60 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
dogs which he respected; that is to say, he ran if 
they were on his track and used some strategy to 
get rid of them, while he avoided, so far as pos- 
sible, letting them get on his track. Two of them 
were locally bred fox hounds, one was a beagle, 
one was an Airedale who hunted with the hounds 
and was a pest because he’d go right into a hole 
and dig you out—Reddy knew of one case where 
he did this, and so was careful never to let himself 
get denned in when this dog was at his heels. 
But, as for the rest of our dogs, Big Reddy 
laughed at them.. They were, to him, most cer- 
tainly a joke. This was especially the case with 
a big, handsome, valuable collie owned by no less 
a person than myself. Poor old Barney, he was 
a show dog, a family pet, an adornment to any 
rug or any garden, but as a hunter he was foolish, 
and he had no nose; and Big Reddy knew it. He 
knew it so well that when he couldn’t think of 
anything else to do, he’d come down to -the edge 
of the woods at twilight, or, still better, at mid- 
night when we were all abed and asleep, and bark, 
a peculiar, rasping, annoying bark. The collie 
would leap out of his kennel with an answering 
