19^ The Book of Woodcraft 



coaxed Prince to leave the house, and beguiled him with 

 soft words, so that he came with us to the skunk's den in 

 the woods. It required but httle encouragement, then, 

 to get that aggressive Httle beast of a doglet to run into the 

 hole and set about making himself disagreeable to its occu- 

 pant. Presently, we were entertained with a succession of 

 growlets and barklets, then a volley of howlets, followed by 

 that awful smell — you know. 



Soon afterward, Prince reappeared, howling. For some 

 minutes he did nothing but roll himself in the snow, rub 

 his eyes and yell. So that after all, in spite of our ferret's 

 evidence, there was a skunk in the hole, and the ferret had 

 really demonstrated a vast discretion j in fact, was prob- 

 ably the discreetest ferret in Canada. 



We had got good proof of that skunk's existence but we 

 did not get him, and had to go home wondering how we 

 should square ourselves for our sacrilege in the matter of 

 the pet dog. It was Bob's job to explain, and no one tried 

 to rob him of the glory. He began by sovidng a few casual 

 remarks, such as, "Pears to me there must be a skunk 

 under the barn." Then, later, when Prince bounded in, 

 *'Phew! 'pears to me that there fool purp has been after 

 that skunk!" 



Poor Uttle Prince! It made him lose his nightly couch 

 in Abraham's bosom and condemned him to be tubbed and 

 scrubbed every day, and to sleep outdoors for a week. But 

 he had his revenge on all of us; for he barked all night, 

 and every night, under our windows. He couldn't sleep; 

 why should we? And we didn't. 



Of course, this instance is given rather as a dreadful 

 example of error than as a model for others. 



We got back from our hike that time with a lot of inter- 

 esting wild animal experience, and yet you will note we 

 did not see anv wild animal all the time. 



