Page:Redcoat (1927).djvu/162

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a skunk or a fox. He would run in the main traveled road of the rabbit warren in hopes that the pack would leave him for rabbits, which they sometimes did.

When he was hard pressed he always took to his favorite mountain. Here he was at home. Here he knew all the winding devious paths along the sides of the slippery mountain. He could run for an eighth of a mile upon trap rock, which nearly always threw off the pack. More than once he had led the pack into very dangerous positions when the mountainside was smooth with a glare crust. His cunning in this particular was almost unbelievable. In fact, one could not believe many of the stories told about him, and that is the trouble in tracing the real history of Redcoat. The more wonderful had been Redcoat's ruse, the greater the exploit of the hunter, so they usually embellished their tales most lavishly. One hunter even went so far as to declare that Redcoat had smeared his paws with the oil upon the switches along the railroad track,