Many years after Russell’s death, people still remembered the informal yet extraordinary wax sculptures of animals that the artist made to amuse himself and his friends. Russell’s extraordinary ability to capture the essence of an animal’s movement was the result of his natural powers of observation and the early years he spent in Montana under the tutelage of the trapper and hunter Jake Hoover. Russell maintained that his knowledge of animal anatomy derived in part from seeing the animals “inside out” when they were skinned and processed. At the same time, Russell and Hoover spent countless hours simply observing the animals in the wild; Hoover himself never hunted near his own cabin, lest he frighten the wild animals away. This small tableau in dark red-colored wax, showing a mountain lion protecting its fresh kill from a slinking wolf, is a masterpiece of naturalistic detail. The tension in the lion’s tautly coiled muscles echoes those of the crouching wolf; any moment one expects the scene to explode once the wolf gets too close to the lion and its meal. The animals were originally painted, but much of the paint has discolored under layers of old varnish. Bloody scars can still be seen on the throat of the dead deer, and touches of yellowish color can still be seen on the lion’s body. Russell affixed the animals to two crudely fashioned pieces of an old packing crate that he nailed together before adding more colored wax to create the grassy area that separates the two predators.