much alarmed by dogs or
wolves or men, will take the alarm quickly, and the scattered herds,
moved by a common impulse of danger, will trail far away to other
ranges. That is why the wolf, unlike the less intelligent dog, hunts
always in a silent, stealthy, unobtrusive way; and why he stops hunting
and goes away the instant his own hunger is satisfied or another wolf
kills enough for all. And that is also the probable reason why he lets
the deer alone as long as he can find any other game.
This same intelligent provision was shown in another curious way. When a
wolf in his wide ranging found a good hunting-ground where small game
was plentiful, he would snap up a rabbit silently in the twilight and
then go far away, perhaps to join the other cubs in a gambol, or to
follow them to the cliffs over a fishing village and set all the dogs to
howling. By day he would lie close in some thick cover, miles away from
his hunting-ground. At twilight he would steal back and hunt quietly,
just long enough to get his game, and then trot away again, leaving the
cover as unharried as if there were not a wolf in the whole
neighborhood.
Such a good hunting-ground cannot long remain hidden from other prowlers
in the wilderness; and Wayeeses, who was keeping his discovery to
himself, would soon cross the trail of a certain old fox returning day
after day to the same good covers. No two foxes, nor mice, nor men, nor
any other two animals for that matter, ever leave the same scent,--any
old hound, which will hold steadily to one fox though a dozen others
cross or cover his trail, will show you that plainly in a day's
hunting,--and the wolf would soon know surely that the same fox was
poaching every night on his own preserves while he was away. To a
casual, wandering hunter he paid no attention; but this cunning poacher
must be laid by the heels, else there would not be a single rabbit left
in the cover. So Wayeeses, instead of hunting himself at twilight when
the rabbits are stirring, would wait till midday, when the sun is warm
and foxes are sleepy, and then come back to find the poacher's trail and
follow it to where Eleemos was resting for the day in a sunny opening in
the scrub. There Wayeeses would steal upon him from behind and put an
end to his poaching; or else, if the fox used the same nest daily, as is
often the case when he is not disturbed, the wolf would circle the scrub
warily to find the path by which Eleemos usually came o
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