sheep had been
placed on the bottom inside, the scent of which had attracted the wolf,
and, in her eagerness to possess herself of this treasure she had risen
on her hind legs high enough to find the opening sufficiently wide to
allow her head to be thrust in, whence, slipping downwards, the slit
became so narrow as to prevent her from withdrawing her jaws. The only
mode of extrication from this trap was to rear her body to the same
height at which she found admission, an expedient which, it seems,
required more cunning than this proverbially cunning animal was gifted
with. She now stood captive pretty much in the same manner that oxen are
commonly secured in their stalls.

For a few moments after the prisoner was first perceived, and during the
extravagant yelling of Adair at the success of his stratagem, she made
several desperate but ineffectual efforts to withdraw her head; but as
soon as Butler and Robinson had dismounted, and, together with their
guide, had assembled around her, she desisted from her struggles, and
seemed patiently to resign herself to the will of her captor. She stood
perfectly still with that passive and even cowardly submission for
which, in such circumstances, this animal is remarkable: her hind legs
drooped and her tail was thrust between them, whilst not a snarl nor an
expression of anger or grief escaped her. Her characteristic sagacity
had been completely baffled by the superior wolfish cunning of her
ensnarer.

Wat laughed aloud with a coarse and almost fiendish laugh, as he cried
out--

"I have cotched the old thief at last, in spite of her cunning! With a
warning to boot. Here is a mark I sot upon her last winter," he added,
as he raised her fore leg, which was deprived of the foot; "but she
would be prowling, the superfluous devil! It is in the nature of these
here blood-suckers, to keep a going at their trade, no matter how much
they are watched. But I knowed I'd have her one of these days. These
varmints have always got to pay, one day or another, for their
villanies. Wa'n't she an old fool, Horse Shoe, to walk into this here
gum for a piece of dead mutton? Ha, ha, ha! if she had had only the
sense to rear up, she might have had the laugh on us! But she hadn't;
ha, ha, ha!"

"Well, Wat Adair," said Robinson, "you had a mischievous head when you
contrived that trap."

"Feel her ribs, Mr. Butler," cried Wat, not heeding the sergeant; "I
know who packed that flesh on her. There i