THE HOUSE IN THE WATER

A BOOK OF ANIMAL STORIES

THE HOUSE IN THE WATER

A BOOK OF ANIMAL STORIES

BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS

Author of "The Kindred of the Wild, " "Red Fox, " "The Heart of the AncientWood, " "The Forge in the Forest, " "The Heart That Knows, " etc. 

Illustrated and decorated by

CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL and FRANK VINING SMITH

THE PAGE COMPANY

PUBLISHERS BOSTON

Copyright, 1907, by Curtis Publishing Company

Copyright, 1908, by Funk & Wagnalls Company

Copyright, 1908, by The Circle Publishing Company

Copyright, 1908, by Associated Sunday Magazines, Incorporated

Copyright, 1908, by L. C. Page & Company (Incorporated)

All rights reserved

First Impression, May, 1908

Third Impression, May, 1916

THE COLONIAL PRESS

C. H. SIMONDS CO. , BOSTON, U. S. A. 

CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

 PAGE The House in the Water 1 The White-slashed Bull 125 When the Blueberries Are Ripe 152 The Glutton of the Great Snow 163 When the Truce of the Wild is Done 192 The Window in the Shack 204 The Return of the Moose 225 From the Teeth of the Tide 235 The Fight at the Wallow 252 Sonny and the Kid 271

A LIST OF THE FULL-PAGE DRAWINGS IN THE BOOK

 PAGE "Began to climb out upon the crest of the dam. " 7 "A foraging fish-hawk winging above. " 15 "The otter moved with unusual caution. " 19 "Suddenly rearing his sleek, snaky body half out of the water. " 23 "Poked his head above water. " 33 "Sticky lumps, which they could hug under their chins. " 41 "Twisted it across his shoulders, and let it drag behind him. " 54 "Every beaver now made a mad rush for the canal. " 58 "It was no longer a log, but a big gray lynx. " 62 "He caught sight of a beaver swimming down the pond. " 72 "'Or even maybe a bear. '" 90 "He drowns jest at the place where he come in. " 96 "Hunted through the silent and pallid aisles of the forest. " 102 "A sinister, dark, slow-moving beast. " 106 "He sprang with a huge bound that landed him, claws open, squarely on the wolverene's hind quarters. " 110 "It was not until the moon appeared ... That Jabe began to call. " 142 "Something gleamed silver down his side. " 148 "An old she-bear with two half-grown cubs. " 154 "Crept slowly around the raging and snarling captive. " 170 "Snapped back at him with a vicious growl. " 176 "Running in the shallow water to cover his scent" 200 "Sniffed loudly along the crack of the door. " 212 "Made a wild thrust at the dreadful face. " 216 "A magnificent, black, wide-antlered bull, an ungainly brown cow, and a long-legged, long-eared calf. " 228 "Pulled the butt under her chest. " 248 "He 'belled' harshly several times across the dark wastes. " 254 "In a flash was up again on his haunches. " 268 "He curled down his abbreviated tail, and ran. " 280 "In his fright the kid dropped his toadstool and stared back at the gray animal. " 292

THE HOUSE IN THE WATER

CHAPTER I

The Sound in the Night

UPON the moonlit stillness came suddenly a far-off, muffled, crashingsound. Just once it came, then once again the stillness of thewilderness night, the stillness of vast, untraversed solitude. The Boylifted his eyes and glanced across the thin reek of the camp-fire atJabe Smith, who sat smoking contemplatively. Answering the glance, thewoodsman muttered "old tree fallin', " and resumed his passivecontemplation of the sticks glowing keenly in the fire. The Boy, uponwhom, as soon as he entered the wilderness, the taciturnity of thewoodsfolk descended as a garment, said nothing, but scanned hiscompanion's gaunt face with a gravely incredulous smile. 

So wide-spread and supreme was the silence that five seconds afterthat single strange sound had died out it seemed, somehow, impossibleto believe it had ever been. The light gurgle of the shallow andshrunken brook which ran past the open front of the travellers'"lean-to" served only to measure the stillness. Both Jabe and the Boy, since eating their dinner, had gradually forgotten to talk. As themoon rose over the low, fir-crested hills they had sunk into reverie, watching the camp-fire die down. 

At last, with a sort of crisp whisper a stick, burnt through themiddle, fell apart, and a flicker of red flame leaped up. The woodsmanknocked out his pipe, rose slowly to his feet, stretched his gauntlength, and murmured, "Reckon we might as well turn in. "

"That's all right for you, Jabe, " answered the Boy, rising also, tightening his belt, and reaching for his rifle, "but I'm going off tosee what I can see. Night's the time to see things in the woods. "

Jabe grunted non-committally, and began spreading his blanket in thelean-to. "Don't forgit to come back for breakfast, that's all, " hemuttered. He regarded the Boy as a phenomenally brilliant hunter andtrapper spoiled by sentimental notions. 

To the Boy, whose interest in all pertaining to woodcraft was muchbroader and more sympathetic than that of his companion, Jabe'sinterpretation of the sound of the falling tree had seemed hasty andshallow. He knew that there was no better all-round woodsman in thesecountries than Jabe Smith; but he knew also that Jabe's interest inthe craft was limited pretty strictly to his activities as hunter, trapper and lumberman. Just now he was all lumberman. He was acting aswhat is called a "timber-cruiser, " roaming the remoter and less-knownregions of the wilderness to locate the best growths of spruce andpine for the winter's lumbering operations, and for the presenthis keen faculties were set on the noting of tree growths, andwater-courses, and the lay of the land for the getting out of awinter's cutting. On this particular cruise the Boy--who, for allthe disparity in their years and the divergence in their views, washis most valued comrade--had accompanied him with a special objectin view. The region they were cruising was one which had never beenadequately explored, and it was said to be full of little unnamed, unmapped lakes and streams, where, in former days, the Indians hadhad great beaver hunting. 

When the sound of the falling tree came to his ears across thenight-silence, the Boy at once said to himself, "Beavers, at work!" Hesaid it to himself, not aloud, because he knew that Jabe also, as atrapper, would be interested in beavers; and he had it in his mind toscore a point on Jabe. Noiseless as a lynx in his soft-soled"larrigans, " he ascended the half-empty channel of the brook, whichhere strained its shrunken current through rocks and slate-slabs, between steep banks. The channel curved steadily, rounding theshoulder of a low ridge. When he felt that he had travelled somewhatless than half a mile, he came out upon a bit of swampy marsh, beyondwhich, over the crest of a low dam, spread the waters of a tranquilpond shining like a mirror in the moonlight. 

The Boy stopped short, his heart thumping with excitement andanticipation. Here before him was what he had come so far to find. From his books and from his innumerable talks with hunter and trapper, he knew that the dam and the shining, lonely pond were the work ofbeavers. Presently he distinguished amid the sheen of the water atiny, grassy islet, with a low, dome-shaped, stick-covered mound atone end of it. This, plainly, was a beaver house, the first he hadever seen. His delighted eyes, observing it at this distance, at oncepronounced it immeasurably superior to the finest and most pretentiousmuskrat-house he had ever seen--a very palace, indeed, by comparison. Then, a little further up the pond, and apparently adjoining theshore, he made out another dome-shaped structure, broader and lessconspicuous than the first, and more like a mere pile of sticks. Thepond, which was several acres in extent, seemed to him an extremelyspacious domain for the dwellers in these two houses. 

Presently he marked a black trail, as it were, moving down in themiddle of the radiance from the upper end of the pond. It wasobviously the trail of some swimmer, but much too broad, it seemed, tobe made by anything so small as a beaver. It puzzled him greatly. Inhis eagerness he pushed noiselessly forward, seeking a better view, till he was within some thirty feet of the dam. Then he made out asmall dark spot in the front of the trail, --evidently a beaver's head;and at last he detected that the little swimmer was carrying a bushybranch, one end held in his mouth while the rest was slung backdiagonally across his shoulders. 

The Boy crept forward like a cat, his gray eyes shining withexpectancy. His purpose was to gain a point where he could crouch inambush behind the dam, and perhaps get a view of the lake-dwellersactually at work. He was within six or eight feet of the dam, crouching low (for the dam was not more than three feet in height), when his trained and cunning ear caught a soft swirling sound in thewater on the other side of the barrier. Instantly he stiffened to astatue, just as he was, his mouth open so that not a pant of hisquickened breath might be audible. The next moment the head of abeaver appeared over the edge of the dam, not ten feet away, andstared him straight in the face. 

The beaver had a stick of alder in its mouth, to be used, no doubt, insome repairing of the dam. The Boy, all in gray as he was, andabsolutely motionless, trusted to be mistaken for one of the gnarled, gray stumps with which the open space below the dam was studded. Hehad read that the beaver was very near-sighted, and on that he basedhis hopes, though he was so near, and the moonlight so clear, that hecould see the bright eyes of the newcomer staring straight into hiswith insistent question. Evidently, the story of that near-sightednesshad not been exaggerated. He saw the doubt in the beaver's eye fadegradually into confidence, as the little animal became convinced thatthe strange gray figure was in reality just one of the stumps. Then, the industrious dam-builder began to climb out upon the crest of thedam, dragging his huge and hairless tail, and glancing along as if todetermine where the stick which he carried would do most good. At thiscritical moment, when the eager watcher felt that he was just about tolearn the exact methods of these wonderful architects of the wild, astick in the slowly settling mud beneath his feet broke with a soft, thick-muffled snap. 

[Illustration: "BEGAN TO CLIMB OUT UPON THE CREST OF THE DAM. "]

So soft was the sound that it barely reached the Boy's ears. To themarvellously sensitive ears of the beaver, however, it was a warningmore than sufficient. It was a noisy proclamation of peril. Swift as awink of light, the beaver dropped his stick and dived head first intothe pond. The Boy straightened up just in time to see him vanish. Ashe vanished, his broad, flat, naked tail hit the water with a crackingslap which resounded over the pond like a pistol-shot. It was reëchoedby four or five more splashes from the upper portion of the pond. Then all was silence again, and the Boy realized that there would beno more chance that night for him to watch the little people of theHouse in the Water. Mounting the firm-woven face of the dam andcasting his eyes all over the pond, he satisfied himself that twohouses which he had first seen were all that it contained. Then, resisting the impulse of his excitement, which was to explore allaround the pond's borders at once, he resolutely turned his face backto camp, full of thrilling plans for the morrow. 

CHAPTER II

The Battle in the Pond

AT breakfast, in the crisp of the morning, while yet the faintmists clung over the brook and the warmth of the camp-fire wasattractive, the Boy proclaimed his find. Jabe had asked no questions, inquisitiveness being contrary to the backwoodsman's code ofetiquette; but his silence had been full of interrogation. With hismouth half-full of fried trout and cornbread, the Boy remarked:

"That was no windfall, Jabe, that noise we heard last night!"

"So?" muttered the woodsman, rather indifferently. 

Without a greater show of interest than that the Boy would not divulgehis secret. He helped himself to another flaky pink section of trout, and became seemingly engrossed in it. Presently the woodsman spokeagain. He had been thinking, and had realized that his prestige hadsuffered some kind of blow. 

"Of course, " drawled the woodsman sarcastically, "it wa'n't nowindfall. I jest said that to git quit of bein' asked questions when Iwas sleepy. I knowed all the time it was beaver!"

"Yes, Jabe, " admitted the Boy, "it was beavers. I've found a bigbeaver-pond just up the brook a ways--a pond with two big beaver-housesin it. I've found it--so I claim it as mine, and there ain't to beany trapping on that pond. Those are my beavers, Jabe, every one ofthem, and they sha'n't be shot or trapped!"

"I don't know how fur yer injunction'd hold in law, " said Jabe dryly, as he speared a thick slab of bacon from the frying-pan to his tinplate. "But fur as I'm concerned, it'll hold. An' I reckon the boys ofthe camp this winter'll respect it, too, when I tell 'em as how it'syour own partic'lar beaver pond. "

"Bless your old heart, Jabe!" said the Boy. "That's just what I washoping. And I imagine anyway there's lots more beaver round thisregion to be food for the jaws of your beastly old traps!"

"Yes, " acknowledged Jabe, rising to clear up, "I struck three likelyponds yesterday, as I was cruisin over to west'ard of the camp. Ireckon we kin spare you the sixteen or twenty beaver in 'Boy'sPond!'"

The Boy grinned appreciation of the notable honour done him in thenaming of the pond, and a little flush of pleasure deepened the red ofhis cheeks. He knew that the name would stick, and eventually go uponthe maps, the lumbermen being a people tenacious of tradition and notto be swerved from their own way. 

"Thank you, Jabe!" he said simply. "But how do you know there aresixteen or twenty beaver in my pond?"

"You said there was two houses, " answered the woodsman. "Well, wereckon always from eight to ten beaver to each house, bein' the oldcouple, and then three or four yearlin's not yet kicked out to set uphousekeeping fer themselves, and three or four youngsters of thespring's whelping. Beavers' good parents, an' the family holdstogether long's the youngsters needs it. Now I'm off. See you here atnoon, fer grub!" and picking up his axe he strode off to southwestwardof the camp to investigate a valley which he had located the daybefore. 

Left alone, the Boy hurriedly set the camp in order, rolled up theblankets, washed the dishes, and put out the last of the fire. Then, picking up his little Winchester, which he always carried, --though henever used it on anything more sensitive than a bottle or a tincan, --he retraced his steps of the night before, up-stream to thebeaver pond. 

Knowing that the beavers do most of their work, or, at least, most oftheir above-water work, at night, he had little hope of catching anyof them abroad by daylight. He approached the dam, nevertheless, withthat noiseless caution which had become a habit with him in the woods, a habit which rendered the woods populous for him and teeming withinterest, while to more noisy travellers they seemed quite empty oflife. One thing his study of the wilderness had well taught him, whichwas that the wild kindreds do not by any means always do just what isexpected of them, but rather seem to delight in contradicting thenaturalists. 

When he reached the edge of the open, however, and peered out acrossthe dam, there was absolutely nothing to break the shining morningstillness. In the clear sunlight the dam, and the two beaver-housesbeyond, looked larger and more impressive than they had looked thenight before. There was no sign of life anywhere about the pond, except a foraging fish-hawk winging above it, with fierce headstretched low in the search for some basking trout or chub. 

[Illustration: "A FORAGING FISH-HAWK WINGING ABOVE. "]

Following the usual custom of the wild kindreds themselves, the Boystood motionless for some minutes behind his thin screen of bushesbefore revealing himself frankly in the open. His patient watch beingunrewarded, he was on the very verge of stepping forth, when from thetail of his eye he caught a motion in the shallow bed of the brook, and ducked himself. He was too wary to turn his head; but a momentlater a little brown sinuous shape came into his field of view. It wasan otter, making his way up-stream. 

The otter moved with unusual caution, glancing this way and thatand seeming to take minute note of all he saw. At the foot of thedam he stopped, and investigated the structure with the air of onewho had never seen it before. So marked was this air that the Boyconcluded he was a stranger to that region, --perhaps a wandererfrom the head of the Ottanoonsis, some fifteen miles southward, driven away by the operations of a crew of lumbermen who werebuilding a big lumber-camp there. However that might be, it wasevident that the brown traveller was a newcomer, an outsider. Hehad none of the confident, businesslike manner which a wild animalwears in moving about his own range. 

When he had stolen softly along the whole base of the dam, and backagain, nosing each little rivulet of overflow, the otter seemedsatisfied that this was much like all other beaver dams. Then hemounted to the crest and took a prolonged survey of the stretch ofwater beyond. Nothing unusual appearing, he dived cleanly into thepond, about the point where, as the Boy guessed, there would be thegreatest depth of water against the dam. He was apparently headingstraight up for the inlet of the pond, on a path which would take himwithin about twenty-five or thirty yards of the main beaver-house onthe island. As soon as he had vanished under the water the Boy ranforward, mounted the crest of the dam, and peered with shaded eyes tosee if he could mark the swimmer's progress. 

[Illustration: "THE OTTER MOVED WITH UNUSUAL CAUTION. "]

For a couple of minutes, perhaps, the surface of the pond gave noindication of the otter's whereabouts. Then, just opposite the mainbeaver-house, there was a commotion in the water, the surface curledand eddied, and the otter appeared in great excitement. He dived againimmediately; and just as he did so the head of a huge beaver poked upand snatched a breath. Where the two had gone under, the surface ofthe pond now fairly boiled; and the Boy, in his excitement over thisnovel and mysterious contest, nearly lost his balance on the frailcrest of the dam. A few moments more and both adversaries again cameto the surface, now at close grips and fighting furiously. They werefollowed almost at once by a second beaver, smaller than the first, who fell upon the otter with insane fury. It was plain that thebeavers were the aggressors. The Boy's sympathies were all with theotter, who from time to time tried vainly to escape from the battle;and once he raised his rifle. But he bethought him that the otter, after all, whatever his intentions, was a trespasser; and that thebeavers had surely a right to police their own pond. He remembered anold Indian's having told him that there was always a blood feudbetween the beaver and the otter; and how was he to know how just thecause of offence, or the stake at issue? Lowering his gun he stared inbreathless eagerness. 

The otter, however, as it proved, was well able to take care ofhimself. Suddenly rearing his sleek, snaky body half out of the water, he flashed down upon the smaller beaver and caught it firmly behindthe ear with his long, deadly teeth--teeth designed to hold theconvulsive and slippery writhings of the largest salmon. With madcontortions the beaver struggled to break that fatal grip. But theotter held inexorably, shaking its victim as a terrier does a rat, andpaid no heed whatever to the slashing assaults of the other beaver. The water was lashed to such a turmoil that the waves spread all overthe pond, washing up to the Boy's feet on the crest of the dam, andswaying the bronze-green grasses about the house on the little island. Though, without a doubt, all the other citizens of the pond werewatching the battle even more intently than himself, the Boy could notcatch sight of so much as nose or ear. The rest of the spectators keptclose to the covert of grass tuft and lily pad. 

[Illustration: "SUDDENLY REARING HIS SLEEK, SNAKY BODY HALF OUT OF THEWATER. "]

All at once the small beaver stiffened itself out convulsively on topof the water, turned belly up, and began to sink. At the same time theotter let go, tore free of his second and more dangerous adversary, and swam desperately for the nearest point of shore. The survivingbeaver, evidently hurt, made no effort to follow up his victory, butpaddled slowly to the house on the island, where he disappeared. Presently the otter gained the shore and dragged himself up. Hisglossy brown skin was gashed and streaming with blood, but the Boygathered that his wounds were not mortal. He turned, stared fixedly atthe beaver-house for several seconds as if unwilling to give in, thenstole off through the trees to seek some more hospitable water. As hevanished, repulsed and maltreated, the Boy realized for the first timehow hostile even the unsophisticated wilderness is to a stranger. Among the wild kindreds, even as among men, most things worth havingare preempted. 

When the Boy's excitement over this strange fight had calmed down, heset himself with keen interest to examining the dam. He knew that bythis time every beaver in the pond was aware of his presence, andwould take good care to keep out of sight; so there was no longeranything to be gained by concealment. Pacing the crest, he made it tobe about one hundred feet in length. At the centre, and through agreat part of its length, it was a little over three feet high, itsends diminishing gradually into the natural rise of the shores. Thebase of the dam, as far as he could judge, seemed to be about twelvefeet in thickness, its upper face constructed with a much more gradualslope than the lower. The whole structure, which was built of poles, brush, stones, and earth, appeared to be very substantial, a mostsound and enduring piece of workmanship. But along the crest, whichwas not more than a foot and a half in width, it was built with acertain looseness and elasticity for which he was at a loss toaccount. Presently he observed, however, that this dam had no place ofoverflow for letting off the water. The water stood in the pond at aheight that brought it within three or four inches of the crest. Atthis level he saw that it was escaping, without violence, bypercolating through the toughly but loosely woven tissue of sticks andtwigs. The force of the overflow was thus spread out so thin that itsdestructive effect on the dam was almost nothing. It went filtering, with little trickling noises, down over and through the whole lowerface of the structure, there to gather again into a brook and resumeits sparkling journey toward the sea. 

The long upper slope of the dam was smoothly and thoroughly faced withclay, so that none of its framework showed through, save here andthere the butt of a sapling perhaps three or four inches in diameter, which proclaimed the solidity of the foundations. The lower face, onthe other hand, was all an inexplicable interlacing of sticks andpoles which seemed at first glance heaped together at haphazard. Onexamination, however, the Boy found that every piece was woven in sofirmly among its fellows that it took some effort to remove it. Themore he studied the structure, the more his admiration grew, and hisappreciation of the reasoning intelligence of its builders; and hesmiled to himself a little controversial smile, as he thought howinadequate what men call instinct would be to such a piece of work asthis. 

But what impressed him most, as a mark of engineering skill and soundcalculation on the part of the pond-people, was the direction in whichthe dam was laid. At either end, where the water was shoal, andcomparatively dead even in time of freshet, the dam ran straight, taking the shortest way. But where it crossed the main channel of thebrook, and required the greatest strength, it had a pronounced upwardcurve to help it resist the thrust of the current. He contemplatedthis strong curve for some time; then, a glance at the sun remindinghim that it was near noon, he took off his cap to the low-domed housein the water and made haste back to camp for dinner. 

CHAPTER III

In the Under-water World

MEANWHILE, in the dark chamber and the long, dim corridors of theHouse in the Water there was great perturbation. The battle with theotter had been a tremendous episode in their industrious, well-orderedlives, and they were wildly excited over it. But much more importantto them--to all but the big beaver who was now nursing his triumphantwounds--was the presence of Man in their solitude. Man had hithertobeen but a tradition among them, a vague but alarming tradition. Andnow his appearance, yesterday and to-day, filled them with terror. That vision of the Boy, standing tall and ominous on the dam, andafterwards going forward and backward over it, pulling at it, apparently seeking to destroy it, seemed to portend mysteriousdisasters. After he was gone, and well gone, almost every beaver inthe pond, not only from the main house but also from the lodge overon the bank, swam down and made a flurried inspection of the dam, without showing his head above water, to see if the structure on whichthey all depended had been tampered with. One by one, each on his ownresponsibility, they swam down and inspected the water-face; and oneby one they swam back, more or less relieved in their minds. 

All, of course, except the big beaver who had been in the fight. If ithad not been for that vision of the Boy, he would have crept out uponthe dry grass of the little island and there licked and comforted hiswounds in the comforting sunlight. Now, however, he dared not allowhimself that luxury. His strong love of cleanliness made him reluctantto take his bleeding gashes into the house; but there was nothing elseto be done. He was the head of the household, however, so there wasnone to gainsay him. He dived into the mouth of the shorter of the twoentrances, mounted the crooked and somewhat steep passage, and curledhimself upon the dry grass in one corner of the dark, secludedchamber. His hurts were painful, and ugly, but none of them deadly, and he knew he would soon be all right again. There was none of thatforeknowledge of death upon him which sometimes drives a sick animalto abdicate his rights and crawl away by himself for the last greatcontest. 

The room wherein the big beaver lay down to recover himself was notspacious nor particularly well ventilated, but in every other respectit was very admirably adapted to the needs of its occupants. Throughthe somewhat porous ceiling, a three-foot thickness of turf andsticks, came a little air, but no light. This, however, did not matterto the beavers, whose ears and noses were of more significance to themthan their eyes. In floor area the chamber was something like fivefeet by six and a half, but in height not much more than eighteeninches. The floor of this snug retreat was not five inches above thelevel of the water in the passages leading in to it; but soexcellently was it constructed as to be altogether free from damp. Itwas daintily clean, moreover; and the beds of dry grass around theedges of the chamber were clean and fresh. 

From this room the living, sleeping, and dining room of the beaverfamily, ran two passageways communicating with the outside world. Bothof these were roofed over to a point well outside the walls of thehouse, and had their opening in the bottom of the pond, where thewater was considerably more than three feet in depth. One of thesepassages was perfectly straight, about two feet in width, and built ona long, gradual slope. It was by this entrance that the house-dwellerswere wont to bring in their food supplies, in the shape of sticks ofgreen willow, birch and poplar. When these sticks were stripped cleanof their bark, which was the beavers' chief nourishment, they werethen dragged out again, and floated down to be used in the repair ofthe dam. The other passage, especially adapted to quick exit in caseof danger from the way of the roof, was about as spacious as thefirst, but much shorter and steeper. It was crooked, moreover, --for areason doubtless adequate to the architects, but obscure to mere humanobservers. The exits of both passages were always in open water, nomatter how fierce the frosts of the winter, how thick the armour ofice over the surface of the pond. In the neighbourhood of the housewere springs bubbling up through the bottom, and keeping thetemperature of the pond fairly uniform throughout the coldest weather, so that the ice, at worst, never attained a thickness of more than afoot and a half, even though in the bigger lakes of that region itmight make to a depth of three feet and over. 

[Illustration: "POKED HIS HEAD ABOVE WATER. "]

While the wounded beaver lay in the chamber licking his honourablegashes, two other members of the family entered and approached him. Insome simple but adequate speech it was conveyed to them that theirpresence was not required, and they retreated precipitately, takingdifferent exits. One swam to the grassy edge of the islet, poked hishead above water under the covert of some drooping weeds, listenedmotionless for some minutes, then wormed himself out among the longgrasses and lay basking, hidden from all the world but the whirlinghawk overhead. The other, of a more industrious mould, swam off towardthe upper end of the pond where, as he knew, there was work to bedone. 

Still as was the surface of the pond, below the surface there was lifeand movement. Every little while the surface would be softly broken, and a tiny ripple would set out in widening circles toward the shore, starting from a small dark nose thrust up for a second. The casualobserver would have said that these were fish rising for flies; butin fact it was the apprehensive beavers coming up to breathe, afraidto show themselves on account of the Boy. They were all sure that hehad not really gone, but was in hiding somewhere, waiting to pounceupon them. 

It was the inhabitants of the House in the Water who were movingabout the pond, this retreat being occupied by their wounded andill-humoured champion. The inhabitants of the other house, over onthe shore, who had been interested but remote spectators throughall the strange events of the morning, were now in comfortableseclusion, resting till it should be counted a safe time to goabout their affairs. Some were sleeping, or gnawing on sappywillow sticks, in the spacious chamber of their house, while otherswere in the deeper and more secret retreats of their two burrowshigh up in the bank, connecting with the main house by roomytunnels partly filled with water. The two families were quiteindependent of each other, except for their common interest inkeeping the great dam in repair. In work upon the dam they acted notexactly in harmony but in amicable rivalry, all being watchful and allindustrious. 

In the under-water world of the beaver pond the light from thecloudless autumn sun was tawny gold, now still as crystal, nowquivering over the bottom in sudden dancing meshes of fine shadow assome faint puff of air wrinkled the surface. When the dam was firstbuilt the pond had been of proper depth--from three to four feet--onlyin the channel of the stream; while all the rest was shallow, the old, marshy levels of the shore submerged to a depth of perhaps not morethan twelve or fifteen inches. Gradually, however, the industriousdam-builders had dug away these shallows, using the material--grass, roots, clay, and stones--for the broadening and solidifying of thedam. The tough fibred masses of grass-roots, full of clay and almostindestructible, were just such material as they loved to work with, the ancient difficulty of making bricks without straw being well knownto them. Over a large portion of the pond the bottom was now cleansand and mud, offering no obstacle to the transportation of cuttingsto the houses or the dam. 

The beavers, moving hither and thither through this glimmering goldenunderworld, swam with their powerful hind feet only, which drove themthrough the water like wedges. Their little forefeet, with flexible, almost handlike paws, were carried tucked up snugly under their chins, while their huge, broad, flat, hairless tails stuck straight outbehind, ready to be used as a powerful screw in case of any suddenneed. Presently two of the swimmers, apparently by chance, came uponthe body of the beaver which the journeying otter had slain. They knewthat it was contrary to the laws of the clan that any dead thingshould be left in the pond to poison the waters in its decay. Withoutceremony or sentiment they proceeded to drag their late comrade towardshore, --or rather to shove it ahead of them, only dragging when it gotstuck against some stone or root. At the very edge of the pond, wherethe water was not more than eight or ten inches deep, they left it, tobe thrust out and far up the bank after nightfall. They knew that somehungry night prowler would then take care of it for them. 

Meanwhile an industriously inclined beaver had made his way to thevery head of the pond. Here he entered a little ditch or canal whichled off through a wild meadow in a perfectly straight line, toward awooded slope some fifty yards or so from the pond. This ditch, whichwas perhaps two feet and a half deep and about the same in width, looked as if it had been dug by the hand of man. The materials takenfrom it had been thrown up along the brink, but not on one side only, as the human ditch-digger does it. The beavers had thrown it out onboth sides. The ditch was of some age, however, so the wild grassesand weeds had completely covered the two parallel ridges and nowleaned low over the water, partly hiding it. Under this screen thebeaver came to the surface, and swam noiselessly with his head wellup. 

At the edge of the slope the canal turned sharply to the left, and ranin a gradual curve, skirting the upland. Here it was a piece of newwork, raw and muddy, and the little ridges of fresh earth and rootsalong its brink were conspicuous. The beaver now went very cautiously, sniffing the air for any hint of peril. After winding along for sometwenty or thirty yards, the new canal shoaled out to nothingnessbehind a screen of alder; and here, in a mess of mud and water, thebeaver found one of his comrades hard at work. There was much of thenew canal yet to do, and winter coming on. 

The object of this new ditch was to tap a new food supply. The foodtrees near enough to the pond to be felled into it or rolled down toit had long ago been used. Then the straight canal across the meadowto the foot of the upland had opened up a new area, an area rich inbirch and poplar. But trees can be rolled easily down-hill that cannotbe dragged along an uneven side-hill; so, at last, it had becomenecessary to extend the canal parallel with the bottom of the slope. Working in this direction, every foot of new ditch brought a lot ofnew supplies within reach. 

[Illustration: "STICKY LUMPS, WHICH THEY COULD HUG UNDER THEIR CHINS. "]

The extremity of the canal was dug on a slant, for greater ease inremoving the material. Here the two beavers toiled side by side, working independently. With their teeth they cut the tough sod ascleanly as a digger's spade could do it. With their fore paws theyscraped up the soil--which was soft and easily worked--into stickylumps, which they could hug under their chins and carry up the slopeto be dumped upon the grass at the side. Every minute one or the otherwould stop, lift his brown head over the edge, peer about, and sniff, and listen, then fall to work again furiously, as if the whole futureand fortune of the pond were hanging upon his toil. After ahalf-hour's labour the canal was lengthened very perceptibly--fullysix or eight inches--and as if by common consent the two brownexcavators stopped to refresh themselves by nibbling at some succulentroots. While they were thus occupied, and apparently absorbed, fromsomewhere up the slope among the birch-trees came the faint sound of asnapping twig. In half a second the beavers had vanished noiselesslyunder water, down the canal, leaving but a swirl of muddy foam to marktheir going. 

CHAPTER IV

Night Watchers

WHEN the Boy came creeping down the hillside, and found the water inthe canal still muddy and foaming, he realized that he had just misseda chance to see the beavers actually at work on their ditch-digging. He was disappointed. But he found ample compensation in the fact thathere was one of the much-discussed and sometimes doubted canals, actually in process of construction. He knew he could outdo thebeavers in their own game of wariness and watchfulness. He made up hismind he would lie out that very night, on the hillside close by--andso patiently, so unstirringly, that the beavers would never suspectthe eager eyes that were upon them. 

All around him, on the nearer slopes, were evidences of the purposefor which the canal was designed, as well as of the diligence withwhich the little people of the pond were labouring to get in theirwinter stores. From this diligence, so early in the season, the Boyargued an early and severe winter. He found trees of every size up totwo feet in diameter cleanly felled, and stripped of their branches. With two or three exceptions--probably the work of young beaversunskilled in their art--the trees were felled unerringly in thedirection of the water, so as to minimize the labour of dragging downthe cuttings. Close to the new part of the canal, he found the treewhose falling he and Jabe had heard the night before. It was a tallyellow birch, fully twenty inches through at the place where it wascut, some fifteen inches from the ground. The cutting was still freshand sappy. About half the branches had been gnawed off and trimmed, showing that the beavers, after being disturbed by the Boy's visit tothe dam, had returned to work later in the night. Much of the smallerbrush, from the top, had been cleared away and dragged down to theedge of the canal. As the Boy knew, from what trappers and woodsmenhad told him, this brush, and a lot more like it, would all beanchored in a huge pile in mid-channel, a little above the dam, whereit would serve the double purpose of breaking the force of the floodsand of supplying food through the winter. 

Very near the newly felled birch the Boy found another large treeabout half cut through; and he vowed to himself that he would see thefinish of that job that very night. He found the cutting done prettyevenly all around the tree, but somewhat lower and deeper on the sidenext to the water. In width the cut was less than that which a goodaxeman would make--because the teeth of a beaver are a more frugalcutting instrument than the woodsman's axe, making possible astraighter and less wasteful cut. At the foot of this tree he pickedup chips fully eight inches in length, and was puzzled to imagine howthe beavers imitated the effect of the axe in making the chips flyoff. 

For a couple of hours the Boy busied himself joyously, observing thework of these cunning woodsmen's teeth, noting the trails by which theremoter cuttings had been dragged down to the water, and studying theexcavations on the canal. Then, fearing to make the little citizens ofthe pond so nervous that they might not come out to business thatnight, he withdrew over the slope and made his way back to camp. Hewould sleep out the rest of the afternoon to be fresh and keen for thenight's watching. 

At supper that evening, beside the camp-fire, when the woods lookedmagical under the still, white moon, Jabe Smith gradually got firedwith the Boy's enthusiasm. The Boy's descriptions of the canaldigging, of the structure of the dam, and, above all, of the battlebetween the otter and the beavers, filled him with a new eagerness toobserve these wonderful little engineers with other eyes than those ofthe mere hunter and trapper. In the face of all the Boy's exactdetails he grew almost deferential, quite laying aside his usualbackwoods pose of indifference and half derision. He made no move togo to bed, but refilled his pipe and watched his young comrade's facewith shrewd, bright eyes grown suddenly boyish. 

At last the Boy rose and picked up his rifle. 

"I must hurry up and get myself hidden, " said he, "or I'll see nothingto-night. Good night, Jabe. I'll not be back, likely, till alongtoward morning. "

The backwoodsman's usual response was not forthcoming. For someseconds he fingered his rugged chin in silence. Then, straighteninghimself up, he spoke with an air of mingled embarrassment andcarelessness. 

"Them beaver of yourn's certainly an interestin' kind of varmint. D'ye know, blam'd if I ain't got a notion to go along with youto-night, an' watch 'em myself!"

The Boy, though secretly delighted at this evidence of something likeconversion, eyed Jabe doubtfully. He was not sure of the latter'scapacity for the tireless patience and long self-effacement necessaryfor such an adventure as this. 

"Well, Jabe, " he answered hesitatingly, "you know well how more thanglad I'd be of your company. It would just about double my fun, havingyou along, if you were really interested, as I am, you know. And areyou sure you could keep still long enough to see anything?"

Jabe would have resented this halting acceptance of his companionshiphad he not known in his heart that it was nothing more than he welldeserved. But the doubt cast upon his woodcraft piqued him. 

"Hain't I never set for hours in the wet ma'sh, never movin' a finger, waitin' for the geese?" he asked with injury in his voice. "Hain't Inever sneaked up on a watchin' buck, or laid so still I've fooled abear?"

The Boy chuckled softly at this outbreak, so unexpected in thetaciturn and altogether superior Jabe. 

"You're all right, Jabe!" said he. "I reckon you can keep still. Butyou must let me be captain, for to-night! This is my trick. "

"Sartain, " responded the woodsman with alacrity. "I'll eat mud if yousay so! But I'll take along a hunk of cold bacon if you hain't got noobjection. "

On the trail through the ghostly, moonlit woods, Jabe followedobediently at the Boy's heels. Silently as shadows they moved, silently as the lynx or the moose or the weasel goes through thesoftly parting undergrowth. The Boy led far away from the brook, andover the crest of the ridge, to avoid alarming the vigilant sentries. As they approached the head of the canal, their caution redoubled, andthey went very slowly, bending low and avoiding every patch ofmoonlight. The light breeze, so light as to be almost imperceptible, drew upward toward them from the meadow, bringing now and then a scentof the fresh-dug soil. At last the Boy lay down on his belly; and Jabereligiously imitated him. For perhaps fifty yards they crept forwardinch by inch, till at length they found themselves in the heart of ayoung fir thicket, through whose branches they could look out upon thehead of the canal and the trees where the beavers had most recentlybeen cutting. 

Among the trees and in the water, all was still, with the mystic, crystalline stillness of the autumn moonlight. In that lighteverything seemed fragile and unreal, as if a movement or a breathmight dissolve it. After a waiting of some ten minutes Jabe had it onthe tip of his tongue to whisper, derisively, "Nothin' doin'!" But heremembered the Boy's injunction, as well as his doubts, and checkedhimself. A moment later a faint, swirling gurgle of water caught hisear, and he was glad he had kept silence. An instant more, and theform of a beaver, spectral-gray in the moonlight, took shape all atonce on the brink of the canal. For several minutes it stood theremotionless, erect upon its hind quarters, questioning the stillnesswith eyes and ear and nose. Then, satisfied that there was no dangernear, it dropped on all fours and crept up toward the tree that waspartly cut through. 

This pioneer of the woodcutters was followed immediately by threeothers, who lost no time in getting down to work. One of them went tohelp the leader, while the other two devoted themselves to trimmingand cutting up the branches of the big birch which they had felledthe night before. The Boy wondered where the rest of the pond-peoplewere, and would have liked to consult Jabe about it; but he rememberedthe keenness of the beaver's ears, and held his tongue securely. Itseemed to him probably that they were still down in the pond, workingon the houses, the brush pile, or the dam. Presently one more wasaccounted for. A renewed splashing in the canal turned the attentionof the watchers from the tree-cutting, and they saw that a single wiseexcavator was at work, carrying forward the head of the ditch. 

There was no impatience or desire to fidget left in Jabe Smith now. Ashe watched the beavers at work in the moonlight, looking verymysterious in their stealthy, busy, tireless diligence, and conductingtheir toil with an ordered intelligence which seemed to him almosthuman, he understood for the first time the Boy's enthusiasm for thiskind of bloodless hunting. He had always known how clever the beaverswere, and allowed them full credit; but till now he had never actuallyrealized it. The two beavers engaged in cutting down the tree saterect upon their haunches, supported by their huge tails, chiselingindefatigably. Cutting two deep grooves, one about six or eightinches, perhaps, above the other, they would then wrench off the chipsby main force with their teeth and forepaws, jerking their powerfulnecks with a kind of furious impatience. As he noted how they made thecut deeper and lower on one side than the other, that the tree mightfall as they wished, he was so delighted that he came dangerously nearvowing he would never trap a beaver again. He felt that it was almostlike ensnaring a brother woodsman. 

Equally exciting was the work on the other tree, which was beingtrimmed. The branches, according to their size, were cut into neat, manageable lengths, of from three to six or seven feet--the less thediameter the greater the length, each piece being calculated to behandled in the water by one beaver. These pieces were then rolled, shoved or dragged, as the case might require, down the smooth trailsalready made in hauling the brush, and dumped into the canal. Otherbeavers presently appeared, and began towing the sticks and brush downthe canal to the pond. This part of the process was hidden from theeager watchers in the thicket; but the Boy guessed, from his ownexperience in pushing a log endwise before him while in swimming, thatthe beavers would handle the sticks in the same way. With the brush, however, it was different. In hauling it down the trail each beavertook a branch in his teeth, by the butt, twisted it across hisshoulders, and let it drag behind him. It was obvious that in thewater, too, this would be the most convenient way to handle suchmaterial. The beavers were not the kind of people to waste theirstrength in misdirected effort. 

[Illustration: "TWISTED IT ACROSS HIS SHOULDERS, AND LET IT DRAG BEHINDHIM. "]

While all this cutting and hauling was going on, the big beaver downat the head of the canal was attending strictly to his task, runninghis lines straight, digging the turf and clay, shoving his loads upthe slope and out upon the edge of the ditch. The process was all inclear, easy view of the watchers, their place of hiding being not morethan eight or ten paces distant. 

They had grown altogether absorbed in watching the little canal-builder, when a cracking sound made them turn their eyes. The tree was topplingslowly. Every beaver now made a mad rush for the canal, not caringhow much noise he made--and plunged into the water. Slowly, reluctantly, majestically, the tall birch swung forward straight downthe slope, its top describing a great arc against the sky andgathering the air in its branches with a low but terrifying roar. Thefinal crash was unexpectedly gentle, --or rather, would have seemed soto one unfamiliar with tree-felling. Some branches snapped, somesticks flew up and dropped, there was a shuddering confusion in thecrystal air for a few seconds, then the stillness fell once more. 

But now there was not a beaver to be seen. Jabe wondered if they hadbeen scared by the results of their own work; or if one of theirsentinels had come and peered into the thicket from the rear. Asminute after minute dragged by, and nothing happened, he began torealize that his muscles were aching savagely from their longrestraint. He was on the point of moving, of whispering to ask the Boywhat it meant, when the latter, divining his unrest, stealthily laid arestraining hand upon his arm. He guessed that the beavers were on thealert, hiding, and watching to see if any of their enemies should beattracted by the noise. 

[Illustration: "EVERY BEAVER NOW MADE A MAD RUSH FOR THE CANAL. "]

Not five seconds later, however, he forgot his aches. Appearing withuncanny and inexplicable suddenness, there was the big pioneer again, sitting up by the edge of the canal. As before, he sat absolutelymotionless for a minute or two, sniffing and listening. Then, satisfied once more that all was well, he moved lazily up the slope toexamine the tree; and in half a minute all were at work again, exceptthat there was no more tree-felling. The great business of the hourwas cutting brush. 

For some time longer the watchers lay motionless, noting every detailof the work, till at last the Boy began to think it was time torelease Jabe from his long and severe restraint and break up thebeaver "chopping-bee. " Before he had quite made up his mind, however, his eyes chanced to wander a little way up the slope, and to rest, without any conscious purpose, on a short gray bit of log. Presentlyhe began to wonder what a piece of log so short and thick--not muchmore than three feet long--would be doing there. No beavers wouldwaste time cutting up a twelve-inch log into lengths like that. Andthere had been no lumberman in the neighbourhood. Then, in a flash, his eyes cleared themselves of their illusion. The log had moved, everso slightly. It was no longer a log, but a big gray lynx, creepingslowly, inexorably, down upon the unsuspecting people of the pond. 

For perhaps ten seconds the Boy stared in uncertainty. Then he saw thelynx gather his muscles for the final, fatal rush. Without a whisperor a warning to the astonished Jabe, he whipped up his rifle, andfired. 

The sharp report seemed to shatter the whole scene. Its echoes weremixed with the scattering of the horrified beavers as they rushed forthe water--with the short screech of the lynx, as it bounced into theair and fell back on its side, dead--with an exclamation ofastonishment from Jabe--and with a crashing of branches just behindthe thicket. The Boy looked around, triumphant--to see that Jabe'sexclamation was not at all the result of his clever shot. The woodsmanwas on his hands and knees, his back turned, and staring at the formof a big black bear as it lumbered off in a panic through the bushes. Like the unfortunate lynx, the bear had been stalking the beavers onhis own account, and had almost stepped upon the silent watchers inthe thicket. 

[Illustration: "IT WAS NO LONGER A LOG, BUT A BIG GRAY LYNX. "]

CHAPTER V

Dam Repairing and Dam Building

AS the Boy trudged triumphantly back toward camp, over the crest ofthe moon-bright ridge, he carried the limp, furry body of the lynxslung by its hind legs over his shoulder. He felt that his prestigehad gone up incalculably in the woodsman's eyes. The woodsman wassilent, however, as silent as the wilderness, till they descended theother slope and came in sight of the little solitary camp. Then hesaid: "That was a mighty slick shot of yourn, d'ye know it? Ye'requicker'n chain lightnin', an' dead on!"

"Just luck, Jabe!" replied the Boy carelessly, trying to seem properlymodest. 

This different suggestion Jabe did not take the trouble to controvert. He knew the Boy did not mean it. 

"But I thought as how ye wouldn't kill anything?" he went on, teasingly. 

"Had to!" retorted the Boy. "That was self-defence! Those beavers aremy beavers. An' I've always wanted a real good excuse for getting agood lynx skin, anyway!"

"I don't blame ye a mite fer standin' by them beaver!" continued Jabe. "They're jest all right! It was better'n any circus; an' I don't knowwhen I've enjoyed myself more. "

"Then the least you can do, Jabe, is promise not to trap any morebeavers!" said the Boy quickly. 

"Wa'al, " answered Jabe, as they entered camp and began spreading theirblankets, "leastwise I'll do my best to see that no harm comes to thembeaver, nor to the pond. "

Next morning, as the woodsman was starting out for the day's cruise, the Boy said to him:

"If you're game for another night's watching, Jabe, I'll show yousomething altogether different up at the pond to-night. "

"Try me!" responded the woodsman. 

"You'll have to be back earlier than usual, then, " said the Boy. "We'll have to get hidden earlier, and in a new place. "

"I'll come back along a couple of hours afore sundown, then, " answeredJabe, swinging off on his long, mooselike stride. It was contrary tohis backwoods etiquette to ask what was in store for him; but hiscuriosity was excited, and kept him company through the solitude allday. 

When Jabe was gone, the Boy went straight up-stream to the dam, takingno special care to hide his coming. His plan was one in regard towhich he felt some guilty qualms. But he consoled himself with thethought that whatever harm he might be doing to the little citizens ofthe pond would be more than compensated by the protection he wasgiving them. He was going to make a break in the dam, for the sake ofseeing just how the beavers would mend it. 

On reaching the dam, however, it occurred to him that if he made thebreak now the beavers might regard the matter as too urgent to be lefttill nightfall. They might steal a march on him by mending the damagelittle by little, surreptitiously, through the day. He had no way ofknowing just how they would take so serious a danger as a break intheir dam. He decided, therefore, to postpone his purpose till theafternoon, so that the beavers would not come to the rescue too early. In the meantime, he would explore the stream above the pond, and seeif there were other communities to study. 

Skirting the hither side of the pond to near its head, he crossed thelittle meadow and the canal, and reached the brook again about fiftyyards beyond. Here he found it flowing swift and narrow, over a rockybottom, between high banks; and this was its character for nearly halfa mile, as he judged. Then, emerging once more upon lower ground, hecame upon a small dam. This structure was not much over eighteeninches in height, and the pond above it, small and shallow, showed nosigns of being occupied. There was no beaver house to be seen, eitherin the water or on shore; and the water did not seem to be anywheremore than a foot and a half in depth. As he puzzled over this--for hedid not think the beavers were likely to build a dam for nothing--heobserved a second and much larger dam far away across the head of thepond. 

Hastening to investigate this upper dam, he found it fully three feethigh, and very massive. Above it was a narrow but deep pond, betweencomparatively steep shores; and along these shores he counted threelow-roofed houses. Out in the middle of the pond there was not onedwelling; and he came presently to the conclusion that here, betweenthe narrow banks, the current would be heavy in time of freshet. Thelower dam, pretty obviously, was intended to reinforce the upper, bybacking a foot and a half of water against it and taking off just thatmuch of the pressure. He decided that the reason for locating thethree houses along the shore was that the steep bank afforded specialfacilities for shore burrows. 

The explorer's fever being now hot upon him, the Boy could not stay toexamine this pond minutely. He pressed on up-stream with breathlesseagerness, thrilling with expectation of what the next turn mightreveal. As a matter of fact, the next turn revealed nothing--nor thenext, nor yet the next. But as the stream was full of turns in thisportion of its course, that was not greatly discouraging. 

About a quarter of a mile, however, above the head of the narrow pond, the ardent explorer came upon a level of sparse alder swamp. Here hefound the stream just beginning to spread over its low banks. Thecause of this spreading was a partial obstruction in mid-channel--whatlooked, at first glance, like an accidental accumulation of brush andstones and mud. A second look, however, and his heart jumped withexcitement and delight. Here was the beginning of a new pond, herewere the foundations of a new dam. He would be able to see what fewindeed of the students of the wilderness had had the opportunity towatch--the actual process by which these wilderness engineers achievedtheir great work. 

All about the place the straightest and brushiest alders had been cutdown, those usually selected being at least ten or twelve feet inheight. Many of them were still lying where they fell; but a numberhad been dragged to the stream and anchored securely, with stones andturfy clay, across the channel. The Boy noted, with keenestadmiration, that these were all laid with the greatest regularityparallel with the flow of the current, butts up stream, brushy topsbelow. In this way, the current took least hold upon them, and wasobstructed gradually and as it were insidiously, without beingchallenged to any violent test of strength. Already it was lingeringin some confusion, backing up, and dividing its force, and stealingaway at each side among the bushes. The Boy had heard that thebeavers were accustomed to begin their dams by felling a tree acrossthe channel and piling their materials upon that as a foundation. Butthe systematic and thorough piece of work before him was obviouslysuperior in permanence to any such slovenly makeshift; and moreover, further to discredit such a theory, here was a tall black ash close tothe stream and fairly leaning over it, as if begging to be put to somesuch use. 

At this spot the Boy stayed his explorations for the day. Choosing abit of dry thicket close by, to be a hiding-place for Jabe and himselfthat night, a bunch of spruce and fir where he knew the beavers wouldnot come for supplies, he hurried back to the camp for a bite ofdinner, giving wide berth to all the ponds on the way. Building a tinycamp-fire he fried himself a couple of slices of bacon and brewed atin of tea for his solitary meal, then lay down in the lean-to, withthe sun streaming in upon him, for an hour's nap. 

The night having been a tiring one for his youthful nerves andmuscles, he slept heavily, and awoke with a start to find the sun agood two hours nearer the horizon. Sleep was still heavy upon him, sohe went down to the edge of the brook and plunged his face into thechilly current. Then, picking up an axe instead of his rifle, hereturned up-stream to the dam. 

As he drew near, he caught sight of a beaver swimming down the pond, towing a big branch over its shoulder; and his conscience smote him atthe thought of the trouble and anxiety he was going to inflict uponthe diligent little inhabitants. His mind was made up, however. Hewanted knowledge, and the beavers would have to furnish it, atwhatever cost. A few minutes of vigorous work with the axe, a fewminutes of relentless tugging and jerking upon the upper framework ofthe dam, and he had made a break through which the water rushedfoaming in a muddy torrent. Soon, as he knew, the falling of thepond's level would alarm the house-dwellers, and bring them out to seewhat had happened. Then, as soon as darkness came, there would be agathering of both households to repair the break. 

[Illustration: "HE CAUGHT SIGHT OF A BEAVER SWIMMING DOWN THE POND. "]

Hiding in the bushes near by, he saw the water slowly go down, but forhalf an hour the beavers gave no sign. Then, close beside the break, abig fellow crawled out upon the slope of the dam and made a carefulsurvey of the damage. He disappeared; and presently another came, tooka briefer look, and vanished. A few minutes later, far up the pond, several bushy branches came to the surface, as if they had beenanchored on the bottom and released. They came, apparently floating, down toward the dam. As they reached the break, the heads of severalbeavers showed themselves above water, and the branches were guidedacross the opening, where they were secured in some way which thewatcher could not see. They did not so very greatly diminish thewaste, but they checked the destructive violence of it. It wasevidently a temporary makeshift, this; for in the next hour nothingmore was done. Then the Boy got tired, and went back to camp to waitfor Jabe and nightfall. 

That evening the backwoodsman, forgetting the fatigue of his day'scruising in the interest of the Boy's story, was no less eager thanhis companion; and the two, hurrying through an early supper, were offfor the pond in the first purple of twilight. When they reached theBoy's hiding-place by the dam the first star was just showing itselfin the pallid greenish sky, and the surface of the pond, with itsvague, black reflections, was like a shadowed mirror of steel. Therewas not a sound on the air except the swishing rush of the dividedwater over the break in the dam. 

The Boy had timed his coming none too early; for the pond had droppednearly a foot, and the beavers were impatient to stop the break. Nosooner had night fairly settled down than suddenly the water began toswirl into circles all about the lower end of the pond, and a dozenheads popped up. Then more brush appeared, above the island-house, andwas hurriedly towed down to the dam. The brush which had been thrustacross the break was now removed and relaid longitudinally, branchyends down stream. Here it was held in place by some of the beaverswhile others brought masses of clayey turf from the nearest shore tosecure it. Meanwhile more branches were being laid in place, alwaysparallel with the current; and in a little while the rushing noise ofthe overflow began to diminish very noticeably. Then a number ofshort, heavy billets were mixed with shorter lengths of brush; and allat once the sound of rushing ceased altogether. There was not even theusual musical trickling and tinkling, for the level of the pond wastoo low for the water to find its customary stealthy exits. At thisstage the engineers began using smaller sticks, with more clay, and agreat many small stones, making a very solid-looking piece of work. Atlast the old level of the dam crest was reached, and there was nolonger any evidence of what had happened except the lowness of thewater. Then, all at once, the toilers disappeared, except for one bigbeaver, who kept nosing over every square inch of the work for perhapstwo minutes, to assure himself of its perfection. When he, at last, had slipped back into the water, both Jabe and the Boy got up, as ifmoved by one thought, and stretched their cramped legs. 

"I swan!" exclaimed the woodsman with fervour. "If that ain't theslickest bit o' work I ever seen! Let's go over and kind of inspectthe job fer 'em!"

Inspection revealed that the spot which had just been mended was thesolidest portion of the whole structure. Wherever else the water mightbe allowed to escape, it was plain the beavers intended it should haveno more outlet here. 

From the mended dam the Boy now led Jabe away up-stream in haste, inthe hope of catching some beavers at work on the new dam in thealders. Having skirted the long pond at a distance, to avoid givingalarm, the travellers went with the utmost caution till they reachedthe swampy level. Then, indifferent to the oozy, chilly mud, theycrept forward like minks stealing on their prey; and at last, gainingthe fir thicket without mishap, they lay prone on the dry needles torest. 

As they lay, a sound of busy splashing came to their ears, whichpromptly made them forget their fatigue. Shifting themselves veryslowly and with utter silence, they found that the place of ambushhad been most skilfully chosen. In perfect hiding themselves, they commanded a clear and near view of the new dam and all itsapproaches. 

There were two beavers visible, paddling busily on the foundationsof the dam, while the overflowing water streamed about them, covering their feet. At this stage, most of the water flowedthrough the still uncompacted structure, leaving work on the topunimpeded. The two beavers were dragging into place a long birchsapling, perhaps eleven feet in length, with a thick, bushy top. When laid to the satisfaction of the architects, --the butt, of course, pointing straight up-stream, --the trunk was jammed firmly downbetween those already placed. Then the more erect and unmanageable ofthe branches were gnawed off and in some way--which the observerswith all their watchfulness could not make out--wattled down amongthe other branches so as to make a woven and coherent mass. Theearth and sod and small stones which were afterwards brought andlaid upon the structure did not seem necessary to hold it in place, but rather for the stoppage of the interstices. 

While this was going on at the dam, a rustling of branches andsplashing of water turned the watchers' attention up-stream. Anotherbeaver came in sight, and then another, each partly floating andpartly dragging a straight sapling like the first. It seemed that thedam-builders were not content to depend altogether on the crooked, scraggly alder-growth all about them, but demanded in theirfoundations a certain proportion of the straighter timbers and denserbranches of the birch. It was quite evident that they knew just whatthey were doing, and how best to do it. 

While the building was going on, yet another pair of beavers appeared, and the work was pressed with a feverish energy that produced amazingresults. The Boy remembered a story told him by an old Indian, butnot confirmed by any natural history which he had come across, to theeffect that when a pair of young beavers set out to establish a newpond, some of the old ones go along to lend a hand in the building ofthe dam. It was plain that these workers were all in a tremendoushurry; and the Boy could see no reason for haste unless it was thatthe majority of the workers had to get back to their own affairs. Withthe water once fairly brought under control, and the pond deep enoughto afford a refuge from enemies, the young pair could be trusted tocomplete it by themselves, get their house ready, and gather theirsupplies in for the winter. The Boy concluded to his own satisfactionthat what he was now watching was the analogue, in beaver life, to oneof those "house-raising" bees which sometimes took place in theSettlement, when the neighbours would come together to help a man getup the frame of a new house. Only, as it seemed to him, the beaverswere a more serious and more sober folk than the men. 

When this wilderness engineering had progressed for an hour under thewatchers' eyes, Jabe began to grow very tired. The strain of physicalimmobility told upon him, and he lost interest. He began to feel thathe knew all about dam-building; and as there was nothing more to learnhe wanted to go back to camp. He glanced anxiously at the young facebeside him--but there he could see no sign of weariness. The Boy wasaglow with enthusiasm. He had forgotten everything but the wonderfullittle furry architects, their diligence, their skill, theircoöperation, and the new pond there growing swiftly before his eyes. Already it was more than twice as wide as when they had arrived on thescene; the dam was a good eight inches higher; and the clamour of theflowing stream was stopped. No, Jabe could see no sympathy for himselfin that eager face. He was ashamed to beg off. And moreover, he wasloyal to his promise of obedience. The Boy, here, was Captain. 

Suppressing a sigh, Jabe stealthily and very gradually shifted to aneasier position, so stealthily that the Boy beside him did not know hehad moved. Then, fixing his eyes once more upon the beavers, he triedto renew his interest in them. As he stared, he began to succeedamazingly. And no wonder! The beavers all at once began to do suchamazing things. There were many more of them than he had thought; andhe was sure he heard them giving orders in something that sounded tohim like the Micmac tongue. He could not believe his ears. Then he sawthat they were using larger stones, instead of mud and turf, in theiroperations--and floating them down the pond as if they were corks. Hehad never heard of such a thing before, in all his wildernessexperience. He was just about to compliment the Boy on thisunparalleled display of engineering skill, when one particularly largebeaver, who was hoisting a stone as big as himself up the face of thedam, let his burden slip a little. Then began a terrible strugglebetween the beaver and the stone. In his agonizing effort--which hiscompanions all stopped work to watch--the unhappy beaver made a loud, gurgling, gasping noise; then, without a hint of warning, dropped thestone with a splash, turned like lightning, and grabbed Jabe violentlyby the arm. 

The astonishing scene changed in a twinkling; and Jabe realized thatthe Boy was shaking him. 

"A nice one to watch beavers, you are!" cried the Boy, angry anddisappointed. 

"Why--where've they all gone to?" demanded Jabe, rubbing his eyes. "They're the most interestin' critters I ever hearn tell of!"

"Interesting!" retorted the Boy, scornfully. "So interesting you wentto sleep! And you snored so they thought it was an earthquake. Notanother beaver'll show a hair round here to-night. We'd better gohome!"

Jabe grinned sheepishly, but answered never a word; and silently, inIndian file, the Boy leading, the two took the trail back to camp. 

CHAPTER VI

The Peril of the Traps

AT breakfast next morning the Boy had quite recovered his good humour, and was making merry at Jabe's expense. The latter, who was, ofcourse, defenceless and abashed, was anxious to give him something newto think of. 

"Say, " he exclaimed suddenly, after the Boy had prodded him with asearching jibe. "If ye'll let up on that snore, now, I'll take a dayoff from my cruisin', and show ye somethin' myself. "

"Good!" said the Boy. "It's a bargain. What will you show me?"

"I'll take ye over to one of _my_ ponds, in next valley, an' show yeall the different ways of _trappin'_ beaver. "

The Boy's face fell. 

"But what do _I_ care about _trapping_ beaver?" he cried. "You know Iwouldn't trap anything. If I had to kill anything, I'd _shoot_ it, and put it out of misery as quick as I could!"

"I know all that, " responded Jabe. "But trappin' is somethin' ye wantto _understand_, all the same. Ye can't be an all-round woodsman 'lessye _understand_ trappin'. An' moreover, there's some things ye learnabout wild critters in tryin' to git the better of 'em that ye can'tlearn no other way. "

"I guess you're right, Jabe!" answered the Boy, slowly. Knowledge hewould have, whether he liked the means of getting it or not. But thewoodsman's next words relieved him. 

"I'll just show ye _how_, that's all!" said Jabe. "It's a leetle tooairly in the season yit fur actual trappin'. An' moreover, it's aginthe law. Agin the law, an' agin common sense, too, fer the fur ain'tno good, so to speak, fer a month yit. When the law an' common sensestand together, then I'm fer the law. Come on!"

Picking up his axe, he struck straight back into the woods, in adirection at right angles to the brook. To uninitiated eyes there wasno trail; but to Jabe, and to the Boy no less, the path was like atrodden highway. The pace set by the backwoodsman, with his long, slouching, loose-jointed, flat-footed stride, was a stiff one, butthe Boy, who was lean and hard, and used his feet straight-toed likean Indian, had no fault to find with it. Neither spoke a word, as theyswung along single file through the high-arched and ancient forest, whose shadows, so sombre all through summer, were now shot here andthere with sharp flashes of scarlet or pale gleams of aërial gold. Once, rounding a great rock of white granite stained with faintpinkish and yellowish reflections from the bright leaves glowing overit, they came face to face with a tall bull moose, black andformidable-looking as some antediluvian monster. The monster, however, had no desire to hold the way against them. He eyed them doubtfullyfor a second, and then went crashing off through the brush in frank, undignified alarm. 

For a good three miles the travellers swung onward, up a slow longslope, and down a longer, slower one into the next valley. The Boynoted that the region was one of numberless small brooks flowingthrough a comparatively level land, with old, long-desertedbeaver-meadows interspersed among wooded knolls. Yet for a time therewere no signs of the actual living beavers. He asked the reason, andJabe said:

"It's been all trapped over an' over, years back, when beaverpelts was high, --an' by Injuns, likely, who just cleaned outeverythin', --an' broke down the dams, --an' dug out the houses. Butthe little critters is comin' back. Furder up the valley there's somegood ponds now!"

"And now they'll be cleaned out again!" exclaimed the Boy, with a rushof indignant pity. 

"Not on yer life!" answered Jabe. "We don't do things that way now. Wedon't play low-down tricks on 'em an' clean out a whole family, butjest take so many out of each beaver house, an' then leave 'em alonetwo er three years to kinder recooperate!"

As Jabe finished they came in sight of a long, rather low dam, with apond spread out beyond it that was almost worthy to be called a lake. It was of comparatively recent creation, as the Boy's observant eyedecided at once from the dead trees still rising here and there fromthe water. 

"Gee!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "That's a great pond, Jabe!"

"There's no less'n four beaver houses in that pond!" said thewoodsman, with an air of proud possession. "That makes, accordin' tomy reckonin', anywheres from thirty to thirty-six beaver. Bye and bye, when the time comes, I'll kinder thin 'em out a bit, that's all!"

From the crest of the dam all four houses--one far out and three closeto shore--were visible to the Boy's initiated eye; though strangersmight have taken them to be mere casual accumulations of sticksdeposited by some whimsical freshet. It troubled him to think how manyof the architects of these cunningly devised dwellings would soon haveto yield up their harmless and interesting lives; but he felt nomission to attempt a reform of humanity's taste for furs, so he didnot allow himself to become sentimental on the subject. Beavers, likemen, must take fate as it comes; and he turned an attentive ear toJabe's lesson. 

"Ye know, of course, " said the woodsman, "the steel trap we use. Weain't got no use fer the tricks of the Injuns, though I'm goin' totell ye all _them_, in good time. An' we ain't much on new-fanglednotions, neether. But the old, smooth-jawed steel-trap, what kin_hold_ when it gits a grip, an' not tear the fur, is good enough forus. "

"Yes, I know all your traps, of all the sizes you use, from muskrat upto bear!" interrupted the Boy. "What size do you use for the beaver?"

"Number four, " answered Jabe. "Jaw's got a spread of six and one-halfinches or thereabouts. But it's all in the where an' the how ye setyer trap!"

"And that's what I want to know about!" said the Boy. "But why don'tyou _shoot_ the poor little beggars? That's quicker for both, and justas easy for you, ain't it?"

"T'ain't no use _shootin'_ a beaver, leastways not in the water! Hejust sinks like a stone. No, ye've _got_ to trap him, to _git_ him. Now, supposin' you was goin' to trap, where would ye set the traps?"

"I'd anchor them just in the entrances to their houses, " answered theBoy promptly. "Or along their canals, when they've got canals. Orround their brush piles an' storage heaps. And when I found a treethey'd just partly cut down, I'd set a couple of traps, covered up inleaves, each side of the trunk, where they'd have to step on the panwhen they stood up to gnaw. "

"Good for you!" said Jabe, with cordial approbation. "Ye'd make afirst-class trapper, 'cause ye've got the right notion. Every one ofthem things is done, one time or another, by the old trapper. Buthere's one or two wrinkles more killin' yet. An' moreover, if ye trapa beaver on land ye're like to lose him one way or another. He's gotso much _purchase_, on land, with things to git hold on to; he's jestas like as not to twist his leg clean off, an' git away. If it's oneof his fore legs, which is small an' slight, ye know, he's most sureto twist it off. An' sometimes he'll do the trick even with a hindleg. I've caught lots of beaver as had lost a fore leg, an' didn'tseem none the worse. The fur'd growed over it, an' they was slick an'hearty. An' I've caught them as had lost a hind leg, an' they was ingood condition. A beaver'll stand a lot, I tell you. But then, supposin' you git yer beaver, caught so fast he ain't no chancewhatever to git clear. Then, like as not, some lynx, or wildcat, orfisher, or fox, or even maybe a bear, 'll come along an' help himselfto Mr. Beaver without so much as a by yer leave. No, ye want to githim in the water; an' as he's just as anxious to git thar as you areto git him thar, that suits all parties to a T. "

[Illustration: "'OR EVEN MAYBE A BEAR. '"]

"Good!" said the Boy, --not that it really seemed to him good, but toshow that he was attending. 

"But, " continued Jabe, "what would ye say would most upset the beaverand make 'em careless?"

The Boy thought for a moment. 

"Breaking their dam!" he answered tentatively. 

"_Eg_zactly!" answered the woodsman. "Well, now, to ketch beaver sure, make two or three breaks in their dam, an' set the traps jest a leetleways above the break, on the upper slope, where they're sure to stepinto 'em when hustlin' round to mend the damage. That gits 'em, everytime. Ye chain each trap to a stake, driven into three or four foot ofwater; an' ye drive another stake about a foot an' a half away fromthe first. When the beaver finds himself caught, he dives straight fordeep water, --his way of gittin' clear of most of his troubles. Butthis time he finds it don't work. The trap keeps a holt, bitin' hard. An' in his struggle he gits the chain all tangled up 'round the twostakes, an' drowns himself. There you have him safe, where no lynx norfox kin git at him. "

"Then, when one of them dies so dreadfully, right there before theireyes, " said the Boy, "I suppose the others skin out and let thebroken dam go! They must be scared to death themselves!"

"Not on yer life, they don't!" responded Jabe. "The dam's the thingthey care about. They jest keep on hustlin' round; an' they mend upthat dam if it takes half the beaver in the pond to do it. Oh, they'regrit, all right, when it comes to standin' by the dam. "

"Hardly seems fair to take them that way, does it?" mused the Boysympathetically. 

"It's a good way, " asserted Jabe positively, "quick an' sure! Then, inwinter there's another good an' sure way, --where ye don't want toclean out the whole house, which is killin' the goose what lays thegolden egg, like the Injuns does! Ye cut a hole in the ice, near thebank. Then ye git a good, big, green sapling of birch or willow, runthe little end 'way out into the pond under the ice, an' ram the bigend, sharpened, deep into the mud of the bank, so the beaver can'tpull it out. Right under this end you set yer trap. Swimmin' roundunder the ice, beaver comes across this fresh-cut sapling an' thinksas how he's got a good thing. He set right to work to gnaw it off, close to the bank, to take it back to the house an' please thefamily. First thing, he steps right into the trap. An' that's the endof him. But other beaver'll come along an' take the sapling, all thesame!"

"You spoke of the ways the Indians had, of cleaning out the wholefamily, " suggested the Boy, when Jabe had come to a long pause, eitherbecause he was tired of talking or because he had no more to say. 

"Yes, the Injuns' methods was complete. They seemed to have the ideethere'd always be beaver a-plenty, no matter how many they killed. Oneway they had was to mark down the bank holes, the burrows, an' thenbreak open the houses. This, ye must understand, 's in the winter, when there's ice all over the pond. When they're drove from theirhouses, in the winter, they take straight to their burrows in thebank, where they kin be sure of gittin' their heads above water tobreathe. Then, the Injuns jest drive stakes down in front of theholes, --an' there they have 'em, every one. They digs down into theburrows, an' knocks Mr. Beaver an' all the family on the head. "

"Simple and expeditious!" remarked the Boy, with sarcastic approval. 

"But the nestest job the Injuns makes, " continued Jabe, "is bygittin' at the brush pile. Ye know, the beaver keeps his wintersupply of grub in a pile, --a pile of green poles an' saplings an'branches, --a leetle ways off from the house. The Injun finds thispile, under the ice. Then, cuttin' holes through the ice, he drivesdown a stake fence all 'round it, so close nary a beaver kin gitthrough. Then he pulls up a stake, on the side next the beaverhouse, an' sticks down a bit of a sliver in its place. Now ye kinguess what happens. In the house, over beyant, the beavers gitshungry. One on 'em goes to git a stick from the pile an' bring itinter the house. He finds the pile all fenced off. But a stick hemust have. Where the sliver is, that's the only place he kin gitthrough. Injun, waitin' on the ice, sees the sliver move, an' knowsMr. Beaver's gone in. He claps the stake down agin, in place of thesliver. An' then, of course, there's nawthin' left fer Mr. Beaver todo but drown. He drowns jest at the place where he come in an'couldn't git out agin. That seems to knock him out, like, an' hejest gives up right there. Injun fishes him out, dead, puts thesliver back, an' waits for another beaver. He don't have to waitlong--an' nine times outer ten he gits 'em all. Ye see, they _must_git to the brush pile!"

[Illustration: "HE DROWNS JEST AT THE PLACE WHERE HE COME IN. "]

"I'm glad _you_ don't trap them that way, Jabe!" said the Boy. "Buttell me, why did you bring me away out here to _this_ pond, to tell meall this, when you could have done it just as well at _my_ pond?"

"I jest wanted the excuse, " answered Jabe, "fer takin' a day off fromcruisin'. Now, come on, an' I'll show ye some more likely ponds. "

CHAPTER VII

Winter Under Water

FOR three days more the Boy and Jabe remained in the beaver country;and every hour of the time, except when he had to sleep, the Boy foundfull of interest. In the daytime he compared the ponds and the damsminutely, making measurements and diagrams. At night he lay in hiding, beside a different pond each night, and gained a rich store ofknowledge of the manners and customs of the little wildernessengineers. On one pond--his own, be it said--he made a rude raft oflogs, and by its help visited and inspected the houses on the island. The measurements he obtained here made his note-book pretty complete, as far as beaver life in summer and fall was concerned. 

Then Jabe finished his cruising, having covered his territory. Thepacks were made up and slung; the two campers set out on their threedays' tramp back to the settlements; and the solemn autumn quietdescended once more upon the placid beaver ponds, the shallow-runningbrooks, and the low-domed Houses in the Water. 

As the weather grew colder; and the earlier frosts began to sheathethe surface of the pond with clear, black ice, not melting out tillnoon; and the bitten leaves, turning from red and gold to brown, fellwith ghostly whisperings through the gray branches, the little beavercolony in Boy's Pond grew feverishly active. Some subtle presciencewarned them that winter would close in early, and that they must makehaste to finish their storing of supplies. The lengthening of theirnew canal completed, their foraging grew easier. Trees fell everynight, and the brush pile reached a size that guaranteed them immunityfrom hunger till spring. By the time the dam had been strengthened towithstand the late floods, there had been some sharp snow-flurries, and the pond was half frozen over. Then, in haste, the beavers broughtup a quantity of mud and grass roots, and plastered the domes of theirhouses thickly till they no longer looked like heaps of sticks, butrather resembled huge ant-hills. No sooner was this task done than, asif the beavers had been notified of its coming, the real cold came. In one night the pond froze to a depth of several inches; and over theroof of the House in the Water was a casing of armour hard as stone. 

The frost continued for several days, till the stone-like roof was agood foot in thickness, as was the ice over the surface of the pond. Then a thick, feather-soft, windless snow-fall, lasting twenty-fourhours, served as a blanket against the further piercing of the frost;and the beavers, warm-housed, well-provisioned, and barricaded againstall their enemies but man, settled themselves down to their longseclusion from the white, glittering, bitter, outside world. 

When the winter had tightened its grip, this outside world was full ofperils. Hungry lynxes, foxes, and fishers ("black cat, " the woodsmancalled them) hunted through the silent and pallid aisles of theforest. They all would have loved a meal of warm, fat beaver-meat; andthey all knew what these low, snow-covered mounds meant. In the roofof each house the cunning builders had left several tiny, crookedopenings for ventilation, and the warm air steaming up through thesemade little chimney holes in the snow above. To these, now and then, when stung by the hunger-pangs, a lynx or fox would come, and sniffwith greedy longing at the appetizing aroma. Growing desperate, theprowler would dig down, through perhaps three feet of snow, till hereached the stony roof of the house. On this he would tear and scratchfuriously, but in vain. Nothing less than a pick-axe would breakthrough that stony defence; and the beavers, perhaps dimly aware ofthe futile assault upon their walls, would go on calmly nibblingbirch-sticks in their safe, warm dark. 

[Illustration: "HUNTED THROUGH THE SILENT AND PALLID AISLES OF THEFOREST. "]

Inside the house everything was clean and dry. All refuse from theclean repasts of the family was scrupulously removed, and even theentrances, far out in the pond, were kept free from litter. When foodwas needed, a beaver would slip down into the dark water of thetunnel, out into the glimmering light of the pond, and straight to thebrush pile. Selecting a suitable stick, he would tow it back to thehouse, up the main entrance, and into the dry, dark chamber. When allthe tender bark was eaten off, the bare stick would be carried awayand deposited on the dam. It was an easy life; and the beavers grewfat while all the rest of the wild kindreds, save the porcupine andthe bear, were growing lean with famine. There was absolutely nothingto do but eat, sleep and take such exercise as they would by swimminghither and thither at terrific speed beneath the silver armour of theice. 

One night, however, there came to the pond an enemy of whose powersthey had never had experience. Wandering down from northwestward, under the impulse of one of those migratory whims which sometimes givethe lie to statistics and tradition, came a sinister, dark, slow-moving beast whose savage and crafty eyes took on a sudden flamewhen they detected the white mound which hid the shore beaver-house. The wolverene did not need that faint, almost invisible wisp of vapourfrom the air-holes to tell him there were beavers below. He knewsomething about beavers. His powerful forearms and mighty claws gothim to the bottom of the snow in a few seconds. Other hungry maraudershad done the same thing before, to find themselves as far off as everfrom their aim. But the wolverene was not to be balked so easily. Hiscunning nose found the minute openings of the air-holes; and bydigging his claws into these little apertures he was able to put forthhis great strength and tear up some tiny fragments of frozen mud. 

[Illustration: "A SINISTER, DARK, SLOW-MOVING BEAST. "]

If he had had the patience to keep on at his strenuous taskunremittingly for, perhaps, twenty-four hours or more, it isconceivable that this fierce digger might have succeeded in making hisway into the chamber. There was no such implacable purpose, however, in his attack. In a very little while he would have desisted from whathe knew to be a vain undertaking. Even had he succeeded, the beaverswould have fled before he could reach them, and taken refuge in theirburrows under the bank. But while he was still engrossed, perhaps onlyamusing himself with the thought of giving the dwellers in the house abad quarter of an hour, it chanced that a huge lynx came stealingalong through the shadows of the trees, which lay blue and spectral inthe white moonlight. He saw the hind quarters of some unknown animalwhich was busy working out a problem which he himself had striven invain to solve. The strange animal was plainly smaller than himself. Moreover, he was in a position to be taken at a disadvantage. Boththese points weighed with the lynx; and he was enraged at thisattempted poaching upon what he chose to regard as his preserves. Creeping stealthily, stealthily forward, eyes aflame and belly to thesnow, he sprang with a huge bound that landed him, claws open, squarely on the wolverene's hind quarters. 

Instantly there arose a hideous screeching, growling, spitting andsnarling, which pierced even to the ears of the beavers and sent themscurrying wildly to their burrows in the bank. Under ordinarycircumstances the wolverene, with his dauntless courage and tremendousstrength, would have given a good account of himself with any lynxalive. But this time, caught with head down and very busy, he stoodsmall chance with his powerful and lightning-swift assailant. In avery few minutes the lynx's eviscerating claws had fairly torn him toshreds; and thus came to a sudden close the invasion of thewolverene. 

But meanwhile, from far over the hills, moving up from the lowlandsby the sea, approached a peril which the beavers did not dream ofand could find no ingenuity to evade. Two half-breed trappers, semi-outlaws from the Northern Peninsula, in search of freshhunting-grounds, had come upon this rich region of ponds and dams. 

[Illustration: "HE SPRANG WITH A HUGE BOUND THAT LANDED HIM, CLAWS OPEN, SQUARELY ON THE WOLVERENE'S HIND QUARTERS. "]

CHAPTER VIII

The Saving of Boy's Pond

WHEN, early in the winter, the lumbermen moved into these woods whichJabe had cruised over, establishing their camp about two milesdown-stream from the spot where the Boy and the woodsman had had theirlean-to, Jabe came with them as boss of a gang. He had for the timegrown out of the mood for trapping. Furs were low, and there was a"sight" more money for him in lumbering that winter. Popular with therest of the lumbermen--who most of them knew of the Boy and his"queer" notions--Jabe had no difficulty in pledging them to respectthe sanctity of Boy's Pond and its inhabitants. In fact, in theevenings around the red-hot stove, Jabe told such interesting storiesof what he and the Boy had seen together a few months before, that thereckless, big-hearted, boisterously profane but sentimental woodsmenwere more than half inclined to declare the whole series of pondsunder the special protection of the camp. As for Boy's Pond, thatshould be safe at any cost. 

Not long after Christmas the Boy, taking advantage of the fact thatsome fresh supplies were being sent out from the Settlement by team, came to visit the camp. The head of the big lumber company which ownedthese woods was a friend of the Boy's father, and the Boy himself waswelcome in any of the camps. His special purpose in coming now was tosee how his beavers got on in winter, and to assure himself that Jabehad been able to protect them. 

The morning after his arrival in camp he set out to visit the pond. Hewent on snowshoes, of course, and carried his little Winchester as healways did in the woods, holding tenaciously that the true lover ofpeace should be ever prepared for war. The lumbermen had gone off towork with the first of dawn; and far away to his right he heard theaxes ringing, faintly but crisply, on the biting morning air. For halfa mile he followed a solitary snowshoe trail, which he knew to beJabe's by the peculiar broad toe and long, trailing heel which Jabeaffected in snowshoes; and he wondered what his friend was doing inthis direction, so far from the rest of the choppers. Then Jabe'strack swerved off to the left, crossing the brook; and the Boy trampedon over the unbroken snow. 

The sound of the distant choppers soon died away, and he was alone inthe unearthly silence. The sun, not yet risen quite clear of thehilltops, sent spectral, level, far-reaching gleams of thinpink-and-saffron light down the alleys of the sheeted trees. The lowcrunching of his snowshoes on the crisp snow sounded almost blatant inthe Boy's tensely listening ears. In spite of himself he began totread stealthily, as if the sound of his steps might bring someghostly enemy upon him from out of the whiteness. 

Suddenly the sound of an axe came faintly to his ears from straightahead, where he knew no choppers were at work. He stopped short. Thataxe was not striking wood. It was striking ice. It was chopping theice of Boy's Pond! What could it mean? There were no fish in that pondto chop the ice for!

As he realized that some one was preparing to trap his beavers hisface flushed with anger, and he started forward at a run. That it wasno one from the camp he knew very well. It must be some strangetrapper who did not know that this pond was under protection. Hethought this out as he ran on; and his anger calmed down. Trapperswere a decent, understanding folk; and a word of explanation wouldmake things all right. There were plenty of other beaver ponds in thatneighbourhood. 

Pressing through the white-draped ranks of the young fir-trees, hecame out suddenly upon the edge of the pond, and halted an instant inirresolution. Two dark-visaged men--his quick eye knew them forhalf-breeds--were busy on the snow about twenty paces above the lowmound which marked the main beaver house. They had a number of stakeswith them; and they were cutting a series of holes in a circle. Fromwhat Jabe had told him of the Indian methods, he saw at once thatthese were not regular trappers, but poachers, who were violating thegame laws and planning to annihilate the whole beaver colony byfencing in its brush pile. 

The Boy realized now that the situation was a delicate if not adangerous one. For an instant he thought of going back to camp forhelp; but one of the men was on his knees, fixing the stakes, and theother was already chopping what appeared to be the last hole. Delaymight mean the death of several of his precious beavers. Indignationand compassion together urged him on, and his young face hardened inunaccustomed lines. 

Walking out upon the snow a little way, he halted, at a distance ofperhaps thirty paces from the poachers. At the sound of his snowshoesthe two men looked up scowling and apprehensive; and the kneeling onesprang to his feet. They wanted no witnesses of their illegal work. 

"Good morning, " said the Boy politely. 

At the sound of his soft young voice, the sight of his slender figureand youthful face, their apprehensions vanished; but not their angerat being discovered. 

"Mornin'!" growled one, in a surly voice; while the other never openedhis mouth. Then they looked at each other with meaning question intheir eyes. How were they going to keep this unwelcome visitor frombetraying them?

"I'm going to ask you, " said the Boy sweetly, "to be so kind as tostop trapping on this pond. Of course you didn't know it, but this ismy pond, and there is no trapping allowed on it. It is reserved, youknow; and I don't want a single one of my beavers killed. "

The man with the axe scowled fiercely and said nothing. But the other, the one who had been driving the stakes, laughed in harsh derision. 

"You don't, hey, sonny?" he answered. "Well, you just wait an' watchus. We'll show ye whose beaver they be!" And turning his back in scornof his interlocutor's youth, he knelt down again to drive anotherstake. The man who had not spoken, however, stood leaning on his axe, eying the Boy with an ugly expression of menace. 

The Boy's usually quiet blood was now pounding and tingling withanger. His alert eyes had measured the whole situation, and noted thatthe men had no firearms but their rifles, which were leaning against atree on the shore fully fifty yards behind them. 

"Stop!" he cried, with so confident a tone of authority that thekneeling man looked up, though with a sneer on his face. "Unless yougo away from this pond at once, I'll get the men from the camp, andthey'll make you go. They'll not be so polite as I am. You're justpoachers, anyway. And the boys will like as not just run you clean outof the country. Will you do as I ask you, or shall I go and getthem?"

The man with the axe spat out some French curse which the Boy didn'tunderstand very clearly. But the man at the stakes jumped up againwith a dangerous grin. 

"You'll stay right where you are, sonny, till we're done with you, " hesnarled. "You understand? You're a-goin' to git hurt ef ye gits in ourway any! See?"

The Boy was now in a white rage; but he kept his wits cool and hiseyes watchful. He realized at this moment that he was in great danger;but, his mettle being sound, this only made him the more resolute. 

"All right. You've decided!" he said slowly. "We'll see what the boyswill have to say about it. "

As he spoke he made a movement as if to turn, but without taking hiseyes from the enemy. The movement just served to swing his littleWinchester into a readier position. 

At his first move the man with the axe took a step forward, and swungup his axe with a peculiar gesture which the Boy understood. He hadseen the woodsmen throw their axes. He knew well their quickness andtheir deadly precision. But quickness and precision with the littleWinchester were his own especial pride, --and, after all, he had notturned any further than was just right for a good shot. Even as theaxe was on the verge of leaving the poacher's hand, the rifle crackedsharply. The poacher yelled a curse, and his arm dropped. The axe flewwide, landing nowhere near its aim. On the instant both thehalf-breeds turned, and raced for their rifles on the shore. 

"Stop, or I'll shoot you both!" shouted the Boy, now with embarrassmentadded to his wrath. In their wild fury at being so balked by a boy, both men trusted to his missing his aim--or to the hope that his gunwas not a repeater. They ignored his command, and rushed on. The Boywas just going to shoot again, aiming at their legs; when, to hisamazement and inconceivable relief, out from behind the tree where thepoachers' rifles leaned, came Jabe. 

Snatching up one of the guns, he echoed the Boy's command. 

"Stop _right_ there!" he ordered curtly. "An' up with your hands, too! Mebbe youse kin fling a knife slick ez ye kin an axe. "

The half-breeds stood like stones. One held up both hands; but theother only held up his left, his right being helpless. They knew therewas nothing to say. They were fairly caught. They were poaching. Thetall lumberman had seen the axe flung. Their case was a black one; andany attempt to explain could do no less than make it worse. They didnot even dare to look at each other, but kept their narrow, beady eyesfixed on Jabe's face. 

The Boy came swiftly to Jabe's side. 

"Neat shot!" said the woodsman; but the note of astonished admirationin his tone was the most thrilling compliment the Boy had everreceived. 

"What are you going to do with them, Jabe?" he inquired, mildly. 

"That's fer you to say! They're yourn!" answered Jabe, keeping hiseyes on the prisoners. 

The Boy looked the two culprits over carefully, with his calm, boyishgaze. He was overwhelmingly elated, but would have died rather thanshow it. His air was that of one who is quite used to capturing twooutlaws, --and having axes hurled at his head, --and putting bulletsthrough men's shoulders. He could not help feeling sorry for the manwith the bullet through his shoulder. 

"Well, Jabe, " he said presently, "we can't let them go with theirguns, because they're such sneaking brutes, they'd shoot us frombehind a tree. And we can't let them go without their guns, because wecan't be sure they wouldn't starve before they got to their own homes. And we don't want to take them into camp, for the fellows wouldprobably treat them as they deserve, --and I don't want them to getanything so bad as that!"

"Maybe it _might_ be better not to let the hands git hold of 'em!"agreed Jabe. "They'd be rough!"

A gleam of hope came into the prisoners' eyes. The unwounded onespoke. And he had the perspicacity to address himself to the Boyrather than to Jabe, thereby conciliating the Boy appreciably. 

"Let us go!" he petitioned, choking down his rage. "We'll swear toquit, right now an' fer good; an' not to try to git back at yez!"

"Ye'll have to leave yer guns!" said Jabe sternly. 

"They're the only guns we got; an' they're our livin', fer thewinter!" protested the half-breed, still looking at the Boy. 

"If we take away their guns, what's the good of making them swear?"demanded the Boy, stepping up and gazing into their eyes. "No, Ireckon if they give their oath, they'll stick to it. Where's yourcamp, men?"

"Over yonder, about three mile!" answered the spokesman, noddingtoward the northeast. 

"If we give you back your guns, " went on the Boy gently, "will youboth give us your oath to clear right out of this country altogether, and not trap at all this side of the line? And will you take oath, also, that you will never, in any way, try to get even with either himor me for having downed you this way?"

"Sartain!" responded the spokesman, with obvious sincerity. "I'llswear to all that! An' I won't never _want_ to git even, if you use usso gentlemanlike!"

"And will you swear, too?" inquired the Boy, turning to the silent onewho had thrown the axe at him. The fellow glared at him defiantly fora moment, then glanced at his wounded arm, which hung limp at hisside. At last he answered with a sullen growl:

"Yes, I'll swear! Got to! Curse you!"

"Good!" said the Boy. "That's the best way for all of us. Jabe, willyou take their oaths. You know how better than I do!"

"All right!" responded the latter, shrugging his shoulders in a waywhich said--"it's your idee, not mine!" Then he proceeded to bind eachman separately by an oath which left no loophole, and which was sealedby all that their souls held sacred. This done, he handed back therifles, --and the two poachers, without a word, turned their backs andmade off at a swift lope straight up the open pond. The Boy and Jabewatched them till they vanished among the trees. Then, with a shylittle laugh, the Boy picked up the axe which had been hurled at hishead. 

"I'm glad he left me this, " he murmured, "to kind of remember himby!"

"The sneakin' skunk!" growled Jabe. "If I'd had my way, it'd be thepenitentiary for the both of 'em!"

That evening, when the whole story was told, the woodsmen wereindignant, for a time, because the half-breeds had been let go; but atlast they gave heed to Jabe's representations, and acknowledged thatthe Boy's plan had saved a "sight of bother. " To guard against futuredifficulties, however, they took a big piece of smooth board, andpainted the following sign, to be nailed up on a conspicuous treebeside the pond. 

 NOTICE

 THIS IS BOY'S POND. NO TRAPPING HERE. IF ANYBODY WANTS TO SAY, WHY NOT? LAWLER'S CAMP WILL LET HIM KNOW. 

THE WHITE-SLASHED BULL

HER back crushed beneath the massive weight of a "deadfall, " themother moose lay slowly sobbing her life out on the sweet spring air. The villainous log, weighted cunningly with rocks, had caught her justabove the withers, bearing her forward so that her forelegs weredoubled under her, and her neck outstretched so that she could notlift her muzzle from the wet moss. Though her eyes were alreadyglazing, and her nostrils full of a blown and blood-streaked froth, from time to time she would struggle desperately to raise her head, for she yearned to lick the sprawling, wobbling legs of the ungainlycalf which stood close beside her, bewildered because she would notrise and suckle him. 

The dying animal lay in the middle of the trail, which was an old, half-obliterated logger's road, running straight east into the glow ofthe spring sunrise. The young birches and poplars, filmed with thefirst of the green, crowded close upon the trail, with, here andthere, a rose-blooming maple, here and there, a sombre, black-greenhemlock, towering over the thick second growth. The early air wasfresh, but soft; fragrant with the breath of opening buds. Faint mistsstreamed up into the sunlight along the mossy line of the trail, andthe only sounds breaking the silence of the wilderness were thesweetly plaintive calls of two rain-birds, answering each other slowlyover the treetops. Everything in the scene--the tenderness of thecolour and the air, the responses of the mating birds, the hope andthe expectancy of all the waking world--seemed piteously at variancewith the anguish of the stricken mother and her young, down there inthe solitude of the trail. 

Presently, in the undergrowth beside the trail, a few paces beyond thedeadfall, a twig snapped sharply. Admonished by that experience of athousand ancestral generations which is instinct, the calf lifted hisbig awkward ears apprehensively, and with a shiver drew closer to hismother's crushed body. A moment later a gaunt black bear thrust hishead and shoulders forth from the undergrowth, and surveyed the scenewith savage, but shrewd, little eyes. He was hungry, and to hispalate no other delicacy the spring wilderness could ever afford wasequal to a young moose calf. But the situation gave him pause. Themother moose was evidently in a trap; and the bear was wary of alltraps. He sank back into the undergrowth, and crept noiselessly nearerto reconnoitre. In his suspicious eyes even a calf might be dangerousto tamper with, under such unusual conditions as these. As he vanishedthe calf shuddered violently, and tried to climb upon his mother'smangled body. 

In a few seconds the bear's head appeared again, close by the base ofthe deadfall. With crafty nose he sniffed at the great timber whichheld the moose cow down. The calf was now almost within reach of thedeadly sweep of his paw; but the man-smell was strong on the deadfall, and the bear was still suspicious. While he hesitated, from behind abend in the trail came a sound of footsteps. The bear knew the sound. A man was coming. Yes, certainly there was some trick about it. With agrunt of indignant disgust he shrank back again into the thicket andfled stealthily from so dangerous a neighbourhood. Hungry as he was, he had no wish to try conclusions with man. 

The woodsman came striding down the trail hurriedly, rounded the turn, and stopped abruptly. He understood at a glance the evil work of thegame poachers. With indignant pity, he stepped forward and drew amerciful knife across the throat of the suffering beast. The calfshrank away and stood staring at him anxiously, wavering betweenterror and trust. 

For a moment or two the man hesitated. Of one thing he was certain:the poachers who had set the deadfall must not profit by theirsuccess. Moreover, fresh moose-meat would not be unappreciated in hisbackwoods cabin. He turned and retraced his steps at a run, fearinglest some hungry spring marauders should arrive in his absence. Andthe calf, more than ever terrified by his mother's unresponsiveness, stared after him uneasily as he vanished. 

For half an hour nothing happened. The early chill passed from theair, a comforting warmth glowed down the trail, the two rain-birdskept whistling to each other their long, persuasive, melancholy call, and the calf stood motionless, waiting, with the patience of the wild, for he knew not what. Then there came a clanking of chains, atrampling of heavy feet, and around the turn appeared the man again, with a pair of big brown horses harnessed to a drag-sled. The calfbacked away as the man approached, and watched with dull wonder as thegreat log was rolled aside and his mother's limp, crushed form washoisted laboriously upon the sled. This accomplished, the man turnedand came to him gently, with hand outstretched. To run away would havebeen to run away from the shelter of his mother's presence; so, with asnort of apprehension, he submitted to being stroked and rubbed aboutthe ears and neck and throat. The sensation was curiously comforting, and suddenly his fear vanished. With his long, mobile muzzle he beganto tug appealingly at a convenient fold of the man's woollen sleeve. Smiling complacently at this sign of confidence, the man left him, andstarted the team at a slow walk up the trail. With a hoarse bleat ofalarm, thinking he was about to be deserted, the calf followed afterthe sled, his long legs wobbling awkwardly. 

From the first moment that she set eyes upon him, shambling awkwardlyinto the yard at her husband's heels, Jabe Smith's wife wasinhospitable toward the ungainly youngling of the wild. Shedeclared that he would take all the milk. And he did. For the nexttwo months she was unable to make any butter, and her opinions onthe subject were expressed without reserve. But Jabe was inflexible, in his taciturn, backwoods way, and the calf, till he was old enoughto pasture, got all the milk he wanted. He grew and throve soastonishingly that Jabe began to wonder if there was not somemistake in the scheme of things, making cows' milk the propernutriment for moose calves. By autumn the youngster was so big andsleek that he might almost have passed for a yearling. 

Jabe Smith, lumberman, pioneer and guide, loved all animals, eventhose which in the fierce joy of the hunt he loved to kill. The youngmoose bull, however, was his peculiar favourite--partly, perhaps, because of Mrs. Smith's relentless hostility to it. And the ungainlyyoungster repaid his love with a devotion that promised to becomeembarrassing. All around the farm he was for ever at his heels, like adog; and if, by any chance, he became separated from his idol, hewould make for him in a straight line, regardless of currant bushes, bean rows, cabbage patches or clothes-lines. This strenuous directnessdid not further endear him to Mrs. Smith. That good lady used to lieawake at night, angrily devising schemes for getting rid of the "uglybrute. " These schemes of vengeance were such a safety-valve to herinjured feelings that she would at last make up her mind to contentherself with "takin' it out on the hide o' the critter" next day, witha sound hickory stick. When next day came, however, and she went outto milk, the youngster would shamble up to greet her with such amiabletrust in his eyes that her wrath would be, for the moment, disarmed, and her fell purpose would fritter out in a futile "Scat, you brute!"Then she would condone her weakness by thinking of what she would doto the animal "some day. "

That "some day, " as luck would have it, came rather sooner thanshe expected. From the first, the little moose had evinced adetermination to take up his abode in the kitchen, in his dread ofbeing separated from Jabe. Being a just man, Jabe had conceded atonce that his wife should have the choosing of her kitchen guests;and, to avoid complications, he had rigged up a hinged bar acrossthe kitchen doorway, so that the door could safely stand open. Whenthe little bull was not at Jabe's heels, and did not know where tofind him, his favourite attitude was standing in front of thekitchen door, his long nose thrust in as far as the bar would permit, his long ears waving hopefully, his eyes intently on the mysteriousoperations of Mrs. Jabe's housework. Though she would not haveacknowledged it for worlds, even to her inmost heart, the good womantook much satisfaction out of that awkward, patient presence in thedoorway. When things went wrong with her, in that perverse way sotrying to the careful housewife, she could ease her feelingswonderfully by expressing them without reserve to the young moose, whonever looked amused or attempted to answer back. 

But one day, as it chanced, her feelings claimed a more violenteasement--and got it. She was scrubbing the kitchen floor. Just in thedoorway stood the scrubbing-pail, full of dirty suds. On a chair closeby stood a dish of eggs. The moose calf was nowhere in sight, and thebar was down. Tired and hot, she got up from her aching knees and wentover to the stove to see if the pot was boiling, ready to make freshsuds. 

At this moment the young bull, who had been searching in vain all overthe farm for Jabe, came up to the door with a silent, shambling rush. The bar was down. Surely, then, Jabe was inside! Overjoyed at theopportunity he lurched his long legs over the threshold. Instantly hisgreat, loose hoofs slid on the slippery floor, and he came downsprawling, striking the pail of dirty suds as he fell. With a seethingsouse the slops went abroad, all over the floor. At the same time thebouncing pail struck the chair, turned it over, and sent the dish ofeggs crashing in every direction. 

For one second Mrs. Jabe stared rigidly at the mess of eggs, suds andbroken china, at the startled calf struggling to his feet. Then, witha hysterical scream, she turned, snatched the boiling pot from thestove, and hurled it blindly at the author of all mischief. 

Happily for the blunderer, Mrs. Jabe's rage was so unbridled that shereally tried to hit the object of it. Therefore, she missed. The potwent crashing through the leg of a table and shivered to atoms againstthe log wall, contributing its full share to the discouraging mess onthe floor. But, as it whirled past, a great wedge of the boiling waterleaped out over the rim, flew off at a tangent, and caught thefloundering calf full in the side, in a long flare down from the tipof the left shoulder. The scalding fluid seemed to cling in theshort, fine hair almost like an oil. With a loud bleat of pain thecalf shot to his feet and went galloping around the yard. Mrs. Jaberushed to the door, and stared at him wide-eyed. In a moment hersenses came back to her, and she realized what a hideous thing she haddone. Next she remembered Jabe--and what he would think of it!

Then, indeed, her conscience awoke in earnest, and a wholesome dreadenlivened her remorse. Forgetting altogether the state of her kitchen, she rushed through the slop to the flour-barrel. Flour, she had alwaysheard, was the thing for burns and scalds. The pesky calf should betreated right, if it took the whole barrel. Scooping up an extravagantdishpanful of the white, powdery stuff, and recklessly spilling a lotof it to add to the mixture on the floor, she rushed out into the yardto apply her treatment, and, if possible, poultice her conscience. 

The young moose, anguished and bewildered, had at last taken refuge inthe darkest corner of the stable. As Mrs. Jabe approached with her panof flour, he stood staring and shaking, but made no effort to avoidher, which touched the over-impetuous dame to a fresh pang ofpenitence. She did not know that the stupid youngster had quite failedto associate her in any way with his suffering. It was only thepot--the big, black thing which had so inexplicably come bounding athim--that he blamed. From Mrs. Jabe's hands he expected some kind ofconsolation. 

In the gloom of the stall Mrs. Jabe could not see the extent of thecalf's injury. "Mebbe the water wasn't _quite_ bilin'!" she murmuredhopefully, coaxing and dragging the youngster forth into the light. The hope, however, proved vain as brief. In a long streak down behindthe shoulder the hair was already slipping off. 

"Sarved ye right!" she grumbled remorsefully, as with gentle fingersshe began sifting the flour up and down over the wound. The lightstuff seemed to soothe the anguish for the moment, and the suffererstood quite still till the scald was thoroughly covered with atenacious white cake. Then a fresh and fiercer pang seized the wound. With a bleat he tore himself away, and rushed off, tail in air, acrossthe stump-pasture and into the woods. 

"Mebbe he won't come back, and then Jabe won't never need to know!"soliloquized Mrs. Jabe, returning to clean up her kitchen. 

The sufferer returned, however, early in the afternoon, and was in hiscustomary attitude before the door when Jabe, a little later, cameback also. The long white slash down his favourite's side caught thewoodsman's eye at once. He looked at it critically, touched the flourwith tentative finger-tips, then turned on his wife a look of poignantinterrogation. But Mrs. Jabe was ready for him. Her nerve hadrecovered. The fact that her victim showed no fear of her hadgradually reassured her. What Jabe didn't know would never hurt him, she mused. 

"Yes, yer pesky brat come stumblin' into the kitchen when the bar wasdown, a-lookin' for ye. An' he upset the bilin' water I was goin' toscrub with, an' broke the pot. An' I've got to have a new pot rightoff, Jabe Smith--mind that!"

"Scalded himself pretty bad!" remarked Jabe. "Poor little beggar!"

"I done the best _I_ know'd how fer him!" said his wife with aninjured air. "Wasted most a quart o' good flour on his worthless hide!Wish't he'd broke his neck 'stead of the only pot I got that's bigenough to bile the pig's feed in!"

"Well, you done jest about right, I reckon, Mandy, " replied Jabe, ashamed of his suspicions. "I'll go in to the Cross Roads an' git ye anew pot to-morrer, an' some tar for the scald. The tar'll be better'nflour, an' keep the flies off. "

"I s'pose some men _ain't_ got nothin' better to do than be doctorin'up a fool moose calf!" assented Mrs. Jabe promptly, with a snort ofcensorious resignation. 

Whether because the flour and the tar had virtues, or because theclean flesh of the wild kindreds makes all haste to purge itself ofills, it was not long before the scald was perfectly healed. But thereminder of it remained ineffaceable--a long, white slash down acrossthe brown hide of the young bull, from the tip of the left foreshoulder. 

Throughout the winter the young moose contentedly occupied thecow-stable, with the two cows and the yoke of red oxen. He throve onthe fare Jabe provided for him--good meadow hay with armfuls of"browse" cut from the birch, poplar and cherry thickets. Jabe trainedhim to haul a pung, finding him slower to learn than a horse, butmaking up for his dulness by his docility. He had to be driven with asnaffle, refusing absolutely to admit a bit between his teeth; and, with the best good-will in the world, he could never be taught toallow for the pung or sled to which he was harnessed. If left alonefor a moment he would walk over fences with it, or through the mosttangled thickets, if thereby seemed the most direct way to reach Jabe;and once, when Jabe, vaingloriously and at great speed, drove him into the Cross Roads, he smashed the vehicle to kindling-wood in theamiable determination to follow his master into the Cross Roads store. On this occasion also he made himself respected, but unpopular, bykilling, with one lightning stroke of a great fore hoof, a hugemongrel mastiff belonging to the storekeeper. The mastiff had sprungout at him wantonly, resenting his peculiar appearance. But thestorekeeper had been so aggrieved that Jabe had felt constrained tomollify him with a five-dollar bill. He decided, therefore, that hisfavourite's value was as a luxury, rather than a utility; and theyoung bull was put no more to the practices of a horse. Jabe haddriven a bull moose in harness, and all the settlement could swear toit. The glory was all his. 

By early summer the young bull was a tremendous, long-legged, high-shouldered beast, so big, so awkward, so friendly, and so sureof everybody's good-will that everybody but Jabe was terribly afraidof him. He had no conception of the purposes of a fence; and he couldnot be taught that a garden was not meant for him to lie down in. Asthe summer advanced, and the young bull's stature with it, Jabe Smithbegan to realize that his favourite was an expensive and sometimesembarrassing luxury. Nevertheless, when September brought buddingspikes of horns and a strange new restlessness to the stalwartyoungster, and the first full moon of October lured him one night awayfrom the farm on a quest which he could but blindly follow, Jabe wasinconsolable. 

"He ain't no more'n a calf yet, big as he is!" fretted Jabe. "He'll begittin' himself shot, the fool. Or mebbe some old bull'll be aftergivin' him a lickin' fer interferin', and he'll come home to us!"

To which his wife retorted with calm superiority: "Ye're a biggerfool'n even I took ye fer, Jabe Smith. "

But the young bull did not come back that winter, nor the followingsummer, nor the next year, nor the next. Neither did any Indian orhunter or lumberman have anything to report as to a bull moose ofgreat stature, with a long white slash down his side. Either his questhad carried him far to other and alien ranges, or some fatal mischanceof the wild had overtaken his inexperience. The latter was Jabe'sbelief, and he concluded that his ungainly favourite had too soontaken the long trail for the Red Men's land of ghosts. 

Though Jabe Smith was primarily a lumberman and backwoods farmer, hewas also a hunter's guide, so expert that his services in thisdirection were not to be obtained without very special inducement. At"calling" moose he was acknowledged to have no rival. When he laid hisgrimly-humourous lips to the long tube of birch-bark, which is the"caller's" instrument of illusion, there would come from it a strangesound, great and grotesque, harsh yet appealing, rude yet subtle, andmysterious as if the uncomprehended wilderness had itself found voice. Old hunters, wise in all woodcraft, had been deceived by thesound--and much more easily the impetuous bull, waiting, high-antleredand eager, for the love-call of his mate to summon him down the shoreof the still and moon-tranced lake. 

When a certain Famous Hunter, whose heart took pride in horns andheads and hides--the trophies won by his unerring rifle in all fourcorners of earth--found his way at last to the tumbled wilderness thatlies about the headwaters of the Quah Davic, it was naturally one ofthe great New Brunswick moose that he was after. Nothing but thenoblest antlers that New Brunswick forests bred could seem to himworthy of a place on those walls of his, whence the surly front of amusk-ox of the Barren Grounds glared stolid defiance to the snarl ofan Orinoco jaguar, and the black, colossal head of a Kadiak bear waseyed derisively by the monstrous and malignant mask of a two-hornedrhinoceros. With such a quest upon him, the Famous Hunter came, andnaturally sought the guidance of Jabe Smith, whom he lured from thetamer distractions of a "timber cruise" by double pay and the pledgeof an extravagant bonus if the quest should be successful. 

The lake, lying low between its wooded hills, was like a glimmeringmirror in the misty October twilight when Jabe and the Famous Huntercrept stealthily down to it. In a dense covert beside the water's edgethey hid themselves. Beside them stretched the open ribbon of a narrowwater-meadow, through which a slim brook, tinkling faintly over itspebbles, slipped out into the stillness. Just beyond the mouth of thebrook a low, bare spit of sand jutted forth darkly upon the palesurface of the lake. 

[Illustration: "IT WAS NOT UNTIL THE MOON APPEARED ... THAT JABE BEGAN TOCALL. "]

It was not until the moon appeared--a red, ominous segment of adisk--over the black and rugged ridge of the hills across the lake, that Jabe began to call. Three times he set the hollow birch-bark tohis mouth, and sent the hoarse, appealing summons echoing over thewater. And the man, crouching invisible in the thick shadow besidehim, felt a thrill in his nerves, a prickling in his cheeks, at thatmysterious cry, which seemed to him to have something almost of menacein its lure. Even so, he thought, might Pan have summoned hisfollowers, shaggy and dangerous, yet half divine, to some symbolicrevel. 

The call evoked no answer of any kind. Jabe waited till the moon, still red and distorted, had risen almost clear of the ridge. Then hecalled again, and yet again, and again waited. From straight acrossthe strangely-shadowed water came a sudden sharp crashing ofunderbrush, as if some one had fallen to beating the bushes furiouslywith sticks. 

"That's him!" whispered Jabe. "An' he's a big one, sure!"

The words were not yet out of his mouth when there arose a moststartling commotion in the thicket close behind them, and both menswung around like lightning, jerking up their rifles. At the sameinstant came an elusive whiff of pungency on the chill. 

"Pooh! only a bear!" muttered Jabe, as the commotion retreated inhaste. 

"Why, he was close upon us!" remarked the visitor. "I could have pokedhim with my gun! Had he any special business with us, do yousuppose?"

"Took me for a cow moose, an' was jest a-goin' to swipe me!" answeredJabe, rather elated at the compliment which the bear had paid to hiscounterfeit. 

The Famous Hunter drew a breath of profound satisfaction. 

"I'll be hanged, " he whispered, "if your amiable New Brunswickbackwoods can't get up a thrill quite worthy of the African jungle!"

"St!" admonished Jabe. "He's a-comin'. An' mad, too! Thinks thatracket was another bull, gittin' ahead of 'im. Don't ye _breathe_ now, no more!" And raising the long bark, he called through it again, thistime more softly, more enticingly, but always with that indescribablewildness, shyness and roughness rasping strangely through the note. The hurried approach of the bull could be followed clearly around thehead of the lake. It stopped, and Jabe called again. In a minute ortwo there came a brief, explosive, grunting reply--this time from apoint much nearer. The great bull had stopped his crashing progressand was slipping his vast, impetuous bulk through the underbrush asnoiselessly as a weasel. The stillness was so perfect after that oneechoing response that the Famous Hunter turned a look of interrogationupon Jabe's shadowy face. The latter breathed almost inaudibly: "He'sa-comin'. He's nigh here!" And the hunter clutched his rifle with thatfine, final thrill of unparalleled anticipation. 

The moon was now well up, clear of the treetops and the discolouringmists, hanging round and honey-yellow over the hump of the ridge. Themagic of the night deepened swiftly. The sandspit and the littlewater-meadow stood forth unshadowed in the spectral glare. Far out inthe shine of the lake a fish jumped, splashing sharply. Then a twigsnapped in the dense growth beyond the water-meadow. Jabe furtivelylifted the bark, and mumbled in it caressingly. The next moment--sosuddenly and silently that it seemed as if he had taken instant shapein the moonlight--appeared a gigantic moose, standing in the meadow, his head held high, his nostrils sniffing arrogant inquiry. Thebroadly-palmated antlers crowning his mighty head were of a spread andsymmetry such as Jabe had never even imagined. 

Almost imperceptibly the Hunter raised his rifle--a slender shadowmoving in paler shadows. The great bull, gazing about expectantly forthe mate who had called, stood superb and indomitable, ghost-gray inthe moonlight, a mark no tyro could miss. A cherry branch intervened, obscuring the foresight of the Hunter's rifle. The Hunter shifted hisposition furtively. His crooked finger was just about to tighten onthe trigger. At this moment, when the very night hung stiller as ifwith a sense of crisis, the giant bull turned, exposing his left flankto the full glare of the moonlight. Something gleamed silver down hisside, as if it were a shining belt thrown across his shoulder. 

[Illustration: "SOMETHING GLEAMED SILVER DOWN HIS SIDE. "]

With a sort of hiss from between his teeth Jabe shot out his long armand knocked up the barrel of the rifle. In the same instant theHunter's finger had closed on the trigger. The report rang out, shattering the night; the bullet whined away high over the treetops, and the great bull, springing at one bound far back into the thickets, vanished like an hallucination. 

Jabe stood forth into the open, his gaunt face working with suppressedexcitement. The Hunter followed, speechless for a moment betweenamazement, wrath and disappointment. At last he found voice, and quiteforgot his wonted courtesy. 

"D--n you!" he stammered. "What do you mean by that? What in----"

But Jabe, suddenly calm, turned and eyed him with a steadying gaze. 

"Quit all that, now!" he retorted crisply. "I knowed _jest_ what I wasdoin'! I knowed that bull when he were a leetle, awkward staggerer. Ibrung him up on a bottle; an' I loved him. He skun out four years ago. I'd most ruther 'ave seen _you_ shot than that ther' bull, I tellye!"

The Famous Hunter looked sour; but he was beginning to understand thesituation, and his anger died down. As he considered, Jabe, too, began to see the other side of the situation. 

"I'm right sorry to disapp'int ye so!" he went on apologetically. "We'll hev to call off this deal atween you an' me, I reckon. An'there ain't goin' to be no more shooting over _this_ range, if I kinhelp it--an' I guess I kin!--till I kin git that ther' white-slashedbull drove away back over on to the Upsalquitch, where the hunterswon't fall foul of him! But I'll git ye another guide, jest as good asme, or better, what ain't got no particular friends runnin' loose inthe woods to bother 'im. An' I'll send ye 'way down on to the Sevogle, where ther's as big heads to be shot as ever have been. I can't domore. "

"Yes, you can!" declared the Famous Hunter, who had quite recoveredhis self-possession. 

"What is it?" asked Jabe doubtfully. 

"You can pardon me for losing my temper and swearing at you!" answeredthe Famous Hunter, holding out his hand. "I'm glad I didn't knock overyour magnificent friend. It's good for the breed that he got off. Butyou'll have to find me something peculiarly special now, down on thatSevogle. "

WHEN THE BLUEBERRIES ARE RIPE

THE steep, rounded, rock-scarred face of Bald Mountain, for all itsnaked grimness, looked very cheerful in the last of the warm-colouredsunset. There were no trees; but every little hollow, every tinyplateau, every bit of slope that was not too steep for clinging rootsto find hold, was clothed with a mat of blueberry bushes. The berries, of an opaque violet-blue tone (much more vivid and higher in key thanthe same berries can show when picked and brought to market) were solarge and so thickly crowded as to almost hide the leaves. They gavethe austere steeps of "Old Baldy" the effect of having been dyed witha wash of cobalt. 

Far below, where the lonely wilderness valley was already forsakenby the sun, a flock of ducks could be seen, with long, outstretchednecks rigid and short wings swiftly beating, lined out over abreadth of wild meadow. Above the lake which washed the foot ofthe mountain, --high above the water, but below the line of shadowcreeping up the mountain's face, --a single fish-hawk circledslowly, waiting for the twilight coolness to bring the big trout tothe surface to feed. The smooth water glimmered pallidly, and hereand there a spreading, circular ripple showed that the hungry fishwere beginning to rise. 

Up in the flood of the sunset, the blueberries basked and glowed, somelooking like gems, some like blossoms, according to the fall of thelight. Around the shoulder of the mountain toward the east, where thedirect rays of the sun could not reach, the light was yet abundant, but cool and tender, --and here the vivid berries were beginning tolose their colour, as a curved moon, just rising over the far, raggedrim of the forest, touched them with phantom silver. Everywherejutting rocks and sharp crevices broke the soft mantle of theblueberry thickets; and on the southerly slope, where sunset andmoonrise mingled with intricate shadows, everything looked ghostlikeand unreal. On the utmost summit of the mountain a rounded peak ofwhite granite, smoothed by ages of storm, shone like a beacon. 

[Illustration: "AN OLD SHE-BEAR WITH TWO HALF-GROWN CUBS. "]

The only berry-pickers that came to these high slopes of Bald Mountainwere the wild kindreds, furred and feathered. Of them all, none weremore enthusiastic and assiduous than the bears; and just now, climbingup eagerly from the darkening woods below, came an old she-bear withtwo half-grown cubs. They came up by easy paths, zigzagging pastboulder and crevice, through the ghostly, noiseless contention ofsunlight and moonlight. Now their moving shadows lay one way, now theother; and now their shadows were suddenly wiped out, as the twolights for a moment held an even balance. At length having reached alittle plateau where the berries were particularly large andclose-clustered, the old bear stopped, and they fell joyously to theirfeeding. 

On these open heights there were no enemies to keep watch against, andthere was no reason to be wary or silent. The bears fed noisily, therefore, stripping the plump fruit cleverly by the pawful, andmunching with little, greedy grunts of delight. There was no otherfood quite so to their taste as these berries, unless, perhaps, awell-filled honey-comb. And this was their season for eating, eating, eating, all the time, in order to lay up abundant fat against the longseverity of winter. 

As the bushes about them were stripped of the best fruit, the shaggyfeasters moved around the shoulder of the mountain from the gold ofthe sun into the silver of the moon. Soon the sunset had faded, andthe moon had it all her own way except for a broad expanse ofsea-green sky in the west, deepening through violet to a narrow streakof copper on the horizon. By this time the shadows, especially on theeastern slope, were very sharp and black, and the open spaces verywhite and radiant, with a strange transparency borrowed from thathigh, pure atmosphere. 

It chanced that the little hollow on which the bears were just nowrevelling, --a hollow where the blueberries were unbelievably large andabundant--was bounded on its upper side, toward the steep, by a narrowand deep crevice. At one end of the cleft, from a rocky and shallowroothold, a gnarled birch grew slantingly. From its unusual situation, and from the fact that the bushes grew thick to its very edge, thiscrevice constituted nothing less than a most insidious trap. 

One of the cubs, born with the instinct of caution, kept far away fromthe dangerous brink without having more than half realized that therewas any danger there whatever. The other cub was one of thoseblundering fellows, to be found among the wild kindreds no less thanamong the kindreds of men, who only get caution hammered into them byexperience. He saw a narrow break, indeed, between the berry patch andthe bare steep above, --but what was a little crevice in a positionlike this, where it could not amount to anything? Had it been on theother side of the hollow, he would have feared a precipice, and wouldhave been on his guard. But, as it was, he never gave the matter asecond thought, because it did not look dangerous! He found the bestberries growing very near the edge of the crevice; and in hissatisfaction he turned his back to the height and settled himselfsolidly upon his haunches to enjoy them. As he did so the bushes gaveway behind him, he pitched abruptly backwards, and vanished with asqueal of terror into the narrow cleft of darkness. 

The crevice was perhaps twelve feet deep, and from five to eight inwidth all the way to the bottom. The bottom held a layer of earth anddead leaves, which served to ease the cub's fall; but when he landedthe wind was so bumped out of him that for a minute or two he couldnot utter a sound. As soon as he recovered his voice, however, hebegan to squeal and whine piteously for his mother. 

The old bear, at the sound of his cry as he fell, had rushed sohastily to his aid that she barely escaped falling in after him. Checking herself just in time, by digging all her mighty claws intothe roots of the blueberries, she crouched at the brink, thrust herhead as far over as she could, and peered down with anxious cries. Butwhen the cub's voice came back to her from the darkness she knew hewas not killed, and she also knew that he was very near, --and herwhinings changed at once to a guttural murmur that must have beenintended for encouragement. The other cub, meanwhile, had comelumbering up with ears wisely cocked, taken a very hasty and carefulglance over the edge, and returned to his blueberries with an air ofdisapproval. It was as if he said he always knew that blunderingbrother of his would get himself into trouble. 

For some minutes the old bear crouched where she was, straining hereyes to make out the form of her little one. Becoming accustomed tothe gloom at last, she could discern him. She could see that he wasmoving about, and standing on his hind legs, and striving valiantly toclaw his way up the perpendicular surface of smooth rock. She began toreach downwards first one big forepaw and then the other, testing therock beneath her for some ledge or crack that might give her footholdby which to climb down to his aid. Finding none, she again set up heruneasy whining, and moved slowly along the brink, trying every inch ofthe way for some place rough enough to give her strong claws a chanceto take hold. In the full, unclouded light of the white moon she was apathetic figure, bending and crouching and straining, and reachingdown longingly, then stopping to listen to the complaints of pain andterror that came up out of the dark. 

At last she came to the end of the crevice where grew the solitarybirch tree, --the frightened captive following exactly below her andstretching up toward her against the rock. At this point, close besidethe tree, some roots and tough turf overhung the edge, and the oldbear's paws detected a roughness on the face of the rock just below. This was enough for her brave and devoted heart. She turned around andlet her hind quarters carefully over the brink, intending to climbdown backwards as bears do. But beyond the first unevenness there wasabsolutely nothing that her claws could take hold of. Her great bodywas half way over, when she felt herself on the point of falling. Making a sudden startled effort to recover herself, she clutcheddesperately at the trunk of the birch tree with one arm, at the rootsof the berry-bushes with the other, --and just managed to regain thelevel. 

For herself, this mighty effort was just enough. But for thebirch-tree it was just too much. The shallow earth by which it heldgave way; and the next moment, with a clatter of loosened stones and aswish of leafy branches, it crashed majestically down into thecrevice, closing one end of it with a mass of boughs and foliage, andonce more frightening the imprisoned cub almost out of his senses. 

At the first sound of this cataclysm, at the first rattle of looseearth about his ears, the cub had bounced madly to the other end ofthe crevice, where he crouched, whimpering. The old bear, too, wasdaunted for some seconds; but then, seeing that the cub was not hurt, she was quick to perceive the advantage of the accident. Standing atthe upturned roots of the tree, she called eagerly and encouraginglyto the cub, pointing out the path of escape thus offered to him. Forsome minutes he was too terrified to approach. At last she set her ownweight on the trunk, testing it, and prepared to climb down and leadhim out. At this, however, the youngster's nerve revived. With ajoyful and understanding squeal, he rushed forward, sprawled andclawed his way over the tangle of branches, gained the firmtrunk, --and presently found himself again beside his mother among thepleasant, moonlit berry-bushes. Here he was fondled and nosed andlicked and nursed by the delighted mother, till his bruised littlebody forgot its hurts and his shaken little heart its fears. Hiscautious brother, too, came up with a wise look and sniffed at himpatronizingly; but went away again with his nose in the air, as if tosay that here was much fuss being made over a very small matter. 

THE GLUTTON OF THE GREAT SNOW

I

NORTHWARD interminably, and beneath a whitish, desolate sky, stretchedthe white, empty leagues of snow, unbroken by rock or tree or hill, tothe straight, menacing horizon. Green-black, and splotched with snowthat clung here and there upon their branches, along the southwardlimits of the barren crowded down the serried ranks of the ancient firforest. Endlessly baffled, but endlessly unconquered, the hosts of thefirs thrust out their grim spire-topped vanguards, at intervals, intothe hostile vacancy of the barren. Between these dark vanguards, long, silent aisles of whiteness led back and gently upward into the heartof the forest. 

Out across one of these pale corridors of silence came moving verydeliberately a dark, squat shape with blunt muzzle close to the snow. Its keen, fierce eyes and keener nostrils were scrutinizing the whitesurface for the scent or trail of some other forest wanderer. Conscious of power, in spite of its comparatively small stature--muchless than that of wolf or lynx, or even of the fox--it made no effortto conceal its movements, disguise its track or keep watch forpossible enemies. Stronger than any other beast of thrice its size, ascunning as the wisest of the foxes, and of a dogged, savage temperwell known to all the kindred of the wild, it seemed to feel securefrom ill-considered interference. 

Less than three feet in length, but of peculiarly massive build, thisdark, ominous-looking animal walked flat-footed, like a bear, and witha surly heaviness worthy of a bear's stature. Its fur, coarse andlong, was of a sooty gray-brown, streaked coarsely down each flankwith a broad yellowish splash meeting over the hind quarters. Itspowerful, heavy-clawed feet were black. Its short muzzle and massivejaw, and its broad face up to just above the eyes, where the fur camedown thickly, were black also. The eyes themselves, peering outbeneath overhanging brows, gleamed with a mixture of sullenintelligence and implacable savagery. In its slow, forbiddingstrength, and in its tameless reserve, which yet held the capacity foroutbursts of ungovernable rage, this strange beast seemed to incarnatethe very spirit of the bitter and indomitable North. Its name wasvarious, for hunters called it sometimes wolverene, sometimescarcajou, but oftener "Glutton, " or "Injun Devil. "

Through the voiceless desolation the carcajou--it was a female--continuedher leisurely way. Presently, just upon the edge of the forest-growth, she came upon the fresh track of a huge lynx. The prints of the lynx'sgreat pads were several times broader than her own, but she stoppedand began to examine them without the slightest trace of apprehension. Forsome reason best known to herself, she at length made up her mind topursue the stranger's back trail, concerning herself rather with whathe had been doing than with what he was about to do. 

Plunging into the gloom of the firs, where the trail led over asnow-covered chaos of boulders and tangled windfalls, she camepresently to a spot where the snow was disturbed and scratched. Hereyes sparkled greedily. There were spatters of blood about the place, and she realized that here the lynx had buried, for a future meal, the remnant of his kill. 

Her keen nose speedily told her just where the treasure was hidden, and she fell to digging furiously with her short, powerful fore paws. It was a bitter and lean season, and the lynx, after eating his fill, had taken care to bury the remnant deep. The carcajou burrowed downtill only the tip of her dingy tail was visible before she found theobject of her search. It proved to be nothing but one hind quarter ofa little blue fox. Angrily she dragged it forth and bolted it in atwinkling, crunching the slim bone between her powerful jaws. It wasbut a morsel to such a hunger as hers. Licking her chops, and passingher black paws hurriedly over her face, as a cat does, she forsook thetrail of the lynx and wandered on deeper into the soundless gloom. Several rabbit-tracks she crossed, and here and there the dainty trailof a ptarmigan, or the small, sequential dots of a weasel's foot. Buta single glance or passing twitch of her nostril told her these wereall old, and she vouchsafed them no attention. It was not till she hadgone perhaps a quarter of a mile through the fir-glooms that she cameupon a trail which caused her to halt. 

It was the one trail, this, among all the tracks that traversed thegreat snow, which could cause her a moment's perturbation. For thetrail of the wolf-pack she had small concern--for the hungriest wolvescould never climb a tree. But this was the broad snowshoe trail, whichshe knew was made by a creature even more crafty than herself. Sheglanced about keenly, peering under the trees--because one could neverjudge, merely by the direction of the trail, where one of thosedangerous creatures was going. She stood almost erect on her haunchesand sniffed the air for the slightest taint of danger. Then shesniffed at the tracks. The man-smell was strong upon them, andcomparatively, but not dangerously, fresh. Reassured on this point, she decided to follow the man and find out what he was doing. It wasonly when she did not know what he was about that she so dreaded him. Given the opportunity to watch him unseen, she was willing enough topit her cunning against his, and to rob him as audaciously as shewould rob any of the wilderness kindreds. 

Hunting over a wide range as she did, the carcajou was unaware tillnow that a man had come upon her range that winter. To her experiencea man meant a hunter--and--trapper, with emphasis distinctly upon thetrapper. The man's gun she feared--but his traps she feared not atall. Indeed, she regarded them rather with distinct favour, and wasready to profit by them at the first opportunity. Having only strengthand cunning, but no speed to rely upon, she had learned that trapscould catch all kinds of swift creatures, and hold them inexorably. She had learned, too, that there was usually a succession of traps andsnares set along a man's trail. It was with some exciting expectation, now, that she applied herself to following this trail. 

Within a short distance the track brought her to a patch of trampledsnow, with tiny bits of frozen fish scattered about. She knew at oncethat somewhere in this disturbed area a trap was hidden, close to thesurface. Stepping warily, in a circle, she picked up and devoured thesmallest scraps. Near the centre lay a fragment of tempting size; butshe cunningly guessed that close beside that morsel would be thehiding-place of the trap. Slowly she closed in upon it, her nose closeto the snow, sniffing with cautious discrimination. Suddenly shestopped short. Through the snow she had detected the man-smell, andthe smell of steel, mingling with the savour of the dried fish. Here, but a little to one side, she began to dig, and promptly uncovered alight chain. Following this she came presently to the trap itself, which she cautiously laid bare. Then, without misgiving, she ate thebig piece of fish. Both her curiosity and her hunger, however, werestill far from satisfied, so she again took up the trail. 

The next trap she came to was an open snare--a noose of bright wiresuspended near the head of a cunningly constructed alley of firbranches, leading up to the foot of a big hemlock. Just behind thisnoose, and hardly to be reached save through the noose, the bait hadevidently been fixed. But the carcajou saw that some one little lesscunning than herself had been before her. Such a snare would havecaught the fierce, but rather stupid, lynx; but a fox had been thefirst arrival. She saw his tracks. He had carefully investigated thealley of fir branches from the outside. Then he had broken through itbehind the noose, and safely made off with the bait. Rathercontemptuously the old wolverene went on. She did not understand thiskind of trap, so she discreetly refrained from meddling with it. 

[Illustration: "CREPT SLOWLY AROUND THE RAGING AND SNARLING CAPTIVE. "]

Fully a quarter mile she had to go before she came to another; buthere she found things altogether different and more interesting. Asshe came softly around a great snow-draped boulder there was a snarl, a sharp rattle of steel, and a thud. She shrank back swiftly, justbeyond reach of the claws of a big lynx. The lynx had been ahead ofher in discovering the trap, and with the stupidity of his tribe hadgot caught in it. The inexorable steel jaws had him fast by the leftfore leg. He had heard the almost soundless approach of the strangeprowler, and, mad with pain and rage, had sprung to the attack withoutwaiting to see the nature of his antagonist. 

Keeping just beyond the range of his hampered leap, the carcajou nowcrept slowly around the raging and snarling captive, who kept pouncingat her in futile fury every other moment. Though his superior in sheerstrength, she was much smaller and lighter than he, and lessmurderously armed for combat; and she dreaded the raking, evisceratingclutch of his terrible hinder claws. In defence of her burrow and herlitter, she would have tackled him without hesitation; but her sharpteeth and bulldog jaw, however efficient, would not avail, in such acombat, to save her from getting ripped almost to ribbons. She was fartoo sagacious to enter upon any such struggle unnecessarily. Prowlingslowly and tirelessly, without effort, around and around the excitedprisoner, she trusted to wear him out and then take him at some deadlydisadvantage. 

Weighted with the trap, and not wise enough to refrain from wastinghis strength in vain struggles, the lynx was strenuously playing hiscunning antagonist's game, when a sound came floating on the still airwhich made them both instantly rigid. It was a long, thin, waveringcry that died off with indescribable melancholy in its cadence. Thelynx crouched, with eyes dilating, and listened with terribleintentness. The carcajou, equally interested but not terrified, stooderect, ears, eyes and nose alike directed to finding out more aboutthat ominous voice. Again and again it was repeated, swiftly comingnearer; and presently it resolved itself into a chorus of voices. Thelynx made several convulsive bounds, wrenching desperately to free hisimprisoned limb; then, recognizing the inevitable, he crouched again, shuddering but dangerous, his tufted ears flattened upon his back, his eyes flickering green, every tooth and claw bared for the lastbattle. But the carcajou merely stiffened up her fur, in a rage at theprospective interruption of her hunting. She knew well that thedreadful, melancholy cry was the voice of the wolf-pack. But thewolves were not on _her_ trail, that she was sure of; and possiblythey might pass at a harmless distance, and not discover her or herquarry. 

The listeners were not kept long in suspense. The pack, as it chanced, was on the trail of a moose which, labouring heavily in the deep snow, had passed, at a distance of some thirty or forty yards, a few minutesbefore the carcajou's arrival. The wolves swept into view through thetall fir trunks--five in number, and running so close that atable-cloth might have covered them. They knew by the trail that thequarry must be near, and, urged on by the fierce thrust of theirhunger, they were not looking to right or left. They were almost past, and the lynx was beginning to take heart again, when, out of the tailof his eye, the pack-leader detected something unusual on the snownear the foot of the big rock. One fair look explained it all to him. With an exultant yelp he turned, and the pack swept down upon theprisoner; while the carcajou, bursting with indignation, slipped upthe nearest tree. 

The captive was not abject, but game to the last tough fibre. Allfangs and rending claws, with a screech and a bound he met theonslaught of the pack; and, for all the hideous handicap of that thingof iron on his leg, he gave a good account of himself. For a minute ortwo the wolves and their victim formed one yelling, yelping heap. Whenit disentangled itself, three of the wolves were badly torn, and onehad the whole side of his face laid open. But in a few minutes therewas nothing left of the unfortunate lynx but a few of the heavierbones--to which the pack might return later--and the scrap of fur andflesh that was held in the jaws of the trap. 

[Illustration: "SNAPPED BACK AT HIM WITH A VICIOUS GROWL. "]

As the carcajou saw her prospective meal disappearing, her rage becamealmost uncontrollable, and she crept down the tree-trunk as if shewould fling herself upon the pack. The leader sprang at her, leapingas high as he could against the trunk; and she, barely out of reach ofhis clashing, bloody fangs, snapped back at him with a vicious growl, trying to catch the tip of his nose. Failing in this, she struck athim like lightning with her powerful claws, raking his muzzle soseverely that he fell back with a startled yelp. A moment later thewhole pack, their famine still unsatisfied, swept off again upon thetrail of the moose. The carcajou came down, sniffed angrily at theclean bones which had been cracked for their marrow, then hurried offon the track of the wolves. 

II

Meanwhile, it had chanced that the man on snowshoes, fetching a widecircle that would bring the end of his line of traps back nearly tohis cabin, had come suddenly face to face with the fleeing moose. Wornout with the terror of his flight and the heart-breaking effort offloundering through the heavy snow--which was, nevertheless, hardenough, on the surface, to bear up his light-footed pursuers--thegreat beast was near his last gasp. At sight of the man before him, more to be dreaded even than the savage foe behind him, he snortedwildly and plunged off to one side. But the man, borne up upon hissnowshoes, overtook him in a moment, and, suddenly stooping forward, drew his long hunting-knife across the gasping throat. The snow aboutgrew crimson instantly, and the huge beast sank with a shudder. 

The trapper knew that a moose so driven must have had enemies onits trail, and he knew also that no enemies but wolves, or anotherhunter, could have driven the moose to such a flight. There was noother hunter ranging within twenty miles of him. Therefore, it waswolves. He had no weapon with him but his knife and his light axe, because his rifle was apt to be a useless burden in winter, when hehad always traps or pelts to carry. And it was rash for one man, without his gun, to rob a wolf-pack of its kill! But the trapperwanted fresh moose-meat. Hastily and skilfully he began to cutfrom the carcass the choicest portions of haunch and loin. He had nomore than fairly got to work when the far-off cry of the packsounded on his expectant ears. He laboured furiously as the voicesdrew nearer. The interruption of the lynx he understood, in ameasure, by the noises that reached him; but when the pack camehot on the trail again he knew it was time to get away. He mustretreat promptly, but not be seen retreating. Bearing with him suchcuts as he had been able to secure, he made off in the direction ofhis cabin. But at a distance of about two hundred yards he steppedinto a thicket at the base of a huge hemlock, and turned to seewhat the wolves would do when they found they had been forestalled. Ashe turned, the wolves appeared, and swept down upon the body of themoose. But within a couple of paces of it they stopped short, with asnarl of suspicion, and drew back hastily. The tracks and thescent of their arch-enemy, man, were all about the carcass. Hishandiwork--his clean cutting--was evident upon it. Their firstimpulse was toward caution. Suspecting a trap, they circled warilyabout the body. Then, reassured, their rage blazed up. Their ownquarry had been killed before them, their own hunting insolentlycrossed. However, it was man, the ever-insolent overlord, who haddone it. He had taken toll as he would, and withdrawn when he would. They did not quite dare to follow and seek vengeance. So in a fewmoments their wrath had simmered down; and they fell savagely upon theyet warm feast. 

The trapper watched them from his hiding-place, not wishing to riskattracting their attention before they had quite gorged themselves. Heknew there would be plenty of good meat left, even then; and thatthey would at length proceed to bury it for future use. Then he coulddig it up again, take what remained clean and unmauled, and leave therest to its lawful owners; and all without unnecessary trouble. 

As he watched the banqueting pack, he was suddenly conscious of amovement in the branches of a fir a little beyond them. Then his quickeye, keener in discrimination than that of any wolf, detected thesturdy figure of a large wolverene making its way from tree to tree ata safe distance above the snow, intent upon the wolves. What onecarcajou--"Glutton, " he called it--could hope, for all its cunning, toaccomplish against five big timber-wolves, he could not imagine. Hating the "Glutton, " as all trappers do, he wished most earnestlythat it might slip on its branch and fall down before the fangs of thepack. 

There was no smallest danger of the wary carcajou doing anything ofthe sort. Every faculty was on the alert to avenge herself on thewolves who had robbed her of her destined prey. Most of the othercreatures of the wild she despised, but the wolves she also hated, because she felt herself constrained to yield them way. She crawledcarefully from tree to tree, till at last she gained one whose lowerbranches spread directly over the carcass of the moose. Creepingout upon one of those branches, she glared down maliciously uponher foes. Observing her, two of the wolves desisted long enough fromtheir feasting to leap up at her with fiercely gnashing teeth. Butfinding her out of reach, and scornfully unmoved by their futiledemonstrations, they gave it up and fell again to their ravenousfeasting. 

The wolverene is a big cousin to the weasel, and also to the skunk. The ferocity of the weasel it shares, and the weasel's dauntlesscourage. Its kinship to the skunk is attested by the possession of agland which secretes an oil of peculiarly potent malodour. The smellof this oil is not so overpowering, so pungently strangulating, asthat emitted by the skunk; but all the wild creatures find itirresistibly disgusting. No matter how pinched and racked by faminethey may be, not one of them will touch a morsel of meat which awolverene has defiled ever so slightly. The wolverene itself, however, by no means shares this general prejudice. 

When the carcajou had glared down upon the wolves for several minutes, she ejected the contents of her oil-gland all over the body of themoose, impartially treating her foes to a portion of the nauseatingfluid. With coughing, and sneezing, and furious yelping, the wolvesbounded away, and began rolling and burrowing in the snow. They couldnot rid themselves at once of the dreadful odour; but, presentlyrecovering their self-possession, and resolutely ignoring the pollutedmeat, they ranged themselves in a circle around the tree at a safedistance, and snapped their long jaws vengefully at their adversary. They seemed prepared to stay there indefinitely, in the hope ofstarving out the carcajou and tearing her to pieces. Perceiving this, the carcajou turned her back upon them, climbed farther up the tree toa comfortable crotch, and settled herself indifferently for a nap. Forall her voracious appetite, she knew she could go hungry longer thanany wolf, and quite wear out the pack in a waiting game. Then thetrapper, indignant at seeing so much good meat spoiled, but hissporting instincts stirred to sympathy by the triumph of one beastlike the carcajou over a whole wolf-pack, turned his back upon thescene and resumed his tramp. The wolves had lost prestige in hiseyes, and he now felt ready to fight them all with his single axe. 

III

From that day on the wolf-pack cherished a sleepless grudge againstthe carcajou, and wasted precious hours, from time to time, strivingto catch her off her guard. The wolf's memory is a long one, and thefeud lost nothing in its bitterness as the winter weeks, loud withstorm or still with deadly cold, dragged by. For a time the crafty oldcarcajou fed fat on the flesh which none but she could touch, whileall the other beasts but the bear, safe asleep in his den, and theporcupine, browsing contentedly on hemlock and spruce, went lean withfamine. During this period, since she had all that even her greatappetite could dispose of, the carcajou robbed neither the hunter'straps nor the scant stores of the other animals. But at last herlarder was bare. Then, turning her attention to the traps again, shespeedily drew upon her the trapper's wrath, and found herself obligedto keep watch against two foes at once, and they the most powerful inthe wilderness--namely, the man and the wolf-pack. Even the magnitudeof this feud, however, did not daunt her greedy but fearless spirit, and she continued to rob the traps, elude the wolves, and evade thehunter's craftiest efforts, till the approach of spring not only easedthe famine of the forest but put an end to the man's trapping. Whenthe furs of the wild kindred began to lose their gloss and vitality, the trapper loaded his pelts upon a big hand-sledge, sealed up hiscabin securely, and set out for the settlements before the snow shouldall be gone. Once assured of his absence, the carcajou devoted all herstrength and cunning to making her way into the closed cabin. At last, after infinite patience and endeavour, she managed to get in, throughthe roof. There were supplies--flour, and bacon, and dried apples, allvery much to her distinctly catholic taste--and she enjoyed herselfimmensely till private duties summoned her reluctantly away. 

Spring comes late to the great snows, but when it does come it isswift and not to be denied. Then summer, with much to do and littletime to do it in, rushes ardently down upon the plains and thefir-forests. About three miles back from the cabin, on a dry knoll inthe heart of a tangled swamp, the old wolverene dug herself acommodious and secret burrow. Here she gave birth to a litter of tinyyoung ones, much like herself in miniature, only of a paler colour andsofter, silkier fur. In her ardent, unflagging devotion to theselittle ones she undertook no hunting that would take her far fromhome, but satisfied her appetite with mice, slugs, worms and beetles. 

Living in such seclusion as she did, her enemies the wolves lost alltrack of her for the time. The pack had broken up, as a formalorganization, according to the custom of wolf-packs in summer. Butthere was still more or less cohesion, of a sort, between itsscattered members; and the leader and his mate had a cave not manymiles from the wolverene's retreat. 

As luck would have it, the gray old leader, returning to the cave oneday with the body of a rabbit between his gaunt jaws, took a short cutacross the swamp, and came upon the trail of his long-lost enemy. Infact, he came upon several of her trails; and he understood very wellwhat it meant. He had no time, or inclination, to stop and look intothe matter then; but his sagacious eyes gleamed with vengefulintention as he continued his journey. 

About this time--the time being a little past midsummer--the man cameback to his cabin, bringing supplies. It was a long journey betweenthe cabin and the settlements, and he had to make it several timesduring the brief summer, in order to accumulate stores enough to lastthrough the long, merciless season of the great snows. When he reachedthe cabin and found that, in spite of all his precautions, the greedycarcajou had outwitted him and broken in, and pillaged his stores, hisindignation knew no bounds. 

The carcajou had become an enemy more dangerous to him than all theother beasts of the wild together. She must be hunted down anddestroyed before he could go on with his business of laying in storesfor the winter. 

For several days the man prowled in ever-widening circles around hiscabin, seeking to pick up his enemy's fresh trail. At last, late oneafternoon, he found it, on the outskirts of the swamp. It was too lateto follow it up then. But the next day he set out betimes with rifle, axe and spade, vowed to the extermination of the whole carcajoufamily, for he knew, as well as the old wolf did, why the carcajou hadtaken up her quarters in the swamp. 

It chanced that this very morning was the morning when the wolves hadundertaken to settle their ancient grudge. The old leader--his matebeing occupied with her cubs--had managed to get hold of two othermembers of the pack, with memories as long as his. The unravelling ofthe trails in the swamp was an easy task for their keen noses. Theyfound the burrow on the dry, warm knoll, prowled stealthily all aboutit for a few minutes, then set themselves to digging it open. When theman, whose wary, moccasined feet went noiselessly as a fox's, came ineyeshot of the knoll, the sight he caught through the dark jumble oftree-trunks brought him to a stop. He slunk behind a screen ofbranches and peered forth with eager interest. What he saw was threebig, gray wolves, starting to dig furiously. He knew they were diggingat the carcajou's burrow. 

When the wolves fell to digging their noses told them that there wereyoung carcajous in the burrow, but they could not be sure whether theold one was at home or not. On this point, however, they werepresently informed. As the dry earth flew from beneath their furiousclaws, a dark, blunt snout shot forth, to be as swiftly withdrawn. Its appearance was followed by a yelp of pain, and one of the youngerwolves drew back, walking on three legs. One fore paw had been bittenclean through, and he lay down whining, to lick and cherish it. Thatpaw, at least, would do no more digging for some time. 

The man, in his hiding-place behind the screen, saw what had happened, and felt a twinge of sympathetic admiration for his enemy, the savagelittle fighter in the burrow. The remaining two wolves now grew morecautious, keeping back from the entrance as well as they could, andundermining its edges. Again and again the dark muzzle shot forth, butthe wolves always sprang away in time to escape punishment. This wenton till the wolves had made such an excavation that the man thoughtthey must be nearing the bottom of the den. He waited breathlessly forthe dénouement, which he knew would be exciting. 

He had not long to wait. 

On a sudden, as if jerked from a catapult, the old carcajou sprangclear out, snatching at the muzzle of the nearest wolf. He dodged, butnot quite far enough; and she caught him fairly in the side of thethroat, just behind the jaw. It was a deadly grip, and the wolf roseon his hind legs, struggling frantically to shake her off. But withher great strength and powerful, clutching claws, which she usedalmost as a bear might, she pulled him down on top of her, striving touse his bulk as a shield against the fangs of the other wolf; and thetwo rolled over and over to the foot of the knoll. 

It was the second young wolf, unfortunately for her, that she hadfastened upon, or the victory, even against such odds, might have beenhers. But the old leader was wary. He saw that his comrade was donefor; so he stood watchful, biding his chance to get just the grip hewanted. At length, as he saw the younger wolf's struggles growingfeebler, he darted in and slashed the carcajou frightfully across theloins. But this was not the hold that he wanted. As she dropped hervictim and turned upon him valiantly, he caught her high up on theback, and held her fast between his bone-crushing jaws. It was a finaland fatal grip; but she was not beaten until she was dead. With herfierce eyes already glazing she writhed about and succeeded in fixingher death-grip upon the victor's lean fore leg. With the last ounceof her strength, the last impulses of her courage and her hate, sheclinched her jaws till her teeth met through flesh, sinew and thecracking bone itself. Then her lifeless body went limp, and with aswing of his massive neck the old wolf flung her from him. 

Having satisfied himself that she was quite dead, the old wolf nowslunk off on three legs into the swamp, holding his maimed andbleeding limb as high as he could. Then the man stepped out from hishiding-place and came forward. The wolf who had been first bitten gotup and limped away with surprising agility; but the one in whosethroat the old carcajou had fixed her teeth lay motionless where hehad fallen, a couple of paces from his dead slayer. Wolf-pelts were nogood at this season, so the man thrust the body carelessly aside withhis foot. But he stood for a minute or two looking down with whimsicalrespect on the dead form of the carcajou. 

"Y' ain't nawthin' but a thief an' stinkin' Glutton, " he mutteredpresently, "an' the whole kit an' bilin' of ye's got to be wiped out!But, when it comes to grit, clean through, I takes off my cap to ye!"

WHEN THE TRUCE OF THE WILD IS DONE

BY day it was still high summer in the woods, with slumbrous heat atnoon, and the murmur of insects under the thick foliage. But to theinitiated sense there was a difference. A tang in the forest scentstold the nostrils that autumn had arrived. A crispness in the feel ofthe air, elusive but persistent, hinted of approaching frost. Thestill warmth was haunted, every now and then, by a passing ghost ofchill. Here and there the pale green of the birches was thinly webbedwith gold. Here and there a maple hung out amid its rich verdure abranch prematurely turned, glowing like a banner of aërial rose. Alongthe edges of the little wild meadows which bordered the loiteringbrooks the first thin blooms of the asters began to show, like a veilof blown smoke. In open patches, on the hillsides the goldenrod burnedorange and the fireweed spread its washes of violet pink. Somewherein the top of a tall poplar, crowning the summit of a glaring whitebluff, a locust twanged incessantly its strident string. Mysteriously, imperceptibly, without sound and without warning, the change hadcome. 

Hardly longer ago than yesterday, the wild creatures had been unwaryand confident, showing themselves everywhere. The partridge coveys hadwhirred up noisily in full view of the passing woodsman, and cranedtheir necks to watch him from the near-by branches. On every shallowmere and tranquil river-reach the flocks of wild ducks had fed boldly, suffering canoe or punt to come within easy gunshot. In the heavygrass of the wild meadows, or among the long, washing sedges of thelakeside, the red deer had pastured openly in the broad daylight, withtramplings and splashings, and had lifted large bright eyes ofunterrified curiosity if a boat or canoe happened by. The security ofthat great truce, which men called "close season" had rested sweetlyon the forest. 

Then suddenly, when the sunrise was pink on the mists, a gunshot hadsent the echoes clamouring across the still lake waters, and a flockof ducks, flapping up and fleeing with frightened cries, had left oneof its members sprawling motionless among the flattened sedge, a heapof bright feathers spattered with blood. Later in the morning a riflehad cracked sharply on the hillside, and a little puff of white smokehad blown across the dark front of the fir groves. The truce had cometo an end. 

All summer long men had kept the truce with strictness, and thehunter's fierce instinct, curbed alike by law and foresight, hadslumbered. But now the young coveys were full-fledged and strong ofwing, well able to care for themselves. The young ducks were fullgrown, and no longer needed their mother's guardianship and teaching. The young deer were learning to shift for themselves, and finding, totheir wonder and indignation, that their mothers grew day by day moreindifferent to them, more inclined to wander off in search of newinterests. The time had come when the young of the wilderness stood nolonger in need of protection. Then the hand of the law was lifted. 

Instantly in the hearts of men the hunter's fever flamed up, and, witheager eyes, they went forth to kill. Where they had yesterday walkedopenly, hardly heeding the wild creatures about them, they now creptstealthily, following the trails, or lying in ambush, waiting for theunsuspicious flock to wing past. And when they found that the game, yesterday so abundant and unwatchful, had to-day almost whollydisappeared, they were indignant, and wished that they had anticipatedthe season by a few hours. 

As a matter of fact, the time of the ending of the truce was not thesame for all the wild creatures which had profited by its protectionthrough the spring and summer. Certain of the tribes, according to thelaw's provisions, were secure for some weeks longer yet. But this theynever seemed to realize. As far as they could observe, when the trucewas broken for one it was broken for all, and all took alarm together. In some unexplained way, perhaps by the mere transmission of a generalfear, word went around that the time had come for invisibility andcraft. All at once, therefore, as it seemed to men, the wilderness hadbecome empty. 

Down a green, rough wood-road, leading from the Settlement to one ofthe wild meadows by the river, came a young man in homespun carrying along, old-fashioned, muzzle-loading duck-gun. Two days before this hehad seen a fine buck, with antlers perfect and new-shining from thevelvet, feeding on the edge of this meadow. The young woodsman hadhis gun loaded with buckshot. He wanted both venison and a pair ofhorns; and, knowing the fancy of the deer for certain favouritepastures, he had great hopes of finding the buck somewhere about theplace where he had last seen him. With flexible "larrigans" of oiledcowhide on his feet, the hunter moved noiselessly and swiftly as apanther, his keen pale-blue eyes peering from side to side through theshadowy undergrowth. Not three steps aside from the path, moveless asa stone and invisible among the spotted weeds and twigs, a crafty oldcock-partridge stood with head erect and unwinking eyes and watchedthe dangerous intruder stride by. 

Approaching the edge of the open, the young hunter kept himselfcarefully hidden behind the fringing leafage and looked forth upon thelittle meadow. No creature being in sight, he cut straight across thegrass to the water's edge, and scanned the muddy margin forfoot-prints. These he presently found in abundance, along betweengrass and sedge. Most of the marks were old; but others were so freshthat he knew the buck must have been there and departed within thelast ten minutes. Into some deep hoof-prints the water was stilloozing, while from others the trodden stems of sedge were slowlystruggling upright. 

A smile of keen satisfaction passed over the young woodsman's face atthese signs. He prided himself on his skill in trailing, and theprimeval predatory elation thrilled his nerves. At a swift but easylope he took up that clear trail, and followed it back through thegrass toward the woods. It entered the woods not ten paces from thepoint where the hunter himself had emerged, ran parallel with the oldwood-road for a dozen yards, and came to a plain halt in the heart ofa dense thicket of hemlock. From the thicket it went off in greatleaps in a direction at right angles to the path. There was not abreath of wind stirring, to carry a scent. So the hunter realized thathis intended victim had been watching him from the thicket, and thatit was now a case of craft against craft. He tightened his belt for along chase, and set his lean jaws doggedly as he resumed the trail. 

The buck, who was wise with the wisdom of experience, and apprised bythe echoes of the first gunshot of the fact that the truce was over, had indeed been watching the hunter very sagaciously. The moment hewas satisfied that it was his trail the hunter was following, he hadset out at top speed, anxious to get as far as possible from sodangerous a neighbourhood. At first his fear grew with his flight, sothat his great, soft eyes stared wildly and his nostrils dilated as hewent bounding over all obstacles. Then little by little the triumphantexercise of his powers, and a realization of how far his speedsurpassed that of his pursuer, reassured him somewhat. He decided torest, and find out what his foe was doing. He doubled back parallelwith his own trail for about fifty yards, then lay down in a thicketto watch the enemy go by. 

In an incredibly short time he did go by, at that long, steady swingwhich ate up the distance so amazingly. As soon as he was well past, the buck sprang up and was off again at full speed, his heart oncemore thumping with terror. 

This time, however, instead of running straight ahead, he made a wide, sweeping curve, tending back toward the river and the lakes. Asbefore, only somewhat sooner, his alarm subsided and his confidence, along with his curiosity, returned. He repeated his former manoeuvreof doubling back a little way upon his trail, then again lay down towait for the passing of his foe. 

When the hunter came to that first abrupt turn of the trail herealized that it was a cunning and experienced buck with which he hadto deal. He smiled confidently, however, feeling sure of his ownskill, and ran at full speed to the point where the animal had laindown to watch him pass. From this point he followed the trail just farenough to catch its curve. Then he left it and ran in a straight lineshrewdly calculated to form the chord to his quarry's section of acircle. His plan was to intercept and pick up the trail again aboutthree quarters of a mile further on. In nine cases out of ten hiscalculation would have worked out as he wished; but in this case hehad not made allowance for this particular buck's individuality. Whilehe imagined his quarry to be yet far ahead, he ran past a leafy clumpof mingled Indian pear and thick spruce seedlings. Half a minute laterhe heard a crash of underbrush behind him. As he turned he caught atantalizing glimpse of tawny haunches vanishing through the green, andhe knew that once again he had been outplayed. 

This time the wise buck was distinctly more terrified than before. Theappearance of his enemy at this unexpected point, so speedily, and notupon the trail, struck a panic to his heart. Plainly, this was nocommon foe, to be evaded by familiar stratagems. His curiosity and hisconfidence disappeared completely. 

[Illustration: "RUNNING IN THE SHALLOW WATER TO COVER HIS SCENT"]

The buck set off in a straight line for the river, now perhaps ahalf-mile distant. Reaching it, he turned down the shore, running inthe shallow water to cover his scent. It never occurred to him thathis enemy was trailing him by sight, not by scent; so he followed thesame tactics he would have employed had the pursuer been a wolf or adog. A hundred yards further on he rounded a sharp bend of the stream. Here he took to deep water, swam swiftly to the opposite shore, andvanished into the thick woods. 

Two or three minutes later the man came out upon the river's edge. Thedirection his quarry had taken was plainly visible by the splashes ofwater on the rocks, and he smiled grimly at the precaution which theanimal had taken to cover his secret. But when he reached the pointwhere the buck had taken to deep water the smile faded. He stopped, leaning on his gun and staring across the river, and a baffled lookcame over his face. Realizing, after a few moments, that he was beatenin this game, he drew out his charge of buckshot, reloaded his gunwith small duckshot, and hid himself in a waterside covert of youngwillows, in the hope that a flock of mallard or teal might presentlycome by. 

THE WINDOW IN THE SHACK

THE attitude in which the plump baby hung limply over the woman's leftarm looked most uncomfortable. The baby, however, seemed highlycontent. Both his sticky fists clutched firmly a generous "chunk" ofnew maple-sugar, which he mumbled with his toothless gums, while hisbig eyes, widening like an owl's, stared about through the dusk with aplacid intentness. 

From the woman's left hand dangled an old tin lantern containing ascrap of tallow candle, whose meagre gleam flickered hither andthither apprehensively among the huge shadows of the darkening wood. In her right hand the woman carried a large tin bucket, half filledwith fresh-run maple-sap. By the glimmer of the ineffectual candle, she moved wearily from one great maple to another, emptying thebirch-bark cups that hung from the little wooden taps driven into thetrunks. The night air was raw with the chill of thawing snow, andcarried no sound but the soft tinkle of the sap as it dript swiftlyinto the birchen cups. The faint, sweet smell of the sap seemed tocling upon the darkness. The candle flared up for an instant, revealing black, mysterious aisles among the ponderous tree-trunks, then guttered down and almost went out, the darkness seeming to swoopin upon its defeat. The woman examined it, found that it was all butdone, and glanced nervously over her shoulder. Then she made anxioushaste to empty and replace the last of the birchen cups before sheshould be left in darkness to grope her way back to the cabin. 

The sap was running freely that spring, and the promise of a greatsugar-harvest was not to be ignored. Dave Stone's house and farm layabout three miles distant, across the valley of the "Tin Kittle, " fromthe maple-clad ridge of forest wherein he had his sugar-camp. The campconsisted of a little cabin or "shack" of rough boards and an openshed with a rude but spacious fireplace and chimney to accommodate thegreat iron pot in which the sap was boiled down into sugar. While thesap was running freely, the pot had to be kept boiling uniformly andthe thickening sap kept skimmed clean of the creaming scum; andtherefore, during the season, some one had to be always living in thecamp. 

Dave Stone had built his camp at an opening in the woods, in such aposition that, from its own little window in the rear, he could lookout across the wide valley of the "Tin Kittle" to a rigid grove offirs behind which, shielded from the nor'easters, lay his low framehouse, and red-doored barn, and wide, liberal sheds. The distance wasonly about three miles, or less, from the house to the sugar-camp. ButDave Stone was terribly proud of the prosperous little homestead whichhe had carved for himself out of the unbroken wilderness on the upper"Tin Kittle, " and more than proud of the slim, gray-eyed wife andthree sturdy youngsters to whom that homestead gave happy shelter. Onthe spring nights when he had to stay over at the camp, he liked to beable to see the grove that hid his home. 

It chanced one afternoon, just in the height of the sap-running, thatDave Stone was called suddenly in to the settlement on a piece ofbusiness that could not wait overnight. A note which he had endorsedfor a friend had been allowed to go to protest, and Dave was excited. 

"Ther' ain't nothin' fer it, Mandy, " said he, "but fer ye to take thebaby an' go right over to the camp fer the night, an' keep an eye onthis bilin'. "

"But, father, " protested his wife, in a doubtful voice, "how kin Ileave Lidy an' Joe here alone?"

"Oh, there ain't nothin' goin' to bother _them_, an' Lidy 'most tenyear old!" insisted Dave, who was in a hurry. "Don't fret, mother. I'll be back long afore mornin'!"

As the children had no objection to being left, Mrs. Stone sufferedherself to be persuaded. In fact, she went to her new duty with acertain zest, as a break in the monotony of her days. She had lent ahand often enough at the sugar-making to be familiar with the taskawaiting her, and it was with an unwonted gaiety that she set out onwhat appeared to her almost in the light of a little adventure. 

But it was later than she had intended when she actually got away, thebaby crowing joyously on her arm, and the children calling gaygood-byes to her from the open door. Jake, the big brown retriever, tried to follow her; and when she ordered him back to stay with thechildren, he obeyed with a whimpering reluctance that came nearrebellion. As she descended the valley, her feet sinking in the snowof the thawing trail, she wondered why the dog, which had alwayspreferred the children, should have grown so anxious to be with her. 

When she reached the camp, she was already tired, but the pleasantexcitement was still upon her. When she had skimmed the big, slow-bubbling pot of syrup, tested a ladleful of it in the snow, poured in some fresh sap, and replenished the sluggish fire, dusk wasalready stealing upon the forest. In her haste she did not notice thatthe candle in the old lantern was almost burned out. Snatching up thelantern, which it was not yet necessary to light, and the big tinsap-bucket, and giving the baby, who had begun to fret, a lump of hardsugar to keep him quiet on her arm, she hurried off to tend thefarthest trees before the darkness should close down upon thesilences. 

 * * * * *

When the last birch cup had been emptied into the bucket, the candleflickered out; and for a moment or two the sudden blackness seemed toflap in her face, daunting her. She stood perfectly still till hereyes readjusted themselves. She was dead tired, the baby and thebrimming bucket were heavy, and the adventurous flavour had quite goneout of her task. 

In part because of her fatigue, she grew suddenly timorous. Her earsbegan to listen with terrible intentness till they imagined stealthyfootsteps in the silken shrinkings of the damp snow. At last her eyesmastered the gloom till she could make out the glimmering pathway, thedim, black trunks shouldering up on either side of it, the clumps ofbushes obstructing it here and there. Trembling--clutching tightly atthe baby, the lantern, and the sap-bucket--she started back withfurtive but hurried footsteps, afraid to make any noise lest sheattract the notice of some mysterious powers of the wilderness. 

As the woman went, her fears grew with her haste till only thedifficulties of the path, with the weight of her burdens, preventedher from breaking into a run of panic. The baby, meanwhile, kept onsucking his maple-sugar and staring into the novel darkness. Thewoman's breath began to come too fast, her knees began to feel as ifthey might turn to water at any moment. At last, when within perhapsfifty paces of the shack, to her infinite relief she saw a dark, tallfigure take shape just over the top of a bush, at the turn of thetrail. She had room for but one thought. It was Dave, back earlierthan he had expected. She did not stop to wonder how or why. With alittle, breathless cry, she exclaimed: "Oh, Dave, I'm so glad! Takethe baby!" and reached forward to place the little one in his arms. 

Even as she did so, however, something in the tall, dim shape risingover the bush struck her as unfamiliar. And why didn't Dave speak? Shepaused, she half drew back, while a chill fear made her cheeksprickle; and as she slightly changed her position, the dark form grewmore definite. She saw the massive bulk of the shoulders. She caught aglint of white teeth, of fierce, wild eyes. 

With a screech of intolerable horror, she shrank back, clutching thebaby to her bosom, swung the brimming bucket of sap full into themonster's face, and fled with the speed of a deer down another trailtoward the shack. She was at the door before her appalled brainrealized that the being to which she had tried to hand over the childwas a huge bear. 

Bewildered and abashed for a few seconds by the deluge of liquid andthe clatter of the tin vessel in his face, the animal had notinstantly pursued. But he was just out of the den after his longwinter sleep and savage with hunger. Moreover, he had been allowed torealize that the dreaded man-creature which he had met so unexpectedlywas afraid of him! He came crashing over the bushes, and was so closeat the woman's heels that she had barely time to slam the shack doorin his face. 

As she dropped the rude wooden latch into place, the woman realizedwith horror how frail the door was. Momentarily she expected to see itsmashed in by a stroke of the monster's paw. She did not know a bear'scaution, his cunning suspicion of traps, his dread of the scent ofman. 

There was no light in the shack, except a faint red gleam from theopen draft of the stove, and the gray pallor of the night skyglimmering in through the little window. The woman was so faint withfear that she dared not search for the candles, but leaned pantingagainst the wall and staring at the window as if she expected the bearto look in at her. She was brought to her senses in a moment, however, by the baby beginning to cry. In the race for the shack, he had losthis lump of sugar, and now he realized how uncomfortable he was. Thewoman seated herself on the bench by the stove and began to nurse him, all the time keeping her eyes on the pale square of the window. 

[Illustration: "SNIFFED LOUDLY ALONG THE CRACK OF THE DOOR. "]

When the door was slammed in his face, the bear had backed away inapprehension and paused to study the shack. But at the sound of thebaby's voice he seemed to realize that here, at least, were someindividuals of the dreaded man tribe who were not dangerous. He cameforward and sniffed loudly along the crack of the door till thewoman's heart stood still. He leaned against it, tentatively, till itcreaked, but the latch and hinges held. Then he prowled around theshack, examining it carefully, and doubtless expecting to find an openentrance somewhere. In his experience, all caves and dens hadentrances. At last the window caught his attention. The woman heardthe scratching of his claws on the rough outer boarding as he raisedhimself. Then the window was darkened by a great black head lookingin. 

Throwing the baby into the bunk, the woman snatched from the stove ablazing stick, rushed to the window with it, and made a wild thrust atthe dreadful face. With a crash the glass flew to splinters, and theblack face disappeared. The bear was untouched, but the fiery weaponhad taught him discretion. He drew back with an angry growl, and satdown on his haunches as if to see what the woman would do next. She, for her part, after this victory, grew terribly afraid of setting thedry shack on fire; so she hurriedly returned the snapping, sparklingbrand to the stove. Thereupon the bear resumed his ominous prowling, round and round the shack, sometimes testing the foundations and thedoor with massive but stealthy paw, sometimes sniffing loudly at thecracks; and the woman returned to the comforting of the baby. 

In time the little one, fed full and cherished, went to sleep. Then, with nothing left to occupy her mind but the terrors of her situation, the woman found those stealthy scratchings and sniffings, and thestrain of the silences that fell between, were more than she couldendure. At first, she thought of getting a couple of blazing sticks, throwing open the shack door, and deliberately attacking her besieger. But this idea she dismissed as quite too desperate and futile. Thenshe remembered that bears were fond of sweets. A table in the cornerwas heaped with great, round cakes of fragrant sugar, the shape of thepans in which they had been cooled. One of these she snatched up, andthrew it out of the window. The bear promptly came around to see whathad dropped, and fell upon the offering with such ardour that itvanished between his great jaws in half a minute. Then he camestraight to the window for more, and the woman served it out to himwithout delay. 

[Illustration: "MADE A WILD THRUST AT THE DREADFUL FACE. "]

The beast's appetite for maple-sugar was amazing, and as the woman sawthe sweet store swiftly disappearing, her fear began to be temperedwith indignation. But when her outraged frugality led her to delay thedole, her tormentor came at the window so savagely that she made allhaste to supply him, and fell to wondering helplessly what she shoulddo when the sugar was all gone. 

As she stood at the window, watching fearfully the vague, monstrousshape of the animal as he pawed and gnawed at the last cake, suddenly, far across the shadowy valley, a red light leaped into the sky. For amoment the woman stared at it with an absent mind, absorbed in herown trouble, yet noticing how black and sharp, like giant spearsupthrust in array, the tops of the firs stood out against the glow. For a moment she stood so staring. Then she realized where that wildlight came from. With a cry she turned, rushed to the door, and toreit open. But as the dark of the forest confronted her, she remembered!Slamming and latching the door again, she rushed madly back to thewindow, and stood there clutching the frame with both hands, praying, and sobbing, and raving. 

And the bear, having finished the sugar, sat up on his haunches togaze intently, ears cocked and jaws half open, at that far-off, fierybrightness in the sky of night. 

As the keen tongues of flame shot over the treetops, the womanclutched at her senses, and tried to persuade herself that it was thebarn, not the house, that was burning. It was, in truth, quiteimpossible to discern, at that distance, which it was. It was notboth; of that she was certain. She also told herself that, if it _was_the house, it was too early for the children to be asleep; and even ifthey _were_ asleep, Jake would wake them; and presently someneighbours, who were not more than a mile away, would come to comforttheir fears and shelter them. She would not allow herself to harbourthe awful thought that the fire might have caught the children intheir sleep. Nevertheless, do what she could to fight it away, thehideous suggestion kept clamouring at her brain, driving her to afrenzy. Had she been alone in this crisis, the great beast watchingand prowling outside the shack would have had no terrors for her. Butthe baby! She could not run fast with that burden. She could not leavehim behind in the bunk, for the bear would either climb in the windowor batter in the door when she was gone. Yet to stand idle and watchthose leaping flames--that way lay madness. Again her mind reverted tothe blazing brand with which she had driven the bear from the window. If she took one big enough and carried it with her, the bear wouldprobably not dare even to follow her. She sprang eagerly to the stove, but the fire was already dying down. It was nothing but a heap ofcoals, and in her stress she had not noticed how cold it had grown inthe shack. She looked for wood, but there was none. She had forgottento bring in an armful from the pile over by the sugar-boiler. Well, the plan had been an insane one, hopeless from the first. But, atleast, it had been a plan. The failure of it seemed to leave hertortured brain a blank. But the cold--that was an impression thatpierced her despair. She went to the bunk, and covered the sleepingbaby with warm blankets. As she leaned over him, she heard the bearagain, sniffing, sniffing along the crack at the bottom of the door. She almost laughed--that the beast should want anything more after allthat sugar! Then she felt herself sinking, and clutched at the edge ofthe bunk to save herself. She would lie down by the baby! But insteadof that she sank upon the floor in a huddled heap. 

Her swoon must have passed imperceptibly into the heavy sleep ofemotional exhaustion, for she lay unstirring for some hours. Thecrying of the little one awoke her. 

Stiff, half frozen, utterly dazed, she pulled herself up to thebunk, nursed the child, and soothed him again to sleep. Then theaccumulation of anguish which had overwhelmed her rolled back upon herunderstanding. She staggered to the window. 

The dreadful illumination across the valley had died down to a faintruddiness, just seen through the thin tops of the firs. Thefire--whether it had been the barn or the house--had burned itselfout. Whatever had happened, it was over. As she stood shuddering, unable to think, not daring to think, her eyes rested upon the bear, huge and formless in the gloom, staring at her, not ten feet away. Sheanswered the stare fixedly, no longer aware of fearing him. Then shesaw him turn his head suddenly, as if he had heard something. And thenext moment he had faded away swiftly and noiselessly into thedarkness, like a startled partridge. She heard quick footsteps comingup the trail. A dog's fierce growl broke into a bark of warning. Thatwas Jake's bark! She almost threw herself at the door, and tore itopen. 

 * * * * *

Dave Stone had got back from the settlement earlier than he expected, driving furiously the last two miles of his journey, with his eyesfull of the red light of that burning, his heart gripped withintolerable fear. He had found his good barn in flames, but thechildren safe, the house untouched, the stock rescued. The children, prompt and resourceful as the children of the backwoods have need tobe, had loosed the cattle from the stanchions and got them out intime. Neighbours, hurrying up in response to the flaming summons, hadfound the children watching the blaze enthusiastically from thedoorstep, as if it had been arranged for their amusement. Seeingmatters so much better than they might have been, Dave was struck witha new apprehension, because Mandy had not returned. It was hardlyconceivable that she had failed to see the flames from the window ofthe shack! Then why had she not come? Followed by Jake, he had takenthe camp trail at a run to find out what was the matter. 

As he drew near the shack, the darkness of it chilled him with dread. No firelight gleam showed out from the window! And no red glow camefrom the boiling-shed! The fire had been allowed to die out under thesugar-pot! As the significance of this dawned upon him, his keenwoodsman's eyes seemed to detect through the dark a shape of thickerblackness gliding past the shack and into the woods. At the samemoment Jake growled, barked shortly, and dashed past him, with thehair bristling along his neck. 

The man's blood went to ice, as he sprang to the door of the shack, crying in a terrible voice: "Mandy! Mandy! Where are--" But beforethe question was out of his mouth, the door leaped open, and Mandy wason his neck, shaking and sobbing. 

"The children?" she gasped. 

"Why, _they're_ all right, mother!" replied the man cheerfully. "Itwas only the barn--an' they got the critters out all safe! But what'swrong here? An' what's kep' you? An' didn't you--"

But he was not allowed to finish his questionings, for the woman wascrying and laughing and strangling him with her wild clasp. "Oh, Dave!" she managed to exclaim. "It was the bear--as tried to gitus--all night long! An' he's et up every crum of the last bilin'. "

THE RETURN OF THE MOOSE

"TO the best of my knowledge, ther' ain't been no moose seen this sidethe river these eighteen year back. "

The speaker, a heavy-shouldered, long-legged backwoodsman, paused inhis task of digging potatoes, leaned on the handle of his broad-tineddigging fork, and bit off a liberal chew from his plug of blacktobacco. His companion, digging parallel with him on the next row, paused sympathetically, felt in his trousers' pocket for his own plugof "black jack, " and cast a contemplative eye up the wide brown slopeof the potato-field toward the ragged and desolate line of burnt woodswhich crested the hill. 

The woods, a long array of erect, black, fire-scarred rampikes, appeared to scrawl the very significance of solitude against thelonely afternoon sky. The austerity of the scene was merely heightenedby the yellow glow of a birch thicket at the further upper corner ofthe potato-field, and by the faint tints of violet light that flowedover the brown soil from a pallid and fading sunset. As the sky wasscrawled by the gray-and-black rampikes, so the slope was scrawled byzigzag lines of gray-and-black snake fence, leading down to three logcabins, with their cluster of log barns and sheds, scatteredirregularly along a terrace of the slope. A quarter of a mile furtherdown, beyond the little gray dwellings, a sluggish river wound betweenalder swamps and rough wild meadows. 

As the second potato-digger was lifting his plug of tobacco to hismouth, his hand stopped half way, and his grizzled jaw dropped inastonishment. For a couple of seconds he stared at the raggedhill-crest. Then, it being contrary to his code to show surprise, hebit off his chew, returned the tobacco to his pocket, and coollyremarked: "Well, I reckon they've come back. "

"What do you mean?" demanded the first speaker, who had resumed hisdigging. 

"There be your moose, after these eighteen year!" said the other. 

Standing out clear of the dead forest, and staring curiously down uponthe two potato-diggers, were three moose, --a magnificent, black, wide-antlered bull, an ungainly brown cow, and a long-legged, long-eared calf. A potato-field, with men digging in it, was somethingfar apart from their experience and manifestly filled them withinterest. 

"Keep still now, Sandy, " muttered the first speaker, who was wise inthe ways of the wood-folk. "Keep still till they git used to us. Thenwe'll go for our guns. "

The men stood motionless for a couple of minutes, and the moose camefurther into the open in order to get a better look at them. Then, leaving their potato forks standing in their furrows, the men strodequietly down the field, down the rocky pasture lane, and into thenearest house. Here the man called Sandy got down his gun, --an oldmuzzle-loading, single-barrelled musket, --and hurriedly loaded it withbuckshot; while the other, who was somewhat the more experiencedhunter, ran on to the next cabin and got his big Snider rifle. Themoose, meanwhile, having watched the men fairly indoors, turned asideand fell to browsing on the tiny poplar saplings which grew along thetop of the field. 

[Illustration: "A MAGNIFICENT, BLACK, WIDE-ANTLERED BULL, AN UNGAINLYBROWN COW, AND A LONG-LEGGED, LONG-EARED CALF. "]

Saying nothing to their people in the houses, after the reticentbackwoods fashion, Sandy and Lije strolled carelessly down the roadtill the potato-field was hidden from sight by a stretch of youngsecond-growth spruce and fir. Up through this cover they ran eagerly, bending low, and gained the forest of rampikes on top of the hill. Here they circled widely, crouching in the coarse weeds and dodgingfrom trunk to trunk, until they knew they were directly behind thepotato-field. Then they crept noiselessly outward toward the spotwhere they had last seen the moose. The wind was blowing softly intotheir faces, covering their scent; and their dull gray homespunclothes fitted the colour of the desolation around them. 

Now it chanced that the big bull had changed his mind, and wanderedback among the rampikes, leaving the cow and calf at their browsingamong the poplars. The woodsmen, therefore, came upon him unexpectedly. Not thirty yards distant, he stood eying them with disdainfulcuriosity, his splendid antlers laid back while he thrust forward hisbig, sensitive nose, trying to get the wind of these mysteriousstrangers. There was menace in his small, watchful eyes, andaltogether his appearance was so formidable that the hunters werejust a trifle flurried, and fired too hastily. The big bullet ofLije's Snider went wide, while a couple of Sandy's buckshot did nomore than furrow the great beast's shoulder. The sudden pain and thesudden monstrous noise filled him with rage, and, with an uglygrunting roar, he charged. 

"Up a tree, Sandy!" yelled Lije, setting the example. But the bull wasso close at his heels that he could not carry his rifle with him. Hedropped it at the foot of the tree, and swung himself up into the deadbranches just in time to escape the animal's rearing plunge. 

Sandy, meanwhile, had found himself in serious plight, there being nosuitable refuge just at hand. Those trees which were big enough hadhad no branches spared by the fire. He had to run some distance. Justas he was hesitating as to what he should do, and looking for a rockor stump behind which he might hide while he reloaded his gun, themoose caught sight of him, forgot about Lije, and came chargingthrough the weeds. Sandy had no more time for hesitation. He droppedhis unwieldy musket, and clambered into a blackened and branchyhackmatack, so small that he feared the rush of the bull might breakit down. It did, indeed, crack ominously when the headlong bulkreared upon it; but it stood. And Sandy felt as if every branch hegrasped were an eggshell. 

Seeing that the bull's attention was so well occupied, Lije slippeddown the further side of his tree and recaptured his Snider. He had bythis time entirely recovered his nerve, and now felt master of thesituation. Having slipped in a new cartridge he stood forth boldly andwaited for the moose to offer him a fair target. As the animal movedthis way and that, he at length presented his flank. The big Sniderroared; and he dropped with a ball through his heart, dead instantly. Sandy came down from his little tree, and touched the huge dark formand mighty antlers with admiring awe. 

In the meantime, the noise of the firing had thrown the cow and calfinto a panic. Since the woods behind them were suddenly filled withsuch thunders, they could not flee in that direction. But far belowthem, down the brown slopes and past the gray cabins, they saw theriver gleaming among its alder thickets. There was the shelter theycraved; and down the fields they ran, with long, shambling, awkwardstrides that took them over the ground at a tremendous pace. At thefoot of the field they blundered into the lane leading down toSandy's cabin. 

Now, as luck would have it, Sandy had that summer decided to buildhimself a frame house to supplant the old log cabin. As a preliminary, he had dug a spacious cellar, just at the foot of the lane. It wasdeep as well as wide, being intended for the storage of many potatoes. And, in order to prevent any of the cattle from falling into it, hehad surrounded it with a low fence which chanced to be screened alongthe upper side with a rank growth of burdock and other barnyardweeds. 

When the moose cow reached this fence, she hardly noticed it. She wasused to striding over obstacles. Just now her heart was mad withpanic, and her eyes full of the gleam of the river she was seeking. She cleared the fence without an effort--and went crashing to thebottom of the cellar. Not three paces behind her came the calf. 

By this time, of course, all the little settlement was out, and theflight of the cow and calf down the field had been followed with eagereyes. Everyone ran at once to the cellar. The unfortunate cow was seento have injured herself so terribly by the plunge that, withoutwaiting for the owner of the cellar to return, the young farmer fromthe third cabin jumped down and ended her suffering with a butcherknife. The calf, however, was unhurt. He stood staring stupidly at hisdead mother and showed no fear of the people that came up to strokeand admire him. He seemed so absolutely docile that when Sandy andLije came proudly down the hill to tell of their achievement, Sandydeclared that the youngster should be kept and made a pet of. 

"Seems to me, " he said to Lije, "that seein' as the moose had been solong away, we hain't treated them jest right when they come back. Ifeel like we'd ought to make it up to the little feller. "

FROM THE TEETH OF THE TIDE

HITHERTO, ever since he had been old enough to leave the den, themother bear had been leading her fat black cub inland, among thetumbled rocks and tangled spruce and pine, teaching him to dig fortender roots and nose out grubs and beetles from the rotting stumps. To-day, feeling the need of saltier fare, she led him in the oppositedirection, down through a cleft in the cliffs, and out across thegreat, red, glistening mud-flats left bare by the ebb of the terrificFundy tides. 

From the secure warmth of his den the cub had heard, faint and faroff, the waves thundering along the bases of the cliffs, when the tidewas high and the great winds drew heavily in from sea. The sound hadalways made him afraid; and to-day, though there was no wind, and thetide was so far out that it made no noise but a soft whisper, silkenand persuasive, he held back with babyish timidity, till his motherbrought him to his senses with an unceremonious cuff on the side ofthe head. With a squall of grieved surprise he picked himself up, shaking his head as if he had a bee in his ear, and then made haste tofollow obediently, close at his mother's huge black heels. 

From the break in the cliffs, where the bears came down, ran a ledgeof shelving rocks on a long, gradual slant across the flats toward theedge of low water. The tide was nearing the last of the ebb; and now, the slope of the shore being very gradual, and the difference betweenhigh and low water in these turbulent channels something between fortyand fifty feet, the lapsing fringes of the ebb, yellow-tawny withsilt, were a good three-quarters of a mile away from the foot of thecliffs. The vast spaces between were smooth, oily, copper-red mud, shining and treacherous in the sun with the narrow black outcrop ofthe ledge drawn across on so gentle a slant that before it reached thewater it was running almost on a parallel with the shoreline. 

Along the rocky ledge the old bear led the way, pausing to nose at apatch of seaweed here and there or to glance shrewdly into the shallowpools among the rocks. The cub obediently followed her example, though doubtless with no idea of what he might hope to find. But theupper stretches of the ledge, near high-water mark, offered nothing toreward their quest, having been dry for several hours, and long agothoroughly gone over by earlier foragers. So the bears pushed on downtoward the lower stretches, where the ledges were still wet, and thelong, black-green weed-masses still dripping, and where thelimpet-covered protuberances of rock still oozed and sparkled. Withher iron-hard claws the mother bear scraped off a quantity of theselimpets, and crushed them between her jaws with relish, swallowing thesalty juices. The cub tried clumsily to imitate her, but the limpetsdefied his too tender claws, so he ran to his mother, thrust her greathead aside, and greedily licked up a share of her scrapings. The seaflavour tickled his palate, but the rough, hard shells exasperatedhim. They hurt his gums, so that he merely rolled them over in hismouth, sucked at them a few moments, then spat them out indignantly. His mother thereupon forsook the unsatisfactory limpets, and wentprowling on toward the water's edge in search of more satisfyingfare. As they left the limpets, a gaunt figure in gray homespuns, carrying a rifle, appeared on the crest of the cliffs above, caughtsight of them, and hurriedly took cover behind an overhanging pine. 

The young woodsman's first impulse was to try a long shot at thehulking black shape so conspicuous out on the ledge, against thebright water. He wanted a bearskin, even if the fur was not just thenin prime condition. But more particularly he wanted the cub, to tameand play with if it should prove amenable, and to sell, ultimately, for a good amount, to some travelling show. On consideration, hedecided to lie in wait among the rocks till the rising tide shoulddrive the bears back to the upland. He exchanged his steel-nosedcartridges for the more deadly mushroom-tipped, filled his pipe, andlay back comfortably against the pine trunk, to watch, through thethin green frondage, the foraging of his intended prey. 

The farther they went down the long slant of the ledge, the moreinterested the bears became. Here the crows and gulls had not had timeto capture all the prizes. There were savoury blue-shelled musselsclinging under the tips of the rocks; plump, spiral whelks betweenthe oozy tresses of the seaweed; orange starfish and bristlysea-urchins in the shallow pools. All these dainties had shells thatthe cub's young teeth could easily crush, and they yielded meatymorsels that made beetles and grubs seem very meagre fare. Moreover, in the salty bitter of this sea-fruit there was something marvelouslystimulating to the appetite. From pool to pool the old bear wanderedon, lured ever by richer prizes just ahead; and the cub, stuffed tillhis little stomach was like a black furry ball, no longer frisked andtumbled, but waddled along beside her with eyes of shining expectancy. As long as he was not too full to walk, he was not too full to eatsuch delicacies as these. The fascinating quest led them on and ontill at last they found themselves at the water's edge. 

By this time they had travelled a long way from the cleft in thecliffs by which they had come down from the uplands. A good half-mileof shining mud separated them, in a direct line, from the cliff base. And the woodsman on the height, as he watched them, muttered tohimself: "Ef that old b'ar don't look out, the tide's a-goin' to ketchher afore she knows what she's about! Most wish I'd 'a' socked it toher afore she'd got so fur out--Jiminy! She's seed her mistake now!The tide's turned. "

While bear and cub had their noses and paws busy in a little dry pool, on a sudden a long, shallow, muddy-crested wave had come hissing upover their feet and filled the pool to the brim with its yellow flood. Lifting her head sharply, the old bear glanced at the far-off cliffs, and at the mounting tide. Instantly realizing the peril, she startedback at a slow, lumbering amble up the long, long path by which theyhad come; and the cub started too at a brave gallop--not behind her, for he was too much afraid of the hissing yellow wave, but close ather side, between her sheltering form and the shore. He felt that shecould in some way ward off or subdue the cold and terrifying monster. 

For perhaps two minutes the cub struggled on gamely, although, owingto the fact that at this point their path was almost parallel with thewater, the fugitives made no perceptible gain, and the rising wave wason their heels every instant. Then the greedy feeding produced itseffect. The little fellow's wind gave out completely. With a whimperof pain and fright he dropped back upon his haunches and waited forhis mother to save him. 

The old bear turned, bounced back, and cuffed him so bruskly that hefound breath enough to utter a loud squall and go stumbling forwardfor another score of yards. Then he gave out, and sank upon histoo-distended stomach, whimpering piteously. 

This time the mother seemed to perceive that his case was serious, andher anxious wrath subsided. She licked him assiduously for a fewseconds, whining encouragement, till at last he got upon his feetagain, trembling. The yellow flood was now lapping on the ledge allabout them. But a rod or two farther on the rocks bulged up a coupleof feet above the surrounding slope. Thrusting the exhausted youngsterahead of her with nose and paws, the old bear gained this point oftemporary vantage; and then, worried and frightened, sat down upon herhaunches and stared all around her, as if trying to decide what shouldbe done. The cub lay flat, with legs outstretched and mouth wide open, panting. 

The tide, meanwhile, was mounting so swiftly that in a few moments therise of rocks had become almost an island. The ledge was coveredbefore them as well as behind, and the only way still open laystraight over the glistening mud. The old bear looked at it, andwhined, knowing its treacheries. And the woodsman, watching with eagerinterest from the cliffs, muttered:

"Take to it, ye old bug-eater! Ther' ain't nawthin' else left fer yeto do'!"

This was apparently the conclusion of the old bear herself; for now, after licking and nuzzling the cub for a few seconds till he stood up, she stepped boldly off the rock and started out over the copperyflats. The cub, having apparently recovered his wind, followedbriskly--probably much heartened by the fact that his progress was ina direction away from the alarming waves. 

There was desperate need of haste, for when they left the rocky liftthe tide was already slipping around upon the flats beyond it. Nevertheless, the old bear moved with deliberation. She could nothurry the cub; and she had to choose her path. By some instinct, orelse by some peculiar keenness of observation, she seemed to detectthe "honey-pots, " or deep pockets of slime, that lay concealed beneaththe uniformly shining surface of the mud; for here she would make anaimless detour, losing many precious seconds, and there she wouldside-step suddenly, for several paces, and shift her course to a newparallel. Outside the "honey-pots, " the mud was soft and tenacious toa depth varying from a few inches to a couple of feet, but with a hardclay foundation beneath the slime. Through this clinging red ooze theold bear, with her huge strength, made her way without difficulty; butthe cub, in a few moments, began to find himself terribly hampered. His fur collected the mud. His little paws sank easily, but at eachstep it grew harder to withdraw them. At last, chancing to staggeraside from his mother's spacious tracks, he sank to his belly in therim of a "honey-pot. "

Panic-stricken, he floundered vainly, his nose high in the air and hiseyes shut tight, while his mother, unconscious of what had happened, ploughed doggedly onward. Presently he opened his eyes. His mother wasnow perhaps ten or a dozen feet ahead, apparently deserting him. Rightbehind, lapping up to his very tail, was the crawling wave. Aheart-broken bawl burst from his throat. 

At that cry the old bear came dashing back, red mud half-way up herflanks and plastered all over her shaggy chest. Taking in thesituation at a glance, she seized the cub by the nape of the neck withher teeth, and tried to drag him free. But he squealed so lamentablythat she realized that the hide would yield before the mud would. Theattempt had taken time, however; and the tide was now well up in thefur of his back. Thrusting her paw down beneath his haunches, she torehim clear with a mighty wrench and a loud sucking of the baffled mud. That stroke sent him head over heels some ten feet nearer safety. Bythe time he had picked himself up, pawing fretfully at the mud thatbedaubed his face and half blinded him, his mother was close behindhim, nosing him along and lifting him forward skilfully with her forepaws. 

The slope of the flats was now so gradual as to be almost imperceptible;and the tide, therefore, seemed to be racing in with fiercer haste, asif in wrath at being so long balked of its prey. Engrossed in herefforts to push the cub forward, the mother now lost some of her finediscrimination in regard to "honey-pots. " She pushed the cub straightinto one; but jerked him back unceremoniously before the mud had timeto get any grip upon him. Pausing for a moment to scrutinize theoozy expanse, she thrust the little animal furiously along to the left, searching for a safe passage. Before she could find one, however, thetide was upon them, their feet splashing in the thin yellow wavelets. 

A broken soap-box, tossed overboard from some ship, came washing up, and stranded just before them. With a whimper of delight, as if hethought the box a safe refuge, the cub scrambled upon it; but hismother ruthlessly tumbled him off and hustled him onward, flounderingand splashing. 

"Ye'll hev to swim fer it, Old Woman!" growled the now excited watcherbehind the pine-tree on the cliff. 

As the creeping flood by this time overspread the ooze for a couple ofyards ahead of them, the mother could no longer discriminate as towhat lay beneath it. She could do nothing now but dash ahead blindly. Catching up the cub between her jaws, in a grip that made him squeal, she launched herself straight toward shore, hardly daring to let herfeet rest an instant where they touched. Fortune favoured her in thisrush. She got ahead of the tide. She gained upon it, perhaps twice herbody's length. Then she paused, to drop the cub. But the pause wasfatal. She began to sink instantly. She had come upon a "honey-pot" ofstiffer consistency than the rest, which had sustained her while shewas in swift motion, but now, in return for that support, clutched herin a grip the more inexorable. With all her huge strength she strainedto wrench herself clear. But in vain. She had no purchase. There wasnothing to put forth her strength upon. In her terror and despair shesquealed aloud, with her snout high in air as if appealing to theblank, blue, empty sky. The cub, terror-stricken, strove to clamberupon her back. 

That harsh cry of hers, however, was but the outburst of one moment'sweakness. The next moment the indomitable old bear was strivingsilently and systematically to release herself. She would wrench onegreat fore arm clear, lift it high, and feel about for a solidfoundation beneath the ooze. Failing in this, she would yield that pawto the enemy again, tear the other loose, and feel about for afoothold in another direction. At the same time she drew out her bodyto its full length, and lay flat, so that she might gain as muchsupport as possible by distributing her weight. Because of thissagacity, and because the mire at this point had more substance thanin most of the other "honey-pots, " she made a good fight, and almost, but not quite, held her own. By the time the tide had once moreovertaken her she had sunk but a little way, and was still far fromgiving up the unequal struggle. 

Yet for all the great beast's strength, and valour, and devotion, there could have been but one end to that brave battle, and mother andcub would have disappeared, in a few minutes more, under the stealthy, whispering onrush of the flood, had not the whimsical Providence--orHazard--of the Wild come curiously to their aid. Among the jetsam ofthose restless Fundy tides almost anything that will float may appear, from a matchbox to a barn. What appeared just now was a big sprucelog, escaped from the boom on some river emptying into the bay. Itcame softly wallowing in, lipped by the little waves, and passed closeby the nose of the old bear, where she struggled with the water up toher shoulders. 

[Illustration: "PULLED THE BUTT UNDER HER CHEST. "]

Quick as thought she flashed up a heavy paw, caught the log by oneend, and pulled the butt under her chest. The purchase thus gainedenabled her to free the other paw--and in a few seconds more theweight of the fore part of her body was on the end of the log, forcingit down to the mud. Greedy as that mud was, it was yet incapable ofengulfing a full-grown spruce timber quickly enough to defeat thebear's purpose. Stretching far forward on the submerged log, shestrained her muscles to their utmost, and slowly drew her hindquarters free from the deadly grip that held them. Then, seizing inher jaws the cub, which was swimming and whimpering beside her, shecarefully felt her way farther along the log, and sat down upon it torest, clutching the youngster closely in one great fore arm. 

Not till the tide had risen nearly to her neck did the mother moveagain. She was recovering her strength. Utterly daunted by the perilof the "honey-pots, " she chose rather to trust the tide itself. Atlast, catching the cub again by the back of the neck, she swam for theshore. The tide was now within a couple of hundred yards from thebases of the cliffs, and lapping upon solid, sun-baked clay. Thestrong flood helping her, she swam fast, though laboriously by reasonof the burden in her teeth. Soon her hinder feet struck ground--butshe was afraid to trust it, and nervously drew them up beneath her. Afew moments more and she felt undeniably firm footing; whereupon sheplunged forward with a rush, and never paused, even to drop thesquirming cub, till she was above high-water mark. 

When, at last, she set the little beast down, she was in such a hurryto get away from the shore and back into the secure green woods thatshe would not trust him to follow her, as usual, but drove him onahead, as fast as he could move, toward the cleft in the cliffs. Asthey turned up the rugged trail her haste relaxed, and she went moreslowly, but still driving the cub ahead of her, that she might bequite sure that the "honey-pots" would not reach up and clutch at himagain. 

As the muddy, weary, bedraggled, pathetic-looking pair passed withintempting range of the pine-tree on the cliff-top, the woodsmaninstinctively threw forward his rifle. But the next moment he droppedit, with a slight flush, and gave a quick glance around him as if hefeared that unseen eyes might have taken note of the gesture. 

"Hell!" he muttered, "I'd 'a' been no better'n a _murderer_, 'f I'd'a' gone an' plugged the Old Girl _now_!"

THE FIGHT AT THE WALLOW

I

FAR to the northeast of Ringwaak Hill, just beyond that deep, far-rimmed lake which begets the torrent of the Ottanoonsis, rise thebluff twin summits of Old Walquitch, presiding over an unbroken andalmost untrodden wilderness. Some way up the southeasterly flank ofthe loftier and more butting of the twin peaks ran a vast, open shelf, or terrace, a kind of barren, whose swampy but austere soil bore nogrowth but wiry bush. The green tips of this bushy growth were afavoured "browse" of the caribou, who, though no lovers of theheights, would often wander up from their shaggy and austere plains inquest of this aromatic forage. But this lofty mountainside barren hadyet another attraction for the caribou. Close at its edge, just wherea granite buttress fell away steeply toward the lake, a tiny, almostimperceptible spring, stained with iron and pungent with salt, trickled out from among the roots of a dense, low thicket. Past thebare spot made by these oozings, and round behind the thicket, led adim trail, worn by the feet of caribou, moose, bear, deer, and otherstealthy wayfarers. And to this spring, when the moon of the fallingleaves brought in the season of love and war, the caribou bulls werewont to come, delighting to form their wallow in the pungent, saltymud. 

The bald twin peaks of Old Walquitch were ghostly white in theflood of the full moon, just risen, and swimming like a globe ofwitch's fire over the far, dark, wooded horizon. But the bushyshelf and the spring by the thicket, were still in shadow. Along thetrail to the spring, moving noiselessly, yet with a confidentdignity, came a paler shadow, the shape of a huge, gray-whitecaribou bull with wide-spreading antlers. 

At the edge of the spring the bull stopped and began sniffing thesharp-scented mud. Apparently he found no sign of a rival havingpassed that way before him, or of a cow having kept tryst there. Lifting his splendid head he stared all about him in the shadow, andup at the bare, illuminated fronts of the twin peaks. 

[Illustration: "HE 'BELLED' HARSHLY SEVERAL TIMES ACROSS THE DARKWASTES. "]

As the light spread down the mountain to the edge of the shelf, andthe moon rose into his view, he "belled" harshly several times acrossthe dark wastes outspread below him. 

Receiving no answer to his defiance, the great bull turned hisattention again to the ooze around the spring. After sniffing it allover he fell to furrowing it excitedly with the two lowermostbranches of his antlers, --short, broad, palmated projections thrustout low over his forehead, and called by woodsmen "the ploughs. " Everyfew seconds he would toss his head fiercely, like an ordinary bull, and throw the ooze over his shoulders. Then he pawed the cool, strong-smelling stuff to what he seemed to consider a fittingconsistency, sniffed it over again, and raised his head to "bell"a fresh challenge across the spacious solitudes. Receiving no answer, he snorted in disgust, flung himself down on the trampled ooze, and began to wallow with a sort of slow and intense vehemence, grunting massively from time to time with volcanic emotion. 

The wallow was now in the full flood of the moonlight. In thatmysterious illumination the caribou, encased in shining ooze, took onthe grotesque and enormous aspect of some monster of the prediluvianslimes. Suddenly his wallowing stopped, and his antlers, dripping mud, were lifted erect. For a few moments he was motionless as a rock, listening. He had caught the snapping of a twig, in the trail belowthe edge of the shelf. The sound was repeated; and he understood. Blowing smartly, as if to clear the mud from about his nostrils, helurched to his feet, stalked forth from the wallow, and stood staringarrogantly along the trail by which he had come. The next momentanother pair of antlers appeared; and then another bull, tall butlean, and with long, spiky, narrow horns, mounted over the edge of theshelf, and halted to eye the apparition before him. 

The newcomer was of a darker hue than the lord of the wallow, and ofmuch slimmer build, --altogether less formidable in appearance. But helooked very fit and fearless as, after a moment's supercilious surveyof his rival's ooze-dripping form, he came mincing forward to theattack. The two, probably, had never seen each other before; but inrutting season all caribou bulls are enemies at sight. 

The white bull--no longer white now, but black and silver in themoonlight--stood for some seconds quite motionless, his head low, hisbroad and massive antlers thrust forward, his feet planted firmly andapart. Ominous in his stillness, he waited till his light-stepping anddebonair adversary was within twenty feet of him. Then, with anexplosive blowing through his nostrils, he launched himself forward tothe attack. 

Following the customary tactics of his kind, the second bull loweredhis antlers to receive the charge. But in the last fraction of abreath before the crash, he changed his mind. Leaping aside with alightning alertness more like the action of a red buck than that of acaribou, he just evaded the shock. At the same time two of the spikyprongs of one antler ripped a long gash down his opponent's flank. 

Amazed at this departure from the usual caribou tactics, and smartingwith the anguish of that punishing stroke, the white bull whirled inhis tracks, and charged again, blind with fury. The slim stranger hadalready turned, and awaited him again, with lowered antlers inreadiness, close by the edge of the wallow. This time he seemeddetermined to meet the shock squarely according to the rules of thegame--which apparently demand that the prowess of a caribou bull shallbe determined by his pushing power. But again he avoided, leapingaside as if on springs; and again his sharp prongs furrowed hisenemy's flank. With a grunt of rage the latter plunged on into thewallow, where he slipped forward upon his knees. 

Had the newcomer been a little more resourceful he might now havetaken his adversary at a terrible disadvantage, and won an easyvictory. But he hesitated, being too much enamoured of his own methodof fighting; and in the moment of hesitation opportunity passed himby. The white bull, recovering himself with suddenly awakened agility, was on his feet and on guard again in an instant. 

These two disastrous experiences, however, had added wariness andwisdom to the great bull's fighting rage. His wound, his momentarydiscomfiture, had opened his arrogant eyes to the fact that hisantagonist was a dangerous one. He stood vigilant and considering fora few seconds, no longer with his feet planted massively for aresistless rush, but balanced, and all his forces gathered well inhand; while his elusive foe stepped lightly and tauntingly from sideto side before him, threateningly. 

When the white bull made up his mind to attack again, instead ofcharging madly to swab his foe off the earth, he moved forward at abrisk stride, ready to check himself on the instant and block theenemy's side stroke. Within a couple of yards of his opponent hestopped short. The latter stood motionless, antlers lowered as before, apparently quite willing to lock horns. But the white bull would notbe lured into a rush. Fiercely impatient he stamped the ground with abroad, clacking forehoof. 

Just at this moment, as if in response to the challenge of the hoof, the stranger charged like lightning. But almost in the same motion heswerved aside, seeking again to catch his adversary on the flank. Swift and cunning as he was, however, the white bull was this time allreadiness. He whirled, head down. With a sharp, dry crash the two setsof antlers came together, and locked. 

That this should have happened was the irremediable mistake of theslim stranger. In that close encounter, fury against fury, forceagainst force fairly pitted, his speed and his agility counted fornothing. For a few seconds, indeed, in sheer desperation he succeededin withstanding his heavier and more powerful foe. With hind feetbraced far back, haunches strained, flank heaving and quivering, thetwo held steady, staccato grunts and snorts attesting the ferocity oftheir efforts. Then the hind foot of the younger bull slipped alittle. With a convulsive wrench he recovered his footing; and againthe struggle hung at poise. But it was only for a few moments. Suddenly, as if he had felt his opportunity approach, the white bullthrew all his strength into a mightier thrust. The legs of hisadversary seemed to crumple up like paper beneath him. 

This would have been the end of the young bull's battlings andwooings; but as his good luck would have it, it was at the very edgeof the shelf that he collapsed. Disengaging his victorious antlers, the conqueror thrust viciously and evisceratingly at the victim'sexposed flank. The latter was just struggling to rise, with precariousfoothold on the loose-turfed brink of the steep. As he writhed awaywildly from the goring points, the bushes and turf crumbled away, andhe fell backwards, rolling and crashing till he brought up, batteredbut whole, in a sturdy thicket of young firs. Regaining his feet heslunk off hurriedly into the dark of the woods. And the victor, standing on the brink in the white glare of the moonlight, "belled"his triumph hoarsely across the solemn spaces of the night. 

II

A sound of footfalls, hesitating but apparently making no attempt atconcealment, came from the bend of the trail beyond the wallow; andthe great white bull wheeled savagely to see what was approaching. Ashe glared, however, the angry ridge of hair cresting his neck sankamiably. A young cow, attracted by his calls and the noise of thebattle, was coming around the thicket. 

At the edge of the thicket, not a dozen paces from the black ooze-bedof the wallow, the cow paused coyly, as if doubtful of her welcome. She murmured in her throat, a sort of rough allurement which seemed tothe white bull's ears extraordinarily enticing. He answered, verysoftly, and stepped forward a pace or two, inviting rather thanpursuing. Reassured, the young cow advanced confidently and eagerly tomeet him. 

At this moment, out from the heart of the thicket plunged a toweringblack form, with wide, snarling jaw's agleam in the moonlight. Itseemed to launch itself through the air, as if from a height. Onegreat, taloned paw struck the young cow full on the neck, a crashingblow, shattering the vertebrae through all their armour of muscle. With a groan the stricken cow sank down, her outstretched muzzlesmothered in the ooze of the wallow; and the monstrous bulk of thebear fell upon her, tearing the warm flesh hungrily. 

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the most hot-headed andpowerful bull of the caribou will shrink from trying conclusions witha full grown black bear. The duel, as a rule, is too cruellyone-sided. The bear, on the other hand, knows that a courageous bullis no easy victim; and the monster ambuscaded in the thicket had beenwaiting for one or both of the rivals to be disabled before making hisattack. The approach of the young cow had been an unexpected favour ofthe Powers that order the wilderness; and in clutching his opportunityhe had scornfully and absolutely put the white bull out of thereckoning. 

But this bull was the exceptional one, the one that confoundsgeneralizations, and confirms the final supremacy of the unexpected. He was altogether fearless, indifferent to odds, and just now flushedwith overwhelming victory. Moreover, he was aflame with mating ardour;and the mate of his desire had just been brutally struck down beforehis eyes. For a moment or two he stood bewildered, not daunted, butamazed by the terrific apparition and the appalling event. Then a madfire raged through all his veins, his great muscles swelled, the stiffhair on his neck and shoulders stood straight up, his eyes wentcrimson--and without a sound he charged across the wallow. 

When the bulls of the caribou kin fight each other, the weapons oftheir sole dependence are their antlers. But when they fight alienenemies they are wont to hold their heads high and strike with thebattering, knife-edged weapons of their fore-hoofs. The bear, crouchedupon his quivering prey, was too absorbed and too scornful to look forany assault. The bull was upon him, therefore, before he had time toguard his exposed flank. From the corner of his eye, he saw a bigglistening shape which reared suddenly above him, and, clever boxerthat he was, he threw up a ponderous forearm to parry the blow. But hewas too late. With all the force of some seven hundred pounds ofrage, avenging rage, behind him, these great hoofs, with their cuttingedges, came down upon his side, smashing in several ribs, and gashinga wide wound down into his loins. The shock was so terrific that hisown counter stroke, usually so swift and unerring, went wildaltogether, and he was sent rolling clear of the body of his prey. 

Instantly upon delivering his stroke, the white bull had prancedlightly aside, knowing well enough the swift and deadly effectivenessof a bear's paw. But he struck yet again, almost, it seemed, in thesame breath, and just as the bear was struggling up upon his haunches. Frantically, out of his astonishment, fury, and pain, the bearattempted to guard. He succeeded, indeed, in warding off those deadlyhoofs from his flank; but he caught an almost disabling blow on thepoint of the left shoulder, putting his left forearm out of business. With a squawling grunt he swung about upon his haunches, bringing hisright toward the enemy, and sat up, savagely but anxiously defensive. 

Sore wounded though he was, the bear was not yet beaten. One fairbuffet of his right paw, could he but land it in the proper place, --onnose, or neck, or leg--might yet give him the victory, and let himcrawl off to nurse his hurts in some dense covert, leaving his brokenfoe to die in the wallow. But the white bull, though he had underratedhis former antagonist, was in no danger of misprizing this one. He wasnow as wary as he had, in the previous case, been rash. Moreover, hehad had a dreadful object lesson in the power of the bear's paw. Thebody of the cow before him kept him from forgetting. 

Stepping restlessly from side to side, threatening now with hoof andnow with antlers, he seemed each instant upon the point of a freshattack; and the bear, with swaying muzzle and blazing, shifting eyes, kept following his every motion. Again and again he gathered hismuscles for a fresh charge--but each time he checked himself with arealization that the body of the slain cow was exactly in his way, hampering his avoidance of a counter-stroke. 

After some minutes of this feinting, the caribou stood still, deliberating some new move. Instantly the bear, also, becamemotionless as a stone. The sudden peace was like a shock ofenchantment, a violent sorcery, and over it the blue-white, floodingshine of the moonlight seemed to take on some sinister significance. The seconds lengthened out as a nightmare, till at last the stupendousstillness was broken by the wild clamour of a loon, far down on thelake. As the distant cry shrilled up the mountainside, the white bullstirred, shook his antlers, and blew loudly through his nostril. Itwas a note of challenge--but in it the bear divined a growinghesitancy. Perhaps, after all, this fight, which had gone so sorelyagainst him, might not have to be fought out! He dropped, whirledabout so quietly one could hardly follow the motion--and in a flashwas up again on his haunches, right paw uplifted, eyes blazingvigilant defiance. But he had retreated several feet in that swiftmanoeuvre! His move was a confusion of defeat--but his attitude was awarning that he was dangerous in defeat. The bull followed, but onlyfor a couple of steps, which brought him so that he bestrode the bodyof the cow. Here he halted, still threatening; and again the twoconfronted each other motionlessly. 

This time, however, the spell was broken by the bear himself. Suddenlyhe repeated his former manoeuvre; and again turned to face hisadversary. But the bull did not follow. Without a movement he stood, as if content with his victory. And after a few moments the bear, asif realizing that the fight was over, flung himself aside from thetrail and went limping off painfully through the bushes, keeping awatchful eye over his shoulder till he vanished into a bunch of densespruce against the mountainside. 

[Illustration: "IN A FLASH WAS UP AGAIN ON HIS HAUNCHES. "]

The white bull eyed his going proudly. Then he looked down at the tornand lifeless body between his feet. He had not really taken note of itbefore. Now he bent his head and sniffed at it with wonderinginterrogation. The spreading blood, still warm, smote his nostrils;and all at once, it seemed, death and the fear of death were borne inupon his arrogant heart. He tossed his head, snorting wildly, flunghimself clear of the uncomprehended, dreadful thing upon the ground, bounded over the wallow as if it, too, had grown terrifying, and fledaway up the trail through the merciless, unconcealing moonlight, tillhe reached the end of the open shelf and a black wood hid his suddenfear of the unknown. 

Sonny and the Kid

THE little old gray house, with its gray barn and low wagon shed, stood in the full sun at the top of a gullied and stony lane. Behindit the ancient forest, spruce and fir and hemlock, came down andbrooded darkly over the edge of the rough, stump-strewn pasture. Thelane, leading up to the house from the main road, climbed between asloping buckwheat field on the one hand and a buttercupped meadow onthe other. On either side of the lane, cutting it off from the fields, straggled a zigzag snake fence, with milk-weed, tansy, and mulleingrowing raggedly in its corners. 

At the head of the lane, where it came out upon the untidy but homelylooking yard, stood a largish black and tan dog, his head on one side, his ears cocked, his short stub of a tail sticking out straight andmotionless, tense with expectation. He was staring at a wagon whichcame slowly along the main road, drawn by a jogging, white-facedsorrel. The expression in the dog's eyes was that of a hope so eagerthat nothing but absolute certainty could permit him to believe in itsapproaching fulfilment. His mouth was half open, as if struggling toaid his vision. 

He was an odd looking beast, formidable in his sturdy strength and hismassiveness of jaw; and ugly beyond question, but for the alertintelligence of his eyes. A palpable mongrel, he showed none the lessthat he had strains of distinction in his ancestry. English bullwas the blood most clearly proclaimed, in his great chest, short, crooked legs, fine coat, and square, powerful head. His pronouncedblack and tan seemed to betray some beagle kinship, as did his long, close-haired ears. Whoever had docked his tail, in his defencelesspuppyhood, had evidently been too tender-hearted to cut thosesilken and sensitive ears. So Sonny had been obliged to face lifein the incongruous garb of short tail and long ears--which is almostas unpardonable as yellow shoes with a top hat. 

When the wagon drew close to the foot of the lane, Sonny was stilluncertain. There might be other white faced sorrels than lazy oldBill. The man in the wagon certainly looked like his beloved master, Joe Barnes; but Joe Barnes was always alone on the wagon-seat, whilethis man had a child beside him, a child with long, bright, yellowhair and a little red cap. This to Sonny was a bewildering phenomenon. But when at last the wagon turned up the lane, his doubts were finallyresolved. His stub of a tail jerked spasmodically, in its struggle towag. Then with two or three delirious yelps of joy he started madlydown the lane. At the sound of his voice the door of the gray houseopened. A tall, thin woman in a bluish homespun skirt and red calicowaist came out, and moved slowly across the yard to welcome the newarrivals. 

When Sonny, yelping and dancing, met the creaking wagon as it bumpedits way upward over the gullies, his master greeted him with a "Hello, Sonny!" as usual; but to the dog's quick perception there was adifference in his tone, a difference that was almost an indifference. Joe Barnes was absorbed. At other times, he was wont to seem warmlyinterested in Sonny's welcoming antics, and would keep up a runningfire of talk with him while the old sorrel plodded up the lane. To-day, however, Joe's attention was occupied by the yellow-hairedchild beside him; and Sonny's demonstrations, he knew not why, becameperceptibly less ecstatic. It was of no consequence whatever to himthat the child stared at him with dancing eyes and cried delightedly, "Oh, Unc' Joe, what a pretty doggie! Oh, what a nice doggie! Can Ihave him, Unc' Joe?"

"All right, Kid, " said Joe Barnes, gazing down adoringly upon thelittle red cap; "he's yourn. His name's Sonny, an' he's the best dawgever chased a chipmunk. He'll love ye, Kid, most as much as yer oldUnc' Joe an' Aunt Ann does. "

When the yard was reached, the tall woman in the red calico waist wasat the side of the wagon before the driver's "Whoa!" brought the horseto a stop. The little one was snatched down from the seat and huggedvehemently to her heart. 

"Poor lamb! Precious lamb!" she murmured. "I'll be a mother to you, please God!"

"I want my mummie! Where's she gone to?" cried the child, suddenlyreminded of a loss which he was beginning to forget. But his auntchanged the subject hastily. 

"Ain't he the livin' image of Jim?" she demanded in a voice ofwondering admiration. "Did ever you see the likes of it, father?"

Under the pretence of examining him more critically, Joe took thechild into his own arms, and looked at him with ardent eyes. "Yes, "said he, "the Kid does favour Jim, more'n his--" But he checkedhimself at the word. "An' he's a regular little man too!" he went on. "Come all the way up on the cars by himself, an' wasn't a mite o'trouble, the conductor said. "

Utterly engrossed in the little one, neither Joe nor his wife gave alook or a thought to Sonny, who was leaping upon them joyously. Foryears he had been almost the one centre of attention for the childlesscouple, who had treated him as a child, caressing him, spoiling him, and teaching him to feel his devotion necessary to them. Now, findinghimself quite ignored, he quieted down all at once and stood for a fewseconds gazing reproachfully at the scene. The intimacy with Joe andAnn which he had so long enjoyed had developed almost a human qualityin his intelligence and his feelings. Plainly, now, he was forgotten. His master and mistress had withdrawn their love and were pouring itout upon this stranger child. His ears and stub tail drooping inmisery, he turned away, walked sorrowfully over to the horse, andsniffed at the latter's nose as if to beg for some explanation ofwhat had happened. But the old sorrel, pleasantly occupied in croppingat the short, sweet grass behind the well, had neither explanation norsympathy to offer. Sonny went off to his kennel, a place he scorned tonotice, as a rule, because the best in the house had hitherto beenheld none too good for him. Creeping in with a beaten air, he lay downwith his nose on his paws in the doorway, and tried to understand whathad come upon him. One thing only was quite clear to him. It was allthe fault of the child with the yellow curls. 

Sonny had had no experience with children. The few he had met he hadregarded with that impersonal benevolence which was his attitudetoward all humanity. His formidable appearance had saved him fromfinding out that humanity could be cruel and brutal. So now, in hisunhappiness, he had no jealous anger. He simply wanted to keep awayfrom this small being who had caused his hurt. 

But even this grace was not to be allowed him. By the time Joe Barnesand Ann, both trying to hold the little one in their arms at the sametime, had made their impeded way to the house, the little one hadbegun to find their ardour a shade embarrassing. To him there werelots of things better than being hugged and kissed. This shining greenbackwoods world was quite new to his city born eyes, and he wanted tofind out all about it, at once, for himself. He began strugglingvigorously to get down out of the imprisoning arms. 

"Put me down, Unc' Joe!" he demanded. "I want to play with mydoggie. "

"All right, Kid, " responded Joe, complying instantly. "Here Sonny, Sonny, come an' git acquainted with the Kid!"

"Yes, come and see the Kid, Sonny!" reëchoed the woman, devouring thelittle yellow head with her eyes. His real name was Alfred, but Joehad called him "the Kid, " and that was to be his appellationthenceforth. 

Hearing his name called, Sonny emerged from his kennel and cameforward, but not with his wonted eagerness. Very soberly, but withprompt obedience he came, and thrust his massive head under Joe's handfor the accustomed caress. But the caress was not forthcoming. Joesimply forgot it, so absorbed was he, his gaunt, weather-beaten faceglowing and melting with smiles as he gazed at the child. 

"Here's your dawg, Kid!" said he, and watched delightedly to see howthe little one would go about asserting proprietorship. 

The woman was the more subtle of the two in her sympathies. "Sonny, "she said, pulling the dog forward, "here's the Kid, yer little master. See you mind what he tells you, and see you take good keer o' him. "

Sonny wagged his tail obediently, his load of misery lightening underthe touch of his mistress's hand. He leaned against her knees, comforted for a moment, though his love was more for the man than forher. But he would not look at the Kid. He shut his eyes with anexpression of endurance as the little one's hand patted him vehementlyon the face, and his stub tail stopped wagging. In a dim way herecognized that he must not be uncivil to this small stranger who hadso instantaneously and completely usurped his place. But beyond thishe could think of nothing but his master, who had grown indifferent. Suddenly, with a burst of longing for reconciliation, he jerkedabruptly away from the child's hands, wriggled in between Joe's legs, and strove to climb up and lick his face. 

At the look of disappointment which passed over the child's face JoeBarnes felt a sudden rush of anger. Stupidly misunderstanding, hethought that Sonny was merely trying to avoid the child. Hestraightened up his tall figure, snatched the little one to hisbreast, and exclaimed in a harsh voice, "If ye can't be nice to theKid, git out!"

The words "Git out!" with the tone in which they were uttered, wouldhave been comprehensible to a much meaner intelligence than Sonny's. As if he had been whipped, he curled down his abbreviated tail, andran and hid himself in his kennel. 

"Sonny didn't mean to be ugly to the Kid, father, " protested Ann, "Hejest don't quite understand the situation yet, an' he's wonderin' whyye don't make so much of him as ye used to. I don't blame him ferfeelin' a leetle mite left out in the cold. "

Joe felt a vague suspicion that Ann might be right; but it was a veryvague suspicion, just enough to make him feel uneasy and put him onthe defensive. Being obstinate and something of a crank, this onlyadded heat to his irritation. "I ain't got no use fer any dawg thatdon't know enough to take to a kid on sight!" he declared, readjustingthe little red cap on the child's curls. 

[Illustration: "HE CURLED DOWN HIS ABBREVIATED TAIL, AND RAN. "]

"Of course, father, " acquiesced Ann discreetly; "but you'll findSonny'll be all right. "

Here the child, who had been squirming with impatience, piped up, "Iwant to go an' see my doggie in his little house!" he declared. 

"Oh, no, Kid, we're goin' to let Sonny be fer a bit. We're goin' tosee the calf, the pretty black an' white calf, round back o' the barn, now. You go along with Aunty Ann while I onhitch old Bill. An' thenwe'll all go an' see the little pigs. "

His mind altogether diverted by the suggestion of such strangedelights, the little fellow trotted off joyously with Ann, while JoeBarnes led the old sorrel to the barn, grumbling to himself at what hechose to call Sonny's "ugliness" in not making friends with the Kid. 

 * * * * *

From that hour Sonny's life was changed. In fact, it seemed to him nolonger life at all. His master's indifference grew swiftly to anunreasoning anger against him; and as he fretted over it continually, a malicious fate seemed to delight in putting him, or leading him toput himself, ever in the wrong. Absorbed in longing for his master, hehardly thought of the child at all. Several times, in a blunderingeffort to make things right with Sonny and the Kid, Joe seated himselfon the back doorstep, took the little one on his knee, and calledSonny to come and make friends. At the sound of the loved summonsSonny shot out from the kennel, which had become his constant refuge, tore wildly across the yard, and strove, in a sort of ecstasy, to showhis forgiveness and his joy by climbing into Joe's lap. Being a largedog, and the lap already filled, this meant roughly crowding out theKid, of whose very existence, at this moment, Sonny was unaware. Butto the obtuse man Sonny's action seemed nothing more than a mean andjealous effort to supplant the Kid. 

To the Kid this proceeding of Sonny's was a fine game. He wouldgrapple with the dog, hug him, pound him gleefully with his littlefists, and call him every pet name he knew. 

But the man would rise to his feet angrily, and cry, "If that's allye're good fer, git! Git out, I tell ye!" And Sonny, heartsore andbewildered, would shrink back hopelessly to his kennel. When this, orsomething much like it, had happened several times, even Ann, for allher finer perceptions, began to feel that Sonny might be a bit nicerto the Kid, and, as a consequence, to stint her kindness. But toSonny, sunk in his misery and pining only for that love which hismaster had so inexplicably withdrawn from him, it mattered littlewhether Ann was neglectful or not. 

Uneventfully day followed day on the lonely backwoods farm. To Sonny, the discarded, the discredited, they were all hopeless days, dark andinterminable. But to the Kid they were days of wonder, every one. Heloved the queer black and white pigs, which he studied intentlythrough the cracks in the boarding of their pen. He loved the calf, and the three velvet-eyed cows, and the two big red oxen, inseparableyoke fellows. The chickens were an inexhaustible interest to him; andso were the airy throngs of buttercups afloat on the grass, and theyet more aërial troops of the butterflies flickering above them, whiteand brown and red and black and gold and yellow and maroon. But in thelast choice he loved best of all the silent, unresponsive Sonny, ofwhose indifference he seemed quite unaware. Sonny, lying on the grass, would look at him soberly, submit to his endearments without oneanswering wag of the tail, and at last, after the utmost patience thatcourtesy could require, would slowly get up, yawn, and stroll off tohis kennel or to some pretended business behind the barn. His bigheart harboured no resentment against the child, whom he knew to be achild and irresponsible. His resentment was all against fate, or life, or whatever it was, the vague, implacable force which was causing JoeBarnes to hurt him. For Joe Barnes he had only sorrow and hungrydevotion. 

Little by little, however, Sonny's lonely and sorrowful heart, inspite of itself, was beginning to warm toward the unconscious child. Though still outwardly indifferent, he began to feel gratified ratherthan bored when the Kid came up and gaily disturbed his slumbers bypounding him on the head with his little palm and tumbling over hissturdy back. It was a mild gratification, however, and seemed to callfor no demonstrative expression. 

Then, one noon, he chanced to be lying, heavy-hearted, some ten or adozen paces in front of the kitchen door, while Joe Barnes sat on thedoorstep smoking his after-dinner pipe, and Ann bustled through thedish washing. At such times, in the old happy days, Sonny's place hadalways been at Joe Barnes's feet; but those times seemed to have beenforgotten by Joe Barnes, who had the Kid beside him. Suddenly, tiredof sitting still, the little one jumped up and ran over to Sonny. Sonny resolutely pretended to be asleep. Laughingly the child sprawledover him, pulled his ears gently, then tried to push open his eyes. Alittle burst of warmth gushed up in Sonny's sad heart. With a swiftimpulse he lifted his muzzle and licked the Kid, a generous, amplelick across the face. 

Alas! as blundering fate would have it, the Kid's face was closer thanSonny had imagined. He not only licked it, but at the same time bumpedit violently with his wet muzzle. Taken by surprise and half-dazed, the Kid drew back with a sharp little "Oh!" His eyes grew very wide, and for an instant his mouth quivered as if he was going to cry. Thiswas all Joe Barnes saw. Springing to his feet, with a smothered oath, he ran, caught the Kid up in his arms, and gave Sonny a fierce kick inthe ribs which sent him rushing back to his kennel with a howl ofgrief and pain. 

Ann had come running from the house in amazement. The Kid was sobbing, and struggling to get down from Joe's arms. 

Ann snatched him away anxiously. "What did Sonny do to ye, the baddawg!" she demanded. 

"He ain't bad. He's good. He jest kissed me too hard!" protested thelittle one indignantly. 

"He hurt the Kid's face. I ain't right sure but what he snapped athim, " said Joe Barnes. 

"He didn't hurt me! He didn't mean to, " went on the Kid. 

"Of course he didn't, " said Ann with conviction. "Father, ye're toohard on the dawg. Ye hadn't oughter have kicked him. "

An obstinate look settled on Joe Barnes's face. "Yes, I had, too. 'N'he'll be gittin' more'n that, ef he don't l'arn not to be ugly to theKid, " he retorted harshly. Then, with an uneasy sense that, whetherright or wrong, he was in the minority, he returned to the doorstepand moodily resumed his smoking. Ann called Sonny many times to comeout and get his dinner. But Sonny, broken-hearted, and the ruins ofall his life and love and trust tumbled about his ears, would not hearher. He was huddled in the back of his kennel, with his nose jammeddown into the corner. 

 * * * * *

Two days later it happened that both Joe and Ann went down togetherinto the field in front of the house to weed the carrot patch. Theyleft the Kid asleep in his trundle bed, in the little room off thekitchen. When they were gone, Sonny came out of his kennel and laydown in the middle of the yard, where he could keep a watchful eye oneverything belonging to Joe Barnes. 

It was the Kid's invariable custom to sleep soundly for a good twohours of the early afternoon. On this afternoon, however, he broke hiscustom. Joe and Ann had not been ten minutes away, when he appeared inthe kitchen door, his yellow hair tousled, his cheeks rosy, his plumpfists trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. His face was aggrieved, because he had woke up and found himself alone. But at the sight ofSonny the grievance was forgotten. He ran to the dog and began to maulhim joyously. 

His recent bitter experience raw in his heart, Sonny did not dareto respond, but lay with his nose on his paws, unstirring, whilethe child sprawled over him. After a few minutes this utterunresponsiveness chilled even the Kid's enthusiasm. He jumped up andcast his eyes about in search of some diversion more exciting. Hisglance wandered out past the barn and up the pasture toward theedge of the forest. A squirrel, sitting on a black stump in thepasture, suddenly began jumping about and shrilly chattering. Thiswas something quite new and very interesting. The Kid crawledthrough the bars and started up the pasture as fast as his sturdylittle legs could carry him. 

The squirrel saw him coming, but knowing very well that he was notdangerous, held his ground, bouncing up and down on the stump invociferous excitement. When the Kid was within three feet of him, hegave a wild "K-r-r-r-r!" of derision, and sprang to another stump. With eyes dancing and eager little hands outstretched, the Kidfollowed--again and again, and yet again--till he was led to the veryedge of the wood. Then the mocking imp in red fur whisked up anancient hemlock, and hid himself, in silence, in a high crotch, tiredof the game. 

At the edge of the woods the Kid stopped, peering in among the shadowswith mingled curiosity and awe. The bright patches of sunlight on thebrown forest floor and on the scattered underbrush allured him. Presently, standing out in conspicuous isolation, a great crimsontoadstool caught his eye. He wanted the beautiful thing intensely, toplay with. But he was afraid. Leaning his face against the old fence, he gazed through desirously. But the silence made him more and moreafraid. If only the squirrel would come back and play with him, hewould not be afraid. He was on the point of giving up the beautifulcrimson toadstool and turning back home, when he saw a little graybird hopping amid the lower limbs of a spruce in among the shadows. "Tsic-a-dee-dee!" whistled the little gray bird, blithely andreassuringly. At once the shadows and the stillness lost theirterrors. The Kid squeezed boldly through the fence and started in forthe glowing toadstool. 

Just as he reached the coloured thing and stooped to seize it, a sharp"Tzip, tzip!" and a rustling of stiff feathers startled him. Lookingup, he saw a bright-eyed brown bird running hither and thither beforehim, trailing one wing on the ground as if unable to fly. It was sucha pretty bird! And it seemed so tame! The Kid felt sure he could catchit. Grabbing up the crimson toadstool, and holding it clutched to hisbosom with one hand, he ran eagerly after the brown bird. The bird, awily old hen partridge, bent on leading the intruder away from herhidden brood, kept fluttering laboriously on just beyond his reach, till she came to a dense patch of underbrush. She was just about todive into this thicket, when she leaped into the air, instead, with afrightened squawk, and whirred up into the branches of a lofty birchnear by. 

Bitterly disappointed, the Kid gazed up after her, still clutching thebright toadstool to his breast. Then, by instinct rather than byreason, he dropped his eyes to the thicket, and stared in to see whathad frightened away the pretty brown bird. 

At first he could see nothing. But to his sensitive little nerves camea feeling that something was there. Gradually his eyes, accustomingthemselves to the gloom, began to disentangle substance and shadow. Then suddenly he detected the form of a gray crouching animal. He sawits tufted ears, its big round face, with mouth half open grinningly. Its great, round, pale, yellow green eyes were staring straight athim. 

In his fright the Kid dropped his toadstool and stared back at thegray animal. His first impulse was to turn and run; but, somehow, hewas afraid to do that--afraid to turn his back on the pale-eyed, crouching shape. As he gazed, trembling, he saw that the animal lookedlike a huge gray cat. 

[Illustration: "IN HIS FRIGHT THE KID DROPPED HIS TOADSTOOL AND STAREDBACK AT THE GRAY ANIMAL. "]

At this thought he felt a trifle reassured. Cats were kind, and niceto play with. A big cat wouldn't hurt him, he felt quite sure of that. But when, after a minute or two of moveless glaring, the big cat, never taking its round eyes from his face, began to creep straighttoward him, stealthily, without a sound, then his terror all cameback. In the extremity of his fear he burst out crying, not very loud, but softly and pitifully, as if he hardly knew what he was doing. Hislittle hands hanging straight down at his sides, his head bentslightly forward, he stood helplessly staring at this strange, terrible cat creeping toward him through the thicket. 

 * * * * *

Sonny, meanwhile, had grown uneasy the moment the Kid climbed throughthe bars into the pasture. The Kid had never gone into the pasturebefore. Sonny got up, turned round, and lay down in such a positionthat he could see just what the child was doing. He knew the littleone belonged to Joe Barnes; and he could not let anything belonging toJoe Barnes get lost or run away. When the Kid reached the edge of thewoods and stood looking through the fence, then Sonny roused himself, and started up the pasture in a leisurely, indifferent way, as if itwas purely his own whim that took him in that direction. He pretendednot to see the Kid at all. But in reality he was watching, with ananxious intentness, every move the little one made. He was determinedto do his duty by Joe Barnes. 

But when at last the Kid wriggled through the fence and darted intothe gloom of the forest, Sonny's solicitude became more personal. Heknew that the forest was a place of many strange perils. It was noplace for the Kid. A sudden fear seized him at thought of what mighthappen to the Kid, there in the great and silent shadows. He brokeinto a frantic run, scrambled through the fence, picked up the littleadventurer's trail, and darted onward till he caught sight of theKid's bright curly head, apparently intent on gazing into a thicket. At the sight he stopped abruptly, then sauntered forward with acareless air, as if it was the most ordinary chance in the world thathe should come across the Kid, away off here alone. 

Instinctively, under the subtle influence of the forest silence, Sonnywent forward softly, on his toes, though anything like stealth wasaltogether foreign to him. As he crept up, he wondered what it was inthe thicket to keep him so still. There was something mysterious aboutit. The hair began to rise along Sonny's back. Then, a moment later, he heard the Kid crying. There was no mistaking the note of terror inthat hopeless, helpless little sound. Sonny did not need to reasonabout it; his heart understood all that was necessary. Something wasfrightening the Kid. His white teeth bared themselves, and he dartedforward. 

At this instant there came a crackling and swishing in the thicket;and the Kid, as if released from a spell, turned with a scream andstarted to flee. He tripped on a root, however, and fell headlong onhis face, his yellow curls mixing with the brown twigs and firneedles. Almost in the selfsame second a big gray lynx burst from thegreen of the underbrush and sprang upon the little, sprawling, helpless form. 

But not actually upon it. Those outstretching, murderous claws neveractually sank into the Kid's flesh. For Sonny was there just as soonas the lynx was. The wild beast changed its mind, and attack, just intime to avoid being taken at a serious disadvantage. The rush ofSonny's heavy body bore it backward clear of the Kid. The latterscrambled to his feet, stifled his sobs, and stared open-mouthed atthe sudden fury of battle which confronted him. 

Had Sonny not been endowed with intelligence as well as valour, hewould have fallen victim almost at once to his adversary's terrific, raking hind claws. But fortunately, during his pugnacious puppyhood hehad had several encounters with war-wise, veteran cats. To him, thelynx was obviously a huge and particularly savage cat. He knew thedeadly power of its hind claws, with all the strength of those greathind quarters behind them. As he grappled with the screeching lynx, silently, after the fashion of his bull ancestors, he received aripping slash from one of its armed fore paws, but succeeded in fixinghis grip on the base of the beast's neck, not far from the throat. Instantly he drew himself backward with all his weight, crouchingflat, and dragging the enemy down with him. 

In this position, Sonny, backing and pulling with all his strength, the spitting and screeching cat was unable to bring its terriblehinder claws into play. The claws of the beast's great fore paws, however, were doing cruel work on Sonny's back and sides; while itslong fangs, pointed like daggers, tore savagely at the one point onhis shoulder which they could reach. This terrible punishment Sonnytook stoically, caring only to protect the tender under part of hisbody and his eyes. His close grip on the base of the animal's neckshielded his eyes, and, according to the custom of his tenaciousbreed, he never relaxed his hold for a moment, but kept chewing in, chewing in, inexorably working his way to a final, fatal grip upon thethroat. And not for a moment, either, did he desist from his steadybackward pull, which kept the foe from doubling upon him with its hindquarters. 

For several minutes the furious struggle went on, Sonny, apparently, getting all the worst of it. His back and shoulders were pouringblood; while his enemy showed not a hurt. Then suddenly the graybeast's screeching took on a half strangling sound. With its mouthwide open it ceased to bite, though its fore paws raked and clawedmore desperately than ever. Sonny's relentless hold was beginning tothrottle. His mouth was now too full of long fur and loose skin forhim to bite clean through the throat and finish the fight. But he felthimself already the victor. 

Suddenly, as he continued that steady backward drag, the resistanceceased. The lynx had launched itself forward in one last convulsivestruggle to free itself from those strangling teeth at its throat. Fora second or two Sonny felt himself overwhelmed, engulfed, in a vortexof rending claws. In a tight ball of hate and ferocity and horror thetwo rolled over and over in the underbrush. Sonny, doubled up hard toprotect his belly, heard a shrill cry of fear from the Kid. At thesound he summoned into his strained nerves and muscles a strengthbeyond the utmost which he had yet been able to put forth. His jawsworked upward, secured a cleaner grip, ground slowly closer; and atlast his teeth crunched together. A great shudder shook the body ofthe lynx. It straightened out, limp and harmless. 

For perhaps a minute Sonny maintained his triumphant grip, shaking thefoe savagely. Satisfied, at last, that he was meeting with no moreresistance, he let go, stood off, and eyed the body with searchingsuspicion. Then he turned to the Kid. The Kid, careless of the bloodand wounds, kissed him fervently on the nose, called him "Poor Sonny!Dear, good Sonny!" and burst into a loud wailing. 

Knowing that the one thing now was to get the Kid home again as soonas possible, Sonny started, looking back, and uttering a littleimperative bark. The Kid understood, and followed promptly. By thetime they reached the fence, however, Sonny was so weak from loss ofblood he could hardly climb through. The Kid, with blundering butloving efforts, helped him. Then he lay down. 

At this moment the voices of Joe and Ann were heard, shouting, callingwildly, from the yard. At the sound, Sonny struggled to his feet andstaggered on, the Kid keeping close beside him. But he could manageonly a few steps. Then he sank down again. 

The man and woman came running up the pasture, calling the Kid; butthe latter would not leave Sonny. He trotted forward a few steps, andstopped, shaking his head and looking back. When Joe and Ann came nearenough to see that the little one's face and hair and clothes weresplotched with blood, fear clutched at their hearts. "My God! what'shappened to him?" gasped Ann, striving to keep up with her husband'space. But Joe was too quick for her. Darting ahead, he seized thelittle one, lifted him up, and searched his face with frantic eyes. For all the blood, the child seemed well and vigorous. 

"What's it mean, Kid? Ye ain't hurt--ye ain't hurt--tell me yeain't hurt, Kid! What's all this blood all over ye?" he demandedbreathlessly. 

By this time Ann was at his side, questioning with terrified eyes. 

"Tain't me, Unc' Joe!" protested the Kid. "I ain't hurted. It's poorSonny. He's hurted awful. He killed the great, big--great, big--" theKid was at a loss how to explain, "the great, big, dreadful cat, whatwas goin' to eat me up, Sonny did. "

Joe Barnes looked at the dog, the torn sides, streaming red wounds, and bloody muzzle. Woodsman that he was, he understood. "Sonny!" hecried in a piercing voice. The dog raised his head, wagged his stumpof a tail feebly, and made a futile effort to rise. 

Gulping down something in his throat, Joe Barnes handed the child overto Ann, and strode to Sonny's side. Bending over him, he tenderlygathered the big dog into his arms, holding him like a baby. Sonnyreached up and licked his chin. Joe turned and hastened back to theold gray house with his burden. 

"Come along, mother, " he said, his voice a little unsteady. "You'llhave to look out for the Kid all by yerself for a bit now. I reckonI'm goin' to hev' about all I kin do, a-nursin' Sonny. "

THE END

SIX STAR RANCH

Another success by the author of the wonderful GLAD Books:

"Pollyanna: The GLAD Book"

"Pollyanna Grows Up: The Second GLAD Book"

With frontispiece in full color from a painting by R. Farrington Elwelland six spirited drawings by Frank J. Murch. Bound uniform with thePOLLYANNA books in silk cloth, with a corresponding color jacket, net$1. 25; carriage paid $1. 40

The year we published POLLYANNA, THE GLAD BOOK, we published another bookby the same author, but as it is contrary to our policy to issue two booksby one writer in a year, we published the second book under the pseudonym"Eleanor Stuart. "

As we are not going to publish a new book of Mrs. Porter's this year, wehave decided to announce the publication of SIX STAR RANCH under the nameof its real author. The success of her previous books is practicallyunparalleled in the history of American publishing, POLLYANNA: THE GLADBOOK, having already sold 300, 000 copies--an average of more than 100, 000copies for three consecutive years--and POLLYANNA GROWS UP: THE SECONDGLAD BOOK, having sold nearly 150, 000 copies in nine months. 

SIX STAR RANCH is a charming story, in the author's best vein, of a dearlittle Texas girl, who plays "the glad game" made famous by POLLYANNA, and plays it with a charm which will put her on the same pinnacle, side byside with POLLYANNA. 

THE VIOLIN LADY

A Sequel to "The Fiddling Girl" and "The Proving of Virginia"

By Daisy Rhodes Campbell

Frontispiece in full color from a painting by F. W. Read, and six blackand white illustrations by John Goss, decorative jacket, net $1. 25;carriage paid $1. 40

This new story continues the adventures of the once little Fiddling Girland tells of her triumphs and hardships abroad, of her friends, her loveaffairs, and finally of Virginia's wedding bells and return to America. The previous two books in this series have been pronounced excellent anduplift stories, but "The Violin Lady" is far ahead of both in interest andcharm. 

The press has commented on the author's previous stories as follows:

"A delightful story told in a charming manner. The Page Company does areal service indeed in the publication of so many of these excellentstories. "--Zion's Herald, Boston. 

"A thoroughly enjoyable tale, written in a delightful vein of sympatheticcomprehension. "--Boston Herald. 

THE GIRL FROM THE BIG HORN COUNTRY

By Mary Ellen Chase

12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by R. Farrington Elwell, net $1. 25;carriage paid $1. 40

At the beginning of the story, Virginia Hunter, a bright, breezy, frank-hearted "girl of the Golden West, " comes out of the Big Horn countryof Wyoming to the old Bay State. Then "things begin, " when Virginia, --whofeels the joyous, exhilarating call of the Big Horn wilderness and theoutdoor life, --attempts to become acclimated and adopt good old NewEngland "ways. "

Few stories reveal a more attractive heroine, and the joyous spirit ofyouth and its happy adventures give the story an unusual charm. 

"The book has natural characters, fresh incidents, and a generalatmosphere of sincerity and wholesome understanding of girl nature. Virginia may well become as popular as 'Miss Billy' or irresistibleAnne. "--New York Sun. 

SYLVIA OF THE HILL TOP

A Sequel to "Sylvia's Experiment, The Cheerful Book"

By Margaret R. Piper

12mo, cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color, decorativejacket, net $1. 25; carriage paid $1. 40

In THE CHEERFUL BOOK Sylvia Arden proved herself a messenger of joy andcheerfulness to thousands of readers. In this new story she plays the samerôle on Arden Hill during her summer vacation and is the same wholesome, generous, cheerful young lady who made such a success of the ChristmasParty. She befriends sick neighbors, helps "run" a tea-room, bringstogether two lovers who have had differences, serves as the convenientbridesmaid here and the good Samaritan there, and generally acquitsherself in a manner which made of her such a popular heroine in the formerstory. There is, of course, a Prince Charming in the background. 

"The SYLVIA books should be read by all the exponents of POLLYANNA of THEGLAD BOOKS, " says Mr. H. V. Meyer of the American Baptist PublicationSociety. 

Selections from The Page Company's List of Fiction

WORKS OF ELEANOR H. PORTER

POLLYANNA: The GLAD Book (340, 000)

Cloth decorative, illustrated by Stockton Mulford. Net, $1. 25; carriagepaid, $1. 40

Mr. Leigh Mitchell Hodges, The Optimist, in an editorial for thePhiladelphia North American, says: "And when, after Pollyanna has goneaway, you get her letter saying she is going to take 'eight steps'to-morrow--well, I don't know just what you may do, but I know of oneperson who buried his face in his hands and shook with the gladdest sortof sadness and got down on his knees and thanked the Giver of all gladnessfor Pollyanna. "

POLLYANNA GROWS UP: The Second GLAD Book

Cloth decorative, illustrated by H. Weston Taylor. Net, 1. 25; carriagepaid, $1. 40

When the story of POLLYANNA told in The Glad Book was ended a great cry ofregret for the vanishing "Glad Girl" went up all over the country--andother countries, too. Now POLLYANNA appears again, just as sweet andjoyous-hearted, more grown up and more lovable. 

"Take away frowns! Put down the worries! Stop fidgeting and disagreeingand grumbling! Cheer up, everybody! POLLYANNA has come back!"--ChristianHerald. 

The GLAD Book Calendar

THE POLLYANNA CALENDAR

(This calendar is issued annually; the calendar for the new year beingready about Sept. 1st of the preceding year. Note: in ordering pleasespecify what year you desire. )

Decorated and printed in colors. Net, $1. 50; carriage paid, $1. 65

"There is a message of cheer on every page, and the calendar isbeautifully illustrated. "--Kansas City Star. 

MISS BILLY (17th printing)

Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting by G. Tyng $1. 50

"There is something altogether fascinating about 'Miss Billy, ' someinexplicable feminine characteristic that seems to demand the individualattention of the reader from the moment we open the book until wereluctantly turn the last page. "--Boston Transcript. 

MISS BILLY'S DECISION (10th printing)

Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting byHenry W. Moore. 

Net, $1. 25; carriage paid, $1. 40

"The story is written in bright, clever style and has plenty of action andhumor. Miss Billy is nice to know and so are her friends. "--New HavenTimes Leader. 

"The author has succeeded admirably in repeating so delightful a characterand in making her the heroine of so many interesting and amusingadventures. "--The Springfield Union. 

MISS BILLY--MARRIED (8th printing)

Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting by W. Haskell Coffin. 

Net, $1. 25; carriage paid, $1. 40

"Although Pollyanna is the only copyrighted glad girl, Miss Billy is justas glad as the younger figure and radiates just as much gladness. Shedisseminates joy so naturally that we wonder why all girls are not likeher. "--Boston Transcript. 

"No one can come within the charmed circle of Miss Billy's radiantpersonality without a vast increase of good cheer, of insistent optimismand outgoing unselfishness. She is one of the vital characters thatvitalize everyone. "--Christian Endeavor World. 

CROSS CURRENTS

Cloth decorative, illustrated $1. 00

"To one who enjoys a story of life as it is to-day, with its sorrows aswell as its triumphs, this volume is sure to appeal. "--Book News Monthly. 

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

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"A very beautiful book showing the influence that went to the developingof the life of a dear little girl into a true and good woman. "--Herald andPresbyter, Cincinnati, Ohio.