a wolf; but there was something about 

 the habits of each that would not fit the 

 incident and we went to bed with the 

 problem still unsolved. 



After breakfast the following morn- 

 ing, we went down to the shore and 

 examined our boat. The thin part of 

 the prow above the water line had been 

 bitten through and a splinter a half- 

 inch thick and eight inches long had 

 been torn out. The marks of very sharp 

 clean cutting teeth plainly showed at 

 the upper end of the break. Short 

 brown hairs were sticking to the rough 

 edges of the bow, and on the keel for a 

 space of eighteen inches back of the 

 bow. 



"That fellow must have thought a 

 tree fell on him," said Bige. The boat, 

 we found did not leak, so we went fish- 

 ing. Passing a small island about a mile 

 up the pond, we noticed a young green 

 poplar tree had fallen into the water. 

 There had been no wind storm for 

 months and we did not know of any 



9 



