The Initiation of Miranda
That same day, just after noon-meat, when Miranda had gone out with the
scraps in a yellow bowl to feed the hens, Kirstie had been taken with
what the people at the Settlement would have called “a turn.” All the
morning she had felt unusually oppressed by the heat, but had thought
little of it. Now, as she was wiping the dishes, she quite unaccountably
dropped one of them on the floor. The crash aroused her. She saw with a
pang that it was Miranda’s little plate of many colours. Then things
turned black about her. She just managed to reel across to the bunk, and
straightway fell upon it in a kind of faint. From this state she passed
into a heavy sleep, which lasted for several hours, and probably saved
her from some violent sickness.
When Miranda had fed the hens she did not go straight back to her
mother. Instead, she wandered off toward the edge of the dark firwood,
where it came down close behind the cabin. The broad light of the open
fields, now green with buckwheat, threw a living illumination far in
among the cool arcades.
Between the straight grey trunks Miranda’s clear eyes saw something
move.
She liked it very much indeed. It looked to her extremely like a cat,
only larger than any cat she had seen at the Settlement, taller on its
legs, and with a queer, thick stump of a tail. In fact, it was a cat,
the brown cat, or lesser lynx. Its coat was a red brown, finely mottled
with a paler shade. It had straight brushes of bristles on the tips of
its ears, like its big cousin, the Canada lynx, only much less
conspicuous than his; and the expression on the moonlike round of its
face was both fierce and shy. But it was a cat, plainly enough; and
Miranda’s heart went out to it, as it sat up there in the shadows,
watching her steadily with wide pale eyes.
“Oh, pretty pussy! pretty pussy!” called Miranda, stretching out her
hands to it coaxingly, and running into the wood.
The brown cat waited unwinking till she was about ten paces off, then
turned and darted deeper into the shadows. When it was all but out of
sight it stopped, turned again, and sat up to watch the eager child. It
seemed curious as to the bit of scarlet at her neck. Miranda was now
absorbed in the pursuit, and sanguine of catching the beautiful pussy.
This time she was suffered to come almost within grasping distance,
before the animal again wheeled with an angry _pfuff_ and darted away.
Disappointed, but not discouraged, Miranda followed again; and the
little play was repeated, with slight variation, till her great eyes
were full of blinding tears, and she was ready to drop with weariness.
Then the malicious cat, tired of the game and no longer curious about
the ribbon, vanished altogether; and Miranda sat down to cry.
But she was not a child to make much fuss over a small disappointment.
In a very few minutes she jumped up, dried her eyes with the backs of
her tiny fists, and started, as she thought, straight for home. At first
she ran, thinking her mother might be troubled at her absence. But not
coming to the open as soon as she expected, she stopped, looked about
her very carefully, and then walked forward with continual
circumspection. She walked on, and on, till she knew she had gone far
enough to reach home five times over. Her feet faltered, and then she
stood quite still, helplessly. She knew that she was lost. All at once
the ancient wood, the wood she had longed for, the wood whose darkness
she had never feared, became lonely, menacing, terrible. She broke into
loud wailing.
This is what Kroof had heard and was coming to investigate. But other
ears heard it, too.
A tawny form, many times larger than the perfidious brown cat, but not
altogether unlike it in shape, crept stealthily toward the sound. Though
his limbs looked heavy, his paws large in comparison with his lank body
and small, flat, cruel head, his movements nevertheless were noiseless
as light. At each low-stooping, sinuous step, his tail twitched
nervously. When he caught sight of the crying child he stopped, and then
crept up more stealthily than before, crouching so low that his belly
almost touched the ground, his neck stretched out in line with his tail.
He made absolutely no sound, yet something within Miranda’s sensitive
brain heard him, before he was quite within springing distance. She
stopped her crying, glanced suddenly around, and fixed a darkly clear
look upon his glaring green eyes. Poor little frightened and lonely
child though she was, there was yet something subtly disturbing to the
beast in that steady gaze of hers. It was the empty gloom, the state of
being lost which had made Miranda’s fear. Of an animal, however fierce,
she had no instinctive terror; and now, though she knew that the
cruel-eyed beast before her was the panther, it was a sort of indignant
curiosity that was uppermost in her mind.
The beast shifted his eyes uneasily under her unwavering look. He
experienced a moment’s indecision as to whether or not it was well,
after all, to meddle with this unterrified, clear-gazing creature. Then
an anger grew within him. He fixed his hypnotizing stare more
resolutely, and lashed his tail with angry jerks. He was working himself
up to the final and fatal spring, while Miranda watched him.
Just then a strange thing happened. Out from behind a boulder, whence
she had been eying the situation, shambled the huge black form of Kroof.
She was at Miranda’s side in an instant; and rising upon her hind
quarters, a towering, indomitable bulk, she squealed defiance to the
panther. As soon as Miranda saw her “great big dog,”—which she knew
quite well, however, to be a bear,—she seemed to realize how frightened
she had been of the panther; and she recognized that strong defence had
come. With a convulsive sob she sprang and hid her tear-stained little
face in the bear’s shaggy flank, clutching at the soft fur with both
hands. To this impetuous embrace Kroof paid no attention, but continued
to glower menacingly at the panther.
As for the panther, he was unaffectedly astonished. He lost his
stealthy, crouching, concentrated attitude, and rose to his full height;
lifted his head, dropped his tail, and stared at the phenomenon. If this
child was a protégée of Kroof’s, he wanted none of her; for it would be
a day of famine indeed when he would wish to force conclusions with the
giant she-bear. Moreover, he recognized some sort of power and
prerogative in Miranda herself, some right of sovereignty, as it were,
which had made it distinctly hard for him to attack her even while she
had no other defence than her disconcerting gaze. Now, however, he saw
clearly that there was something very mysterious indeed about her. He
decided that it would be well to have an understanding with his mate—who
was more savage though less powerful than himself—that the child should
not be meddled with, no matter what chance should arise. With this
conclusion he wheeled about, and walked off indifferently, moving with
head erect and a casual air. One would hardly have known him for the
stealthy monster of five minutes before.
When he was gone Kroof lay down on her side and gently coaxed Miranda
against her body. Her bereaved heart went out to the child. Her swollen
teats, too, were hotly aching, and she had a kind of hope that Miranda
would ease that hurt. But this, of course, never came within scope of
the child’s remotest idea. In every other respect, however, she showed
herself most appreciative of Kroof’s attentions, stroking her with light
little hands, and murmuring to her much musical endearment, to which
Kroof lent earnest ear. Then, laying her head on the fine fur of the
bear’s belly, she suddenly went fast asleep, being wearied by her
wanderings and her emotions.
Late in the afternoon, toward milking-time, Kirstie aroused herself. She
sat up with a startled air in her bunk in the corner of the cabin.
Through the window came the rays of the westering sun. She felt troubled
at having been so long asleep. And where could Miranda be? She arose,
tottering for a moment, but soon found herself steady; and then she
realized that she had slept off a sickness. She went to the door. The
hens were diligently scratching in the dust, and Saunders eyed her with
tolerance. At the fence beyond the barn the black-and-white cow lowed
for the milking; and from her tether at the other side of the buckwheat
field, Michael, the calf, bleated for her supper of milk and hay tea.
But Miranda was nowhere to be seen.
“Miranda!” she called. And then louder,—and yet louder,—and at last with
a piercing wail of anguish, as it burst upon her that Miranda was gone.
The sunlit clearing, the grey cabin, the dark forest edges, all seemed
to whirl and swim about her for an instant. It was only for an instant.
Then she snatched up the axe from the chopping log, and with a sure
instinct darted into that tongue of fir woods just behind the house.
Straight ahead she plunged, as if following a plain trail; though in
truth she was little learned in woodcraft, and by her mere eyes could
scarce have tracked an elephant. But her heart was clutched by a grip of
ice, and she went as one tranced. All at once, however, over the mossy
crest of a rock, she saw a sight which brought her to a standstill. Her
eyes and her mouth opened wide in sheer amazement. Then the terrible
tension relaxed. A strong shudder passed through her, and she was her
steadfast self again. A smile broke up the sober lines of her face.
“Sure enough,” she muttered; “the child was right. She knows a sight
more about the beasts than I do.”
And this is what she saw. Through the hoary arcades of the firwood
walked a huge black bear, with none other than Miranda trotting by its
side, and playfully stroking its rich coat. The great animal would pause
from time to time, merely to nuzzle at the child with its snout or lick
her hand with its narrow red tongue; but the course it was making was
straight for the cabin. Kirstie stood motionless for some minutes,
watching the strange scene; then, stepping out from her shelter, she
hastened after them. So engrossed were they with each other that she
came up undiscovered to within some twenty paces of them. Then she
called out:—
“Miranda, where _have_ you been?”
The child stopped, looked around, but still clung to Kroof’s fur.
“Oh, mother!” she cried, eager and breathless, and trying to tell
everything at once, “I was all lost—and I was just going to be eaten
up—and the dear, good, big bear came and frightened the panther away—and
we were just going home—and _do_ come and speak to the dear, lovely, big
bear! Oh, don’t let it go away! _don’t_ let it!”
But on this point Kroof had her own views. It was Miranda she had
adopted, not Kirstie; and she felt a kind of jealousy of Miranda’s
mother. Even while Miranda was speaking, the bear swung aside and
briskly shambled off, leaving the child half in tears.
It was a thrilling story which Miranda had to tell her mother that
evening, while the black-and-white cow was getting milked, and while
Michael, the calf, was having its supper of milk and hay tea. It made a
profound impression on Kirstie’s quick and tolerant mind. She at once
realized the value to Miranda of such an affection as Kroof’s. Most
mothers would have been crazed with foolish fear at the situation, but
Kirstie Craig was of no such weak stuff. She saw in it only a strong
shield for Miranda against the gravest perils of the wood.