The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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TIEING A GROWN WOLF FOOT WITH A ROPE AND
PULLING IT OUT OF A CAVE ALIVE
By S. C. Turnbo
Mr. J. W. (Jim) Jones, son of Hugh Jones and the present proprietor of the
Jones Ferry at the mouth of Music Creek on White River, give me the following
account of taking wolves out of a cave on Trimbles Creek in Marion County,
Ark. He said that after he had taken 5 young wolves from this cave for 4
years in succession and when the 5th year rolled around, said Mr. Jones,
"I concluded to break up the den and one day in the spring of the 5th
year I and two sons of Asa Yocum, Mike and John, and Oliver Risley, John
Clark and Felix Jones went to the den to make a clean sweep of the young
wolves that the old ones were rearing in the cave. I and Felix crawled into
the opening and discovered one of the old ones in there which was in a narrow
part of the cavern and we crawfished back to the entrance. After we all
talked the matter over I got a stout but short pole and a grass rope and
with these I and Felix went back into the cave and found that the wolf had
crouched down in a crevice of rock and when I crawled in reach of her I
placed one end of the pole against the wolf and pressed her against the
rock while Felix who was only ten years old tied one end of the rope to
one of the wolf’s hind feet. She made but little resistance. After
getting her foot tied we both went out of the cave backward again and the
other men pulled her out of the den. The animal was so bad cowed that she
made no attempt to fight. We kept her a few hours at the cave before we
killed her. Soon after we had dragged the old wolf out alive the whelps
re-treated further back into the cavern and we were not able to reach them
that day but in a day or two thereafter we returned back to the den again
and succeeded in slaying three of the young ones and shot and killed a grown
one which broke up the den for a few years at least. The total number of
young wolves taken out of this cave during the 5 years was 23 whelps and
one old one, and the one shot at the cave made a total of 25," said
Mr. Jones.
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