gleam of mockery in his singularly human eyes, and around his neck was
tied an ordinary express tag, which was inscribed, simply: “Please pass
the Butter.” Where he had obtained it, I do not know, but he had
evidently taken the next train.
When Ab woke up, he viewed the new arrival with disfavour, which was
promptly reciprocated by said arrival.
“Likely lookin’ animile,” grunted Ab. “Whose is it?”
“It seems to be ours,” I answered, with a hollow laugh.
“Smells like thunder, don’t it?” asked Ab.
Jagg bleated five times in rapid succession and plunged out into the
fresh air, then turned toward the spring where we got our drinking water
and took off the brakes. Before any one could prevent him, he had taken
a bath in the spring and emerged dripping wet, with his hat still on.
Ab’s disgust knew no bounds. “Bilin’ the water won’t help it none now,”
he said. “Reckon we’ll have to drink bug juice.” He drew a flask from
his pocket and took a long draught, smacking his lips with evident
enjoyment.
Here Jagg did his Skootaway stunt, and Ab blinked. There was not even a
glimmer of white in the air—one merely had the impression that something
had gone by.
“Say, pardner,” said Ab, brokenly, “tell me the truth. Have I got ’em,
or was there a Goat with a plug hat on settin’ here a minute ago?”
“The Goat and the hat were both here,” I assured him, and he sighed in
relief. “I suppose,” he continued, meditatively, “that we both orter
take the pledge.”
Jagg returned in time for breakfast and sat opposite us. The dislike
between him and Ab speedily ripened into hate, and I could see that a
catastrophe was due before long, but I made no allusion to it.
“What be you goin’ to call the beast?” asked Ab.
“Haven’t thought about it,” I returned, shortly.
“I suppose he wouldn’t need to be called,” remarked Ab. “He seems to be
here most of the time.”
I smiled as pleasantly as could be expected under the circumstances, and
Ab went on with his part of the sketch. “Too bad he ain’t a Sheep.”
“Why?” I asked, seeing that he was waiting for the question.
“Had a fool friend once,” observed Ab, “with one of them high-toned
stock farms. He had one cussed old Sheep of some fancy breed that he
paid five thousand dollars for. The boys used to call him Hi-ram.”
I made no answer, being busy with the dishes, and Ab retreated into the
shrubbery. “Say,” he yelled, from a respectful distance, “be you
English?”
My blood burned to be at him, but I did not wish to quarrel with the
only human being for miles around, nor to lower myself to the level of
my kindred of the wild, who fight it out with claw and tooth and fang.
Jagg, who was sitting near me, snorted loudly with anger and the hair on
the back of his neck bristled.
He came to me, and by repeated significant gestures made me understand
that he wished me to remove his hat. I did so, but with difficulty.
When Ab appeared at dinner time, Jagg took no apparent notice of him.
The kettle was singing cheerily and the delicious scent of the frying
bacon was abroad in the landscape. “Ab,” I called, “get some more sticks
and put them on the fire.”
He bent over the cheerful flame and replenished the blaze with an armful
of chips which he had found in the woods. Jagg was not a part of the
domestic scene and I did not know where he was, but I heard a loud
imprecation, saw Ab careening madly in midair, and fancied that I saw a
glimmer of white just over the shrubbery.
My quick, active mind at once inferred that I should have to add Ab’s
biography to my great work: _The Lives of the Bunted_.
Nothing was said, and on the surface, at least, all things were as
usual, but I saw the red gleam of implacable hate in the faces of my two
companions, and dreaded the deadly combat which must soon take place.
For a week or more there was comparative peace, then, one morning when I
opened my cabin door to admit the fresh air of dawn, I saw a pathetic
sight. On my threshold, faithful to the last, was Jagg, stark and stiff
and cold in death.
He lay flat on his back, his eyes wide open, and his feet were at right
angles to his body. The _rigor mortis_ had already set in to such an
extent that I felt as if I had struck a picket fence when I endeavoured
to pass. It was characteristic of him, perhaps, that he could not even
die without arranging some kind of a trap for me to fall into. I was
obliged to move him before I could get outdoors, and the undertaking
proved unusually difficult.
I gave him a decent burial, and painted him a headstone, but I never saw
Ab again. The Goat’s body was bloated in a way which led me to suspect
poison, and, as time goes on, my suspicion becomes stronger, for the end
of a wild animal is always a tragedy, and Jagg was unquestionably wild.
SNOOF
I passed the remaining weeks of my exile in hermit-like solitude. I was
not disposed to make further studies in my chosen calling, and time hung
heavily upon my hands. I checked off the days upon my calendar with red
ink, so that I should not become confused and miss the date of my
departure. Having been shipped out of town until September first, to
save my life, I did not intend to sacrifice it by returning on August
thirty-first. “Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well,”—a
trite copy-book maxim, that, but none the less a true one.
The English language, vast as it is, can convey no adequate idea of my
longing for civilisation. The rush and roar of city life, the
loud-voiced clangour of commerce, and the fine, inspiring click of my
telegraph instrument would have been music to me. I packed up, ready to
start at one minute after twelve on the night of my release. Happily,
there was a train at a quarter past one, and I could get to town in time
for breakfast.
From the time of my packing until I set off on the long trail, at one
minute after twelve, by my jewelled repeater, I experienced the
discomfort of those who have moved mentally, but are still clamped,
physically, to the places they have moved from.
My stern fidelity to truth compels me to record the fact that my arrival
in the city was not as pleasing as I had fancied it would be. The noise
was terrible, and before eating my simple breakfast at a quick-lunch
counter, I was obliged to stuff cotton into my ears. This did not
prevent me from hearing the candid comments made upon my personal
appearance by the pretty waitresses.
“Uncle Rube, from Hayville,” observed a dashing blonde to her giggling
companion. “Pipe the alfalfa on the jay’s mug,” said another. At this
there were hissing murmurs of: “Sh-h! He’ll hear you!” “Naw,” said the
speaker, “he’s deef. He’s calked his listeners with white fur. Bet his
wife had a hand in it. She don’t want him to bring home no gold bricks
in his carpet-bag.”
The talk had risen to such a crescendo pitch that passers-by were fain
to take an interest in it, and it seemed to me that it was time to
interfere.
“Young ladies,” I said, clearing my throat, “I have neither wife nor
carpet-bag. I have calked my listeners, as you concisely put it, to keep
the chatter of green parrots from interfering with my noteworthy
meditations. I am a Scientist—an unchristian Scientist, I may add, and I
shall take pleasure in sending a copy of _The Ladies’ Own_ to this
restaurant for the guidance of the help. Read it carefully, study it,
ponder over its noble precepts, and it will enable you to win the
respect of your employer and his customers.”
In the midst of a profound silence I walked out, discovering two blocks
farther on that I still held the green check calling for fifteen cents.
I bought two copies of _The Ladies’ Own_ and sent a boy back with them,
thus more than repaying my indebtedness.
I determined to report at my physician’s office before returning to my
apartments. In the reception-room of his suite, I first caught a glimpse
of myself in a mirror, and was compelled to admit that I looked seedy.
My hair, which had not been cut for over three months, hung down over my
collar in the manner of Buffalo Bill’s, and I had a thirteen weeks’
growth of undisciplined beard upon my erstwhile smooth countenance. My
linen, also, was questionable.
Finally, I was admitted, and my medical adviser gasped out something
which sounded like “gosh,” but which doubtless was not, since he is a
perfect gentleman.
“Dear friend,” I cried, advancing with outstretched hands, “I have come
to thank you for my life!”
“Don’t mention it,” he returned, modestly. “I assure you, it is nothing
worth speaking of.”
“When I left you,” I continued, “I was a physical wreck. Behold me now!
I have lived next to the ground and studied the ways of those wonderful
creatures whom, in our arrogant self-esteem, we call the lower animals.
I have had for my friends all the wood folk—Upsidaisi, the Field Mouse,
Unk Munk, the Porcupine, Ka-Ka, the Pole-Cat, Tom-Tom, the _felinis
simpaticus_, Kitchi-Kitchi, the Red Squirrel, Hoop-La, Sing-Sing,
Pitti-Bird, Chee-Wee——”
Here my medical adviser interrupted me. “Mr. Johnson-Sitdown,” he said,
wearily, “as this is my busy day, it will be a kindness if you will put
the remainder of that into a phonograph and have it sent. The collection
of Chinese laundry checks is doubtless interesting and valuable, but I
am obliged to specialise in my own line. Permit me to give you another
prescription.”
He rose from his chair, handed me a bit of folded paper, and opened the
door. My Summer in the wilderness had so sharpened my naturally acute
senses, that I instantly perceived my friend’s wish to be alone, and
accordingly, with rare tact, I bowed myself out. How I pitied the man
who could not be a hermit except between patients! Nevertheless, one
must have patience before one can be a hermit.
At the first drug store I handed in the prescription, and the clerk
returned presently with the remark that they did not keep it. I asked
him where I could find it, and he suggested a barber-shop.
Outside, I opened the prescription. It read as follows:
“1 bath, repeat twice daily,
3 shaves,
8 hair cuts,
New clothes.”
I spent the rest of the day and all the money I had left in explicitly
following out the directions of my gifted friend. In the morning I was
back at my desk.
Throughout the Winter I spent my evenings studying Natural History and
writing out my own experiences for the magazines. A boom was on in this
kind of literature and the supply was not at all equal to the demand,
so, in place of the returned manuscripts, I speedily acquired some sort
of a vogue. Doubtless the reader will remember that I had some pieces,
carefully edited, in _The Ladies’ Own_ and _The Girlie’s Close
Companion_. Meanwhile my income was pleasurably increased, and I shortly
became so independent that I wholly ignored those miserable sheets which
pay “on publication” and publish when they like. I planned to quit work
entirely during the warm months, and this choice morsel of news was
noised about among the literary editors. In more than one paper I read
that “Mr. O. Sitdown-Johnson Johnson-Sitdown, the well-known naturalist,
will spend the Summer in Yellowstone Park, studying the animals of that
region.” Before I left town, I had contracted for the publication of all
the work I could do—and more, too, as it afterward proved.
That was a great year for Bears, and all through the West they were
unusually abundant. Cattle and sheep were killed on the range, chicken
coops rifled, and provisions stolen from the lumber camps. In fact, the
nuisance became so great that a bounty was put upon Bear pelts in more
than one State and every trail was practically barricaded with traps.
Indians coming in reported that the woods were vocal with low, mournful
sounds which, in every case, originated at the Bear traps. When a Bear
was caught in a deadfall, his mate, or her mate, as the case might be,
would sit by, holding the poor head in tender arms, and rock back and
forth, moaning, until the men came to remove the body. Considerations of
safety alone would put the bereaved mate to flight. This is the law of
the wilderness—self-preservation first, the old, primeval instinct,
supported by claw and tooth and fang and the swift pace down the trail.
Other observers have found two instances only of a Bear sitting by the
trap, holding its dead mate in its arms, and moaning. Whether I was more
fortunate or more observing, it is not for me to say, but that year, and
in that locality, the woods were full of it.
Naturally, with all this material at my disposal, I made up my mind to
study Bears first. I had not been in the Geyser House three minutes
before I was out in the kitchen, making earnest inquiries of the cook
and scullery maids. I learned, to my delight, that Bears came to the
back door every day, and that by sitting on the step, I might see them.
One of the scullery maids suggested to me that I peel the potatoes as I
sat there. It seemed that the odour of this succulent root was very
attractive to Bears, and, in fact, they never came to the back door
except when potatoes were being peeled.
There were few guests at the Geyser House, as it was comparatively early
in the season, but I studied the register carefully. Upon it, in an
angular hand, I noted the names of “Mrs. Miranda Kirsten,” and “Miss
Miranda Kirsten.” For some reason, these names moved me profoundly, and
I was still thinking of them when I fell asleep.
In the morning, when I went down to breakfast, a lady and a child were
seated at my table. At once, I knew who they were. The mother ignored
me, but the little girl’s eyes were fastened upon me with tender
interest. While she was engaged in contemplating me, she choked on her
near-food, and doubtless would have strangled had I not with swift
presence of mind gone to the rescue. I grasped the child, reversed her,
and swung her back and forth by the heels until the section of straw
mattress which she had vainly attempted to swallow was dislodged from
the main line of her bronchial system.
“Dear sir, kind sir,” said the mother, with tears in her eyes, as I put
the thoroughly frightened child into her outstretched arms, “how shall I
ever thank you for preserving my daughter’s life!”
“Do not mention it,” I replied, in the happy and appropriate words of my
medical adviser; “I assure you, it is nothing worth speaking of.”
“Sir-r-r-r!” exclaimed the mother, in a freezing tone.
“I mean, dear Mrs. Kirsten,” I went on, in my best manner, “that I am
accustomed to it. From Maine to San Francisco, every Summer, it has been
my good fortune to save the lives of unnumbered children who have choked
upon near-food.”
Here the little Miranda slipped out of her mother’s arms and came to me.
“Pitty man,” she said, placing her hand upon mine with tender
confidence. “Baby loves ’oo.”
That settled it. I was at once restored to the mother’s good graces, and
we chatted pleasantly all through breakfast.
Immediately afterward, with my camera and my note-books, I went out to
see Bears. I felt, rather than heard the animals, for, as every observer
knows, the soft, padded feet of a Bear make no noise whatever upon the
trail.
I walked along as carefully as possible, but saw nothing to photograph
until the path turned. There, sitting up on her haunches, not twenty
paces from me, was a large black Bear!
Her Cub, also upon his haunches, was about a yard and three-eighths
behind her, and I realised that my situation was serious. I had no
weapon—the authorities do not allow weapons of any description to be
carried in the Park, except the pen, which is mightier than the sword,
but no use to anybody in an emergency like mine unless it is a Bear pen.
If I turned and ran, she would doubtless follow me and overtake me long
before I reached the hotel. In fact, I was sure that I never should
reach it, if the Bear followed me. There was nothing left for me to do
but to try the power of the human eye.
Now, as everyone knows, Bears are near-sighted, and I was almost upon
the animal before she saw me. Then she gave a loud “_S-n-o-o-f!_” and
ran into the depths of the forest, her Cub so hot upon her trail that he
might have stepped on it and torn it.
So great was my relief that I laughed aloud, but I could not help
wondering what would have happened if the Bear had been more
near-sighted than she was. Nature gives the animals what they most
desire—the silent wing to the Owl, the keen claws to the Panther, and
the soft walk to the Bear.
I walked about for some little time, but saw no more Bears. I chronicled
the incident in my note-book, immediately, naming the mother “Snoof,”
and the Cub “Snooflet.” I supposed she was one of those who had been
widowed by the traps in the forest outside of the Park limits, but
inquiry at the hotel assured me that both she and her Cub were well
known. I was told, also, that if I wished to see Bears, I must go to the
garbage heap, a mile away from the Geyser House.
That night, as we sat upon the veranda of the hotel, I regaled Mrs.
Kirsten and the little girl with the story of my morning’s adventure.
The moon was shining brightly, and my fair companion had the immemorial
charm of the widow, with the added witchery of moonlight. Together, the
combination was a powerful one.
Miranda climbed into my lap and nestled sleepily in the hollow of my
arm. “Tell me,” said Mrs. Kirsten, in a soft, musical voice, “why are
you here?”
“Because you are,” I responded, gallantly. “Why are you here?”
“On Miranda’s account,” she said, shortly. She snatched the sleeping
child out of my arms, and in less time than it takes to tell it, she was
gone.
I waited nearly three hours, but she did not return, so I went off into
the Park a little way to compose my thoughts for the night. In a
clearing, four miles from the hotel, I came upon a strange sight. Snoof
sat on her haunches, with one arm around her Cub. With her free paw, she
was pointing to the heavens, outlining, as I shortly saw, the
constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor for her offspring.
Reverently removing my hat, I tiptoed away. Truly, maternal devotion has
depths far beyond my ken.
In the night, I saw Snoof and Mrs. Kirsten, Miranda and Snooflet,
waltzing around the garbage heap, and I was overjoyed to wake and
discover that the painful spectacle was merely a fantasy of sleep.
It must have been two or three days later that I went downstairs very
early in the morning and found Mrs. Kirsten upon the veranda with her
little daughter. She was removing the child’s shoes and stockings, and I
did not make my presence known for fear of embarrassing them both.
Miranda toddled off, and her mother sat down upon the top step, watching
her with agonised mother-eyes until she was well out of sight. Then a
dry, tearless moan welled up from the depths of her heart. A moment
later, her face was buried in her handkerchief, and she was shaking with
sobs.
This was too much for me. I am a landlubber when it comes to salt water,
and have never been able to endure a woman’s tears. I hastened out and
put my hand upon her shoulder.
“Mrs. Kirsten,” I said, very gently, “you are troubled. Let me help
you!”
“Oh, sir,” she answered, breaking down utterly at the unexpected
sympathy, “you cannot help me—no one can! The most celebrated physicians
and alienists have given up the case.”
“Dear Mrs. Kirsten, Miranda the First,” I continued, “you can at least
tell me. Two heads are three times as good as one if the extra head is
mine.” To the critical reader this may sound egotistical, but the
situation was tense, and it was no more than the truth.
“Oh, how can I bear to tell you! I, who have always lived a decent,
respectable life, holding my head as high as my neighbours’ heads, I, to
have this shame, this fear!”
“Dear Miranda the First,” I pleaded, forgetting all conventional forms,
“tell me! Believe me, I am your friend!”
“I know it,” she cried, “but it is too terrible! Miranda, my darling
little daughter, my own and only child, is—is—is—is——”
“Is what?” I demanded, excitedly.
“A Little Sister to the Woods!” she gasped, then hid her face against my
shoulder.
With rare comprehension, for a man, I only stroked the weeper’s spine
and said nothing. At last her sobs quieted. “You do not despise me?” she
asked, tremulously.
“Despise you?” I repeated. “No, dear lady, no!”
When she was calm, she told me the whole miserable story. From her
birth, Miranda the Second had been exceedingly fond of animals and had
refused to associate with children at all. She drew animals of all kinds
as a sheet of sticky fly-paper draws Flies. She made friends with
Lizards, Spiders, Toads, Bumblebees, Hornets, Foxes, Wasps, Rabbits,—in
fact everything that crossed her path, with the single exception of
Snakes. For three days she had been lost, and when she was finally
discovered, it was in the wake of an Italian who had a dancing Bear.
Miranda wept bitterly when the police took her home, and for over a week
she raged and screamed, demanding with every breath to be taken back to
the “pitty Bear.”
It was only upon the promise of seeing plenty of Bears that she had
quieted down at all, and her mother had brought her to Yellowstone Park,
knowing that the animals there would be practically harmless, especially
to one of Miranda’s gifts, and in the hope that satiety might work a
cure.
Yet every morning, for the three weeks they had been there, Miranda had
insisted upon going forth alone. “My baby,” sobbed the mother, “my baby,
out there alone with the wild beasts! I cannot go with her, for she is
safer without me. I am no relation whatever to the woods, to say nothing
of being a Little Sister.”
“But her shoes and stockings,” I said, pointing to the soft bundle half
concealed by Mrs. Kirsten’s skirt, “why are they here?”
“I do not know,” she answered, shaking her head, sadly. “It is possible,
of course, that they may insulate her, as it were, from her mother
earth, and thus make her so different from the other animals that they
could not recognise her as one of them. It is possible, also, that she
sees more Bears when she is barefooted.”
There was a long silence, then the little toddler came within range of
our vision. She was accompanied by a huge grizzly Bear, who was walking
beside her on his hind legs. Her little hand rested confidingly in his
great paw, and I confess that the sight made me shudder. They came
together, the great Bear walking slowly to accommodate Miranda’s short
steps, until they reached a point half-way between the hotel and the
edge of the forest.
Then the Bear stopped, pointed to us with his free paw, and Miranda
nodded, in token that she understood. She ran on ahead a little way,
then turned back. The great grizzly bowed very low, with his right paw
placed over the pit of his stomach, then came down on all fours and
ambled off into the forest.
Miranda came to us, breathless and laughing. “Oh,” she cried, with her
face aglow, “pitty Bears! Booful, booful Bears!”
[Illustration: “Her little hand rested confidingly in his great paw.”]
“Pray, what does ‘booful’ mean?” I inquired in a low tone of the mother,
as she put on Miranda’s shoes and stockings.
“It is early English for ‘beautiful,’” explained Mrs. Kirsten, her face
white with pain.
Perceiving that it would be the truest kindness to the woman I had
learned to love, I stole away. My keen scientific mind quickly grasped
the possibility before me. Miranda might be of great use to me—so much
was plain—but would it be right? Then I saw that I could not hope to
cure Miranda’s malady until I had seen the working of it so often that I
fully understood its character and scope. Happy, happy thought!
That afternoon, while Mrs. Kirsten slept the sleep of utter exhaustion,
I told Miranda the story of Goldenhair and the Three Bears, and so won
her childish affections forever. As yet, I dared not suggest my plan to
Mrs. Kirsten, but I felt sure that the time would come when I might
appropriately do so.
The next day I went out to the garbage heap, and settled myself
comfortably under the tree nearest to it. I must have seen over two
hundred Bears, but I was near enough to none of them to make the
observations I desired. So, with the true Scientist’s fine disregard of
inconvenience, I made an excavation in the top of the garbage heap,
climbed in, and concealed myself as well as I might with the litter. I
do not claim that it was pleasant, but it was unavoidable.
All day I saw Bears, meanwhile plying my camera and note-book
vigorously. They came and went, but before night I was so familiar with
the different individuals that I had named many of them and knew them
all by sight. I saw nothing of Snoof and Snooflet, however, and began to
wonder where they were keeping themselves.