The Way of the Wild (Sass)

by Herbert Ravenel Sass

For works with similar titles, see The Way of the Wild.

The Way of the Wild

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The Way of the Wild

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By
Herbert Ravenel Sass

 

Illustrated by
Charles Livingston Bull

 

 

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Minton, Balch & Company
New York1925

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Copyright, 1925,
By Herbert Ravenel Sass

 

Second printing, August, 1930

 

Printed in the United States of America by
J. J. Little and Ives Company, New York

Foreword

The woods and the fields, the marshes and the waters are a vast theater where many dramas are enacted. Yet, for the most part, these are hidden from human eyes. Only now and then do we get a glimpse of a tragic climax; only rarely can we read in the sand the details of some perilous encounter. We have made the wild folk fear us. Hence, though they may be all around us, they hold themselves aloof and do not willingly permit us to follow from beginning to end the record of their lives.

Yet all who go into the woods know how dramatic those lives often are, how full of thrilling adventure. The careful naturalist, setting down only what he has actually seen of some wild animal, realizes at the end how inadequate, how incomplete his record is. It contains much of great value. It is all true. But it is a fragment or series of fragments. It omits much that undoubtedly happens, much of interest and importance. It is not a picture of that animal's life.

That is why the naturalist or student of wild nature may, without apology, make use of the form known as the animal story. He employs the animal story for precisely the same reason which induces the conscientious student of human nature to employ the human story—because, in many ways and upon many occasions, it is the best means of presenting the truth.

Thus, the animal story, properly conceived, has a legitimate and important place in the literature of nature. There is, moreover, one great practical consideration in its favor: namely, the fact that it has proved its power to awaken in thousands of men and women a keen and sympathetic interest in the wild folk who are our neighbors out-of-doors. If there were nothing else to be said for it, this alone would suffice.

This book is a book of animal stories. If there are errors in it, as doubtless there must be, the same thing is true of nearly all the books that man has written.

Contents

		Page
Foreword		v
Lotor the Lucky		3
The Bachelors of Devilhead		35
Northwind		63
Rusty Roustabout		97
The Quest of the Eagle Stone		131
Black Bull of Ahowhe		163
The War of the Kings		195
The King of the River		217
The Prisoners of Half-Acre		255
Lynx Lucifer		287