260 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
but I’ve never heard of a Saint Bernard being 
employed as a ’coon dog; certainly Benedick and 
Beatrice would never have been selected for that 
arduous and highly specialized profession. Alla 
coon had to do to escape either or both of them 
was to amble up the nearest tree—anything would 
do, from a two-hundred-year-old oak to a ten- 
year sapling, just so it did not bend with the 
weight—and stay there till the dog went away, 
or else move into another tree, drop to the ground, 
and amble off to safety. The result was that 
Rastus and his fellows were almost entirely with- 
out fear of dogs, and rambled by night where 
they chose, seeking meat even in the garbage cans 
and washing it in the brook which ran down 
through the hemlocks beside the big house, or now 
and then raiding the chicken yard or the corn- 
field, for though they were not vegetarians, they 
were not averse to green food at times, especially 
corn. Indeed, they ate nearly anything. 
Rastus originally was one of a large family of 
five. He came of a hardy race, too, for his 
father, who weighed twenty pounds, had gnawed 
his own tail completely off the winter before 
