Jake cared little about the loss, but was filled with indignation
against the thief.

He was now installed as wolver to the Broadarrow outfit. That is, he was
supplied with poison, traps, and Horses, and was also entitled to all he
could make out of Wolf bounties. A reliable man would have gotten pay in
addition, for the ranchmen are generous, but Jake was not reliable.

Every wolver knows, of course, that his business naturally drops into
several well-marked periods.

In the late whiter and early spring--the love-season--the Hounds will
not hunt a She-wolf. They will quit the trail of a He-wolf at this time
--to take up that of a She-wolf, but when they do overtake her, they,
for some sentimental reason, invariably let her go in peace. In August
and September the young Coyotes and Wolves are just beginning to run
alone, and they are then easily trapped and poisoned. A month or so
later the survivors have learned how to take care of themselves, but in
the early summer the wolver knows that there are dens full of little
ones all through the hills. Each den has from five to fifteen pups, and
the only difficulty is to know the whereabouts of these family homes.

One way of finding the dens is to watch from some tall butte for a
Coyote carrying food to its brood. As this kind of wolving involved much
lying still, it suited Jake very well. So, equipped with a Broadarrow
arrow Horse and the boss's field-glasses, he put in week after week at
den-hunting--that is, lying asleep in some possible look-out, with an
occasional glance over the country when it seemed easier to do that than
to lie still.