.
Back in the dugout Esther and I looked at each other in awed silence. We waited and listened in the strange dread for the haunting screams of wolves seemingly coming nearer. Then the baby cried and cried. Esther could not quiet her until she cleverly devised a sugar teat. Cutting a corner from a dishtowel, she put a spoonful of sugar on it and tied it up in a tight little bag, with a strong string, dipped in the water pail and gave it to the baby to suck. This did the trick and Gladys slept.
In the following silence, the howls of the wolf pack sounded louder.
“Why don’t Donnie come?” I simpered.
“It’s dark and the wolves must have got him,” Esther answered. We looked at each other in horror and shuddered at the thought.
“They were coming nearer,” I whispered with great concern. The pioneer child learns early to distinguish sounds. “And Mother never shut in the chickens, or closed the barn door,” added Esther, “and they might get Cowslip’s calf too.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
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