for the creature's personal cleanliness, or else is 

 proof of his extreme caution against discovery. 



The odor will easily carry with the wind three 

 miles. On the spot where the animal has been 

 shot, you will remember it a twelvemonth after 

 whenever it rains. "Do you want to know how 

 to shoot a skunk on your kitchen steps and never 

 know it twenty-four hours after?" queried my 

 Kennebec authority on these beasts. I did, of 

 course, though I never expected a skunk to take 

 up his stand on my kitchen steps and compel me 

 to despatch him. 



"Well, shoot him dead, of course ; then let him 

 lie there three days. All that smell will come 

 back to him, no matter how far off it 's gone. 

 It '11 all come up out of the boards, too, and go 

 into him, and you can carry him away by the 

 tail and never know a skunk 's been on the 

 farm. It 's curious how a skunk can make a 

 smell, but never have any ; and it 's curious how 

 it all returns to him when he dies. Most things 

 are curious, ain't they?" I agreed that they 

 were. 



But to return to my family in the ravine. 

 The next morning I went back to the glen and 

 [293] 



