What the Wolf Hid.

Otago Witness, Issue 1645, 2 June 1883, Page 27

What the Wolf Hid.

■ We were standing at the window watching Lion, the house dog, burying a bone in the dead leaves near the fence.

" Why does he do that ?" asked my little cousin.

"Animal instinct," replied my father, to whom the question was addressed. "He has more dinner than he cares to eat just now, and so puts away some for the next time. Other animals do the same sometimes. I once knew an old lady who when a child had a singular adventure in connection with this same instinct." Of course there was an immediate demand for the story. Father teased us for a little while, and then he told it, as follows : — " Sixty or seventy years ago my friend's father was a pioneer in the region bordering on the Ohio river. He and his son were cutting wood in the forest one day, and Polly, then a little girl of five years old or so, was playing near them while they worked. "When the time came to go home, Polly was nowhere to be seen.

"'That's strange,' said her father. 'She always obeys so well. I don't see how she could have strayed off. 1

'"She wouldn't have gone home without telling us,' said her brother. ' Look 1 here's her sun-bonnet full of nuts. She must bo somewhere around.'

"They looked again and again in every direction, calling ' Polly ! Polly !' all in vain. There wero no Indians living near, but wolves and panthers were plentiful, and only the winter before the father and son had killed two

bears in an attack upon the cowhouse. So they began to feel seriously alarmed. Presently the brother, looking anxiously about, espied an odd-looking heap of leaves on the farthpr slope of the bill, where no wind could possibly have tossed them. He went to have a closer look at it. Carelessly throwing aside a portion of the heap, ho uncovered, to his joyful surprise, a bit of Polly's red frock. " ' Father, come here,' ho culled, and in a moment more they had the child safe and sound, but fast asleep, in their arms. " ' That's strange,' said her father once more. ' John, take Polly homo. I'm going to stay here and see if I can't find out what this means. She never covered herself up this way, I'm certain. Come back as quick as you can, and bring your rifle with you. Here, hand me mine before you go.' " So saying, he piled tho leaves up neatly once more, putting a small log of wood into the place where the child had lain. He then crouched down behind a fallen tree near by to see what would happen. He did not have long to wait. J ohn had scarcely time to return, almost out of breath with the has f e he had made, when the soft patter of paws was heard on the dry leaves, and they saw three grey wolves approaching at full trot, with another slightly in advance leading the way. The wolf in front led his comrades straight to the heap of leaves, and, scratching eagwly, quickly uncovered the buried log. His dismay was almost comical to behold. He sniffed and smelled and turned his head this way and that, in utter bewilderment. How a dainty little girl, plump and soft, and just suited to the taste of a wolf who epjoys a good dinner, could suddenly turn into a great uneatable log of wood was too much for him to understand, He finally gave the problem up in despair, and turned to his companions, cowering like a beaten hound.

" There were some sharp barks of disappointment, followed by snarls, as the three guests, who had evidently been bidden to a feast which was not forthcoming, expressed their indignation at the euppo&ed hoax. The other wolf only whined dolefully, but in vain, for the three fell upon him, and in less time than it takes to tell of it, tore him into pieces, and began to devour him. They did not finish the meal, howover, for the two rifles behind the log cracked once and again, aud all three wolves lay dead beside the comrade whom they punished so terribly. " I have every reason to believe this story to be literally true," continued my father ; v and the other day I told it to E. S. Ellis, the wellknown writer of stories of western adventure. ' I have no doubt it happened juat as you heard it,' he said. ' The incident is uncommon, but not unknown in natural history. My grandfather knew a lumberman who went to sleep in the woods in northern New York and was awakened by a panther covering him with leaves. He lay still till the animal got through and went off, when he jumped up and left too. He didn't wait for the panther to come back.' " — Harper's Young People.