Russell modeled the small figure of a wolf shying away from a bottle in 1920. Like some of his other small bronzes of the period, the base is modeled in the form of an ash tray. Russell’s title for the work, To Noses That Read, A Smell That Spells Man, appears on the surface of the base—one of the few instances where he inscribed a title directly on one of his bronzes. In a skillfully rendered moment, the wary animal recoils from the scent of an object that represents the wolf’s bitter enemy, man. Ernest Thompson Seton, a naturalist who like Russell championed the wolf’s right to exist, wrote in 1907 that the animals seemed to become more wary and cunning with each passing year, thwarting man’s attempts to exterminate them entirely. Seton noted that the animal’s survival stemmed from its extreme sense of caution. “It is well known among hunters that a piece of iron is enough to protect any carcass from the wolves,” he wrote. “If a deer or an antelope has been shot and left out overnight, all that is needed for its protection is an old horse-shoe, a spur, or even any part of the hunter’s dress. No wolf will go near such suspicious-looking or human-tainted things.” The plaster model of the sculpture was exhibited in Denver in December 1921, and the bronze was shown in Los Angeles the following March. It is not known how many of the casts, if any, were sold prior to the artist’s death in October 1926. At least one of Russell’s major patrons rejected the work because of the reference to liquor; the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution—prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages—had been ratified into law in 1919. Russell, like many of his friends, opposed the measure, although he himself had stopped drinking many years earlier. The bronze pictured here, cast by the California Art Bronze Foundry, was the only example remaining in Nancy Russell’s estate at the time of her death in May 1940.