Our farmer, sufficiently occupied in building an house and barn, felling woods, making fences, sowing grain, planting orchards, and taking care of his stock, had to encounter in turn the calamities occasioned by drought in summer, blast in harvest, loss of cattle in winter, and the desolation of his sheepfold by wolves.
In one night he had seventy fine sheep and goats killed, besides many lambs and kids wounded.

This havoc was committed by a she-wolf, which, with her annual whelps, had for several years infested the vicinity.

The young were commonly destroyed by the vigilance of the hunters, but the old one was too sagacious to come within reach of gunshot.

Upon being closely pursued she would generally fly to the western woods, and return the next winter with another litter of whelps.

This wolf at length became such an intolerable nuisance that Farmer Putnam entered into a combination with five of his neighbors to hunt alternately until they could destroy her.