In the early settlement of the west, the pioneers suffered not only from the ruthless savage, but fearfully from the _wolf_. Many are the tales of terror told of these ferocious enemies of the white man, and his civilization. Many was the hunter, Indian as well as the Angle-Saxon, whose bones, made marrowless by the prowling hordes of the dark forest, have been scattered and bleached upon the war-path or Indian trail of the back-woods. In 1812-13, my father was contractor for the north-western army, under command of Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison. He supplied the army with beef; he bought up cattle along the Sciota valley and Ohio river, and drove them out to the army, then located at Sandusky. Chillicothe, then, was a small settlement on the Sciota river, and protected by a block house or rude fort, in which the inhabitants could scramble if the Indians made their appearance. My father resided here, and having collected a large drove of cattle, he set out up the valley with a few mounted men as a kind of guard to protect the drove against the prowling minions of Tecumseh. The third day out, late in the afternoon, being very warm weather, there arose a most terrific thunder-storm; the huge trees, by the violence of the wind and sharp lightning, were uprooted and rent into thousands of particles, and the panic-stricken herd scattered in every direction. I have seen the havoc made in forests through which one of these tornadoes has taken its way, or I should be incredulous to suppose whole acres of trees, hundreds of years old, could be torn up, or snapped off like reeds upon the river side. The fury of the whirlwind seemed to increase as the night grew darker, until cattle, men and horses, were killed, crippled and dispersed. My father crawled under the lee of a large sycamore that had fell, and here, partly protected from the rain and falling timber, he lay down. I have camped out some, and can readily anticipate the comfort of the old gentleman's situation, and not at all disposed was he to go to sleep mounted upon such guard. At length the work of destruction and ruin being done, the storm abated, the rain ceased to _pour_ and the winds to wag their noisy tongues so furiously. A wolf _howl_, and of all fearful howls, or yelps uttered by beasts of prey, none can, I think, be more alarming and terrific to the ear than the _wolf_ howl as he scents carnage. A wolf howl broke fearfully upon the drover's ear as he lay crouched beneath the sycamore. It was a familiar sound, and therefore, and _then_ the more dreadful. The drover carried a good Yeager rifle, knife, and pistols, but a man laden with arms in the midst of a troop of famished wolves, was as helpless as the tempest-tossed mariner in the midst of the ocean's storm. The _howl_ had scarcely echoed over the dark wood, before it was answered by dozens on every side! And as the drover's keen eye pierced the gloom around him, the dancing, fiery glare of the wolf's eyes met his wistful gaze.