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after lie heard their feeble howling. Almost at the same time, 
to his great horror, he saw approaching him a full-grown wolf, 
evidently the dam, raging furiously at the cries of her young. 
As she attempted to leap down, at one bound Poison instinc- 
tively threw himself forward and succeeded in catching a firm 
hold of the animal’s long and bushy tail, just as the forepart of 
her body was within the narrow entrance of the cavern. He 
had unluckily placed his gun against a rock when aiding the 
boys in their descent, and could not now reach it. Without 
apprising the lads below of their imminent peril, the stout 
hunter kept a firm grip of the wolfs tail, which he wound 
round his left arm, and although the maddened brute scrambled 
and twisted and strove with all her might to force herself down 
to the rescue of her cubs, Poison was just able with the exertion 
of all his strength to keep her from going forward. In the 
midst of this singular struggle, which passed in silence, his son 
within the cave, finding the light excluded from above, asked 
in Gaelic, ‘Father, what is keeping the light from us?’ ‘If 
the root of the tail breaks,’ replied he, ‘you will soon know 
that.’ Before long, however, the man contrived to get hold of 
his hunting knife, and stabbed the wolf in the most vital parts 
he could reach. The enraged animal now attempted to turn 
and face her foe, but the hole was too narrow to allow of this ; 
and when Poison saw his danger he squeezed her forward, keep- 
ing her jammed in, whilst he repeated his stabs as rapidly as 
he could, until the animal being mortally wounded, was easily 
dragged back and finished. 
“ These were the last wolves killed in Sutherland, and the 
den was between Craig-Khadich and Craig- Voakie, by the 
narrow Glen of Loth, a place replete with objects connected 
with traditionary legends.”* 
This story was related by the Duke of Sutherland’s head 
forester in 1848 to Mr. J. F. Campbell, who has narrated it in 
his “ Popular Tales of the West Highlands,” Vol. i. p. 273. 
“Every district,” says Stuart in his “Lays of the Deer 
Forest,” “ has its ‘ last ’ wolf,” and there were probably several 
which were later than that killed by Sir Ewen Cameron.f The 
“ last ” of Strath Glass was killed at Gusachan according to tra- 
dition “at no very distant period.” The “last” in Glen 
Urchard on the east side of the valley between Loch Leiter and 
Sheuglv, at a place called ever since Slochd d mhadaidh , i.e. r 
the wolfs den ; and the last of the Findhorn and also (as there 
seems every reason to believe) the last of the species in Scot- 
* Scrope’s “ Days of Deer Stalking’,” p. 374. 
t A portrait of this devoted partisan of the House of Stuart was exhibited 
at the meeting of the British Association at Aberdeen in 1859. 
