282) ‘ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
clamation when his eyes, in turn, caught the twin 
red glints from the tree. 
“You’ve got open ground for fifty feet,” the 
man said to Wolf. “If you can’t get him 
when I shake him down, you’re a poor pickle 
hound.” 
Then came the sound of a lantern being set 
upon the ground, and the crunch of leather and 
khaki on bark, as the man began to shin. As the 
man drew near, Rastus crept farther and farther 
out on his limb. Had he planned what he was 
going to do? Did he know the country below so 
well that he could plan? Were his night-trained 
eyes so superior to the man’s and the dog’s that he 
saw things they could not? Who can say? I 
only am sure that he had been often in this neigh- 
borhood, and I surmise that, like other wild ani- 
mals, an instinct told him always to know every 
foot of his country. At any rate, this was what 
happened. The man shook and snapped the 
limb, Rastus fell off—and fell directly into the 
only patch of shrubs and briar anywhere close to 
the tree. Wolf sprang like a shot at the sound 
of the fall, landed with the characteristic collie 
