passed a law making it punishable by heavy fine and imprisonment to engage one man alone to guard these isolated camps and care for the cattle. Strange it is, the Hodag never attacks an ox that has the marks of a yoke on his neck or shoulders, but cows and young stock suffer occasionally, and Dan Arpin claims that he has lost several horses by them, as well as cross-haul or two.
(N. B.—The foregoing seems incredible and though related to use by Ed. Wheelan, of unquestionable veracity, we will not vouch for its being absolutely true in every respect.)
In every logging camp are those who can tell wonderful tales of these wonderful animals. When the men are gathered around the blazing camp-fire in the evening and the wintry wind is wailing dismally outside, then doth the hodag fiend most gleefully spin his yarn. The mournful wail of the wind reminds him of the swish of the hodag's tail as it lashes the air furiously when maddened with rage or pain. A fight between a full grown hodag and a swamp-sogger is as fearful a story, when told by an eye witness, as was ever read or heard. The writer here might say in the way of explanation, that as a hodag is king of the highlands or hard ground, so is the swamp-sogger king of the lowlands, or wet and marshy ground. The fight always takes place at the edge of a swamp or marsh when the combatants are evenly matched in size the battle of the Litans [Titans?], or a war between England and the Untied States is in comparison a tame affair. The result is always the utter
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destruction of one of the fighters. If the hodag, by taking a twist with its tail around a tree and dragging its enemy by main strength, succeeds in getting it upon the hard ground, the issue is no longer doubtful and the swamp-sogger soon becomes an unrecognizable mass of teeth, claws, hair and bones.
But if the hodag's tail slips and loses its grip, or the roots of the tree give way under the tremendous strain to which they are subjected the hodag simply disappears from the face of the earth and joins the innumerable throng that is daily immolated on the altar of Ananias for the benefit of the lovers of fable and fiction.
Right here let us say that it has taken an enormous outlay of time and expense to bring the history of the hodag to this point and our readers can to a certain extent comprehend the sublime assurance and consumate gall of the writer in making this attempt at such a history.
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