“Next day we returned, well armed, for our opossum and her young, which in our hurry we had quite forgotten. We found, to our mortification, that the cunning animal had gnawed off her fastenings, and escaped, with her whole brood.”
Chapter Forty Two.
An Adventure with Dusky Wolves.
“During that year we raised two crops of corn. Neither one of them required as much as two months to bring it to maturity. When we gathered our fall crop we found that we had twenty times the full of our cart—enough to serve us for a whole year, as well as to feed our animals in the winter.
“Our second year was spent pretty much as the first. We made our sugar in the spring, and planted a large quantity of corn. We added to our stock of pets both deer and antelope; and among other animals we caught an old she-wolf, with a large brood of wolf-puppies at her heels. I need hardly tell you that we were constrained to kill the old one on account of her savage disposition, but the young ones we kept and reared. They grew up quite as tame as our own dogs, with whom they fraternised as if they had been of the same species.
“During the summer and winter we had several adventures in the trapping and killing of wild animals; but one of these adventures was of such a singular and dangerous character, that you may feel interested in its narration.
“It occurred in the dead of winter, when there was snow upon the ground; and, in fact, it was the severest winter we experienced during our sojourn in the valley.
“The lake was frozen over, and the ice was as smooth as glass. Of course, we spent much of our time in skating about over its surface, as it gave us health and a good appetite. Even Cudjo had taken a fancy for this amusement, and was also one of the skaters Frank was fonder of it than any of us, and was, in fact, the best skater in our community.