The Way of the Wild (Hawkes)/A Ring-tailed Rogue

Of all the wild pets that I have ever had any experience with, the raccoon is the most satisfactory. The raccoon is sometimes called the Little Brother to the Bear, and really belongs to the bear, or plantigrade family. Like the bear, he is very good natured and he also has some of the bear's drollery and his mischievousness as well. Many of the wild creatures such as the fox are so wild by nature that they really never become wholly tame. You may take a kit fox from the den when he is a month old and rear him by hand, but he will always have his fox suspicion of you. No matter how much you may pet him, his jaws will always come up to meet your hand. Although he may not bite you, he is always on the watch and always suspicious.
The raccoon, on the other hand, is a very ​lovable fellow and soon learns to like his boy master after a fashion.
When I was a small boy, we captured a couple of coon cubs and kept them as long as possible. Their pranks and the mischief that they got into made our place very lively most of the time. We caught them in May while mending fences. A small fox hound that always followed wherever I went on the farm treed something in an old birch stub and the hired

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