[Illustration: The Wolf Den at Pomfret, Connecticut.]
"Wearied with the fruitless attempts (which had brought the time to
ten o'clock at night), Mr. Putnam tried once more to make his dog enter,
but in vain. Then he proposed to his negro man to go down into the
cavern and shoot the wolf; but he declined the hazardous service. Then
it was that the master resolved himself to destroy the ferocious beast,
lest she should escape through some unknown fissure of the rock. His
neighbors strongly remonstrated against the perilous enterprise; but he,
knowing that wild animals were intimidated by fire, and having provided
several strips of birch-bark, the only combustible material he could
obtain that would afford light in this deep and darksome cave, prepared
for his descent. Having accordingly divested himself of his coat and
waistcoat, and having a long rope fastened about his legs, by which he
might be pulled back at a concerted signal, he entered head foremost,
with the blazing torch in his hand. The aperture of the den, on the east
side of a very high ledge of rocks, is about two feet square; from
thence it descends obliquely fifteen feet, then running horizontally
about ten more, it ascends gradually sixteen feet to its termination.
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