264 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
which he sat on his haunches. It was a pretty 
sight to watch him work when the scent took 
him to a tree trunk. His nose went up the bark 
as high as he could raise it, but no sound came 
from his mouth, except, possibly, a faint whining 
complaint, as if he were muttering out the puzzle. 
Instead, he would drop back and circle the tree, 
perhaps fifty or a hundred feet away. If he 
didn’t pick up the scent again in that circumfer- 
ence, he would enlarge it to a diameter of a hun- 
dred or even two hundred yards, and again com- 
plete the circle. Only after a second failure on 
this larger arc would he return, satisfied, to the 
tree, sit on his haunches, raise his eyes to the 
branches, and wake the echoes. 
‘This was a totally different proposition from 
the hunting of Benedick and Beatrice, and after 
Wolf had roamed the mountain for a week or 
two, putting up ’coons at first not a hundred feet 
from his dooryard and catching three or four as 
they foolishly attempted to spring out over him 
to the ground and escape, Rastus and his fellows 
began keenly to realize the difference. The word 
was passed around, as such things are in the wil- 
