The Harris Centennial
Harris --The past 100 Years
English Hold Wolf Hunts from Horseback in Fall of
1886
Page 24
In the fall of 1886 there were a number of the businessmen in Sibley who were English. They thought a wolf hunt great sport and they kept a pack of 30 hounds in a pen near the creamery and fed them on buttermilk.
Mr. Daggett, the Ocheyedan banker at the time, told me what sport it was to go with them on a hunt and I said I would like to join them sometime. He told me he would let me know the next time they came this way.
Not many days later I was at home sitting in the shade of a tree getting my hair cut and it was about half finished when Mr. Daggett rode up and told me that the English were east of the Ocheyedan Mound trying to start a wolf hunt. Not caring how my hair looked, I ran to the barn and got my speediest horse and was on my way to join in the hunt. When I reached what is now the Frank Hromatko farm, the hunters were about one-half mile south sitting on their mounts surrounding a low spot covered with long grass. The hounds were all in the grass.
Then suddenly one hound bayed, the bugler blew his horn, all of the hounds bayed and the hunt was on. The wolf ran westward and by the time I got to the next hill I could see the hounds going through Mr. Fletcher’s yard, and from there the wolf turned south, then east, and I was soon in the midst of the chase.
The wind was blowing strong from the south, so the hounds did not take the trail directly behind the wolf but kept ten to fifteen yards to the windward as the scent had carried that far to one side.
The hounds that are speediest at first are not the ones that overtake the game as it is real hard to lead for only a short time, then another hound will take the lead. One of the hunters carries a whip with a four-foot stalk, a whistle on one end and a lash on the other. When some of the hounds get slow the hunter with the whip cracks it to make the slow ones quit the trail and catch up with the pack. Some times they had to whip them.
The wolf crossed on the south side of our farm on section nine, Allison Township, then took the diagonal road from our place to the Thomas farm. There were some trees on the north side of the farm and the hounds lost the trail for a short time. Soon one of the hounds bayed, the bugle was blown, more music by all the hounds, and away they went.
The wolf took a slanting road toward Lake Park and we could have outrun the wolf very easily but the hunters kept telling us not to crowd the hounds. The hunters were sure that the hounds would soon get the wolf now.
The wolf soon left the road and disappeared into a hole and the hunters were all agreed that they had never seen a wolf going into a hole before.
I went to the Thomas place for a spade to dig him out, but while I was gone, one of the hounds went into the hole and pulled his wolf-ship out, and when I arrived with the spade, the hunters had the wolf skinned, his head off and the feet cut off for trophies of the hunt. The hunter blew his whistle and the hunt was over, and men and dogs started homeward.
One of the hounds had been bitten by the wolf and when Ocheyedan was reached a livery was hired to take the wounded dog to Sibley. The hunters show no mercy to the dogs while in the hunt but when it is over they take the very best care of their hounds.
In the case of this hunt, the wolf covered
about nine miles and the chase ended on section one in Allison
Township.