yet this useless post was strongly braced by two stout,
slanting poles. A mere nothing, which I mention only
because it was destined to be an important landmark for
me on future drives.

We drove on. At the next mile-corner all signs of human
habitation ceased. I had now on both sides that same
virgin ground which I have described above. Only here it
was interspersed with occasional thickets of young
aspen-boles. It was somewhere in this wilderness that I
saw a wolf, a common prairie-wolf with whom I became
quite familiar later on. I made it my custom during the
following weeks, on my return trips, to start at a given
point a few miles north of here eating the lunch which
my wife used to put up for me: sandwiches with crisply
fried bacon for a filling. And when I saw that wolf for
the second time, I threw a little piece of bacon overboard.
He seemed interested in the performance and stood and
watched me in an averted kind of way from a distance. I
have often noticed that you can never see a wolf from
the front, unless it so happens that he does not see you.
If he is aware of your presence, he will instantly swing
around, even though he may stop and watch you. If he
watches, he does so with his head turned back. That is
one of the many precautions the wily fellow has learned,
very likely through generations of bitter experience.
After a while I threw out a second piece, and he started
to trot alongside, still half turned away; he kept at a
distance of about two hundred yards to the west running
in a furtive, half guilty-looking way, with his tail down