Coyote Hunter Advance Agent of Civilization
“Coyote Hunter Advance Agent of Civilization: How the Trapper Works Ahead of the Settler in the Undeveloped Parts of the Great West”
If advocates of the simple life wish to see their doctrines followed to the letter, they should arrange to spend a few days with one of the coyote hunters who can be found in the remote portions of the Rocky mountain states, far from the railroads.
These trappers live a life that is very different from the strenuous existence followed by the trappers in the days of the great fur companies. Then the trapper had to content himself with such supplies as he could pack on the back of a horse, and sometimes he depended solely on what he could kill with his rifle. But to-day the trapper lives in a white-topped wagon, where he has about all the comforts of home. Driving a stout team, he wanders over the prairies and mountains, setting his coyote and wolf traps and generally reaping a substantial income from the annual yield of skins. The bounties paid by Western states for coyote hides will repay a skillful trapper for his trouble and expense in catching the animals, and then there is a good profit in selling prime hides for robes.
The coyote hunter is welcome wherever he goes in the West, for he is recognized as the advance agent of civilization. Without him to clear the range of the coyote pest, the settler would be suffering constant losses. Chickens, sheep and calves are taken as tributes by the gray prowler whose skulking form can be seen on the horizon in any of the more undeveloped portions of the West.
An instance of the usefulness of the coyote hunter is found in the country along the Wyoming-Colorado line. Sixty miles from the nearest railroad, in the Little Snake river valley, the Routt County Development Company of Denver is engaged in building a sixty-mile ditch that will reclaim some 50,000 acres of land. This land, which will be sold in tracts of from 40 to 160 acres, under the Carey act, which permits of a state to dispose of its land under certain restrictions, will draw thousands of settlers to a country that has heretofore been devoted to cattle and sheep raising. Before the land is settled the Moffat road, now in process of construction from Denver to Salt Lake, will tap the lower end of the Little Snake river project—but before the railroad or the settlers arrive it is first desired to rid the country of its coyote pests. So one of the most skilled coyote hunters in the West, Will Mitchell, is operating in this Colorado-Wyoming country that is soon to wake to the touch of civilization. By the time the water is turned into the big ditch on the Little Snake river there will not be a coyote left within a radius of 100 miles, and the settlers in this new El Dorado will not have to pay the usual high tribute to the Western scourge.
Trapper Mitchell is typical of the members of a strange profession. First of all, he is an ardent lover of nature. This finds expression in drawing and painting and some of his water colors are above the average work of those who have had the benefit of schooling. Nothing suits the trapper better than his wild, free life, in his big camp wagon. His pelts bring him ready cash, so he never lacks for ample supplies. The winters in this country are mild, and he pursues his vocation all the year round. In proper season he has no lack of deer and antelope meat, and higher up in the hills he often brings down a noble elk. Wolves, bear and other animals besides the coyote, are occasionally shot, and, in short, there is no lack of variety in the trapper’s life.
Trapper Mitchell has picked up some strange pets in the course of his years of work on the plains. At present he is lavishing his affections on a pet wolf which he captured a little over a year ago. The wolf was a mere puppy when the trapper caught her, and he proceeded at once with her training. Soon she learned to come to him like a kitten. Then she developed an affection for the trapper’s big black dog. To-day there are three beautiful little wolf-dog puppies playing about the trapper’s wagon, and the once savage mother could not be driven away from the camp. When near a town or ranch house, the trapper is compelled to chain up his pet wolf, as she is nervous in the presence of strangers, and might show fight. Out on the plains, however, the wolf is unchained, and follows the wagon like a dog. She demonstrates the greatest affection for the trapper, allowing the man to take her in his arms and fondle her, and never showing the least sign of anger. In fact she is even more tractable than the trapper’s dog, whose temper is somewhat uncertain.
This tame wolf has acted as a decoy to bring many a prairie wolf within range of the trapper’s rifle. Ranging over the hills she has attracted the attention of wolves returning to their dens in the morning after an all-night feast on some newly killed steer. This has enabled the trapper to get in many a deadly shot and bring to camp many a fine wolf skin that otherwise he would have missed. The half-breed puppies, singularly enough, seem to be more dog than wolf. Their fur is thicker and darker than an ordinary puppy’s, but otherwise they would be taken at first glance for full-bred dogs. The puppies seem equally divided in affection as far as the father and mother are concerned.
While poisoning is practiced to a great extent among coyote hunters, Trapper Mitchell finds that well baited traps are best for all-round work. He plants many of these traps in a day, and, so skilfully does he bait them, that he is generally well rewarded when he makes the rounds.
It is a remarkable fact that, while other wild animals of the West have suffered at the hands of hunters the coyote has continued to flourish. In order to rid a section of the country of coyotes a regular business must be made of hunting the animals down.