60 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
a paw, two paws, dug quickly, and two feet below 
the surface unearthed a nice ham bone. There 
was no need of running further risks. ‘The bone 
in his mouth, he trotted back up the slope. 
The next night he thought he’d see if there was 
any such luck again. Sure enough, in the very 
same place, he smelled more meat! This time it 
was a chunk of lamb bones, with good, warming 
fat on them, too! Reddy was delighted. He 
returned a third, a fourth, a fifth night, and each 
trip was rewarded. His belly was getting quite 
rotund, and he slept heavily all day long. On 
the sixth night, however, as his nose sniffed the 
magic snow-drift, his eyes went narrow, and he 
didn’t dig. Around and around the spot he 
trotted, and down the man track toward the 
house, where he discovered the ladder had been 
removed from the coop, then back to sniff again. 
There was meat under the snow, all right, but 
there was something else, too, he couldn’t quite 
tell what at first. ‘Then it came to him; he’d en- 
countered it once or twice near a barn—it was 
rusty iron. What was rusty iron doing there? 
iYes, and a man’s fingers had touched it. Reddy 
