THE LAST WOLF. 285 



A. few days afterwards a man, by the name of Poison, 

 who resided at Wester Helmsdale, followed up the search, 

 by minutely examining the wild recesses in the neighbour- 

 hood of Glen-Loth, which he fancied had not been sufficiently 

 attended to before. He was accompanied only by two 

 young lads, one of them his son, and the other an active 

 herd boy. Poison was an old hunter, and had much experi- 

 ence in tracing and destroying wolves and other predatory 

 animals : forming his own conjectures, he proceeded at once 

 to the wild and rugged ground that surrounds the rocky 

 mountain gully which forms the channel of the burn of 

 Sledale. Here, after a minute investigation, he discovered 

 a narrow fissure in the midst of a confused mass of large 

 fragments of rock, which, upon examination, he had reason 

 to think might lead to a larger opening or cavern below, 

 which the wolf might use as his den. Stones were now 

 thrown down, and other means resorted to, to rouse any 

 animal that might be lurking within. Nothing formidable 

 appearing, the two lads contrived to squeeze themselves 

 through the fissure, that they might examine the interior, 

 whilst Poison kept guard on the outside. The boys de- 

 scended through the narrow passage into a small cavern, 

 which was evidently a wolfs den, for the ground was 

 covered with bones and horns of animals, feathers, and 

 egg-shells, and the dark space was somewhat enlivened 

 by five or six active wolf cubs. Not a little dubious 

 of the event, the voice of the poor boys came up hollow 

 and anxious from below communicating this intelligence. 

 Poison at once desired them to do their best, and to 

 destroy the cubs. Soon after he heard the feeble howling 

 of the whelps, as they were attacked below, and saw 

 almost at the same time, to his great horror, a full-grown 

 wolf, evidently the darn, raging furiously at the cries of 

 her young, and now close upon the mouth of the cavern, 

 which she had approached unobserved among the rocky 

 inequalities of the place. She attempted to leap down, at 

 one bound, from the spot where she was first seen : in this 

 emergency, Poison instinctively threw himself forward on 

 the wolf, and succeeded in catching a firm hold of the 

 animal's long and bushy tail, just as the fore part of the 



