The Wolf-Dog of the Grande Ronde
A ranger’s loyal pet answers the call of the wild, but gives his life to defend his master against his own pack.
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.
He had been called Wolf since puppyhood. He stood nearly forty inches, with a small ragged, rail-like body and unusually long legs that ended in great, soft, padlike feet. Jack Stern, Steve Wormell's partner, used to say that the dog could not turn round in their cabin without knocking over the table and chairs. One evening, as Steve and Jack sat playing cribbage, a wolf howled lugubriously from the mountain side. Soon, the dog Wolf sat on a mound near the cabin, howling a cry quite unlike his usual sound. He eventually disappeared to lead a pack of wild wolves. One day, Steve encountered the pack near the breaks of the Grande Ronde. When Steve called out, the dog sprang toward his former master. The pack rushed the ranger, and Steve was forced to fight off the snapping mass. When help arrived, Steve was found with the shaggy head of Wolf pillowed in his lap. The dog had fought against his own blood to save his master and had died in the process.
“He fought for me, Jack. He gave his life for me. How he fought? And against his own blood, too.”
Stories of wild-domestic hybrids—like wolf-dogs—remain a source of fascination and peril in the American West. This historical account from the Grande Ronde region captures the tension between the domestication of nature and the persistent, untamed call of the wild.
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