A Deadly Fight with a Wolf on the Road to Camp
Two men without weapons were forced to battle a belligerent wolf using only an ax and their own strength during a harrowing journey through the snow.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
One day last week as James Mooney was driving from Woodbury's to the Ten-mile camp, a wolf confronted them, boldly disputing the highway. The horses were driven as far as possible, and turned into the deep snow off the beaten track. Fortunately, Mr. Chase was with Mr. Mooney, but neither of them had any sort of a weapon. The woodman's ever-present ax, however, was at hand. This Mooney seized and made for the belligerent foe, but the animal dodged a well-directed blow aimed at his head, and the ax fell from Mooney's grasp. At this time it looked as if it was about 'all day' with the young man, as the wolf leaped for him and made sad havoc with his clothes, though it had not succeeded in injuring him, when it had to turn its attention to Mr. Chase, who had recovered the ax and gone to the rescue. The agility of the animal caused Mr. Chase, in turn, to lose the ax before having inflicted upon it much injury. Young Mooney again got the ax, and luckily hit the wolf a stunning blow on the head. The howl of rage and pain it uttered, as it fell, frightened the horses and they began to run. Mooney dropped the ax to stop the team, and Mr. Chase dispatched the wounded beast.
“At this time it looked as if it was about 'all day' with the young man, as the wolf leaped for him and made sad havoc with his clothes.”
While wildlife encounters in the Seattle area now usually involve urban coyotes or the rare cougar, this account captures the visceral reality of 1880s travel, where logging roads were deep wilderness and survival was often a matter of who held the tool.
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