262 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
and much less than that after a winter’s hiberna- 
tion sleep. However, the man who first caught 
him should have known he was strong, for this 
man, dragging him out of a hole he was trying to 
dig into a frozen drain, got him with both hands 
back of the head and tried to hold him down in 
vain. So long as the ’coon had his four feet on 
the ground, he could literally carry the man 
along on his back. 
After his second escape, father ’coon got back 
to the mountain cliffs and wilderness, and was 
later privileged to see his five offspring, among 
whom was Rastus. The family grew in a wild, 
up-ended land of forest and precipice and rocky 
caverns, leading down to lumber slash and then 
to farms and the big house, beyond which, on the 
plain, were more forests and swamps, and two or 
three ponds. It was a splendid land for ’coons. 
The trees were big and plenty, the caverns in the 
precipitous rocks were even better and safer than 
the trees for dens, there were plenty: of small 
game and birds, in the brooks were trout, in the 
swamp ponds crawfish, in the fields corn. And, 
as I have said, the neighborhood dogs were a 
