Chapter 4

The nightly chorus of wild dogs lulled me to sleep every evening, but small bandits of every description attempt to raid and pillage my stores, wakening me with a clockworks frequency. I have taken to alarming my goods with piles of heaped stones, which rattle and clatter when my uninvited guests tromple them. There is a masked bandit, which once purloining me of a large dried fish, proceeded to wash the dirt from it in full view of the campfire, immersing it and rubbing it with its clever thieving paws. There are the singing dogs, who make a quick dash and grab, often when a fellow of theirs distracts me from another direction. There is a fragrant and bold kit with a pair of white stripes who I quickly learned was not to be molested, as it sprays a poisonous effluent from under it's tail. I just pretend to sleep, and hope it doesn't abscond with too much of my dried fish or deer, which I now keep tightly bundled in thick canvas at night.

Even the birds in these parts are robbers, there is a bright blue and raucous voiced specimen who tries to take whatever food is in sight, caring not one whit that I am mere steps away. At first I was affronted and angry at these depredations, but I soon had to laugh at the way these bold of God's creatures seized upon providence so opportunely. I determined to do the same, to take the chances the Mighty Lord gave me to prosper.