WILD ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN

By Ernest Thompson Seton

Books by Ernest Thompson Seton

 Biography of a Grizzly Lives of the Hunted Wild Animals at Home Wild Animal Ways

Stories in This Book

 Lobo, the King of Currumpaw Silverspot, the Story of a Crow Raggylug, the Story of a Cottontail Rabbit Bingo, the Story of My Dog The Springfield Fox The Pacing Mustang Wully, the Story of a Yaller Dog Redruff, the Story of the Don Valley Partridge

THESE STORIES are true. Although I have left the strict line ofhistorical truth in many places, the animals in this book were all realcharacters. They lived the lives I have depicted, and showed the stampof heroism and personality more strongly by far than it has been in thepower of my pen to tell. 

I believe that natural history has lost much by the vague generaltreatment that is so common. What satisfaction would be derived froma ten-page sketch of the habits and customs of Man? How much moreprofitable it would be to devote that space to the life of some onegreat man. This is the principle I have endeavored to apply to myanimals. The real personality of the individual, and his view of lifeare my theme, rather than the ways of the race in general, as viewed bya casual and hostile human eye. 

This may sound inconsistent in view of my having pieced together some ofthe characters, but that was made necessary by the fragmentary natureof the records. There is, however, almost no deviation from the truth inLobo, Bingo, and the Mustang. 

Lobo lived his wild romantic life from 1889 to 1894 in the Currumpawregion, as the ranchmen know too well, and died, precisely as related, on January 31, 1894. 

Bingo was my dog from 1882 to 1888, in spite of interruptions, caused bylengthy visits to New York, as my Manitoban friends will remember. Andmy old friend, the owner of Tan, will learn from these pages how his dogreally died. 

The Mustang lived not far from Lobo in the early nineties. The story isgiven strictly as it occurred, excepting that there is a dispute as tothe manner of his death. According to some testimony he broke his neckin the corral that he was first taken to. Old Turkeytrack is where hecannot be consulted to settle it. 

Wully is, in a sense, a compound of two dogs; both were mongrels, ofsome collie blood, and were raised as sheep-dogs. The first part ofWully is given as it happened, after that it was known only that hebecame a savage, treacherous sheep-killer. The details of the secondpart belong really to another, a similar yaller dog, who long livedthe double-life---a faithful sheep-dog by day, and a bloodthirsty, treacherous monster by night. Such things are less rare than issupposed, and since writing these stories I have heard of anotherdouble-lived sheep-dog that added to its night amusements the crowningbarbarity of murdering the smaller dogs of the neighborhood. He hadkilled twenty, and hidden them in a sandpit, when discovered by hismaster. He died just as Wully did. 

All told, I now have information of six of these Jekyll-Hyde dogs. Ineach case it happened to be a collie. 

Redruff really lived in the Don Valley north of Toronto, and many of mycompanions will remember him. He was killed in 1889, between the SugarLoaf and Castle Frank, by a creature whose name I have withheld, as itis the species, rather than the individual, that I wish to expose. 

Silverspot, Raggylug, and Vixen are founded on real characters. ThoughI have ascribed to them the adventures of more than one of their kind, every incident in their biographies is from life. 

The fact that these stories are true is the reason why all are tragic. The life of a wild animal always has a tragic end. 

Such a collection of histories naturally suggests a common thought--amoral it would have been called in the last century. No doubt eachdifferent mind will find a moral to its taste, but I hope some willherein find emphasized a moral as old as Scripture--we and the beastsare kin. Man has nothing that the animals have not at least a vestigeof, the animals have nothing that man does not in some degree share. 

Since, then, the animals are creatures with wants and feelings differingin degree only from our own, they surely have their rights. Thisfact, now beginning to be recognized by the Caucasian world, was firstproclaimed by Moses and was emphasized by the Buddhist over 2, 000 yearsago. 

ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

LOBO, The King of Currumpaw

I

CURRUMPAW is a vast cattle range in northern New Mexico. It is a land ofrich pastures and teeming flocks and herds, a land of rolling mesas andprecious running waters that at length unite in the Currumpaw River, from which the whole region is named. And the king whose despotic powerwas felt over its entire extent was an old gray wolf. 

Old Lobo, or the king, as the Mexicans called him, was the giganticleader of a remarkable pack of gray wolves, that had ravaged theCurrumpaw Valley for a number of years. All the shepherds and ranchmenknew him well, and, wherever he appeared with his trusty band, terrorreigned supreme among the cattle, and wrath and despair among theirowners. Old Lobo was a giant among wolves, and was cunning and strongin proportion to his size. His voice at night was well-known and easilydistinguished from that of any of his fellows. An ordinary wolf mighthowl half the night about the herdsman's bivouac without attractingmore than a passing notice, but when the deep roar of the old king camebooming down the canon, the watcher bestirred himself and prepared tolearn in the morning that fresh and serious inroads had been made amongthe herds. 

Old Lobo's band was but a small one. This I never quite understood, forusually, when a wolf rises to the position and power that he had, heattracts a numerous following. It may be that he had as many as hedesired, or perhaps his ferocious temper prevented the increase of hispack. Certain is it that Lobo had only five followers during the latterpart of his reign. Each of these, however, was a wolf of renown, mostof them were above the ordinary size, one in particular, the second incommand, was a veritable giant, but even he was far below the leaderin size and prowess. Several of the band, besides the two leaders, wereespecially noted. One of those was a beautiful white wolf, that theMexicans called Blanca; this was supposed to be a female, possiblyLobo's mate. Another was a yellow wolf of remarkable swiftness, which, according to current stories had, on several occasions, captured anantelope for the pack. 

It will be seen, then, that these wolves were thoroughly well-known tothe cowboys and shepherds. They were frequently seen and oftener heard, and their lives were intimately associated with those of the cattlemen, who would so gladly have destroyed them. There was not a stockman on theCurrumpaw who would not readily have given the value of many steers forthe scalp of any one of Lobo's band, but they seemed to possess charmedlives, and defied all manner of devices to kill them. They scorned allhunters, derided all poisons, and continued, for at least five years, to exact their tribute from the Currumpaw ranchers to the extent, manysaid, of a cow each day. According to this estimate, therefore, the bandhad killed more than two thousand of the finest stock, for, as was onlytoo well-known, they selected the best in every instance. 

The old idea that a wolf was constantly in a starving state, andtherefore ready to eat anything, was as far as possible from thetruth in this case, for these freebooters were always sleek andwell-conditioned, and were in fact most fastidious about what they ate. Any animal that had died from natural causes, or that was diseased ortainted, they would not touch, and they even rejected anything thathad been killed by the stockmen. Their choice and daily food was thetenderer part of a freshly killed yearling heifer. An old bull or cowthey disdained, and though they occasionally took a young calf or colt, it was quite clear that veal or horseflesh was not their favorite diet. It was also known that they were not fond of mutton, although they oftenamused themselves by killing sheep. One night in November, 1893, Blancaand the yellow wolf killed two hundred and fifty sheep, apparently forthe fun of it, and did not eat an ounce of their flesh. 

These are examples of many stories which I might repeat, to show theravages of this destructive band. Many new devices for their extinctionwere tried each year, but still they lived and throve in spite of allthe efforts of their foes. A great price was set on Lobo's head, and inconsequence poison in a score of subtle forms was put out for him, buthe never failed to detect and avoid it. One thing only he feared--thatwas firearms, and knowing full well that all men in this region carriedthem, he never was known to attack or face a human being. Indeed, theset policy of his band was to take refuge in flight whenever, in thedaytime, a man was descried, no matter at what distance. Lobo's habit ofpermitting the pack to eat only that which they themselves had killed, was in numerous cases their salvation, and the keenness of his scent todetect the taint of human hands or the poison itself, completed theirimmunity. 

On one occasion, one of the cowboys heard the too familiar rallying-cryof Old Lobo, and, stealthily approaching, he found the Currumpaw pack ina hollow, where they had 'rounded' up a small herd of cattle. Lobo satapart on a knoll, while Blanca with the rest was endeavoring to 'cutout' a young cow, which they had selected; but the cattle were standingin a compact mass with their heads outward, and presented to the foe aline of horns, unbroken save when some cow, frightened by a fresh onsetof the wolves, tried to retreat into the middle of the herd. It was onlyby taking advantage of these breaks that the wolves had succeeded at allin wounding the selected cow, but she was far from being disabled, andit seemed that Lobo at length lost patience with his followers, for heleft his position on the hill, and, uttering a deep roar, dashed towardthe herd. The terrified rank broke at his charge, and he sprang in amongthem. Then the cattle scattered like the pieces of a bursting bomb. Awaywent the chosen victim, but ere she had gone twenty-five yards Lobo wasupon her. Seizing her by the neck, he suddenly held back with all hisforce and so threw her heavily to the ground. The shock must have beentremendous, for the heifer was thrown heels over head. Lobo also turneda somersault, but immediately recovered himself, and his followersfalling on the poor cow, killed her in a few seconds. Lobo took no partin the killing--after having thrown the victim, he seemed to say, "Now, why could not some of you have done that at once without wasting so muchtime?"

The man now rode up shouting, the wolves as usual retired, and he, having a bottle of strychnine, quickly poisoned the carcass in threeplaces, then went away, knowing they would return to feed, as they hadkilled the animal themselves. But next morning, on going to look forhis expected victims, he found that, although the wolves had eaten theheifer, they had carefully cut out and thrown aside all those parts thathad been poisoned. 

The dread of this great wolf spread yearly among the ranchmen, andeach year a larger price was set on his head, until at last it reached$1, 000, an unparalleled wolf-bounty, surely; many a good man has beenhunted down for less, Tempted by the promised reward, a Texan rangernamed Tannerey came one day galloping up the canyon of the Currumpaw. Hehad a superb outfit for wolf-hunting--the best of guns and horses, and apack of enormous wolf-hounds. Far out on the plains of the Panhandle, he and his dogs had killed many a wolf, and now he never doubted that, within a few days, Old Lobo's scalp would dangle at his saddlebow. 

Away they went bravely on their hunt in the gray dawn of a summermorning, and soon the great dogs gave joyous tongue to say that theywere already on the track of their quarry. Within two miles, the grizzlyband of Currumpaw leaped into view, and the chase grew fast and furious. The part of the wolf-hounds was merely to hold the wolves at bay tillthe hunter could ride up and shoot them, and this usually was easy onthe open plains of Texas; but here a new feature of the country cameinto play, and showed how well Lobo had chosen his range; for the rockycadons of the Currumpaw and its tributaries intersect the prairies inevery direction. The old wolf at once made for the nearest of theseand by crossing it got rid of the horseman. His band then scattered andthereby scattered the dogs, and when they reunited at a distant pointof course all of the dogs did not turn up, and the wolves, no longeroutnumbered, turned on their pursuers and killed or desperately woundedthem all. That night when Tannerey mustered his dogs, only six of themreturned, and of these, two were terribly lacerated. This hunter madetwo other attempts to capture the royal scalp, but neither of them wasmore successful than the first, and on the last occasion his best horsemet its death by a fall; so he gave up the chase in disgust and wentback to Texas, leaving Lobo more than ever the despot of the region. 

Next year, two other hunters appeared, determined to win the promisedbounty. Each believed he could destroy this noted wolf, the first bymeans of a newly devised poison, which was to be laid out in an entirelynew manner; the other a French Canadian, by poison assisted with certainspells and charms, for he firmly believed that Lobo was a veritable"loup-garou, " and could not be killed by ordinary means. But cunninglycompounded poisons, charms, and incantations were all of no availagainst this grizzly devastator. He made his weekly rounds and dailybanquets as aforetime, and before many weeks had passed, Calone andLaloche gave up in despair and went elsewhere to hunt. 

In the spring of 1893, after his unsuccessful attempt to capture Lobo, Joe Calone had a humiliating experience, which seems to show that thebig wolf simply scorned his enemies, and had absolute confidence inhimself. Calone's farm was on a small tributary of the Currumpaw, in apicturesque canyon, and among the rocks of this very canyon, within athousand yards of the house, Old Lobo and his mate selected their denand raised their family that season. There they lived all summer andkilled Joe's cattle, sheep, and dogs, but laughed at all his poisons andtraps and rested securely among the recesses of the cavernous cliffs, while Joe vainly racked his brain for some method of smoking them out, or of reaching them with dynamite. But they escaped entirely unscathed, and continued their ravages as before. "There's where he lived all lastsummer, " said Joe, pointing to the face of the cliff, "and I couldn't doa thing with him. I was like a fool to him. "

II

This history, gathered so far from the cowboys, I found hard tobelieve until, in the fall of 1893, I made the acquaintance of the wilymarauder, and at length came to know him more thoroughly than anyoneelse. Some years before, in the Bingo days, I had been a wolf-hunter, but my occupations since then had been of another sort, chaining me tostool and desk. I was much in need of a change, and when a friend, whowas also a ranch-owner on the Currumpaw, asked me to come to New Mexicoand try if I could do anything with this predatory pack, I accepted theinvitation and, eager to make the acquaintance of its king, was as soonas possible among the mesas of that region. I spent some time ridingabout to learn the country, and at intervals my guide would point to theskeleton of a cow to which the hide still adhered, and remark, "That'ssome of his work. "

It became quite clear to me that, in this rough country, it was uselessto think of pursuing Lobo with hounds and horses, so that poison ortraps were the only available expedients. At present we had no trapslarge enough, so I set to work with poison. 

I need not enter into the details of a hundred devices that I employedto circumvent this 'loup-garou'; there was no combination of strychnine, arsenic, cyanide, or prussic acid, that I did not essay; there was nomanner of flesh that I did not try as bait; but morning after morning, as I rode forth to learn the result, I found that all my efforts hadbeen useless. The old king was too cunning for me. A single instancewill show his wonderful sagacity. Acting on the hint of an old trapper, I melted some cheese together with the kidney fat of a freshly killedheifer, stewing it in a china dish, and cutting it with a bone knife toavoid the taint of metal. 

When the mixture was cool, I cut it into lumps, and making a hole in oneside of each lump, I inserted a large dose of strychnine and cyanide, contained, in a capsule that was impermeable by any odor; finally Isealed the holes up with pieces of the cheese itself. During the wholeprocess, I wore a pair of gloves steeped in the hot blood of the heifer, and even avoided breathing on the baits. When all was ready, I put themin a raw-hide bag rubbed all over with blood, and rode forth draggingthe liver and kidneys of the beef at the end of a rope. With this Imade a ten-mile circuit, dropping a bait at each quarter of a mile, andtaking the utmost care, always, not to touch any with my hands. 

Lobo, generally, came into this part of the range in the early part ofeach week, and passed the latter part, it was supposed, around the baseof Sierra Grande. This was Monday, and that same evening, as we wereabout to retire, I heard the deep bass howl of his majesty. On hearingit one of the boys briefly remarked, "There he is, we'll see. "

The next morning I went forth, eager to know the result. I soon cameon the fresh trail of the robbers, with Lobo in the lead--his track wasalways easily distinguished. An ordinary wolf's forefoot is 4 1/2 incheslong, that of a large wolf 4 3/4 inches, but Lobo's, as measured anumber of times, was 5 1/2 inches from claw to heel; I afterward foundthat his other proportions were commensurate, for he stood three feethigh at the shoulder, and weighed 150 pounds. His trail, therefore, though obscured by those of his followers, was never difficult to trace. The pack had soon found the track of my drag, and as usual followed it. I could see that Lobo had come to the first bait, sniffed about it, andfinally had picked it up. 

Then I could not conceal my delight. "I've got him at last, " Iexclaimed; "I shall find him stark within a mile, " and I galloped onwith eager eyes fixed on the great broad track in the dust. It led me tothe second bait and that also was gone. How I exulted--I surely havehim now and perhaps several of his band. But there was the broad pawmarkstill on the drag; and though I stood in the stirrup and scanned theplain I saw nothing that looked like a dead wolf. Again I followed--tofind now that the third bait was gone--and the king-wolf's track ledon to the fourth, there to learn that he had not really taken a baitat all, but had merely carried them in his mouth, Then having piled thethree on the fourth, he scattered filth over them to express his uttercontempt for my devices. After this he left my drag and went about hisbusiness with the pack he guarded so effectively. 

This is only one of many similar experiences which convinced me thatpoison would never avail to destroy this robber, and though I continuedto use it while awaiting the arrival of the traps, it was only becauseit was meanwhile a sure means of killing many prairie wolves and otherdestructive vermin. 

About this time there came under my observation an incident that willillustrate Lobo's diabolic cunning. These wolves had at least onepursuit which was merely an amusement; it was stampeding and killingsheep, though they rarely ate them. The sheep are usually kept in flocksof from one thousand to three thousand under one or more shepherds. Atnight they are gathered in the most sheltered place available, and aherdsman sleeps on each side of the flock to give additional protection. Sheep are such senseless creatures that they are liable to be stampededby the veriest trifle, but they have deeply ingrained in their natureone, and perhaps only one, strong weakness, namely, to follow theirleader. And this the shepherds turn to good account by putting half adozen goats in the flock of sheep. The latter recognize the superiorintelligence of their bearded cousins, and when a night alarm occursthey crowd around them, and usually are thus saved from a stampede andare easily protected. But it was not always so. One night late in lastNovember, two Perico shepherds were aroused by an onset of wolves. Theirflocks huddled around the goats, which, being neither fools nor cowards, stood their ground and were bravely defiant; but alas for them, nocommon wolf was heading this attack. Old Lobo, the werewolf, knew aswell as the shepherds that the goats were the moral force of the flock, so, hastily running over the backs of the densely packed sheep, hefell on these leaders, slew them all in a few minutes, and soon had theluckless sheep stampeding in a thousand different directions. For weeksafterward I was almost daily accosted by some anxious shepherd, whoasked, "Have you seen any stray OTO sheep lately?" and usually I wasobliged to say I had; one day it was, "Yes, I came on some five or sixcarcasses by Diamond Springs;" or another, it was to the effect that Ihad seen a small "bunch" running on the Malpai Mesa; or again, "No, butJuan Meira saw about twenty, freshly killed, on the Cedra Monte two daysago. "

At length the wolf traps arrived, and with two men I worked a whole weekto get them properly set out. We spared no labor or pains, I adoptedevery device I could think of that might help to insure success. Thesecond day after the traps arrived, I rode around to inspect, and sooncame upon Lobo's trail running from trap to trap. In the dust I couldread the whole story of his doings that night. He had trotted along inthe darkness, and although the traps were so carefully concealed, he hadinstantly detected the first one. Stopping the onward march of the pack, he had cautiously scratched around it until he had disclosed the trap, the chain, and the log, then left them wholly exposed to view with thetrap still unsprung, and passing on he treated over a dozen traps in thesame fashion. Very soon I noticed that he stopped and turned aside assoon as he detected suspicious signs on the trail, and a new plan tooutwit him at once suggested itself. I set the traps in the form of anH; that is, with a row of traps on each side of the trail, and one onthe trail for the cross-bar of the H. Before long, I had an opportunityto count another failure. Loho came trotting along the trail, and wasfairly between the parallel lines before he detected the single trapin the trail, but he stopped in time, and why or how he knew enough Icannot tell, the Angel of the wild things must have been with him, butwithout turning an inch to the right or left, he slowly and cautiouslybacked on his own tracks, putting each paw exactly in its old trackuntil he was off the dangerous ground. Then returning at one side hescratched clods and stones with his hind feet till he had sprung everytrap. This he did on many other occasions, and although I variedmy methods and redoubled my precautions, he was never deceived, hissagacity seemed never at fault, and he might have been pursuing hiscareer of rapine to-day, but for an unfortunate alliance that provedhis ruin and added his name to the long list of heroes who, unassailablewhen alone, have fallen through the indiscretion of a trusted ally. 

III

Once or twice, I had found indications that everything was notquite right in the Currumpaw pack. There were signs of irregularity, I thought; for instance there was clearly the trail of a smaller wolfrunning ahead of the leader, at times, and this I could not understanduntil a cowboy made a remark which explained the matter. 

"I saw them to-day, " he said, "and the wild one that breaks away isBlanca. " Then the truth dawned upon me, and I added, "Now, I know thatBlanca is a she-wolf, because were a he-wolf to act thus, Lobo wouldkill him at once. "

This suggested a new plan. I killed a heifer, and set one or two ratherobvious traps about the carcass. Then cutting off the head, which isconsidered useless offal, and quite beneath the notice of a wolf, I setit a little apart and around it placed six powerful steel traps properlydeodorized and concealed with the utmost care. During my operationsI kept my hands, boots, and implements smeared with fresh blood, andafterward sprinkled the ground with the same, as though it had flowedfrom the head; and when the traps were buried in the dust I brushed theplace over with the skin of a coyote, and with a foot of the same animalmade a number of tracks over the traps. The head was so placed thatthere was a narrow passage between it and some tussocks, and in thispassage I buried two of my best traps, fastening them to the headitself. 

Wolves have a habit of approaching every carcass they get the wind of, in order to examine it, even when they have no intention of eating it, and I hoped that this habit would bring the Currumpaw pack withinreach of my latest stratagem. I did not doubt that Lobo would detect myhandiwork about the meat, and prevent the pack approaching it, but I didbuild some hopes on the head, for it looked as though it had been thrownaside as useless. 

Next morning, I sallied forth to inspect the traps, and there, oh, joy!were the tracks of the pack, and the place where the beef-head and itstraps had been was empty. A hasty study of the trail showed that Lobohad kept the pack from approaching the meat, but one, a small wolf, hadevidently gone on to examine the head as it lay apart and had walkedright into one of the traps. 

We set out on the trail, and within a mile discovered that the haplesswolf was Blanca. Away she went, however, at a gallop, and althoughencumbered by the beef-head, which weighed over fifty pounds, shespeedily distanced my companion, who was on foot. But we overtook herwhen she reached the rocks, for the horns of the cow's head becamecaught and held her fast. She was the handsomest wolf I had ever seen. Her coat was in perfect condition and nearly white. 

She turned to fight, and, raising her voice in the rallying cry of herrace, sent a long howl rolling over the canyon. From far away upon themesa came a deep response, the cry of Old Lobo. That was her last call, for now we had closed in on her, and all her energy and breath weredevoted to combat. 

Then followed the inevitable tragedy, the idea of which I shrank fromafterward more than at the time. We each threw a lasso over the neck ofthe doomed wolf, and strained our horses in opposite directions untilthe blood burst from her mouth, her eyes glazed, her limbs stiffenedand then fell limp. Homeward then we rode, carrying the dead wolf, andexulting over this, the first death-blow we had been able to inflict onthe Currumpaw pack. 

At intervals during the tragedy, and afterward as we rode homeward, weheard the roar of Lobo as he wandered about on the distant mesas, wherehe seemed to be searching for Blanca. He had never really desertedher, but, knowing that he could not save her, his deep-rooted dread offirearms had been too much for him when he saw us approaching. All thatday we heard him wailing as he roamed in his quest, and I remarked atlength to one of the boys, "Now, indeed, I truly know that Blanca washis mate. "

As evening fell he seemed to be coming toward the home canyon, for hisvoice sounded continually nearer. 

There was an unmistakable note of sorrow in it now. It was no longerthe loud, defiant howl, but a long, plaintive wail; "Blanca! Blanca!"he seemed to call. And as night came down, I noticed that he was not farfrom the place where we had overtaken her. At length he seemed to findthe trail, and when he came to the spot where we had killed her, hisheartbroken wailing was piteous to hear. It was sadder than I couldpossibly have believed. Even the stolid cowboys noticed it, and saidthey had "never heard a wolf carry on like that before. " He seemed toknow exactly what had taken place, for her blood had stained the placeof her death. 

Then he took up the trail of the horses and followed it to theranch-house. Whether in hopes of finding her there, or in quest ofrevenge, I know not, but the latter was what he found, for he surprisedour unfortunate watchdog outside and tore him to little bits withinfifty yards of the door. He evidently came alone this time, for I foundbut one trail next morning, and he had galloped about in a recklessmanner that was very unusual with him. I had half expected this, and hadset a number of additional traps about the pasture. Afterward I foundthat he had indeed fallen into one of these, but, such was his strength, he had torn himself loose and cast it aside. 

I believed that he would continue in the neighborhood until he found herbody at least, so I concentrated all my energies on this one enterpriseof catching him before he left the region, and while yet in thisreckless mood. Then I realized what a mistake I had made in killingBlanca, for by using her as a decoy I might have secured him the nextnight. 

I gathered in all the traps I could command, one hundred and thirtystrong steel wolf-traps, and set them in fours in every trail that ledinto the canyon; each trap was separately fastened to a log, and eachlog was separately buried. In burying them, I carefully removed the sodand every particle of earth that was lifted we put in blankets, so thatafter the sod was replaced and all was finished the eye could detect notrace of human handiwork. When the traps were concealed I trailed thebody of poor Blanca over each place, and made of it a drag that circledall about the ranch, and finally I took off one of her paws and madewith it a line of tracks over each trap. Every precaution and deviceknown to me I used, and retired at a late hour to await the result. 

Once during the night I thought I heard Old Lobo, but was not sure ofit. Next day I rode around, but darkness came on before I completed thecircuit of the north canon, and I had nothing to report. At supper oneof the cowboys said, "There was a great row among the cattle in thenorth canyon this morning, maybe there is something in the traps there. "It was afternoon of the next day before I got to the place referred to, and as I drew near a great grizzly form arose from the ground, vainlyendeavoring to escape, and there revealed before me stood Lobo, Kingof the Currumpaw, firmly held in the traps. Poor old hero, he had neverceased to search for his darling, and when he found the trail her bodyhad made he followed it recklessly, and so fell into the snare preparedfor him. There he lay in the iron grasp of all four traps, perfectlyhelpless, and all around him were numerous tracks showing how the cattlehad gathered about him to insult the fallen despot, without daringto approach within his reach. For two days and two nights he had lainthere, and now was worn out with struggling. Yet, when I went near him, he rose up with bristling mane and raised his voice, and for the lasttime made the canyon reverberate with his deep bass roar, a call forhelp, the muster call of his band. But there was none to answer him, and, left alone in his extremity, he whirled about with all his strengthand made a desperate effort to get at me. All in vain, each trap was adead drag of over three hundred pounds, and in their relentless fourfoldgrasp, with great steel jaws on every foot, and the heavy logs andchains all entangled together, he was absolutely powerless. How hishuge ivory tusks did grind on those cruel chains, and when I ventured totouch him with my rifle-barrel he left grooves on it which are there tothis day. His eyes glared green with hate and fury, and his jawssnapped with a hollow 'chop, ' as he vainly endeavored to reach me and mytrembling horse. But he was worn out with hunger and struggling and lossof blood, and he soon sank exhausted to the ground. 

Something like compunction came over me, as I prepared to deal out tohim that which so many had suffered at his hands. 

"Grand old outlaw, hero of a thousand lawless raids, in a few minutesyou will be but a great load of carrion. It cannot be otherwise. " Then Iswung my lasso and sent it whistling over his head. But not so fast; hewas yet far from being subdued, and before the supple coils had fallenon his neck he seized the noose and, with one fierce chop, cut throughits hard thick strands, and dropped it in two pieces at his feet. 

Of course I had my rifle as a last resource, but I did not wish to spoilhis royal hide, so I galloped back to the camp and returned with a cowboyand a fresh lasso. We threw to our victim a stick of wood which heseized in his teeth, and before he could relinquish it our lassoeswhistled through the air and tightened on his neck. 

Yet before the light had died from his fierce eyes, I cried, "Stay, we will not kill him; let us take him alive to the camp. " He was socompletely powerless now that it was easy to put a stout stick throughhis mouth, behind his tusks, and then lash his jaws with a heavy cordwhich was also fastened to the stick. The stick kept the cord in, andthe cord kept the stick in so he was harmless. As soon as he felt hisjaws were tied he made no further resistance, and uttered no sound, butlooked calmly at us and seemed to say, "Well, you have got me at last, do as you please with me. " And from that time he took no more notice ofus. 

We tied his feet securely, but he never groaned, nor growled, nor turnedhis head. Then with our united strength we were just able to put him onmy horse. His breath came evenly as though sleeping, and his eyeswere bright and clear again, but did not rest on us. Afar on the greatrolling mesas they were fixed, his passing kingdom, where his famousband was now scattered. And he gazed till the pony descended the pathwayinto the canyon, and the rocks cut off the view. 

By travelling slowly we reached the ranch in safety, and after securinghim with a collar and a strong chain, we staked him out in the pastureand removed the cords. 

Then for the first time I could examine him closely, and proved howunreliable is vulgar report when a living hero or tyrant is concerned. He had not a collar of gold about his neck, nor was there on hisshoulders an inverted cross to denote that he had leagued himself withSatan. But I did find on one haunch a great broad scar, that traditionsays was the fang-mark of Juno, the leader of Tannerey's wolf-hounds--amark which she gave him the moment before he stretched her lifeless onthe sand of the canyon. 

I set meat and water beside him, but he paid no heed. He lay calmly onhis breast, and gazed with those steadfast yellow eyes away past me downthrough the gateway of the canyon, over the open plains--his plains--normoved a muscle when I touched him. When the sun went down he was stillgazing fixedly across the prairie. I expected he would call up his bandwhen night came, and prepared for them, but he had called once in hisextremity, and none had come; he would never call again. 

A lion shorn of his strength, an eagle robbed of his freedom, or a dovebereft of his mate, all die, it is said, of a broken heart; and who willaver that this grim bandit could bear the three-fold brunt, heart-whole?This only I know, that when the morning dawned, he was lying there stillin his position of calm repose, his body unwounded, but his spirit wasgone--the old kingwolf was dead. 

I took the chain from his neck, a cowboy helped me to carry him to theshed where lay the remains of Blanca, and as we laid him beside her, the cattle-man exclaimed: "There, you would come to her, now you aretogether again. "

SILVERSPOT, The Story of a Crow

I

HOW MANY of us have ever got to know a wild animal? I do not mean merelyto meet with one once or twice, or to have one in a cage, but to reallyknow it for a long time while it is wild, and to get an insight into itslife and history. The trouble usually is to know one creature from hisfellow. One fox or crow is so much like another that we cannot be surethat it really is the same next time we meet. But once in awhile therearises an animal who is stronger or wiser than his fellow, who becomes agreat leader, who is, as we would say, a genius, and if he is bigger, orhas some mark by which men can know him, he soon becomes famous in hiscountry, and shows us that the life of a wild animal may be far moreinteresting and exciting than that of many human beings. 

Of this class were Courtant, the bob-tailed wolf that terrorizedthe whole city of Paris for about ten years in the beginning of thefourteenth century; Clubfoot, the lame grizzly bear that left sucha terrific record in the San Joaquin Valley of California; Lobo, theking-wolf of New Mexico, that killed a cow every day for five years, and the Seonee panther that in less than two years killed nearly threehundred human beings--and such also was Silverspot, whose history, sofar as I could learn it, I shall now briefly tell. 

Silverspot was simply a wise old crow; his name was given because ofthe silvery white spot that was like a nickel, stuck on his right side, between the eye and the bill, and it was owing to this spot that I wasable to know him from the other crows, and put together the parts of hishistory that came to my knowledge. 

Crows are, as you must know, our most intelligent birds. --'Wise as anold crow' did not become a saying without good reason. Crows know thevalue of organization, and are as well drilled as soldiers--very muchbetter than some soldiers, in fact, for crows are always on duty, alwaysat war, and always dependent on each other for life and safety. Theirleaders not only are the oldest and wisest of the band, but also thestrongest and bravest, for they must be ready at any time with sheerforce to put down an upstart or a rebel. The rank and file are theyoungsters and the crows without special gifts. 

Old Silverspot was the leader of a large band of crows that madetheir headquarters near Toronto, Canada, in Castle Fra uk, which is apine-clad hill on the northeast edge of the city. This band numberedabout two hundred, and for reasons that I never understood did notincrease. In mild winters they stayed along the Niagara River; in coldwinters they went much farther south. But each year in the last week ofFebruary, Old Silverspot would muster his followers and boldly cross theforty miles of open water that lies between Toronto and Niagara; not, however, in a straight line would he go, but always in a curve tothe west, whereby he kept in sight of the familiar landmark of DundasMountain, until the pine-clad hill itself came in view. Each year hecame with his troop, and for about six weeks took up his abode onthe hill. Each morning thereafter the crows set out in three bands toforage. One band went southeast to Ashbridge's Bay. One went north upthe Don, and one, the largest, went northwestward up the ravine. Thelast, Silverspot led in person. Who led the others I never found out. 

On calm mornings they flew high and straight away. But when it waswindy the band flew low, and followed the ravine for shelter. My windowsoverlooked the ravine, and it was thus that in 1885 I first noticed thisold crow. I was a newcomer in the neighborhood, but an old residentsaid to me then "that there old crow has been a-flying up and down thisravine for more than twenty years. " My chances to watch were in theravine, and Silverspot doggedly clinging to the old route, though nowit was edged with houses and spanned by bridges, became a very familiaracquaintance. Twice each day in March and part of April, then againin the late summer and the fall, he passed and repassed, and gave mechances to see his movements, and hear his orders to his bands, and so, little by little, opened my eyes to the fact that the crows, though alittle people, are of great wit, a race of birds with a language and asocial system that is wonderfully human in many of its chief points, andin some is better carried out than our own. 

One windy day I stood on the high bridge across the ravine, as the oldcrow, heading his long, straggling troop, came flying down homeward. Half a mile away I could hear the contented 'All's well, come rightalong!' as we should say, or as he put it, and as also his lieutenantechoed it at the rear of the band. They were flying very low to be outof the wind, and would have to rise a little to clear the bridge onwhich I was. Silverspot saw me standing there, and as I was closelywatching him he didn't like it. He checked his flight and called out, 'Be on your guard, ' and rose much higher in the air. Then seeing that Iwas not armed he flew over my head about twenty feet, and his followersin turn did the same, dipping again to the old level when past thebridge. 

Next day I was at the same place, and as the crows came near I raised mywalking stick and pointed it at them. The old fellow at once cried out'Danger, ' and rose fifty feet higher than before. Seeing that it was nota gun, he ventured to fly over. But on the third day I took with me agun, and at once he cried out, 'Great danger--a gun. ' His lieutenantrepeated the cry, and every crow in the troop began to tower and scatterfrom the rest, till they were far above gun shot, and so passed safelyover, coming down again to the shelter of the valley when well beyondreach. Another time, as the long, straggling troop came down the valley, a red-tailed hawk alighted on a tree close by their intended route. Theleader cried out, 'Hawk, hawk, ' and stayed his flight, as did each crowon nearing him, until all were massed in a solid body. Then, no longerfearing the hawk, they passed on. But a quarter of a mile farther ona man with a gun appeared below, and the cry, 'Great danger--a gun, a--gun; scatter fur your lives, ' at once caused them to scatter widelyand tower till far beyond range. Many others of his words of command Ilearned in the course of my long acquaintance, and found that sometimesa very little difference in the sound makes a very great difference inmeaning. Thus while No. 5 means hawk, or any large, dangerous bird, thismeans 'wheel around, ' evidently a combination of No. 5, whose root ideais danger, and of No. 4, whose root idea is retreat, and this again is amere 'good day, ' to a far away comrade. This is usually addressed to theranks and means 'attention. '

Early in April there began to be great doings among the crows. Some newcause of excitement seemed to have come on them. They spent half theday among the pines, instead of foraging from dawn till dark. Pairsand trios might be seen chasing each other, and from time to time theyshowed off in various feats of flight. A favorite sport was to dart downsuddenly from a great height toward some perching crow, and just beforetouching it to turn at a hairbreadth and rebound in the air so fastthat the wings of the swooper whirred with a sound like distant thunder. Sometimes one crow would lower his head, raise every feather, and comingclose to another would gurgle out a long note like. What did it allmean? I soon learned. They were making love and pairing off. The maleswere showing off their wing powers and their voices to the lady crows. And they must have been highly appreciated, for by the middle of Aprilall had mated and had scattered over the country for their honeymoon, leaving the sombre old pines of Castle Frank deserted and silent. 

II

The Sugar Loaf hill stands alone in the Don Valley. It is still coveredwith woods that join with those of Castle Frank, a quarter of a mileoff in the woods, between the two hills, is a pine-tree in whose topis a deserted hawk's nest. Every Toronto school-boy knows the nest, and, excepting that I had once shot a black squirrel on its edge, no one hadever seen a sign of life about it. There it was year after year, raggedand old, and falling to pieces. Yet, strange to tell, in all that timeit never did drop to pieces, like other old nests. 

One morning in May I was out at gray dawn, and stealing gently throughthe woods, whose dead leaves were so wet that no rustle was made. Ichanced to pass under the old nest, and was surprised to see a blacktail sticking over the edge. I struck the tree a smart blow, off flew acrow, and the secret was out. I had long suspected that a pair ofcrows nested each year about the pines, but now I realized that it wasSilverspot and his wife. The old nest was theirs, and they were too wiseto give it an air of spring-cleaning and housekeeping each year. Herethey had nested for long, though guns in the hands of men and boyshungry to shoot crows were carried under their home every day. I neversurprised the old fellow again, though I several times saw him throughmy telescope. 

One day while watching I saw a crow crossing the Don Valley withsomething white in his beak. He flew to the mouth of the Rosedale Brook, then took a short flight to the Beaver Elm. There he dropped the whiteobject, and looking about gave inc a chance to recognize my old friendSilverspot. After a minute he picked up the white thing--a shell--andwalked over past the spring, and here, among the docks and theskunk-cabbages, he unearthed a pile of shells and other white, shinythings. He spread them out in the sun, turned them over, turned them oneby one in his beak, dropped them, nestled on them as though they wereeggs, toyed with them and gloated over them like a miser. This was hishobby, his weakness. He could not have explained why he enjoyed them, any more than a boy can explain why he collects postage-stamps, or agirl why she prefers pearls to rubies; but his pleasure in them was veryreal, and after half an hour he covered them all, including the newone, with earth and leaves, and flew off. I went at once to the spotand examined the hoard; there was about a hatfull in all, chiefly whitepebbles, clam-shells, and some bits of tin, but there was also thehandle of a china cup, which must have been the gem of the collection. That was the last time I saw them. Silverspot knew that I had found histreasures, and he removed them at once; where, I never knew. 

During the space that I watched him so closely he had many littleadventures and escapes. He was once severely handled by a sparrowhawk, and often he was chased and worried by kingbirds. Not that these did himmuch harm, but they were such noisy pests that he avoided their companyas quickly as possible, just as a grown man avoids a conflict with anoisy and impudent small boy. He had some cruel tricks, too. He had away of going the round of the small birds' nests each morning to eat thenew laid eggs, as regularly as a doctor visiting his patients. But wemust not judge him for that, as it is just what we ourselves do to thehens in the barnyard. 

His quickness of wit was often shown. One day I saw him flying down theravine with a large piece of bread in his bill. The stream below him wasat this time being bricked over as a sewer. There was one part of twohundred yards quite finished, and, as he flew over the open water just. Above this, the bread fell from his bill, and was swept by the currentout of sight into the tunnel. He flew down and peered vainly intothe dark cavern, then, acting upon a happy thought, he flew to thedownstream end of the tunnel, and awaiting the reappearance of thefloating bread, as it was swept onward by the current, he seized andbore it off in triumph. 

Silverspot was a crow of the world. He was truly a successful crow. Helived in a region that, though full of dangers, abounded with food. Inthe old, unrepaired nest lie raised a brood each year with his wife, whom, by the way, I never could distinguish, and when the crows againgathered together he was their acknowledged chief. 

The reassembling takes place about the end of June--the young crows withtheir bob-tails, soft wings, and falsetto voices are brought by theirparents, whom they nearly equal in size, and introduced to society atthe old pine woods, a woods that is at once their fortress and college. Here they find security in numbers and in lofty yet sheltered perches, and here they begin their schooling and are taught all the secrets ofsuccess in crow life, and in crow life the least failure does not simplymean begin again. It means death. 

The first week or two after their arrival is spent by the young ones ingetting acquainted, for each crow must know personally all the others inthe band. Their parents meanwhile have time to rest a little after thework of raising them, for now the youngsters are able to feed themselvesand roost on a branch in a row, just like big folks. 

In a week or two the moulting season comes. At this time the old crowsare usually irritable and nervous, but it does not stop them frombeginning to drill the youngsters, who, of course, do not much enjoy thepunishment and nagging they get so soon after they have been mamma's owndarlings. But it is all for their good, as the old lady said when sheskinned the eels, and old Silverspot is an excellent teacher. Sometimeshe seems to make a speech to them. What he says I cannot guess, butjudging by the way they receive it, it must be extremely witty. Eachmorning there is a company drill, for the young ones naturally drop intotwo or three squads according to their age and strength. The rest of theday they forage with their parents. 

When at length September comes we find a great change. The rabble ofsilly little crows have begun to learn sense. The delicate blue iris oftheir eyes, the sign of a fool-crow, has given place to the dark browneye of the old stager. They know their drill now and have learned sentryduty. They have been taught guns and traps and taken a special course inwireworms and green-corn. They know that a fat old farmer's wife is muchless dangerous, though so much larger, than her fifteen-year-old son, and they can tell the boy from his sister. They know that an umbrella isnot a gun, and they can count up to six, which is fair for young crows, though Silverspot can go up nearly to thirty. They know the smell ofgunpowder and the south side of a hemlock-tree, and begin to plumethemselves upon being crows of the world. They always fold their wingsthree times after alighting, to be sure that it is neatly done. Theyknow how to worry a fox into giving up half his dinner, and also thatwhen the kingbird or the purple martin assails them they must dash intoa bush, for it is as impossible to fight the little pests as it is forthe fat apple-woman to catch the small boys who have raided her basket. All these things do the young crows know; but they have taken no lessonsin egg-hunting yet, for it is not the season. They are unacquainted withclams, and have never tasted horses' eyes, or seen sprouted corn, andthey don't know a thing about travel, the greatest educator of all. Theydid not think of that two months ago, and since then they have thoughtof it, but have learned to wait till their betters are ready. 

September sees a great change in the old crows, too, Their moulting isover. They are now in full feather again and proud of their handsomecoats. Their health is again good, and with it their tempers areimproved. Even old Silverspot, the strict teacher, becomes quite jolly, and the youngsters, who have long ago learned to respect him, beginreally to love him. 

He has hammered away at drill, teaching them all the signals and wordsof command in use, and now it is a pleasure to see them in the earlymorning. 

'Company I!' the old chieftain would cry in crow, and Company I wouldanswer with a great clamor. 

'Fly!' and himself leading them, they would all fly straight forward. 

'Mount!' and straight upward they turned in a moment. 

'Bunch!' and they all massed into a dense black flock. 

'Scatter!' and they spread out like leaves before the wind. 

'Form line!' and they strung out into the long line of ordinary flight. 

'Descend!' and they all dropped nearly to the ground. 

'Forage!' and they alighted and scattered about to feed, while two ofthe permanent sentries mounted duty--one on a tree to the right, theother on a mound to the far left. A minute or two later Silverspotwould cry out, 'A man with a gun!' The sentries repeated the cry andthe company flew at once in open order as quickly as possible toward thetrees. Once behind these, they formed line again in safety and returnedto the home pines. 

Sentry duty is not taken in turn by all the crows, but a certain numberwhose watchfulness has been often proved are the perpetual sentries, andare expected to watch and forage at the same time. Rather hard on themit seems to us, but it works well and the crow organization is admittedby all birds to be the very best in existence. 

Finally, each November sees the troop sail away southward to learn newmodes of life, new landmarks and new kinds of food, under the guidanceof the everwise Silverspot. 

III

There is only one time when a crow is a fool, and that is at night. There is only one bird that terrifies the crow, and that is the owl. When, therefore, these come together it is a woeful thing for the sablebirds. The distant hoot of an owl after dark is enough to make themwithdraw their heads from under their wings, and sit trembling andmiserable till morning. In very cold weather the exposure of their facesthus has often resulted in a crow having one or both of his eyes frozen, so that blindness followed and therefore death. There are no hospitalsfor sick crows. 

But with the morning their courage comes again, and arousing themselvesthey ransack the woods for a mile around till they find that owl, and ifthey do not kill him they at least worry him half to death and drive himtwenty miles away. 

In 1893 the crows had come as usual to Castle Frank. I was walking inthese woods a few days afterward when I chanced upon the track of arabbit that had been running at full speed over the snow and dodgingabout among the trees as though pursued. Strange to tell, I could see notrack of the pursuer. I followed the trail and presently saw a drop ofblood on the snow, and a little farther on found the partly devouredremains of a little brown bunny. What had killed him was a mystery untila careful search showed in the snow a great double-toed track and abeautifully pencilled brown feather. Then all was clear--a horned owl. Half an hour later, in passing again by the place, there, in a tree, within ten feet of the bones of his victim, was the fierce-eyed owlhimself. The murderer still hung about the scene of his crime. For oncecircumstantial evidence had not lied. At my approach he gave a guttural'grrr-oo' and flew off with low flagging flight to haunt the distantsombre woods. 

Two days afterward, at dawn, there was a great uproar among the crows. I went out early to see, and found some black feathers drifting over thesnow. I followed up the wind in the direction from which they came andsoon saw the bloody remains of a crow and the great double-toed trackwhich again told me that the murderer was the owl. All around were signsof the struggle, but the fell destroyer was too strong. The poor crowhad been dragged from his perch at night, when the darkness bad put himat a hopeless disadvantage. 

I turned over the remains, and by chance unburied the head--then startedwith an exclamation of sorrow. Alas! It was the head of old Silverspot. His long life of usefulness to his tribe was over--slain at last by theowl that he had taught so many hundreds of young crows to beware of. 

The old nest on the Sugar Loaf is abandoned now. The crows still comein spring-time to Castle Frank, but without their famous leader theirnumbers are dwindling, and soon they will be seen no more about the oldpine-grove in which they and their forefathers had lived and learned forages. 

RAGGYLUG, The Story of a Cottontail Rabbit

RAGGYLUG, or Rag, was the name of a young cottontail rabbit. It wasgiven him from his torn and ragged ear, a life-mark that he got in hisfirst adventure. He lived with his mother in Olifant's Swamp, where Imade their acquaintance and gathered, in a hundred different ways, thelittle bits of proof and scraps of truth that at length enabled me towrite this history. 

Those who do not know the animals well may think I have humanized them, but those who have lived so near them as to know somewhat of their waysand their minds will riot think so. 

Truly rabbits have no speech as we understand it, but they have a way ofconveying ideas by a system of sounds, signs, scents, whisker-touches, movements, and example that answers the purpose of speech; and it mustbe remembered that though in telling this story I freely translate fromrabbit into English, I repeat nothing that they did not say. 

I

The rank swamp grass bent over and concealed the snug nest whereRaggylug's mother had hidden him. She had partly covered him with someof the bedding, and, as always, her last warning was to lie low and saynothing, whatever happens. Though tucked in bed, he was wide awake andhis bright eyes were taking in that part of his little green world thatwas straight above. A bluejay and a red-squirrel, two notorious thieves, were loudly berating each other for stealing, and at one time Rag'shome bush was the centre of their fight; a yellow warbler caught a bluebutterfly but six inches from his nose, and a scarlet and black ladybug, serenely waving her knobbed feelers, took a long walk up one grass-blade, down another, and across the nest and over Rag's face--and yet he nevermoved nor even winked. 

After a while he heard a strange rustling of the leaves in the nearthicket. It was an odd, continuous sound, and though it went this wayand that way and came ever nearer, there was no patter of feet with it. Rag had lived his whole life in the Swamp (he was three weeks old) andyet had never heard anything like this. Of course his curiosity wasgreatly aroused. His mother had cautioned him to lie low, but thatwas understood to be in case of danger, and this strange sound withoutfootfalls could not be anything to fear. 

The low rasping went past close at hand, then to the right, then back, and seemed going away. Rag felt he knew what he was about; he wasn'ta baby; it was his duty to learn what it was. He slowly raised hisrolypoly body on his short fluffy legs, lifted his little round headabove the covering of his nest and peeped out into the woods. The soundhad ceased as soon as he moved. He saw nothing, so took one step forwardto a clear view, and instantly found himself face to face with anenormous Black Serpent. 

"Mammy, " he screamed in mortal terror as the monster darted at him. Withall the strength of his tiny limbs he tried to run. But in a flash theSnake had him by one ear and whipped around him with his coils to gloatover the helpless little baby bunny he had secured for dinner. 

"Mam-my--Mam-my, " gasped poor little Raggylug as the cruel monster beganslowly choking him to death. Very soon the little one's cry would haveceased, but bounding through the woods straight as an arrow came Mammy. No longer a shy, helpless little Molly Cottontail, ready to fly froma shadow: the mother's love was strong in her. The cry of her baby hadfilled her with the courage of a hero, and--hop, she went over thathorrible reptile. Whack, she struck down at him with her sharp hindclaws as she passed, giving him such a stinging blow that he squirmedwith pain and hissed with anger. 

"M-a-m-my, " came feebly from the little one. And Mammy came leapingagain and again and struck harder and fiercer until the loathsomereptile let go the little one's ear and tried to bite the old one asshe leaped over. But all he got was a mouthful of wool each time, andMolly's fierce blows began to tell, as long bloody rips were torn in theBlack Snake's scaly armor. 

Things were now looking bad for the Snake; and bracing himself for thenext charge, he lost his tight hold on Baby Bunny, who at once wriggledout of the coils and away into the underbrush, breathless and terriblyfrightened, but unhurt save that his left ear was much torn by the teethof that dreadful Serpent. 

Molly now had gained all she wanted. She had no notion of fightingfor glory or revenge. Away she went into the woods and the little onefollowed the shining beacon of her snow-white tail until she led him toa safe corner of the Swamp. 

II

Old Olifant's Swamp was a rough, brambly tract of second-growth woods, with a marshy pond and a stream through the middle. A few raggedremnants of the old forest still stood in it and a few of the stillolder trunks were lying about as dead logs in the brushwood. The landabout the pond was of that willow-grown sedgy kind that cats and horsesavoid, but that cattle do not fear. The drier zones were overgrown withbriars and young trees. The outermost belt of all, that next the fields, was of thrifty, gummy-trunked young pines whose living needles in airand dead ones on earth offer so delicious an odor to the nostrils of thepasser-by, and so deadly a breath to those seedlings that would competewith them for the worthless waste they grow on. 

All around for a long way were smooth fields, and the only wild tracksthat ever crossed these fields were those of a thoroughly bad andunscrupulous fox that lived only too near. 

The chief indwellers of the swamp were Molly and Rag. Their nearestneighbors were far away, and their nearest kin were dead. This was theirhome, and here they lived together, and here Rag received the trainingthat made his success in life. 

Molly was a good little mother and gave him a careful bringing up. Thefirst thing he learned was to lie low and say nothing. His adventurewith the snake taught him the wisdom of this. Rag never forgot thatlesson; afterward he did as he was told, and it made the other thingscome more easily. 

The second lesson he learned was 'freeze. ' It grows out of the first, and Rag was taught it as soon as he could run. 

'Freezing' is simply doing nothing, turning into a statue. As soon as hefinds a foe near, no matter what he is doing, a well-trained Cottontailkeeps just as he is and stops all movement, for the creatures of thewoods are of the same color as the things in the woods and catch the eyeonly while moving. So when enemies chance together, the one who firstsees the other can keep--himself unseen by 'freezing' and thus have allthe advantage of choosing the time for attack or escape. Only those wholive in the woods know the importance of this; every wild creature andevery hunter must learn it; all learn to do it well, but not one of themcan beat Molly Cottontail in the doing. Rag's mother taught him thistrick by example. When the white cotton cushion that she always carriedto sit on went bobbing away through the woods, of course Rag ran hishardest to keep up. But when Molly stopped and 'froze, ' the natural wishto copy made him do the same. 

But the best lesson of all that Rag learned from his mother was thesecret of the Brierbrush. It is a very old secret now, and to make itplain you must first hear why the Brierbrush quarrelled with the beasts. 

Long ago the Roses used to grow on bushes that had no thorns. But theSquirrels and Mice used to climb after them, the Cattle used to knockthem off with their horns, the Possum would twitch them off with hislong tail, and the Deer, with his sharp hoofs, would break them down. So the Brierbrush armed itself with spikes to protect its roses anddeclared eternal war on all creatures that climbed trees, or had horns, or hoofs, or long tails. This left the Brierbrush at peace with none butMolly Cottontail, who could not climb, was hornless, hoofless, and hadscarcely any tail at all. 

In truth the Cottontail had never harmed a Brierrose, and having now somany enemies the Rose took the Rabbit into especial friendship, and whendangers are threatening poor Bunny he flies to the nearest Brierbrush, certain that it is ready with a million keen and poisoned daggers todefend him. 

So the secret that Rag learned from his mother was, "The Brierbrush isyour best friend. "

Much of the time that season was spent in learning the lay of the land, and the bramble and brier mazes. And Rag learned them so well that hecould go all around the swamp by two different ways and never leave thefriendly briers at any place for more than five hops. 

It is not long since the foes of the Cottontails were disgusted to findthat man had brought a new kind of bramble and planted it in long linesthroughout the country. It was so strong that no creatures could breakit down, and so sharp that the toughest skin was torn by it. Each yearthere was more of it and each year it became a more serious matter tothe wild creatures. But Molly Cottontail had no fear of it. She was notbrought up in the briers for nothing. Dogs and foxes, cattle and sheep. And even man himself might be torn by those fearful spikes: but Mollyunderstands it and lives and thrives under it. And the further itspreads the more safe country there is for the Cottontail. And the nameof this new and dreaded bramble is--the barbed-wire fence. 

 III

Molly had no other children to look after now, so Rag had all hercare. He was unusually quick and bright as well as strong, and he haduncommonly good chances; so he got on remarkably well. 

All the season she kept him busy learning the tricks of the trail, andwhat to eat and drink and what not to touch. Day by day she workedto train him; little by little she taught him, putting into his mindhundreds of ideas that her own life or early training had stored inhers, and so equipped him with the knowledge that makes life possible totheir kind. 

Close by her side in the clover-field or the thicket he would sit andcopy her when she wobbled her nose 'to keep her smeller clear, ' and pullthe bite from her mouth or taste her lips to make sure he was gettingthe same kind of fodder. Still copying her, he learned to comb his earswith his claws and to dress his coat and to bite the burrs out of hisvest and socks. He learned, too, that nothing but clear dewdrops fromthe briers were fit for a rabbit to drink, as water which has oncetouched the earth must surely bear some taint. Thus he began the studyof woodcraft, the oldest of all sciences. 

As soon as Rag was big enough to go out alone, his mother taught him thesignal code. Rabbits telegraph each other by thumping on the ground withtheir hind feet. Along the ground sound carries far; a thump that at sixfeet from the earth is not heard at twenty yards will, near the ground, be heard at least one hundred yards. Rabbits have very keen hearing, andso might hear this same thump at two hundred yards, and that would reachfrom end to end of Olifant's Swamp. A single thump means 'look out'or 'freeze. ' A slow thump thump means 'come. ' A fast thump thump means'danger'; and a very fast thump thump thump means 'run for dear life. '

At another time, when the weather was fine and the bluejays werequarrelling among themselves, a sure sign that no dangerous foe wasabout, Rag began a new study. Molly, by flattening her ears, gavethe sign to squat. Then she ran far away in the thicket and gave thethumping signal for 'come. ' Rag set out at a run to the place but couldnot find Molly. He thumped, but got no reply. Setting carefully abouthis search he found her foot-scent and, following this strange guide, that the beasts all know so well and man does not know at all, he workedout the trail and found her where she was hidden. Thus he got his firstlesson in trailing, and thus it was that the games of hide and seek theyplayed became the schooling for the serious chase of which there was somuch in his after life. 

Before that first season of schooling was over he had learnt all theprincipal tricks by which a rabbit lives and in not a few problemsshowed himself a veritable genius. 

He was an adept at 'tree, ' 'dodge, ' and 'squat, ' he could play'log-lump, ' with 'wind' and 'baulk' with 'back-track' so well that hescarcely needed any other tricks. He had not yet tried it, but he knewjust how to play 'barb-wire, ' which is a new trick of the brilliantorder; he had made a special study of 'sand, ' which burns up all scent, and was deeply versed in 'change-off, ' 'fence, ' and 'double' as well as'hole-up, ' which is a trick requiring longer notice, and yet he neverforgot that 'lie-low' is the beginning of all wisdom and 'brierbrush'the only trick that is always safe. 

He was taught the signs by which to know all his foes and then the wayto baffle them. For hawks, owls, foxes, hounds, curs, minks, weasels, cats, skunks, coons, and--men, each have a different plan of pursuit, and for each and all of these evils he was taught a remedy. 

And for knowledge of the enemy's approach he learnt to depend firston himself and his mother, and then on the bluejay. "Never neglect thebluejay's warning, " said Molly; "he is a mischief-maker, a marplot, anda thief all the time, but nothing escapes him. He wouldn't mind harmingus, but he cannot, thanks to the briers, and his enemies are ours, soit is well to heed him. If the woodpecker cries a warning you can trusthim, he is honest; but he is a fool beside the bluejay, and though thebluejay often tells lies for mischief you are safe to believe him whenhe brings ill news. "

The barb-wire trick takes a deal of nerve and the best of legs. It waslong before Rag ventured to play it, but as he came to his full powersit became one of his favorites. 

"It's fine play for those who can do it, " said Molly. "First you leadoff your dog on a straightaway and warm him up a bit by nearly lettinghim catch you. Then keeping just one hop ahead, you lead him at a longslant full tilt into a breast-high barb-wire. I've seen many a dog andfox crippled, and one big hound killed outright this way. But I've alsoseen more than one rabbit lose his life in trying it. "

Rag early learnt what some rabbits never learn at all, that 'hole-up' isnot such a fine ruse as it seems; it may be the certain safety of a wiserabbit, but soon or late is a sure death-trap to a fool. A young rabbitalways thinks of it first, an old rabbit never tries it till all othersfail. It means escape from a man or dog, a fox or a bird of prey, but itmeans sudden death if the foe is a ferret, mink, skunk, or weasel. 

There were but two ground-holes in the Swamp. One on the Sunning Bank, which was a dry sheltered knoll in the South-end. It was open andsloping to the sun, and here on fine days the Cottontails took theirsun-baths. They stretched out among the fragrant pine needles andwinter-green in odd cat-like positions, and turned slowly over as thoughroasting and wishing all sides well done. And they blinked and panted, and squirmed as if in dreadful pain; yet this was one of the keenestenjoyments they knew. 

Just over the brow of the knoll was a large pine stump. Its grotesqueroots wriggled out above the yellow sand-bank like dragons, and undertheir protecting claws a sulky old woodchuck had digged a den long ago. 

He became more sour and ill-tempered as weeks went by, and one daywaited to quarrel with Olifant's dog instead of going in so that MollyCottontail was able to take possession of the den an hour later. 

This, the pine-root hole, was afterward very coolly taken by aself-sufficient young skunk who with less valor might have enjoyedgreater longevity, for he imagined--that even man with a gun would flyfrom him. Instead of keeping Molly from the den for good, therefore, hisreign, like that of a certain Hebrew king, was over in seven days. 

The other, the fern-hole, was in a fern thicket next the clover field. It was small and damp, and useless except as a last retreat. It alsowas the work of a woodchuck, a well-meaning friendly neighbor, buta harebrained youngster whose skin in the form of a whiplash was nowdeveloping higher horse-power in the Olifant working team. 

"Simple justice, " said the old man, "for that hide was raised on stolenfeed that the team would a' turned into horse-power anyway. "

The Cottontails were now sole owners of the holes, and did not go nearthem when they could help it, lest anything like a path should be madethat might betray these last retreats to an enemy. There was also thehollow hickory, which, though nearly fallen, was still green, and hadthe great advantage of being open at both ends. This had long been theresidence of one Lotor, a solitary old coon whose ostensible calling wasfrog-hunting, and who, like the monks of old, was supposed to abstainfrom all flesh food. But it was shrewdly suspected that he needed buta chance to indulge in a diet of rabbit. When at last one dark night hewas killed while raiding Olifant's henhouse, Molly, so far from feelinga pang of regret, took possession of his cosy nest with a sense ofunbounded relief. 

IV

Bright August sunlight was flooding the Swamp in the morning. Everythingseemed soaking in the warm radiance. A little brown swamp-sparrow wasteetering on a long rush in the pond. Beneath him there were open spacesof dirty water that brought down a few scraps of the blue sky, andworked it and the yellow duck-weed into an exquisite mosaic, with alittle wrong-side picture of the bird in the middle. On the bank behindwas a great vigorous growth of golden green skunk-cabbage, that castdense shadow over the brown swamp tussocks. 

The eyes of the swamp-sparrow were not trained to take in the colorglories, but he saw what we might have missed; that two of thenumberless leafy brown bumps under the broad cabbage-leaves werefurry living things, with noses that never ceased to move up and down, whatever else was still. 

It was Molly and Rag. They were stretched under the skunk-cabbage, notbecause they liked its rank smell, but because the winged ticks couldnot stand it at all and so left them in peace. 

Rabbits have no set time for lessons, they are always learning; but whatthe lesson is depends on the present stress, and that must arrive beforeit is known. They went to this place for a quiet rest, but had not beenlong there when suddenly a warning note from the ever-watchful bluejaycaused Molly's nose and ears to go up and her tail to tighten to herback. Away across the Swamp was Olifant's big black and white dog, coming straight toward them. 

"Now, " said Molly, "squat while I go and keep that fool out ofmischief. " Away she went to meet him and she fearlessly dashed acrossthe dog's path. 

"Bow-ow-ow, " he fairly yelled as he bounded after Molly, but she keptjust beyond his reach and led him where the million daggers struck fastand deep, till his tender ears were scratched raw, and guided him atlast plump into a hidden barbed-wire fence, where he got such a gashingthat he went homeward howling with pain. After making a short double, a loop and a baulk in case the dog should come back, Molly returned tofind that Rag in his eagerness was standing bolt upright and craning hisneck to see the sport. 

This disobedience made her so angry that she struck him with her hindfoot and knocked him over in the mud. 

One day as they fed on the near clover field a red-tailed hawk cameswooping after them. Molly kicked up her hind legs to make fun of himand skipped into the briers along one of their old pathways, whereof course the hawk could not follow. It was the main path from theCreekside Thicket to the Stove-pipe brushpile. Several creepers hadgrown across it, and Molly, keeping one eye on the hawk, set to work andcut the creepers off. Rag watched her, then ran on ahead, and cut somemore that were across the path. "That's right, " said Molly, "always keepthe runways clear, you will need them often enough. Not wide, but clear. Cut everything like a creeper across them and some day you will find youhave cut a snare. " "A what?" asked Rag, as he scratched his right earwith his left hind foot. 

"A snare is something that looks like a creeper, but it doesn't grow andit's worse than all the hawks in the world, " said Molly, glancing at thenow far-away red-tail, "for there it hides night and day in the runwaytill the chance to catch you comes. "

"I don't believe it could catch me, " said Rag, with the pride of youthas he rose on his heels to rub his chin and whiskers high up on a smoothsapling. Rag did not know he was doing this, but his mother saw and knewit was a sign, like the changing of a boy's voice, that her little onewas no longer a baby but would soon be a grown-up Cottontail. 

V

There is magic in running water. Who does not know it and feel it? Therailroad builder fearlessly throws his bank across the wide bog or lake, or the sea itself, but the tiniest nil of running water he treats withgreat respect, studies its wish and its way and gives it all it seems toask. The thirst-parched traveller in the poisonous alkali deserts holdsback in deadly fear from the sedgy ponds till he finds one down whosecentre is a thin, clear line, and a faint flow, the sign of running, living water, and joyfully he drinks. 

There is magic in running water, no evil spell can cross it. TamO'Shanter proved its potency in time of sorest need. The wild-woodcreature with its deadly foe following tireless on the trail scent, realizes its nearing doom and feels an awful spell. Its strength isspent, its--every trick is tried in vain till the good Angel leads itto the water, the running, living water, and dashing in it follows thecooling stream, and then with force renewed--takes to the woods again. 

There is magic in running water. The hounds come to the very spot andhalt and cast about; and halt and cast in vain. Their spell is broken bythe merry stream, and the wild thing lives its life. 

And this was one of the great secrets that Raggylug learned from hismother--"after the Brierrose, the Water is your friend. "

One hot, muggy night in August, Molly led Rag through the woods. Thecotton-white cushion she wore under her tail twinkled ahead and was hisguiding lantern, though it went out as soon as she stopped and sat onit. After a few runs and stops to listen, they came to the edge of thepond. The hylas in the trees above them were singing 'sleep, sleep, 'and away out on a sunken log in the deep water, up to his chin in thecool-ing bath, a bloated bullfrog was singing the praises of a 'jug o'rum. '

"Follow me still, " said Molly, in rabbit, and 'flop' she went into thepond and struck out for the sunken log in the middle. Rag flinched butplunged with a little 'ouch, ' gasping and wobbling his nose very fastbut still copying his mother. The same movements as on land sent himthrough the water, and thus he found he could swim, On he went till hereached the sunken log and scrambled up by his dripping mother on thehigh dry end, with a rushy screen around them and the Water thattells no tales. After this on warm black nights when that old fox fromSpringfield came prowling through the Swamp, Rag would note the place ofthe bullfrog's voice, for in case of direst need it might be a guideto safety. And thenceforth the words of the song that the bullfrog sangwere 'Come, come, in danger come. '

This was the latest study that Rag took up with his mother--it wasreally a post-graduate course, for many little rabbits never learn it atall. 

VI

No wild animal dies of old age. Its life has soon or late a tragic end. It is only a question of how long it can hold out against its foes. ButRag's life was proof that once a rabbit passes out of his youth he islikely to outlive his prime and be killed only in the last third oflife, the downhill third we call old age. 

The Cottontails had enemies on every side. Their daily life was aseries of escapes. For dogs, foxes, cats, skunks, coons, weasels, minks, snakes, hawks, owls, and men, and even insects were all plotting to killthem They had hundreds of adventures, and at least once a day they hadto fly for their lives and save themselves by their legs and wits. 

More than once that hateful fox from Springfield '\ drove them to takingrefuge under the wreck of a barbedwire hog-pen by the spring. But oncethere they could look calmly at him while he spiked his legs in vainattempts to reach them. 

Once or twice Rag when hunted had played off the hound against a skunkthat had seemed likely to be quite as dangerous as the dog. 

Once he was caught alive by a hunter who had a hound and a ferret tohelp him. But Rag had the luck to escape next day, with a yet deeperdistrust of ground holes. He was several times run into the water by thecat, and many times was chased by hawks and owls, but for each kindof danger there was a safeguard. His mother taught him the principaldodges, and he improved on them and made many new ones as he grew older. And the older and wiser he grew the less he trusted to his legs, and themore to his wits for safety. 

Ranger was the name of a young hound in the neighborhood. To train himhis master used to put him on the trail of one of the Cottontails. Itwas nearly always Rag that they ran, for the young buck enjoyed the runsas much as they did, the spice of danger in them being just enough forzest. He would say:

"Oh, mother! here comes the dog again, I must have a run to-day. "

"You are too bold, Raggy, my son!" she might reply. 

"I fear you will run once too often. "

"But, mother, it is such glorious fun to tease that fool dog, and it'sall good training. I'll thump if I am too hard pressed, then you cancome and change off while I get my second wind. "

On he would come, and Ranger would take the trail and follow till Raggot tired of it. Then he either sent a thumping telegram for help, whichbrought Molly to take charge of the dog, or he got rid of the dog bysouse clever trick. A description of one of these shows how well Rag hadlearned the arts of the woods. 

He knew that his scent lay best near the ground, and was strongest whenhe was warm. So if he could get off the ground, and be left in peace forhalf an hour to cool off, and for the trail to stale, he knew hewould be safe. When, therefore, he tired of the chase, he made for theCreekside brier-patch, where he 'wound'--that is, zig-zagged--till heleft a course so crooked that the dog was sure to be greatly delayed inworking it out. He then went straight to D in the woods, passing one hopto windward of the high log E. Stopping at D, he followed his back trailto F; here he leaped aside and ran toward G. Then, returning on histrail to J, he waited till the hound passed on his trail at I. Rag thengot back on his old trail at H, anti followed it to E, where, with ascentbaulk or great leap aside, he reached the high log, and running toits higher end, he sat like a bump. 

Ranger lost much time in the bramble maze, and the scent was very poorwhen he got it straightened out, and came to D. Here he began to circleto pick it up, and after losing much time, struck the trail which endedsuddenly at G. Again he was at fault, and had to circle to find thetrail. Wider and wider circles, until at last, he passed right under thelog Rag was on. But a cold scent, on a cold day, does not go downwardmuch. Rag never budged nor winked, and the hound passed. 

Again the dog came round. This time he crossed the low part of the log, and stopped to smell it. 'Yes, clearly it was rabbity, ' but it was astale scent now; still he mounted the log. 

It was a trying moment for Rag, as the great hound came sniff-sniffingalong the log. But his nerve did not forsake him; the wind was right; hehad his mind made up to bolt as soon as Ranger came half way up. But hedidn't come. A yellow cur would have seen the rabbit sitting there, butthe hound did not, and the scent seemed stale, so he leaped off the log, and Rag had won. 

VII

Rag had never seen any other rabbit than his mother. Indeed he hadscarcely thought about there being any other. He was more and more awayfrom her now, and yet he never felt lonely, for rabbits do not hankerfor company. But one day in December, while he was among the red dogwoodbrush, cutting a new path to the great Creekside thicket, he saw allat once against the sky over the Sunning Bank the head and ears of astrange rabbit. The newcomer had the air of a well-pleased discovererand soon came hopping Rag's way along one of his paths into his Swamp. A new feeling rushed over him, that boiling mixture of anger and hatredcalled jealousy. 

The stranger stopped at one of Rag's rubbing-trees--that is, a treeagainst which he used to stand on his heels and rub his chin as far upas he could reach. He thought he did this simply because he liked it;but all buckrabbits do so, and several ends are served. It makes thetree rabbity, so that other rabbits know that this swamp already belongsto a rabbit family and is not open for settlement. It also lets the nextone know by the scent if the last caller was an acquaintance, and theheight from the ground of the rubbing-places shows how tall the rabbitis. 

Now to his disgust Rag noticed that the new-corner was a head tallerthan himself, and a big, stout buck at that. This was a wholly newexperience and filled Rag with a wholly new feeling. The spirit ofmurder entered his heart; he chewed very hard at nothing in his mouth, and hopping forward onto a smooth piece of hard ground he struck slowly:

'Thump--thump--thump, ' which is a rabbit telegram for 'Get out of myswamp, or fight. '

The new-corner made a big V with his ears, sat upright for a fewseconds, then, dropping on his fore-feet, sent along the ground alouder, stronger, 'Thump--thump--thump. '

And so war was declared. 

They came together by short runs side-wise, each one trying to get thewind of the other and watching for a chance advantage. The stranger wasa big, heavy buck with plenty of muscle, but one or two trifles such astreading on a turnover and failing to close when Rag was on low groundshowed that he had not much cunning and counted on winning his battlesby his weight. On he came at last and Rag met him like a little fury. Asthey came together they leaped up and struck out with their hind feet. Thud, thud they came, and down went poor little Rag. In a moment thestranger was on him with his teeth and Rag was bitten, and lost severaltufts of hair before he could get up. But he was swift of foot and gotout of reach. Again he charged and again he was knocked down and bittenseverely. He was no match for his foe, and it soon became a question ofsaving his own life. 

Hurt as he was, he sprang away, with the stranger in full chase, andbound to kill him as well as to oust him from the Swamp where he wasborn. Rag's legs were good and so was his wind. The stranger was big andso heavy that he soon gave up the chase, and it was well for poor Ragthat he did, for he was getting stiff from his wounds as well as tired. From that day began a reign of terror for Rag. His training had beenagainst owls, dogs, weasels, men, and so on, but what to do when chasedby another rabbit, he did not know. All he knew was to lie low till hewas found, then run. 

Poor little Molly was completely terrorized; she could not help Rag andsought only to hide. But the big buck soon found her out. She tried torun from him, but she was not now so swift as Rag. The stranger made noattempt to kill her, but he made love to her, and because she hatedhim and tried to get away, he treated her shamefully. Day after day heworried her by following her about, and often, furious at her lastinghatred, he would knock her down and tear out mouthfuls of her soft furtill his rage cooled somewhat, when he would let her go for a while. Buthis fixed purpose was to kill Rag, whose escape seemed hopeless. Therewas no other swamp he could go to, and whenever he took a nap now he hadto be ready at any moment to dash for his life. A dozen times a daythe big stranger came creeping up to where he slept, but each time thewatchful Rag awoke in time to escape. To escape yet not to escape. Hesaved his life indeed, but oh! what a miserable life it had become. Howmaddening to be thus helpless, to see his little mother daily beatenand torn, as well as to see all his favorite feeding-grounds, the cosynooks, and the pathways he had made with so much labor, forced from himby this hateful brute. Unhappy Rag realized that to the victor belongthe spoils, and he hated him more than ever he did fox or ferret. 

How was it to end? He was wearing out with running and watching and badfood, and little Molly's strength and spirit were breaking down underthe long persecution. The stranger was ready to go to all lengths todestroy poor Rag, and at last stooped to the worst crime known amongrabbits. However much they may hate each other, all good rabbits forgettheir feuds when their common enemy appears. Yet one day when a greatgoshawk came swooping over the Swamp, the stranger, keeping well undercover himself, tried again and again to drive Rag into the open. 

Once or twice the hawk nearly had him, but still the briers saved him, and it was only when the big buck himself came near being caught that hegave it up. And again Rag escaped, but-was no better off. He made up hismind to leave, with his mother, if possible, next night and go into theworld in quest of some new home when he heard old Thunder, the hound, sniffing and searching about the outskirts of the swamp, and he resolvedon playing a desperate game. He deliberately crossed the hound's view, and the chase that then began was fast and furious. Thrice around theSwamp they went till Rag had made sure that his mother was hidden safelyand that his hated foe was in his usual nest. Then right into that nestand plump over him he jumped, giving him a rap with one hind foot as hepassed over his head. 

"You miserable fool, I'll kill you yet, " cried the stranger, and up hejumped only to find himself between Rag and the dog and heir to all theperil of the chase. 

On came the hound baying hotly on the straight-away scent. The buck'sweight and size were great advantages in a rabbit fight, but now theywere fatal. He did not know many tricks. Just the simple ones like'double, ' 'wind, ' and 'hole-up, ' that every baby Bunny knows. But thechase was too close for doubling and winding, and he didn't know wherethe holes were. 

It was a straight race. The brierrose, kind to all rabbits alike, did its best, but it was no use. The baying of the hound was fast andsteady. The crashing of the brush and the yelping of the hound each timethe briers tore his tender ears were borne to the two rabbits wherethey crouched in hiding. But suddenly these sounds stopped, there was ascuffle, then loud and terrible screaming. Rag knew what it meant and itsent a shiver through him, but he soon forgot that when all was over andrejoiced to be once more the master of the dear old Swamp. 

VIII

Old Olifant had doubtless a right to burn all those brush-piles inthe east and south of the Swamp and to clear up the wreck of the oldbarbed-wire hog-pen just below the spring. But it was none the lesshard on Rag and his mother. The first were their various residences andoutposts, and the second their grand fastness and safe retreat. 

They had so long held the Swamp and felt it to be their very own inevery part and suburb--including Olifant's grounds and buildings--thatthey would have resented the appearance of another rabbit even about theadjoining barnyard. 

Their claim, that of long, successful occupancy, was exactly the same asthat by which most nations hold their land, and it would be hard to finda better right. 

During the time of the January thaw the Olifants had cut the rest of thelarge wood about the pond and curtailed the Cottontails' domain on allsides. But they still clung to the dwindling Swamp, for it was theirhome and they were loath to move to foreign parts. Their life of dailyperils went on, but they were still fleet of foot, long of wind, andbright of wit. Of late they had been somewhat troubled by a mink thathad wandered upstream to their quiet nook. A little judicious guidancehad transferred the uncomfortable visitor to Olifant's hen-house. Butthey were not yet quite sure that he had been properly looked after. So for the present they gave up using the ground-holes, which were, ofcourse, dangerous blind-alleys, and stuck closer than ever to the briersand the brush-piles that were left. 

That first snow had quite gone and the weather was bright and warm untilnow. Molly, feeling a touch of rheumatism, was somewhere in the lowerthicket seeking a teaberry tonic. Rag was sitting in the weak sunlighton a bank in the east side. The smoke from the familiar gable chimneyof Olifant's house came fitfully drifting a pale blue haze through theunderwoods and showing as a dull brown against the brightness of thesky. The sun-gilt gable was cut off midway by the banks of brier brush, that, purple in shadow, shone like rods of blazing crimson and gold inthe light. Beyond the house the barn with its gable and roof, new giftat the house, stood up like a Noah's ark. 

The sounds that came from it, and yet more the delicious smell thatmingled with the smoke, told Rag that the animals were being fed cabbagein the yard. Rags mouth watered at the idea of the feast. He blinked andblinked as he snuffed its odorous promises, for he loved cabbage dearly. But then he had been to the barnyard the night before after a few paltryclover-tops, and no wise rabbit would go two nights running to the sameplace. 

Therefore he did the wise thing. He moved across where he could notsmell the cabbage axed made his supper of a bundle of hay that had beenblown from the stack. Later, when about to settle for the night, he wasjoined by Molly, who had taken her teaberry and then eaten her frugalmeal of sweet birch near the Sunning Bank. 

Meanwhile the sun had gone about his business elsewhere, taking allhis gold and glory with him. Off in the east a big black shutter camepushing up and rising higher and higher; it spread over the whole sky, shut out all light and left the world a very gloomy place indeed. Thenanother mischief-maker, the wind, taking advantage of the sun's absence, came on the scene and set about brewing trouble. The weather turnedcolder and colder; it seemed worse than when the ground had beencovered with snow. 

"Isn't this terribly cold? How I wish we had our stove-pipe brush-pile, "said Rag. 

"A good night for the pine-root hole, " replied Molly, "but we have notyet seen the pelt of that mink on the end of the barn, and it is notsafe till we do. "

The hollow hickory was gone--in fact at this very moment its trunk, lying in the wood-yard, was harboring the mink they feared. So theCottontails hopped to the south side of the pond and, choosing abrush-pile, they crept under and snuggled down for the night, facingthe wind but with their noses in different directions so as to go outdifferent ways in case of alarm. The wind blew harder and colder as thehours went by, and about midnight a fine icy snow came ticking down onthe dead leaves and hissing through the brush-heap. It might seem a poornight for hunting, but that old fox from Springfield was out. He camepointing up the wind in the shelter of the Swamp and chanced in the leeof the brush-pile, where he scented the sleeping Cotton-tails. He haltedfor a moment, then came stealthily sneaking up toward the brush underwhich his nose told him the rabbits were crouching. The noise of thewind and the sleet enabled him to come quite close before Mollyheard the faint crunch of a dry leaf under his paw. She touched Rag'swhiskers, and both were fully awake just as the fox sprang on them; butthey always slept with their legs ready for a jump. Molly darted outinto the blinding storm. The fox missed his spring but followed like aracer, while Rag dashed off to one side. 

There was only one road for Molly; that was straight up the wind, andbounding for her life she gained a little over the unfrozen mud thatwould not carry the fox, till she reached the margin of the pond. Nochance to turn now, on she must go. 

Splash! splash! through the weeds she went, then plunge into the deepwater. 

And plunge went the fox close behind. But it was too much for Reynardon such a night. He turned back, and Molly, seeing only one course, struggled through the reeds into the deep water and struck out for theother shore. But there was a strong headwind. The little waves, icycold, broke over her head as she swam, and the water was full of snowthat blocked her way like soft ice, or floating mud. The dark line ofthe other shore seemed far, far away, with perhaps the fox waiting forher there. 

But she laid her ears flat to be out of the gale, and bravely put forthall her strength with wind and tide against her. After a long, wearyswim in the cold water, she had nearly reached the farther reeds when agreat mass of floating snow barred her road; then the wind on the bankmade strange, fox-like sounds that robbed her of all force, and she wasdrifted far backward before she could get free from the floating bar. 

Again the struck Out, but slowly--oh so slowly now. And when at last shereached the lee of the tall reeds, her limbs were numbed, her strengthspent, her brave little heart was sinking, and she cared no more whetherthe fox were there or not. Through the reeds she did indeed pass, butonce in the weeds her course wavered and slowed, her feeble strokesno longer sent her landward, the ice forming around her stopped heraltogether. In a little while the cold, weak limbs ceased to move, thefurry nose-tip of the little mother Cottontail wobbled no more, and thesoft brown eyes were closed in death. 

But there was no fox waiting to tear her with ravenous jaws. Rag hadescaped the first onset of the foe, and as soon as he regained his witshe came running back to change-off and so help his mother. He met theold fox going round the pond to meet Molly and led him far and away, then dismissed him with a barbed-wire gash on his head, and came to thebank and sought about and trailed and thumped, but all his searching wasin vain; he could not find his little mother. He never saw her again, and he never knew whither she went, for she slept her never-waking sleepin the ice-arms of her friend the Water that tells no tales. 

Poor little Molly Cottontail! She was a true heroine, yet only one ofunnumbered millions that without a thought of heroism have lived anddone their best in their little world, and died. She fought a good fightin the battle of life. She was good stuff; the stuff that never dies. For flesh of her flesh and brain of her brain was Rag. She lives in him, and through him transmits a finer fibre to her race. 

And Rag still lives in the Swamp. Old Olifant died that winter, and theunthrifty sons ceased to clear the Swamp or mend the wire fences. Withina single year it was a wilder place than ever; fresh trees and bramblesgrew, and falling wires made many Cottontail castles and last retreatsthat dogs and foxes dared not storm. And there to this day lives Rag. Heis a big strong buck now and fears no rivals. He has a large family ofhis own, and a pretty brown wife that he got I know not where. There, no doubt, he and his children's children will flourish for many yearsto come, and there you may see them any sunny evening if you have learnttheir signal S code, and, choosing a good spot on the ground, know justhow and when to thump it. 

 BINGO

 "Ye Franckelyn's dogge leaped over a style, And yey yclept him lyttel Bingo, B-I-N-G-O, And yey yclept him lyttel Bingo. Ye Franchelyn's wyfe brewed nutte-brown ayle, And he yclept ytte rare-goode Stingo, S-T-I-N-G-O, And he yclept ytte rare goode Stingo. Now ys not this a prettye rhyme, I thynke ytte ys bye Jingo, J-I-N-G-O, I thynke ytte ys bye Jingo. "

BINGO, The Story of My Dog

I

IT WAS EARLY in November, 1882, and the Manitoba winter had just set in. I was tilting back in my chair for a few lazy moments after breakfast, idly alternating my gaze from the one window-pane of our shanty, throughwhich was framed a bit of the prairie and the end of our cowshed, to theold rhyme of the 'Franckelyn's dogge' pinned on the logs near by. Butthe dreamy mixture of rhyme and view was quickly dispelled by the sightof a large gray animal dashing across the prairie into the cowshed, witha smaller black and white animal in hot pursuit. 

"A wolf, " I exclaimed, and seizing a rifle dashed out to help the dog. But before I could get there they had left the stable, and after ashort run over the snow the wolf again turned at bay, and the dog, ourneighbor's collie, circled about watching his chance to snap. 

I fired a couple of long shots, which had the effect only of settingthem off again over the prairie. After another run this matchless dogclosed and seized the wolf by the haunch, but again retreated to avoidthe fierce return chop. Then there was another stand at bay, and again arace over the snow. Every few hundred yards this scene was repeated, thedog managing so that each fresh rush should be toward the settlement, while the wolf vainly tried to break back toward the dark belt oftrees in the east. At last after a mile of this fighting and running Iovertook them, and the dog, seeing that he now had good backing, closedin for the finish. 

After a few seconds the whirl of struggling animals resolved itself intoa wolf, on his back, with a bleeding collie gripping his throat, andit was now easy for me to step up and end the fight by putting a ballthrough the wolf's head. 

Then, when this dog of marvellous wind saw that his foe was dead, hegave him no second glance, but set out at a lope for a farm four milesacross the snow where he had left his master when first the wolfwas started. He was a wonderful dog, and even if I had not come heundoubtedly would have killed the wolf alone, as I learned he hadalready done with others of the kind, in spite of the fact that thewolf, though of the smaller or prairie race, was much large thanhimself. I was filled with admiration for the dog's prowess and at oncesought to buy him at any price. The scornful reply of his owner was, "Why don't you try to buy one of the children?"

Since Frank was not in the market I was obliged to content myself withthe next best thing, one of his alleged progeny. That is, a son of hiswife. This probable offspring of an illustrious sire was a roly-polyball of black fur that looked more like a long-tailed bearcub than apuppy. But he had some tan markings like those on Frank's coat, that were, I hoped, guarantees of future greatness, and also a verycharacteristic ring of white that he always wore on his muzzle. 

Having got possession of his person, the next thing was to find hima name. Surely this puzzle was already solved. The rhyme of the'Franckelyn's dogge' was in-built with the foundation of ouracquaintance, so with adequate pomp we yclept him little Bingo. '

II

The rest of that winter Bingo spent in our shanty, living the life of ablubbery, fat, well-meaning, ill-doing puppy; gorging himself with foodand growing bigger and clumsier each day. Even sad experience failedto teach him that he must keep his nose out of the rat trap. His mostfriendly overtures to the cat were wholly misunderstood and resultedonly in an armed neutrality that varied by occasional reigns of terror, continued to the end; which came when Bingo, who early showed a mind ofhis own, got a notion for sleeping at the barn and avoiding the shantyaltogether. 

When the spring came I set about his serious education. After much painson my behalf and many pains on his, he learned to go at the word inquest of our old yellow cow, that pastured at will on the unfencedprairie. 

Once he had learned his business, he became very fond of it and nothingpleased him more than an order to go and fetch the cow. Away he woulddash, barking with pleasure and leaping high in the air that he mightbetter scan the plain for his victim. In a short time he would returndriving her at full gallop before him, and gave her no peace until, puffing and blowing, she was safely driven into the farthest corner ofher stable. 

Less energy on his part would have been more satisfactory, but we borewith him until he grew so fond of this semi-daily hunt that he began tobring 'old Dunne' without being told. And at length not once or twicebut a dozen times a day this energetic cowherd would sally forth on hisown responsibility and drive the cow home to the stable. 

At last things came to such a pass that whenever he felt like taking alittle exercise, or had a few minutes of spare time, or even happened tothink of it, Bingo would sally forth at racing speed over the plainand a few minutes later return, driving the unhappy yellow cow at fullgallop before him. 

At first this did not seem very bad, as it kept the cow from strayingtoo far; but soon it was seen that it hindered her feeding. She becamethin and gave less milk; it seemed to weigh on her mind too, as shewas always watching nervously for that hateful dog, and in the morningswould hang around the stable as though afraid to venture off and subjectherself at once to an onset. 

This was going too far. All attempts to make Bingo more moderate in hispleasure were failures, so he was compelled to give it up altogether. After this, though he dared not bring her home, he continued to show hisinterest by lying at her stable door while she was being milked. 

As the summer came on the mosquitoes became a dreadful plague, and theconsequent vicious switching of Dunne's tail at milking-time was evenmore annoying than the mosquitoes. 

Fred, the brother who did the milking, was of an inventive as well asan impatient turn of mind, and he devised a simple plan to stop theswitching. He fastened a brick to the cow's tail, then set blithelyabout his work assured of unusual comfort while the rest of us looked onin doubt. 

Suddenly through the mist of mosquitoes came a dull whack and anoutburst of 'language. ' The cow went on placidly chewing till Fred goton his feet and furiously attacked her with the milking-stool. It wasbad enough to be whacked on the ear with a brick by a stupid old cow, but the uproarious enjoyment and ridicule of the bystanders made itunendurable. 

Bingo, hearing the uproar, and divining that he was needed, rushed inand attacked Dunne on the other side. Before the affair quieted down themilk was spilt, the pail and stool were broken, and the cow and the dogseverely beaten. 

Poor Bingo could not understand it at all. He had long ago learned todespise that cow, and now in utter disgust he decided to forsake evenher stable door, and from that time be attached himself exclusively tothe horses and their stable. 

The cattle were mine, the horses were my brother's, and in transferringhis allegiance from the cow-stable to the horse-stable Bingo seemed togive me up too, and anything like daily companionship ceased, and yet, whenever any emergency arose Bingo turned to me and I to him, and bothseemed to feel that the bond between man and dog is one that lasts aslong as life. 

The only other occasion on which Bingo acted as cowherd was in theautumn of the same year at the annual Carberry Fair, Among the dazzlinginducements to enter one's stock thcre was, in addition to a prospect ofglory, a cash prize of 'two dollars' for the 'best collie in training'. 

Misled by a false friend, I entered Bingo, and early on the day fixed, the cow was driven to the prairie just outside of the village. When thetime came she was pointed out to Bingo and the word given--'Go fetch thecow. ' It was the intention, of course, that he should bring her to me atthe judge's stand. 

But the animals knew better. They hadn't rehearsed all summer fornothing. When Dunne saw Bingo's careering form she knew that her onlyhope for safety was to get into her stable, and Bingo was equally surethat his sole mission in life was to quicken her pace in that direction. So off they raced over the prairie, like a wolf after a deer, andheading straight toward their home two miles way, they disappeared fromview. 

That was the last that judge or jury ever saw of dog or cow. The prizewas awarded to the only other entry. 

III

Bingo's loyalty to the horses was quite remarkable; by day he trottedbeside them, and by night he slept at the stable door. Where the teamwent Bingo went, and nothing kept him away from them. This interestingassumption of ownership lent the greater significance to the followingcircumstance. 

I was not superstitious, and up to this time had had no faith in omens, but was now deeply impressed by a strange occurrence in which Bingo tooka leading part. There were but two of us now living on the De WintonFarm. One morning my brother set out for Boggy Creek for a load of hay. It was a long day's journey there and back, and he made an early start. Strange to tell, Bingo for once in his life did not follow the team. Mybrother called to him, but still he stood at a safe distance, and eyeingthe team askance, refused to stir. Suddenly he raised his nose in theair and gave vent to a long, melancholy howl. He watched the wagon outof sight, and even followed for a hundred yards or so, raising his voicefrom time to time in the most doleful howlings. 

All that day he stayed about the barn, the only time that he waswillingly separated from the horses, and at intervals howled a verydeath dirge. I was alone, and the dog's behavior inspired me with anawful foreboding of calamity, that weighed upon use more and more as thehours passed away. 

About six o'clock Bingo's howlings became unbearable, so that for lackof a better thought I threw something at him, and ordered him away. Butoh, the feeling of horror that filled m& Why did I let my brother goaway alone? Should I ever again see him alive? I might have known fromthe dog's actions that something dreadful was about to happen. 

At length the hour for his return arrived, and there was John on hisload. I took charge of the horses, vastly relieved, and with an air ofassumed unconcern, asked, "All right?"

"Right, " was the laconic answer. 

Who now can say that there is nothing in omens. 

And yet when, long afterward, I told this to one skilled in the occult, he looked grave, and said, "Bingo always turned to you in a crisis?"

"Yes. "

"Then do not smile. It was you that were in danger that day; he stayedand saved your life, though you never knew from what. "

IV

Early in the spring I bad begun Bingo's education. Very shortlyafterward he began mine. 

Midway on the two-mile stretch of prairie that lay between our shantyand the village of Carberry, was the corner-stake of the farm; it was astout post in a low mound of earth, and was visible from afar. 

I soon noticed that Bingo never passed without minutely examining thismysterious post. Next I learned that it was also visited by the prairiewolves as well as by all the dogs in the neighborhood, and at length, with the aid of a telescope, I made a number of observations that helpedme to an understanding of the matter and enabled me to enter more fullyinto Bingo's private life. 

The post was by common agreement a registry of the canine tribes. Theirexquisite sense of smell enabled each individual to tell at once by thetrack and trace what other had recently been at the post. When the snowcame much more was revealed. I then discovered that this post was butone of a system that covered the country; that, in short, the entireregion was laid out in signal stations at convenient intervals. Thesewere marked by any conspicuous post, stone, buffalo skull, or otherobject that chanced to be in the desired locality, and extensiveobservation showed that it was a very complete system for getting andgiving the news. 

Each dog or wolf makes a point of calling at those stations that arenear his line of travel to learn who has recently been there, just as aman calls at his club on returning to town and looks up the register. 

I have seen Bingo approach the post, sniff, examine the ground about, then growl, and with bristling mane and glowing eyes, scratch fiercelyand contemptuously with his hind feet, finally walking off very stiffly, glancing back from time to time. All of which, being interpreted, said:

"Grrrh! woof! there's that dirty cur of McCarthy's. Woof! I'll 'tend tohim tonight. Woof! woof!" On another occasion, after the preliminaries, he became keenly interested and studied a coyote's track that came andwent, saying to himself, as I afterward learned:

"A coyote track coming from the north, smelling of dead cow. Indeed?Pollworth's old Brindle must be dead at last. This is worth lookinginto. "

At other times he would wag his tail, trot about the vicinity and comeagain and again to make his own visit more evident, perhaps for thebenefit of his brother Bill just back from Brandon! So that it was notby chance that one night Bill turned up at Bingo's home and was takento the hills, where a delicious dead horse afforded a chance to suitablycelebrate the reunion. 

At other times he would be suddenly aroused by the news, take up thetrail, and race to the next station for later information. 

Sometimes his inspection produced only an air of grave attention, asthough he said to himself, "Dear me, who the deuce is this?" or "Itseems to me I met that fellow at the Portage last summer. "

One morning on approaching the post Bingo's every hair stood on end, histail dropped and quivered, and he gave proof that he was suddenly sickat the stomach, sure signs of terror. He showed no desire to follow upor know more of the matter, but returned to the house, and half an hourafterward his mane was still bristling and his expression one of hate orfear. 

I studied the dreaded track and learned that in Bingo's language thehalf-terrified, deep-gurgled 'grr-wff' means 'timber wolf. '

These were among the things that Bingo taught me. And in the after timewhen I might chance to see him arouse from his frosty nest by the stabledoor, and after stretching himself and shaking the snow from his shaggycoat, disappear into the gloom at a steady trot, trot, trot, I used tothink:

"Ahh! old dog, I know where you are off to, and why you eschew theshelter of the shanty. Now I know why your nightly trips over thecountry are so well timed, and how you know just where to go for whatyou want, and when and how to seek it. "

V

In the autumn of 1884, the shanty at De Winton farm was closed and Bingochanged his home to the establishment--that is, to the stable, not thehouse--of Gordon Wright, our most intimate neighbor. 

Since the winter of his puppyhood he had declined to enter a house atany time excepting during a thunderstorm. Of thunder and guns he had adeep dread--no doubt the fear of the first originated in the second, andthat arose from some unpleasant shot-gun experiences, the cause of whichwill be seen. His nightly couch was outside the stable, even duringthe coldest weather, and it was easy to see he enjoyed to the fullthe complete nocturnal liberty entailed. Bingo's midnight wanderingsextended across the plains for miles. There was plenty of proof of this. Some farmers at very remote points sent word to old Gordon that ifhe did not keep his dog home nights, they would use the shot-gun, andBingo's terror of firearms would indicate that the threats were notidle. A man living as far away as Petrel said he saw a large black wolfkill a coyote on the snow one winter evening, but afterward he changedhis opinion and 'reckoned it must 'a' been Wright's dog. ' Wheneverthe body of a winter-killed ox or horse was exposed, Bingo was sureto repair to it nightly, and driving away the prairie wolves, feast torepletion. 

Sometimes the object of a night foray was merely to maul some distantneighbor's dog, and notwithstanding vengeful threats, there seemed noreason to fear that the Bingo breed would die out. One man even avowedthat he had seen a prairie wolf accompanied by three young ones whichresembled the mother, excepting that they were very large and black andhad a ring of white around the muzzle. 

True or not as that may be, I know that late in March, while we wereout in the sleigh with Bingo trotting behind, a prairie wolf was startedfrom a hollow. Away it went with Bingo in full chase, but the wolf didnot greatly exert itself to escape, and within a short distance Bingowas close up, yet strange to tell, there was no grappling, no fight!

Bingo trotted amiably alongside and licked the wolf's nose. 

We were astounded, and shouted to urge Bingo on. Our shouting andapproach several times started the wolf off at speed and Bingo againpursued until he had overtaken it, but his gentleness was too obvious. 

"It is a she-wolf, he won't harm her, " I exclaimed as the truth dawnedon me. And Gordon said: "Well, I be darned. "

So we called our unwilling dog and drove on. 

For weeks after this we were annoyed by the depredations of a prairiewolf who killed our chickens, stale pieces of pork from the end of thehouse, and several times terrified the children by looking into thewindow of the shanty while the men were away. 

Against this animal Bingo seemed to be no safeguard. At length the wolf, a female, was killed, and then Bingo plainly showed his hand by hislasting enmity toward Oliver, the man who did the deed. 

VI

It is wonderful and beautiful how a man and his dog will stick to oneanother, through thick and thin. Butler tells of an undivided Indiantribe, in the Far North which was all but exterminated by an internecinefeud over a dog that belonged to one man and was killed by his neighbor;and among ourselves we have lawsuits, fights, and deadly feuds, allpointing the same old moral, 'Love me, love my dog. '

One of our neighbors had a very fine hound that he thought the best anddearest dog in the world. I loved him, so I loved his dog, and whenone day poor Tan crawled home terribly mangled and died by the door, Ijoined my threats of vengeance with those of his master and thenceforthlost no opportunity of tracing the miscreant, both by offering rewardsand by collecting scraps of evidence. At length it was clear that one ofthree men to the southward had had a hand in the cruel affair. The scentwas warming up, and soon we should have been in a position to exactrigorous justice, at least, from the wretch who had murdered poor oldTan. 

Then something took place which at once changed my mind and led meto believe that the mangling of the old hound was not by any means anunpardonable crime, but indeed on second thoughts was rather commendablethan otherwise. 

Gordon Wright's farm lay to the south of us, and while there one day, Gordon Jr. , knowing that I was tracking the murderer, took me aside andlooking about furtively, he whispered, in tragic tones:

"It was Bing done it. "

And the matter dropped right there. For I confess that from that momentI did all in my power to baffle the justice I had previously striven sohard to further. I had given Bingo away long before, but the feeling ofownership did not die; and of this indissoluble fellowship of dog andman he was soon to take part in another important illustration. 

Old Gordon and Oliver were close neighbors and friends; they joined ina contract to cut wood, and worked together harmoniously till late on inwinter. Then Oliver's old horse died, and he, determining to profit asfar as possible, dragged it out on the plain and laid poison baits forwolves around it. Alas for poor Bingo! He would lead a wolfish life, though again and again it brought him into wolfish misfortunes. 

He was as fond of dead horse as any of his wild kindred. That verynight, with Wright's own dog Curley, he visited the carcass. It seemedas though Bing had busied himself chiefly keeping off the wolves, butCurley feasted immoderately. The tracks in the snow told the story ofthe banquet; the interruption as the poison began to work, and ofthe dreadful spasms of pain during the erratic course back home whereCurley, falling in convulsions at Gordon's feet, died in the greatestagony. 

'Love me, love my dog, ' No explanations or apology were acceptable;it was useless to urge that it was accidental; the long-standing feudbetween Bingo and Oliver was now remembered as an important sidelight. The wood-contract was thrown up, all friendly relations ceased, and tothis day there is no county big enough to hold the rival factions whichwere called at once into existence and to arms by Curley's dying yell. 

It was months before Bingo really recovered from the poison. We believedindeed that he never again would be the sturdy old-time Bingo. But whenthe spring came he began to gain strength, and bettering as the grassgrew, he was within a few weeks once more in full health and vigor to bea pride to his friends and a nuisance to his neighbors. 

VII

Changes took me far away from Manitoba, and on my return in 1886 Bingowas still a member of Wright's household. I thought he would haveforgotten me after two years' absence, but not so. One day early in thewinter, after having been lost for forty-eight hours, he crawled home toWright's with a wolf-trap and a heavy log fast to one foot, and the footfrozen to stony hardness. No one had been able to approach to help him, he was so savage, when I, the stranger now, stooped down and laid holdof the trap with one hand and his leg with the other. Instantly heseized my wrist in his teeth. 

Without stirring I said, "Bing, don't you know me?"

He had not broken the skin and at once released his hold and offered nofurther resistance, although he whined a good deal during the removal ofthe trap. He still acknowledged me his master in spite of his changeof residence and my long absence, and notwithstanding my surrender ofownership I still felt that he was my dog. 

Bing was carried into the house much against his will and his frozenfoot thawed out. During the rest of the winter he went lame and two ofhis toes eventually dropped off. But before the return of warm weatherhis health and strength were fully restored, and to a casual glance hebore no mark of his dreadful experience in the steel trap. 

VIII

During that same winter I caught many wolves and foxes who did not haveBingo's good luck in escaping the traps, which I kept out right into thespring, for bounties are good even when fur is not. 

Kennedy's Plain was always a good trapping ground because it wasunfrequented by man and yet lay between the heavy woods and thesettlement. I had been fortunate with the fur here, and late in Aprilrode in on one of my regular rounds. 

The wolf-traps are made of heavy steel and have two springs, each of onehundred pounds power. They are set in fours around a buried bait, andafter being strongly fastened to concealed logs are carefully covered incotton and in fine sand so as to be quite invisible. A prairie wolf wascaught in one of these. I killed him with a club and throwing him asideproceeded to reset the trap as I had done so many hundred times before. All was quickly done. I threw the trap-wrench over toward the pony, andseeing some fine sand nearby, I reached out for a handful of it to add agood finish to the setting. 

Oh, unlucky thought! Oh, mad heedlessness born of long immunity! Thatfine sand was on the next wolftrap and in an instant I was a prisoner. Although not wounded, for the traps have no teeth, and my thick trappinggloves deadened the snap, I was firmly caught across the hand above theknuckles. Not greatly alarmed at this, I tried to reach the trap-wrenchwith my right foot. Stretching out at full length, face downward, Iworked myself toward it, making my imprisoned arm as long and straightas possible. I could not see and reach at the same time, but counted onmy toe telling me when I touched the little iron key to my fetters. Myfirst effort was a failure; strain as I might at the chain my toe struckno metal. I swung slowly around my anchor, but still failed. Then apainfully taken observation showed I was much too far to the west. I setabout working around, tapping blindly with my toe to discover the key. Thus wildly groping with my right foot I forgot about the other tillthere was a sharp 'clank' and the iron jaws of trap No. S closed tighton my left foot. 

The terrors of the situation did not, at first, impress me, but I soonfound that all my struggles were in vain. I could not get free fromeither trap or move the traps together, and there I lay stretched outand firmly staked to the ground. 

What would become of me now? There was not much danger of freezing forthe cold weather was over, but Kennedy's Plain was never visited by thewinter wood-cutters. No one knew where I had gone, and unless I couldmanage to free myself there was no prospect ahead but to be devoured bywolves, or else die of cold and starvation. 

As I lay there the red sun went down over the spruce swamp west of theplain, and a shorelark on a gopher mound a few yards off twittered hisevening song, just as one had done the night before at our shanty door, and though the numb pains were creeping up my arm, and a deadly chillpossessed me, I noticed how long his little ear-tufts were. Then mythoughts went to the comfortable supper-table at Wright's shanty, and Ithought, now they are frying the pork for supper, or just sittingdown. My pony still stood as I left him with his bridle on the groundpatiently waiting to take me home. He did not understand the long delay, and when I called, he ceased nibbling the grass and looked at me indumb, helpless inquiry. If he would only go home the empty saddle mighttell the tale and bring help. But his very faithfulness kept him waitinghour after hour while I was perishing of cold and hunger. 

Then I remembered how old Girou the trapper had been lost, and in thefollowing spring his comrades found his skeleton held by the leg in abear-trap. I wondered which part of my clothing would show my identity. Then a new thought came to me. This is how a wolf feels when he istrapped. Oh! what misery have I been responsible for! Now I'm to pay forit. 

Night came slowly on. A prairie wolf howled, the pony pricked up hisears and, walking nearer to me, stood with his head down. Then anotherprairie wolf howled and another, and I could make out that they weregathering in the neighborhood. There I lay prone and helpless, wonderingif it would not be strictly just that they should come and tear me topieces. I heard them calling for a long time before I realized thatdim, shadowy forms were sneaking near. The horse saw them first, and histerrified snort drove them back at first, but they came nearer nexttime and sat around me on the prairie. Soon one bolder than the otherscrawled up and tugged at the body of his dead relative. I shouted and heretreated growling. The pony ran to a distance in terror. Presentlythe wolf returned, and after after two or three of these retreats andreturns, the body was dragged off and devoured by the rest in a fewminutes. 

After this they gathered nearer and sat on their haunches to look atme, and the boldest one smelt the rifle and scratched dirt on it. He retreated when I kicked at him with my free foot and shouted, butgrowing bolder as I grew weaker he came and snarled right in my face. At this several others snarled and came up closer, and I realized that Iwas to be devoured by the foe that I most despised; when suddenly outof the gloom with a guttural roar sprang a great black wolf. The prairiewolves scattered like chaff except the bold one, which, seized by theblack new-corner, was in a few moments a draggled corpse, and then, ohhorrors! this mighty brute bounded at me and--Bingo--noble Bingo, rubbedhis shaggy, panting sides against me and licked my cold face. 

"Bingo--Bing--old--boy---Fetch me the trap wrench!" Away he went andreturned dragging the rifle, for he knew only that I wanted something. 

"No--Bing--the trap-wrench. " This time it was my sash, but at lasthe brought the wrench and wagged his tail in joy that it was right. Reaching out with my free hand, after much difficulty I unscrewed thepillar-nut. The trap fell apart and my hand was released, and a minutelater I was free. Bing brought the pony up, and after slowly walking torestore the circulation I was able to mount. Then slowly at first butsoon at a gallop, with Bingo as herald careering and barking ahead, weset out for home, there to learn that the night before, though nevertaken on the trapping rounds, the brave dog had acted strangely, whimpering and watching the timber-trail; and at last when night cameon, in spite of attempts to detain him he had set out in the gloom andguided by a knowledge that is beyond us had reached the spot in time toavenge me as well as set me free. 

Stanch old Bing--he was a strange dog. Though his heart was with me, he passed me next day with scarcely a look, but responded with alacritywhen little Gordon called him to a gopher-hunt. And it was so to theend; and to the end also he lived the wolfish life that he loved, andnever failed to seek the winter-killed horses and found one again witha poisoned bait, and wolfishly bolted that; then feeling the pang, setout, not for Wright's but to find me, and reached the door of my shantywhere I should have been. Next day on returning I found him dead in thesnow with his head on the sill of the door--the door of his puppyhood'sdays; my dog to the last in his heart of hearts--it was my help hesought, and vainly sought, in the hour of his bitter extremity. 

THE SPRINGFIELD FOX

I

THE HENS had been mysteriously disappearing for over a month; and when Icame home to Springfield for the summer holidays it was my duty to findthe cause. This was soon done. The fowls were carried away bodily oneat a time, before going to roost or else after leaving, which put trampsand neighbors out of court; they were not taken from the high perches, which cleared all coons and owls; or left partly eaten, so that weasels, skunks, or minks were not the guilty ones, and the blame, therefore, wassurely left at Reynard's door. 

The great pine wood of Erindale was on the other bank of the river, andon looking carefully about the lower ford I saw a few fox-tracks and abarred feather from one of our Plymouth Rock chickens. On climbing thefarther bank in search of more dews, I heard a great outcry of crowsbehind me, and turning, saw a number of these birds darting down atsomething in the ford. A better view showed that it was the old story, thief catch thief, for there in the middle of the ford was a fox withsomething in his jaws--he was returning from our barnyard with anotherhen. The crows, though shameless robbers themselves, are ever first tocry 'Stop thief, ' and yet more than ready to take 'hush-money' in theform of a share in the plunder. 

And this was their game now. The fox to get back home must cross theriver, where he was exposed to the full brunt of the crow mob. He made adash for it, and would doubtless have gotten across with his booty had Inot joined in the attack, whereupon he dropped the hen, scarce dead, anddisappeared in the woods. 

This large and regular levy of provisions wholly carried off could meanbut one thing, a family of little foxes at home; and to find them I nowwas bound. 

That evening I went with Ranger, my hound, across the river into theErindale woods. As soon as the hound began to circle, we heard theshort, sharp bark of a fox from a thickly wooded ravine close by. Ranger dashed in at once, struck a hot scent and went off on a livelystraight-away till his voice was lost in the distance away over theupland. 

After nearly an hour he came back, panting and warm, for it was bakingAugust weather, and lay down at my feet. 

But almost immediately the same foxy 'Yap yurrr' was heard close at handand off dashed the dog on another chase. 

Away he went in the darkness, baying like a foghorn, straight away tothe north. And the loud 'Boo, boo, ' became a low 'oo, oo, ' and that afeeble 'o-o' and then was lost. They must have gone some miles away, foreven with ear to the ground I heard nothing of them though a mile waseasy distance for Ranger's brazen voice. 

As I waited in the black woods I heard a sweet sound of dripping water:'Tink tank tenk tink, Ta tink tank tenk tonk. '

I did not know of any spring so near, and in the hot night it was a gladfind. But the sound led me to the bough of a oak-tree, where I found itssource. Such a soft sweet song; full of delightful suggestion on such anight:

Tonk tank tenk tink Ta tink a tonk a tank a tink a Ta ta tink tank ta tatonk tink Drink a tank a drink a drunk. 

It was the 'water-dripping' song of the saw-whet owl. 

But suddenly a deep raucous breathing and a rustle of leaves showed thatRanger was back. He was completely fagged out. His tongue hung almostto the ground and was dripping with foam, his flanks were heaving andspume-flecks dribbled from his breast and sides. He stopped panting amoment to give my hand a dutiful lick, then flung himself flop on theleaves to drown all other sounds with his noisy panting. 

But again that tantilizing 'Yap yurrr' was heard a few feet away, andthe meaning of it all dawned on me. We were close to the den where thelittle foxes were, and the old ones were taking turns in trying to leadus away. 

It was late night now, so we went home feeling sure that the problem wasnearly solved. 

II

It was well known that there was an old fox with his family living inthe neighborhood, but no one supposed them so near. 

This fox had been called 'Scarface, ' because of a scar reaching from hiseye through and back of his ear; this was supposed to have been givenhim by a barbed-wire fence during a rabbit hunt, and as the hair came inwhite after it healed it was always a strong mark. 

The winter before I had met with him and had had a sample of hiscraftiness. I was out shooting, after a fall of snow, and had crossedthe open fields to the edge of the brushy hollow back of the old mill. As my head rose to a view of the hollow I caught sight of a fox trottingat long range down the other side, in line to cross my course. InstantlyI held motionless, and did not even lower or turn my head lest I shouldcatch his eye by moving, until he went on out of sight in the thickcover at the bottom. As soon as he was hidden I bobbed down and ran tohead him off where he should leave the cover on the other side, andwas there in good time awaiting, but no fox came forth. A careful lookshowed the fresh track of a fox that had bounded from the cover, andfollowing it with my eye I saw old Scarface himself far out of rangebehind me, sitting on his haunches and grinning as though much amused. 

A study of the trail made all clear. He had seen me at the moment I sawhim, but he, also like a true hunter, had concealed the fact, puttingon an air of unconcern till out of sight, when he had run for his lifearound behind me and amused himself by watching my still born trick. 

In the springtime I had yet another instance of Scarface's cunning. I was walking with a friend along the road over the high pasture. Wepassed within thirty feet of a ridge on which were several gray andbrown boulders. When at the nearest point my friend said:

"Stone number three looks to me very much like a fox curled up. "

But I could not see it, and we passed. We had not gone many yardsfarther when the wind blew on this boulder as on fur. 

My friend said, "I am sure that is a fox, lying asleep. "

"We'll soon settle that, " I replied, and turned back, but as soon as Ihad taken one step from the road, up jumped Scarface, for it was he, andran. A fire had swept the middle of the pasture, leaving a broad beltof black; over this he scurried till he came to the unburnt yellow grassagain, where he squatted down and was lost to view. He had been watchingus all the time, and would not have moved had we kept to the road. Thewonderful part of this is, not that he resembled the round stones anddry grass, but that he knew he did, and was ready to profit by it. 

We soon found that it was Scarface and his wife Vixen that had made ourwoods their home and our barnyard their base of supplies. 

Next morning a search in the pines showed a great bank of earth that hadbeen scratched up within a few months. It must have come from a hole, and yet there was none to be seen. It is well known that a really cutefox, on digging a new den, brings all the earth out at the first holemade, but carries on a tunnel into some distant thicket. Then closing upfor good the first made and too well-marked door, uses only the entrancehidden in the thicket. 

So after a little search at the other side of a knoll, I found the realentry and good proof that there was a nest of little foxes inside. 

Rising above the brush on the hillside was a great hollow basswood. Itleaned a good deal and had a large hole at the bottom, and a smaller oneat top. 

We boys had often used this tree in playing Swiss Family Robinson, andby cutting steps in its soft punky walls had made it easy to go up anddown in the hollow. Now it came in handy, for next day when the sun waswarm I went there to watch, and from this perch on the roof, I soon sawthe interesting family that lived in the cellar near by. There were fourlittle foxes; they looked curiously like little lambs, with their woollycoats, their long thick legs and innocent expressions, and yet a secondglance at their broad, sharp-nosed, sharp-eyed visages showed that eachof these innocents was the makings of a crafty old fox. 

They played about, basking in the sun, or wrestling with each othertill a slight sound made them scurry under ground. But their alarm wasneedless, for the cause of it was their mother; she stepped from thebushes bringing another hen--number seventeen as I remember. A low callfrom her and the little fellows came tumbling out. Then began a scenethat I thought charming, but which my uncle would not have enjoyed atall. 

They rushed on the hen, and tussled and fought with it, and each other, while the mother, keeping a sharp eye for enemies, looked on with fonddelight. The expression on her face was remarkable. It was first agrinning of delight, but her usual look of wildness and cunning wasthere, nor were cruelty and nervousness lacking, but over all was theunmistakable look of the mother's pride and love. 

The base of my tree was hidden in bushes and much lower than the knollwhere the den wash So I could come and go at will without scaring thefoxes. 

For many days I went there and saw much of the training of the youngones. They early learned to turn to turn to statuettes sound, and thenon hearing it again or finding other cause for fear, to run for shelter. 

Some animals have so much mother-love that it over flows and benefitsoutsiders. Not so old Vixen it would seem. Her pleasure in the cubs ledto most refined cruelty. For she often brought home to them mice andbirds alive, and with diabolic gentleness would avoid doing them serioushurt so that the cubs might have larger scope to torment them. 

There was a woodchuck that lived over in the hill orchard. He wasneither handsome nor interesting, but he knew how to take care ofhimself. He had dug a den between the roots of an old pine stump, sothat the foxes could not follow him by digging. But hard work was nottheir way of life; wits they believed worth more then elbowgrease. Thiswoodchuck usually sunned himself on the stump each morning. If he saw afox near he went down in the door of his den, or if the enemy was verynear he went inside and stayed long enough for the danger to pass. 

One morning Vixen and her mate seemed to decide that it was time thechildren knew something about the broad subject of Woodchucks, and further that this orchard woodchuck would serve nicely for anobject-lesson. So they went together to the orchard-fence unseen by oldChuckie on his stump. Scarface then showed himself in the orchard andquietly walked in a line so as to pass by the stump at a distance, butnever once turned his head or allowed the ever-watchful woodchuck tothink himself seen. When the fox entered the field the woodchuck quietlydropped down to the mouth of his den: here he waited as the fox passed, but concluding that after all wisdom is the better part, went into hishole. 

This was what the foxes wanted. Vixen had kept out of sight, but now ranswiftly to the stump and hid behind it. Scarface had kept straight on, going very slowly. The woodchuck had not been frightened, so before longhis head popped up between the roots and he looked around. There wasthat fox still going on, farther and farther away. The woodchuck grewbold as the fox went, and came out farther, and then seeing the coastclear, he scrambled onto the stump, and with one spring Vixen had himand shook him till he lay senseless. Scarface had watched out of thecorner of his eye and now came running back. But Vixen took the chuck inher jaws and made for the den, so he saw he wasn't needed. 

Back to the den came Vix, and carried the chuck so carefully that he wasable to struggle a little when she got there. A low 'woof' at the denbrought the little fellows out like schoolboys to play. She threw thewounded animal to them and they set on him like four little furies, uttering little growls and biting little bites with all the strength oftheir baby jaws, but the woodchuck fought for his life and beating themoff slowly hobbled to the shelter of a thicket. The little ones pursuedlike a pack of hounds and dragged at his tail and flanks, but could nothold him back. So Vixen overtook him with a couple of bounds and draggedhim again into the open for the children to worry. Again and again thisrough sport went on till one of the little ones was badly bitten, andhis squeal of pain roused Vix to end the woodchuck's misery and servehim up at once. 

Not far from the den was a hollow overgrown with coarse grass, theplayground of a colony of field-mice. The earliest lesson in woodcraftthat the little ones took, away from the den, was in this hollow. Here they had their first course of mice, the easiest of all game. Inteaching, the main thing was example, aided by a deep-set instinct. The old fox, also, had one or two signs meaning "lie still and watch, ""come, do as I do, " and so on, that were much used. 

So the merry lot went to this hollow one calm evening and Mother Foxmade them lie still in the grass. Presently a faint squeak showed thatthe game was astir. Vix rose up and went on tiptoe into the grass--notcrouching but as high as she could stand, sometimes on her hind legs soas to get a better view. The runs that the mice follow are hidden underthe grass tangle, and the only way to know the whereabouts of a mouse isby seeing the slight shaking of the grass, which is the reason why miceare hunted only on calm days. 

And the trick is to locate the mouse and seize him first and see himafterward. Vix soon made a spring, and in the middle of the bunch ofdead grass that she grabbed was a field-mouse squeaking his last squeak. 

He was soon gobbled, and the four awkward little foxes tried to do thesame as their mother, and when at length the eldest for the first timein his life caught game, he quivered with excitement and ground hispearly little milk-teeth into the mouse with a rush of inborn savagenessthat must have surprised even himself. 

Another home lesson was on the red-squirrel. One of these noisy, vulgarcreatures, lived close by and used to waste part of each day scoldingthe foxes, from some safe perch. The cubs made many vain attempts tocatch him as he ran across their glade from one tree to an other, orspluttered and scolded at them a foot or so out of reach. But old Vixenwas up in natural history--she knew squirrel nature and took the case inhand when the proper time came. She hid the children and lay down flatin the middle of the open glade. The saucy low-minded squirrel cameand scolded as usual. But she moved no hair. He came nearer and at lastright over head to chatter:

"You brute you, you brute you. "

But Vix lay as dead. This was very perplexing, so the squirrel came downthe trunk and peeping about made a nervous dash across the grass, toanother tree, again to scold from a safe perch. 

"You brute you, you useless brute, scarrr-scarrrr. "

But flat and lifeless on the grass lay Vix. This was most tantilizing tothe squirrel. He was naturally curious and disposed to be venturesome, so again he came to the ground and scurried across the glade nearer thanbefore. Still as death lay Vix, "surely she was dead. " And the littlefoxes began to wonder if their mother wasn't asleep. 

But the squirrel was working himself into a little craze of foolhardycuriosity. He had dropped a piece of bark on Vix's head, he had used uphis list of bad words and he had done it all over again, without gettinga sign of life. So after a couple more dashes across the glade heventured within a few feet of the really watchful Vix, who sprang to herfeet and pinned him in a twinkling. 

"And the little ones picked the bones e-oh. "

Thus the rudiments of their education were laid, and afterward asthey grew stronger they were taken farther afield to begin the higherbranches of trailing and scenting. 

For each kind of prey they were taught a way to hunt, for every animalhas some great strength or it could not live, and some great weaknessor the others could not live. The squirrel's weakness was foolishcuriosity; the fox's that he can't climb a tree. And the training ofthe little foxes was all shaped to take advantage of the weakness of theother creatures and to make up for their own by defter play where theyare strong. 

From their parents they learned the chief axioms of the fox world. How, is not easy to say. But that they learned this in company with theirparents was clear. 

Here are some that foxes taught me, without saying a word:--

Never sleep on your straight track. 

Your nose is before your eyes, then trust it first. 

A fool runs down the wind. 

Running rills cure many ills. 

Never take the open if you can keep the cover. 

Never leave a straight trail if a crooked one will do. 

If it's strange, it's hostile. 

Dust and water burn the scent. 

Never hunt mice in a rabbit-woods, or rabbits in a henyard. 

Keep off the grass. 

Inklings of the meanings of these were already entering the little ones'minds--thus, 'Never follow what you can't smell, ' was wise, they couldsee, because if you can't smell it, then the wind is so that it mustsmell you. 

One by one they learned the birds and beasts of their home woods, andthen as they were able to go abroad with their parents they learned newanimals. They were beginning to think they knew the scent of everythingthat moved. But one night the mother took them to a field where therewas a strange black flat thing on the ground. She brought them onpurpose to smell it, but at the first whiff their every hair stood onend, they trembled, they knew not why--it seemed to tingle through theirblood and fill them with instinctive hate and fear. 

And when she saw its full effect she told them--

"That is man-scent. "

III

Meanwhile the hens continued to disappear. I had not betrayed the denof cubs. Indeed, I thought a good deal more of the little rascals thanI did of the hens; but uncle was dreadfully wrought up and made mostdisparaging remarks about my woodcraft. To please him I one day tookthe hound across to the woods and seating myself on a stump on the openhillside, I bade the dog go on. Within three minutes he sang out in thetongue all hunters know so well, "Fox! fox! fox! straight away down thevalley. "

After awhile I heard them coming back. There I saw thefox--Scarface--loping lightly across the river-bottom to the stream. Inhe went and trotted along in the shallow water near the margin for twohundred yards, then came out straight toward me. Though in full view, he saw me not but came up the hill watching over his shoulder for thehound. Within ten feet of me he turned and sat with his back to mewhile he craned his neck and showed an eager interest in the doingsof the hound. Ranger came bawling along the trail till he came to therunning water, the killer of scent, and here he was puzzled; but therewas only one thing to do; that was by going up and down both banks findwhere the fox had left the river. 

The fox before me shifted his position a little to get a better view andwatched with a most human interest all the circling of the hound. He wasso close that I saw the hair of his shoulder bristle a little when thedog came in sight. I could see the jumping of his heart on his ribs, and the gleam of his yellow eye. When the dog was wholly baulked by thewater trick, it was comical to see:--he could not sit still, but rockedup and down in glee, and reared on his hind feet to get a better viewof the slow-plodding hound. With mouth opened nearly to his ears, thoughnot at all winded, he panted noisily for a moment, or rather he laughedgleefully, just as a dog laughs by grinning and panting. 

Old Scarface wriggled in huge enjoyment as the hound puzzled over thetrail so long that when he did find it, it was so stale he could barelyfollow it, and did not feel justified in tonguing on it at all. 

As soon as the hound was working up the hill, the fox quietly went intothe woods. I had been sitting in plain view only ten feet away, but Ihad the wind and kept still and the fox never knew that his life had fortwenty minutes been in the power of the foe he most feared. 

Ranger also would have passed me as near as the fox, but I spoke to him, and with a little nervous start he quit the trail and looking sheepishlay down by my feet. 

This little comedy was played with variations for several days, butit was all in plain view from the house across the river. My uncle, impatient at the daily loss of hens, went out himself, sat on the openknoll, and when old Scarface trotted to his lookout to watch the dullhound on the river fiat below, my uncle remorselessly shot him in theback, at the very moment when he was grinning over a new triumph. 

IV

But still the hens were disappearing. My uncle was wrathy. He determinedto conduct the war himself, and sowed the woods with poison baits, trusting to luck that our own dogs would not get them. He indulged incontemptuous remarks on my by-gone woodcraft, and went out evenings witha gun and the two dogs, to see what he could destroy. 

Vix knew right well what a poisoned bait was; she passed them by or elsetreated them with active contempt, but one she dropped down the holeof an old enemy, a skunk, who was never afterward seen. Formerly oldScarface was always ready to take charge of the dogs, and keep them outof mischief. But now that Vix had the whole burden of the brood, shecould no longer spend time in breaking every track to the den, and wasnot always at hand to meet and mislead the foes that might be coming toonear. 

The end is easily foreseen. Ranger followed a hot trail to the den, andSpot, the fox-terrier, announced that the family was at home, and thendid his best to go in after them. 

The whole secret was now out, and the whole family doomed. The hired mancame around with pick and shovel to dig them out, while we and the dogsstood by. Old Vix soon showed herself in the near woods, and led thedogs away off down the river, where she shook them off when she thoughtproper, by the simple device of springing on a sheep's back. Thefrightened animal ran for several hundred yards, then Vix got off, knowing that there was now a hopeless gap in the scent, and returned tothe den. But the dogs, baffled by the break in the trail, soon did thesame, to find Vix hanging about in despair, vainly trying to decoy usaway from her treasures. 

Meanwhile Paddy plied both pick and shovel with vigor and effect. Theyellow, gravelly sand was heaping on both sides, and the shoulders ofthe sturdy digger were sinking below the level. After an hour's digging, enlivened by frantic rushes of the dogs after the old fox, who hoverednear in the woods, Pat called:

"Here they are, sot!"

It was the den at the end of the burrow, and cowering as far back asthey could, were the four little woolly cubs. 

Before I could interfere, a murderous blow from the shovel, and a suddenrush for the fierce little terrier, ended the lives of three. The fourthand smallest was barely saved by holding him by his tail high out ofreach of the excited dogs. 

He gave one short squeal, and his poor mother came at the cry, andcircled so near that she would have been shot but for the accidentalprotection of the dogs, who somehow always seemed to get between, andwhom she once more led away on a fruitless chase. 

The little one saved alive was dropped into a bag, where he lay quitestill. His unfortunate brothers were thrown back into their nursery bed, and buried under a few shovelfuls of earth. 

We guilty ones then went back into the house, and the little fox wassoon chained in the yard. No one knew just why he was kept alive, butin all a change of feeling had set in, and the idea of killing him waswithout a supporter. 

He was a pretty little fellow, like a cross between a fox and a lamb. His woolly visage and form were strangely lamb-like and innocent, butone could find in his yellow eyes a gleam of cunning and savageness asunlamb-like as it possibly could be. 

As long as anyone was near he crouched sullen and cowed in hisshelter-box, and it was a full hour after being left alone before heventured to look out. 

My window now took the place of the hollow bass wood. A number of hensof the breed he knew so well were about the cub in the yard. Late thatafternoon as they strayed near the captive there was a sudden rattle ofthe chain, and the youngster dashed at the nearest one and would havecaught him but for the chain which brought him up with a jerk. He got onhis feet and slunk back to his box, and though he afterward made severalrushes he so gauged his leap as to win or fail within the length of thechain and never again was brought up by its cruel jerk. 

As night came down the little fellow became very uneasy, sneaking out ofhis box, but going back at each slight alarm, tugging at his chain, orat times biting it in fury while he held it down with his fore paws. Suddenly he paused as though listening, then raising his little blacknose he poured out a short quavering cry. Once or twice this wasrepeated, the time between being occupied in worrying the chain andrunning about. Then an answer came. The far-away Yap-yurrr of the oldfox. A few minutes later a shadowy form appeared on the wood-pile. Thelittle one slunk into his box, but at once returned and ran to meet hismother with all the gladness that a fox could show. Quick as a flashshe seized him and turned to bear him away by the road she came. But themoment the end of the chain was reached the cub was rudely jerked fromthe old one's mouth, and she, scared by the opening of a window, fledover the wood-pile. 

An hour afterward the cub had ceased to run about or cry. I peeped out, and by the light of the moon saw the form of the mother at full lengthon the ground by the little one, gnawing at something--the clank of irontold what, it was that cruel chain. And Tip, the little one, meanwhilewas helping himself to a warm drink. 

On my going out the fled Into the dark woods, but there by theshelter-box were two little mice, bloody and still warm, food for thecub brought by the devoted mother. And in the morning I found the chainwas very bright for a foot or two next the little one's collar. 

On walking across the woods to the ruined den, I again found signs ofVixen. The poor heart-broken mother had come and dug out the bedraggledbodies of her little ones. 

There lay the three little baby foxes all licked smooth now, and by themwere two of our hens fresh killed. The newly heaved earth was printedall over with telltale signs--signs that told me that here by the sideof her dead she had watched like Rizpah. Here she had brought theirusual meal, the spoil of her nightly hunt. Here she had stretchedherself beside them and vainly offered them their natural drink andyearned to feed and warm them as of old, but only stiff little bodiesunder their soft wool she found, and little cold noses still andunresponsive. 

A deep impress of elbows, breasts, and hocks showed where she had laidin silent grief and watched them for long and mourned as a wild mothercan mourn for its young. But from that time she came no more to theruined den, for now she surely knew that her little ones were dead. Tip the captive, the weakling of the brood, was now the heir to all herlove. The dogs were loosed to guard the hens. The hired man had ordersto shoot the old fox on sight--so had I but was resolved never to seeher. Chicken-heads, that a fox loves and a dog will not touch, had beenpoisoned and scattered through the woods; and the only way to the yardwhere Tip was tied, was by climbing the wood-pile after braving allother dangers. 

And yet each night old Vix was there to nurse her baby and bring itfresh-killed hens and game. Again and again I saw her, although she camenow without awaiting the querulous cry of the captive. 

The second night of the captivity I heard the rattle of the chain, andthen made out that the old fox was there, hard at work digging a hole bythe little one's kennel. When it was deep enough to half bury her, shegathered into it all the slack of the chain, and filled it again withearth. Then in triumph thinking she had gotten rid of the chain, sheseized little Tip by the neck and turned to dash off up the wood-pile, but alas! only to have him jerked roughly from her grasp. 

Poor little fellow, he whimpered sadly as he crawled into his box. Afterhalf an hour there was a great out cry among the dogs, and by theirstraight-away tonguing through the far wood I knew they were chasingVix. Away up north they went in the direction of the railway and theirnoise faded from hearing. Next morning the hound had not come back. We soon knew why. Foxes long ago learned what a railroad is; they soondevised several ways of turning it to account. One way is when hunted towalk the rails for a long distance just before a train comes. The scent, always poor on iron, is destroyed by the train and there is always achance of hounds being killed by the engine. But another way more sure, but harder to play, is to lead the hounds straight to a high trestlejust ahead of the train, so that the engine overtakes them on it andthey are surely dashed to destruction. 

This trick was skilfully played, and down below we found the mangledremains of old Ranger and learned that Vix was already wreaking herrevenge. 

That same night she returned to the yard before Spot's weary limbscould bring him back and killed another hen and brought it to Tip, andstretched her panting length beside him that he might quench his thirst. For she seemed to think he had no food but what she brought. 

It was that hen that betrayed to my uncle the nightly visits. 

My own sympathies were all turning to Vix, and I would have no hand inplanning further murders. Next night my uncle himself watched, gun inhand, for an hour. Then when it became cold and the moon clouded overhe remembered other important business elsewhere, and left Paddy in hisplace. 

But Paddy was "onaisy" as the stillness and anxiety of watching workedon his nerves. And the loud bang! bang! an hour later left us sure onlythat powder had been burned. 

In the morning we found Vix had not failed her young one. Again nextnight found my uncle on guards for another hen had been taken. Soonafter dark a single shot was heard, but Vix dropped the game she wasbringing and escaped. Another attempt made that night called forthanother gunshot. Yet next day it was seen by the brightness of the chainthat she had come again and vainly tried for hours to cut that hatefulbond. 

Such courage and stanch fidelity were bound to win respect, if nottoleration. At any rate, there was no gunner in wait next night, whenall was still. Could it be of any use? Driven off thrice with gunshots, would she make another try to feed or free her captive young one? Wouldshe? Hers was a mother's love. There was but one to watch them thistime, the fourth night, when the quavering whine of the little one wasfollowed by that shadowy form above the wood pile. 

But carrying no fowl or food that could be seen. Had the keen huntressfailed at last? Had she no head of game for this her only charge, or hadshe learned to trust his captors for his food?

No, far from all this. The wild-wood mother's heart and hate were true. Her only thought had been to set him free. All means she knew she tried, and every danger braved to tend him well and help him to be free. Butall had failed. 

Like a shadow she came and in a moment was gone, and Tip seized onsomething dropped, and crunched and chewed with relish what she brought. But even as he ate, a knife-like pang shot through and a scream of painescaped him. Then there was a momentary struggle and the little fox wasdead. 

The mother's love was strong in Vix, but a higher thought was stronger. She knew right well the poison's power; she knew the poison bait, andwould have taught him had he lived to know and shun it too. But now atlast when she must choose for him a wretched prisoner's life or suddendeath, she quenched the mother in her breast and freed him by the oneremaining door. 

It is when the snow is on the ground that we take the census of thewoods, and when the winter came it told me that Vix no longer roamed thewoods of Erindale. Where she went it never told, but only this, that shewas gone. 

Gone, perhaps, to some other far-off haunt to leave behind the sadremembrance of her murdered little ones and mate. Or gone, may be, deliberately, from the scene of a sorrowful life, as many a wild-woodmother has gone, by the means that she herself had used to free heryoung one, the last of all her brood. 

THE PACING MUSTANG

I

JO CALONE threw down his saddle on the dusty ground, turned his horsesloose, and went clanking into the ranchhouse. 

"Nigh about chuck time?" he asked. 

"Seventeen minutes, " said the cook glancing at the Waterbury, with theair of a train starter, though this show of precision had never yet beenjustified by events. 

"How's things on the Perico?" said Jo's pard. 

"Hotter'n hinges, " said Jo. "Cattle seem O. K. ; lots of calves. "

"I seen that bunch o' mustangs that waters at Antelope Springs; coupleo' colts along; one little dark one, a fair dandy; a born pacer. I runthem a mile or two, and be led the bunch, an' never broke his pace. Cut loose, an' pushed them jest for fun, an' darned if I could make himbreak. "

"You didn't have no reefreshments along?" said Scarth, incredulously. 

"That's all right, Scarth. You had to crawl on our last bet, an' you'llget another chance soon as you're man enough. "

"Chuck, " shouted the cook, and the subject was dropped. Next day thescene of the roundup was changed, and the mustangs were forgotten. 

A year later the same corner of New Mexico was worked over by theroundup, and again the mustang bunch was seen. The dark colt was now ablack yearling, with thin, clean legs and glossy flanks; and more thanone of the boys saw with his own eyes this oddity--the mustang was aborn pacer. Jo was along, and the idea now struck him that that coltwas worth having. To an Easterner this thought may not seem startlingor original, but in the West, where an unbroken horse is worth $5, andwhere an ordinary saddlehorse is worth $15 or $20, the idea of a wildmustang being desirable property does not occur to the average cowboy, for mustangs are hard to catch, and when caught are merely wild animalprisoners, perfectly useless and untamable to the last, Not a few of thecattle-owners make a point of shooting all mustangs at sight, they arenot only useless cumberers of the feeding-grounds, but commonly leadaway domestic horses, which soon take to wild life and are thenceforthlost. 

Wild Jo Calone knew a 'bronk right down to subsoil. ' "I never seen awhite that wasn't soft, nor a chestnut that wasn't nervous, nor a baythat wasn't good if broke right, nor a black that wasn't hard as nails, an' full of the old Harry. All a black bronk wants is claws to be wus'nDaniel's hull outfit of lions. "

Since, then, a mustang is worthless vermin, and a black mustang tentimes worse than worthless, Jo's pard "didn't see no sense in Jo'swantin' to corral the yearling, " as he now seemed intent on doing. ButJo got no chance to try that year. 

He was only a cow-puncher on $25 a month, and tied to hours. Like mostof the boys, he always looked forward to having a ranch and an outfitof his own. His brand, the hogpen, of sinister suggestion, was alreadyregistered at Santa Fe, but of horned stock it was borne by a single oldcow, so as to give him a legal right to put his brand on any maverick(or unbranded animal) he might chance to find. 

Yet each fall, when paid off, Jo could not resist the temptation to goto town with the boys and have a good time 'while the stuff held out. 'So that his property consisted of little more than his saddle, his bed, and his old cow. He kept on hoping to make a strike that would leave himwell fixed with a fair start, and when the thought came that the BlackMustang was his mascot, he only needed a chance to 'make the try. '

The roundup circled down to the Canadian River, and back in the fall bythe Don Carlos Hills, and Jo saw no more of the Pacer, though he heardof him from many quarters, for the colt, now a vigorous, young horse, rising three, was beginning to be talked of. 

Antelope Springs is in the middle of a great level plain. When the wateris high it spreads into a small lake with a belt of sedge around it;when it is low there is a wide flat of black mud, glistening white withalkali in places, and the spring a water-hole in the middle. It has noflow or outlet and is fairly good water, the only drinking-place formany miles. 

This flat, or prairie as it would be called farther north, was thefavorite feeding-ground of the Black Stallion, but it was also thepasture of many herds of range horses and cattle. Chiefly interested wasthe 'L cross F' outfit. Foster, the manager and part owner, was a man ofenterprise. He believed it would pay to handle a better class of cattleand horses on the range, and one of his ventures was ten half-bloodedmares, tall, clean-limbed, deer-eyed creatures that made the scrubcow-ponies look like pitiful starvelings of some degenerate and quitedifferent species. 

One of these was kept stabled for use, but the nine, after the weaningof their colts, managed to get away and wandered off on the range. 

A horse has a fine instinct for the road to the best feed, and the ninemares drifted, of course, to the prairie of Antelope Springs, twentymiles to the southward, And when, later that summer Foster went to roundthem up, he found the nine indeed, but with them and guarding them withan air of more than mere comradeship was a coal-black stallion, prancingaround and rounding up the bunch like an expert, his jet-black coat avivid contrast to the golden hides of his harem. 

The mares were gentle, and would have been easily driven homewardbut for a new and unexpected thing. The Black Stallion became greatlyaroused. He seemed to inspire them too with his wildness, and flyingthis way and that way drove the whole band at full gallop where hewould. Away they went, and the little cow-ponies that carried the menwere easily left behind. 

This was maddening, and both men at last drew their guns and sought achance to drop that 'blasted stallion. ' But no chance came that was not9 to 1 of dropping one of the mares. A long day of manoeuvring madeno change. The Pacer, for it was he, kept his family together anddisappeared among the southern sand-hills. The cattlemen on their jadedponies set out for home with the poor satisfaction of vowing vengeancefor their failure on the superb cause of it. 

One of the most aggravating parts of it was that one or two experienceslike this would surely make the mares as wild as the Mustang, and thereseemed to be no way of saving them from it. 

Scientists differ on the power of beauty and prowess to attract femaleadmiration among the lower animals, but whether it is admiration or theprowess itself, it is certain that a wild animal of uncommon gifts soonwins a large following from the harems of his rivals. And the greatBlack Horse, with his inky mane and tail and his green-lighted eyes, ranged through all that region and added to his following from manybands till not less than a score of mares were in his 'bunch. ' Most weremerely humble cow-ponies turned out to range, but the nine great mareswere there, a striking group by themselves. According to all reports, this bunch was always kept rounded up and guarded with such energy andjealously that a mare, once in it, was a lost animal so far as man wasconcerned, and the ranchmen realized soon that they had gotten on therange a mustang that was doing them more harm than all other sources ofloss put together. 

II

It was December, 1893. I was new in the country, and was setting outfrom the ranch-house on the Pinavetitos, to go with a wagon to theCanadian River. As I was leaving, Foster finished his remark by: "And ifyou get a chance to draw a bead on that accursed mustang, don't fail todrop him in his tracks. "

This was the first I had heard of him, and as I rode along I gatheredfrom Burns, my guide, the history that has been given. I was fullof curiosity to see the famous three-year-old, and was not a littledisappointed on the second day when we came to the prairie on AntelopeSprings and saw no sign of the Pacer or his band. 

But on the next day, as we crossed the Alamosa Arroyo, and were risingto the rolling prairie again, Jack Burns, who was riding on ahead, suddenly dropped flat on the neck of his horse, and swung back to me inthe wagon, saying:

"Get out your rifle, here's that--stallion. "

I seized my rifle, and hurried forward to a view over the prairie ridge. In the hollow below was a band of horses, and there at one end was theGreat Black Mustang. He had heard some sound of our approach, and wasnot unsuspicious of danger. There he stood with head and tail erect, and nostrils wide, an image of horse perfection and beauty, as noble ananimal as ever ranged the plains, and the mere notion of turning thatmagnificent creature into a mass of carrion was horrible. In spiteof Jack's exhortation to 'shoot quick, ' I delayed, and threw openthe breach, whereupon he, always hot and hasty, swore at my slowness, growled, 'Gi' me that gun, ' and as he seized it I turned the muzzle up, and accidentally the gun went off. 

Instantly the herd below was all alarm, the great black leader snortedand neighed and dashed about. And the mares bunched, and away all wentin a rumble of hoofs, and a cloud of dust. 

The Stallion careered now on this side, now on that, and kept his eye onall and led and drove them far away. As long as I could see I watched, and never once did he break his pace. 

Jack made Western remarks about me and my gun, as well as that mustang, but I rejoiced in the Pacer's strength and beauty, and not for all themares in the bunch would I have harmed his glossy hide. 

III

There are several ways of capturing wild horses. One is bycreasing--that is, grazing the animal's nape with a rifle-ball so thathe is stunned long enough for hobbling. 

"Yest I seen about a hundred necks broke trying it, but I never seen amustang creased yet, " was Wild Jo's critical remark. 

Sometimes, if the shape of the country abets it, the herd can be driveninto a corral; sometimes with extra fine mounts they can be run down, but by far the commonest way, paradoxical as it may seem, is to walkthem down. 

The fame of the Stallion that never was known to gallop was spreading. Extraordinary stories were told of his gait, his speed, and his wind, and when old Montgomery of the 'triangle-bar' outfit came out plump atWell's Hotel in Clayton, and in presence of witnesses said he'd give onethousand dollars cash for him safe in a box-car, providing the storieswere true, a dozen young cow-punchers were eager to cut loose and winthe purse, as soon as present engagements were up. But Wild Jo had hadhis eye on this very deal for quite a while; there was no time tolose, so ignoring present contracts he rustled all night to raise thenecessary equipment for the game. 

By straining his already overstrained credit, and taxing the alreadyovertaxed generosity of his friends, lie got together an expeditionconsisting of twenty good saddle-horses, a mess-wagon, and a fortnight'sstuff for three men--himself, his 'pard, ' Charley, and the cook. 

Then they set out from Clayton, with the avowed intention of walkingdown the wonderfully swift wild horse. The third day they arrived atAntelope Springs, and as it was about noon they were not surprised tosee the black Pacer marching down to drink with all his band behind him. Jo kept out of sight until the wild horses each and all had drunk theirfill, for a thirsty animal always travels better than one laden withwater. 

Jo then rode quietly forward. The Pacer took alarm at half a mile, andled his band away out of sight on the soapweed mesa to the southeast. Jofollowed at a gallop till he once more sighted them, then came back andinstructed the cook, who was also teamster, to make for Alamosa Arroyoin the south. Then away to the southeast he went after the mustangs. After a mile or two he once more sighted them, and walked his horsequietly till so near that they again took alarm and circled away to thesouth. An hour's trot, not on the trail, but cutting across to wherethey ought to go, brought Jo again in close sight. Again he walkedquietly toward the herd, and again there was the alarm and fright. Andso they passed the afternoon, but circled ever more and more to thesouth, so that when the sun was low they were, as Jo had expected, notfar from Alamosa Arroyo. The band was again close at hand, and Jo, after starting them off, rode to the wagon, while his pard, who had beentaking it easy, took up the slow chase on a fresh horse. 

After supper the wagon moved on to the upper ford of the Alamosa, asarranged, and there camped for the night. 

Meanwhile, Charley followed the herd. They had not run so far as atfirst, for their pursuer made no sign of attack, and they were gettingused to his company. They were more easily found, as the shadows fell, on account of a snow-white mare that was in the bunch. A young moon inthe sky now gave some help, and relying on his horse to choose the path, Charley kept him quietly walking after the herd, represented by thatghost-white mare, till they were lost in the night. He then got off, unsaddled and picketed his horse, and in his blanket quickly went tosleep. 

At the first streak of dawn he was up, and within a short half-mile, thanks to the snowy mare, he found the band. At his approach, the shrillneigh of the Pacer bugled his troop into a flying squad. But on thefirst mesa they stopped, and faced about to see what this persistentfollower was, and what he wanted. For a moment or so they stood againstthe sky to gaze, and then deciding that he knew him as well as he wishedto, that black meteor flung his mane on the wind, and led off at histireless, even swing, while the mares came streaming after. 

Away they went, circling now to the west, and after several repetitionsof this same play, flying, following, and overtaking, and flying again, they passed, near noon, the old Apache look-out, Buffalo Bluff. Antihere, on watch, was Jo. A long thin column of smoke told Charley to cometo camp, and with a flashing pocket-mirror he made response. Jo, freshlymounted, rode across, and again took up the chase, and back came Chancyto camp to eat and rest, and then move on up stream. 

All that day Jo followed, and managed, when it was needed, that the herdshould keep the great circle, of which the wagon cut a small chord. Atsundown he came to Verde Crossing, and there was Charley with a freshhorse and food, and Jo went on in the same calm, dogged way. All theevening he followed, and far into the night, for the wild herd was nowgetting somewhat used to the presence of the harmless strangers, andwere more easily followed; moreover, they were thing out with perpetualtraveling. They were no longer in the good grass country, they were notgrain-fed like the horses on their track, and above all, the slightbut continuous nervous tension was surely telling. It spoiled theirappetites, but made them very thirsty. They were allowed, and as faras possible encouraged, to drink deeply at every chance. The effect oflarge quantities of water on a running animal is well known; it tends tostiffen the limbs and spoil the wind. Jo carefully guarded his own horseagainst such excess, and both he and his horse were fresh when theycamped that night on the trail of the jaded mustangs. 

At dawn he found them easily close at hand, and though they ran at firstthey did not go far before they dropped into a walk. The battle seemednearly won now, for the chief difficulty in the 'walk-down' is to keeptrack of the herd the first two or three days when they are fresh. 

All that morning Jo kept in sight, generally in close sight, of theband. About ten o'clock, Charley relieved him near Jos. Peak and thatday the mustangs walked only a quarter of a mile ahead with much lessspirit than the day before and circled now more north again. At nightCharley was supplied with a fresh horse and followed as before. 

Next day the mustangs walked with heads held low, and in spite of theefforts of the Black Pacer at times they were less than a hundred yardsahead of their pursuer. 

The fourth and fifth days passed the same way, and now the herd wasnearly back to Antelope Springs. So far all had come out as expected. The chase had been in a great circle with the wagon following a lessercircle. The wild herd was back to its starting-point, worn out; and thehunters were back, fresh and on fresh horses. The herd was kept fromdrinking till late in the afternoon and then driven to the Springs toswell themselves with a perfect water gorge. Now was the chance for theskilful ropers on the grain-fed horses to close in, for the sudden heavydrink was ruination, almost paralysis, of wind and limb, and it would beeasy to rope and hobble them one by one. 

There was only one weak spot in the programme, the Black Stallion, thecause of the hunt, seemed made of iron, that ceaseless swinging paceseemed as swift and vigorous now as on the morning when the chase began. Up and down he went rounding up the herd and urging them on by voice andexample to escape. But they were played out. The old white mare thathad been such help in sighting them at night, had dropped out hours ago, dead beat. The half-bloods seemed to be losing all fear of the horsemen, the band was clearly in Jo's power. But the one who was the prize of allthe hunt seemed just as far as ever out of reach. 

Here was a puzzle. Jo's comrades knew him well and would not have beensurprised to see him in a sudden rage attempt to shoot the Stalliondown. But Jo had no such mind. During that long week of following hehad watched the horse all day at speed and never once had he seen himgallop. 

The horseman's adoration of a noble horse had grown and grown, till nowhe would as soon have thought of shooting his best mount as firing onthat splendid beast. 

Jo even asked himself whether he would take the handsome sum that wasoffered for the prize. Such an animal would be a fortune in himself tosire a race of pacers for the track. 

But the prize was still at large--the time had come to finish up thehunt. Jo's finest mount was caught. She was a mare of Eastern blood, butraised on the plains. She never would have come into Jo's possession butfor a curious weakness. The loco is a poisonous weed that grows in theseregions. Most stock will not touch it; but sometimes an animal tries itand becomes addicted to it. 

It acts somewhat like morphine, but the animal, though sane for longintervals, has always a passion for the herb and finally dies mad. Abeast with the craze is said to be locoed. And Jo's best mount had awild gleam in her eye that to an expert told the tale. 

But she was swift and strong and Jo chose her for the grand finish ofthe chase. It would have been an easy matter now to rope the mares, butwas no longer necessary. They could be separated from their black leaderand driven home to the corral. But that leader still had the look ofuntamed strength. Jo, rejoicing in a worthy foe, went bounding forth totry the odds. The lasso was flung on the ground and trailed to take outevery kink, and gathered as he rode into neatest coils across his leftpalm. Then putting on the spur the first time in that chase he rodestraight for the Stallion a quarter of a mile beyond. Away he went, andaway went Jo, each at his best, while the fagged-out mares scatteredright and left and let them pass. Straight across the open plain thefresh horse went at its hardest gallop, and the Stallion, leading off, still kept his start and kept his famous swing. 

It was incredible, and Jo put on more spur and shouted to his horse, which fairly flew, but shortened up the space between by not a singleinch. For the Black One whirled across the flat and up and passed asoap-weed mesa and down across a sandy treacherous plain, then over agrassy stretch where prairie dogs barked, then hid below, and on cameJo, but there to see, could he believe his eyes, the Stallion's startgrown longer still, and Jo began to curse his luck, and urge and spurhis horse until the poor uncertain brute got into such a state ofnervous fright, her eyes began to roll, she wildly shook her head fromside to side, no longer picked her ground--a badger-hole received herfoot and down she went, and Jo went flying to the earth. Though badlybruised, he gained his feet and tried to mount his crazy beast. But she, poor brute, was done for--her off fore-leg hung loose. 

There was but one thing to do. Jo loosed the cinch, put Lightfoot out ofpain, and carried back the saddle to the camp. While the Pacer steamedaway till lost to view. 

This was not quite defeat, for all the mares were manageable now, and Joand Charley drove them carefully to the 'L cross F' corral and claimed agood reward. But Jo was more than ever bound to own the Stallion. He hadseen what stuff he was made of, he prized him more and more, and onlysought to strike some better plan to catch him. 

IV

The cook on that trip was Bates--Mr. Thomas Bates, he called himself atthe post-office where he regularly went for the letters and remittancewhich never came. Old Tom Turkeytrack, the boys called him, fromhis cattle-brand, which he said was on record at Denver, and which, according to his story, was also borne by countless beef and saddlestock on the plains of the unknown North. 

When asked to join the trip as a partner, Bates made some sarcasticremarks about horses not fetching $12 a dozen, which had been literallytrue within the year, and he preferred to go on a very meagre salary. But no one who once saw the Pacer going had failed to catch the craze. Turkeytrack experienced the usual change of heart. He now wanted to ownthat mustang. How this was to be brought about he did not clearly seetill one day there called at the ranch that had 'secured his services, 'as he put it, one, Bill Smith, more usually known as Horseshoe Billy, from his cattle-brand. While the excellent fresh beef and bread and thevile coffee, dried peaches and molasses were being consumed, he of thehorseshoe remarked, in tones which percolated through a huge stop-gap ofbread:

"Wall, I seen that thar Pacer to-day, nigh enough to put a plait in histail. "

"What, you didn't shoot?"

"No, but I come mighty near it. "

"Don't you be led into no sich foolishness, " said a 'double-bar H'cow-puncher at the other end of the table. "I calc'late that maverick'ill carry my brand before the moon changes. "

"You'll have to be pretty spry or you'll find a 'triangle dot' on hisweather side when you get there. "

"Where did you run across him?"

"Wail, it was like this; I was riding the flat by Antelope Springs andI sees a lump on the dry mud inside the rush belt. I knowed I never seenthat before, so I rides up, thinking it might be some of our stock, an'seen it was a horse lying plumb flat. The wind was blowing like--fromhim to me, so I rides up close and seen it was the Pacer, dead as amackerel. Still, he didn't look swelled or cut, and there wa'n't nosmell, an' I didn't know what to think till I seen his ear twitch off afly and then I knowed he was sleeping. I gits down me rope and coils it, and seen it was old and pretty shaky in spots, and me saddle a singlecinch, an' me pony about 700 again a 1, 200 lbs. Stallion, an' I sez tomeself, sez I: 'Tain't no use, I'll only break me cinch and git throwedan' lose me saddle. ' So I hits the saddle-horn a crack with the hondu, and I wish't you'd a seen that mustang. He lept six foot in the air an'snorted like he was shunting cars. His eyes fairly bugged out an' helighted out lickety split for California, and he orter be there aboutnow if he kep' on like he started--and I swear he never made a break thehull trip. "

The story was not quite so consecutive as given here. It was muchpunctuated by present engrossments, and from first to last was more orless infiltrated through the necessaries of life, for Bill was a healthyyoung man without a trace of false shame. But the account was completeand everyone believed it, for Billy was known to be reliable. Of allthose who heard, old Turkeytrack talked the least and probably thoughtthe most, for it gave him a new idea. 

During his after-dinner pipe he studied it out and deciding that hecould not go it alone, he took Horseshoe Billy into his council and theresult was a partnership in a new venture to capture the Pacer; that is, the $5, 000 that was now said to be the offer for him safe in a box-car. 

Antelope Springs was still the usual watering-place of the Pacer. Thewater being low left a broad belt of dry black mud between the sedge andthe spring. At two places this belt was broken by a well-marked trailmade by the animals coming to drink. Horses and wild animals usuallykept to these trails, though the horned cattle had no hesitation intaking a short cut through the sedge. 

In the most used of these trails the two men set to work with shovelsand dug a pit 15 feet long, 6 feet wide and 7 feet deep. It was ahard twenty hours work for them as it had to be completed betweenthe Mustang's drinks, and it began to be very damp work before it wasfinished. With poles, brush, and earth it was then cleverly covered overand concealed. And the men went to a distance and bid in pits made forthe purpose. 

About noon the Pacer came, alone now since the capture of his band. The trail on the opposite side of the mud belt was little used, and oldTom, by throwing some fresh rushes across it, expected to make surethat the Stallion would enter by the other, if indeed he should by anycaprice try to come by the unusual path. 

What sleepless angel is it watches over and cares for the wild animals?In spite of all reasons to take the usual path, the Pacer came along theother. The suspicious-looking rushes did not stop him; he walked calmlyto the water and drank. There was only one way now to prevent utterfailure; when he lowered his head for the second draft which horsesalways take, Bates and Smith quit their holes and ran swiftly towardthe trail behind him, and when he raised his proud head Smith sent arevolver shot into the ground behind him. 

Away went the Pacer at his famous gait straight to the trap. Anothersecond and he would be into it. Already he is on the trail, and alreadythey feel they have him, but the Angel of the wild things is with him, that incomprehensible warning comes, and with one mighty bound he clearsthe fifteen feet of treacherous ground and spurns the earth as he fadesaway unharmed, never again to visit Antelope Springs by either of thebeaten paths. 

V

Wild Jo never lacked energy. He meant to catch that Mustang, and when helearned that others were be stirring themselves for the same purposehe at once set about trying the best untried plan he knew--the plan bywhich the coyote catches the fleeter jackrabbit, and the mounted Indianthe far swifter antelope--the old plan of the relay chase. 

The Canadian River on the south, its affluent, the Pinavetitos Arroyo, on the northeast, and the Don Carlos Hills with the Ute Creek Canyon onthe west, formed a sixty-mile triangle that was the range of the Pacer. It was believed that he never went outside this, and at all timesAntelope Springs was his headquarters. 

Jo knew this country well, all the water-holes and canon crossings aswell as the ways of the Pacer. 

If he could have gotten fifty good horses he could have posted them toadvantage so as to cover all points, but twenty mounts and five goodriders were all that proved available. 

The horses, grain-fed for two weeks before, were sent on ahead; each manwas instructed how to play his part and sent to his post the day beforethe race. On the day of the start Jo with his wagon drove to the plainof Antelope Springs and, camping far off in a little draw, waited. 

At last he came, that coal-black Horse, out from the sand-hills at thesouth, alone as always now, and walked calmly down to the Springs andcircled quite around it to sniff for any hidden foe. Then he approachedwhere there was no trail at all and drank. 

Jo watched and wished that he would drink a hogs-head. But the momentthat he turned and sought the grass Jo spurred his steed. The Pacerheard the hoofs, then saw the running horse, and did not want a nearerview but led away. Across the flat he went down to the south, and keptthe famous swinging gait that made his start grow longer. Now throughthe sandy dunes he went, and steadying to an even pace he gainedconsiderably and Jo's too-laden horse plunged through the sand andsinking fetlock deep, he lost at every bound. Then came a level stretchwhere the runner seemed to gain, and then a long decline where Jo'shorse dared not run his best, so lost again at every step. 

But on they went, and Jo spared neither spur nor quirt. A mile--amile--and another mile, and the far-off rock at Arriba loomed up ahead. 

And there Jo knew fresh mounts were held, and on they dashed. But thenight-black mane out level on the breeze ahead was gaining more andmore. 

Arriba Canon reached at last, the watcher stood aside, for it was notwished to turn the race, and the Stallion passed--dashed down, acrossand up the slope, with that unbroken pace, the only one he knew. 

And Jo came bounding on his foaming steed, and on the waiting mount, then urged him down the slope and up upon the track, and on the uplandonce more drove in the spurs, and raced and raced, and raced, but not asingle inch he gained. 

Ga-lump, ga-lump, ga-lump, with measured beat he went--an hour--an hour, and another hour--Arroyo Alamosa just ahead with fresh relays, and Joyelled at his horse and pushed him on and on. Straight for the place theBlack One made, but on the last two miles some strange foreboding turnedhim to the left, and Jo foresaw escape in this, and pushed his jadedmount at any cost to head him off, and hard as they had raced this wasthe hardest race of all, with gasps for breath and leather squeaks atevery straining bound. Then cutting right across, Jo seemed to gain, anddrawing his gun he fired shot after shot to toss the dust, and so turnedthe Stallion's head and forced him back to take the crossing to theright. 

Down they went. The Stallion crossed and Jo sprang to the ground. Hishorse was done, for thirty miles had passed in the last stretch, and Johimself was worn out. His eyes were burnt with flying alkali dust. Hewas half blind so he motioned to his 'pard' to "go ahead and keep himstraight for Alamosa ford. "

Out shot the rider on a strong, fresh steed, and away they went--up anddown on the rolling plain--the Black Horse flecked with snowy foam. His heaving ribs and noisy breath showed what he felt--but on and on heWent. 

And Tom on Ginger seemed to gain, then lose and lose, when in an hourthe long decline of Alamosa came. 

And there a freshly mounted lad took up the chase and turned it west, and on they went past towns of prairie dogs, through soapweed tracts andcactus brakes by scores, and pricked and wrenched rode on. With dust andsweat the Black was now a dappled brown, but still he stepped the same. Young Carrington, who followed, bad hurt his steed by pushing at thevery start, and spurred and urged him now to cut across a gulch at whichthe Pacer shied. Just one misstep and down they went. 

The boy escaped, but the pony lies there yet, and the wild Black Horsekept on. 

This was close to old Gallego's ranch where Jo himself had cut acrossrefreshed to push the chase. Within thirty minutes he was againscorching the Pacer's trail. 

Far in the west the Carlos Hills were seen, and there Jo knew fresh menand mounts were waiting, and that way the indomitable rider triedto turn, the race, but by a sudden whim, of the inner warning bornperhaps--the Pacer turned. Sharp to the north he went, and Jo, theskilful wrangler, rode and rode and yelled and tossed the dust withshots, but down on a gulch the wild black meteor streamed and Jocould only follow. Then came the hardest race of all; Jo, cruel to theMustang, was crueller to his mount and to himself. The sun was hot, thescorching plain was dim in shimmering heat, his eyes and lips were burntwith sand and salt, and yet the chase sped on. The only chance to winwould be if he could drive the Mustang back to the Big Arroyo Crossing. Now almost for the first time he saw signs of weakening in the Black. His mane and tail were not just quite so high, and his short half mileof start was down by more than half, but still he stayed ahead and pacedand paced and paced. 

An hour and another hour, and still they went the same. But they turnedagain, and night was near when Big Arroyo ford was reached--fully twentymiles. But Jo was game, he seized the waiting horse. The one he leftwent gasping to the stream and gorged himself with water till he died. 

Then Jo held back in hopes the foaming Black would drink. But he waswise; he gulped a single gulp, splashed through the stream and thenpassed on with Jo at speed behind him. And when they last were seen theBlack was on ahead just out of reach and Jo's horse bounding on. 

It was morning when Jo came to camp on foot. His tale was brieflytold:--eight horses dead--five men worn out--the matchless Pacer safeand free. 

"Tain't possible; it can't be done. Sorry I didn't bore his hellishcarcass through when I had the chance, " said Jo, and gave it up. 

VI

Old Turkeytrack was cook on this trip. He had watched the chase with asmuch interest as anyone, and when it failed he grinned into the pot andsaid: "That mustang's mine unless I'm a darned fool. " Then falling backon Scripture for a precedent, as was his habit, he still addressed thepot:

"Reckon the Philistines tried to run Samson down and they got done up, an' would a stayed don ony for a nat'ral weakness on his part. An' Adamwould a loafed in Eden yit it ony for a leetle failing, which we allonder stand. An' it aint $5, 000 I'll take for him nuther. "

Much persecution had made the Pacer wilder than ever. But it did notdrive him away from Antelope Springs. That was the only drinking-placewith absolutely no shelter for a mile on every side to hide an enemy. Here he came almost every day about noon, and after thoroughly spyingthe land approached to drink. 

His had been a lonely life all winter since the capture of his harem, and of this old Turkeytrack was fully aware. The old cook's chum had anice little brown mare which he judged would serve his ends, and takinga pair of the strongest hobbles, a spade, a spare lasso, and a stoutpost he mounted the mare and rode away to the famous Springs. 

A few antelope skimmed over the plain before him in the early freshnessof the day. Cattle were lying about in groups, and the loud, sweet songof the prairie lark was' heard on every side. For the bright snowlesswinter of the mesas was gone and the springtime was at hand. The grasswas greening and all nature seemed turning to thoughts of love. 

It was in the air, and when the little brown mare was picketed out tograze she raised her nose from time to time to pour forth a long shrillwhinny that surely was her song, if song she had, of love. 

Old Turkeytrack studied the wind and the lay of the land. There was thepit he had labored at, now opened and filled with water that was rankwith drowned prairie dogs and mice. Here was the new trail the animalswere forced to make by the pit. He selected a sedgy clump near somesmooth, grassy ground, and first firmly sunk the post, then dug a holelarge enough to hide in, and spread his blanket in it. He shortenedup the little mare's tether, till she could scarcely move; then on theground between he spread his open lasso, tying the long end to thepost, then covered the rope with dust and grass, and went into hishiding-place. 

About noon, after long waiting, the amorous whinny of the mare wasanswered from the high ground, away to the west, and there, blackagainst the sky, was the famous Mustang. 

Down he came at that long swinging gait, but grown crafty with muchpursuit, he often stopped to gaze and whinny, and got answer that surelytouched his heart. 

Nearer he came again to call, then took alarm, and paced all around ina great circle to try the wind for his foes, and seemed in doubt. TheAngel whispered "Don't go. " But the brown mare called again. He circlednearer still, and neighed once more, and got reply that seemed to quellall fears, and set his heart aglow. 

Nearer still he pranced, till he touched Solly's nose with his own, and finding her as responsive as he well could wish, thrust aside allthoughts of danger, and abandoned himself to the delight of conquest, until, as he pranced around, his hind legs for a moment stood within theevil circle of the rope. One deft sharp twitch, the noose flew tight, and he was caught. 

A snort of terror and a bound in the air gave Tom the chance to add thedouble hitch. The loop flashed up the line, and snake-like bound thosemighty hoofs. 

Terror lent speed and double strength for a moment, but the end of therope was reached, and down he went a captive, a hopeless prisonerat last. Old Tom's ugly, little crooked form sprang from the pit tocomplete the mastering of the great glorious creature whose mightystrength had proved as nothing when matched with the wits of a littleold man. With snorts and desperate bounds of awful force the great beastdashed and struggled to be free; but all in vain. The rope was strong. 

The second lasso was deftly swung, and the forefeet caught, and thenwith a skilful move the feet were drawn together, and down went theraging Pacer to lie a moment later 'hog-tied' and helpless on theground. There he struggled till worn out, sobbing great convulsive sobswhile tears ran down his cheeks. 

Tom stood by and watched, but a strange revulsion of feeling came overthe old cow-puncher. He trembled nervously from head to foot, as hehad not done since he roped his first steer, and for a while could donothing but gaze on his tremendous prisoner. But the feeling soon passedaway. He saddled Delilah, and taking the second lasso, roped the greathorse about the neck, and left the mare to hold the Stallion's head, while he put on the hobbles. This was soon done, and sure of him now oldBates was about to loose the ropes, but on a sudden thought he stopped. He had quite forgotten, and had come unprepared for something ofimportance. In Western law the Mustang was the property of the firstman to mark him with his brand; how was this to be done with the nearestbranding-iron twenty miles away?

Old Tom went to his mare, took up her hoofs one at a time, and examinedeach shoe. Yes! one was a little loose; he pushed and pried it with thespade, and got it off. Buffalo chips and kindred fuel were plentifulabout the plain, so a fire was quickly made, and he soon had one arm ofthe horse-shoe red hot, then holding the other wrapped in his sockhe rudely sketched on the left shoulder of the helpless mustang aturkeytrack, his brand, the first time really that it had ever beenused. The Pacer shuddered as the hot iron seared his flesh, but it wasquickly done, and the famous Mustang Stallion was a maverick no more. 

Now all there was to do was to take him home. The ropes were loosed, theMustang felt himself freed, thought he was free, and sprang to his feetonly to fall as soon as he tried to take a stride. His forefeet werestrongly tied together, his only possible gait a shuffling walk, or elsea desperate labored bounding with feet so unnaturally held that within afew yards he was inevitably thrown each time he tired to break away. Tom on the light pony headed him off again and again, and by dint ofdriving, threatening, and maneuvering, contrived to force his foaming, crazy captive northward toward the Pinavetitos Canyon. But the wild horsewould not drive, would not give in. With snorts of terror or of rage andmaddest bounds, he tried and tried to get away. It was one long cruelfight; his glossy sides were thick with dark foam, and the foam wasstained with blood. Countless hard falls and exhaustion that a longday's chase was powerless to produce were telling on him; his strainingbounds first this way and then that, were not now quite so strong, andthe spray he snorted as he gasped was half a spray of blood. But hiscaptor, relentless, masterful and cool, still forced him on. Down theslope toward the canyon they had come, every yard a fight, and nowthey were at the head of the draw that took the trail down to the onlycrossing of the canon, the northmost limit of the Pacer's ancient range. 

From this the first corral and ranch-house were in sight. The manrejoiced, but the Mustang gathered his remaining strength for one moredesperate dash. Up, up the grassy slope from the trail he went, defiedthe swinging, slashing rope and the gunshot fired in air, in vainattempt to turn his frenzied course. Up, up and on, above the sheerestcliff he dashed then sprang away into the vacant air, down--down--twohundred downward feet to fall, and land upon the rocks below, a lifelesswreck--but free. 

WULLY, The Story of a Yaller Dog

WULLY WAS a little yaller dog. A yaller dog, be it understood, is notnecessarily the same as a yellow dog. He is not simply a canine whosecapillary covering is highly charged with yellow pigment. He is themongrelest mixture of all mongrels, the least common multiple of alldogs, the breedless union of all breeds, and though of no breed at all, he is yet of older, better breed than any of his aristocratic relations, for he is nature's attempt to restore the ancestral jackal, the parentstock of all dogs. 

Indeed, the scientific name of the jackal (Canis aureus) means simply'yellow dog, ' and not a few of that animal's characteristics are seen inhis domesticated representative. For the plebeian cur is shrewd, active, and hardy, and far better equipped for the real struggle of life thanany of his 'thoroughbred' kinsmen. 

If we were to abandon a yaller dog, a greyhound, and a bulldog on adesert island, which of them after six months would be alive and well?Unquestionably it would be the despised yellow cur. He has not the speedof the greyhound, but neither does he bear the seeds of lung and skindiseases. He has not the strength or reckless courage of the bulldog, but he has something a thousand times better, he has common sense. Health and wit are no mean equipment for the life struggle, and when thedog-world is not 'managed' by man, they have never yet failed to bringout the yellow mongrel as the sole and triumphant survivor. 

Once in a while the reversion to the jackal type is more complete, andthe yaller dog has pricked and pointed ears. Beware of him then. He iscunning and plucky and can bite like a wolf. There is a strange, wildstreak in his nature too, that under cruelty or long adversity maydevelop into deadliest treachery in spite of the better traits that arethe foundation of man's love for the dog. 

I

Away up in the Cheviots little Wully was born. He and one other of thelitter were kept; his brother because he resembled the best dog in thevicinity, and himself because he was a little yellow beauty. 

His early life was that of a sheep-dog, in company with an experiencedcollie who trained him, and an old shepherd who was scarcely inferiorto them in intelligence. By the time he was two years old Wully wasfull grown and had taken a thorough course in sheep. He knew them fromram-horn to lamb-hoof, and old Robin, his master, at length had suchconfidence in his sagacity that he would frequently stay at the tavernall night while Wully guarded the woolly idiots in the hills. Hiseducation had been wisely bestowed and in most ways he was a very brightlittle dog with a future before him, Yet he never learned to despisethat addlepated Robin. The old shepherd, with all his faults, hiscontinual striving after his ideal state--intoxication--and hismind-shrivelling life in general was rarely brutal to Wully, and Wullyrepaid him with an exaggerated worship that the greatest and wisest inthe land would have aspired to in vain. 

Wully could not have imagined any greater being than Robin, and yet forthe sum of five shillings a week all Robin's vital energy and mentalforce were pledged to the service of a not very great cattle and sheepdealer, the real proprietor of Wully's charge, and when this man, reallyless great than the neighboring laird, or dered Robin to drive his flockby stages to the Yorkshire moors and markets, of all the 376 mentalitiesconcerned, if Wully's was the most interested and interesting. 

The journey through Northumberland was uneventful. At the River Tynethe sheep were driven on to the ferry and landed safely in smoky SouthShields. The great factory chimneys were just starting up for the dayand belching out fogbanks and thunder-rollers of opaque leaden smokethat darkened the air and hung low like a storm-cloud over the streets. The sheep thought that they recognized the fuming dun of an unusuallyheavy Cheviot storm. They became alarmed, and in spite of their keepersstampeded through the town in 374 different directions. 

Robin was vexed to the inmost recesses of his tiny soul. He staredstupidly after the sheep for half a minute, then gave the order, "Wully, fetch them in. " After this mental effort he sat down, lit his pipe, andtaking out his knitting began work on a half-finished sock. 

To Wully the voice of Robin was the voice of God. Away he ran in 374different directions, and headed off and rounded up the 374 differentwanderers, and brought them back to the ferry-house before Robin, whowas stolidly watching the process, had toed off his sock. 

Finally Wully--not Robin--gave the sign that all were in. The oldshepherd proceeded to count them--370, 371, 372, 373. 

"Wully, " he said reproachfully, "thar no' a' here. Thur's anither. " AndWully, stung with shame, bounded off to scour the whole city for themissing one. He was not long gone when a small boy pointed out toRobin that the sheep were all there, the whole 374. Now Robin was in aquandary. His order was to hasten on to Yorkshire, and yet he knew thatWully's pride would prevent his coming back without another sheep, evenif he had to steal it. Such things had happened before, and resulted inembarrassing complications. What should he do?

There was five shillings a week at stake. Wully was a good dog, it wasa pity to lose him, but then, his orders from the master; and again, if Wully stole an extra sheep to make up the number, then what--in aforeign land too? He decided to abandon Wully, and push on alone withthe sheep. And how he fared no one knows or cares. 

Meanwhile, Wully careered through miles of streets hunting in vain forhis lost sheep. All day he searched, and at night, famished and wornout, he sneaked shamefacedly back to the ferry, only to find thatmaster and sheep had gone. His sorrow was pitiful to see. He ran aboutwhimpering, then took the ferryboat across to the other side, andsearched everywhere for Robin. He returned to South Shields and searchedthere, and spent the rest of the night seeking for his wretched idol. The next day he continued his search, he crossed and recrossed theriver many times. He watched and smelt everyone that came over, and withsignificant shrewdness he sought unceasingly in the neighboring tavernsfor his master. The next day he set to work systematically to smelleveryone that might cross the ferry. 

The ferry makes fifty trips a day, with an average of one hundredpersons a trip, yet never once did Wully fail to be on the gang-plankand smell every pair of legs that crossed--5, 000 pairs, 10, 000 legs thatday did Wully examine after his own fashion. And the next day, andthe next, and all the week he kept his post, and seemed indifferent tofeeding himself. Soon starvation and worry began to tell on him. Hegrew thin and ill-tempered. No one could touch him, and any attemptto interfere with his daily occupation of leg-smelling roused him todesperation. 

Day after day, week after week Wully watched and waited for his master, who never came. The ferry men learned to respect Wully's fidelity. Atfirst he scorned their proffered food and shelter, and lived no one knewhow, but starved to it at last, he accepted the gifts and learned totolerate the givers. Although embittered against the world, his heartwas true to his worthless master. 

Fourteen months afterward I made his acquaintance. He was still on rigidduty at his post. He had regained his good looks. His bright, keen faceset off by his white ruff and pricked ears made a dog to catch the eyeanywhere. But he gave me no second glance, once he found my legs werenot those he sought, and in spite of my friendly overtures during theten months following that he continued his watch. I got no farther intohis confidence than any other stranger. 

For two whole years did this devoted creature attend that ferry. Therewas only one thing to prevent him going home to the hills, not thedistance nor the chance of getting lost, but the conviction that Robin, the godlike Robin, wished him to stay by the ferry; and he stayed. 

But he crossed the water as often as he felt it would serve his purpose. The fare for a dog was one penny, and it was calculated that Wully owedthe company hundreds of pounds before he gave up his quest. Henever failed to sense every pair of nethers that crossed thegangplank--6, 000, 000 legs by computation had been pronounced upon bythis expert. But all to no purpose. 

His unswerving fidelity never faltered, though his temper was obviouslysouring under the long strain. 

We had never heard what became of Robin, but one day a sturdy droverstrode down the ferry-slip and Wully mechanically assaying the newpersonality, suddenly started, his mane bristled, he trembled, a lowgrowl escaped him, and he fixed his every sense on the drover. 

One of the ferry hands not understanding, called to the stranger, "Hootmon, ye maunna hort oor dawg. "

"Whaes hortin 'im, ye fule; he is mair like to hort me. " But furtherexplanation was not necessary. Wully's manner had wholly changed. Hefawned on the drover, and his tail was wagging violently for the firsttime in years. A few words made it all clear. Dorley, the drover, hadknown Robin very well, and the mittens and comforter he wore wereof Robin's own make and had once been part of his wardrobe. Wullyrecognized the traces of his master, and despairing of any nearerapproach to his lost idol, he abandoned his post at the ferry andplainly announced his intention of sticking to the owner of the mittens, and Dorley was well pleased to take Wully along to his home among thehills of Derbyshire, where he became once more a sheep-dog in charge ofa flock. 

II

Monsaldale is one of the best-known valleys in Derbyshire. The Pigand Whistle is its single but celebrated inn, and Jo Greatorex, thelandlord, is a shrewd and sturdy Yorkshireman. Nature meant him for afrontiersman, but circumstances made him an innkeeper and his inborntastes made him a--well, never mind; there was a great deal of poachingdone in that country. 

Wully's new home was on the upland east of the valley above Jo's inn, and that fact was not without weight in bringing me to Monsaldale. Hismaster, Doricy, farmed in a small way on the lowland, and on the moorshad a large number of sheep. These Wully guarded with his old-timesagacity, watching them while they fed and bringing them to the fold atnight. He was reserved and preoccupied for a dog, and rather tooready to show his teeth to strangers, but he was so unremitting inhis attention to his flock that Dorley did not lose a lamb that year, although the neighboring farmers paid the usual tribute to eagles and tofoxes. 

The dales are poor fox-hunting country at best. The rocky ridges, highstone walls, and precipices are too numerous to please the riders, andthe final retreats in the rocks are so plentiful that it was a marvelthe foxes did not overrun Monsaldale. But they didn't. There had beenbut little reason for complaint until the year 1881, when a sly old foxquartered himself on the fat parish, like a mouse inside a cheese, andlaughed equally at the hounds of the huntsmen and the lurchers of thefarmers. He was several times run by the Peak hounds, and escaped bymaking for the Devil's Hole. Once in this gorge, where the cracks in therocks extend unknown distances, he was safe. The country folk began tosee something more than chance in the fact that he always escaped at theDevil's Hole, and when one of the hounds who nearly caught this Devil'sFox soon after went mad, it removed all doubt as to the spiritualpaternity of said fox. 

He continued his career of rapine, making audacious raids andhair-breadth escapes, and finally began, as do many old foxes, to killfrom a mania for slaughter. Thus it was that Digby lost ten lambs in onenight. Carroll lost seven the next night. Later, the vicarage duck-pondwas wholly devastated, and scarcely a night passed but someone in theregion had to report a carnage of poultry, lambs or sheep, and, finallyeven calves. 

Of course all the slaughter was attributed to this one fox of theDevil's Hole. It was known only that he was a very large fox, at leastone that made a very large track. He never was clearly seen, even by thehuntsmen. And it was noticed that Thunder and Bell, the stanchest houndsin the pack, had refused to tongue or even to follow the trail when hewas hunted. 

His reputation for madness sufficed to make the master of the Peakhounds avoid the neighborhood. The farmers in Monsaldale, led by Jo, agreed among themselves that if it would only come on a snow, they wouldassemble and beat the whole country, and in defiance of all rules of thehunt, get rid of the 'daft' fox in any way they could. But the snow didnot come, and the red-haired gentleman lived his life. Notwithstandinghis madness, he did not lack method. He never came two successive nightsto the same farm. He never ate where he killed, and he never left atrack that betrayed his re-treat. He usually finished up his night'strail on the turf, or on a public highway. 

Once I saw him. I was walking to Monsaldale from Bakewell late one nightduring a heavy storm, and as I turned the corner of Stead's sheep-foldthere was a vivid flash of lightning. By its light, there was fixed onmy retina a picture that made me start. Sitting on his haunches by theroadside, twenty yards away, was a very large fox gazing at me withmalignant eyes, and licking his muzzle in a suggestive manner. Allthis I saw, but no more, and might have forgotten it, or thought myselfmistaken, but the next morning, in that very fold, were found the bodiesof twenty-three lambs and sheep, and the unmistakable signs that broughthome the crime to the well-known marauder. 

There was only one man who escaped, and that was Dorley. This was themore remarkable because he lived in the centre of the region raided, andwithin one mile of the Devil's Hole. Faithful Wully proved himself worthall the dogs in the neighborhood. Night after night he brought in thesheep, and never one was missing. The Mad Fox might prowl about theDorley homestead if he wished, but Wully, shrewd, brave, active Wullywas more than a match for him, and not only saved his master's flock, but himself escaped with a whole skin. Everyone entertained a profoundrespect for him, and he might have been a popular pet but for his temperwhich, never genial, became more and more crabbed. He seemed to likeDorley, and Huldah, Dorley's eldest daughter, a shrewd, handsome, youngwoman, who, in the capacity of general manager of the house, was Wully'sspecial guardian. The other members of Doricy's family Wully learned totolerate, but the rest of the world, men and dogs, he seemed to hate. 

His uncanny disposition was well shown in the last meeting I had withhim. I was walking on a pathway across the moor behind Dorley's house. Wully was lying on the doorstep. As I drew near he arose, and withoutappearing to see me trotted toward my pathway and placed himself acrossit about ten yards ahead of me. There he stood silently and intentlyregarding the distant moor, his slightly bristling mane the only signthat he had not been suddenly turned to stone. He did not stir as Icame up, and not wishing to quarrel, I stepped around past his nose andwalked on. Wully at once left his position and in the same eerie silencetrotted on some twenty feet and again stood across the pathway. Oncemore I came up and, stepping into the grass, brushed past his nose. Instantly, but without a sound, he seized my left heel. I kicked outwith the other foot, but he escaped. Not having a stick, I flung a largestone at him. He leaped forward and the stone struck him in the ham, bowling him over into a ditch. He gasped out a savage growl as he fell, but scrambled out of the ditch and limped away in silence. 

Yet sullen and ferocious as Wully was to the world, he was always gentlewith Dorley's sheep. Many were the tales of rescues told of him. Manya poor lamb that had fallen into a pond or hole would have perished butfor his timely and sagacious aid, many a far-weltered ewe did he turnright side up; while his keen eye discerned and his fierce couragebaffled every eagle that had appeared on the moor in his time. 

III

The Monsaldale farmers were still paying their nightly tribute to theMad Fox, when the snow came, late in December. Poor Widow Cot lost herentire flock of twenty sheep, and the fiery cross went forth early inthe morning. With guns unconcealed the burly farmers set out to followto the finish the tell-tale tracks in the snow, those of a very largefox, undoubtedly the multo-murderous villain. For a while the trail wasclear enough, then it came to the river and the habitual cunning of theanimal was shown. He reached the water at a long angle pointing downstream and jumped into the shallow, unfrozen current. But at theother side there was no track leading out, and it was only after longsearching that, a quarter of a mile higher up the stream, they foundwhere he had come out. The track then ran to the top of Henley's highstone wall, where there was no snow left to tell tales. But the patienthunters persevered. When it crossed the smooth snow from the wall to thehigh road there was a difference of opinion. Some claimed that the trackwent up, others down the road. But Jo settled it, and after another longsearch they found where apparently the same trail, though some said alarger one, had left the road to enter a sheep-fold, and leaving thiswithout harming the occupants, the track-maker had stepped in thefootmarks of a countryman, thereby getting to the moor road, along whichhe had trotted straight to Dorley's farm. 

That day the sheep were kept in on account of the snow and Wully, without his usual occupation, was lying on some planks in the sun. Asthe hunters drew near the house, he growled savagely and sneaked aroundto where the sheep were. Jo Greatorex walked up to where Wully hadcrossed the fresh snow, gave a glance, looked dumbfounded, then pointingto the retreating sheep-dog, he said, with emphasis:

"Lads, we're off the track of the Fox. But there's the killer of theWidder's yowes. "

Some agreed with Jo, others recalled the doubt in the trail and were forgoing back to make a fresh follow. At this juncture, Dorley himself cameout of the house. 

"Tom, " said Jo, "that dog o' thine 'as killed twenty of Widder Gelt'ssheep, last night. An' ah fur one don't believe as its 'is firstkillin'. "

"Why, mon, thou art crazy, " said Tom. "Ah never 'ad a bettersheep-dog--'e fair loves the sheep. "

"Aye! We's seen summat o' that in las' night's work, " replied Jo. 

In vain the company related the history of the morning. Tom swore thatit was nothing but a jealous conspiracy to rob him of Wully. 

"Wully sleeps i' the kitchen every night. Never is oot till he's letto bide wi' the yowes. Why, mon, he's wi' oor sheep the year round, andnever a hoof have ah lost. "

Tom became much excited over this abominable attempt against Wully'sreputation and life. Jo and his partisans got equally angry, and it wasa wise suggestion of Huldah's that quieted them. 

"Feyther, " said she, "ah'll sleep i' the kitchen the night. If Wully'as ae way of gettin' oot ah'll see it, an' if he's no oot an' sheep'skilled on the country-side, we'll ha' proof it's na Wully. "

That night Huldah stretched herself on the settee and Wully slept asusual underneath the table. As night wore on the dog became restless. Heturned on his bed and once or twice got up, stretched, looked at Huldahand lay down again. About two o'clock he seemed no longer able to resistsome strange impulse. He arose quietly, looked toward the low window, then at the motionless girl. Huldah lay still and breathed as thoughsleeping. Wully slowly came near and sniffed and breathed his doggybreath in her face. She made no move. He nudged her gently with hisnose. Then, with his sharp ears forward and his head on one side hestudied her calm face. Still no sign. He walked quietly to the window, mounted the table without noise, placed his nose under the sash-barand raised the light frame until he could put one paw underneath. Thenchanging, he put his nose under the sash and raised it high enough toslip out, easing down the frame finally on his rump and tail with anadroitness that told of long practice. Then he disappeared into thedarkness. 

From her couch Huldah watched in amazement. After waiting for some timeto make sure that he was gone, she arose, intending to call her fatherat once, but on second thought she decided to await more conclusiveproof. She peered into the darkness, but no sign of Wully was to beseen. She put more wood on the fire, and lay down again. For over anhour she lay wide awake listening to the kitchen clock, and starting ateach trifling sound, and wondering what the dog was doing. Could itbe possible that he had really killed the widow's sheep? Then therecollection of his gentleness to their own sheep came, and completedher perplexity. 

Another hour slowly tick-tocked. She heard a slight sound at the windowthat made her heart jump. The scratching sound was soon followed by thelifting of the sash, and in a short time Wully was back in the kitchenwith the window closed behind him. 

By the flickering fire-light Huldah could see a strange, wild gleam inhis eye, and his jaws and snowy breast were dashed with fresh blood. Thedog ceased his slight panting as he scrutinized the girl. Then, asshe did not move, he lay down, and began to lick his paws and muzzle, growling lowly once or twice as though at the remembrance of some recentoccurrence. 

Huldah had seen enough. There could no longer be any doubt that Jo wasright and more--a new thought flashed into her quick brain, she realizedthat the weird fox of Monsal was before her. Raising herself, she lookedstraight at Wully, and exclaimed:

"Wully! Wully! so it's a' true--oh, Wully, ye terrible brute. "

Her voice was fiercely reproachful, it rang in the quiet kitchen, andWully recoiled as though shot. He gave a desperate glance toward theclosed window. His eye gleamed, and his mane bristled. But he coweredunder her gaze, and grovelled on the floor as though begging for mercy. Slowly he crawled nearer and nearer, as if to lick her feet, until quiteclose, then, with the fury of a tiger, but without a sound, he sprangfor her throat. 

The girl was taken unawares, but she threw up her arm in time, andWully's long, gleaming tusks sank into her flesh, and grated on thebone. 

"Help! help! feyther! feyther!" she shrieked. 

Wully was a light weight, and for a moment she flung him off. But therecould be no mistaking his purpose. The game was up, it was his life orhers now. 

"Feyther! feyther!" she screamed, as the yellow fury, striving to killher, bit and tore the unprotected hands that had so often fed him. 

In vain she fought to hold him off, he would soon have had her by thethroat, when in rushed Dorley. 

Straight at him, now in the same horrid silence sprang Wully, andsavagely tore him again and again before a deadly blow from thefagot-hook disabled him, dashing him, gasping and writhing, on thestone floor, desperate, and done for, but game and defiant to the last. Another quick blow scattered his brains on the hearthstone, where solong he had been a faithful and honored retainer--and Wully, bright, fierce, trusty, treacherous Wully, quivered a moment, then straightenedout, and lay forever still. 

REDRUFF, The Story of the Don Valley Partridge

I

DOWN THE wooded slope of Taylor's Hill the Mother Partridge led herbrood; down toward the crystal brook that by some strange whim wascalled Mud Creek. Her little ones were one day old but already quick onfoot, and she was taking them for the first time to drink. 

She walked slowly, crouching low as she went, for the woods were full ofenemies. She was uttering a soft little cluck in her throat, a callto the little balls of mottled down that on their tiny pink legs cametoddling after, and peeping softly and plaintively if left even a fewinches behind, and seeming so fragile they made the very chickadees lookbig and coarse. There were twelve of them, but Mother Grouse watchedthem all, and she watched every bush and tree and thicket, and the wholewoods and the sky itself. Always for enemies she seemed seeking--friendswere too scarce to be looked for--and an enemy she found. Away acrossthe level beaver meadow was a great brute of a fox. He was coming theirway, and in a few moments would surely wind them or strike their trail. There was no time to lose. 

'Krrr! Krrr!' (Hide!! Hide!) cried the mother in a low firm voice, andthe little bits of things, scarcely bigger than acorns and but a dayold, scattered far (a few inches) apart to hide. One dived under a leaf, another between two roots, a third crawled into a curl of birchbark, afourth into a hole, and so on, till all were hidden but one who couldfind no cover, so squatted on a broad yellow chip and lay very flat, andclosed his eyes very tight, sure that now he was safe from being seen. They ceased their frightened peeping and all was still. 

Mother Partridge flew straight toward the dreaded beast, alightedfearlessly a few yards to one side of him, and then flung herself on theground, flopping as though winged and lame--oh, so dreadfully lame--andwhining like a distressed puppy. Was she begging for mercy--mercy froma bloodthirsty, cruel fox? Oh, dear no! She was no fool. One often hearsof the cunning of the fox. Wait and see what a fool he is compared witha mother-partridge. Elated at the prize so suddenly within his reach, the fox turned with a dash and caught--at least, no, he didn't quitecatch the bird; she flopped by chance just a foot out of reach. Hefollowed with another jump and would have seized her this time surely, but somehow a sapling came just between, and the partridge draggedherself awkwardly away and under a log, but the great brute snapped hisjaws and hounded over the log, while she, seeming a trifle less lame, made another clumsy forward spring and tumbled down a bank, and Reynard, keenly following, almost caught her tail, but, oddly enough, fast ashe went and leaped, she still seemed just a trifle faster. It was mostextraordinary. A winged partridge and he, Reynard, the Swift-foot, hadnot caught her in five minutes' racing. It was really shameful. But thepartridge seemed to gain strength as the fox put forth his, and after aquarter of a mile race, racing that was somehow all away from Taylor'sHill, the bird got unaccountably quite well, and, rising with a derisivewhirr, flew off through the woods leaving the fox utterly dumfoundedto realize that he had been made a fool of, and, worst of all, he nowremembered that this was not the first time he had been served this verytrick, though he never knew the reason for it. 

Meanwhile Mother Partridge skimmed in a great circle and came by aroundabout way back to the little fuzz-balls she had left hidden in thewoods. 

With a wild bird's keen memory for places, she went to the verygrass-blade she last trod on, and stood for a moment fondly to admirethe perfect stillness of her children. Even at her step not one hadstirred, and the little fellow on the chip, not so very badly concealedafter all, had not budged, nor did he now; he only closed his eyes atiny little bit harder, till the mother said:

'K-reet!' (Come, children) and instantly like a fairy story, every holegave up its little baby-partridge, and the wee fellow on the chip, thebiggest of them all really, opened his big-little eyes and ran to theshelter of her broad tail, with a sweet little 'peep peep' which anenemy could not have heard three feet away, but which his mother couldnot have missed thrice as far, and all the other thimblefuls of downjoined in, and no doubt thought themselves dreadfully noisy, and wereproportionately happy. 

The sun was hot now. There was an open space to cross on the road to thewater, and, after a careful lookout for enemies, the mother gathered thelittle things under the shadow of her spread fantail and kept off alldanger of sunstroke until they reached the brier thicket by the stream. 

Here a cottontail rabbit leaped out and gave them a great scare. But theflag of truce he carried behind was enough. He was an old friend; andamong other things the little ones learned that day that Bunny alwayssails under a flag of truce, and lives up to it too. 

And then came the drink, the purest of living water, though silly menhad called it Mud Creek. 

At first the little fellows didn't know how to drink, but they copiedtheir mother, and soon learned to drink like her and give thanks afterevery sip. There they stood in a row along the edge, twelve little brownand golden balls on twenty-four little pink-toed, in-turned feet, withtwelve sweet little golden heads gravely bowing, drinking and givingthanks like their mother. 

Then she led them by short stages, keeping the cover, to the far side ofthe beaver-meadow, where was a great grassy dome. The mother had made anote of this dome some time before. It takes a number of such domes toraise a brood of partridges. For this was an ant's nest. The old onestepped on top, looked about a moment, then gave half a dozen vigorousrakes with her daws, The friable ant-hill was broken open, and theearthen galleries scattered in ruins down the slope. The ants swarmedout and quarreled with each other for lack of a better plan. Some ranaround the hill with vast energy and little purpose, while a few of themore sensible began to carry away fat white eggs. But the old partridge, coming to the little ones, picked up one of these juicy-looking bags andclucked and dropped it, and picked it up again and again and clucked, then swallowed it. The young ones stood around, then one little yellowfellow, the one that sat on the chip, picked up an ant-egg, dropped ita few times, then yielding to a sudden impulse, swallowed it, and so hadlearned to eat. Within twenty minutes even the runt bad learned, and amerry time they had scrambling after the delicious eggs as their motherbroke open more ant-galleries, and sent them and their contents rollingdown the bank, till every little partridge had so crammed his littlecrop that he was positively misshapen and could eat no more. 

Then all went cautiously up the stream, and on a sandy bank, wellscreened by brambles, they lay for all that afternoon, and learned howpleasant it was to feel the cool powdery dust running between their hotlittle toes. With their strong bent for copying, they lay on their sideslike their mother and scratched with their tiny feet and flopped withtheir wings, though they had no wings to flop with, only a little tagamong the down on each side, to show where the wings would come. Thatnight she took them to a dry thicket near by, and there among the crisp, dead leaves that would prevent an enemy's silent approach on foot, andunder the interlacing briers that kept off all foes of the air, shecradled them in their feather-shingled nursery and rejoiced in thefulness of a mother's joy over the wee cuddling things that peeped intheir sleep and snuggled so trustfully against her warm body. 

II

The third day the chicks were much stronger on their feet. Theyno longer had to go around an acorn; they could even scramble overpine-cones, and on the little tags that marked the places for theirwings, were now to be seen blue rows of fat blood-quills. 

Their start in life was a good mother, good legs, a few reliableinstincts, and a germ of reason. It was instinct, that is, inheritedhabit, which taught them to hide at the word from their mother; it wasinstinct that taught them to follow her, but it was reason which madethem keep under the shadow of her tail when the sun was smiting down, and from that day reason entered more and more into their expandinglives. 

Next day the blood-quills had sprouted the tips of feathers. On thenext, the feathers were well Out, and a week later the whole family ofdown-clad babies were strong on the wing. 

And yet not all--poor little Runtie had been sickly from the first. Hebore his half-shell on his back for hours after he came out; he ran lessand cheeped more than his brothers, and when one evening at the onsetof a skunk the mother gave the word 'Kwit, kwit' (Fly, fly), Runtie wasleft behind, and when she gathered her brood on the piney hill he wasmissing, and they saw him no more. 

Meanwhile, their training had gone on. They knew that the finestgrasshoppers abounded in the long grass by the brook; they knew that thecurrant-bushes dropped fatness in the form of smooth, green worms; theyknew that the dome of an ant-hill rising against the distant woods stoodfor a garner of plenty; they knew that strawberries, though not reallyinsects, were almost as delicious; they knew that the huge danaidbutterflies were good, safe game, if they could only catch them, andthat a slab of bark dropping from the side of a rotten log was sure toabound in good things of many different kinds; and they had learned, also, that yellow-jackets, mud-wasps, woolly worms, and hundred-leggerswere better let alone. 

It was now July, the Moon of Berries. The chicks had grown andflourished amazingly during this last month, and were now so large thatin her efforts to cover them the mother was kept standing all night. 

They took their daily dust-bath, but of late had changed to anotherhigher on the hill. It was one in use by many different birds, and atfirst the mother disliked the Idea of such a second-hand bath. But thedust was of such a fine, agreeable quality, and the children led the waywith such enthusiasm, that she forgot her mistrust. 

After a fortnight the little ones began to droop and she herself did notfeel very well. They were always hungry, and though they ate enormously, they one and all grew thinner and thinner. The mother was the last to beaffected. But when it came, it came as hard on her--a ravenous hunger, afeverish headache, and a wasting weakness. She never knew the cause. Shecould not know that the dust of the much-used dust-bath, that her trueinstinct taught her to mistrust at first, and now again to shun, wassown with parasitic worms, and that all of the family were infested. 

No natural impulse is without a purpose. The mother-birds knowledge ofhealing was only to follow natural impulse. The eager, feverish cravingfor something, she knew not what, led her to eat, or try, everythingthat looked eatable and to seek the coolest woods. And there she found adeadly sumac laden with its poison fruit. 

A month ago she would have passed it by, but now she tried theunattractive berries. The acrid burning juice seemed to answer somestrange demand of her body; she ate and ate, and all her family joinedin the strange feast of physic. No human doctor could have hit itbetter; it proved a biting, drastic purge, the dreadful secret foe wasdowned, the danger passed. But not for all--Nature, the old nurse, hadcome too late for two of them. The weakest, by inexorable law, droppedout. Enfeebled by the disease, the remedy was too severe for them. Theydrank and drank by the stream, and next morning did not move when theothers followed the mother. Strange vengeance was theirs now, fora skunk, the same that could have told where Runtie went, found anddevoured their bodies and died of the poison they had eaten. 

Seven little partridges now obeyed the mother's call. Their individualcharacters were early shown and now developed fast. The weaklings weregone, but there were still a fool and a lazy one. The mother could nothelp caring for some more than for others, and her favorite was thebiggest, he who once sat on the yellow chip for concealment. He was notonly the biggest, strongest, and handsomest of the brood, but best ofall, the most obedient. His mother's warning 'rrrrr' (danger) didnot always keep the others from a risky path or a doubtful food, butobedience seemed natural to him, and he never failed to respond to hersoft 'K-reet' (Come), and of this obedience he reaped the reward, forhis days were longest in the land. 

August, the Molting Moon, went by; the young ones were now three partsgrown. They knew just enough to think themselves wonderfully wise. Whenthey were small it was necessary to sleep on the ground so their mothercould shelter them, but now they were too big to need that, and themother began to introduce grownup ways of life. It was time to roost inthe trees. The young weasels, foxes, skunks, and minks were beginningto run. The ground grew more dangerous each night, so at sundown MotherPartridge called 'K-reet, ' and flew into a thick, low tree. 

The little ones followed, except one, an obstinate little fool whopersisted in sleeping on the ground as heretofore. It was all right thattime, but the next night his brothers were awakened by his cries. Therewas a slight scuffle, then stillness, broken only by a horrid soundof crunching bones and a smacking of lips. They peered down into theterrible darkness below, where the glint of two close-set eyes and apeculiar musty smell told them that a mink was the killer of their foolbrother. 

Six little partridges now sat in a row at night, with their mother inthe middle, though it was not unusual for some little one with cold feetto perch on her back. 

Their education went on, and about this time they were taught'whirring. ' A partridge can rise on the wing silently if it wishes, butwhirring is so important at times that all are taught how and when torise on thundering wings. Many ends are gained by the whirr. It warnsall other partridges near that danger is at hand, it unnerves thegunner, or it fixes the foe's attention on the whirrer, while the otherssneak off in silence, or by squatting, escape notice. 

A partridge adage might well be 'foes and food for every moon. 'September came, with seeds and grain in place of berries and ant-eggs, and gunners in place of skunks and minks. 

The partridges knew well what a fox was, but had scarcely seen a dog. Afox they knew they could easily baffle by taking to a tree, but whenin the Gunner Moon old Cuddy came prowling through the ravine with hisbob-tailed yellow cur, the mother spied the dog and cried out, 'Kwit!kwit!' (Fly, fly). Two of the brood thought it a pity their mothershould lose her wits so easily over a fox, and were pleased to showtheir superior nerve by springing into a tree in spite of her earnestlyrepeated 'Kwit! kwit!' and her example of speeding away on silent wings. 

Meanwhile, the strange bob-tailed fox came under the tree and yappedand yapped at them. They were much amused at him and at their mother andbrothers, so much that they never noticed a rustling in the bushestill there was a loud Bang! bang! and down fell two bloody, floppingpartridges, to be seized and mangled by the yellow cur until the gunnerran from the bushes and rescued the remains. 

III

Cuddy lived in a wretched shanty near the Don, north of Toronto. His waswhat Greek philosophy would have demonstrated to be an ideal existence. He had no wealth, no taxes, no social pretensions, and no property tospeak of. His life was made up of a very little work and a great dealof play, with as much outdoor life as he chose. He considered himselfa true sportsman because he was 'fond o' huntin', ' and 'took a sight o'comfort out of seem' the critters hit the mud, when his gun was fired. The neighbors called him a squatter, and looked on him merely as ananchored tramp. He shot and trapped the year round, and varied his gamesomewhat with the season perforce, but had been heard to remark he couldtell the month by the 'taste o' the partridges, ' if he didn't happen toknow by the almanac. This, no doubt, showed keen observation, but wasalso unfortunate proof of something not so creditable. The lawful seasonfor murdering partridges began September 15th, but there was nothingsurprising in Cuddy's being out a fortnight ahead of time. Yet hemanaged to escape punishment year after year, and even contrived to posein a newspaper interview as an interesting character. 

He rarely shot on the wing, preferring to pot his birds, which was noteasy to do when the leaves were on, and accounted for the brood in thethird ravine going so long unharmed; but the near prospect of othergunners finding them now, had stirred him to go after 'a mess o' birds. 'He had heard no roar of wings when the mother-bird led off her foursurvivors, so pocketed the two he had killed and returned to the shanty. 

The little grouse thus learned that a dog is not a fox, and mustbe differently played; and an old lesson was yet more deeplygraven--'Obedience is long life. '

The rest of September was passed in keeping quietly out of the way ofgunners as well as some old enemies. They still roosted on the longthin branches of the hardwood trees among the thickest leaves, whichprotected them from foes in the air; the height saved them from foes onthe ground, and left them nothing to fear but coons, whose slow, heavytread on the timber boughs never failed to give them timely warning. Butthe leaves were falling now--every month its foes and its food. Thiswas nut time, and it was owl time, too. Barred owls coming down fromthe north doubled or trebled the owl population. The nights were gettingfrosty and the coons less dangerous, so the mother changed the place ofroosting to the thickest foliage of a hemlock-tree. 

Only one of the brood disregarded the warning 'Kreet, kreet. ' He stuckto his swinging elm-bough, now nearly naked, and a great yellow-eyed owlbore him off before morning. 

Mother and three young ones now were left, but they were as big as shewas; indeed one, the eldest, he of the chip, was bigger. Their ruffshad begun to show. Just the tips, to tell what they would be like whengrown, and not a little proud they were of them. 

The ruff is to the partridge what the train is to the peacock--his chiefbeauty and his pride. A hen's ruff is black with a slight green gloss. A cock's is much larger and blacker and is glossed with more vividbottle-green. Once in a while a partridge is born of unusual sizeand vigor, whose ruff is not only larger, but by a peculiar kind ofintensification is of a deep coppery red, iridescent with violet, green, and gold. Such a bird is sure to--be a wonder to all who know him, andthe little one who had squatted on the chip, and had always done whathe was told, developed before the Acorn Moon had changed, into allthe glory of a gold and copper ruff--for this was Redruff, the famouspartridge of the Don Valley. 

IV

One day late in the Acorn Moon, that is, about mid-October, as thegrouse family were basking with full crops near a great pine log on thesunlit edge of the beaver-meadow, they heard the far-away bang of agun, and Redruff, acting on some impulse from within, leaped on the log, strutted up and down a couple of times, then, yielding to the elation ofthe bright, clear, bracing air, he whirred his wings in loud defiance. Then, giving fuller vent to this expression of vigor, just as a coltfrisks to show how well he feels, he whirred yet more loudly, until, unwittingly, he found himself drumming, and tickled with the discoveryof his new power, thumped the air again and again till he filled thenear woods with the loud tattoo of the fully grown cock-partridge. Hisbrother and sister heard and looked on with admiration and surprise, sodid his mother, but from that time she began to be a little afraid ofhim. 

In early November comes the moon of a weird foe. By a strange law ofnature, not wholly without parallel among mankind, all partridges gocrazy in the November moon of their first year. They become possessed ofa mad hankering to get away somewhere, ' it does not matter much where. And the wisest of them do all sorts of foolish things at this period. They go drifting, perhaps, at speed over the country by night and arecut in two by wires, or dash into lighthouses, or locomotive headlights. Daylight finds them in all sorts of absurd places, in buildings, in openmarshes, perched on telephone wires in a great city, or even on boardof coasting vessels. The craze seems to be a relic of a bygone habitof migration, and it has at least one good effect, it breaks up thefamilies and prevents the constant intermarrying, which would surely befatal to their race. It always takes the young badly their first year, and they may have it again the second fall, for it is very catching; butin the third season it is practically unknown. 

Redruff's mother knew it was coming as soon as she saw the frost grapesblackening, and the maples shedding their crimson and gold. There wasnothing to do but care for their health and keep them in the quietestpart of the woods. 

The first sign of it came when a flock of wild geese went honkingsouthward overhead. The young ones had never before seen suchlong-necked hawks, and were afraid of them. But seeing that their motherhad no fear, they took courage, and watched them with intense interest. Was it the wild, clanging cry that moved them, or was it solely theinner prompting then come to the surface? A strange longing to followtook possession of each of the young ones. They watched those arrowytrumpeters fading away to the south, and sought out higher perches towatch them farther yet, and from that time things were no more the same. The November Moon was waxing, and when it was full, the November madnesscame. 

The least vigorous of the flock were most affected. The little familywas scattered. Redruff himself flew on several long erratic nightjourneys. The impulse took him southward, but there lay the boundlessstretch of Lake Ontario, so he turned again, and the waning of the MadMoon found him once more in the Mud Creek Glen, but absolutely alone. 

V

Food grew scarce as winter wore on. Redniff clung to the old ravine andthe piney sides of Taylor's Hill, but every month brought its food andits foes. The Mad Moon brought madness, solitude, and grapes; the SnowMoon came with rosehips; and the Stormy Moon brought browse of birch andsilver storms that sheathed the woods in ice, and made it hard to keepone's perch while pulling off the frozen buds. Redruff's beak grewterribly worn with the work, so that even when closed there was stillan opening through behind the hook. But nature had prepared him for theslippery footing; his toes, so slim and trim in September, had sproutedrows of sharp, horny points, and these grew with the growing cold, till the first snow had found him fully equipped with snow-shoes andicecreepers. The cold weather had driven away most of the hawks andowls, and made it impossible for his four-footed enemies to approachunseen, so that things were nearly balanced. 

His flight in search of food had daily led him farther on, till hehad discovered and explored the Rosedale Creek, with its banks ofsilver-birch, and Castle Frank, with its grapes and rowan berries, aswell as Chester woods, where amelanchier and Virginia-creeper swungtheir fruit-bunches, and checkerberries glowed beneath the snow. 

He soon found out that for some strange reason men with guns did not gowithin the high fence of Castle Frank. So among these scenes he livedhis life, learning new places, new foods, and grew wiser and morebeautiful every day. 

He was quite alone so far as kindred were concerned, but that scarcelyseemed a hardship. Wherever he went he could see the jolly chickadeesscrambling merrily about, and he remembered the time when they hadseemed such big, important creatures. They were the most absurdlycheerful things in the woods. Before the autumn was fairly over they hadbegun to sing their famous refrain, 'Spring Soon, ' and kept it up withgood heart more or less all through the winter's direst storms, tillat length the waning of the Hunger Moon, our February, seemed reallyto lend some point to the ditty, and they redoubled their optimisticannouncement to the world in an 'I-told-you-so' mood. Soon good supportwas found, for the sun gained strength and melted the snow from thesouthern slope of Castle Frank Hill, and exposed great banks of fragrantwintergreen, whose berries were a bounteous feast for Redruff, and, ending the hard work of pulling frozen browse, gave his bill the neededchance to grow into its proper shape again. Very soon the first bluebirdcame flying over and warbled as he flew 'The spring is coming. ' Thesun kept gaining, and early one day in the dark of the Wakening Moon ofMarch there was a loud 'Caw, caw, ' and old Silver-spot, the king-crow, came swinging along from the south at the head of his troops andofficially announced, 'THE SPRING HAS COME'

All nature seemed to respond to this, the opening of the birds' NewYear, and yet it was something within that chiefly seemed to move them. The chickadees went simply wild; they sang their 'Spring now, spring nownow--Spring now now, ' so persistently that one wondered how they foundtime to get a living. 

And Redruff felt it thrill him through and through. He sprang withjoyous vigor on a stump and sent rolling down the little valley, againand again, a thundering 'Thump, thump, thump, thunderrrrrrrrr, ' thatwakened dull echoes as it rolled, and voiced his gladness in the comingof the spring. 

Away down the valley was Cuddy's shanty. He heard the drum-call on thestill morning air and 'reckoned there was a cock patridge to git, ' andcame sneaking up the ravine with his gun. But Redruff skimmed awayin silence, nor rested till once more in Mud Creek Glen. And thcre hemounted the very log where first he had drummed and rolled his loudtattoo again and again, till a small boy who had taken a short cut tothe mill through the woods, ran home, badly scared, to tell his motherhe was sure the Indians were on the war-path, for he heard theirwar-drums beating in the glen. 

Why does a happy boy holla? Why does a lonesome youth sigh? They don'tknow any more than Redruff knew why every day now he mounted some deadlog and thumped and thundered to the woods; then strutted and admiredhis gorgeous blazing ruffs as they flashed their jewels in the sunlight, and then thundered out again. Whence now came the strange wish forsomeone else to admire the plumes? And why had such a notion never cometill the Pussywillow Moon?

'Thump, thump, thunder-r-r-r-r-r-rr'rr'

'Thump, thump, th un der-r-r-r-r-r-rrrr'

he rumbled again and again. 

Day after day he sought the favorite log, and a new beauty, a rose-redcomb, grew out above each clear, keen eye, and the clumsy snowshoes werewholly shed from his feet. His ruff grew finer, his eye brighter, andhis whole appearance splendid to behold, as he strutted and flashed inthe sun. But--oh! he was so lonesome now. 

Yet what could he do but blindly vent his hankering in this dailydrum-parade, till on a day early in loveliest May, when the trilliumshad fringed his log with silver stars, and he had drummed and longed, then drummed again, his keen ear caught a sound, a gentle footfallin the brush. He turned to a statue and watched; he knew he had beenwatched. Could it be possible? Yes! there it was--a form--another--a shylittle lady grouse, now bashfully seeking to hide. In a moment he wasby her side. His whole nature swamped by a new feeling--burnt up withthirst--a cooling spring in sight. And how he spread and flashed hisproud array! How came he to know that that would please? He puffedhis plumes and contrived to stand just right to catch the sun, and hestrutted and uttered a low, soft chuckle that must have been as good asthe 'sweet nothings' of another race, for clearly now her heart was won. Won, really, days ago, if only he had known. For full three days shehad come at the loud tattoo and coyly admired him from afar, and felt alittle piqued that he had not yet found out her, so close at hand. So itwas not quite all mischance, perhaps, that little stamp that caught hisear. But now she meekly bowed her head with sweet, submissive grace--thedesert passed, the parch-burnt wanderer found the spring at last. 

Oh, those were bright, glad days in the lovely glen of the unlovelyname. The sun was never so bright, and the piney air was balmier sweetthan dreams. And that great noble bird came daily on his log, sometimeswith her and sometimes quite alone, and drummed for very joy of beingalive. But why sometimes alone? Why not forever with his Brownie bride?Why should she stay to feast and play with him for hours, then take somestealthy chance to slip away and see him no more for hours or till nextday, when his martial music from the log announced him restless for herquick return? There was a woodland mystery here he could not clear. Whyshould her stay with him grow daily less till it was down to minutes, and one day at last she never came at all. Nor the next, nor the next, and Redruff, wild, careered on lightning wing and drummed on the oldlog, then away up-stream on another log, and skimmed the hill to anotherravine to drum and drum. But on the fourth day, when he came and loudlycalled her, as of old, at their earliest tryst, he heard a sound in thebushes, as at first, and there was his missing Brownie bride with tenlittle peeping partridges following after. 

Redruff skimmed to her side, terribly frightening the bright-eyeddownlings, and was just a little dashed to find the brood with claimsfar stronger than his own. But he soon accepted the change, andthenceforth joined himself to the brood, caring for them as his fathernever had for him. 

VI

Good fathers are rare in the grouse world. The mother-grouse builds hernest and hatches out her young without help. She even hides the placeof the nest from the father and meets him only at the drum-log and thefeeding-ground, or perhaps the dusting-place, which is the club-house ofthe grouse kind. 

When Brownie's little ones came out they had filled her every thought, even to the forgetting of their splendid father. But on the thirdday, when they were strong enough, she had taken them with her at thefather's call. 

Some fathers take no interest in their little ones, but Redruff joinedat once to help Brownie in the task of rearing the brood. They hadlearned to eat and drink just as their father had learned long ago, andcould toddle along, with their mother leading the way, while the fatherranged near by or followed far behind. 

The very next day, as they went from the hill-side down toward the creekin a somewhat drawn-out string, like beads with a big one at each end, a red squirrel, peeping around a pine-trunk, watched the procession ofdownlings with the Run tie straggling far in the rear. Redruff, yardsbehind, preening his feathers on a high log, had escaped the of thesquirrel, whose strange perverted thirst for birdling blood was rousedat what seemed so fair a chance. With murderous intent to cut off thehindmost straggler, he made a dash. Brownie could not have seen himuntil too late, but Redruff did. He flew for that red-haired cutthroat;his weapons were his fists, that is, the knob-joints of the wings, andwhat a blow he could strike! At the first onset he struck the squirrelsquare on the end of the nose, his weakest spot, and sent him reeling;he staggered and wriggled into a brush-pile, where he had expected tocarry the little grouse, and there lay gasping with red drops tricklingdown his wicked snout. The partridges left him lying there, and whatbecame of him they never knew, but he troubled them no more. 

The family went on toward the water, but a cow had left deep tracks inthe sandy loam, and into one of these fell one of the chicks and peepedin dire distress when he found he could not get out. 

This was a fix. Neither old one seemed to know what to do, but as theytrampled vainly round the edge, the sandy bank caved in, and, runningdown, formed a long slope, up which the young one ran and rejoined hisbrothers under the broad veranda of their mother's tail. 

Brownie was a bright little mother, of small stature, but keen of witand sense, and was, night and day, alert to care for her darling chicks. How proudly she stepped and clucked through the arching woods with herdainty brood behind her; how she strained her little brown tail almostto a half-circle to give them a broader shade, and never flinched atsight of any foe, but held ready to fight or fly, whichever seemed thebest for her little ones. 

Before the chicks could fly they had a meeting with old Cuddy; thoughit was June, he was out with his gun. Up the third ravine he went, andTike, his dog, ranging ahead, came so dangerously near the Brownie broodthat Redruff ran to meet him, and by the old but never failing trick ledhim on a foolish chase away back down the valley of the Don. 

But Cuddy, as it chanced, came right along, straight for the brood, andBrownie, giving the signal to the children, 'Krrr, krrr' (Hide, hide), ran to lead the man away just as her mate had led the dog. Full of amother's devoted love, and skilled in the learning of the woods, she ranin silence till quite near, then sprang with a roar of wings right inhis face, and tumbling on the leaves she shammed a lameness that for amoment deceived the poacher. But when she dragged one wing andwhined about his feet, then slowly crawled away, he knew just what itmeant--that it was all a trick to lead him from her brood, and he struckat her a savage blow; but little Brownie was quick, she avoided the blowand limped behind a sapling, there to beat herself upon the leaves againin sore distress, and seem so lame that Cuddy made another try to strikeher down with a stick. But she moved in time to balk him, and bravely, steadfast still to lead him from her helpless little ones, she flungherself before him and beat her gentle breast upon the ground, andmoaned as though begging for mercy. And Cuddy, failing again to strikeher, raised his gun and firing charge enough to kill a bear, he blewpoor brave, devoted Brownie into quivering, bloody rags. 

This gunner brute knew the young must be hiding near, so looked about tofind them. But no one moved or peeped. He saw not one, but as he trampedabout with heedless, hateful feet, he crossed and crossed again theirhiding-ground, and more than one of the silent little sufferers hetrampled to death, and neither knew nor cared. 

Redruff had taken the yellow brute away off downstream, and now returnedto where he left his mate. The murderer had gone, taking her remains, to be thrown to the dog. Redruff sought about and found the bloody spotwith feathers, Brownie's feathers, scattered around, and now he knew themeaning of that shot. 

Who can tell what his horror and his mourning were? The outward signswere few, some minutes dumbly gazing at the place with downcast, draggled look, and then a change at the thought of their helpless brood. Back to the hiding-place he went, and called the well-known 'kreet, kreet. ' Did every grave give up its little inmate at the magic word? No, barely more than half; six little balls of down unveiled their lustrouseyes, and, rising, ran to meet him, but four feathered little bodies hadfound their graves indeed. Redruff called again and again, till hewas sure that all who could respond had come, and led them from thatdreadful place, far, far away up-stream, where barb-wire fences andbramble thickets were found to offer a less grateful, but more reliable, shelter. 

Here the brood grew and were trained by their father just as his motherhad trained him; though wider knowledge and experience gave himmany advantages. He knew so well the country round and all thefeeding-grounds, and how to meet the ills that harass partridge-life, that the summer passed and not a chick was lost. They grew andflourished, and when the Gunner Moon arrived they were a fine familyof six grown-up grouse with Redruff, splendid in his gleaming copperfeathers, at their head. He had ceased to drum during the summer afterthe loss of Brownie, but drumming is to the partridge what singing isto the lark; while it is his lovesong, it is also an expression ofexuberance born of health, and when the molt was over and September foodand weather had renewed his splendid plumes and braced himself up again, his spirits revived, and finding himself one day near the old log hemounted impulsively, and drummed again and again. 

From that time he often drummed, while his children sat around, or onewho showed his father's blood would mount some nearby stump or stone, and beat the air in the loud tattoo. 

The black grapes and the Mad Moon now came on. But Redruff's blood wereof a vigorous stock; their robust health meant robust wits, and thoughthey got the craze, it passed within a week, and only three had flownaway for good. 

Redruff, with his remaining three, was living in the glen when the snowcame. It was light, flaky snow, and as the weather was not very cold, the family squatted for the night under the low, flat boughs of acedar-tree. But next day the storm continued, it grew colder, and thedrifts piled up all day. At night, the snow-fall ceased, but the frostgrew harder still, so Redruff, leading the family to a birch-tree abovea deep drift, dived into the snow, and the others did the same. Then into the holes the wind blew the loose snow--their pure whitebed-clothes, and thus tucked in they slept in comfort, for the snow isa warm wrap, and the air passes through it easily enough for breathing. Next morning each partridge found a solid wall of ice before him fromhis frozen breath, but easily turned to one side and rose on the wing atRedruff's morning 'Kreet, kreet, kwit, ' (Come children, come children, fly. )

This was the first night for them in a snow-drift, though it was an oldstory to Redruff, and next night they merrily dived again into bed, andthe north wind tucked them in as before. But a change of weather wasbrewing. The night wind veered to the east. A fall of heavy flakes gaveplace to sleet, and that to silver rain. 

The whole wide world was sheathed in ice, and when the grouse awoke toquit their beds, they found them selves sealed in with a great cruelsheet of edgeless ice. The deeper snow was still quite soft, and Redruffbored his way to the top, but there the hard, white sheet defied hisstrength. Hammer and struggle as he might he could make no impression, and only bruised his wings and head. His life had been made up of keenjoys and dull hardships, with frequent sudden desperate straits, butthis seemed the hardest brunt of all, as the slow hours wore on andfound him weakening with his struggles, but no nearer to freedom. Hecould hear the struggling of his family, too, or sometimes heardthem calling to him for help with their long-drawn plaintive'p-e-e-e-e-e-t-e, p-e-e-e-e-e-t-e. '

They were hidden from many of their enemies, but not from the pangs ofhunger, and when the night came down the weary prisoners, worn out withhunger and useless toil, grew quiet in despair. At first they had beenafraid the fox would come and find them imprisoned there at his mercy, but as the second night went slowly by they no longer cared, and evenwished he would come and break the crusted snow, and so give them atleast a fighting chance for life. 

But when the fox really did come padding over the frozen drift, thedeep-laid love of life revived, and they crouched in utter stillnesstill he passed. The second day was one of driving storm. The northwind sent his snow-horses, hissing and careering over the white earth, tossing and curling their white manes and kicking up more snow as theydashed on. The long, hard grinding of the granular snow seemed to bethinning the snow-crust, for though far from dark below, it kept ongrowing lighter. Redruff had pecked and pecked at the under side allday, till his head ached and his bill was wearing blunt, but when thesun went down he seemed as far as ever from escape. The night passedlike the others, except no fox went trotting overhead. In the morning herenewed his pecking, though now with scarcely any force, and the voicesor struggles of the others were no more heard. As the daylight grewstronger he could see that his long efforts had made a brighter spotabove him in the snow, and he continued feebly pecking. Outside, thestorm-horses kept on trampling all day, the crust was really growingthin under their heels, and late that afternoon his bill went throughinto the open air. New life came with this gain, and he pecked away, till just before the sun went down he had made a hole that his head, hisneck, and his ever-beautiful ruffs could pass. His great broad shoulderswere too large, but he could now strike downward, which gave himfourfold force; the snow-crust crumbled quickly, and in a little whilehe sprang from his icy prison once more free. 

But the young ones? Redruff flew to the nearest bank, hastily gathereda few red hips to Stay his gnawing hunger, then returned to theprison-drift and clucked and stamped. He got only one reply, a feeble'peek, peete, ' and scratching with his sharp claws on the thinnedgranular sheet he soon broke through, and Graytail feebly crawled outof the hole. But that was all; the others, scattered he could not tellwhere in the drift, made no reply, gave no sign of life, and he wasforced to leave them. When the snow melted in the spring their bodiescame to view, skin, bones, and feathers--nothing more. 

VII

It was long before Redruff and Graytail fully recovered, but food andrest in plenty are sure cure-alls, and a bright clear day in midwinterhad the usual effect of setting the vigorous Redruff to drumming on thelog. Was it the drumming, or the tell-tale tracks of their snow-shoeson the omnipresent snow, that betrayed them to Cuddy? He came prowlingagain and again up the ravine, with dog and gun, intent to hunt thepartridges down. They knew him of old, and he was coming now to knowthem well. That great copper-ruffed cock was becoming famous up anddown the valley. During the Gunner Moon many a one had tried to end hissplendid life, just as a worthless wretch of old sought fame by burningthe Ephesian wonder of the world. But Redruff was deep in woodcraft. Heknew just where to hide, and when to rise on silent wing, and whento squat till overstepped, then rise on thunder wing within a yard toshield himself at once behind some mighty tree-trunk and speed away. 

But Cuddy never ceased to follow with his gun that red-ruffed cock; manya long snapshot he tried, but somehow always found a tree, a bank, orsome safe shield between, and Redruff lived and throve and drummed. 

When the Snow Moon came he moved with Graytail to the Castle Frankwoods, where food was plenty as well as grand old trees. There was inparticular, on the east slope among the creeping hemlocks, a splendidpine. It was six feet through, and its first branches began at the topsof the other trees. Its top in summer-time was a famous resort forthe bluejay and his bride. Here, far beyond the reach of shot, in warmspring days the jay would sing and dance before his mate, spread hisbright blue plumes and warble the sweetest fairyland music, so sweet andsoft that few hear it but the one for whom it is meant, and books knownothing at all about it. 

This great pine had an especial interest for Redruff, now living nearwith his remaining young one, but its base, not its far-away crown, concerned him. All around were low, creeping hemlocks, and among themthe partridge-vine and the wintergreen grew, and the sweet blackacorns could be scratched from under the snow. There was no betterfeeding-ground, for when that insatiable gunner came on them there itwas easy to run low among the hemlocks to the great pine, then rise witha derisive whirr behind its bulk, and keeping the huge trunk in linewith the deadly gun, skim off in safety. A dozen times at least the pinehad saved them during the lawful murder season, and here it was thatCuddy, knowing their feeding habits, laid a new trap. Under the bank hesneaked and watched in ambush while an accomplice went around the SugarLoaf to drive the birds. He came trampling through the low thicketwhere Redruff and Graytail were feeding, and long before the gunner wasdangerously near Redruff gave a low warning 'rrrrr' (danger) and walkedquickly toward the great pine in case they had to rise. 

Graytail was some distance up the hill, and suddenly caught sight of anew foe close at hand, the yellow cur, coming right on. Redruff, muchfarther off, could not see him for the bushes, and Graytail becamegreatly alarmed. 

'Kwit, kwit' (Fly, fly), she cried, running down the hill for a start. 'Kreet, k-r-r-r' (This way, hide), cried the cooler Redruff, for he sawthat now the man with the gun was getting in range. He gained thegreat trunk, and behind it, as he paused a moment to call earnestly toGraytail, 'This way, this way, ' he heard a slight noise under the bankbefore him that betrayed the ambush, then there was a terrified cry fromGraytail as the dog sprang at her, she rose in air and skimmed behindthe shielding trunk, away from the gunner in the open, right into thepower of the miserable wretch under the bank. 

Whirr, and up she went, a beautiful, sentient, noble being. 

Bang, and down she fell--battered and bleeding, to gasp her life out andto lie, mere carrion in the snow. 

It was a perilous place for Redruff. There was no chance for a saferise, so he squatted low. The dog came within ten feet of him, and thestranger, coming across to Cuddy, passed at five feet, but he nevermoved till a chance came to slip behind the great trunk away from both. Then he safely rose and flew to the lonely glen by Taylor's Hill. 

One by one the deadly cruel gun had stricken his near ones down, tillnow, once more, he was alone. The Snow Moon slowly passed with many anarrow escape, and Redruff, now known to be the only survivor of hiskind, was relentlessly pursued, and grew wilder every day. 

It seemed, at length, a waste of time to follow him with a gun, so whenthe snow was deepest, and food scarcest, Cuddy hatched a new plot. Rightacross the feeding-ground, almost the only good one now in the StormyMoon, he set a row of snares. A cottontail rabbit, an old friend, cutseveral of these with his sharp teeth, but some remained, and Redruff, watching a far-off speck that might turn out a hawk, trod right in oneof them, and in an instant was jerked into the air to dangle by onefoot. 

Have the wild things no moral or legal rights? What right has man toinflict such long and fearful agony on a fellow-creature, simply becausethat creature does not speak his language? All that day, with growing, racking pains, poor Redruff hung and beat his great, strong wings inhelpless struggles to be free. All day, all night, with growing torture, until he only longed for death. But no one came. The morning broke, theday wore on, and still he hung there, slowly dying; his very strength acurse. The second night crawled slowly down, and when, in the dawdlinghours of darkness, a great Horned Owl, drawn by the feeble flutter of adying wing, cut short the pain, the deed was wholly kind. 

The wind blew down the valley from the north. The snow-horses wentracing over the wrinkled ice, over the Don Flats, and over the marshtoward the lake, white, for they were driven snow, but on them, scattered dark, were riding plumy fragments of partridge ruffs--thefamous rainbow ruffs. And they rode on the winter wind that night, awayand away to the south, over the dark and boisterous lake, as they rodein the gloom of his Mad Moon flight, riding and riding on till they wereengulfed, the last trace of the last of the Don Valley race. 

For now no partridge comes to Castle Frank. Its wood-birds miss themartial spring salute, and in Mud Creek Ravine the old pine drumlog, since unused, has rotted in silence away.