| Summary: | bush, the carnivorous animal came into range. Years later L. B. Hanna still took pleasure in the memory of this first coyote which he bagged. Some indefinable feeling permeates anyone looking into a wolf's eye, even a dead one. A dog, boastfully baying forth a midnight alarm in farming territory, and to his surprise, scaring up a slinking coyote, will carry a look of greater fiercesness in his eyes forever after. Unless dulled by repetition, it is an experience never quite forgotten by a man. The majority of settlers never enjoyed this thrill, and they saw these animals only roaming at a great distance. The farmers on warm summer nights walked the buggy trails between the tall weeds and grass with a languid sense of security and domain, i WILD CATS ~ Settlers in this part of Dakota never carried revolvers or knives habitually as side-arms, as did the Metis, and the Bad Lands cowboy, even though a black bear was shot within the city limits of Fargo-Moorhead as late as 1875, and "two formidable looking wildcats were killed at Forest City" in 1884, while a mountain lion was reported doing much damage to calves and sheep in Kidder County. In 1887, a Canada lynx was shot "standing twenty- two inches high at the shoulder" near the Maple River south of Casselton. Perhaps this was a crested wildcat. GREY FOX-"Page Locals," Dec. 14, 1883: "Grey foxes are reported within a few hundred yards of town. They were attracted by the carcass of a dead mule . . . The shot-gun policy was adopted, but so far without success." Game of this kind did more abound. Local residents were far too busy breaking and backsetting most of the time to reap the wild abundance. LAST ELK — Probably the last elk on record was shot by P. J. Reis and J. H. Wheeler, just north of section 5, Rochester Township. They had been out trapping. This was in November of 1883. (30) DEER AND ANTELOPE - That year antelope end elk were still seen in the hundreds around Devils Lake area, and the paper observes: "Several antelopes have been killed near New Rockford during the past week. It is a somewhat rare but choice game." "Push" Bauley, who moved from Page to Carrington with hunting in mind in 1907 was disappointed to find no deer there. There were none until 1938, he says, when they were re-inducted by the Fish and Game Department. The Maple River slough west of Page, in contrast, always contained a few deer. It still does. Since the 1880's Page hunters have been going to the Minnesota woods and along the Sheyenne to bag deer. LATEST MOOSE — As if to confound sceptics concerning the ancient abundance of wild game, a moose suddenly appeared one day in our area in 1955! Not long afterward he was found dead in a swamp near Galesburg, with seventeen 22-cal. pellets in him. Could you guess where we located a picture of the moose for our use? It was in the scrap-book being kept by Mrs. Alice Brownlee, who is nearly ninety years young. Left to right: "Shorty" Dale Woodbury, Bob Iverson, Charles Zerface, Andy Otterness (owner), Mrs. Fred Garland, and daughter Sandra, "Sonny" Olson, Fred Garland, Wayne Otterness, Charley Jensen, "Jimmy" Zerface, Fred Rickel, and Sid Zerface. 23 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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