As she dropped the rude wooden latch into place, the woman realized

with horror how frail the door was. Momentarily she expected to see it

smashed in by a stroke of the monster's paw. She did not know a bear's

caution, his cunning suspicion of traps, his dread of the scent of

man.

There was no light in the shack, except a faint red gleam from the

open draft of the stove, and the gray pallor of the night sky

glimmering in through the little window. The woman was so faint with

fear that she dared not search for the candles, but leaned panting

against the wall and staring at the window as if she expected the bear

to look in at her. She was brought to her senses in a moment, however,

by the baby beginning to cry. In the race for the shack, he had lost

his lump of sugar, and now he realized how uncomfortable he was. The

woman seated herself on the bench by the stove and began to nurse him,

all the time keeping her eyes on the pale square of the window.

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

When the door was slammed in his face, the bear had backed away in

apprehension and paused to study the shack. But at the sound of the

baby's voice he seemed to realize that here, at least, were some

individuals of the dreaded man tribe who were not dangerous. He came

forward and sniffed loudly along the crack of the door till the

woman's heart stood still. He leaned against it, tentatively, till it

creaked, but the latch and hinges held. Then he prowled around the

shack, examining it carefully, and doubtless expecting to find an open

entrance somewhere. In his experience, all caves and dens had

entrances. At last the window caught his attention. The woman heard

the scratching of his claws on the rough outer boarding as he raised

himself. Then the window was darkened by a great black head looking

in.

Throwing the baby into the bunk, the woman snatched from the stove a

blazing stick, rushed to the window with it, and made a wild thrust at

the dreadful face. With a crash the glass flew to splinters, and the

black face disappeared. The bear was untouched, but the fiery weapon

had taught him discretion. He drew back with an angry growl, and sat

down on his haunches as if to see what the woman would do next. She,

for her part, after this victory, grew terribly afraid of setting the

dry shack on fire; so she hurriedly returned the snapping, sparkling

brand to the stove. Thereupon the bear resumed his ominous prowling,

round and round the shack, sometimes testing the foundations and the

door with massive but stealthy paw, sometimes sniffing loudly at the

cracks; and the woman returned to the comforting of the baby.

In time the little one, fed full and cherished, went to sleep. Then,

with nothing left to occupy her mind but the terrors of her situation,

the woman found those stealthy scratchings and sniffings, and the

strain of the silences that fell between, were more than she could

endure. At first, she thought of getting a couple of blazing sticks,

throwing open the shack door, and deliberately attacking her besieger.

But this idea she dismissed as quite too desperate and futile. Then

she remembered that bears were fond of sweets. A table in the corner

was heaped with great, round cakes of fragrant sugar, the shape of the

pans in which they had been cooled. One of these she snatched up, and

threw it out of the window. The bear promptly came around to see what

had dropped, and fell upon the offering with such ardour that it

vanished between his great jaws in half a minute. Then he came

straight to the window for more, and the woman served it out to him

without delay.

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

The beast's appetite for maple-sugar was amazing, and as the woman saw

the sweet store swiftly disappearing, her fear began to be tempered

with indignation. But when her outraged frugality led her to delay the

dole, her tormentor came at the window so savagely that she made all

haste to supply him, and fell to wondering helplessly what she should

do when the sugar was all gone.

As she stood at the window, watching fearfully the vague, monstrous

shape of the animal as he pawed and gnawed at the last cake, suddenly,

far across the shadowy valley, a red light leaped into the sky. For a

moment the woman stared at it with an absent mind, absorbed in her

own trouble, yet noticing how black and sharp, like giant spears

upthrust in array, the tops of the firs stood out against the glow.

For a moment she stood so staring. Then she realized where that wild

light came from. With a cry she turned, rushed to the door, and tore

it open. But as the dark of the forest confronted her, she remembered!

Slamming and latching the door again, she rushed madly back to the

window, and stood there clutching the frame with both hands, praying,

and sobbing, and raving.

And the bear, having finished the sugar, sat up on his haunches to

gaze intently, ears cocked and jaws half open, at that far-off, fiery

brightness in the sky of night.

As the keen tongues of flame shot over the treetops, the woman

clutched at her senses, and tried to persuade herself that it was the

barn, not the house, that was burning. It was, in truth, quite

impossible to discern, at that distance, which it was. It was not

both; of that she was certain. She also told herself that, if it _was_

the house, it was too early for the children to be asleep; and even if

they _were_ asleep, Jake would wake them; and presently some

neighbours, who were not more than a mile away, would come to comfort

their fears and shelter them. She would not allow herself to harbour

the awful thought that the fire might have caught the children in

their sleep. Nevertheless, do what she could to fight it away, the

hideous suggestion kept clamouring at her brain, driving her to a

frenzy. Had she been alone in this crisis, the great beast watching

and prowling outside the shack would have had no terrors for her. But

the baby! She could not run fast with that burden. She could not leave

him behind in the bunk, for the bear would either climb in the window

or batter in the door when she was gone. Yet to stand idle and watch

those leaping flames--that way lay madness. Again her mind reverted to

the blazing brand with which she had driven the bear from the window.

If she took one big enough and carried it with her, the bear would

probably not dare even to follow her. She sprang eagerly to the stove,

but the fire was already dying down. It was nothing but a heap of

coals, and in her stress she had not noticed how cold it had grown in

the shack. She looked for wood, but there was none. She had forgotten

to bring in an armful from the pile over by the sugar-boiler. Well,

the plan had been an insane one, hopeless from the first. But, at

least, it had been a plan. The failure of it seemed to leave her

tortured brain a blank. But the cold--that was an impression that

pierced her despair. She went to the bunk, and covered the sleeping

baby with warm blankets. As she leaned over him, she heard the bear

again, sniffing, sniffing along the crack at the bottom of the door.

She almost laughed--that the beast should want anything more after all

that sugar! Then she felt herself sinking, and clutched at the edge of

the bunk to save herself. She would lie down by the baby! But instead

of that she sank upon the floor in a huddled heap.

Her swoon must have passed imperceptibly into the heavy sleep of

emotional exhaustion, for she lay unstirring for some hours. The

crying of the little one awoke her.

Stiff, half frozen, utterly dazed, she pulled herself up to the

bunk, nursed the child, and soothed him again to sleep. Then the

accumulation of anguish which had overwhelmed her rolled back upon her

understanding. She staggered to the window.

The dreadful illumination across the valley had died down to a faint

ruddiness, just seen through the thin tops of the firs. The

fire--whether it had been the barn or the house--had burned itself

out. Whatever had happened, it was over. As she stood shuddering,

unable to think, not daring to think, her eyes rested upon the bear,

huge and formless in the gloom, staring at her, not ten feet away. She

answered the stare fixedly, no longer aware of fearing him. Then she

saw him turn his head suddenly, as if he had heard something. And the

next moment he had faded away swiftly and noiselessly into the

darkness, like a startled partridge. She heard quick footsteps coming

up the trail. A dog's fierce growl broke into a bark of warning. That

was Jake's bark! She almost threw herself at the door, and tore it

open.

* * * * *

Dave Stone had got back from the settlement earlier than he expected,

driving furiously the last two miles of his journey, with his eyes

full of the red light of that burning, his heart gripped with

intolerable fear. He had found his good barn in flames, but the

children safe, the house untouched, the stock rescued. The children,

prompt and resourceful as the children of the backwoods have need to

be, had loosed the cattle from the stanchions and got them out in

time. Neighbours, hurrying up in response to the flaming summons, had

found the children watching the blaze enthusiastically from the

doorstep, as if it had been arranged for their amusement. Seeing

matters so much better than they might have been, Dave was struck with

a new apprehension, because Mandy had not returned. It was hardly

conceivable that she had failed to see the flames from the window of

the shack! Then why had she not come? Followed by Jake, he had taken

the camp trail at a run to find out what was the matter.

As he drew near the shack, the darkness of it chilled him with dread.

No firelight gleam showed out from the window! And no red glow came

from the boiling-shed! The fire had been allowed to die out under the

sugar-pot! As the significance of this dawned upon him, his keen

woodsman's eyes seemed to detect through the dark a shape of thicker

blackness gliding past the shack and into the woods. At the same

moment Jake growled, barked shortly, and dashed past him, with the

hair bristling along his neck.

The man's blood went to ice, as he sprang to the door of the shack,

crying in a terrible voice: "Mandy! Mandy! Where are--" But before

the question was out of his mouth, the door leaped open, and Mandy was

on his neck, shaking and sobbing.

"The children?" she gasped.

"Why, _they're_ all right, mother!" replied the man cheerfully. "It

was only the barn--an' they got the critters out all safe! But what's

wrong here? An' what's kep' you? An' didn't you--"

But he was not allowed to finish his questionings, for the woman was

crying and laughing and strangling him with her wild clasp. "Oh,

Dave!" she managed to exclaim. "It was the bear--as tried to git

us--all night long! An' he's et up every crum of the last bilin'."

THE RETURN OF THE MOOSE

"TO the best of my knowledge, ther' ain't been no moose seen this side

the river these eighteen year back."

The speaker, a heavy-shouldered, long-legged backwoodsman, paused in

his task of digging potatoes, leaned on the handle of his broad-tined

digging fork, and bit off a liberal chew from his plug of black

tobacco. His companion, digging parallel with him on the next row,

paused sympathetically, felt in his trousers' pocket for his own plug

of "black jack," and cast a contemplative eye up the wide brown slope

of the potato-field toward the ragged and desolate line of burnt woods

which crested the hill.

The woods, a long array of erect, black, fire-scarred rampikes,

appeared to scrawl the very significance of solitude against the

lonely afternoon sky. The austerity of the scene was merely heightened

by the yellow glow of a birch thicket at the further upper corner of

the potato-field, and by the faint tints of violet light that flowed

over the brown soil from a pallid and fading sunset. As the sky was

scrawled by the gray-and-black rampikes, so the slope was scrawled by

zigzag lines of gray-and-black snake fence, leading down to three log

cabins, with their cluster of log barns and sheds, scattered

irregularly along a terrace of the slope. A quarter of a mile further

down, beyond the little gray dwellings, a sluggish river wound between

alder swamps and rough wild meadows.

As the second potato-digger was lifting his plug of tobacco to his

mouth, his hand stopped half way, and his grizzled jaw dropped in

astonishment. For a couple of seconds he stared at the ragged

hill-crest. Then, it being contrary to his code to show surprise, he

bit off his chew, returned the tobacco to his pocket, and coolly

remarked: "Well, I reckon they've come back."

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

digging.

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

Standing out clear of the dead forest, and staring curiously down upon

the two potato-diggers, were three moose,--a magnificent, black,

wide-antlered bull, an ungainly brown cow, and a long-legged,

long-eared calf. A potato-field, with men digging in it, was something

far apart from their experience and manifestly filled them with

interest.

"Keep still now, Sandy," muttered the first speaker, who was wise in

the ways of the wood-folk. "Keep still till they git used to us. Then

we'll go for our guns."

The men stood motionless for a couple of minutes, and the moose came

further into the open in order to get a better look at them. Then,

leaving their potato forks standing in their furrows, the men strode

quietly down the field, down the rocky pasture lane, and into the

nearest house. Here the man called Sandy got down his gun,--an old

muzzle-loading, single-barrelled musket,--and hurriedly loaded it with

buckshot; while the other, who was somewhat the more experienced

hunter, ran on to the next cabin and got his big Snider rifle. The

moose, meanwhile, having watched the men fairly indoors, turned aside

and fell to browsing on the tiny poplar saplings which grew along the

top of the field.

[Illustration: "A MAGNIFICENT, BLACK, WIDE-ANTLERED BULL, AN UNGAINLY

BROWN COW, AND A LONG-LEGGED, LONG-EARED CALF."]

Saying nothing to their people in the houses, after the reticent

backwoods fashion, Sandy and Lije strolled carelessly down the road

till the potato-field was hidden from sight by a stretch of young

second-growth spruce and fir. Up through this cover they ran eagerly,

bending low, and gained the forest of rampikes on top of the hill.

Here they circled widely, crouching in the coarse weeds and dodging

from trunk to trunk, until they knew they were directly behind the

potato-field. Then they crept noiselessly outward toward the spot

where they had last seen the moose. The wind was blowing softly into

their faces, covering their scent; and their dull gray homespun

clothes fitted the colour of the desolation around them.

Now it chanced that the big bull had changed his mind, and wandered

back among the rampikes, leaving the cow and calf at their browsing

among the poplars. The woodsmen, therefore, came upon him unexpectedly.

Not thirty yards distant, he stood eying them with disdainful

curiosity, his splendid antlers laid back while he thrust forward his

big, sensitive nose, trying to get the wind of these mysterious

strangers. There was menace in his small, watchful eyes, and

altogether his appearance was so formidable that the hunters were

just a trifle flurried, and fired too hastily. The big bullet of

Lije's Snider went wide, while a couple of Sandy's buckshot did no

more than furrow the great beast's shoulder. The sudden pain and the

sudden monstrous noise filled him with rage, and, with an ugly

grunting roar, he charged.

"Up a tree, Sandy!" yelled Lije, setting the example. But the bull was

so close at his heels that he could not carry his rifle with him. He

dropped it at the foot of the tree, and swung himself up into the dead

branches just in time to escape the animal's rearing plunge.

Sandy, meanwhile, had found himself in serious plight, there being no

suitable refuge just at hand. Those trees which were big enough had

had no branches spared by the fire. He had to run some distance. Just

as he was hesitating as to what he should do, and looking for a rock

or stump behind which he might hide while he reloaded his gun, the

moose caught sight of him, forgot about Lije, and came charging

through the weeds. Sandy had no more time for hesitation. He dropped

his unwieldy musket, and clambered into a blackened and branchy

hackmatack, so small that he feared the rush of the bull might break

it down. It did, indeed, crack ominously when the headlong bulk

reared upon it; but it stood. And Sandy felt as if every branch he

grasped were an eggshell.

Seeing that the bull's attention was so well occupied, Lije slipped

down the further side of his tree and recaptured his Snider. He had by

this time entirely recovered his nerve, and now felt master of the

situation. Having slipped in a new cartridge he stood forth boldly and

waited for the moose to offer him a fair target. As the animal moved

this way and that, he at length presented his flank. The big Snider

roared; and he dropped with a ball through his heart, dead instantly.

Sandy came down from his little tree, and touched the huge dark form

and mighty antlers with admiring awe.

In the meantime, the noise of the firing had thrown the cow and calf

into a panic. Since the woods behind them were suddenly filled with

such thunders, they could not flee in that direction. But far below

them, down the brown slopes and past the gray cabins, they saw the

river gleaming among its alder thickets. There was the shelter they

craved; and down the fields they ran, with long, shambling, awkward

strides that took them over the ground at a tremendous pace. At the

foot of the field they blundered into the lane leading down to

Sandy's cabin.

Now, as luck would have it, Sandy had that summer decided to build

himself a frame house to supplant the old log cabin. As a preliminary,

he had dug a spacious cellar, just at the foot of the lane. It was

deep as well as wide, being intended for the storage of many potatoes.

And, in order to prevent any of the cattle from falling into it, he

had surrounded it with a low fence which chanced to be screened along

the upper side with a rank growth of burdock and other barnyard

weeds.

When the moose cow reached this fence, she hardly noticed it. She was

used to striding over obstacles. Just now her heart was mad with

panic, and her eyes full of the gleam of the river she was seeking.

She cleared the fence without an effort--and went crashing to the

bottom of the cellar. Not three paces behind her came the calf.

By this time, of course, all the little settlement was out, and the

flight of the cow and calf down the field had been followed with eager

eyes. Everyone ran at once to the cellar. The unfortunate cow was seen

to have injured herself so terribly by the plunge that, without

waiting for the owner of the cellar to return, the young farmer from

the third cabin jumped down and ended her suffering with a butcher

knife. The calf, however, was unhurt. He stood staring stupidly at his

dead mother and showed no fear of the people that came up to stroke

and admire him. He seemed so absolutely docile that when Sandy and

Lije came proudly down the hill to tell of their achievement, Sandy

declared that the youngster should be kept and made a pet of.

"Seems to me," he said to Lije, "that seein' as the moose had been so

long away, we hain't treated them jest right when they come back. I

feel like we'd ought to make it up to the little feller."

FROM THE TEETH OF THE TIDE

HITHERTO, ever since he had been old enough to leave the den, the

mother bear had been leading her fat black cub inland, among the

tumbled rocks and tangled spruce and pine, teaching him to dig for

tender roots and nose out grubs and beetles from the rotting stumps.

To-day, feeling the need of saltier fare, she led him in the opposite

direction, down through a cleft in the cliffs, and out across the

great, red, glistening mud-flats left bare by the ebb of the terrific

Fundy tides.

From the secure warmth of his den the cub had heard, faint and far

off, the waves thundering along the bases of the cliffs, when the tide

was high and the great winds drew heavily in from sea. The sound had

always made him afraid; and to-day, though there was no wind, and the

tide was so far out that it made no noise but a soft whisper, silken

and persuasive, he held back with babyish timidity, till his mother

brought him to his senses with an unceremonious cuff on the side of

the head. With a squall of grieved surprise he picked himself up,

shaking his head as if he had a bee in his ear, and then made haste to

follow obediently, close at his mother's huge black heels.

From the break in the cliffs, where the bears came down, ran a ledge

of shelving rocks on a long, gradual slant across the flats toward the

edge of low water. The tide was nearing the last of the ebb; and now,

the slope of the shore being very gradual, and the difference between

high and low water in these turbulent channels something between forty

and fifty feet, the lapsing fringes of the ebb, yellow-tawny with

silt, were a good three-quarters of a mile away from the foot of the

cliffs. The vast spaces between were smooth, oily, copper-red mud,

shining and treacherous in the sun with the narrow black outcrop of

the ledge drawn across on so gentle a slant that before it reached the

water it was running almost on a parallel with the shoreline.

Along the rocky ledge the old bear led the way, pausing to nose at a

patch of seaweed here and there or to glance shrewdly into the shallow

pools among the rocks. The cub obediently followed her example,

though doubtless with no idea of what he might hope to find. But the

upper stretches of the ledge, near high-water mark, offered nothing to

reward their quest, having been dry for several hours, and long ago

thoroughly gone over by earlier foragers. So the bears pushed on down

toward the lower stretches, where the ledges were still wet, and the

long, black-green weed-masses still dripping, and where the

limpet-covered protuberances of rock still oozed and sparkled. With

her iron-hard claws the mother bear scraped off a quantity of these

limpets, and crushed them between her jaws with relish, swallowing the

salty juices. The cub tried clumsily to imitate her, but the limpets

defied his too tender claws, so he ran to his mother, thrust her great

head aside, and greedily licked up a share of her scrapings. The sea

flavour tickled his palate, but the rough, hard shells exasperated

him. They hurt his gums, so that he merely rolled them over in his

mouth, sucked at them a few moments, then spat them out indignantly.

His mother thereupon forsook the unsatisfactory limpets, and went

prowling on toward the water's edge in search of more satisfying

fare. As they left the limpets, a gaunt figure in gray homespuns,

carrying a rifle, appeared on the crest of the cliffs above, caught

sight of them, and hurriedly took cover behind an overhanging pine.

The young woodsman's first impulse was to try a long shot at the

hulking black shape so conspicuous out on the ledge, against the

bright water. He wanted a bearskin, even if the fur was not just then

in prime condition. But more particularly he wanted the cub, to tame

and play with if it should prove amenable, and to sell, ultimately,

for a good amount, to some travelling show. On consideration, he

decided to lie in wait among the rocks till the rising tide should

drive the bears back to the upland. He exchanged his steel-nosed

cartridges for the more deadly mushroom-tipped, filled his pipe, and

lay back comfortably against the pine trunk, to watch, through the

thin green frondage, the foraging of his intended prey.

The farther they went down the long slant of the ledge, the more

interested the bears became. Here the crows and gulls had not had time

to capture all the prizes. There were savoury blue-shelled mussels

clinging under the tips of the rocks; plump, spiral whelks between

the oozy tresses of the seaweed; orange starfish and bristly

sea-urchins in the shallow pools. All these dainties had shells that

the cub's young teeth could easily crush, and they yielded meaty

morsels that made beetles and grubs seem very meagre fare. Moreover,

in the salty bitter of this sea-fruit there was something marvelously

stimulating to the appetite. From pool to pool the old bear wandered

on, lured ever by richer prizes just ahead; and the cub, stuffed till

his little stomach was like a black furry ball, no longer frisked and

tumbled, but waddled along beside her with eyes of shining expectancy.

As long as he was not too full to walk, he was not too full to eat

such delicacies as these. The fascinating quest led them on and on

till at last they found themselves at the water's edge.

By this time they had travelled a long way from the cleft in the

cliffs by which they had come down from the uplands. A good half-mile

of shining mud separated them, in a direct line, from the cliff base.

And the woodsman on the height, as he watched them, muttered to

himself: "Ef that old b'ar don't look out, the tide's a-goin' to ketch

her afore she knows what she's about! Most wish I'd 'a' socked it to

her afore she'd got so fur out--Jiminy! She's seed her mistake now!

The tide's turned."

While bear and cub had their noses and paws busy in a little dry pool,

on a sudden a long, shallow, muddy-crested wave had come hissing up

over their feet and filled the pool to the brim with its yellow flood.

Lifting her head sharply, the old bear glanced at the far-off cliffs,

and at the mounting tide. Instantly realizing the peril, she started

back at a slow, lumbering amble up the long, long path by which they

had come; and the cub started too at a brave gallop--not behind her,

for he was too much afraid of the hissing yellow wave, but close at

her side, between her sheltering form and the shore. He felt that she

could in some way ward off or subdue the cold and terrifying monster.

For perhaps two minutes the cub struggled on gamely, although, owing

to the fact that at this point their path was almost parallel with the

water, the fugitives made no perceptible gain, and the rising wave was

on their heels every instant. Then the greedy feeding produced its

effect. The little fellow's wind gave out completely. With a whimper

of pain and fright he dropped back upon his haunches and waited for

his mother to save him.

The old bear turned, bounced back, and cuffed him so bruskly that he

found breath enough to utter a loud squall and go stumbling forward

for another score of yards. Then he gave out, and sank upon his

too-distended stomach, whimpering piteously.

This time the mother seemed to perceive that his case was serious, and

her anxious wrath subsided. She licked him assiduously for a few

seconds, whining encouragement, till at last he got upon his feet

again, trembling. The yellow flood was now lapping on the ledge all

about them. But a rod or two farther on the rocks bulged up a couple

of feet above the surrounding slope. Thrusting the exhausted youngster

ahead of her with nose and paws, the old bear gained this point of

temporary vantage; and then, worried and frightened, sat down upon her

haunches and stared all around her, as if trying to decide what should

be done. The cub lay flat, with legs outstretched and mouth wide open,

panting.

The tide, meanwhile, was mounting so swiftly that in a few moments the

rise of rocks had become almost an island. The ledge was covered

before them as well as behind, and the only way still open lay

straight over the glistening mud. The old bear looked at it, and

whined, knowing its treacheries. And the woodsman, watching with eager

interest from the cliffs, muttered:

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

to do'!"

This was apparently the conclusion of the old bear herself; for now,

after licking and nuzzling the cub for a few seconds till he stood up,

she stepped boldly off the rock and started out over the coppery

flats. The cub, having apparently recovered his wind, followed

briskly--probably much heartened by the fact that his progress was in

a direction away from the alarming waves.

There was desperate need of haste, for when they left the rocky lift

the tide was already slipping around upon the flats beyond it.

Nevertheless, the old bear moved with deliberation. She could not

hurry the cub; and she had to choose her path. By some instinct, or

else by some peculiar keenness of observation, she seemed to detect

the "honey-pots," or deep pockets of slime, that lay concealed beneath

the uniformly shining surface of the mud; for here she would make an

aimless detour, losing many precious seconds, and there she would

side-step suddenly, for several paces, and shift her course to a new

parallel. Outside the "honey-pots," the mud was soft and tenacious to

a depth varying from a few inches to a couple of feet, but with a hard

clay foundation beneath the slime. Through this clinging red ooze the

old bear, with her huge strength, made her way without difficulty; but

the cub, in a few moments, began to find himself terribly hampered.

His fur collected the mud. His little paws sank easily, but at each

step it grew harder to withdraw them. At last, chancing to stagger

aside from his mother's spacious tracks, he sank to his belly in the

rim of a "honey-pot."

Panic-stricken, he floundered vainly, his nose high in the air and his

eyes shut tight, while his mother, unconscious of what had happened,

ploughed doggedly onward. Presently he opened his eyes. His mother was

now perhaps ten or a dozen feet ahead, apparently deserting him. Right

behind, lapping up to his very tail, was the crawling wave. A

heart-broken bawl burst from his throat.

At that cry the old bear came dashing back, red mud half-way up her

flanks and plastered all over her shaggy chest. Taking in the

situation at a glance, she seized the cub by the nape of the neck with

her teeth, and tried to drag him free. But he squealed so lamentably

that she realized that the hide would yield before the mud would. The

attempt had taken time, however; and the tide was now well up in the

fur of his back. Thrusting her paw down beneath his haunches, she tore

him clear with a mighty wrench and a loud sucking of the baffled mud.

That stroke sent him head over heels some ten feet nearer safety. By

the time he had picked himself up, pawing fretfully at the mud that

bedaubed his face and half blinded him, his mother was close behind

him, nosing him along and lifting him forward skilfully with her fore

paws.

The slope of the flats was now so gradual as to be almost imperceptible;

and the tide, therefore, seemed to be racing in with fiercer haste, as

if in wrath at being so long balked of its prey. Engrossed in her

efforts to push the cub forward, the mother now lost some of her fine

discrimination in regard to "honey-pots." She pushed the cub straight

into one; but jerked him back unceremoniously before the mud had time

to get any grip upon him. Pausing for a moment to scrutinize the

oozy expanse, she thrust the little animal furiously along to the left,

searching for a safe passage. Before she could find one, however, the

tide was upon them, their feet splashing in the thin yellow wavelets.

A broken soap-box, tossed overboard from some ship, came washing up,

and stranded just before them. With a whimper of delight, as if he

thought the box a safe refuge, the cub scrambled upon it; but his

mother ruthlessly tumbled him off and hustled him onward, floundering

and splashing.

"Ye'll hev to swim fer it, Old Woman!" growled the now excited watcher

behind the pine-tree on the cliff.

As the creeping flood by this time overspread the ooze for a couple of

yards ahead of them, the mother could no longer discriminate as to

what lay beneath it. She could do nothing now but dash ahead blindly.

Catching up the cub between her jaws, in a grip that made him squeal,

she launched herself straight toward shore, hardly daring to let her

feet rest an instant where they touched. Fortune favoured her in this

rush. She got ahead of the tide. She gained upon it, perhaps twice her

body's length. Then she paused, to drop the cub. But the pause was

fatal. She began to sink instantly. She had come upon a "honey-pot" of

stiffer consistency than the rest, which had sustained her while she

was in swift motion, but now, in return for that support, clutched her

in a grip the more inexorable. With all her huge strength she strained

to wrench herself clear. But in vain. She had no purchase. There was

nothing to put forth her strength upon. In her terror and despair she

squealed aloud, with her snout high in air as if appealing to the

blank, blue, empty sky. The cub, terror-stricken, strove to clamber

upon her back.

That harsh cry of hers, however, was but the outburst of one moment's

weakness. The next moment the indomitable old bear was striving

silently and systematically to release herself. She would wrench one

great fore arm clear, lift it high, and feel about for a solid

foundation beneath the ooze. Failing in this, she would yield that paw

to the enemy again, tear the other loose, and feel about for a

foothold in another direction. At the same time she drew out her body

to its full length, and lay flat, so that she might gain as much

support as possible by distributing her weight. Because of this

sagacity, and because the mire at this point had more substance than

in most of the other "honey-pots," she made a good fight, and almost,

but not quite, held her own. By the time the tide had once more

overtaken her she had sunk but a little way, and was still far from

giving up the unequal struggle.

Yet for all the great beast's strength, and valour, and devotion,

there could have been but one end to that brave battle, and mother and

cub would have disappeared, in a few minutes more, under the stealthy,

whispering onrush of the flood, had not the whimsical Providence--or

Hazard--of the Wild come curiously to their aid. Among the jetsam of

those restless Fundy tides almost anything that will float may appear,

from a matchbox to a barn. What appeared just now was a big spruce

log, escaped from the boom on some river emptying into the bay. It

came softly wallowing in, lipped by the little waves, and passed close

by the nose of the old bear, where she struggled with the water up to

her shoulders.

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

Quick as thought she flashed up a heavy paw, caught the log by one

end, and pulled the butt under her chest. The purchase thus gained

enabled her to free the other paw--and in a few seconds more the

weight of the fore part of her body was on the end of the log, forcing

it down to the mud. Greedy as that mud was, it was yet incapable of

engulfing a full-grown spruce timber quickly enough to defeat the

bear's purpose. Stretching far forward on the submerged log, she

strained her muscles to their utmost, and slowly drew her hind

quarters free from the deadly grip that held them. Then, seizing in

her jaws the cub, which was swimming and whimpering beside her, she

carefully felt her way farther along the log, and sat down upon it to

rest, clutching the youngster closely in one great fore arm.

Not till the tide had risen nearly to her neck did the mother move

again. She was recovering her strength. Utterly daunted by the peril

of the "honey-pots," she chose rather to trust the tide itself. At

last, catching the cub again by the back of the neck, she swam for the

shore. The tide was now within a couple of hundred yards from the

bases of the cliffs, and lapping upon solid, sun-baked clay. The

strong flood helping her, she swam fast, though laboriously by reason

of the burden in her teeth. Soon her hinder feet struck ground--but

she was afraid to trust it, and nervously drew them up beneath her. A

few moments more and she felt undeniably firm footing; whereupon she

plunged forward with a rush, and never paused, even to drop the

squirming cub, till she was above high-water mark.

When, at last, she set the little beast down, she was in such a hurry

to get away from the shore and back into the secure green woods that

she would not trust him to follow her, as usual, but drove him on

ahead, as fast as he could move, toward the cleft in the cliffs. As

they turned up the rugged trail her haste relaxed, and she went more

slowly, but still driving the cub ahead of her, that she might be

quite sure that the "honey-pots" would not reach up and clutch at him

again.

As the muddy, weary, bedraggled, pathetic-looking pair passed within

tempting range of the pine-tree on the cliff-top, the woodsman

instinctively threw forward his rifle. But the next moment he dropped

it, with a slight flush, and gave a quick glance around him as if he

feared that unseen eyes might have taken note of the gesture.

"Hell!" he muttered, "I'd 'a' been no better'n a _murderer_, 'f I'd

'a' gone an' plugged the Old Girl _now_!"

THE FIGHT AT THE WALLOW

I

FAR to the northeast of Ringwaak Hill, just beyond that deep,

far-rimmed lake which begets the torrent of the Ottanoonsis, rise the

bluff twin summits of Old Walquitch, presiding over an unbroken and

almost untrodden wilderness. Some way up the southeasterly flank of

the loftier and more butting of the twin peaks ran a vast, open shelf,

or terrace, a kind of barren, whose swampy but austere soil bore no

growth but wiry bush. The green tips of this bushy growth were a

favoured "browse" of the caribou, who, though no lovers of the

heights, would often wander up from their shaggy and austere plains in

quest of this aromatic forage. But this lofty mountainside barren had

yet another attraction for the caribou. Close at its edge, just where

a granite buttress fell away steeply toward the lake, a tiny, almost

imperceptible spring, stained with iron and pungent with salt,

trickled out from among the roots of a dense, low thicket. Past the

bare spot made by these oozings, and round behind the thicket, led a

dim trail, worn by the feet of caribou, moose, bear, deer, and other

stealthy wayfarers. And to this spring, when the moon of the falling

leaves brought in the season of love and war, the caribou bulls were

wont to come, delighting to form their wallow in the pungent, salty

mud.

The bald twin peaks of Old Walquitch were ghostly white in the

flood of the full moon, just risen, and swimming like a globe of

witch's fire over the far, dark, wooded horizon. But the bushy

shelf and the spring by the thicket, were still in shadow. Along the

trail to the spring, moving noiselessly, yet with a confident

dignity, came a paler shadow, the shape of a huge, gray-white

caribou bull with wide-spreading antlers.

At the edge of the spring the bull stopped and began sniffing the

sharp-scented mud. Apparently he found no sign of a rival having

passed that way before him, or of a cow having kept tryst there.

Lifting his splendid head he stared all about him in the shadow, and

up at the bare, illuminated fronts of the twin peaks.

[Illustration: "HE 'BELLED' HARSHLY SEVERAL TIMES ACROSS THE DARK

WASTES."]

As the light spread down the mountain to the edge of the shelf, and

the moon rose into his view, he "belled" harshly several times across

the dark wastes outspread below him.

Receiving no answer to his defiance, the great bull turned his

attention again to the ooze around the spring. After sniffing it all

over he fell to furrowing it excitedly with the two lowermost

branches of his antlers,--short, broad, palmated projections thrust

out low over his forehead, and called by woodsmen "the ploughs." Every

few seconds he would toss his head fiercely, like an ordinary bull,

and throw the ooze over his shoulders. Then he pawed the cool,

strong-smelling stuff to what he seemed to consider a fitting

consistency, sniffed it over again, and raised his head to "bell"

a fresh challenge across the spacious solitudes. Receiving no answer,

he snorted in disgust, flung himself down on the trampled ooze,

and began to wallow with a sort of slow and intense vehemence,

grunting massively from time to time with volcanic emotion.

The wallow was now in the full flood of the moonlight. In that

mysterious illumination the caribou, encased in shining ooze, took on

the grotesque and enormous aspect of some monster of the prediluvian

slimes. Suddenly his wallowing stopped, and his antlers, dripping mud,

were lifted erect. For a few moments he was motionless as a rock,

listening. He had caught the snapping of a twig, in the trail below

the edge of the shelf. The sound was repeated; and he understood.

Blowing smartly, as if to clear the mud from about his nostrils, he

lurched to his feet, stalked forth from the wallow, and stood staring

arrogantly along the trail by which he had come. The next moment

another pair of antlers appeared; and then another bull, tall but

lean, and with long, spiky, narrow horns, mounted over the edge of the

shelf, and halted to eye the apparition before him.

The newcomer was of a darker hue than the lord of the wallow, and of

much slimmer build,--altogether less formidable in appearance. But he

looked very fit and fearless as, after a moment's supercilious survey

of his rival's ooze-dripping form, he came mincing forward to the

attack. The two, probably, had never seen each other before; but in

rutting season all caribou bulls are enemies at sight.

The white bull--no longer white now, but black and silver in the

moonlight--stood for some seconds quite motionless, his head low, his

broad and massive antlers thrust forward, his feet planted firmly and

apart. Ominous in his stillness, he waited till his light-stepping and

debonair adversary was within twenty feet of him. Then, with an

explosive blowing through his nostrils, he launched himself forward to

the attack.

Following the customary tactics of his kind, the second bull lowered

his antlers to receive the charge. But in the last fraction of a

breath before the crash, he changed his mind. Leaping aside with a

lightning alertness more like the action of a red buck than that of a

caribou, he just evaded the shock. At the same time two of the spiky

prongs of one antler ripped a long gash down his opponent's flank.

Amazed at this departure from the usual caribou tactics, and smarting

with the anguish of that punishing stroke, the white bull whirled in

his tracks, and charged again, blind with fury. The slim stranger had

already turned, and awaited him again, with lowered antlers in

readiness, close by the edge of the wallow. This time he seemed

determined to meet the shock squarely according to the rules of the

game--which apparently demand that the prowess of a caribou bull shall

be determined by his pushing power. But again he avoided, leaping

aside as if on springs; and again his sharp prongs furrowed his

enemy's flank. With a grunt of rage the latter plunged on into the

wallow, where he slipped forward upon his knees.

Had the newcomer been a little more resourceful he might now have

taken his adversary at a terrible disadvantage, and won an easy

victory. But he hesitated, being too much enamoured of his own method

of fighting; and in the moment of hesitation opportunity passed him

by. The white bull, recovering himself with suddenly awakened agility,

was on his feet and on guard again in an instant.

These two disastrous experiences, however, had added wariness and

wisdom to the great bull's fighting rage. His wound, his momentary

discomfiture, had opened his arrogant eyes to the fact that his

antagonist was a dangerous one. He stood vigilant and considering for

a few seconds, no longer with his feet planted massively for a

resistless rush, but balanced, and all his forces gathered well in

hand; while his elusive foe stepped lightly and tauntingly from side

to side before him, threateningly.

When the white bull made up his mind to attack again, instead of

charging madly to swab his foe off the earth, he moved forward at a

brisk stride, ready to check himself on the instant and block the

enemy's side stroke. Within a couple of yards of his opponent he

stopped short. The latter stood motionless, antlers lowered as before,

apparently quite willing to lock horns. But the white bull would not

be lured into a rush. Fiercely impatient he stamped the ground with a

broad, clacking forehoof.

Just at this moment, as if in response to the challenge of the hoof,

the stranger charged like lightning. But almost in the same motion he

swerved aside, seeking again to catch his adversary on the flank.

Swift and cunning as he was, however, the white bull was this time all

readiness. He whirled, head down. With a sharp, dry crash the two sets

of antlers came together, and locked.

That this should have happened was the irremediable mistake of the

slim stranger. In that close encounter, fury against fury, force

against force fairly pitted, his speed and his agility counted for

nothing. For a few seconds, indeed, in sheer desperation he succeeded

in withstanding his heavier and more powerful foe. With hind feet

braced far back, haunches strained, flank heaving and quivering, the

two held steady, staccato grunts and snorts attesting the ferocity of

their efforts. Then the hind foot of the younger bull slipped a

little. With a convulsive wrench he recovered his footing; and again

the struggle hung at poise. But it was only for a few moments.

Suddenly, as if he had felt his opportunity approach, the white bull

threw all his strength into a mightier thrust. The legs of his

adversary seemed to crumple up like paper beneath him.

This would have been the end of the young bull's battlings and

wooings; but as his good luck would have it, it was at the very edge

of the shelf that he collapsed. Disengaging his victorious antlers,

the conqueror thrust viciously and evisceratingly at the victim's

exposed flank. The latter was just struggling to rise, with precarious

foothold on the loose-turfed brink of the steep. As he writhed away

wildly from the goring points, the bushes and turf crumbled away, and

he fell backwards, rolling and crashing till he brought up, battered

but whole, in a sturdy thicket of young firs. Regaining his feet he

slunk off hurriedly into the dark of the woods. And the victor,

standing on the brink in the white glare of the moonlight, "belled"

his triumph hoarsely across the solemn spaces of the night.

II

A sound of footfalls, hesitating but apparently making no attempt at

concealment, came from the bend of the trail beyond the wallow; and

the great white bull wheeled savagely to see what was approaching. As

he glared, however, the angry ridge of hair cresting his neck sank

amiably. A young cow, attracted by his calls and the noise of the

battle, was coming around the thicket.

At the edge of the thicket, not a dozen paces from the black ooze-bed

of the wallow, the cow paused coyly, as if doubtful of her welcome.

She murmured in her throat, a sort of rough allurement which seemed to

the white bull's ears extraordinarily enticing. He answered, very

softly, and stepped forward a pace or two, inviting rather than

pursuing. Reassured, the young cow advanced confidently and eagerly to

meet him.

At this moment, out from the heart of the thicket plunged a towering

black form, with wide, snarling jaw's agleam in the moonlight. It

seemed to launch itself through the air, as if from a height. One

great, taloned paw struck the young cow full on the neck, a crashing

blow, shattering the vertebrae through all their armour of muscle.

With a groan the stricken cow sank down, her outstretched muzzle

smothered in the ooze of the wallow; and the monstrous bulk of the

bear fell upon her, tearing the warm flesh hungrily.

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the most hot-headed and

powerful bull of the caribou will shrink from trying conclusions with

a full grown black bear. The duel, as a rule, is too cruelly

one-sided. The bear, on the other hand, knows that a courageous bull

is no easy victim; and the monster ambuscaded in the thicket had been

waiting for one or both of the rivals to be disabled before making his

attack. The approach of the young cow had been an unexpected favour of

the Powers that order the wilderness; and in clutching his opportunity

he had scornfully and absolutely put the white bull out of the

reckoning.

But this bull was the exceptional one, the one that confounds

generalizations, and confirms the final supremacy of the unexpected.

He was altogether fearless, indifferent to odds, and just now flushed

with overwhelming victory. Moreover, he was aflame with mating ardour;

and the mate of his desire had just been brutally struck down before

his eyes. For a moment or two he stood bewildered, not daunted, but

amazed by the terrific apparition and the appalling event. Then a mad

fire raged through all his veins, his great muscles swelled, the stiff

hair on his neck and shoulders stood straight up, his eyes went

crimson--and without a sound he charged across the wallow.

When the bulls of the caribou kin fight each other, the weapons of

their sole dependence are their antlers. But when they fight alien

enemies they are wont to hold their heads high and strike with the

battering, knife-edged weapons of their fore-hoofs. The bear, crouched

upon his quivering prey, was too absorbed and too scornful to look for

any assault. The bull was upon him, therefore, before he had time to

guard his exposed flank. From the corner of his eye, he saw a big

glistening shape which reared suddenly above him, and, clever boxer

that he was, he threw up a ponderous forearm to parry the blow. But he

was too late. With all the force of some seven hundred pounds of

rage, avenging rage, behind him, these great hoofs, with their cutting

edges, came down upon his side, smashing in several ribs, and gashing

a wide wound down into his loins. The shock was so terrific that his

own counter stroke, usually so swift and unerring, went wild

altogether, and he was sent rolling clear of the body of his prey.

Instantly upon delivering his stroke, the white bull had pranced

lightly aside, knowing well enough the swift and deadly effectiveness

of a bear's paw. But he struck yet again, almost, it seemed, in the

same breath, and just as the bear was struggling up upon his haunches.

Frantically, out of his astonishment, fury, and pain, the bear

attempted to guard. He succeeded, indeed, in warding off those deadly

hoofs from his flank; but he caught an almost disabling blow on the

point of the left shoulder, putting his left forearm out of business.

With a squawling grunt he swung about upon his haunches, bringing his

right toward the enemy, and sat up, savagely but anxiously defensive.

Sore wounded though he was, the bear was not yet beaten. One fair

buffet of his right paw, could he but land it in the proper place,--on

nose, or neck, or leg--might yet give him the victory, and let him

crawl off to nurse his hurts in some dense covert, leaving his broken

foe to die in the wallow. But the white bull, though he had underrated

his former antagonist, was in no danger of misprizing this one. He was

now as wary as he had, in the previous case, been rash. Moreover, he

had had a dreadful object lesson in the power of the bear's paw. The

body of the cow before him kept him from forgetting.

Stepping restlessly from side to side, threatening now with hoof and

now with antlers, he seemed each instant upon the point of a fresh

attack; and the bear, with swaying muzzle and blazing, shifting eyes,

kept following his every motion. Again and again he gathered his

muscles for a fresh charge--but each time he checked himself with a

realization that the body of the slain cow was exactly in his way,

hampering his avoidance of a counter-stroke.

After some minutes of this feinting, the caribou stood still,

deliberating some new move. Instantly the bear, also, became

motionless as a stone. The sudden peace was like a shock of

enchantment, a violent sorcery, and over it the blue-white, flooding

shine of the moonlight seemed to take on some sinister significance.

The seconds lengthened out as a nightmare, till at last the stupendous

stillness was broken by the wild clamour of a loon, far down on the

lake. As the distant cry shrilled up the mountainside, the white bull

stirred, shook his antlers, and blew loudly through his nostril. It

was a note of challenge--but in it the bear divined a growing

hesitancy. Perhaps, after all, this fight, which had gone so sorely

against him, might not have to be fought out! He dropped, whirled

about so quietly one could hardly follow the motion--and in a flash

was up again on his haunches, right paw uplifted, eyes blazing

vigilant defiance. But he had retreated several feet in that swift

manoeuvre! His move was a confusion of defeat--but his attitude was a

warning that he was dangerous in defeat. The bull followed, but only

for a couple of steps, which brought him so that he bestrode the body

of the cow. Here he halted, still threatening; and again the two

confronted each other motionlessly.

This time, however, the spell was broken by the bear himself. Suddenly

he repeated his former manoeuvre; and again turned to face his

adversary. But the bull did not follow. Without a movement he stood,

as if content with his victory. And after a few moments the bear, as

if realizing that the fight was over, flung himself aside from the

trail and went limping off painfully through the bushes, keeping a

watchful eye over his shoulder till he vanished into a bunch of dense

spruce against the mountainside.

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

The white bull eyed his going proudly. Then he looked down at the torn

and lifeless body between his feet. He had not really taken note of it

before. Now he bent his head and sniffed at it with wondering

interrogation. The spreading blood, still warm, smote his nostrils;

and all at once, it seemed, death and the fear of death were borne in

upon his arrogant heart. He tossed his head, snorting wildly, flung

himself clear of the uncomprehended, dreadful thing upon the ground,

bounded over the wallow as if it, too, had grown terrifying, and fled

away up the trail through the merciless, unconcealing moonlight, till

he reached the end of the open shelf and a black wood hid his sudden

fear of the unknown.

Sonny and the Kid

THE little old gray house, with its gray barn and low wagon shed,

stood in the full sun at the top of a gullied and stony lane. Behind

it the ancient forest, spruce and fir and hemlock, came down and

brooded darkly over the edge of the rough, stump-strewn pasture. The

lane, leading up to the house from the main road, climbed between a

sloping buckwheat field on the one hand and a buttercupped meadow on

the other. On either side of the lane, cutting it off from the fields,

straggled a zigzag snake fence, with milk-weed, tansy, and mullein

growing raggedly in its corners.

At the head of the lane, where it came out upon the untidy but homely

looking yard, stood a largish black and tan dog, his head on one side,

his ears cocked, his short stub of a tail sticking out straight and

motionless, tense with expectation. He was staring at a wagon which

came slowly along the main road, drawn by a jogging, white-faced

sorrel. The expression in the dog's eyes was that of a hope so eager

that nothing but absolute certainty could permit him to believe in its

approaching fulfilment. His mouth was half open, as if struggling to

aid his vision.

He was an odd looking beast, formidable in his sturdy strength and his

massiveness of jaw; and ugly beyond question, but for the alert

intelligence of his eyes. A palpable mongrel, he showed none the less

that he had strains of distinction in his ancestry. English bull

was the blood most clearly proclaimed, in his great chest, short,

crooked legs, fine coat, and square, powerful head. His pronounced

black and tan seemed to betray some beagle kinship, as did his long,

close-haired ears. Whoever had docked his tail, in his defenceless

puppyhood, had evidently been too tender-hearted to cut those

silken and sensitive ears. So Sonny had been obliged to face life

in the incongruous garb of short tail and long ears--which is almost

as unpardonable as yellow shoes with a top hat.

When the wagon drew close to the foot of the lane, Sonny was still

uncertain. There might be other white faced sorrels than lazy old

Bill. The man in the wagon certainly looked like his beloved master,

Joe Barnes; but Joe Barnes was always alone on the wagon-seat, while

this man had a child beside him, a child with long, bright, yellow

hair and a little red cap. This to Sonny was a bewildering phenomenon.

But when at last the wagon turned up the lane, his doubts were finally

resolved. His stub of a tail jerked spasmodically, in its struggle to

wag. Then with two or three delirious yelps of joy he started madly

down the lane. At the sound of his voice the door of the gray house

opened. A tall, thin woman in a bluish homespun skirt and red calico

waist came out, and moved slowly across the yard to welcome the new

arrivals.

When Sonny, yelping and dancing, met the creaking wagon as it bumped

its way upward over the gullies, his master greeted him with a "Hello,

Sonny!" as usual; but to the dog's quick perception there was a

difference in his tone, a difference that was almost an indifference.

Joe Barnes was absorbed. At other times, he was wont to seem warmly

interested in Sonny's welcoming antics, and would keep up a running

fire of talk with him while the old sorrel plodded up the lane.

To-day, however, Joe's attention was occupied by the yellow-haired

child beside him; and Sonny's demonstrations, he knew not why, became

perceptibly less ecstatic. It was of no consequence whatever to him

that the child stared at him with dancing eyes and cried delightedly,

"Oh, Unc' Joe, what a pretty doggie! Oh, what a nice doggie! Can I

have him, Unc' Joe?"

"All right, Kid," said Joe Barnes, gazing down adoringly upon the

little red cap; "he's yourn. His name's Sonny, an' he's the best dawg

ever chased a chipmunk. He'll love ye, Kid, most as much as yer old

Unc' Joe an' Aunt Ann does."

When the yard was reached, the tall woman in the red calico waist was

at the side of the wagon before the driver's "Whoa!" brought the horse

to a stop. The little one was snatched down from the seat and hugged

vehemently to her heart.

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

please God!"

"I want my mummie! Where's she gone to?" cried the child, suddenly

reminded of a loss which he was beginning to forget. But his aunt

changed the subject hastily.

"Ain't he the livin' image of Jim?" she demanded in a voice of

wondering admiration. "Did ever you see the likes of it, father?"

Under the pretence of examining him more critically, Joe took the

child into his own arms, and looked at him with ardent eyes. "Yes,"

said he, "the Kid does favour Jim, more'n his--" But he checked

himself at the word. "An' he's a regular little man too!" he went on.

"Come all the way up on the cars by himself, an' wasn't a mite o'

trouble, the conductor said."

Utterly engrossed in the little one, neither Joe nor his wife gave a

look or a thought to Sonny, who was leaping upon them joyously. For

years he had been almost the one centre of attention for the childless

couple, who had treated him as a child, caressing him, spoiling him,

and teaching him to feel his devotion necessary to them. Now, finding

himself quite ignored, he quieted down all at once and stood for a few

seconds gazing reproachfully at the scene. The intimacy with Joe and

Ann which he had so long enjoyed had developed almost a human quality

in his intelligence and his feelings. Plainly, now, he was forgotten.

His master and mistress had withdrawn their love and were pouring it

out upon this stranger child. His ears and stub tail drooping in

misery, he turned away, walked sorrowfully over to the horse, and

sniffed at the latter's nose as if to beg for some explanation of

what had happened. But the old sorrel, pleasantly occupied in cropping

at the short, sweet grass behind the well, had neither explanation nor

sympathy to offer. Sonny went off to his kennel, a place he scorned to

notice, as a rule, because the best in the house had hitherto been

held none too good for him. Creeping in with a beaten air, he lay down

with his nose on his paws in the doorway, and tried to understand what

had come upon him. One thing only was quite clear to him. It was all

the fault of the child with the yellow curls.

Sonny had had no experience with children. The few he had met he had

regarded with that impersonal benevolence which was his attitude

toward all humanity. His formidable appearance had saved him from

finding out that humanity could be cruel and brutal. So now, in his

unhappiness, he had no jealous anger. He simply wanted to keep away

from this small being who had caused his hurt.

But even this grace was not to be allowed him. By the time Joe Barnes

and Ann, both trying to hold the little one in their arms at the same

time, had made their impeded way to the house, the little one had

begun to find their ardour a shade embarrassing. To him there were

lots of things better than being hugged and kissed. This shining green

backwoods world was quite new to his city born eyes, and he wanted to

find out all about it, at once, for himself. He began struggling

vigorously to get down out of the imprisoning arms.

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

doggie."

"All right, Kid," responded Joe, complying instantly. "Here Sonny,

Sonny, come an' git acquainted with the Kid!"

"Yes, come and see the Kid, Sonny!" reechoed the woman, devouring the

little yellow head with her eyes. His real name was Alfred, but Joe

had called him "the Kid," and that was to be his appellation

thenceforth.

Hearing his name called, Sonny emerged from his kennel and came

forward, but not with his wonted eagerness. Very soberly, but with

prompt obedience he came, and thrust his massive head under Joe's hand

for the accustomed caress. But the caress was not forthcoming. Joe

simply forgot it, so absorbed was he, his gaunt, weather-beaten face

glowing and melting with smiles as he gazed at the child.

"Here's your dawg, Kid!" said he, and watched delightedly to see how

the little one would go about asserting proprietorship.

The woman was the more subtle of the two in her sympathies. "Sonny,"

she said, pulling the dog forward, "here's the Kid, yer little master.

See you mind what he tells you, and see you take good keer o' him."

Sonny wagged his tail obediently, his load of misery lightening under

the touch of his mistress's hand. He leaned against her knees,

comforted for a moment, though his love was more for the man than for

her. But he would not look at the Kid. He shut his eyes with an

expression of endurance as the little one's hand patted him vehemently

on the face, and his stub tail stopped wagging. In a dim way he

recognized that he must not be uncivil to this small stranger who had

so instantaneously and completely usurped his place. But beyond this

he could think of nothing but his master, who had grown indifferent.

Suddenly, with a burst of longing for reconciliation, he jerked

abruptly away from the child's hands, wriggled in between Joe's legs,

and strove to climb up and lick his face.

At the look of disappointment which passed over the child's face Joe

Barnes felt a sudden rush of anger. Stupidly misunderstanding, he

thought that Sonny was merely trying to avoid the child. He

straightened up his tall figure, snatched the little one to his

breast, and exclaimed in a harsh voice, "If ye can't be nice to the

Kid, git out!"

The words "Git out!" with the tone in which they were uttered, would

have been comprehensible to a much meaner intelligence than Sonny's.

As if he had been whipped, he curled down his abbreviated tail, and

ran and hid himself in his kennel.

"Sonny didn't mean to be ugly to the Kid, father," protested Ann, "He

jest don't quite understand the situation yet, an' he's wonderin' why

ye don't make so much of him as ye used to. I don't blame him fer

feelin' a leetle mite left out in the cold."

Joe felt a vague suspicion that Ann might be right; but it was a very

vague suspicion, just enough to make him feel uneasy and put him on

the defensive. Being obstinate and something of a crank, this only

added heat to his irritation. "I ain't got no use fer any dawg that

don't know enough to take to a kid on sight!" he declared, readjusting

the little red cap on the child's curls.

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

"Of course, father," acquiesced Ann discreetly; "but you'll find

Sonny'll be all right."

Here the child, who had been squirming with impatience, piped up, "I

want to go an' see my doggie in his little house!" he declared.

"Oh, no, Kid, we're goin' to let Sonny be fer a bit. We're goin' to

see the calf, the pretty black an' white calf, round back o' the barn,

now. You go along with Aunty Ann while I onhitch old Bill. An' then

we'll all go an' see the little pigs."

His mind altogether diverted by the suggestion of such strange

delights, the little fellow trotted off joyously with Ann, while Joe

Barnes led the old sorrel to the barn, grumbling to himself at what he

chose to call Sonny's "ugliness" in not making friends with the Kid.

* * * * *

From that hour Sonny's life was changed. In fact, it seemed to him no

longer life at all. His master's indifference grew swiftly to an

unreasoning anger against him; and as he fretted over it continually,

a malicious fate seemed to delight in putting him, or leading him to

put himself, ever in the wrong. Absorbed in longing for his master, he

hardly thought of the child at all. Several times, in a blundering

effort to make things right with Sonny and the Kid, Joe seated himself

on the back doorstep, took the little one on his knee, and called

Sonny to come and make friends. At the sound of the loved summons

Sonny shot out from the kennel, which had become his constant refuge,

tore wildly across the yard, and strove, in a sort of ecstasy, to show

his forgiveness and his joy by climbing into Joe's lap. Being a large

dog, and the lap already filled, this meant roughly crowding out the

Kid, of whose very existence, at this moment, Sonny was unaware. But

to the obtuse man Sonny's action seemed nothing more than a mean and

jealous effort to supplant the Kid.

To the Kid this proceeding of Sonny's was a fine game. He would

grapple with the dog, hug him, pound him gleefully with his little

fists, and call him every pet name he knew.

But the man would rise to his feet angrily, and cry, "If that's all

ye're good fer, git! Git out, I tell ye!" And Sonny, heartsore and

bewildered, would shrink back hopelessly to his kennel. When this, or

something much like it, had happened several times, even Ann, for all

her finer perceptions, began to feel that Sonny might be a bit nicer

to the Kid, and, as a consequence, to stint her kindness. But to

Sonny, sunk in his misery and pining only for that love which his

master had so inexplicably withdrawn from him, it mattered little

whether Ann was neglectful or not.

Uneventfully day followed day on the lonely backwoods farm. To Sonny,

the discarded, the discredited, they were all hopeless days, dark and

interminable. But to the Kid they were days of wonder, every one. He

loved the queer black and white pigs, which he studied intently

through the cracks in the boarding of their pen. He loved the calf,

and the three velvet-eyed cows, and the two big red oxen, inseparable

yoke fellows. The chickens were an inexhaustible interest to him; and

so were the airy throngs of buttercups afloat on the grass, and the

yet more aerial troops of the butterflies flickering above them, white

and brown and red and black and gold and yellow and maroon. But in the

last choice he loved best of all the silent, unresponsive Sonny, of

whose indifference he seemed quite unaware. Sonny, lying on the grass,

would look at him soberly, submit to his endearments without one

answering wag of the tail, and at last, after the utmost patience that

courtesy could require, would slowly get up, yawn, and stroll off to

his kennel or to some pretended business behind the barn. His big

heart harboured no resentment against the child, whom he knew to be a

child and irresponsible. His resentment was all against fate, or life,

or whatever it was, the vague, implacable force which was causing Joe

Barnes to hurt him. For Joe Barnes he had only sorrow and hungry

devotion.

Little by little, however, Sonny's lonely and sorrowful heart, in

spite of itself, was beginning to warm toward the unconscious child.

Though still outwardly indifferent, he began to feel gratified rather

than bored when the Kid came up and gaily disturbed his slumbers by

pounding him on the head with his little palm and tumbling over his

sturdy back. It was a mild gratification, however, and seemed to call

for no demonstrative expression.

Then, one noon, he chanced to be lying, heavy-hearted, some ten or a

dozen paces in front of the kitchen door, while Joe Barnes sat on the

doorstep smoking his after-dinner pipe, and Ann bustled through the

dish washing. At such times, in the old happy days, Sonny's place had

always been at Joe Barnes's feet; but those times seemed to have been

forgotten by Joe Barnes, who had the Kid beside him. Suddenly, tired

of sitting still, the little one jumped up and ran over to Sonny.

Sonny resolutely pretended to be asleep. Laughingly the child sprawled

over him, pulled his ears gently, then tried to push open his eyes. A

little burst of warmth gushed up in Sonny's sad heart. With a swift

impulse he lifted his muzzle and licked the Kid, a generous, ample

lick across the face.

Alas! as blundering fate would have it, the Kid's face was closer than

Sonny had imagined. He not only licked it, but at the same time bumped

it violently with his wet muzzle. Taken by surprise and half-dazed,

the Kid drew back with a sharp little "Oh!" His eyes grew very wide,

and for an instant his mouth quivered as if he was going to cry. This

was all Joe Barnes saw. Springing to his feet, with a smothered oath,

he ran, caught the Kid up in his arms, and gave Sonny a fierce kick in

the ribs which sent him rushing back to his kennel with a howl of

grief and pain.

Ann had come running from the house in amazement. The Kid was sobbing,

and struggling to get down from Joe's arms.

Ann snatched him away anxiously. "What did Sonny do to ye, the bad

dawg!" she demanded.

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

little one indignantly.

"He hurt the Kid's face. I ain't right sure but what he snapped at

him," said Joe Barnes.

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

"Of course he didn't," said Ann with conviction. "Father, ye're too

hard on the dawg. Ye hadn't oughter have kicked him."

An obstinate look settled on Joe Barnes's face. "Yes, I had, too. 'N'

he'll be gittin' more'n that, ef he don't l'arn not to be ugly to the

Kid," he retorted harshly. Then, with an uneasy sense that, whether

right or wrong, he was in the minority, he returned to the doorstep

and moodily resumed his smoking. Ann called Sonny many times to come

out and get his dinner. But Sonny, broken-hearted, and the ruins of

all his life and love and trust tumbled about his ears, would not hear

her. He was huddled in the back of his kennel, with his nose jammed

down into the corner.

* * * * *

Two days later it happened that both Joe and Ann went down together

into the field in front of the house to weed the carrot patch. They

left the Kid asleep in his trundle bed, in the little room off the

kitchen. When they were gone, Sonny came out of his kennel and lay

down in the middle of the yard, where he could keep a watchful eye on

everything belonging to Joe Barnes.

It was the Kid's invariable custom to sleep soundly for a good two

hours of the early afternoon. On this afternoon, however, he broke his

custom. Joe and Ann had not been ten minutes away, when he appeared in

the kitchen door, his yellow hair tousled, his cheeks rosy, his plump

fists trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. His face was aggrieved,

because he had woke up and found himself alone. But at the sight of

Sonny the grievance was forgotten. He ran to the dog and began to maul

him joyously.

His recent bitter experience raw in his heart, Sonny did not dare

to respond, but lay with his nose on his paws, unstirring, while

the child sprawled over him. After a few minutes this utter

unresponsiveness chilled even the Kid's enthusiasm. He jumped up and

cast his eyes about in search of some diversion more exciting. His

glance wandered out past the barn and up the pasture toward the

edge of the forest. A squirrel, sitting on a black stump in the

pasture, suddenly began jumping about and shrilly chattering. This

was something quite new and very interesting. The Kid crawled

through the bars and started up the pasture as fast as his sturdy

little legs could carry him.

The squirrel saw him coming, but knowing very well that he was not

dangerous, held his ground, bouncing up and down on the stump in

vociferous excitement. When the Kid was within three feet of him, he

gave a wild "K-r-r-r-r!" of derision, and sprang to another stump.

With eyes dancing and eager little hands outstretched, the Kid

followed--again and again, and yet again--till he was led to the very

edge of the wood. Then the mocking imp in red fur whisked up an

ancient hemlock, and hid himself, in silence, in a high crotch, tired

of the game.

At the edge of the woods the Kid stopped, peering in among the shadows

with mingled curiosity and awe. The bright patches of sunlight on the

brown forest floor and on the scattered underbrush allured him.

Presently, standing out in conspicuous isolation, a great crimson

toadstool caught his eye. He wanted the beautiful thing intensely, to

play with. But he was afraid. Leaning his face against the old fence,

he gazed through desirously. But the silence made him more and more

afraid. If only the squirrel would come back and play with him, he

would not be afraid. He was on the point of giving up the beautiful

crimson toadstool and turning back home, when he saw a little gray

bird hopping amid the lower limbs of a spruce in among the shadows.

"Tsic-a-dee-dee!" whistled the little gray bird, blithely and

reassuringly. At once the shadows and the stillness lost their

terrors. The Kid squeezed boldly through the fence and started in for

the glowing toadstool.

Just as he reached the coloured thing and stooped to seize it, a sharp

"Tzip, tzip!" and a rustling of stiff feathers startled him. Looking

up, he saw a bright-eyed brown bird running hither and thither before

him, trailing one wing on the ground as if unable to fly. It was such

a pretty bird! And it seemed so tame! The Kid felt sure he could catch

it. Grabbing up the crimson toadstool, and holding it clutched to his

bosom with one hand, he ran eagerly after the brown bird. The bird, a

wily old hen partridge, bent on leading the intruder away from her

hidden brood, kept fluttering laboriously on just beyond his reach,

till she came to a dense patch of underbrush. She was just about to

dive into this thicket, when she leaped into the air, instead, with a

frightened squawk, and whirred up into the branches of a lofty birch

near by.

Bitterly disappointed, the Kid gazed up after her, still clutching the

bright toadstool to his breast. Then, by instinct rather than by

reason, he dropped his eyes to the thicket, and stared in to see what

had frightened away the pretty brown bird.

At first he could see nothing. But to his sensitive little nerves came

a feeling that something was there. Gradually his eyes, accustoming

themselves to the gloom, began to disentangle substance and shadow.

Then suddenly he detected the form of a gray crouching animal. He saw

its tufted ears, its big round face, with mouth half open grinningly.

Its great, round, pale, yellow green eyes were staring straight at

him.

In his fright the Kid dropped his toadstool and stared back at the

gray animal. His first impulse was to turn and run; but, somehow, he

was afraid to do that--afraid to turn his back on the pale-eyed,

crouching shape. As he gazed, trembling, he saw that the animal looked

like a huge gray cat.

[Illustration: "IN HIS FRIGHT THE KID DROPPED HIS TOADSTOOL AND STARED

BACK AT THE GRAY ANIMAL."]

At this thought he felt a trifle reassured. Cats were kind, and nice

to play with. A big cat wouldn't hurt him, he felt quite sure of that.

But when, after a minute or two of moveless glaring, the big cat,

never taking its round eyes from his face, began to creep straight

toward him, stealthily, without a sound, then his terror all came

back. In the extremity of his fear he burst out crying, not very loud,

but softly and pitifully, as if he hardly knew what he was doing. His

little hands hanging straight down at his sides, his head bent

slightly forward, he stood helplessly staring at this strange,

terrible cat creeping toward him through the thicket.

* * * * *

Sonny, meanwhile, had grown uneasy the moment the Kid climbed through

the bars into the pasture. The Kid had never gone into the pasture

before. Sonny got up, turned round, and lay down in such a position

that he could see just what the child was doing. He knew the little

one belonged to Joe Barnes; and he could not let anything belonging to

Joe Barnes get lost or run away. When the Kid reached the edge of the

woods and stood looking through the fence, then Sonny roused himself,

and started up the pasture in a leisurely, indifferent way, as if it

was purely his own whim that took him in that direction. He pretended

not to see the Kid at all. But in reality he was watching, with an

anxious intentness, every move the little one made. He was determined

to do his duty by Joe Barnes.

But when at last the Kid wriggled through the fence and darted into

the gloom of the forest, Sonny's solicitude became more personal. He

knew that the forest was a place of many strange perils. It was no

place for the Kid. A sudden fear seized him at thought of what might

happen to the Kid, there in the great and silent shadows. He broke

into a frantic run, scrambled through the fence, picked up the little

adventurer's trail, and darted onward till he caught sight of the

Kid's bright curly head, apparently intent on gazing into a thicket.

At the sight he stopped abruptly, then sauntered forward with a

careless air, as if it was the most ordinary chance in the world that

he should come across the Kid, away off here alone.

Instinctively, under the subtle influence of the forest silence, Sonny

went forward softly, on his toes, though anything like stealth was

altogether foreign to him. As he crept up, he wondered what it was in

the thicket to keep him so still. There was something mysterious about

it. The hair began to rise along Sonny's back. Then, a moment later,

he heard the Kid crying. There was no mistaking the note of terror in

that hopeless, helpless little sound. Sonny did not need to reason

about it; his heart understood all that was necessary. Something was

frightening the Kid. His white teeth bared themselves, and he darted

forward.

At this instant there came a crackling and swishing in the thicket;

and the Kid, as if released from a spell, turned with a scream and

started to flee. He tripped on a root, however, and fell headlong on

his face, his yellow curls mixing with the brown twigs and fir

needles. Almost in the selfsame second a big gray lynx burst from the

green of the underbrush and sprang upon the little, sprawling,

helpless form.

But not actually upon it. Those outstretching, murderous claws never

actually sank into the Kid's flesh. For Sonny was there just as soon

as the lynx was. The wild beast changed its mind, and attack, just in

time to avoid being taken at a serious disadvantage. The rush of

Sonny's heavy body bore it backward clear of the Kid. The latter

scrambled to his feet, stifled his sobs, and stared open-mouthed at

the sudden fury of battle which confronted him.

Had Sonny not been endowed with intelligence as well as valour, he

would have fallen victim almost at once to his adversary's terrific,

raking hind claws. But fortunately, during his pugnacious puppyhood he

had had several encounters with war-wise, veteran cats. To him, the

lynx was obviously a huge and particularly savage cat. He knew the

deadly power of its hind claws, with all the strength of those great

hind quarters behind them. As he grappled with the screeching lynx,

silently, after the fashion of his bull ancestors, he received a

ripping slash from one of its armed fore paws, but succeeded in fixing

his grip on the base of the beast's neck, not far from the throat.

Instantly he drew himself backward with all his weight, crouching

flat, and dragging the enemy down with him.

In this position, Sonny, backing and pulling with all his strength,

the spitting and screeching cat was unable to bring its terrible

hinder claws into play. The claws of the beast's great fore paws,

however, were doing cruel work on Sonny's back and sides; while its

long fangs, pointed like daggers, tore savagely at the one point on

his shoulder which they could reach. This terrible punishment Sonny

took stoically, caring only to protect the tender under part of his

body and his eyes. His close grip on the base of the animal's neck

shielded his eyes, and, according to the custom of his tenacious

breed, he never relaxed his hold for a moment, but kept chewing in,

chewing in, inexorably working his way to a final, fatal grip upon the

throat. And not for a moment, either, did he desist from his steady

backward pull, which kept the foe from doubling upon him with its hind

quarters.

For several minutes the furious struggle went on, Sonny, apparently,

getting all the worst of it. His back and shoulders were pouring

blood; while his enemy showed not a hurt. Then suddenly the gray

beast's screeching took on a half strangling sound. With its mouth

wide open it ceased to bite, though its fore paws raked and clawed

more desperately than ever. Sonny's relentless hold was beginning to

throttle. His mouth was now too full of long fur and loose skin for

him to bite clean through the throat and finish the fight. But he felt

himself already the victor.

Suddenly, as he continued that steady backward drag, the resistance

ceased. The lynx had launched itself forward in one last convulsive

struggle to free itself from those strangling teeth at its throat. For

a second or two Sonny felt himself overwhelmed, engulfed, in a vortex

of rending claws. In a tight ball of hate and ferocity and horror the

two rolled over and over in the underbrush. Sonny, doubled up hard to

protect his belly, heard a shrill cry of fear from the Kid. At the

sound he summoned into his strained nerves and muscles a strength

beyond the utmost which he had yet been able to put forth. His jaws

worked upward, secured a cleaner grip, ground slowly closer; and at

last his teeth crunched together. A great shudder shook the body of

the lynx. It straightened out, limp and harmless.

For perhaps a minute Sonny maintained his triumphant grip, shaking the

foe savagely. Satisfied, at last, that he was meeting with no more

resistance, he let go, stood off, and eyed the body with searching

suspicion. Then he turned to the Kid. The Kid, careless of the blood

and wounds, kissed him fervently on the nose, called him "Poor Sonny!

Dear, good Sonny!" and burst into a loud wailing.

Knowing that the one thing now was to get the Kid home again as soon

as possible, Sonny started, looking back, and uttering a little

imperative bark. The Kid understood, and followed promptly. By the

time they reached the fence, however, Sonny was so weak from loss of

blood he could hardly climb through. The Kid, with blundering but

loving efforts, helped him. Then he lay down.

At this moment the voices of Joe and Ann were heard, shouting, calling

wildly, from the yard. At the sound, Sonny struggled to his feet and

staggered on, the Kid keeping close beside him. But he could manage

only a few steps. Then he sank down again.

The man and woman came running up the pasture, calling the Kid; but

the latter would not leave Sonny. He trotted forward a few steps, and

stopped, shaking his head and looking back. When Joe and Ann came near

enough to see that the little one's face and hair and clothes were

splotched with blood, fear clutched at their hearts. "My God! what's

happened to him?" gasped Ann, striving to keep up with her husband's

pace. But Joe was too quick for her. Darting ahead, he seized the

little one, lifted him up, and searched his face with frantic eyes.

For all the blood, the child seemed well and vigorous.

"What's it mean, Kid? Ye ain't hurt--ye ain't hurt--tell me ye

ain't hurt, Kid! What's all this blood all over ye?" he demanded

breathlessly.

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

"Tain't me, Unc' Joe!" protested the Kid. "I ain't hurted. It's poor

Sonny. He's hurted awful. He killed the great, big--great, big--" the

Kid was at a loss how to explain, "the great, big, dreadful cat, what

was goin' to eat me up, Sonny did."

Joe Barnes looked at the dog, the torn sides, streaming red wounds,

and bloody muzzle. Woodsman that he was, he understood. "Sonny!" he

cried in a piercing voice. The dog raised his head, wagged his stump

of a tail feebly, and made a futile effort to rise.

Gulping down something in his throat, Joe Barnes handed the child over

to Ann, and strode to Sonny's side. Bending over him, he tenderly

gathered the big dog into his arms, holding him like a baby. Sonny

reached up and licked his chin. Joe turned and hastened back to the

old gray house with his burden.

"Come along, mother," he said, his voice a little unsteady. "You'll

have to look out for the Kid all by yerself for a bit now. I reckon

I'm goin' to hev' about all I kin do, a-nursin' Sonny."

THE END

SIX STAR RANCH

Another success by the author of the wonderful GLAD Books:

"Pollyanna: The GLAD Book"

"Pollyanna Grows Up: The Second GLAD Book"

With frontispiece in full color from a painting by R. Farrington Elwell

and six spirited drawings by Frank J. Murch. Bound uniform with the

POLLYANNA books in silk cloth, with a corresponding color jacket, net

$1.25; carriage paid $1.40

The year we published POLLYANNA, THE GLAD BOOK, we published another book

by the same author, but as it is contrary to our policy to issue two books

by one writer in a year, we published the second book under the pseudonym

"Eleanor Stuart."

As we are not going to publish a new book of Mrs. Porter's this year, we

have decided to announce the publication of SIX STAR RANCH under the name

of its real author. The success of her previous books is practically

unparalleled in the history of American publishing, POLLYANNA: THE GLAD

BOOK, having already sold 300,000 copies--an average of more than 100,000

copies for three consecutive years--and POLLYANNA GROWS UP: THE SECOND

GLAD BOOK, having sold nearly 150,000 copies in nine months.

SIX STAR RANCH is a charming story, in the author's best vein, of a dear

little Texas girl, who plays "the glad game" made famous by POLLYANNA,

and plays it with a charm which will put her on the same pinnacle, side by

side with POLLYANNA.

THE VIOLIN LADY

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

By Daisy Rhodes Campbell

Frontispiece in full color from a painting by F. W. Read, and six black

and white illustrations by John Goss, decorative jacket, net $1.25;

carriage paid $1.40

This new story continues the adventures of the once little Fiddling Girl

and tells of her triumphs and hardships abroad, of her friends, her love

affairs, and finally of Virginia's wedding bells and return to America.

The previous two books in this series have been pronounced excellent and

uplift stories, but "The Violin Lady" is far ahead of both in interest and

charm.

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

"A delightful story told in a charming manner. The Page Company does a

real service indeed in the publication of so many of these excellent

stories."--Zion's Herald, Boston.

"A thoroughly enjoyable tale, written in a delightful vein of sympathetic

comprehension."--Boston Herald.

THE GIRL FROM THE BIG HORN COUNTRY

By Mary Ellen Chase

12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by R. Farrington Elwell, net $1.25;

carriage paid $1.40

At the beginning of the story, Virginia Hunter, a bright, breezy,

frank-hearted "girl of the Golden West," comes out of the Big Horn country

of Wyoming to the old Bay State. Then "things begin," when Virginia,--who

feels the joyous, exhilarating call of the Big Horn wilderness and the

outdoor life,--attempts to become acclimated and adopt good old New

England "ways."

Few stories reveal a more attractive heroine, and the joyous spirit of

youth and its happy adventures give the story an unusual charm.

"The book has natural characters, fresh incidents, and a general

atmosphere of sincerity and wholesome understanding of girl nature.

Virginia may well become as popular as 'Miss Billy' or irresistible

Anne."--New York Sun.

SYLVIA OF THE HILL TOP

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

By Margaret R. Piper

12mo, cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color, decorative

jacket, net $1.25; carriage paid $1.40

In THE CHEERFUL BOOK Sylvia Arden proved herself a messenger of joy and

cheerfulness to thousands of readers. In this new story she plays the same

role on Arden Hill during her summer vacation and is the same wholesome,

generous, cheerful young lady who made such a success of the Christmas

Party. She befriends sick neighbors, helps "run" a tea-room, brings

together two lovers who have had differences, serves as the convenient

bridesmaid here and the good Samaritan there, and generally acquits

herself in a manner which made of her such a popular heroine in the former

story. There is, of course, a Prince Charming in the background.

"The SYLVIA books should be read by all the exponents of POLLYANNA of THE

GLAD BOOKS," says Mr. H. V. Meyer of the American Baptist Publication

Society.

Selections from The Page Company's List of Fiction

WORKS OF ELEANOR H. PORTER

POLLYANNA: The GLAD Book (340,000)

Cloth decorative, illustrated by Stockton Mulford. Net, $1.25; carriage

paid, $1.40

Mr. Leigh Mitchell Hodges, The Optimist, in an editorial for the

Philadelphia North American, says: "And when, after Pollyanna has gone

away, you get her letter saying she is going to take 'eight steps'

to-morrow--well, I don't know just what you may do, but I know of one

person who buried his face in his hands and shook with the gladdest sort

of sadness and got down on his knees and thanked the Giver of all gladness

for Pollyanna."

POLLYANNA GROWS UP: The Second GLAD Book

Cloth decorative, illustrated by H. Weston Taylor. Net, 1.25; carriage

paid, $1.40

When the story of POLLYANNA told in The Glad Book was ended a great cry of

regret for the vanishing "Glad Girl" went up all over the country--and

other countries, too. Now POLLYANNA appears again, just as sweet and

joyous-hearted, more grown up and more lovable.

"Take away frowns! Put down the worries! Stop fidgeting and disagreeing

and grumbling! Cheer up, everybody! POLLYANNA has come back!"--Christian

Herald.

The GLAD Book Calendar

THE POLLYANNA CALENDAR

(This calendar is issued annually; the calendar for the new year being

ready about Sept. 1st of the preceding year. Note: in ordering please

specify what year you desire.)

Decorated and printed in colors. Net, $1.50; carriage paid, $1.65

"There is a message of cheer on every page, and the calendar is

beautifully illustrated."--Kansas City Star.

MISS BILLY (17th printing)

Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting by G.

Tyng $1.50

"There is something altogether fascinating about 'Miss Billy,' some

inexplicable feminine characteristic that seems to demand the individual

attention of the reader from the moment we open the book until we

reluctantly turn the last page."--Boston Transcript.

MISS BILLY'S DECISION (10th printing)

Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting by

Henry W. Moore.

Net, $1.25; carriage paid, $1.40

"The story is written in bright, clever style and has plenty of action and

humor. Miss Billy is nice to know and so are her friends."--New Haven

Times Leader.

"The author has succeeded admirably in repeating so delightful a character

and in making her the heroine of so many interesting and amusing

adventures."--The Springfield Union.

MISS BILLY--MARRIED (8th printing)

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

Haskell Coffin.

Net, $1.25; carriage paid, $1.40

"Although Pollyanna is the only copyrighted glad girl, Miss Billy is just

as glad as the younger figure and radiates just as much gladness. She

disseminates joy so naturally that we wonder why all girls are not like

her."--Boston Transcript.

"No one can come within the charmed circle of Miss Billy's radiant

personality without a vast increase of good cheer, of insistent optimism

and outgoing unselfishness. She is one of the vital characters that

vitalize everyone."--Christian Endeavor World.

CROSS CURRENTS

Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.00

"To one who enjoys a story of life as it is to-day, with its sorrows as

well as its triumphs, this volume is sure to appeal."--Book News Monthly.

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.25

"A very beautiful book showing the influence that went to the developing

of the life of a dear little girl into a true and good woman."--Herald and

Presbyter, Cincinnati, Ohio.

End of Project Gutenberg's The House in the Water, by Charles G. D. Roberts