Harimu had not come empty-handed this time either. He brought Li Long a pair of red deer fawns, two pairs of red deer antlers, and a pile of little roe deer antlers.
Handing these things to Li Long, Harimu said apologetically:
"They confiscated our guns too. Without guns, we can't shoot wolves now. My young men have seen quite a few wolves while herding sheep in the mountains, but without guns, all they can do is scare them away. Things will be more troublesome for us from now on. Even when there are wolves, we can't shoot them. We can only hope there'll be fewer wolf disasters in the next few years."
Li Long knew there really would not be many wolf disasters in the years ahead, mainly because a wolf's pelt, teeth, and ankle bones were worth one or two thousand yuan altogether, and would fetch even more later. Some people would go into the mountains specifically to hunt wolves. If the Forestry Bureau caught them, so be it; if not, they made a tidy sum.
So there would be fewer and fewer wolves in the forests. Wild boars, on the other hand, produced large litters and were a menace to the forest.
These next couple of years might be difficult, though. After all, neither wolf pelts nor wolf teeth fetched much at this point. Most mountain pastoralists were switching to settled livestock farming, while ordinary people in the plains were still thinking about making money from crops. Hunting had not yet entered their considerations.
Li Long smiled and said, "Hire more young men. Your cattle and sheep herds are big anyway. Have them carry knives and sticks. They won't be at a disadvantage against three or five wolves."
Harimu smiled wryly. "That's all we can do. Right, I