lide the bone of his leg
between the jaws of the trap, leaving the skin and fur in, and the rest
was mainly determined tugging and strong fang-work.

Then he coolly ate the real bait, and--the onlookers remembered
appointments elsewhere. None of them, it seemed, was tickled to meet the
ratel when he had finished. He was sure to be crusty; and, anyway, he
had bitterly disappointed them all--he had achieved the apparently
impossible, and, worst part of the lot, was not dead.

Now, a ratel will do almost as much for honey as a bear for pork, a
leopard for little "bow-wows," or a man for diamonds. This will explain
why he was foolish enough to follow, some hours later, the trail of some
natives who had been out collecting honey from a camp the day before; or
perhaps he knew nothing about the honey till, not too scientifically, he
got into the camp. Anyway, the honey was very good.

There are, however, from a wilding's point of view, camps and camps.
Most of the inhabitants of the wild, including the lion, who are not born
with a pluck considerably above proof, can discriminate the difference.
The ratel either could not or would not.

Then the knowledge was driven home. Driven home in the shape of a big,
loose-limbed, deep-jowled brute of a dog, as unlike the ordinary native
curs as it well could be. It did not come silently, or suddenly, for it
growled full warning in a terrible bass; but the ratel showed contempt,
and teeth that glistened beautifully in the red light of the dying fire
the sleeping sentry ought to have seen to, but had not. Moreover, it did
not come alone, for the camp was a white hunter's camp. The dog gave a
thunderous baying rally-call, and almost before that sentry had leapt to
his feet, the ratel vanished tumultuously and suddenly from the public
gaze, under a perfect cloud of dogs. He was, ere any one knew what the
riot might be, literally smothered under dogs--dogs, too, most of 'em who
held up the deadly leopard, and hounded the tyrannical lion, habitually
and for a pastime, mark you.

Then his devil prompted one of the black sentries to rush up and fire his
rifle. Probably he did not know what was under those dogs; certainly he
thought it would keep there. In any case, he nearly killed a dog, and
the cause of the trouble did not keep there. He came out, miraculously
alive, still more miraculously cool and unhurried. He broke away from
the dogs as if they were little puppies, and, s