Page:The Way of the Wild (1923).pdf/83

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trap and released him he made for the woods at his best pace. I followed after him calling and trying to regain his confidence, but he would have none of me. So I was obliged to let him go back to the wild.

So far as I know, Tobius never took any of our chickens although we lost others that fall. In the late autumn, we let him come and go just as he pleased. Finally about the first of December he also disappeared and I thought we had lost him for good, but I finally discovered him one day up in the sugar-house where he had taken refuge in a sap hogshead.

The hogshead was partly filled with leaves and he had a fine warm nest where he was sleeping away the winter. As I hated to lose him, I brought him to the house and chained him in a warm place under the shed. I put an old dog collar on him so that I was sure that he could not get away.

He did not eat as much as he had in the autumn and was rather sleepy, but occasionally aroused and came out to see us. In the early spring, one day when I went to see him, I