RASTUS EARNS HIS SLEEP 265 
derness, and all the ’coons, especially the older 
ones, began to exercise that instinctive strategy 
which is their heritage. By July, Wolf’s bark at 
night, which at first had often resounded close to 
the house, was now heard faint and far away, up 
the rugged mountainside, and most often among 
the limestone cliffs where tiny cave mouths led 
in to inaccessible and impregnable recesses no dog 
could enter. There was frequently a note of 
plaintive anger in his bark now, so you could al- 
most tell whether he had the ’coon up a tree or 
had trailed it to a den mouth. 
Rastus had two or three experiences with Wolf 
during the summer, but he managed to come off 
free in each case, learning something from each 
one, too, if it was only caution. And in each 
case it was his curiosity which got him into trou- 
ble. But you can’t cure a ’coon of curiosity, 
except with an ax. Did you ever have a pet 
’coon? If you have, you know something about 
the curiosity of the breed, and something, too, 
about their humorous tricks. A wild ’coon, of 
course, has the same curiosity and the same 
humorous tricks—only there is none to see them. 
