110 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
them coming, and had the kittens far out of sight. 
A stray dog or two, to be sure, trailed her up the 
mountain after she had been down the slope and 
across the road into the swamp stalking pheas- 
ants. But a lone dog, without a hunter behind 
him, had no terrors for her. She did not court 
trouble, to be sure, relying on speed to escape it. 
But if she was forced to fight, she knew how, and 
if the dog got away, he was a sadder and a wiser 
pup. So Lucy grew, unmolested, with her 
brother and sisters, and learned the needed les- 
sons of life in the vocational school at first con- 
ducted by her mother, and later by that still more 
. ancient schoolmistress, Dame Nature. 
The children were brought up, in fact, much 
like domestic kittens, except they were taught to 
avoid human beings, to keep out of sight of all 
strange things, to hide from strange noises. But 
even domestic kittens are thus brought up if their 
mother has gone wild. They were taught to fight 
in play, amid the dead leaves in front of the den, 
and to bare their claws and strike quick and hard 
when the mother cat pretended to resent their 
attempts to play with her, and made lightning 
