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+Project Gutenberg's The Heart of the Ancient Wood, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Heart of the Ancient Wood
+
+Author: Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2014 [EBook #47671]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marcia Brooks, Stephen Hutcheson, and the
+online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+                        BY THE MARSHES OF MINAS
+                        THE FORGE IN THE FOREST
+                         A SISTER TO EVANGELINE
+
+[Illustration: ‘Get off!’ she ordered sharply Page 153]
+
+
+
+
+                            THE HEART OF THE
+                              ANCIENT WOOD
+
+
+                                   BY
+                         CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
+
+
+                         WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                             METHUEN & CO.
+                          36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+                                 LONDON
+                                  1902
+
+
+ Copyright by Silver, Burdett & Company in the United States of America
+                         _All rights reserved_
+
+                                   To
+                              L. W. v. U.
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+  Chapter                                                            Page
+  I. The Watchers of the Trail                                          1
+  II. The Cabin in the Clearing                                        18
+  III. The Exiles from the Settlement                                  30
+  IV. Miranda and the Furtive Folk                                     46
+  V. Kroof, the She-bear                                               64
+  VI. The Initiation of Miranda                                        76
+  VII. The Intimates                                                   88
+  VIII. Axe and Antler                                                107
+  IX. The Pax Mirandæ                                                 121
+  X. The Routing of the Philistines                                   133
+  XI. Miranda and Young Dave                                          145
+  XII. Young Dave at the Clearing                                     162
+  XIII. Milking-time                                                  173
+  XIV. Moonlight and Moose-call                                       187
+  XV. A Venison Steak                                                 203
+  XVI. Death for a Little Life                                        225
+  XVII. In the Roar of the Rapids                                     245
+  XVIII. The Forfeit of the Alien                                     262
+
+
+
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  “‘Get off!’ she ordered sharply”                         _Frontispiece_
+                                                              FACING PAGE
+  “She . . . stood motionless, erect and formidable”                   50
+  “She sprang up, . . . her whole weight straining on the tether”     102
+  “He ran wildly over the snow patches”                               140
+  “The moose recognized her”                                          196
+  “‘Stroke on the right!’ came Dave’s sharp order”                    250
+
+
+
+
+                     THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter I
+                       The Watchers of the Trail
+
+
+Not indolently soft, like that which sifts in green shadow through the
+leafage of a summer garden, but tense, alertly and mysteriously
+expectant, was the silence of the forest. It was somehow like a vast
+bubble of glass, blown to a fineness so tenuous that a small sound, were
+it but to strike the one preordained and mystic note, might shatter it
+down in loud ruin. Yet it had existed there flawless for generations,
+transmuting into its own quality all such infrequent and inconsequent
+disturbance as might arise from the far-off cry of the panther, or the
+thin chirp of the clambering nuthatch, the long, solemn calling of the
+taciturn moose, twice or thrice repeated under the round October moon,
+or the noise of some great wind roaring heavily in the remote tops of
+pine and birch and hemlock. Few and slender were the rays of sun that
+pierced down through those high tops. The air that washed the endless
+vistas of brown-green shadow was of a marvellous clarity, not blurred by
+any stain of dust or vapour. Its magical transparency was confusing to
+an eye not born and bred to it, making the far branches seem near, and
+the near twigs unreal, disturbing the accustomed perspective, and
+hinting of some elvish deception in familiar and apparent things.
+
+The trail through the forest was rough and long unused. In spots the
+mosses and ground vines had so overgrown it that only the broad scars on
+the tree trunks, where the lumberman’s axe had blazed them for a sign,
+served to distinguish it from a score of radiating vistas. But just
+here, where it climbed a long, gradual slope, the run of water down its
+slight hollow had sufficed to keep its worn stones partly bare.
+Moreover, though the furrowing steps of man had left it these many
+seasons untrodden, it was never wholly neglected. A path once fairly
+differentiated by the successive passings of feet will keep, almost
+forever, a spell for the persuasion of all that go afoot. The old trail
+served the flat, shuffling tread of Kroof, the great she-bear, as she
+led her half-grown cub to feast on the blueberry patches far up the
+mountain. It caught the whim of Ten-Tine, the caribou, as he convoyed
+his slim cows down to occasional pasturage in the alder swamps of the
+slow Quah-Davic.
+
+On this September afternoon, when the stillness seemed to wait
+wide-eyed, suddenly a cock-partridge came whirring up the trail,
+alighted on a gnarled limb, turned his outstretched head twice from side
+to side as he peered with his round beads of eyes, and then stiffened
+into the moveless semblance of one of the fungoid excrescences with
+which the tree was studded. A moment more and the sound of footsteps, of
+the nails of heavy boots striking on the stones, grew conspicuous
+against the silence. Up the trail came slouching, with a strong but
+laborious stride, a large, grizzled man in grey home-spuns. His trousers
+were stuffed unevenly into the tops of his rusty boots; on his head was
+a drooping, much-battered hat of a felt that had been brown; from his
+belt hung a large knife in a fur-fringed leather sheath; and over his
+shoulder he carried an axe, from the head of which swung a large bundle.
+The bundle was tied up in a soiled patchwork quilt of gaudy colours, and
+from time to time there came from it a flat clatter suggestive of tins.
+At one side protruded the black handle of a frying-pan, half wrapped up
+in newspaper.
+
+Had he been hunter or trapper, Dave Titus would have carried a gun. Or
+had he been a townsman, a villager, or even an ordinary small country
+farmer, he would have taken care to be well armed before penetrating a
+day’s journey into the heart of the ancient wood. But being a lumberman,
+he was neither quite of the forest nor quite of the open. His winters he
+spent in the very deep of the wilderness, in a log camp crowded with his
+mates, eating salt pork, beans, hot bread; and too busy all day long
+with his unwearying axe to wage any war upon the furred and feathered
+people. His summers were passed with plough and hoe on a little
+half-tilled farm in the Settlements. He had, therefore, neither the
+desire to kill nor the impulse to fear, as he traversed, neutral and
+indifferent, these silent but not desolated territories. Not desolated;
+for the ancient wood was populous in its reserve. Observant, keen of
+vision, skilled in woodcraft though he was, the grave-faced old
+lumberman saw nothing in the tranquillity about him save tree trunks,
+and fallen, rotting remnants, and mossed hillocks, and thickets of
+tangled shrub. He noted the difference, not known to the general eye,
+between white spruce, black spruce, and fir, between grey birch and
+yellow birch, between withe-wood and viburnum; and he read
+instinctively, by the lichen growth about their edges, how many seasons
+had laid their disfeaturing touch upon those old scars of the axe which
+marked the trail. But for all his craft he thought himself alone. He
+guessed not of the many eyes that watched him.
+
+In truth, his progress was the focus of an innumerable attention. The
+furtive eyes that followed his movements were some of them timorously
+hostile, some impotently vindictive, some indifferent; but all alien.
+All were at one in the will to remain unseen; so all kept an unwinking
+immobility, and were swallowed up, as it were, in the universal
+stillness.
+
+The cock-partridge, a well-travelled bird who knew the Settlements and
+their violent perils, watched with indignant apprehension. Not without
+purpose had he come whirring so tumultuously up the trail, a warning to
+the ears of all the wood-folk. His fear was lest the coming of this grey
+man-figure should mean an invasion of those long, black sticks which
+went off with smoky bang when they were pointed. He effaced himself till
+his brown mottled feathers were fairly one with the mottled brown bark
+of his perch; but his liquid eyes lost not a least movement of the
+stranger.
+
+The nuthatch, who had been walking straight up the perpendicular trunk
+of a pine when the sound of the alien footsteps froze him, peered
+fixedly around the tree. His eye, a black point of inquiry, had never
+before seen anything like this clumsy and slow-moving shape, but knew it
+for something dangerous. His little slaty head, jutting at an acute
+angle from the bark, looked like a mere caprice of knot or wood fungus;
+but it had the singular quality of moving smoothly around the trunk, as
+the lumberman advanced, so as to keep him always in view.
+
+Equally curious, but quivering with fear, two wood-mice watched him
+intently, sitting under the broad leaf of a skunk-cabbage not three feet
+from the trail. Their whiskers touched each other’s noses, conveying
+thrills and palpitations of terror as he drew near, drew nearer,
+came—and passed. But not unless that blind, unheeding heel had been on
+the very point of crushing them would they have disobeyed the prime law
+of their tribe, which taught them that to sit still was to sit unseen.
+
+A little farther back from the trail, under a spreading tangle of
+ironwood, on a bed of tawny moss crouched a hare. His ears lay quite
+flat along his back. His eyes watched with aversion, not unmixed with
+scorn, the heavy, tall creature that moved with such effort and such
+noise. “Never,” thought the hare, disdainfully, “would he be able to
+escape from his enemies!” As the delicate current of air which pulses
+imperceptibly through the forest bore the scent of the man to the hare’s
+hiding-place, the fine nostrils of the latter worked rapidly with
+dislike. On a sudden, however, came a waft of other scent; and the
+hare’s form seemed to shrink to half its size, the nostrils rigidly
+dilating.
+
+It was the scent of the weasel—to the hare it was the very essence of
+death. But it passed in an instant, and then the hare’s exact vision saw
+whence it came. For the weasel, unlike all the other folk of the wood,
+was moving. He was keeping pace with the man, at a distance of some ten
+feet from the trail. So fitted, however, was his colouring to his
+surrounding, so shadow-like in its soundless grace was his motion, that
+the man never discerned him. The weasel’s eyes were fixed upon the
+intruder with a malignancy of hate that might well have seared through
+his unconsciousness. Fortunately for the big lumberman, the weasel’s
+strength, stupendous for its size, was in no way commensurate with its
+malice; or the journey would have come to an end just there, and the
+gaudy bundle would have rested on the trail to be a long wonder to the
+mice.
+
+The weasel presently crossed the yet warm scent of a mink, whereupon he
+threw up his vain tracking of the woodman and turned off in disgust. He
+did not like the mink, and wondered what that fish-eater could be
+wanting so far back from the water. He was not afraid exactly,—few
+animals know fear so little as the weasel,—but he kept a small shred of
+prudence in his savage little heart, and he knew that the mink was
+scarcely less ferocious than himself, while nearly thrice his size.
+
+From the mossy crotch of an old ash tree, slanting over the trail, a
+pair of pale, yellow-green eyes, with fine black slits for pupils,
+watched the traveller’s march. They were set in a round, furry head,
+which was pressed flat to the branch and partly overhung it. The
+pointed, tufted ears lay flat back upon the round brown head. Into the
+bark of the branch four sets of razor-edged claws dug themselves
+venomously; for the wild-cat knew, perhaps through some occult
+communication from its far-off domesticated kin of hearth and door-sill,
+that in man he saw the one unvanquishable enemy to all the folk of the
+wood. He itched fiercely to drop upon the man’s bowed neck, just where
+it showed, red and defenceless, between the gaudy bundle and the rim of
+the brown hat. But the wild-cat, the lesser lynx, was heir to a ferocity
+well tempered with discretion, and the old lumberman slouched onward
+unharmed, all ignorant of that green gleam of hate playing upon his
+neck.
+
+It was a very different gaze which followed him from the heart of a
+little colony of rotting stumps, in a dark hollow near the trail. Here,
+in the cool gloom, sat Kroof, the bear, rocking her huge body
+contemplatively from side to side on her haunches, and occasionally
+slapping off a mosquito from the sensitive tip of her nose. She had no
+cub running with her that season, to keep her busy and anxious. For an
+hour she had been comfortably rocking, untroubled by fear or desire or
+indignation; but when the whirring of the cock-partridge gave her
+warning, and the grating of the nailed boots caught her ear, she had
+stiffened instantly into one of the big brown stumps. Her little red
+eyes followed the stranger with something like a twinkle in them. She
+had seen men before, and she neither actively feared them nor actively
+disliked them. Only, averse to needless trouble, she cared not to
+intrude herself on their notice; and therefore she obeyed the custom of
+the wood, and kept still. But the bear is far the most human of all the
+furry wood-folk, the most versatile and largely tolerant, the least
+enslaved by its surroundings. It has an ample sense of humour, also,
+that most humane of gifts; and it was with a certain relish that Kroof
+recognized in the grey-clad stranger one of those loud axemen from whose
+camp, far down by the Quah-Davic, she had only last winter stolen
+certain comforting rations of pork. Her impulse was to rock again with
+satisfaction at the thought, but that would have been out of keeping
+with her present character as a decaying stump, and she restrained
+herself. She also restrained a whimsical impulse to knock the gaudy
+bundle from the stranger’s back with one sweep of her great paw, and see
+if it might not contain many curious and edifying things, if not even
+pork. It was not till she had watched him well up the trail and fairly
+over the crest of the slope that, with a deep, non-committal grunt, she
+again turned her attention to the mosquitoes, which had been learning
+all the tenderness of a bear’s nose.
+
+These were but a few of the watchers of the trail, whose eyes,
+themselves unseen, scrutinized the invader of the ancient wood. Each
+step of all his journey was well noted. Not so securely and
+unconsideringly would he have gone, however, had he known that only the
+year before there had come a pair of panthers to occupy a vacant lair on
+the neighbouring mountain side. No, his axe would have swung free, and
+his eyes would have scanned searchingly every overhanging branch; for
+none knew better than old Dave Titus how dangerous a foe was the tawny
+northern panther. But just now, as it chanced, the panther pair were
+hunting away over in the other valley, the low, dense-wooded valley of
+the Quah-Davic.
+
+As matters stood, for all the watchers that marked him, the old
+lumberman walked amid no more imminent menace than that which glittered
+down upon him from four pairs of small bright eyes, high up among the
+forking limbs of an old pine. In a well-hidden hole, as in a nursery
+window, were bunched the smooth heads of four young squirrels,
+interested beyond measure in the strange animal plodding so heavily
+below them. Had they been Settlement squirrels they would, without
+doubt, have passed shrill comments, more or less uncomplimentary; for
+the squirrel loves free speech. But when he dwells among the folk of the
+ancient wood he, even he, learns reticence; and, in that neighbourhood,
+if a young squirrel talks out loud in the nest, the consequences which
+follow have a tendency to be final. When the old lumberman had passed
+out of their range of view, the four little heads disappeared into the
+musky brown depths of the nest, and talked the event over in the
+smallest of whispers.
+
+As the lumberman journeyed, covering good ground with his long,
+slouching stride, the trail gradually descended through a tract where
+moss-grown boulders were strown thick among the trees. Presently the
+clear green brown of the mid-forest twilight took a pallor ahead of him,
+and the air began to lose its pungency of bark and mould. Then came the
+flat, soft smell of sedge; and the trees fell away: and the traveller
+came out upon the shores of a lake. Its waters were outspread
+pearly-white from a fringe of pale green rushes, and the opposite shore
+looked black against the pale, hazy sky. A stone’s throw beyond the
+sedge rose a little naked island of black rock, and in the sheen of
+water off its extremity there floated the black, solitary figure of a
+loon.
+
+As the lumberman came out clear of the trees, and the gaudy colours of
+his bundle caught its eye, the bird sank itself lower in the water till
+only its erect neck and wedge-shaped head were in view. Then, opening
+wide its beak, it sent forth its wild peal of inexplicable and
+disconcerting laughter—an affront to the silence, but a note of monition
+to all the creatures of the lake. The loon had seen men before, and
+despised them, and found pleasure in proclaiming the scorn. It despised
+even the long, black sticks that went off with smoky bang when pointed;
+for had it not learned, in another lake near the Settlement, to dive at
+the flash and so elude the futile, spattering pellets that flew from the
+stick.
+
+The lumberman gave neither a first nor a second thought to the loon at
+all, but quickened his pace in the cheerful open. The trail now led some
+way along the lake-side, till the shore became higher and rougher, and
+behind a cape of rock a bustling river emptied itself, carrying lines of
+foam and long ripples far out across the lake’s placidity. From the cape
+of rock towered a bleak, storm-whitened rampike, which had been a pine
+tree before the lightning smote it. Its broken top was just now serving
+as the perch of a white-headed eagle. The great bird bent fierce yellow
+eyes upon the stranger,—eyes with a cruel-looking, straight overhang of
+brow,—and stretched its flat-crowned, snake-like head far out to regard
+him. It opened the rending sickle of its beak and yelped at him—three
+times at deliberated interval. Then the traveller vanished again into
+the gloom of the wood, and the arrogant bird plumed himself upon a
+triumph.
+
+The trail now touched the river, only to forsake it and plunge into the
+heart of a growth of young Canada balsam. This sweet-smelling region
+traversed, the soft roar of the stream was left behind, and the forest
+resumed its former monumental features. For another hour the man tramped
+steadily, growing more conscious of his load, more and more uninterested
+in his surroundings; and for another hour his every step was noted by
+intent, unwinking eyes from branch and thicket. Then again the woods
+fell apart with a spreading of daylight. He came out upon the spacious
+solitude of a clearing; pushed through the harsh belt of blackberry and
+raspberry canes, which grew as a neutral zone between forest and open;
+picked his way between the burned stumps and crimson fireweeds of a long
+desolate pasture; and threw down his bundle at the door of the loneliest
+cabin he had ever chanced to see.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter II
+                       The Cabin in the Clearing
+
+
+Though a spur of black, uncompromising spruce woods gave it near shelter
+on the north, the harshly naked clearing fell away from it on the other
+three sides, and left the cabin bleak. Not a shrub nor a sapling broke
+the bareness of the massive log walls, whence the peeling bark hung in
+strips that fluttered desolately to every wind. Only a few tall and
+ragged weeds, pale green, and with sparse, whitish grey seed-heads,
+straggled against the foundation logs. The rough deal door sagged on its
+hinges, half open. The door-sill gaped with a wide crack, rotted along
+the edges; and along the crack grew a little fringe of grass, ruthlessly
+crushed down by old Dave’s gaudy bundle. The two small windows still
+held fragments of glass in their sashes,—glass thick with spiders’ webs,
+and captive dust, and the _débris_ of withered insects. The wide-eaved
+roof, well built of split cedar-slabs, with a double overlay of bark,
+seemed to have turned a brave front to the assault of the seasons, and
+showed few casualties. Some thirty paces to one side stood another
+cabin, lower and more roughly built, whose roof had partly fallen in.
+This had been the barn,—this, with a battered lean-to of poles and
+interwoven spruce boughs against its southerly wall. The barn was set
+down at haphazard, in no calculated or contenting relation to the main
+building, but just as the lay of the hillocks had made it simplest to
+find a level for the foundations. All about it grew a tall, coarse
+grass, now grey and drily rustling, the brood of seeds which in past
+years had sifted through the chinks from the hay stored in the loft. The
+space between the two buildings, and for many square yards about the
+cabin door, was strewn thick with decaying chips, through which the dock
+and plantain leaves, hardy strangers from the Settlement, pushed up
+their broad, obtuse intrusion. Over toward the barn lay the bleached
+skeleton of a bob-sled, the rusted iron shoe partly twisted from one
+runner; and in the centre of the space, where the chips gathered
+thickest and the plantains had gained least ground, lay a split
+chopping-log, whose scars bore witness to the vigour of a vanished axe.
+
+The old lumberman fetched a deep breath, depressed by the immeasurable
+desolation. His eye wandered over the weedy fields, long fallow, and the
+rugged stump lots aflame here and there with patches of golden-rod and
+crimson fire-weed. To him these misplaced flares of colour seemed only
+to make the loneliness more forlorn, perhaps by their association with
+homelier and kindlier scenes. He leaned on his axe, and pointed
+indefinitely with his thumb.
+
+“Squat here! an’ farm yon!” said he, with contemplative disapproval.
+“I’d see myself furder first! But Kirstie Craig’s got grit for ten men!”
+
+Then he pushed the door open, lifting it to ease the hinge, and stepped
+peeringly inside. As he did so, a barn-swallow flickered out through a
+broken pane.
+
+The cabin contained two rooms, one much smaller than the other. The
+ceiling of the smaller room was formed by a loft at the level of the
+eaves, open toward the main room, which had no ceiling but the roof of
+slabs and bark. Here, running up through the east gable, was a chimney
+of rough stone, arched at the base to contain a roomy hearth, with
+swinging crane and rusted andirons. A settle of plank was fixed along
+the wall under the window. Down the middle of the room, its flank toward
+the hearth, ran a narrow table of two planks, supported by unsmoothed
+stakes driven into the floor. In the corner farthest from the chimney,
+over against the partition, was a shallow sleeping bunk, a mere oblong
+box partly filled with dry red pickings of spruce and hemlock. The floor
+was littered with dead leaves and with ashes wind-drifted from the
+hearth.
+
+Old Dave went over and glanced into the bunk. He found the spruce
+pickings scratched up toward one end, and arranged as they would be for
+no human occupant.
+
+“Critters been sleepin’ here!” he muttered. Then laying down his bundle,
+he turned his attention to the hearth, and soon the old chimney tasted
+once more, after its long solitude, the cheer of the familiar heat.
+
+It was now close upon sundown, and the lumberman was hungry. He untied
+the grimy, many-coloured quilt. Kroof, the she-bear, had been right in
+her surmise as to that bundle. It did contain pork,—a small, well-salted
+chunk of it; and presently the red-and-white-streaked slices were
+sputtering crisply in the pan, while the walls and roof saturated
+themselves once more in old-remembered savours.
+
+By the time the woodman had made his meal of fried pork and bread, and
+had smoked out his little pipe of blackened clay, a lonely twilight had
+settled about the cabin in the clearing. He went to the door and looked
+out. A white mist, rising along the forest edges, seemed to cut him off
+from all the world of men; and a few large stars, at vast intervals,
+came out solemnly upon the round of sky. He shut the door, dropped the
+wooden latch into its slot, and threw a dry sliver upon the hearth to
+give him light for turning in. He was sparing of the firewood,
+remembering that Kirstie, when she came, would need it all. Then he took
+his pipe from his mouth, knocked out the ashes, wiped the stump on his
+sleeve, and put it in his pocket; took off his heavy boots, rolled
+himself in the coloured quilt, and tumbled comfortably into the bunk,
+untroubled by any thought of its previous tenants. No sooner was he
+still than the mice came out and began scampering across the loft. He
+felt the sound homely and companionable, and so fell asleep. As he slept
+the deep undreaming sleep of the wholesomely tired, the meagre fire
+burned low, sank into pulsating coals, and faded into blackness.
+
+It was, perhaps, an hour later that Old Dave sat up, suddenly wide
+awake. He had no idea why he did it. He had heard no noise. He was
+certainly not afraid. There was no tremor in his seasoned nerves.
+Nevertheless, he was all at once absolutely awake, every sense alert. He
+felt almost as if there were some unkindred presence in the cabin. His
+first impulse was to spring from the bunk, and investigate. But,
+doubtless because he had spent so great a portion of his life in the
+forest, and because he had all that day been subtly played upon by its
+influences, another instinct triumphed. He followed the immemorial
+fashion of the folk of the wood, and just kept still, waiting to learn
+by watching.
+
+He saw the two dim squares of the windows, and once imagined that one of
+them was for an instant shadowed. At this he smiled grimly there in the
+dark, well knowing that among all the forest-folk there was not one, not
+even the panther himself, so imprudent as to climb through a small
+window into a shut-up place, all reeking with the fresh and ominous
+scent of man.
+
+Still he listened, in that movelessness which the haunted neighbourhood
+had taught him. The scurrying of the mice had ceased. There was no wind,
+and the darkness seemed all ears. The door, presently, gave a slow,
+gentle creaking, as if some heavy body pushed softly against it, trying
+the latch. The woodsman noiselessly reached out, and felt the handle of
+his axe, leaning by the head of the bunk. But the latch held, and the
+menacing furtive pressure was not repeated. Then, upon the very middle
+of the roof, began a scratching, a light rattling of claws, and
+footfalls went padding delicately over the bark. This puzzled the
+woodsman, who wondered how the owner of those clawed and velveted feet
+could have reached the roof without some noise of climbing. The soft
+tread, with an occasional scratch and snap, moved up and down the roof
+several times; and once, during a pause, a deep breath, ending with a
+sharp sniffing sound, was heard through the thin roof. Then came a
+muffled thud upon the chips, as of the drop of a heavy animal.
+
+The spell was broken, and Old Dave rose from the bunk.
+
+“It’s jumped down off the roof! wildcat, mebbe, or lynx. No painters
+’round, ’tain’t likely; though’t did sound heavy fur a cat!” said he to
+himself, as he strode to the door, axe in hand.
+
+Fearlessly he threw the door open, and looked out upon the glimmering
+night. The forest chill was in the air, the very breath and spirit of
+solitude. The mists gathered thickly a stone’s throw from the cabin. He
+saw nothing that moved. He heard no stir. With a shrug of the shoulders
+he turned, latched the door again with just a trifle more exactness of
+precaution than before, lounged back to his bunk, and slept heedlessly
+till high dawn. A long finger of light, coldly rosy, came in through a
+broken pane to rouse him up.
+
+When he went outside, the mists yet clung white and chill about the
+clearing, and all the weed tops were beaded with thick dew. He noted
+that the chips were disturbed somewhat, but could find no definite
+track. Then, following a grassy path that led, through a young growth of
+alder, to the spring, he found signs. Down to the spring, and beyond,
+into the woods, a trail was drawn that spoke plain language to his
+wood-wise scrutiny. The grass was bent, the dew brushed off, by a body
+of some bulk and going close to the ground.
+
+“Painter!” he muttered, knitting his brows, and casting a wary glance
+about him. “Reckon Kirstie’d better bring a gun along!”
+
+All that day Dave Titus worked about the cabin and the barn. He mended
+the roof, patched the windows, rehung the door, filled the bunk—and the
+two similar ones in the smaller room—with aromatic fresh green spruce
+tips, and worked a miracle of rejuvenation upon the barn. He also
+cleaned out the spring, and chopped a handy pile of firewood. An old
+sheep-pen behind the barn he left in its ruins, saying to himself:—
+
+“What with the b’ars, an’ the painters, Kirstie ain’t goin’ to want to
+mess with sheep, I reckon. She’ll have lots to do to look after her
+critters!”
+
+By “critters” he meant the cow and the yoke of steers which were Kirstie
+Craig’s property in the Settlement, and which, as he knew, she was to
+bring with her to her exile in the ancient wood.
+
+That night, being now quite at home in the lonely cabin, and assured as
+to the stability of the door, Dave Titus slept dreamlessly from dark to
+dawn in the pleasant fragrance of his bunk. From dark to dawn the mice
+scurried in the loft, the bats flickered about the eaves, the unknown
+furry bulks leaned on the door or padded softly up and down the roof,
+but troubled not his rest. Then the wild folk began to take account of
+the fact that the sovereignty of the clearing had been resumed by man,
+and word of the new order went secretly about the forest. When, next
+morning, Dave Titus made careful survey of the clearing’s skirts,
+calculating what brush and poles would be needed for Kirstie’s fencing,
+making rough guesses at the acreage, and noting with approval the
+richness of the good brown soil, he thought himself alone. But he was
+not alone. Speculative eyes, large and small, fierce and timorous, from
+all the edges of the ancient wood kept watch on him.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter III
+                     The Exiles from the Settlement
+
+
+Late that afternoon Kirstie Craig arrived. Her coming was a migration.
+
+The first announcement of her approach was the dull _tank, tank, a-tonk,
+tank_ of cow-bells down the trail, at sound of which Old Dave threw
+aside his axe and slouched away to meet her. There was heard a boy’s
+voice shouting with young authority, “Gee! Gee, Bright! Gee, Star!” and
+the head of the procession came into view in the solemn green archway of
+the woods.
+
+The head of the procession was Kirstie Craig herself, a tall, erect,
+strong-stepping, long-limbed woman in blue-grey home-spuns, with a vivid
+scarlet kerchief tied over her head. She was leading, by a rope about
+its horns, a meekly tolerant black-and-white cow. To her left hand clung
+a skipping little figure in a pink calico frock, a broad-brimmed hat of
+coarse straw flung back from her hair and hanging by ribbons from her
+neck. This was the five-year-old Miranda, Kirstie Craig’s daughter. She
+had ridden most of the journey, and now was full of excited interest
+over the approach to her new home. Following close behind came the yoke
+of long-horned, mild-eyed steers,—Bright, a light sorrel, and Star, a
+curious red-and-black brindle with a radiating splash of white in the
+middle of his forehead. These, lurching heavily on the yoke, were
+hauling a rude “drag,” on which was lashed the meagre pile of Kirstie’s
+belongings and supplies. Close at Star’s heaving flank walked a lank and
+tow-haired boy from the Settlement, his long ox-goad in hand, and an
+expression of resigned dissatisfaction on his grey-eyed, ruddy young
+face. Liking, and thoroughly believing in, Kirstie Craig, he had
+impulsively yielded to her request, and let himself be hired to assist
+her flight into exile. But in so doing he had gone roughly counter to
+public opinion; for the Settlement, though stupidly inhospitable to
+Kirstie Craig, none the less resented her decision to leave it. Her
+scheme of occupying the deserted cabin, farming the deserted clearing,
+and living altogether aloof from her unloved and unloving fellows, was
+scouted on every hand as the freak of a madwoman; and Young Dave, just
+coming to the age when public opinion begins to seem important, felt
+uneasy at being identified with a matter of public ridicule. He saw
+himself already, in imagination, a theme for the fine wit of the
+Settlement. Nevertheless, he was glad to be helping Kirstie, for he was
+sound and fearless at heart, and he counted her a true friend if she did
+seem to him a bit queer. He was faithful, but disapproving. It was Old
+Dave alone, his father, who backed the woman’s venture without criticism
+or demur. He had known Kirstie from small girlhood, and known her for a
+brave, loyal, silent, strongly-enduring soul; and in his eyes she did
+well to leave the Settlement, where a shallow spite, sharpened by her
+proud reticence and supplied with arrows of injury by her misfortunes,
+made life an undesisting and immitigable hurt to her.
+
+As she emerged from the twilight and came out upon the sunny bleakness
+of the clearing, the unspeakable loneliness of it struck a sudden pallor
+into her grave dark face. For a moment, even the humanity that was
+hostile to her seemed less cruel than this voiceless solitude. Then her
+resolution came back. The noble but somewhat immobile lines of her large
+features relaxed into a half smile at her own weakness. She took
+possession, as it were, by a sweeping gesture of her head; then silently
+gave her hand in greeting to Old Dave, who had ranged up beside her and
+swung the dancing Miranda to his shoulder. Nothing was said for several
+moments, as the party moved slowly up the slope; for they were folk of
+few words, these people, not praters like so many of their fellows in
+the Settlement.
+
+At last the pink frock began to wriggle on the lumberman’s shoulder, and
+Miranda cried out:—
+
+“Let me down, Uncle Dave, I want to pick those pretty flowers for my
+mother.”
+
+The crimson glories of the fireweed had filled her eyes with delight;
+and in a few minutes she was struggling after the procession with her
+small arms full of the long-stalked blooms.
+
+In front of the cabin door the procession stopped. Dave turned, and said
+seriously:—
+
+“I’ve done the best I could by ye, Kirstie; an’ I reckon it ain’t so bad
+a site for ye, after all. But ye’ll be powerful lonesome.”
+
+“Thank you kindly, Dave. But we ain’t going to be lonesome, Miranda and
+me.”
+
+“But there’s painters ’round. You’d ought to hev a gun, Kirstie. I’ll be
+sackin’ out some stuff fur ye nex’ week, Davey an’ me, an’ I reckon as
+how I’d better fetch ye a gun.”
+
+“We’ll be right hungry for a sight of your faces by that time, Dave,”
+said Kirstie, sweeping a look of tenderness over the boy’s face, where
+he stood leaning on Star’s brindled shoulder. “But I ain’t scared of
+panthers. Don’t you mind about the gun, now, for I don’t want it, and I
+won’t use it!”
+
+“She ain’t skeered o’ nothin’ that walks,” muttered Young Dave, with
+admiration.
+
+The strong face darkened.
+
+“Yes, I am, Davey,” she answered; “I’m afeard of evil tongues.”
+
+“Well, my girl, here ye’re well quit of ’em,” said the old lumberman, a
+slow anger burning on his rough-hewn face as he thought of certain busy
+backbiters in the Settlement.
+
+Just then Miranda’s small voice chimed in.
+
+“Oh, Davey,” she cried, catching gleefully at the boy’s leg, “look at
+the nice, great big dog!” And her little brown finger pointed to a
+cluster of stumps, of all shapes and sizes, far over on the limits of
+the clearing. Her wide, brown eyes danced elvishly. The others followed
+her gaze, all staring intently; but they saw no excuse for her
+excitement.
+
+“It might be a b’ar she sees,” said Old Dave; “but I can’t spot it.”
+
+“They’re plenty hereabouts, I suppose,” said Kirstie, rather
+indifferently, letting her eyes wander to other portions of her domain.
+
+“Ain’t no bear there,” asserted Young Dave, with all the confidence of
+his years. “It’s a stump!”
+
+“Nice big dog! I want it, mother,” piped Miranda, suddenly darting away.
+But her mother’s firm hand fell upon her shoulder.
+
+“There’s no big dog out here, child,” she said quietly. And Old Dave,
+after puckering his keen eyes and knitting his shaggy brows in vain,
+exclaimed:—
+
+“Oh, quit yer foolin’, Mirandy, ye little witch. ’Tain’t nothin’ but
+stumps, I tell ye.”
+
+It was the child’s eyes, however, that had the keener vision, the
+subtler knowledge; and, though now she let herself seem to be persuaded,
+and obediently carried her armful of fireweed into the cabin, she knew
+it was no stump she had been looking at. And as for Kroof, the she-bear,
+though she had indeed sat moveless as a stump among the stumps, she knew
+that the child had detected her. She saw that Miranda had the eyes that
+see everything and cannot be deceived.
+
+For two days the man and the boy stayed at the clearing to help Kirstie
+get settled. The fields rang pleasantly with the _tank, tank, a-tonk,
+tank_ of the cow-bells, as the cattle fed over the new pasturage. The
+edges of the clearing resounded with axe strokes, and busy voices echoed
+on the autumn air. There was much rough fencing to be built,—zig-zag
+arrangements of brush and saplings,—in order that Kirstie’s “critters”
+might be shut in till the sense of home should so grow upon them as to
+keep them from straying.
+
+The two days done, Old Dave and Young Dave shouldered their axes and
+went away. Kirstie forthwith straightened her fine shoulders to the
+Atlas load of solitude which had threatened at first to overwhelm her;
+and she and Miranda settled down to a strangely silent routine. This was
+broken, however, at first, by weekly visits from Old Dave, who came to
+bring hay, and roots, and other provisions against the winter, together
+with large “hanks” of coarse homespun yarn, to occupy Kirstie’s fingers
+during the long winter evenings.
+
+Kirstie was well fitted to the task she had so bravely set herself. She
+could swing an axe; and the fencing grew steadily through the fall. She
+could guide the plough; and before the snow came some ten acres of the
+long fallow sod had been turned up in brown furrows, to be ripened and
+mellowed by the frosts for next spring’s planting. The black-and-white
+cow was still in good milk, and could be depended on not to go dry a day
+more than two months before calving. The steers were thrifty and sleek,
+and showed no signs of fretting for old pastures. The hoarse but homely
+music of the cow-bells, sounding all day over the fields, and giving out
+an occasional soft _tonk-a-tonk_ from the darkness of the stalls at
+night, came to content her greatly. The lines which she had brought from
+the Settlement smoothed themselves from about her mouth and eyes, and
+the large, sufficing beauty of her face was revealed in the peace of her
+new life.
+
+About seven years before this move to the cabin in the clearing, Kirstie
+Craig—then Kirstie MacAlister—had gone one evening to the cross-roads
+grocery which served the Settlement as General Intelligence Office. Here
+was the post-office as well, in a corner of the store, fitted up with
+some dozen of lettered and dusty pigeon-holes. Nodding soberly to the
+loafers who lounged about on the soap boxes and nail kegs, Kirstie
+stepped up to the counter to buy a quart of molasses. She was just
+passing over her gaudy blue-and-yellow pitcher to be filled, when a
+stranger came in who caught her attention. He did far more than catch
+her attention; for the stately and sombre girl, who had never before
+taken pains to look twice on any man’s face, now felt herself grow hot
+and cold as this stranger’s eyes glanced carelessly over her splendid
+form. She heard him ask the postmaster for lodgings. He spoke in a tired
+voice, and accents that set him apart from the men of the Settlement.
+She looked at him twice and yet again, noted with a pang that he seemed
+ill, and met his eye fairly for just one heart-beat. At once she flushed
+scarlet under it, snatched up her pitcher, and almost rushed from the
+store. The loafers were too much occupied with the new arrival to notice
+her perturbation; but he noticed it, and was pleased. Never before had
+he seen so splendid a girl as this black-haired, sphinx-faced creature,
+with the scarlet kerchief about her head. She was a picture that awoke
+the artist in him, and put him in haste to resume his palette and
+brushes.
+
+For Frank Craig, dilettante and man of the world, was a good deal of an
+artist when the mood seized him strongly enough. When another mood
+seized him, with sufficient vigour to overcome his native indolence, he
+was something of a musician; and again, more rarely, something of a
+poet. The temperament was his; but the steadiness of purpose, the
+decision of will, the long-enduring patience, these were not. He had
+just enough money to let him float through his world without work.
+Health he had not, and the poor semblance of it which mere youth
+supplied he had squandered childishly. Hearing of new health in the gift
+of the northern spruce woods, with their high, balsam-sweet airs, he had
+drifted away from his temptations, and at last sought out this remote
+backwoods settlement as a place where he might expect to get much for
+little. He was very good to look upon,—about as tall as Kirstie
+herself,—slender, active, alert in movement when not wearied,
+thoroughbred in every line of face and figure. His eyes, of a very deep
+greyish green under long black lashes, were penetrating in their
+clearness, but curiously unstable. In their beautiful depths there was
+waged forever a strange conflict between honesty and inconstancy. His
+face, pale and sallow, was clothed with a trimly pointed, close, dark
+beard; and his hair, just a trifle more abundant than the fashion of his
+world approved, was of a peculiar, tawny dark bronze.
+
+The air of the Settlement was healing and tonic to the lungs, and before
+he had breathed it a month he felt himself aglow with joyous life.
+Before he had breathed it a month he had won Kirstie MacAlister, to whom
+he seemed little less than a god. To him, on her part, she was a
+splendid mystery. Even her peculiarities of grammar and accent did no
+more than lend a piquancy to her strangeness. They appealed as a rough,
+fresh flavour to his wearied senses. Here, safe from the wasting world,
+he would really paint, would really write, and life would come to mean
+something. One day he and Kirstie went away on the rattling old
+mail-waggon, which visited the Settlement twice a week. Ten days later
+they came back as man and wife, whereat the Settlement showed no
+surprise whatever.
+
+For a whole year after the birth of his child, the great-eyed and
+fairy-like Miranda, Frank Craig stayed at the Settlement, seemingly
+content. He was loving, admiring, tactful, proud of his dark impressive
+wife, and the quickness with which she caught his purity of speech. Then
+one day he seemed restless. He talked of business in the city—of a
+month’s absence that could not be avoided. With a kind of terror at her
+heart Kirstie heard him, but offered no hint of opposition to so
+reasonable a purpose. And by the next trip of the rattling mail-waggon
+he went, leaving the Settlement dark to Kirstie’s eyes.
+
+But—he never came back. The months rolled by, and no word came of him;
+and Kirstie gnawed her heart out in proud anguish. Inquiry throughout
+the cities of the coast brought no hint of him. Then, as the months
+climbed into years, that tender humanity which resents misfortune as a
+crime started a rumour that Kirstie had been fooled. Perhaps there had
+been no marriage, went the whisper at first. “Served her right, with her
+airs, thinkin’ she could ketch a gentleman!”—was the next development of
+it. Kirstie, with her superior air, had never been popular at best; and
+after her marriage the sufficiency and exclusiveness of her joy, coupled
+with the comparative fineness of speech which she adopted, made her the
+object of jealous criticism through all the country-side. When the
+temple of her soaring happiness came down about her ears, then was the
+time for her chastening, and the gossips of the Settlement took a hand
+in it with right good-will. Nothing else worth talking about happened in
+that neighbourhood during the next few years, so the little rumour was
+cherished and nourished. Presently it grew to a great scandal, and the
+gossips came to persuade themselves that things had not been as they
+should be. Kirstie, they said, was being very properly punished by
+Providence, and it was well to show that they, chaste souls, stood on
+the side of Providence. If Providence threw a stone, it was surely their
+place to throw three.
+
+At last some one of imagination vivid beyond that of the common run
+added a new feature. Some one else had heard from some one else of some
+one having seen Frank Craig in the city. There was at first a difference
+of opinion as to what city; but that little discrepancy was soon
+smoothed out. Then a woman was suggested, and forthwith it appeared that
+he had been seen driving with a handsome woman, behind a spanking pair,
+with liveried coachman and footman on the box. Thus gradually the myth
+acquired a colour to endear it to the unoccupied rural imagination.
+Kirstie’s inquiries soon proved to her the utter baselessness of the
+scandal; but she was too proud to refute what she knew to be a cherished
+lie. She endured, for Miranda’s sake, till the dark face grew lined, and
+the black eyes smouldered dangerously, and she began to fear lest she
+should do some one a hurt. At last, having heard by chance of that
+deserted clearing in the forest, she sold out her cottage at a sacrifice
+and fled from the bitter tongues.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter IV
+                      Miranda and the Furtive Folk
+
+
+From the very first day of her new life at the clearing, Miranda had
+found it to her taste. Her mother loved it for its peace, for its
+healing; but to the elvish child it had an incomparably deeper and more
+positive appeal. For her the place was not solitary. Her wide eyes saw
+what Kirstie could not see; and to her the forest edges—which she was
+not allowed to pass—were full of most satisfying playmates just waiting
+for her to invite their confidence. Meanwhile, she had the two steers
+and the black-and-white cow to talk to. Her mother noticed that when she
+sat down in the grass by the head of one of the animals, and began her
+low mysterious communication, it would stop its feeding and hearken
+motionless. The black-and-red brindle, Star, would sometimes follow her
+about like a dog, as if spelled by the child’s solemn eyes. Then the
+solemn eyes on a sudden would dance with light; her lips would break
+into a peal of whimsical mirth, shrill but not loud; and the steer, with
+a flick of his tail and an offended snort, would turn again to his
+pasturing.
+
+In a hole in one of the logs, just under the eaves of the cabin, there
+was a family of red squirrels, the four youngsters about three-fourths
+grown and almost ready to shift for themselves. No sooner had the old
+lumberman and his son gone away than the squirrels began to make
+themselves much at home. They saw in Kirstie a huge and harmless
+creature, whose presence in the cabin was useful to scare away their
+enemies. But in Miranda they found a sort of puzzling kinship. The two
+old squirrels would twitch up and down on the edge of the roof,
+chattering shrilly to her, flirting their airy tails, and stretching
+down their heads to scan her searchingly with their keen protruding
+eyes; while Miranda, just below, would dance excitedly up and down in
+response, nodding her head, jerking her elbows, and chattering back at
+them in a quick, shrill voice. It was a very different voice to the soft
+murmurs in which she talked to the cattle; but to the squirrels it
+appeared satisfactory. Before she had been a week at the clearing the
+whole squirrel family seemed to regard her as one of themselves,
+snatching bread from her tiny brown fingers, and running up her skirt to
+her shoulder whensoever the freak possessed them. Kirstie, they
+ignored—the harmless, necessary Kirstie, mother to Miranda.
+
+No sooner were they fairly settled than the child discovered an
+incongruity in her gay pink calico frocks, and got her mother to bury
+them out of sight in the deal chest behind the door. She was at ease now
+only in the dull, blue-grey homespun, which made her feel at one with
+her quiet surroundings. Nevertheless the vein of contradiction which
+streaked her baby heart with bright inconsistencies bade her demand
+always a bit of scarlet ribbon about her neck. This whim Kirstie
+humoured with a smile, recognizing in it a perpetuation of the scarlet
+kerchief about her own black hair. As for Miranda’s hair, it was black
+like her mother’s when seen in shadow; but in the sunshine it showed
+certain tawny lights, a pledge of her fatherhood to all who had known
+Frank Craig.
+
+So the autumn slipped by; and the silent folk of the wood, watching her
+curiously and unwinkingly as she played while her mother built fences,
+came to know Miranda as a creature in some way not quite alien to
+themselves. They knew that she often saw them when her mother’s eyes
+could not. Perceiving that her mother did not quite understand her, at
+times, when she tried to point out pretty animals among the trees, the
+child grew a little sensitive and reticent on the subject; and the
+furtive folk, who had at first inclined to resent her inescapable
+vision, presently realized her reserves and were appeased. Her grey
+little sprite of a figure might have darted in among the trees, turned
+to a statue, and become suddenly as invisible as any lynx, or cat, or
+hare, or pine-marten amongst them, except, indeed, for that disquieting
+flame of scarlet at her neck. This was a puzzle to all the folk of the
+wood, continually reminding them that this quiet-flitting creature did
+not really belong to the wood at all, but to the great woman with the
+red about her head, whose axe made so vexing a clamour amid the trees.
+As for Kroof, the bear, that bit of scarlet so interested her that one
+day, being curious, she came much nearer than she intended. Miranda saw
+her, of course, and gazed with wide-eyed longing for the “great big dog”
+as a playmate. Just then Kirstie saw her, too—very close at hand, and
+very huge.
+
+[Illustration: She . . . stood motionless, erect and formidable]
+
+For the first time, Kirstie Craig felt something like fear, not for
+herself, but for the child. Thrusting Miranda roughly behind her, she
+clutched her axe, and stood motionless, erect and formidable, awaiting
+attack. Her great black eyes blazed ominously upon the intruder. But
+Kroof, well filled with late berries, and sweet wild roots, and
+honeycomb, was in most amiable humour, and just shambled off lazily when
+she saw herself detected; whereupon Kirstie, with a short laugh of
+relief, threw down her axe and snatched the child to her breast.
+Miranda, however, was weeping salt tears of disappointment.
+
+“I want it, mother,” she sobbed; “the nice big dog. You scared it away.”
+
+Kirstie had heard more than enough about the dog.
+
+“Hark now, Miranda,” she said severely, giving her shoulder a slight
+shake to enforce attention. “You just remember what I say. That ain’t a
+dog; that’s a bear; _a bear_, I say! And don’t you ever go near it, or
+it’ll eat you up. Mind you now, Miranda, or I’ll just whip you well.”
+
+Kirstie was a little fluttered and thrown off her poise at the idea of
+Miranda encountering the great animal alone, and perhaps attempting to
+bring it home to play with; so she forgot for a moment the wonted
+stringency of her logic. As for Miranda, she consented to obey, and held
+her tongue; but she clung secretly to her own opinion on the subject of
+the big dog. She knew very well that the fascinating animal did not want
+to eat her; and her mother’s order seemed to her just one of those bits
+of maternal perversity which nobody can ever hope to understand.
+
+The incident, however, overshadowed the child’s buoyant spirits for the
+best part of two whole days. It thrust so very far off the time she
+hoped for, when she might know and talk to the shy, furtive folk of the
+wood, with their strange, unwinking eyes. Her mother kept her now ever
+close to her skirts. She had no one to talk to about the things her
+mother did not understand, except the steers and the black-and-white
+cow, and the rather irrepressible squirrels.
+
+The winter, which presently fell white and soundless and sparkling about
+the lonely cabin, was to Miranda full of events. Before the snow Kirstie
+had repaired the old lean-to, turning it into a fowl-house; and now they
+had six prim hens to occupy it, and a splendid, flame-red cock who
+crowed most loftily. Miranda felt that this proud bird despised her, so
+she did not get on very well with him; but the hens were amiable, if
+uninteresting, and it was a perennial joy to search out their eggs in
+the loft or the corners of the stalls. Then there were the paths to be
+kept clear after every snow-fall,—the path to the spring, the path to
+the barn door and hen-house, the path to the woodpile. Uncle Dave had
+made her a hand-sled, and she had the exhilarating duty of hauling in
+the wood from the pile as fast as her mother could split it. It was a
+spirited race, this, in which her mother somehow always managed to keep
+just about one stick ahead.
+
+And the fishing—this was a great event, coming about once a week, if the
+weather suited. Both Kirstie and Miranda were semi-vegetarians. Frank
+Craig had been a decryer of flesh-meat, one who would have chosen to
+live on fruits and roots and grains and eggs, had not his body cried out
+against the theory of his brain. But he had so far infected his wife
+with his prejudice that neither she nor the child now touched meat in
+any form. The aversion, artificial on Kirstie’s part, was instinctive on
+Miranda’s. But as for fish—fish seemed to them both quite another
+matter. Even Miranda of the sympathies and the perceptions had no sense
+of fellowship for these cold-blooded, clammy, unpleasant things. She had
+a fierce little delight in catching them; she had a contented joy in
+eating them when fried to a savory brown in butter and yellow cornmeal.
+For Miranda was very close to Nature, and Nature laughs at consistency.
+
+The fishing in which Miranda so delighted took place in winter at the
+lake. When the weather seemed quite settled, Kirstie would set out on
+her strong snow-shoes, with Miranda, on her fairy facsimiles of them,
+striding bravely beside her, and follow the long, white trail down to
+the lake. Even to Miranda’s discerning eyes the trail was lonely now,
+for most of the forest folk were either asleep, or abroad, or fearful
+lest their tinted coats should reveal them against the snowy surface.
+Once in a while she detected the hare squatting under a spruce bush,
+looking like a figure of snow in his winter coat; and once or twice,
+too, she saw the weasel, white now, with but a black tip to his tail as
+a warning to all who had cause to dread his cruelty. Miranda knew
+nothing about him, but she did not quite like the weasel, which was just
+as well, seeing that the weasel hated Miranda and all the world besides.
+As for the lynx and the brown cat, they kept warily aloof in their
+winter shyness. The wood-mice were asleep,—warm, furry balls buried in
+their dry nests far from sight; and Kroof, too, was dreaming away the
+frozen months in a hollow under a pine root, with five or six feet of
+snow drifted over her door to keep her sleep unjarred.
+
+Arrived at the lake, Kirstie would cut two holes through the ice with
+her nimble axe, bait two hooks with bits of fat pork, and put a line
+into Miranda’s little mittened hands. The trout in the lake were
+numerous and hungry; and somehow Miranda’s hook had ever the more deadly
+fascination for them, and Miranda’s catch would outnumber Kirstie’s by
+often three to one. Though her whole small being seemed absorbed in the
+fierce game, Miranda was all the time vividly aware of the white
+immensity enfolding her. The lifeless white level of the lake; the
+encircling shores all white; the higher fringe of trees, black beneath,
+but deeply garmented with white; the steep mountain-side, at the foot of
+the lake, all white; and over-brooding, glimmering, opalescent,
+fathomless, the flat white arch of sky. Across the whiteness of the
+mountain-side, one day, Miranda saw a dark beast moving, a beast that
+looked to her like a great cat. She saw it halt, gazing down at them;
+and even at that distance she could see it stretch wide its formidable
+jaws. A second more and she heard the cry which came from those
+formidable jaws,—a high, harsh, screeching wail, which amused her so
+that she forgot to land a fish. But her mother seemed troubled at the
+sound. She gazed very steadily for some seconds at the far-off shape,
+and then said: “Panthers, Miranda! I don’t mind bears; but with panthers
+we’ve got to keep our eyes open. I reckon we’ll get home before sundown
+to-day; and mind you keep right close by me every step.”
+
+All this solicitude seemed to Miranda a lamentable mistake. She had no
+doubt in her own mind that the panther would be nice to play with.
+
+As I have said, the winter was for Miranda full of events. Twice, as she
+was carrying out the morning dish of hot potatoes and meal to the hens,
+she saw Ten-Tine, the bull caribou, cross the clearing with measured
+stately tread, his curious, patchy antlers held high, his muzzle
+stretched straight ahead of him, his demure cows at his heels. This was
+before the snow lay deep in the forest. Later on in the winter she would
+look out with eager interest every morning to see what visitors had been
+about the cabin during the night. Sometimes there was a fox track, very
+dainty, cleanly indented, and regular, showing that the animal who made
+it knew where he was going and had something definite in view. Hare
+tracks there were sure to be—she soon came to recognize those
+three-toed, triplicate clusters of impressions, stamped deeply upon the
+snow by the long, elastic jump. Whenever there was a weasel
+track,—narrow, finely pointed, treacherously innocent,—it was sure to be
+closely parallel to that of a leaping hare; and Miranda soon
+apprehended, by that instinct of hers, that the companionship was not
+like to be well for the hare. Once, to her horror, she found that a hare
+track ended suddenly, right under the cabin window, in a blood-stained
+patch, bestrewn with fur and bones. All about it the snow was swept as
+if by wings, and two strange footprints told the story. They were long,
+these two footprints—forked, with deep hooks for toes, and an obscure
+sort of brush mark behind them. This was where the owl had sat up on the
+snow for a few minutes after dining, to ponder on the merits of the
+general order of things, and of a good meal in particular. Miranda’s
+imagination painted a picture of the big bird sitting there in the
+moonlight beside the bloody bones, his round, horned head turning slowly
+from one side to the other, his hooked beak snapping now and again in
+reminiscence, his sharp eyes wide open and flaming. There was also the
+track of a fox, which had come up from the direction of the barn,
+investigated the scene of action, and gone off at a sharp, decisive
+angle toward the woods. Miranda had no clew to tell her how stealthily
+that fox had come, or how nearly he had succeeded in catching an owl for
+his breakfast; but from that morning she bore a grudge against owls, and
+never could hear without a flash of wrath their hollow
+_two-hoo-hoo-whoo-oo_ echoing solemnly from the heart of the pinewood.
+
+But the owl was not the only bird that Miranda knew that winter. Well
+along in January, when the haws were all gone, and most of the withered
+rowan-berries had been eaten, and famine threatened such of the
+bird-folk as had not journeyed south, there came to the cabin brisk
+foraging flocks of the ivory-billed snow-bird. For these Miranda had
+crumbs ready always, and as word of her bounty went abroad in the
+forest, her feathered pensioners increased. Even a hungry crow would
+come now and then, glossy and sideling, watchful and audacious, to share
+the hospitality of this kind Miranda of the crumbs. She liked the crows,
+and would hear no ill of them from her mother; but most of all she liked
+those big, rosy-headed, trustful children, the pine-grosbeaks, who would
+almost let her take them in her hands. Whenever their wandering flocks
+came down to her, she held winter carnival for them.
+
+During those days when it was not fine enough to go out,—when the snow
+drove in great swirls and phantom armies across the open, and a dull
+roar came from the straining forest, and the fowls went to roost at
+midday, and the cattle munched contentedly in their stanchions, glad to
+be shut in,—then the cabin seemed very pleasant to Miranda. On such days
+the drifts were sometimes piled halfway up the windows. On such days the
+dry logs on the hearth blazed more brightly than their wont, and the
+flames sang more merrily up the chimney. On such days the piles of hot
+buckwheat cakes, drenched in butter and brown molasses, tasted more
+richly toothsome than at any time else, and on such days she learned to
+knit. This was very interesting. At first she knit gay black-and-red
+garters for her mother; and then, speedily mastering this rudimentary
+process, she was fairly launched on a stocking, with four needles. The
+stocking, of course, was for her mother, who would not find fault if it
+were knitted too tightly here and too loosely there. As for Kirstie
+herself, her nimble needles would click all day, turning out socks and
+mittens of wonderful thickness to supply the steady market of the lumber
+camps.
+
+One night, after just such a cosey, shut-in day, Miranda was awakened by
+a scratching sound on the roof. Throughout the cold weather Miranda
+slept with her mother in the main room, in a broad new bunk which had
+been substituted for the narrow one wherein Old Dave had slept on his
+first visit to the clearing. Miranda caught her mother’s arm, and shook
+it gently. But Kirstie was already awake, lying with wide eyes,
+listening.
+
+“What’s that, mother, trying to get in?” asked the child in a whisper.
+
+“Hush-sh-sh,” replied Kirstie, laying her fingers on the child’s mouth.
+
+The scratching came louder now, as the light snow was swept clear and
+the inquisitive claws reached the bark. Then it stopped. After a second
+or two of silence there was a loud, blowing sound, as if the visitor
+were clearing his nostrils from the snow and cold. This was followed by
+two or three long, penetrating sniffs, so curiously hungry in their
+suggestion that even Miranda’s dauntless little heart beat very fast. As
+for Kirstie, she was decidedly nervous. Springing out of bed she ran to
+the hearth, raked the coals from the ashes, fanned them, heaped on birch
+bark and dry wood, and in a moment had a great blaze roaring up the
+chimney-throat. The glow from the windows streamed far out across the
+snow. To the visitor it proved disconcerting. There was one more sharp
+rattle of claws upon the roof, then a fluffy thump below the eaves. The
+snow had stopped falling hours before; and when, at daylight, Kirstie
+opened the door, there was the deep hollow where the panther had jumped
+down, and there was the floundering trail where he had fled.
+
+This incident made Miranda amend, in some degree, her first opinion of
+panthers.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter V
+                          Kroof, the She-bear
+
+
+Spring came early to the clearing that year. Kirstie’s autumn furrows,
+dark and steaming, began to show in patches through the diminished snow.
+The chips before the house and the litter about the barn, drawing the
+sun strongly, were first of all uncovered; and over them, as to the
+conquest of new worlds, the haughty cock led forth his dames to scratch.
+“Saunders,” Miranda had called him, in remembrance of a strutting beau
+at the Settlement; and with the advent of April cheer, and an increasing
+abundance of eggs, and an ever resounding cackle from his complacent
+partlets, his conceit became insufferable. One morning, when something
+she did offended his dignity, he had the presumption to face her with
+beak advanced and wide-ruffled neck feathers. But Saunders did not know
+Miranda. Quick as a flash of light she seized him by the legs, whirled
+him around her head, and flung him headlong, squawking with fear and
+shame, upon his own dunghill. It took him a good hour to recover his
+self-esteem, but after that Miranda stood out in his eyes as the one
+creature in the world to be respected.
+
+When the clearing was quite bare, except along the edges of the forest,
+and Kirstie was again at work on her fencing, the black-and-white cow
+gave birth to a black-and-white calf, which Miranda at once claimed as
+her own property. It was a very wobbly, knock-kneed little heifer; but
+Miranda admired it immensely, and with lofty disregard of its sex,
+christened it Michael.
+
+About this time the snow shrank away from her hollow under the pine
+root, and Kroof came forth to sun herself. She had lived all winter on
+nothing but the fat stored up on the spaces of her capacious frame.
+Nevertheless she was not famished—she had still a reserve to come and go
+on, till food should be abundant. A few days after waking up she bore a
+cub. It was the custom of her kind to bear two cubs at a birth; but
+Kroof, besides being by long odds the biggest she-bear ever known in
+that region, had a pronounced individuality of her own, and was just as
+well satisfied with herself over one cub as over two.
+
+The hollow under the pine root was warm and softly lined—a condition
+quite indispensable to the newcomer, which was about as unlike a bear as
+any baby creature of its size could well manage to be. It was blind,
+helpless, whimpering, more shapeless and clumsy-looking than the
+clumsiest conceivable pup, and almost naked. Its tender, hairless hide
+looked a poor thing to confront the world with; but its appetite was
+astounding, and Kroof’s milk inexhaustible. In a few days a soft dark
+fur began to appear. As the mother sat, hour by hour, watching it and
+suckling it, half erect upon her haunches, her fore legs braced wide
+apart, her head stretched as far down as possible, her narrow red tongue
+hanging out to one side, her eyes half closed in rapture, it seemed to
+grow visibly beneath her absorbing gaze. Before four weeks had passed,
+the cub was covered with a jet black coat, soft and glossy. This being
+the case, he thought it time to open his eyes and look about.
+
+He was now about the size of a small cat, but of a much heavier build.
+His head, at this age, was shorter for its breadth than his mother’s;
+the ears much larger, fan-like and conspicuous. His eyes, very softly
+vague at first, soon acquired a humorous, mischievous expression, which
+went aptly with the erect, inquisitive ears. Altogether he was a fine
+baby—a fair justification of Kroof’s pride.
+
+The spring being now fairly forward, and pale, whitish-green shoots
+upthrusting themselves numerously through the dead leaves, and the big
+crimson leaf-bud of the skunk-cabbage vividly punctuating the sombreness
+of the swamp, Kroof led her infant forth to view their world. He had no
+such severe and continued education to undergo as that which falls to
+the lot of other youngsters among the folk of the ancient wood. For
+those others the first lesson, the hardest and the most tremendous in
+its necessity, was how to avoid their enemies. With this lesson
+ill-learned, all others found brief term; for the noiseless drama, in
+which all the folk of the forest had their parts, moved ever, through
+few scenes or through many, to a tragic close. But the bear, being for
+the most part dominant, had his immunities. Even the panther, swift and
+fierce and masterful, never deliberately sought quarrel with the bear,
+being mindful of his disastrous clutch and the lightning sweep of his
+paw. The bear-cub, therefore, going with its mother till almost full
+grown, gave no thought at all to enemies; and the cub with such a
+giantess as Kroof for its mother might safely make a mock even at
+panthers. Kroof’s cub had thus but simple things to learn, following
+close at his mother’s flank. During the first blind weeks of his cubhood
+he had, indeed, to acquire the prime virtue of silence, which was not
+easy, for he loved to whimper and grumble in a comfortable little
+fashion of his own. This was all right while Kroof was at home; but when
+she was out foraging, then silence was the thing. This he learned,
+partly from Kroof’s admonitions, partly from a deep-seated instinct; and
+whenever he was left alone, he held his tongue. There was always the
+possibility slight but unpleasant, of a fox or a brown cat noting
+Kroof’s absence, and seizing the chance to savour a delicate morsel of
+sucking bear.
+
+Wandering the silent woods with Kroof, the cub would sniff carefully at
+the moist earth and budding shoots wheresoever his mother stopped to
+dig. He thus learned where to find the starchy roots which form so large
+a part of the bear’s food in spring. He found out the important
+difference between the sweet groundnuts and the fiery bitter bulb of the
+arum, or Indian turnip; and he learned to go over the grassy meadows by
+the lake and dig unerringly for the wild bean’s nourishing tubers. He
+discovered, also, what old stumps to tear apart when he wanted a
+pleasantly acid tonic dose of the larvæ of the wood-ant. Among these
+serious occupations he would gambol between his mother’s feet, or caper
+hilariously on his hind legs. Soon he would have been taught to detect a
+bee tree, and to rob it of its delectable stores without getting his
+eyes stung out; but just then the mysterious forest fates dropped the
+curtain on his merry little play, as a reminder that not even for the
+great black bear could the rule of doom be relaxed.
+
+Kroof’s first wanderings with the cub were in the neighbourhood of the
+clearing, where both were sometimes seen by Miranda. The sight of the
+cub so overjoyed her that she departed from her usual reticence as to
+the forest-folk, and told her mother about the lovely, glossy little dog
+that the nice, great big dog took about with her. The only result was
+that Kirstie gave her a sharp warning.
+
+“Dog!” she exclaimed severely; “didn’t I tell you, Miranda, it was a
+bear? Bears are mostly harmless, if you leave them alone; but an old
+bear with a cub is mighty ugly. Mind what I say now, you keep by me and
+don’t go too nigh the edge of the woods.”
+
+And so, for the next few weeks, Miranda was watched very strictly, lest
+her childish daring should involve her with the bears.
+
+Along in the summer Kroof began to lead the cub wider afield. The longer
+journeys vexed the little animal at first, and tired him; so that
+sometimes he would throw himself down on his back, with pinky-white
+soles of protest in the air, and refuse to go a step farther. But in
+spite of the appeal of his quizzical little black snout, big ears, and
+twinkling eyes, old Kroof would box him sternly till he was glad enough
+to jump up and renew the march. With the exercise he got a little
+leaner, but much harder, and soon came to delight in the widest
+wandering. Nothing could tire him, and at the end of the journey he
+would chase rabbits, or weasels, or other elusive creatures, till
+convicted of futility by his mother’s sarcastic comments.
+
+These wide wanderings were, indeed, the making of him, so that he
+promised to rival Kroof herself in prowess and stature; but alas! poor
+cub, they were also his undoing. Had he stayed at home—but even that
+might have little availed, for among the folk of the wood it is right at
+home that fate most surely strikes.
+
+One day they two were exploring far over in the next valley—the valley
+of the Quah-Davic, a tract little familiar to Kroof herself. At the noon
+hour Kroof lay down in a little hollow of coolness beside a spring that
+_drip-drop, drip-drop, drip-dropped_ from the face of a green rock. The
+cub, however, went untiringly exploring the thickets for fifty yards
+about, out of sight, indeed, but scrupulously never out of ear-shot.
+
+Near one of these thickets his nostrils caught a new and enthralling
+savour. He had never, in his brief life, smelled anything at all like
+it, but an unerring instinct told him it was the smell of something very
+good to eat. Pushing through the leafage he came upon the source of the
+fragrance. Under a slanting structure of logs he found a piece of flesh,
+yellowish-white, streaked thickly with dark reddish-brown,—and, oh, so
+sweet smelling! It was stuck temptingly on a forked point of wood. His
+ears stood up very wide and high in his eagerness. His sensitive
+nostrils wrinkled as he sniffed at the tempting find. He decided that he
+would just taste it, and then go fetch his mother. But it was a little
+high up for him. He rose, set his small white teeth into it, clutched it
+with his soft forepaws, and flung his whole weight upon it to pull it
+down.
+
+Kroof, dozing in her hollow of coolness, heard a small agonized screech,
+cut short horribly. On the instant her great body went tearing in a
+panic through the underbrush. She found poor cub crushed flat under the
+huge timbers of “a dead-fall,” his glossy head and one paw sticking out
+piteously, his little red tongue protruding from his distorted mouth.
+
+Kroof needed no second look to know in her heart he was dead, stone
+dead; but in the rage of her grief she would not acknowledge it. She
+tore madly at the great timber,—so huge a thing to set to crush so small
+a life,—and so astonishing was the strength of her claws and her vast
+forearms that in the course of half an hour she had the trap fairly
+demolished. Softly she removed the crushed and shapeless body, licking
+the mouth, the nostrils, the pitifully staring eyes; snuggling it
+lightly as a breath, and moaning over it. She would lift the head a
+little with her paw, and redouble her caresses as it fell limply aside.
+Then it grew cold. This was testimony she could not pretend to ignore.
+She ceased the caresses which proved so vain to keep warmth in the
+little body she loved. With her snout held high in air she turned around
+slowly twice, as if in an appeal to some power not clearly apprehended;
+then, without another glance at her dead, she rushed off madly through
+the forest.
+
+All night she wandered aimlessly, hither and thither through the low
+Quah-Davic valley, over the lower slopes of the mountain, through tracts
+where she had never been, but of which she took no note; and toward noon
+of the following day she found herself once more in the ancient wood,
+not far from the clearing. She avoided widely the old den under the pine
+root, and at last threw herself down, worn out and with unsuckled teats
+fiercely aching, behind the trunk of a fallen hemlock.
+
+She slept heavily for an hour or two. Then she was awakened by the
+crying of a child. She knew it at once for Miranda’s voice; and being in
+some way stirred by it, in spite of the preoccupation of her pain, she
+got up and moved noiselessly toward the sound.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter VI
+                       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.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter VII
+                             The Intimates
+
+
+After this experience Miranda felt herself initiated, as she had so
+longed to be, into the full fellowship of the folk of the ancient wood.
+Almost every day Kroof came prowling about the edges of the clearing.
+Miranda was sure to catch sight of her before long and run to her with
+joyous caresses. Farther than a few steps into the open the big bear
+would not come, having no desire to cultivate Kirstie, or the cabin, or
+the cattle, or aught that appertained to civilization. But Kirstie,
+after watching from a courteous distance a few of these strange
+interviews, wisely gave the child a little more latitude. Miranda was
+permitted to go a certain fixed distance into the wood, but never so far
+as quite to lose sight of the cabin; and this permission was only for
+such times as she was with Kroof. Kirstie knew something about wild
+animals; and she knew that the black bear, when it formed an attachment,
+was inalienably and uncalculatingly loyal to it.
+
+As sometimes happens in an affection which runs counter to the lines of
+kinship, Kroof seemed more passionately devoted to the child than she
+had been to her own cub. She would gaze with eyes of rapture, her mouth
+hanging half open in foolish fondness, while Miranda, playing about her,
+acquired innumerable secrets of forest-lore. Whatsoever Miranda wanted
+her to do, she would strive to do, as soon as she could make out what it
+was; for, in truth, Miranda’s speech, though very pleasant to her ear,
+was not very intelligible to her brain. On one point, however, she was
+inflexible. Perhaps for a distance of thrice her own length she would
+follow Miranda out into the clearing, but farther than that she would
+not go. Persuasions, petulance, argument, tears—Miranda tried them all,
+but in vain. When Miranda tried going behind and pushing, or going in
+front and pulling, the beast liked it, and her eyes would blink
+humorously. But her mind was made up. This obstinacy, so disappointing
+to Miranda, met with Kirstie’s unqualified but unexpressed approval. She
+did not want Kroof’s ponderous bulk hanging about the house or loafing
+around and getting in the way when she was at work in the fields.
+
+Though Kroof was averse to civilization, she was at the same time
+sagacious enough to see that she could not have Miranda always with her
+in the woods. She knew very well that the tall woman with red on her
+head was a very superior and mysterious kind of animal,—and that Miranda
+was her cub,—a most superior kind of cub, and always to be regarded with
+a secret awe, but still a cub, and belonging to the tall woman.
+Therefore she was not aggrieved when she found that she could not have
+Miranda with her in the woods for more than an hour or two at a time. In
+that hour or two, however, much could be done; and Kroof tried to teach
+Miranda many things which it is held good to know among the folk of the
+ancient wood. She would sniff at the mould and dig up sweet-smelling
+roots; and Miranda, observing the stems and leaves of them, soon came to
+know all the edible roots of the neighbourhood. Kroof showed her, also,
+the delicate dewberry, the hauntingly delicious capillaire, hidden under
+its trailing vines, the insipidly sweet Indian pear, and the harmless
+but rather cotton-woolly partridge-berry; and she taught her to shun the
+tempting purple fruit of the trillium, as well as the deadly
+snake-berry. The blueberry, dear alike to bears and men, did not grow in
+the heavy-timbered forest, but Miranda had known that fruit well from
+those earliest days in the Settlement, when she had so often stained her
+mouth with blueberry pie. As for the scarlet clusters of the
+pigeon-berry, carpeting the hillocks of the pasture, Miranda needed no
+teaching from Kroof to know that these were good. Then, there were all
+sorts of forest fungi, of many shapes and colours,—white, pink, delicate
+yellow, shining orange covered with warts, creamy drab, streaky green,
+and even strong crimson. Toadstools, Miranda called them at first, with
+indiscriminating dread and aversion. But Kroof taught her better. Some,
+indeed, the red ones and the warty ones in particular, the wise animal
+would dash to pieces with her paw; and these Miranda understood to be
+bad. In fact, their very appearance had something ominous in it, and to
+Miranda’s eye they had _poison_ written all over them in big letters.
+But there was one very white and dainty-looking, sweet-smelling fungus
+which she would have sworn to as virtuous. As soon as she saw it, she
+thought of a peculiarly shy mushroom (she loved mushrooms), and ran to
+pick it up in triumph. But Kroof thrust her aside with such rudeness
+that she fell over a stump, much offended. Her indignation died away,
+however, as she saw Kroof tearing and stamping the pale mushrooms to
+minutest fragments, with every mark of loathing. From this Miranda
+gathered that the beautiful toadstool was a very monster of crime. It
+was, indeed; for it was none other than the deadly amanita, one small
+morsel of which would have hushed Miranda into the sleep which does not
+wake.
+
+Though Miranda was safe under Kroof’s tutelage, it was perhaps just as
+well for her at that period of her youth that she was forbidden to stray
+from the clearing. For there was, indeed, one tribe among the folk of
+the wood against whose anger Kroof’s protection would have very little
+availed. Had Miranda gone roaming, she and Kroof, they might have found
+a bee tree. It is doubtful if Kroof’s sagacity would have told her that
+Miranda’s skin was not adequate to an enterprise against bee trees. The
+zealous bear would have probably wanted honey for the child, and the
+result would have been such as to shake Kirstie’s confidence in Kroof’s
+judgment.
+
+There were, however, several well-inhabited ant-logs in that narrow
+circuit which Miranda was allowed to tread, and on a certain afternoon
+Kroof discovered one of these. She was much pleased. Here was a chance
+to show Miranda something very nice and very good for her health. Having
+attracted the child’s attention, she ripped the rotten log to its heart,
+and began licking up the swarming insects and plump white larvæ
+together. Here was a treat; but the incomprehensible Miranda, with a
+shuddering scream, ran away. Kroof was bewildered. She finished the
+ants, however, while she was about it. Whereafter she was called upon to
+hear a long lecture from Miranda, to the effect that ants were not good
+to eat, and that it was very cruel to tear open their nests and steal
+their eggs. Of course, as Kroof did not at all understand what she was
+driving at, there was no room for an argument; which, considering the
+points involved, is much to be regretted.
+
+Though Miranda had now, so to speak, the freedom of the wood, she was
+not really intimate with any of the furtive folk, saving only, of
+course, the irrepressible squirrels who lived in the cabin roof. She saw
+the wild creatures now very close at hand, and they went about their
+business under her eye without concern. They realized that it was no use
+trying with her their game of invisibility. No matter how perfect their
+stillness, no matter how absolutely they made themselves one with their
+surroundings, they felt her clear, unwavering, friendly eyes look them
+through and through. This was at first a troubling mystery to them. Who
+was this youngling,—for youth betrays itself even to the most primitive
+perceptions,—who, for all her youth, set their traditions and elaborate
+devices so easily at naught? Their instincts told them, however, that
+she was no foe to the weakest of them; and so they let her see them at
+their affairs unabashed, though avoiding her with a kind of careful awe.
+
+Kroof, too, they all avoided, but with a difference. They knew that she
+was not averse to an occasional meal of flesh meat, but that she would
+not greatly trouble herself in pursuit of it. All they had to do, these
+lesser folk of the wood, was to keep at a safe distance from the sweep
+of her mighty paw, and they felt at ease in her neighbourhood. All but
+the hare—_he_ knew that Kroof considered him and his long-eared children
+a special delicacy, well worth the effort of a bear. Miranda wondered
+why she could never see anything of the hare when she was out with
+Kroof. She did see him sometimes, indeed; but always at a distance, and
+for an instant only. On these occasions, Kroof did not see him at all;
+and Miranda soon came to realize that she could see more clearly than
+even the furtive folk themselves. They could hide themselves from each
+other by stillness and by self-effacement; but Miranda’s eyes always
+inexorably distinguished the ruddy fox from the yellow-brown, rotten log
+on which he flattened himself. She instantly differentiated the moveless
+nuthatch from the knot on the trunk, the squatting grouse from the
+lichened stone, the wood-mouse from the curled brown leaf, the crouching
+wild-cat from the mottled branch. Consequently the furtive folk
+gradually began to pay her the tribute of ignoring her, which meant that
+they trusted her to let them alone. They kept their reserve; but under
+her interested scrutiny the nuthatch would walk up the rough-barked pine
+trunk and pick insects out from under the grey scales; the golden-winged
+woodpecker would hunt down the fat, white grubs which he delighted in,
+and hammer sharply on the dead wood a few feet above her head; the slim,
+brown stoat would chase beetles among the tree roots, untroubled by her
+discreet proximity; the beruffed cock-grouse would drum from the top of
+his stump till the air was full of the soft thunder of his vauntings,
+and his half-grown brood would dust themselves in the deserted ant-hill
+in the sunniest corner of the clearing. Only the pair of crows which,
+seeing great opportunities about the reoccupied clearing, had taken up
+their dwelling in the top of a tall spruce close behind the cabin, held
+suspiciously aloof from Miranda. They often talked her over, in harsh
+tones that jarred the ancient stillness; and they considered her
+intimacy with Kroof altogether contrary to the order of things. Being
+themselves exemplars of duplicity, they were quite convinced that
+Miranda had ulterior motives, too deep for them to fathom; and they
+therefore respected her immensely. But they did not trust her, of
+course. The shy rain-birds, however, trusted her, and would whistle to
+each other their long, melancholy calls foretelling rain, even though
+she were standing within a few steps of them, and staring at them with
+all her might; and this was a most unheard-of favour on the part of the
+rain-birds, who are too reticent to let themselves be heard when any one
+is near enough to see them. There might be three or four uttering their
+slow, inexpressibly pathetic cadences all around the clearing; but
+Kirstie could never catch a glimpse of them, though many a time she
+listened with deep longing in her heart as their remote voices thrilled
+across the dewy oncoming of the dusk.
+
+Miranda saw the panther only once again that year. It was about a month
+after her meeting with Kroof. She was alone, just upon the edge of the
+buckwheat field, and peering into the shadowy, transparent stillness to
+see what she could see. What she saw sent her little heart straight up
+into her mouth. There, not a dozen paces from her, lying flat along a
+fallen tree, was the panther. He was staring at her, with his eyes half
+shut. Startled though she was, Miranda’s experience with Kroof had made
+her very self-confident. She stood moveless, staring back into those
+dangerous, half-shut eyes. After a moment or two the beautiful beast
+arose and stretched himself with great deliberation, reaching out and
+digging in his claws, as an ordinary cat does when it stretches. At the
+same time he yawned prodigiously, so that it seemed to Miranda he would
+surely split to his ears, and she looked right into his great pink
+throat. Then he stepped lightly down from the tree,—on the side farthest
+from Miranda,—and walked away with the air of not wishing to intrude.
+
+This same summer, too, so momentous in its events, Miranda first met
+Wapiti, the delicate-antlered buck, and Ganner, the big Canada lynx.
+Needless to say, they were not in company. One morning, as she sat in a
+fence corner, absorbed in building a little house of twigs around a sick
+butterfly, she heard a loud snort just at her elbow. Much startled, she
+gave a little cry as she looked up, and something jumped back from the
+fence. She saw a bright brown head, crowned with splendid, many-pronged
+antlers, and a pair of large, liquid eyes looking at her with mild
+wonder.
+
+“Oh, you _be-autiful_ deer, did I frighten you?” she cried, knowing the
+visitor by pictures she had seen; and she poked her little hand through
+the fence in greeting. The buck seemed very curious about the scarlet
+ribbon at her neck, and eyed it steadily for half a minute. Then he came
+close up to the fence again, and sniffed her hand with his fine black
+nostrils, opening and closing them sensitively. He let her stroke his
+smooth muzzle, and held his head quite still under the caressing of her
+hand. Then some unusual sound caught his ear. It was Kirstie hoeing
+potatoes near by; and presently the furrow she was following brought her
+into view behind the corner of the barn. The scarlet kerchief on her
+hair flamed hotly in the sun. The buck raised his head high, and stared,
+and finally seemed to decide that the apparition was a hostile one. With
+a snort, and an impatient stamp of his polished hoof, he wheeled about
+and trotted off into the wood.
+
+Her introduction to Ganner, the lynx, was under less gracious auspices.
+
+Michael, the calf, who had been growing excellently all summer, was kept
+tethered during the daytime to a stake in a corner of the wild-grass
+meadow, about fifty yards from the edge of the forest. A little nearer
+the cabin was a long thicket of blackberry brakes and elder bushes and
+wild clematis, forming a dense tangle, in which Miranda had, with great
+pains and at the cost of terrific scratches, formed herself a delectable
+hiding-place. Here she would play house, and sometimes take a nap, in
+the hot mornings, while her mother would be at work acres away, at the
+very opposite side of the clearing.
+
+One day, about eleven in the morning, Michael was lying at the limit of
+her tether nearest the cabin, when she saw a strange beast come out of
+the forest and halt to look at her. The animal was of a greyish rusty
+brown, very pale on the belly and neck, and nearly as tall as Michael
+herself; but its body was curiously short in proportion to the length of
+its powerful legs. It had a perfectly round face, with round glaring
+eyes, long stiff black tufts on the tips of its sharp-pointed ears, and
+a fierce-looking, whitish brown whisker brushed away, as it were, from
+under its chin. Its tail was a mere thick, brown stump of a tail,
+looking as if it had been chopped off short. The creature gazed all
+around, warily; then crouched low, its hind quarters rather higher in
+the air than its fore shoulders, and stepping softly, came straight for
+Michael.
+
+[Illustration: She sprang up, . . . her whole weight straining on the
+tether]
+
+Inexperienced as Michael was, she knew that this was nothing less than
+death itself approaching her. She sprang up, her awkward legs spread
+wide apart, her whole weight straining on the tether, her eyes, rolling
+white, fixed in horror on the dreadful object. From her throat came a
+long, shrill bleat of appeal and despair.
+
+There was no mistaking that cry. It brought Miranda from her playhouse
+in an instant. In the next instant she took in the situation. “Mother!
+_Mothe-e-er!_” she screamed at the top of her voice, and flew to the
+defence of her beloved Michael.
+
+The lynx, at this unexpected interference, stopped short. Miranda did
+not look formidable, and he was not alarmed by any means. But she looked
+unusual,—and that bit of bright red at her throat might mean something
+which he did not understand,—and there was something not quite natural,
+something to give him pause, in a youngster displaying this reckless
+courage. For a second or two, therefore, he sat straight up like a cat,
+considering; and his tufted ears the while, very erect, with the strange
+whiskers under his chin, gave him an air that was fiercely dignified.
+His hesitation, however, was but for a moment. Satisfied that Miranda
+did not count, he came on again, more swiftly; and Miranda, seeing that
+she had failed to frighten him away, just flung her arms around
+Michael’s neck and screamed.
+
+The scream should have reached Kirstie’s ear across the whole breadth of
+the clearing; but a flaw of wind carried it away, and the cabin
+intervened to dull its edge. Other ears than Kirstie’s, however, heard
+it; heard, too, and understood Michael’s bleating. The black-and-white
+cow was far away, in another pasture. (Kirstie saw her running
+frantically up and down along the fence, and thought the flies were
+tormenting her.) But just behind the thicket lay the two steers, Bright
+and Star, contemplatively chewing their midday cud. Both had risen
+heavily to their feet at Michael’s first appeal. As Miranda’s scream
+rang out, Bright’s sorrel head appeared around the corner of the
+thicket, anxious to investigate. He stopped at sight of Ganner, held his
+muzzle high in air, snorted loudly, and shook his head with a great show
+of valour. Immediately after him came Star, the black-and-white brindle.
+But of a different temper was he. The moment his eyes fell upon
+Michael’s foe and Miranda’s, down went his long, straight horns, up went
+his brindled tail, and with a bellow of rage he charged.
+
+The gaunt steer was an antagonist whom Ganner had no stomach to face.
+With an angry snarl, which showed Miranda a terrifying set of white
+teeth in a very red mouth, he turned his stump of a tail, laid flat his
+tufted ears, and made for the forest with long, splendid leaps, his
+exaggerated hind legs seeming to volley him forward like a ball. In
+about five seconds he was out of sight among the trees; and Star,
+snorting and switching his tail, stood pawing the turf haughtily in
+front of Miranda and Michael.
+
+It was Miranda who named the big lynx “Ganner” that day; because, as she
+told her mother afterward, that was what he said when Star came and
+drove him away.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter VIII
+                             Axe and Antler
+
+
+The next winter went by in the main much like the former one. But more
+birds came to be fed as the season advanced, because Miranda’s fame had
+gone abroad amongst them. The snow was not so deep, the cold not so
+severe. No panther came again to claw at their roof by night. But there
+were certain events which made the season stand out sharply from all
+others in the eyes of both Kirstie and Miranda.
+
+Throughout December and January Wapiti, the buck, with two slim does
+accompanying him, would come and hang about the barn for several days at
+a time, nibbling at the scattered straw. With the two steers, Star and
+Bright, Wapiti was not on very good terms. They would sometimes thrust
+at him resentfully, whereupon he would jump aside, as if on springs,
+stamp twice sharply with his polished fore hoofs, and level at them the
+fourteen threatening spear points of his antlers. But the challenge
+never came to anything. As for the black-and-white cow, she seemed to
+admire Wapiti greatly, though he met her admiration with the most lofty
+indifference. One day Miranda let him and the two does lick some coarse
+salt out of a dish, after which enchanting experience all three would
+follow her straight up to the cabin door. They even took to following
+Kirstie about, which pleased and flattered her more than she would
+acknowledge to Miranda, and earned them many a cold buckwheat pancake.
+To them the cold pancakes, though leathery and tough, were a tit-bit of
+delight; but along in January they tore themselves away from such
+raptures and removed to other feeding grounds.
+
+Toward spring, to Miranda’s great delight, she made acquaintance with
+Ten-Tine, the splendid bull caribou whom she had just seen the winter
+before. He and his antlered cows were migrating southward by slow
+stages. They were getting tired of the dry moss and lichen of the
+barrens which lay a week’s journey northward from the clearing. They
+began to crave the young shoots of willow and poplar that would now be
+bursting with sap along the more southerly streams. Looking from the
+window one morning, before the cattle had been let out, Miranda saw
+Ten-Tine emerge from the woods and start with long, swinging strides
+across the open. His curiously flattened, leaf-like antlers lay back on
+a level with his shoulders, and his nose pointed straight before him.
+The position was just the one to enable him to go through the woods
+without getting his horns entangled. From the middle of his forehead
+projected, at right angles to the rest of the antlers, two broad, flat,
+palmated prongs, a curious enlargement of the central ones. His cows,
+whose antlers were little less splendid than his own, but lacking in the
+frontal projection, followed at his heels. In colour he was of a very
+light, whitish-drab, quite unlike the warm brown of Wapiti’s coat.
+
+In passing the barn Ten-Tine caught sight of some tempting fodder, and
+stopped to try it. Kirstie’s straw proved very much to the taste of the
+whole herd. While they were feeding delightedly, Miranda stole out to
+make friends with them. She took, as a tribute, a few handfuls of the
+hens’ buckwheat, in a bright yellow bowl. As she approached, Ten-Tine
+lifted his fine head and eyed her curiously. Had it been the rutting
+season, he would no doubt have straightway challenged her to mortal
+combat. But now, unless he saw a wolf, a panther, or a lynx, he was
+good-tempered and inquisitive. This small creature looked harmless, and
+there was undoubtedly something quite remarkable about her. What was
+that shining thing which she held out in front of her? And what was that
+other very bright thing around her neck? He stopped feeding, and watched
+her intently, his head held in an attitude of indecision, just a little
+lower than his shoulders. The cows took a look also, and felt curious,
+but were concerned rather to satisfy their hunger than their curiosity.
+They left the matter easily to Ten-Tine.
+
+Miranda had learned many things already from her year among the folk of
+the wood. One of these things was that all the furtive folk dreaded and
+resented rough movement. Their manners were always beyond reproach. The
+fiercest of them moved ever with an aristocratic grace and poise. They
+knew the difference between swiftness and haste. All abruptness they
+abhorred. In lines of beauty they eluded their enemies. They killed in
+curves.
+
+She did not, therefore, attempt to go straight up and take Ten-Tine’s
+acquaintance by storm. She paused discreetly some dozen steps away, held
+out the dish to him, and murmured her inarticulate, soft persuasions.
+Not being versed in the caribou tongue, she trusted the tones of her
+voice to reveal her good intention.
+
+Seeing that she would come no nearer, Ten-Tine’s curiosity refused to be
+balked. But he was dubious, very dubious. Like Wapiti, he stamped when
+he was in doubt; but the hoofs he stamped with were much larger,
+broader, clumsier, less polished than Wapiti’s, being formed for running
+over such soft surfaces as bogland and snow insufficiently packed, where
+Wapiti’s trim feet would cut through like knives.
+
+Step by step he drew nearer. There was something in Miranda’s clear gaze
+that gave him confidence. At length he was near enough to touch the
+yellow bowl with his flexible upper lip. He saw that the bowl contained
+something. He extended his muzzle over the rim, and, to Miranda’s
+surprise, blew into it. The grain flew in every direction, some of it
+sticking to his own moist lips. He drew back, a little startled. Then he
+licked his lips; and he liked the taste. Back went his muzzle into the
+interesting bowl; and, after sniffing again very gently, he licked up
+the whole contents.
+
+“Oh, greedy!” exclaimed Miranda, in tender rebuke, and started back to
+the cabin to get him some more.
+
+“Wouldn’t Saunders be cross,” she thought to herself, “if he knew I was
+giving his buckwheat to the nice deer?”
+
+Ten-Tine followed close behind her, sniffing inquisitively at the red
+ribbon on her neck. When Miranda went in for the buckwheat, he tried to
+enter with her, but his antlers had too much spread for the doorway.
+Kirstie, who was busy sweeping, looked up in amazement as the great head
+darkened her door.
+
+“Drat the child!” she exclaimed; “she’ll be bringing all the beasts of
+the wood in to live with us before long.”
+
+She did not grudge Ten-Tine the few handfuls of buckwheat, however,
+though he blew half of it over the floor so that she had to sweep it up.
+When he had finished, and perceived that no more was forthcoming, he
+backed off reluctantly from the door and began smelling around the
+window-sill, pushing his curious nose tentatively against the glass.
+
+Now it chanced that all the way down from the barrens Ten-Tine and his
+little herd had been hungrily pursued, although they did not know it.
+Four of the great grey timber wolves were on their track. Savage but
+prudent, the wolves were unwilling to attack the herd, for they knew the
+caribou’s fighting prowess. But they awaited a chance to cut off one of
+the cows and hunt her down alone. For days they had kept the trail,
+faring very scantly by the way; and now they were both ravenous and
+enraged. Emerging from the woods, they saw the five cows at feed by the
+barn, with Ten-Tine nowhere in sight. The opportunity was too rare a one
+to miss. They seized it. All four gaunt forms abreast, they came
+galloping across the snow in silence, their long, grey snouts wrinkled,
+their white fangs uncovered, their grey-and-white shoulders rising and
+falling in unison, their cloudy tails floating straight out behind them.
+
+Just in time the cows saw them coming. There was a half second of
+motionless consternation. Then nimbly they sprang into a circle, hind
+quarters bunched together, levelled antlers all pointing outward. It was
+the accurate inherited discipline of generations.
+
+Without a sound, save a deep, gasping breath, the wolves made their
+leap, striving to clear that bayonet hedge of horns. Two were hurled
+back, yelping. One brought a cow to her knees, half clear of the circle,
+his fangs in her neck, and would have finished her but that her next
+neighbour prodded him so fiercely in the flank that he let go with a
+shrill snarl. But the fourth wolf found the weak point in the circle.
+The foolish young cow upon whom he sprang went wild at once with fright.
+She broke from the ring and fled. The next instant the wolf was at her
+throat.
+
+The moment he pulled her down the other wolves sprang upon her. The rest
+of the cows, maintaining their position of defence, viewed her plight
+with considerable unconcern, doubtless holding that her folly was well
+served, and that she was worth no better end. But Ten-Tine, who had
+suddenly taken in the situation, had other views about it. To him the
+foolish young cow was most important. With a shrill note of rage, half
+bleat, half bellow, he charged down to the rescue. The first wolf he
+struck was hurled against the corner of the barn, and came limping back
+to the fray with no great enthusiasm. Upon the next he came down with
+both front feet, fairly breaking the creature’s back. Instantly the
+other two fastened upon his flanks, trying to pull him down; while he,
+bounding and rearing, strove heroically to shake them off in order to
+reach them with horns and hoofs. The bleeding cow, meanwhile, struggled
+to her feet and took refuge within the dauntless circle, which rather
+grudgingly opened to admit her. For this they must not be judged too
+harshly; for in caribou eyes she had committed the crime of crimes in
+breaking ranks and exposing the whole herd to destruction.
+
+At this stage in the encounter the valiant Ten-Tine found himself in
+desperate straits; but help came from an unexpected quarter. The factor
+which the wolves had not allowed for was Kirstie Craig. At the first
+sight of them Kirstie had been filled with silent rage. She had believed
+that wolves were quite extinct throughout all the neighbouring forests;
+and now in their return she saw a perpetual menace. But at least they
+were scarce, she knew that; and on the instant she resolved that this
+little pack should meet no milder fate than extermination.
+
+“It’s wolves! Don’t you stir outside this door!” she commanded grimly,
+in that voice which Miranda never dreamed of disobeying. Miranda,
+trembling with excitement, her eyes wide and her cheeks white, climbed
+to the window, and flattened her face against it. Kirstie rushed out,
+slamming the door.
+
+As she passed the chopping-block, Kirstie snatched up her axe. Her fine
+face was set like iron. The black eyes blazed fury. It was a desperate
+venture, to attack three maddened wolves, with no ally to support her
+save a caribou bull; but Kirstie, as we have seen, was not a woman for
+half measures.
+
+The first sweep of that poised and practised axe caught the nearest wolf
+just behind the fore quarters, and almost shore him in two. Thus
+suddenly freed on one side, Ten-Tine wheeled like lightning to catch his
+other assailant, but the animal sprang back. In evading Ten-Tine’s
+horns, he almost fell over Kirstie, who, thus balked of her full deadly
+swing, just managed to fetch him a short stroke under the jaw with the
+flat of the blade. It was enough, however, to fell him for an instant,
+and that instant was enough for Ten-Tine. Bounding into the air, the big
+caribou came down with both sharp fore hoofs, like chisels, squarely on
+the middle of his adversary’s ribs. The stroke was slaughterously
+decisive. Ribs of steel could not have endured it, and in a very few
+seconds the shape of bloody grey fur upon the snow bore scant
+resemblance to a wolf.
+
+The last of the pack, who had been lamed by Ten-Tine’s onslaught, had
+prudently drawn off when he saw Kirstie coming. Now he turned tail.
+Kirstie, determined that not one should escape, gave chase. She could
+run as can few women. She was bent on her grim purpose of extermination.
+At first the wolf’s lameness hindered him; but just as he was about to
+turn at bay and fight dumbly to the death, after the manner of his kind,
+the effort which he had been making loosened the strained muscles, and
+he found his pace. Stretching himself out on his long gallop, he shot
+away from his pursuer as if she had been standing still.
+
+Kirstie stopped, swung her axe, and hurled it after him with all her
+strength. It struck the mark. Had it struck true, edge on, it would have
+fulfilled her utmost intention; but it struck, with the thick of the
+head, squarely upon the brute’s rump. The blow sent him rolling end over
+end across the snow. He yelped with astonishment and terror; but
+recovering himself again in a second, he went bounding like a grey ball
+of fur over a brush heap, and vanished down the forest arches.
+
+When Kirstie turned round she saw Miranda, white, pitiful, and
+bewildered, in the doorway; while Ten-Tine and his cows, without waiting
+to thank her, were trotting away across the white fields, their muzzles
+thrust far forward, their antlers laid along their backs. From Ten-Tine
+himself, and from the wounded young cow, the blood dripped scarlet and
+steaming at every stride.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter IX
+                            The Pax Mirandæ
+
+
+After this experience, Kirstie would have been more anxious than before
+about Miranda, had it not been for the child’s remarkable friendship
+with the great she-bear. As soon as the snow was gone, and the ancient
+wood again began to lure Miranda with its mystic stillness and
+transparent twilight, Kroof reappeared, as devoted as ever. When Kroof
+was absent, the woods were to the child a forbidden realm, into which
+she could only peer with longing and watch the furtive folk with those
+initiated eyes of hers.
+
+A little later when the mosses were dry, and when the ground was well
+heartened with the fecundating heats of June, Miranda had further proof
+of her peculiar powers of vision. One day she and Kroof came upon a
+partridge hen with her new-hatched brood, at the edge of a thicket of
+young birches. The hen went flopping and fluttering off among the trees,
+as if sorely wounded; and Kroof, convinced of a speedy capture, followed
+eagerly. She gave a glance about her first, however, to see if there
+were any partridge chicks in the neighbourhood. To Miranda’s
+astonishment, the wise animal saw none. But Miranda saw them distinctly.
+There they were all about her, moveless little brown balls, exactly like
+the leaves and the moss and the scattered things of the forest floor.
+Some were half hidden under a leaf or twig; some squatted in the open,
+just in the positions in which the alarm had found them. They shut their
+eyes even, to make themselves more at one with their surroundings. They
+would have endured any fate, they would have died on the spot, rather
+than move, so perfect was their baby obedience to the partridge law.
+This obedience had its reward. It gave them invisibility to all the folk
+of the wood, friends and foes alike. But there was no such thing as
+deceiving Miranda’s eyes. She was not concerned about the mother
+partridge, because she saw through her pretty trick and knew that Kroof
+could never catch her. Indeed, in her innocence she did not think good
+Kroof would hurt her if she did catch her, But these moveless chicks, on
+the other hand, were interesting. One—two—three—Miranda counted ten of
+them, and there were more about somewhere, she imagined. Presently the
+mother bird came flopping around in a circle, to see how things were
+going. She saw Miranda stoop and pick up one of the precious brown
+balls, and then another, curiously but gently. In her astonishment the
+distracted bird forgot Kroof for a second, and was almost caught.
+Escaping this peril by a sudden wild dash, and realizing that from
+Miranda there was no concealment, she flew straight into the densest
+part of the thicket and gave a peremptory call. At the sound each little
+motionless ball came to life. The two that were lying as if dead on
+Miranda’s outstretched palms hopped to the ground; and all darted into
+the thicket. A few low but sharply articulated clucks, and the mother
+bird led her brood off swiftly through the bush; while Kroof, somewhat
+crestfallen, came shambling back to Miranda.
+
+All this time, in spite of the affair of the wolves, the attack of
+Ganner, the lynx, on Michael, and that tell-tale spot of blood and fur
+on the snow, where the owl had torn the hare for his midnight feast,
+Miranda had regarded the folk of the ancient wood as a gentle people,
+living for the most part in a voiceless amity. Her seeing eyes quite
+failed to see the unceasing tragedy of the stillness. She did not guess
+that the furtive folk, whom she watched about their business, went
+always with fear at their side and death lying in wait at every turn.
+She little dreamed that, for most of them, the very price of life itself
+was the ceaseless extinguishing of life.
+
+It was during the summer that Miranda found her first and only flaw in
+Kroof’s perfections; for Kroof she regarded as second only to her mother
+among created beings. But on one memorable day, when she ran across the
+fields to meet Kroof at the edge of the wood, the great bear was too
+much occupied to come forward as usual. She was sniffing at something on
+the ground which she held securely under one of her huge paws. Miranda
+ran forward to see what it was.
+
+To her horror it was the warm and bleeding body of a hare.
+
+She shrank back, sickened at the sight. Then, in flaming indignation she
+struck Kroof again and again in the face with the palms of her little
+hands. Kroof was astonished,—temperately astonished,—for she always knew
+Miranda was peculiar. She lifted her snout high in the air to escape the
+blows, shut her eyes, and meekly withdrew the offending paw.
+
+“Oh, Kroof, how _could_ you! I hate you, bad Kroof! You are just like
+the wolves!” cried Miranda, her little bosom bursting with wrath and
+tears. Kroof understood that she was in grievous disgrace. Carrying the
+dead hare with her, Miranda ran out into the potato patch, fetched the
+hoe, returned to the spot where the bear still sat in penitential
+contemplation, and proceeded in condemnatory silence to dig a hole right
+under Kroof’s nose. Here she buried the hare, tenderly smoothing the
+ground above it. Then throwing the hoe down violently, she flung her
+arms about Kroof’s neck, and burst into a passion of tears.
+
+“How _could_ you do it, Kroof?” she sobbed. “Oh, perhaps you’ll be
+wanting to eat up Miranda some day!”
+
+Kroof suffered herself to be led away from the unhappy spot. Soon
+Miranda grew calm, and the painful scene seemed forgotten. The rest of
+the afternoon was spent very pleasantly in eating wild raspberries along
+the farther side of the clearing. To Kroof’s mind it gradually became
+clear that her offence lay in killing the hare; and as it was obvious
+that Miranda liked hares, she resolved never to offend again in this
+respect, at least while Miranda was anywhere in the neighbourhood. After
+Miranda had gone home, however, the philosophical Kroof strolled back
+discreetly to where the hare was buried. She dug it up, and ate it with
+great satisfaction, and afterward she smoothed down the earth again,
+that Miranda might not know.
+
+After this trying episode Miranda had every reason to believe that
+Kroof’s reformation was complete. Little by little, as month followed
+month, and season followed season, and year rolled into year at the
+quiet cabin in the clearing, Miranda forgot the few scenes of blood
+which had been thrust upon her. The years now little varied one from
+another; yet to Miranda the life was not monotonous. Each season was for
+her full of events, full of tranquil uneventfulness for Kirstie. The
+cabin became more homelike as currant and lilac bushes grew up around
+it, a green, sweet covert for birds, and abundant scarlet-blossomed
+bean-vines mantled the barrenness of its weathered logs. The clearing
+prospered. The stock increased. Old Dave hardly ever visited at the
+clearing but he went back laden with stuff to sell for Kirstie at the
+Settlement. Among the folk of the forest Miranda’s ascendency kept on
+growing, little by little, till, though none of the beasts came to know
+her as Kroof did, they all had a tendency to follow her at respectful
+distance, without seeming to do so. They never killed in her presence,
+so that a perpetual truce, as it were, came at last to rule within
+eyeshot of her inescapable gaze. Sometimes the advent of spring would
+bring Kroof to the clearing not alone, but with a furry and jolly black
+morsel of a cub at her side. The cub never detracted in the least from
+the devotion which she paid to Miranda. It always grew up to young
+bearhood in more or less amiable tolerance of its mother’s
+incomprehensible friend, only to drift away at last to other feeding
+grounds; for Kroof was absolute in her own domain, and suffered not even
+her own offspring to trespass thereon, when once they had reached
+maturity. Cubs might come, and cubs might go; but the love of Kroof and
+Miranda was a thing that rested unchanging.
+
+In the winters, Miranda now did most of the knitting, while Kirstie
+wove, on a great clacking loom, the flax which her little farm produced
+abundantly. They had decided not to keep sheep at the clearing, lest
+their presence should lure back the wolves. One warm day toward spring,
+when Old Dave, laden with an ample pack of mittens, stockings, and socks
+which Miranda’s active fingers had fashioned, was slowly trudging along
+the trail on his way back to the Settlement, he became aware that a pair
+of foxes followed him. They came not very near, nor did they pay him any
+marked attention. They merely seemed to “favour his company,” as he
+himself put it. He was thus curiously escorted for perhaps a mile or
+two, to his great bewilderment; for he knew no reason why he should be
+so chosen out for honour in the wood. At another time, when similarly
+burdened, Wapiti, the buck, came up and sniffed at him, very amicably.
+During the next winter, when he was carrying the same magic merchandise,
+several hares went leaping beside him, not very near, but as if seeking
+the safety of his presence. The mystery of all this weighed upon him. He
+was at first half inclined to think that he was “ha’nted”; but
+fortunately he took thought to examine the tracks, and so assured
+himself that his inexplicable companions were of real flesh and blood.
+Nevertheless, he found himself growing shy of his periodical journeyings
+through the wood, and at last he opened his mind to Kirstie on the
+subject.
+
+Kirstie was amused in her grave way.
+
+“Why, Dave,” she explained, “didn’t you know Miranda was that thick with
+the wild things she’s half wild herself? Weren’t you carrying a lot of
+Miranda’s knit stuff when the creatures followed you?”
+
+“That’s so, Kirstie!” was the old lumberman’s reply. “I recollec’ as how
+the big buck kep’ a-sniffin’ at my pack of socks an’ mits, too!”
+
+“They were some of Miranda’s friends; and when they smelled of those
+mits they thought she was somewhere around, or else they knew you must
+be a friend of hers.”
+
+Thenceforward Old Dave always looked for something of a procession in
+his honour whenever he carried Miranda’s knittings to the Settlement;
+and he was intensely proud of the distinction. He talked about it among
+his gossips, of course; and therefore a lot of strange stories began to
+circulate. It was said by some that Kirstie and Miranda held converse
+with the beasts in plain English such as common mortals use, and knew
+all the secrets of the woods, and much besides that “humans” have no
+call to know. By others, more superstitious and fanatical, it was
+whispered that no mere animals formed the circle of Kirstie’s
+associates, but that spirits, in the guise of hares, foxes, cats,
+panthers, bears, were her familiars at the solitary cabin. Such
+malicious tales cost Old Dave many a bitter hour, as well as more than
+one sharp combat, till the gossips learned to keep a bridle on their
+tongues when he was by. As for Young Dave, he had let the clearing and
+all its affairs drop from his mind, and, betaking himself to a wild
+region to the north of the Quah-Davic, was fast making his name as a
+hunter and trapper. He came but seldom to the Settlement, and when he
+came he had small ear for the Settlement scandals. His mind was growing
+large, and quiet, and tolerant, among the great solitudes.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter X
+                     The Routing of the Philistines
+
+
+In the seventh year of Kirstie’s exile, something occurred which gave
+the Settlement gossip a fresh impulse, and added a colour of awe to the
+mystery which surrounded the clearing.
+
+The winter changed to a very open one, so that long before spring Kroof
+awoke in her lair under the pine root. There was not enough snow to keep
+her warm and asleep. But the ground was frozen, food was scarce, and she
+soon became hungry. Miranda observed her growing leanness, and tried the
+experiment of bringing her a mess of boiled beans from the cabin pot. To
+the hungry bear the beans were a revelation. She realized that Miranda’s
+mother was in some way connected with the experience, and her long
+reserve melted away in the warmth of her responsive palate. The next
+day, about noon, as Kirstie and Miranda were sitting down to their meal,
+Kroof appeared at the cabin door and sniffed longingly at the threshold.
+
+“What’s that sniffing at the door?” wondered Kirstie, with some
+uneasiness in her grave voice. But Miranda had flown at once to the
+window to look out.
+
+“Why, mother, it’s Kroof!” she cried, clapping her hands with delight,
+and before her mother could say a word, she had thrown the door wide
+open. In shambled the bear forthwith, blinking her shrewd little eyes.
+She seated herself on her haunches, near the table, and gazed with
+intent curiosity at the fire. At this moment a dry stick snapped and
+crackled sharply, whereupon she backed off to a safer distance, but
+still kept her eyes upon the strange phenomenon.
+
+Both Kirstie and Miranda had been watching her with breathless interest,
+to see how she would comport herself, but now Miranda broke silence.
+
+“Oh! you dear old Kroof, we’re so glad you’ve come at last to see us!”
+she cried, rushing over and flinging both arms around the animal’s neck.
+Kirstie’s face looked a doubtful indorsement of the welcome. Kroof paid
+no attention to Miranda’s caresses beyond a hasty lick at her ear, and
+continued to study the fascinating flames. This quietness of demeanour
+reassured Kirstie, whose hospitality thereupon asserted itself.
+
+“Give the poor thing some buckwheat cakes, Miranda,” she said. “I’m sure
+she’s come because she’s hungry.”
+
+Miranda preferred to think the visit was due to no such interested
+motives; but she at once took up a plate of cakes which she had drenched
+in molasses for the requirements of her own taste. She set the plate on
+the edge of the table nearest to her visitor, and gently pulled the
+bear’s snout down toward it. No second invitation was needed. The fire
+was forgotten. The enchanting smell of buckwheat cakes and molasses was
+a new one to Kroof’s nostrils, but the taste for it was there, full
+grown and waiting. Out went her narrow red tongue. The cakes disappeared
+rather more rapidly than was consistent with good manners: the molasses
+was deftly licked up, and with a grin of rapture she looked about for
+more. Just in front of Kirstie stood a heaping dish of the dainties hot
+from the griddle. With an eager but tentative paw Kroof reached out for
+them. This was certainly not manners. Kirstie removed the dish beyond
+her reach, while Miranda firmly pushed the trespassing paw from the
+table.
+
+“No, Kroof, you shan’t have any more at all, unless you are good!” she
+admonished, with hortatory finger uplifted.
+
+There are few animals so quick to take a hint as the bear, and Kroof’s
+wits had grown peculiarly alert during her long intimacy with Miranda.
+She submitted with instant meekness, and waited, with tongue hanging
+out, while Miranda prepared her a huge bowl of bread and molasses. When
+she had eaten this, she investigated everything about the cabin, and
+finally went to sleep on a mat in the corner of the inner room. Before
+sundown she got up and wandered off to her lair, being still drowsy with
+winter sleep.
+
+After this the old bear came daily at noon to the cabin, dined with
+Kirstie and Miranda, and dozed away the afternoon on her mat in the
+chosen corner. Kirstie came to regard her as a member of the household.
+To the cattle and the poultry she paid no attention whatever. In a few
+days the oxen ceased to lower their horns as she passed; and the cock,
+Saunders’s equally haughty successor, refrained from the shrill
+expletives of warning with which he had been wont to herald her
+approach.
+
+One afternoon, before spring had fairly set in, there came two unwelcome
+visitors to the cabin. In a lumber-camp some fifteen miles away, on a
+branch of the Quah-Davic, there had been trouble. Two of the “hands,”
+surly and mutinous all winter, had at last, by some special brutality,
+enraged the “boss” and their mates beyond all pardon. Hooted and beaten
+from the camp, they had started through the woods by the shortest road
+to the Settlement. Their hearts were black with pent-up fury. About
+three o’clock in the afternoon, they happened upon the clearing, and
+demanded something to eat.
+
+Though sullen, and with a kind of menace in their air, their words were
+civil enough at first, and Kirstie busied herself to supply what seemed
+to her their just demands. The laws of hospitality are very binding in
+the backwoods. Miranda, meanwhile, not liking the looks of the
+strangers, kept silently aloof and scrutinized them.
+
+When Kirstie had set before them a good meal,—hot tea, and hot boiled
+beans, and eggs, and white bread and butter,—they were disappointed
+because she gave them no pork, and they were not slow to demand it.
+
+“I’ve got none,” said Kirstie; “we don’t eat pork here. You ought to get
+along well enough on what’s good enough for Miranda and me.”
+
+For a backwoods house to be without pork, the indispensable, the
+universal, the lumberman’s staff of life, was something unheard of. They
+both thought she was keeping back the pork out of meanness.
+
+“You lie!” exclaimed one, a lean, short, swarthy ruffian. The other got
+up and took a step toward the woman, where she stood, dauntlessly eying
+them. His scrubby red beard bristled, his massive shoulders hunched
+themselves ominously toward his big ears.
+
+“You git that pork, and be quick about it!” he commanded, with the
+addition of such phrases of emphasis as the lumberman uses, but does not
+use in the presence of women.
+
+“Beast!” exclaimed Kirstie, eyes and cheeks flaming. “Get out of this
+house.” And she glanced about for a weapon. But in a second the ruffian
+had seized her. Though stronger than most men, she was no match for
+him—a noted bully and a cunning master of the tricks of the ring. She
+was thrown in a second. Miranda, with a scream of rage, snatched up a
+table knife and darted to her mother’s aid; but the shorter ruffian, now
+delighted with the game, shouted: “Settle the old woman, Bill. I’ll see
+to the gal!” and made a grab for Miranda.
+
+It had all happened so suddenly that Kirstie was, for a moment, stunned.
+Then, realizing the full horror of the situation, a strength as of
+madness came upon her. She set her teeth into the wrist of her assailant
+with such fury that he yelled and for a second loosed his hold. In that
+second, tearing herself half free, she clutched his throat with her long
+and powerful fingers. It was only an instant’s respite, but it was
+enough to divert the other scoundrel’s attention from Miranda. With a
+huge laugh he turned to free his mate from that throttling grip.
+
+His purpose was never fulfilled. Kroof, just at this instant, thrust her
+nose from the door of the inner room, half awake, and wondering at the
+disturbance. Her huge bulk was like a nightmare. The swarthy wretch
+stood for an instant spellbound in amazement. With a savage growl, Kroof
+launched herself at him, and he, darting around the table, wrenched the
+door open and fled.
+
+[Illustration: He ran wildly over the snow patches]
+
+The other miscreant, though well occupied with Kirstie’s mad grip at his
+throat, had seen, from the corner of his eyes, that black monster emerge
+like fate and charge upon his comrade. To him, Kroof looked as big as an
+ox. With a gasping curse he tore himself free; and, hurling Kirstie half
+across the table, he rushed from the cabin. His panic was lest the
+monster should return and catch him, like a rat in a pit, where there
+was no chance of escape.
+
+As a matter of fact, Kroof _was_ just returning, with an angry
+realization that her foe could run faster than she could. And lo! here
+was another of the same breed in the very doorway before her. As she
+confronted him, his eyes nearly started from his head. With a yell he
+dodged past, nimble as a loon’s neck. Savagely she struck out at him
+with her punishing paw. Had she caught him, there would have been one
+rogue the fewer, and blood on the cabin threshold. But she missed, and
+he went free. He ran wildly over the snow patches in pursuit of his
+fleeing comrade; while Kroof, all a-bristle with indignation, hurried
+into the cabin, to be hugged and praised with grateful tears by Kirstie
+and Miranda.
+
+When the first of the fugitives, the lean and swarthy one, reached the
+edge of the woods, he paused to look back. There was no one following
+but his comrade, who came up a moment later and clutched at him, panting
+heavily. Neither, for a minute or two, had breath for any word but a
+broken curse. The big, bristly scoundrel called Bill was bleeding at the
+wrist from Kirstie’s bite, and his throat, purple and puffed, bore
+witness to the strength of Kirstie’s fingers. The other had got off scot
+free. The two stared at each other, cowed and discomfited.
+
+“Ever see the likes o’ that?” queried Bill, earnestly.
+
+“Be damned ef ’twan’t the devil himself!” asseverated his companion.
+
+“Oh, hell! ’twere jest a b’ar!” retorted Bill, in a tone of would-be
+derision. “But bigger’n a steer! _I_ don’t want none of it!”
+
+“B’ar er devil, what’s the odds? Let’s git, says I!” was the response;
+and simultaneously the two lifted their eyes to observe the sun and get
+their bearings. But it was not the sun they saw. Their jaws fell. Their
+hair rose. For a moment they stood rooted to the ground in abject
+horror.
+
+Right above their heads, crouched close upon the vast up-sloping limb of
+a hoary pine, lay a panther, looking down upon them with fixed, dilating
+stare. They saw his claws, protruding, and set firmly into the bark.
+They saw the backward, snarling curl of his lips as his head reached
+down toward them over the edge of his perch. For several choking
+heart-beats the picture bit itself into their coarse brains; then, with
+a gurgling cry that came as one voice from the two throats, both sprang
+aside like hares and ran wildly down the trail.
+
+Within a few hours of their arrival at the Settlement, this was the
+story on all lips,—that Kirstie’s cabin was guarded by familiars, who
+could take upon themselves at will the form of bear, panther, wolf, or
+mad bull moose, for the terrorizing of such travellers as might chance
+to trespass upon that unholy solitude. The Settlement held a few
+superstitious souls who believed this tale; while the rest pretended to
+believe it because it gave them something to talk about. No one, in
+fact, was at all the worse for it, except the ruffian called Bill, who,
+on one of Young Dave’s rare visits to the Settlement, got into an
+argument with him on the subject, and incidentally got a licking.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter XI
+                         Miranda and Young Dave
+
+
+After this the cabin in the clearing ran small risk of marauders. To the
+most sceptical homespun philosopher in the Settlement it seemed obvious
+that Kirstie and Miranda had something mysterious about them, and had
+forsaken their kind for the fellowship of the furtive kin. No one but
+Old Dave had any relish for a neighbourhood where bears kept guard, and
+lynxes slily frequented, and caribou bulls of a haughty temper made
+themselves free of the barnyard. As for Young Dave, unwilling to fall
+foul of the folk who were so friendly to Kirstie and Miranda, he carried
+his traps, his woodcraft, and his cunning rifle to a tract more remote
+from the clearing.
+
+Thus it came that Miranda grew to womanhood with no human companion but
+her mother. To her mother she stood so close that the two assimilated
+each other, as it were. Such education as Kirstie possessed, and such
+culture, narrow but significant, were Miranda’s by absorption. For the
+rest, the quiet folk of the wood insensibly moulded her, and the great
+silences, and the wide wonder of the skies at night, and the solemnity
+of the wind. At seventeen she was a woman, mature beyond her years, but
+strange, with an elfish or a faun-like strangeness: as if a soul not all
+human dwelt in her human shape. Silent, wild, unsmiling, her sympathies
+were not with her own kind, but with the wild and silent folk who know
+not the sweetness of laughter. Yet she was given to moods of singing
+mirth, at long intervals; and her tenderness toward all pain, her horror
+of blood, were things equally alien to the wilderness creatures, her
+associates. It was doubtless this unbridgable divergence, combining with
+her sympathy and subtle comprehension, which secured her mysterious
+ascendency in the forest; for by this time it would never have occurred
+to her to step aside even for a panther or a bull moose in his fury.
+Something, somehow, in the air about her, told all the creatures that
+she was supreme.
+
+In appearance, Miranda was a contrast to her mother, though her
+colouring was almost the same. Miranda was a little less than middle
+height, slender, graceful, fine-boned, small of hand and foot,
+delicate-featured, her skin toned with the clear browns of health and
+the open air and the matchless cosmetic of the sun. Her abundance of
+bronze-black hair, shot with flame-glints wheresoever the sunlight
+struck it, came down low over a broad, low forehead. Her eyes, in which,
+as we have seen, lay very much of her power over the folk of the wood,
+were very large and dark. They possessed a singular transparency, akin
+to the magical charm of the forest shadows. There was something unreal
+and haunting in this inexplicable clarity of her gaze, something of that
+mystery which dwells in the reflections of a perfect mirror of water.
+Her nose, straight and well modelled, was rather large than small, with
+nostrils alertly sensitive to discern all the wilding savours, the
+clean, personal scents of the clean-living creatures of the wood, and
+even those inexpressibly elusive perfume-heralds which, on certain days,
+come upon the air, forerunning the changes of the seasons. Her mouth was
+large, but not too large for beauty, neither thin nor full, of a vivid
+scarlet, mobile and mutable, yet firm, and with the edges of the lips
+exactly defined. Habitually reposeful and self-controlled in movement,
+like her mother, her repose suggested that of a bird poised upon the
+wing, liable at any instant to incalculable celerities; while that of
+Kirstie was like the calm of a hill with the eternal disrupting fire at
+its heart. The scarlet ribbon which Miranda the woman, like Miranda the
+child, wore always about her neck, seemed in her the symbol of an
+ineradicable strangeness of spirit, while Kirstie’s scarlet kerchief
+expressed but the passion which burned perennial beneath its wearer’s
+quietude.
+
+Being in all respects natural and unselfconscious, it is not to be
+wondered at that Miranda was inconsistent. The truce which she had
+created about her—the _pax Mirandæ_—had so long kept her eyes from the
+hated sight of blood that she had forgotten death, and did not more than
+half believe in pain. Nevertheless she was still a shaft of doom to the
+trout in the lake and river. Fishing was a delight to her. It satisfied
+some fierce instinct inherited from her forefathers, which she never
+thought to analyze. The musical rushing of the stream; the foam and
+clamour of the shallow falls; the deep, black, gleaming pools with the
+roots of larch and hemlock overhanging; the sullen purple and amber of
+the eddies with their slowly swirling patches of froth,—all these
+allured her, though with a threat. And then the stealthy casting of the
+small, baited hook or glittering fly, the tense expectancy, the
+electrifying tug upon the line, the thrill, the exultation of the
+landing, and the beauty of the spotted prey, silver and vermilion, on
+the olive carpet of the moss! It hardly occurred to her that they were
+breathing, sentient creatures, these fish of the pools. She would
+doubtless have resented the idea of any kinship between herself and
+these cold inhabiters of a hostile element. In fact, Miranda was very
+close to nature, and she could not escape her part in nature’s never
+ceasing war of opposites.
+
+Late one afternoon in summer Miranda was loitering homeward from the
+stream with a goodly string of trout. It was a warm day and windless,
+and the time of year not that which favours the fisherman. But in those
+cold waters the fish will rise even in July and August, and Miranda’s
+bait, or Miranda’s home-tied fly, was always a killing lure to them. She
+carried her catch—one gaping-jawed two-pounder, and a half dozen smaller
+victims—strung through the crimson gills on a forked branch of alder.
+Her dark face was flushed; her hair (she never wore a hat) was
+dishevelled; her eyes were very wide and abstracted, taking in the
+varied shadows,—the boulders, the markings on the bark of the tree
+trunks, the occasional flickering moths, and the solemn little brown owl
+that sat in the cleft of the pine tree, yet seeming to see not these but
+something within or beyond them.
+
+Suddenly, however, they were arrested by a sight which scattered their
+abstraction. Their focus seemed to shorten, their expression
+concentrated to a strained intensity, then lightened to a greyness with
+anger as she took a hasty step forward, and paused, uncertain for a
+moment what to do.
+
+Before her was a little open glade, full of sun, secure and inviting. At
+its farther edge a thick-branched, low beech tree, reaching out from the
+confusion of trunks and vistas, cast a pleasant differentiated shade.
+Here in this shade a young man lay sleeping, sprawled carelessly, his
+head on one arm. He was tall, gaunt, clad in grey homespuns and a
+well-worn buckskin jacket. His red-brown hair was cut somewhat short,
+his light yellow moustache, long and silky, looked the lighter by
+contrast with the ruddy tan of his face. His rifle leaned against the
+tree near by, while he slept the luxurious sleep of an idle summer
+afternoon.
+
+But not five paces away crouched an immense panther, flattened to the
+ground, watching him.
+
+The beast was ready, at the first movement or sign of life, to spring
+upon the sleeper’s throat. Its tail rigidly outstretched, twitched
+slightly at the tip. Its great, luminous eyes were so intently fixed
+upon the anticipated prey that it did not see Miranda’s quiet approach.
+
+To the girl the sleeper seemed something very beautiful, in the
+impersonal way that a splendid flower, or a tall young tree in the open,
+or the scarlet-and-pearl of sunrise is beautiful—not a thing as near to
+herself as the beasts of the wood, whom she knew. But she was filled
+with strange, protective fury at the thought of peril to this
+interesting creature. Her hesitation was but for a moment. She knew the
+ferocity of the panther very well, and trembled lest the sleeper should
+move, or twitch a muscle. She stepped up close to his side, and fixed
+the animal’s eyes with her disconcerting gaze.
+
+“Get off!” she ordered sharply, with a gesture of command.
+
+The beast had doubtless a very plentiful ignorance of the English
+language, but gesture is a universal speech. He understood it quite
+clearly. He faced her eye, and endured it for some seconds, being minded
+to dispute its authority. Then his glance shifted, his whole attitude
+changed. He rose from his crouching posture, his tail drooped, his
+tension relaxed, he looked back over his shoulder, then turned and
+padded furtively away. Just as he was leaving, the man awoke with a
+start, sat up, gave one wondering look at Miranda, caught sight of the
+panther’s retreating form, and reached for his rifle.
+
+Quick as light, Miranda intervened. Stepping between his hand and its
+purpose, she flamed out against him with sudden anger.
+
+“How dare you—go to shoot him!” she cried, her voice trembling.
+
+He had sprung to his feet, and was staring at her flushed face with a
+mixture of admiration and bewilderment.
+
+“But he was goin’ to jump onto me!” he protested.
+
+“Well,” rejoined Miranda, curtly, “he didn’t! And you’ve got no call to
+shoot him!”
+
+“Why didn’t he?” asked the young man.
+
+“I drove him off. If I’d thought you’d shoot him, I’d have _let_ him
+jump onto you,” was the cool reply.
+
+“Why didn’t he jump onto _you_?” asked the stranger, his keen grey eyes
+lighting up as if he began to understand the situation.
+
+“Because he durs’n’t,—and he wouldn’t want to, neither!”
+
+“I calculate,” said the stranger, holding out his hand, while a smile
+softened the thoughtful severity of his face, “that you must be little
+Mirandy.”
+
+“My name _is_ Miranda,” she answered, ignoring the outstretched hand;
+“but I’m sure I don’t know who you are, coming here into my woods to
+kill my friends.”
+
+“I wouldn’t hurt a hair of ’em!” he asserted, with a mingling of fervour
+and amusement. “But ain’t I one o’ your friends, too, Mirandy? I used to
+be, anyway.”
+
+He took a step nearer, still holding out a pleading hand. Miranda drew
+back, and put her hands behind her. “I don’t know you,” she persisted,
+but now with something of an air of wilfulness rather than of hostility.
+Old memories had begun to stir in forgotten chambers of her brain.
+
+“You _used_ to be friends with Young Dave,” he said, in an eager half
+whisper. Miranda’s beauty and the strangeness of it were getting into
+his long-untroubled blood.
+
+The girl at once put out her hand with a frank kindness. “Oh, I
+remember!” she said. “You’ve been a long time forgetting us, haven’t
+you? But never mind. Come along with me to the clearing, and see mother,
+and get some supper.”
+
+Dave flushed with pleasure at the invitation.
+
+“Thank ye kindly, Mirandy, I reckon I will,” said he; and stepping to
+one side he picked up his rifle. But at the sight of the weapon
+Miranda’s new friendliness froze up, and a resentful gleam came into her
+great eyes.
+
+“Let me heft it,” she demanded abruptly, holding out an imperative hand.
+
+Dave gave it up at once, with a deprecating air, though a ghost of a
+smile flickered under the long, yellow droop of his moustache.
+
+Miranda had no interest in the weight or balance of the execrated
+weapon: possession of it was all her purpose.
+
+“I’ll carry it,” she remarked abruptly. “You take these,” and handing
+over to him the string of trout, she turned to the trail.
+
+Dave followed, now at her side, now dropping respectfully behind, as the
+exigencies of the way required. Nothing was said for some time. The
+girl’s instinctive interest in the man whom she had so opportunely
+protected was now quenched in antagonism, as she thought upon his
+murderous calling. With sharp resentment she imagined him nursing an
+indulgent contempt for her friendship with the furry and furtive
+creatures. She burned with retrospective compassion for all the beasts
+which had fallen to his bullets, or his blind and brutal traps. A trap
+was, in her eyes, the unpardonable horror. Had she not once, when a
+small girl, seen a lynx—perhaps it was Ganner himself—caught by the hind
+quarters in a dead-fall? The beast was not quite dead—it had been for
+days dying; its eyes were dulled, yet widely staring, and its tongue,
+black and swollen, stuck out between its grinning jaws. She had seen at
+once that the case was past relief; and she would have ended the torture
+had her little hands known how to kill. But helpless and anguished as
+she was, she had fled from the spot, and shudderingly cried her eyes out
+for an hour. Then it had come over her with a wrenching of remorse that
+the dreadful tongue craved water; and she had flown back with a tin cup
+of the assuaging fluid, only to find the animal just dead. The pain of
+thinking that she might have eased its last torments, and had not, bit
+the whole scene ineffaceably into her heart; and now, with this splendid
+trapper, the kind friend of her babyhood, walking at her side, the
+picture and its pangs returned with a horrible incongruity. But what
+most of all hardened her heart against the man was a sense of threat
+which his atmosphere conveyed to her,—a menace, in some vague way, to
+her whole system of life, her sympathies, her contentments, her calm.
+
+Dave, on his part, felt himself deep in the cold flood of disfavour, and
+solicitously pondered a way of return to the sunshine of his companion’s
+smile. His half-wild intuition told him at once that Miranda’s anger was
+connected with his rifle, and he in part understood her aversion to his
+craft. He hungered to conciliate her; and as he trod noiselessly the
+scented gloom of the arches, the mottled greens and greys and browns of
+the trail, he laid his plans with far-considering prudence. It was
+characteristic of his quietly masterful nature that he not once thought
+of conciliating by giving up gun and trap and turning to a vocation more
+humane. No, the ways and means which occupied his thoughts were the ways
+and means of converting Miranda to his own point of view. He felt,
+though not philosophic enough to formulate it clearly, that he had all
+nature behind him to help mould the girl to his will, while she stood
+not only alone, but with a grave peril of treason in her own heart.
+
+His silence was good policy with Miranda, who was used to silence and
+loved it. But being a woman, she loved another’s silence even better
+than her own. “You are a hunter, ain’t you?” she inquired at last,
+without turning her head.
+
+“Yes, Mirandy.”
+
+“And a trapper, too?”
+
+“Yes, Mirandy; so they call me.”
+
+“And you like to kill the beasts?”
+
+“Well, yes, Mirandy, kind of, least-ways, I like them; and, well, you’ve
+jest got to kill them, to live yourself. That’s jest what they do, kill
+each other, so’s they can live themselves. An’ it’s the only kind of
+life _I_ can live—’way in the woods, with the shadows, an’ the silence,
+an’ the trees, an’ the sky, an’ the clean smells, an’ the whispers you
+can’t never understand.”
+
+Dave shut his mouth with a firm snap at the close of this unwonted
+outburst. Never to any one before had he so explained his passion for
+the hunter’s life; and now Miranda, who had turned square about, was
+looking at him with a curious searching expression. It disconcerted him;
+and he feared, under those unescapable eyes, that he had talked
+nonsense. Nevertheless when she spoke there was a less chilling note in
+her voice, though the words were not encouraging.
+
+“If you like killing the creatures,” she said slowly, “it’s no place for
+you here. So maybe you hadn’t better come to the clearing.”
+
+“I don’t like killing _your_ beasts, anyways,” he protested eagerly.
+“An’ ever sence I heard how you an’ the bears an’ the caribou was
+friends like, I’ve kep’ clear the other side of the divide, an’ never
+set a trap this side the Quah-Davic valley. As for these critters you
+take such stock in, Mirandy, I wouldn’t harm a hair of one of ’em, I
+swear!”
+
+“You hadn’t better! I’d kill you myself,” she rejoined sharply, with a
+swift, dangerous flame in her strange gaze; “or I’d set Kroof on you,”
+she added, a gleam of mirth suddenly irradiating her face, and darkening
+her eyes richly, till Dave was confused by her loveliness. But he kept
+his wits sufficiently to perceive, as she set her face again up the
+trail, that he was permitted to go with her.
+
+“Who’s Kroof?” he asked humbly, stepping close to her side and ignoring
+the fact that the pathway, just there, was but wide enough for one.
+
+“My best friend,” answered Miranda. “You’ll see at the clearing. You’d
+better look out for Kroof, let me tell you!”
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XII
+                       Young Dave at the Clearing
+
+
+During the rest of the journey—a matter of an hour’s walking—there was
+little talk between Miranda and Dave; for the ancient wood has the
+property that it makes talk seem trivial. With those who journey through
+the great vistas and clear twilight of the trees, thoughts are apt to
+interchange by the medium of silence and sympathy, or else to remain
+uncommunicated. Whatever her misgivings, her resentments and
+hostilities, Miranda was absorbed in her companion. So deeply was she
+absorbed that she failed to notice an unwonted emptiness in the shadows
+about her.
+
+In very truth, the furtive folk had all fled away. The presence of the
+hunter filled them with instinctive fear; and in their chief defence,
+their moveless self-effacement, they had no more any confidence while
+within reach of Miranda’s eyes. The stranger was like herself—and though
+they trusted her in all else, they knew the compulsion of nature, and
+feared lest she might betray them to her own kind. Therefore they held
+prudently aloof,—the hare and the porcupine, the fox and the red cat;
+the raccoon slipped into his hole in the maple tree, and the wood-mice
+scurried under the hemlock root, and the woodpecker kept the thickness
+of a tree between his foraging and Miranda’s eye. Only the careless and
+inquisitive partridge, sitting on a birch limb just over the trail,
+curiously awaited their approach; till suddenly an intuition of peril
+awoke him, and he fled on wild wings away through the diminishing
+arches. Even the little brown owl in the pine crotch snapped his bill
+and hissed uneasily as the two passed under his perch. Yet all these
+signs, that would have been to her in other moods a loud proclamation of
+change, now passed unnoted. Miranda was receiving a new impression, and
+the experience engrossed her.
+
+Arrived at the edge of the clearing, Dave was struck by the alteration
+that had come over it since that day, thirteen years back, when he had
+aided Kirstie’s flight from the Settlement. It was still bleak, and
+overbrooded by a vast unroutable stillness, for the swelling of the land
+lifted it from the forest’s shelter and made it neighbour to the
+solitary sky. But the open fields were prosperous with blue-flowered
+flax, pink-and-white buckwheat, the green sombreness of potatoes, and
+the gallant ranks of corn; while half a dozen sleek cattle dotted the
+stumpy pasture. The fences were well kept. The cabin and the barn were
+hedged about with shining thickets of sunflower, florid hollyhocks, and
+scarlet-runner beans. It gave the young woodman a kind of pang,—this bit
+of homely sweetness projected, as it were, upon the infinite solitude of
+the universe. It made him think, somehow, of the smile of a lost child
+that does not know it is lost.
+
+Presently, to his astonishment, there rose up from behind a blackberry
+coppice the very biggest bear he had ever seen. The huge animal paused
+at sight of a stranger, and sat up on her hind quarters to inspect him.
+Then she dropped again upon all fours, shuffled to Miranda’s side, and
+affectionately smuggled her nose into the girl’s palm. Dave looked on
+with smiling admiration. The picture appealed to him. And Miranda,
+scanning his face with jealous keenness, could detect therein nothing
+but approval.
+
+“This is Kroof,” said she, graciously.
+
+“Never seen such a fine bear in all my life!” exclaimed the young man,
+sincerely enough; and with a rash unmindfulness of the reserve which
+governs the manners of all the furtive folk (except the squirrels), he
+stretched out his hand to stroke Kroof’s splendid coat.
+
+The presumption was instantly resented. With an indignant squeal Kroof
+swung aside and struck at the offending hand, missing it by a hair’s
+breadth, as Dave snatched it back out of peril. A flush of anger
+darkened his face, but he said nothing. Miranda, however, was annoyed,
+feeling her hospitality dishonoured. With a harsh rebuke she slapped the
+bear sharply over the snout, and drew a little away from her.
+
+Kroof was amazed. Not since the episode of the hare had Miranda struck
+her, and then the baby hand had conveyed no offence. Now it was
+different: and she felt that the tall stranger was the cause of the
+difference. Her heart swelled fiercely within her furry sides. She gave
+Miranda one look of bitter reproach, and shambled off slowly down the
+green alleys of the potato field.
+
+During some moments of hesitation, Miranda looked from Kroof to Dave,
+and from Dave to Kroof. Then her heart smote her. With a little sob in
+her throat, she ran swiftly after the bear, and clung to her neck with
+murmured words of penitence. But Kroof, paying no attention whatever,
+kept her way steadily to the woods, dragging Miranda as if she had been
+a bramble caught on her fur. Not till she had reached the very edge of
+the forest, at the sunny corner where she had been wont to play with
+Miranda during the far-off first years of their friendship, did the old
+bear stop. There she turned, sat up on her haunches, eyed the girl’s
+face steadily for some seconds, and then licked her gently on the ear.
+It meant forgiveness, reconciliation; but Kroof was too deeply hurt to
+go back with Miranda to the cabin. In response to the girl’s
+persuasions, she but licked her hands assiduously, as if pleading to be
+not misunderstood, then dropped upon all fours and moved off into the
+forest, leaving Miranda to gaze after her with tearful eyes.
+
+When she went back to where the young hunter awaited her, Miranda’s
+friendly interest had vanished, and in a chilly silence—very unlike that
+which had been eloquent between them a short half hour before—the two
+walked on up to the cabin. In Kirstie’s welcome Dave found all the
+warmth he could wish, with never a reproach for his long years of
+neglect,—for which, therefore, he the more bitterly reproached himself.
+The best of all protections against the stings of self-reproach is the
+reproach of others; and of this protection Kirstie ruthlessly deprived
+him. She asked about all the details of his life as a solitary trapper,
+congratulated him on his success, appeared sympathetic toward his
+calling, and refrained from attempting his conversion to vegetarianism.
+Looking at her noble figure, her face still beautiful in its strength
+and calm, the young man harked back in his memory to the Settlement’s
+scandals and decided that Frank Craig had never, of his own will,
+forsaken a woman so altogether gracious and desirable. He resolved that
+he would come often to the cabin in the clearing—even if Miranda _was_
+unpleasant to him.
+
+Unpleasant she certainly was, all the evening, coldly unconscious of his
+presence, except, of course, at supper, where civility as well as
+hospitality obliged her to keep his plate supplied, and not to sour his
+meal with an obstinate silence. He watched her stealthily while he
+talked to her mother; and the fact that her wild and subtle beauty,
+thrilling his blood, made ridiculous the anger in his heart, did not
+prevent his accomplishing a brave meal of eggs, steaming buttered
+pancakes with molasses, and sweet cottage cheese with currant jelly.
+Kirstie would not hear of his going that night, so he stayed, and slept
+in the bunk which his father had occupied a dozen years before.
+
+In the morning he was diligent to help with the barnyard chores, and won
+golden comment from Kirstie; but he found Miranda still ice to his
+admiration. About breakfast time, however, Kroof reappeared, with an air
+of having quite forgotten the evening’s little unpleasantness. Of Dave
+she took no notice at all, looking through, beyond, and around him; but
+with her return Miranda’s manner became a shade less austere. Her
+self-reproach was mitigated when she saw that her passing interest in
+the newcomer had not unpardonably wronged her old friend.
+
+Dave was bound for the Settlement, to arrange some business of bounties
+and pelt sales. In spite of Kirstie’s hospitable arguments, he insisted
+on setting out as soon as breakfast was over. As he picked up his rifle
+from the corner beside his bunk, Miranda, as a sign of peace between
+them, handed him his pouch of bullets. But not so his big powder-flask,
+on its gay green cord. This she took to the door, and coolly emptied its
+contents into a clump of burdocks. Then, with an enigmatic smile, she
+handed back the flask to its owner.
+
+The young hunter was annoyed. Powder was, in his eyes, a sacred thing,
+and such a wanton waste of it seemed to him little less than criminal.
+
+“That was all the powder I had ’twixt here an’ the Settlement,” he said,
+in a tone of rebuke.
+
+“So much the better,” said Miranda.
+
+“But I don’t see no sense in wastin’ it that way,” he persisted.
+
+“No knowing what may happen between here and the Settlement,” rejoined
+the girl, meaningly.
+
+Dave flushed with anger. “Didn’t I pass ye my word I’d not harm a hair
+of one of your beasts?” he demanded.
+
+“Then what do you want with the powder this side of the Settlement?” she
+inquired, with tantalizing pertinence.
+
+The young hunter, though steady and clear in his thought, was by no
+means apt in repartee, and Miranda had him at a cruel disadvantage.
+Confused by her last question, he blundered badly in his reply.
+“But—what if a painter should jump onto me, like he was goin’ to
+yesterday?” he protested.
+
+“I thought you promised you wouldn’t harm a hair of one of them,”
+suggested Miranda, thoughtful yet triumphant.
+
+“Would you have me let the critter kill me, jest to keep my promise?” he
+asked, humour beginning to correct his vexation.
+
+“I don’t see why not,” murmured Miranda. “Anyhow, you’ve got to do
+without the powder. And you needn’t be frightened, Dave,”—this very
+patronizingly,—“for your father never carries a gun on our trail, and
+he’s never needed one yet.”
+
+“Well, then,” laughed Dave, “I’ll try an’ keep my hair on, an’ not be
+clean skeered to death. Good-by, Kirstie! Good-by, Mirandy! I’ll look
+’round this way afore long, like as not.”
+
+“Inside of twelve years?” said Kirstie, with a rare smile, which robbed
+her words of all reproach.
+
+“Likely,” responded Dave, and he swung off with long, active strides
+down the trail.
+
+Miranda’s eyes followed him with reluctance.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XIII
+                              Milking-time
+
+
+Young Dave Titus was not without the rudiments of a knowledge of woman,
+few as had been his opportunities for acquiring that rarest and most
+difficult of sciences. He made no second visit to the cabin in the
+clearing till he had kept Miranda many weeks wondering at his absence.
+Then, when the stalks were whitey grey, and the pumpkins golden yellow
+in the corn-field, and the buckwheat patch was crisply brown, and the
+scarlet of the maples was beginning to fade out along the forest edges,
+he came drifting back lazily one late afternoon, just as the slow
+_tink-a-tonk_ of the cow-bells was beginning the mellow proclamation of
+milking-time and sundown. The tonic chill of autumn in the wilderness
+open caught his nostrils deliciously as he emerged from the warmer
+stillness of the woods. The smell, the sound of the cow-bells,—these
+were homely sweet after the day-long solitude of the trail. But the
+scene—the grey cabin lifted skyward on the gradual swell of the
+fields—was loneliness itself. The clearing seemed to Dave a little
+beautiful lost world, and it gave him an ache at the heart to think of
+the years that Miranda and Kirstie had dwelt in it alone.
+
+Just beyond the edge of the forest he came upon Kroof, grubbing and
+munching some wild roots. He spoke to her deferentially, but she swung
+her huge rump about and firmly ignored him. He was anxious to win the
+shrewd beast’s favour, or at least her tolerance, both because she had
+stirred his imagination and because he felt that her good-will would be,
+in Miranda’s eyes, a most convincing testimonial to his worth. But he
+wisely refrained from forcing himself upon her notice.
+
+“Go slow, my son, go slow. It’s a she; an’ more’n likely you don’t know
+jest how to take her,” he muttered to himself, after a fashion acquired
+in the interminable solitude of his camp. Leaving Kroof to her
+moroseness, he hastened up to the cabin, in hopes that he would be in
+time to help Kirstie and Miranda with the milking.
+
+Just before he got to the door he experienced a surprise, so far as he
+was capable of being surprised at anything which might take place in
+these unreal surroundings. From behind the cabin came Wapiti the buck,
+or perhaps a younger Wapiti, on whom the spirit of his sire had
+descended in double portion. Close after him came two does, sniffing
+doubtfully at the smell of a stranger on the air. To Wapiti a stranger
+at the cabin, where such visitants were unheard of, must needs be an
+enemy, or at least a suspect. He stepped delicately out into the path,
+stamped his fine hoof in defiance, and lowered his armory of antlers.
+They were keen and hard, these October antlers, for this was the moon of
+battle, and he was ready. In rutting season Wapiti was every inch a
+hero.
+
+Now Dave Titus well knew that this was no bluff of Wapiti’s. He was
+amused and embarrassed. He could not fight this unexpected foe, for
+victory or defeat would be equally fatal to his hope of pleasing
+Miranda. As a consequence, here he was, Dave Titus, the noted hunter,
+the Nimrod, held up by a rutting buck! Well, the trouble was of
+Miranda’s making. She’d have to get him out of it. Facing the defiant
+Wapiti at a distance of five or six paces, he rested the butt of his
+rifle on his toe and sent a mellow, resonant _heigh-lo, heigh-lo!_
+echoing over the still air. The forest edges took it up, answering again
+and again. Kirstie and Miranda came to the door to see who gave the
+summons, and they understood the situation at a glance.
+
+“Call off yer dawg, Mirandy,” cried Young Dave, “an’ I’ll come an’ pay
+ye a visit.”
+
+“He thinks you’re going to hurt us,” explained Kirstie; and Miranda,
+with a gay laugh, ran to the rescue.
+
+“You mustn’t frighten the good little boy, Wapiti,” she cried, pushing
+the big deer out of her path and running to Dave’s side. As soon as
+Wapiti saw Miranda with Dave, he comprehended that the stranger was not
+a foe. With a flourish of his horns he stepped aside and led his herd
+off through the barnyard.
+
+Arriving at the door, where Kirstie, gracious, but impassive, awaited
+him, Dave exclaimed: “She’s saved my life ag’in, Kirstie, that girl o’
+yourn. First it’s a painter, an’ now it’s a rutting buck. Wonder what
+it’ll be next time!”
+
+“A rabbit, like as not, or a squir’l, maybe,” suggested Miranda,
+unkindly.
+
+“Whatever it be,” persisted Dave, “third time’s luck for me, anyways. If
+you save my life agin, Mirandy, you’ll hev’ to take care o’ me
+altogether. I’ll git to kind of depend on ye.”
+
+“Then I reckon, Dave, you’ll get out of your next scrape by yourself,”
+answered Miranda, with discouraging decision.
+
+“That’s one on you, Dave,” remarked Kirstie, with a strictly neutral
+air. But behind Miranda’s back she shot him a look which said, “Don’t
+you mind what she says, she’s all right in her heart!” which, indeed,
+was far from being the case. Had Dave been so injudicious as to woo
+openly at this stage of Miranda’s feelings, he would have been dismissed
+with speedy emphasis.
+
+Dave was in time to help with the milking,—a process which he boyishly
+enjoyed. The cows, five of them, were by now lowing at the bars. Kirstie
+brought out three tin pails. “You can help us, if you like, Dave,” she
+cried, while Miranda looked her doubt of such a clumsy creature’s
+capacity for the gentle art of milking. “Can you milk?” she asked.
+
+“’Course I can, though I haven’t had much chance, o’ late years, to
+practise,” said Dave.
+
+“Can you milk without hurting the cow? Are you sure? And can you draw
+off the strippings clean?” she persisted, manifestly sceptical.
+
+“Try me,” said Dave.
+
+“Let him take old Whitey, Miranda. He’ll get through with her, maybe,
+while we’re milking the others,” suggested Kirstie.
+
+“Oh, well, any one could milk Whitey,” assented Miranda; and Dave, on
+his mettle, vowed within himself that he’d have old Whitey milked, and
+milked dry, and milked to her satisfaction, before either Kirstie or
+Miranda was through with her first milker. He stroked the cow on the
+flank, and scratched her belly gently, and established friendly
+relations with her before starting; and the elastic firmness of his
+strong hands chanced to suit Whitey’s large teats. The animal eyed him
+with favour and gave down her milk affluently. As the full streams
+sounded more and more liquidly in his pail, Dave knew that he had the
+game in his hands, and took time to glance at his rivals. To his
+astonishment there was Kroof standing up on her haunches close beside
+Miranda, her narrow red tongue lolling from her lazily open jaws, while
+she watched the milky fountains with interest.
+
+While Kirstie’s scarlet kerchiefed head was still pressed upon her
+milker’s flank, and while Miranda was just beginning to draw off the
+rich “strippings” into a tin cup, Dave completed his task. His pail—he
+had milked the strippings in along with the rest—was foaming creamily to
+the brim. He arose and vaunted himself. “Some day, when I’ve got lots of
+time,” he drawled, “I’ll l’arn you two how to milk.”
+
+“You needn’t think you’re done already,” retorted Miranda, without
+looking up. “I’ll get a quart more out of old Whitey, soon as I’m
+through here.”
+
+But Kirstie came over and looked at the pail. “No, you won’t, Miranda,
+not this time,” she exclaimed. “Dave’s beaten us, sure. Old Whitey never
+gave us a fuller pail in her life. Dave, you _can_ milk. You go and milk
+Michael over there, the black-an’-white one, for me. I’ll leave you and
+Miranda, if you won’t fall out, to finish up here, while I go and get an
+extra good supper for you, so’s you’ll come again soon. I know you men
+keep your hearts in your stomachs, just where we women know how to reach
+them easy. Where’d we have been if the Lord hadn’t made us cooks!”
+
+Such unwonted pleasantry on the part of her sombre mother proved to
+Miranda that Dave was much in her graces, and she felt moved to a
+greater austerity in order that she might keep the balance true.
+Throughout the rest of the milking, she answered all Dave’s attempts at
+conversation with briefest _yes_ or _no_, and presently reduced him to a
+discouraged silence. During supper,—which consisted of fresh trout fried
+in corn meal, and golden hot johnny-cake with red molasses, and eggs
+fried with tomatoes, and sweet curds with clotted cream, all in a
+perfection to justify Kirstie’s promise,—Miranda relented a little, and
+talked freely. But Dave had been too much subdued to readily regain his
+cheer. It was his tongue now that knew but _yes_ and _no_. Confronted by
+this result of her unkindness, Miranda’s sympathetic heart softened.
+Turning in her seat to slip a piece of johnny-cake, drenched in
+molasses, into the expectant mouth of Kroof who sat up beside her, she
+spoke to Dave in a tone whose sweetness thrilled him to the finger-tips.
+The instinct of coquetry, native and not unknown to the furtive folk
+themselves, was beginning to stir within Miranda’s untaught heart.
+
+“I’m going down to the lake to-night, Dave,” she said, “to set a night
+line and see if I can catch a togue.[1] There’s a full moon, and the
+lake’ll be worth looking at. Won’t you come along with us?”
+
+“Won’t I, Miranda? Couldn’t think of nothin’ I’d like better!” was the
+eager response.
+
+“We’ll start soon as ever we get the dishes washed up,” explained the
+girl. “And you can help us at that—what say, mother?”
+
+“Certainly, Dave can help us,” answered Kirstie, “if you have the nerve
+to set the likes of him at woman’s work. But I reckon I won’t go with
+you to-night to the lake. Kroof and Dave’ll be enough to look after
+you.”
+
+“I’ll look after Dave, more like,” exclaimed Miranda, scornfully,
+remembering both Wapiti and the panther. “But what’s the matter, mother?
+_Do_ come. It won’t be the same without you.”
+
+“Seems to me I’m tired to-night, kind of, and I just want to stay at
+home by the fire and think.”
+
+Miranda sprang up, with concern in her face, and ran round to her
+mother’s seat.
+
+“Tired, mother!” she cried, scanning her features anxiously. “Who ever
+heard of people like you and me, who are strong, and live right, being
+tired? I’m afraid you’re not well, mother; I won’t go one step!”
+
+“Yes, you will, dearie,” answered her mother, and never yet had Miranda
+rebelled against that firm note in Kirstie’s voice. “I really want to be
+alone to-night a bit, and think. Dave’s visit has stirred up a lot of
+old thoughts, and I want to take a look at them. I reckoned they were
+dead and buried years ago!”
+
+“Are you sure you’re not sick, mother?” went on Miranda, hesitatingly
+returning to her seat.
+
+“No, child, I’m not sick. But I have felt tired off an’ on the last few
+days when there was no call to. I do begin to feel that this big
+solitude of the woods is wearing on me, someway. I’ve stood up under it
+all these years, Dave, and it’s given me peace and strength when I
+needed it bad enough, God knows. But someway I reckon it’s too big for
+me, and will crush me in the long run. I love the clearing, but I don’t
+just want to end my days here.”
+
+“Mother,” cried Miranda, springing up again, “I never heard you talk so
+before in my life! Leave the clearing! Leave the woods! I _couldn’t_
+live, I just couldn’t, anywheres else at all!”
+
+“There’s other places, Miranda,” murmured Dave. But Kirstie continued
+the argument.
+
+“It’s a sight different with you, child,” she said thoughtfully. “You’ve
+grown up here. The woods and the sky have made you. They’re in your
+blood. You live and breathe them. You were a queer baby—more a fairy or
+a wild thing than a human youngster—before ever you came to the
+clearing; and all the wild things seem to think you’re one of
+themselves; and you see what other folks can’t see—what the folks of the
+woods themselves can’t see. Oh, yes! it’s a sight different with you,
+Miranda. Your father used to watch you and say you’d grow up to be a
+faun woman or wood goddess, or else the fairies would carry you off.
+This place is all right for you. And I used to think I was that big and
+strong of spirit that I could stand up to it all the rest of my life.
+But I begin to think it’s too big for me. I don’t want to die here,
+Miranda!”
+
+Miranda stared at her, greatly troubled.
+
+“You won’t die till I’m old enough to die too, mother,” she cried, “for
+I just couldn’t live without you one day. But,” she added passionately,
+“I know I should die, quick, right off, if I had to go away from the
+clearing! I know I would!”
+
+She spoke with the fiercer positiveness, because, just as she was
+speaking, there came over her a doubt of her own words. In a flash she
+saw herself growing old here in the vast solitude, she and Kirstie
+together, and no one else anywhere to be seen. The figure so cruelly
+conspicuous in its absence bore a strange, dim likeness to Young Dave.
+She did not ask herself if it were possible that she could one day wish
+to desert the clearing, and the stillnesses, and all the folk of the
+ancient wood, but somewhere at the back of her heart she felt that it
+might even be so, and her heart contracted poignantly. She ran and flung
+both arms about Kroof’s neck, and wiped a stealthy tear on the shaggy
+coat.
+
+Dave, with a quickening intuition born of his dread lest the trip to the
+lake should fall through, saw that the conversation was treading
+dangerous ground. He discreetly changed the subject to johnny-cake.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XIV
+                        Moonlight and Moose-call
+
+
+When Miranda was ready to start, the moon was up, low and large, shining
+broadly into the cabin window. Miranda brought forward a small,
+tin-covered kettle, containing some little fish for bait.
+
+“Where’s your line an’ hooks?” asked Dave.
+
+“I keep them in a hollow tree by the lake,” said Miranda. “But don’t you
+go to take that thing along, or you don’t go with me!” she added
+sharply, as the young man picked up his rifle.
+
+He set it down again with alacrity.
+
+“But at night, Mirandy!” he protested. “Air ye sure it’s safe?”
+
+“Don’t come if you’re afraid!” she answered witheringly, stepping out
+into the white light and the coldly pungent air.
+
+Dave was at her side in a moment, ignoring a taunt which could touch him
+least among men. At Miranda’s other side was the great lumbering form of
+Kroof, with the girl’s hand resting lovingly on her neck.
+
+“We’ll not be long, mother,” called Miranda to Kirstie, in the doorway.
+
+But before they had gone twenty paces, Kroof stopped short, and sat down
+to deliberate. She regarded it as her own peculiar office to protect
+Miranda (who needed no protection) on these nocturnal expeditions to
+which the girl was given in some moods. Was the obnoxious stranger to
+usurp her office and her privilege? Well, she would not share with him.
+She would stay where she was needed.
+
+“Come along, Kroof!” urged Miranda, with a little tug at her fur. But
+the jealous bear was obstinate. She wheeled and made for the cabin door.
+
+Miranda was irritated.
+
+“Let her stay, then!” she exclaimed, setting her face to the forest, and
+smiling in more gracious fashion upon Young Dave. Kroof was certainly
+very provoking.
+
+“That’s all right!” said Dave, more pleased than he dare show. “She’ll
+be company for yer mother till we git back.”
+
+“Kroof seems to think she owns me!” mused Miranda. “I love her better
+than any one else in the world except mother; but I mustn’t spoil her
+when she gets cross about nothing. She oughtn’t to be so jealous when
+I’m nice to you, Dave! I’m very angry at her for being so silly. She
+ought to know you’re nothing to me alongside of her; now, oughtn’t she?”
+
+“Of course,” assented Dave, with such cheerfulness as he could assume.
+Then he set himself craftily to win Miranda’s approval by a minute
+account of the characteristics—mental, moral, and physical—of a tame
+bear named Pete, belonging to one of the lumbermen at the Settlement.
+The subject was sagaciously chosen, and had the effect of making Miranda
+feel measurably less remote from the world of men. It suggested to her a
+kind of possible understanding between the world of men and the world of
+the ancient wood.
+
+As they left the moonlit open, the long white fingers of the phantom
+light reached after them, down the dissolving arches. Then the last
+groping ray was left behind, and they walked in the soft dark. Dave
+found it an exquisite but imperative necessity to keep close at
+Miranda’s elbow, touching her very skirt indeed, for even his trained
+woodland eyes could at first distinguish nothing. Miranda, however, with
+her miraculous vision, moved swiftly, unhesitatingly, as if in broad day
+and a plain way.
+
+Soon, however, Dave’s eyes adapted themselves, and he could discern
+vague differences, denser masses, semi-translucencies in the enfolding
+depth of blackness. For there _was_ a light, of a kind, carried down by
+countless reflections and refractions from the lit, wet surfaces of the
+topmost leaves. Moreover, clean-blooded and fine-nerved as he was from
+his years of living under nature’s ceaseless purgation, his other senses
+came to the aid of his baffled sight. He seemed to feel, rather than
+see, the massive bulk of the pine and birch trunks as his face
+approached them to the nearness of an arm’s length. He felt, too, an
+added hardness and a swelling under the moss, wherever the network of
+roots came close to the parent trunk. His nostrils discerned the pine,
+the spruce, the hemlock, the balsam poplar, the aromatic moose-wood, as
+he passed them; and long before he came to it he knew the tamarack swamp
+was near. Only his ears could not aid him. Except for Miranda’s
+footsteps, feather-soft upon the moss, and his own heavier but skilfully
+muffled tread, there was no sound in the forest but an indeterminate
+whisper, so thin that it might have been the speech of the leaves
+conferring, or the sap climbing through the smaller branches. Neither he
+nor Miranda uttered a word. The stillness was such that a voice would
+have profaned it. Finding it difficult to keep up without stumbling and
+making a rough noise, Dave frankly resigned himself to the girl’s
+superior craft.
+
+“You’ve got to be eyes fer me here, you wonderful Mirandy, er I can’t
+keep up with ye!” he whispered at her ear. The light warmth of his
+breath upon her neck made her tingle in a way that bewildered her; but
+she found it pleasant. When he took hold of her arm, very gently, to
+steady himself, rather to his surprise he was permitted. He was wise
+enough, however, not to attach too much importance to the favour. He
+pondered the fact that to Miranda, who was not a Settlement girl, it
+meant altogether nothing.
+
+Presently, just ahead of them, they saw a pair of palely-glowing eyes,
+about two feet from the ground. Miranda squeezed the hand inside her
+arm, as a sign that Dave was not to regret his rifle. As a matter of
+fact, he was not disposed to regret anything at that moment.
+
+“_Lou’-cerfie!_” he whispered at her ear, meaning the lynx, or
+_loup-cervier_ of the camps.
+
+“No, panther!” murmured Miranda, indifferently, going straight forward.
+At this startling word, Dave could not, under the circumstances, refrain
+from a certain misgiving. A panther is not good to meet in the dark. But
+the palely-glowing eyes sank mysteriously toward the ground and
+retreated as Miranda advanced; and in a few seconds they went floating
+off to one side and disappeared.
+
+“How on earth do ye do it, Mirandy?” whispered Dave, rather awestruck.
+
+“They know me,” replied the girl; which seemed to her, but not to Dave,
+an all-sufficient answer.
+
+There was no more said. The magic of the dark held them both breathless.
+They were strung to a strange, electric pitch of sympathy and
+expectation. Dave’s fingers, where they rested on the girl’s arm,
+tingled curiously, deliciously. Once, close beside them, there was a
+sharp rattle of claws going up the bark of a fir tree, and then two
+little points of light, close together, gleamed down upon them from
+overhead. Both Miranda and Dave knew it was a raccoon, and said nothing.
+Farther on they came suddenly upon a spectrally luminous figure just in
+their path. It was nearly the height of a man. The ghostly light waxed
+and waned before their eyes. A timorous imagination might have been
+pardoned for calling it a spirit sent to warn them back from their
+venture. But they knew it was only a rotting birch stump turned
+phosphorescent. As they passed, Dave broke off a piece and crumbled it,
+and for some minutes the bluish light clung to his fingers, like a
+perfume.
+
+At last they heard an owl hoot solemnly in the distance.
+“_Tw’oh-hoo-hoo-hoo-ooo_,” it went, a cold and melancholy sound.
+
+“We’re near the lake,” whispered Miranda. “I know Wah-hoo; he lives in
+an old tree close to the water. We’re almost there.” Then glimpses of
+light came, broken and thin, from the far-off moon-silvered surface.
+Then a breath of chill, though there was no wind. And then they came out
+upon the open shore.
+
+Miranda, with a decisive gesture, removed her arm from Dave’s grasp, and
+side by side the two followed the long sweep of sandy beach curving off
+to the right.
+
+“See that point yonder,” said Miranda, “with the lop-sided tree standing
+alone on it? I’ve got my line and hooks hidden in that tree.”
+
+“How do ye set a night line without a boat?” queried Dave.
+
+“Got one, of course!” answered the girl. “Your father made me a dugout,
+last summer a year ago, and I keep it drawn up behind the point.”
+
+The moon was high now, sailing in icy splendour of solitude over the
+immensity of the ancient wood. The lake was a windless mirror. The beach
+was very smooth and white, etched along its landward edges with the
+shadows of the trees. At one spot a cluster of three willows grew very
+near the water’s brink, spreading a transparent and mysterious shadow.
+Just as Dave and Miranda came to this little oasis in the shining sand,
+across the water came the long, sonorous call of a bull moose. It was a
+deep note, melodious and far carrying, and seemed in some way the very
+spoken thought of the vastness.
+
+“That’s what I call music!” said Dave.
+
+But before Miranda could respond, a thunderous bellow roared in answer
+from the blackness of the woods close by; there was a heavy crashing in
+the underbrush, and the towering front of another bull appeared at the
+edge of the sands, looking for his challenger. Catching sight of Dave
+and Miranda, he charged down upon them at once.
+
+“Get up a tree, quick!” cried Dave, slipping his long knife from its
+sheath and stepping in front of the girl.
+
+“Don’t you meddle and there’ll be no trouble!” said Miranda, sharply.
+“You stand behind that tree!” and seizing him by the arm she attempted
+to push him out of sight. But for a second he stupidly resisted.
+
+“Fool!” she flamed out at him. “What do you suppose I’ve done all these
+years without you?”
+
+[Illustration: The moose recognized her]
+
+The anger in her eyes pierced his senses and brought wisdom. He realized
+that somehow she was master of the situation, and he reluctantly stepped
+behind the big willow trunk. It was just in the nick of time, for the
+furious animal was almost upon them. At this moment a breath of air from
+the water carried Miranda’s scent to the beast’s nostrils, and he
+checked himself in doubt. At once Miranda gave a soft whistle and
+stepped out into the clear flood of moonlight. The moose recognized her,
+stood still, raised his gigantic antlers to their full height, and
+stretched toward her his long, flexible snout, sniffing amicably. Then,
+step by step, he approached, while she waited with her small hand held
+out to him, palm upward; and Dave looked on in wonder from behind his
+tree, still doubtful, his fingers gripping his knife-hilt.
+
+At this moment the first call sounded again across the lake. The moose
+forgot Miranda. He wheeled nimbly, lowered his head toward the great
+challenge, bellowed his answer, and charged along the shore to mortal
+combat. As he disappeared around a jutting spur of pines, a tall cow
+moose emerged from the shades and trotted after him.
+
+Miranda turned to Dave with an air of triumph, her anger forgotten.
+
+“I swan, Mirandy!” exclaimed the young hunter, “the girl as can manage a
+bull moose in callin’ season is the Queen of the Forest, sure. I take
+off my cap to yer majesty!”
+
+“Put it on again, Dave,” said she, not half displeased, “and we’ll go
+set the night lines.”
+
+Behind the point, hidden in a thicket of mixed huckleberry and ironwood,
+they found the wooden canoe, or dugout, in good condition. Dave ran it
+down into the water, and Miranda tossed in a roll of stout cod-line,
+with four large hooks depending from it, at four-foot intervals, by drop
+strings a foot and a half in length. The hooks she proceeded to bait
+from the tin kettle.
+
+“Why don’t ye have more hooks on sech a len’th of line?” inquired Dave.
+
+“Don’t want to catch more togue than we can eat,” explained Miranda.
+“It’s no fun catching them this way, and they’re not much good salted.”
+
+There was but one paddle, and this Dave captured. “You sit in the bow,
+Mirandy, an’ see to the lines, an’ I’ll paddle ye out,” said he.
+
+But Miranda would have none of it. “Look here, Dave,” she exclaimed,
+“I’m doing this, and you’re just a visitor. I declare, I’m almost sorry
+I brought you along. You just sit where you’re put, and do as I tell
+you, or you won’t come with me again.”
+
+The young man squatted himself meekly on his knees, a little forward of
+amidship, but not far enough for his superior weight to put the canoe
+down by the bow. Then Miranda stepped in delicately, seated herself on a
+thwart at the stern, and dipped her paddle with precise and masterful
+stroke. The canoe shot noiselessly out of the shadow and into the
+unrippled sheen. Just off the point, about twenty yards from shore, lay
+a light wooden float at anchor. Beside this Miranda brought her canoe to
+a standstill, backing water silently with firm flexures of her wrist. To
+a rusty staple in the float she fastened one end of the line.
+
+“Deep water off this here point, I reckon,” commented Dave.
+
+“Of course,” answered Miranda. “The togue only lie in deep water.”
+
+Dave was permitted to make comments, but to take no more active part in
+the proceedings. As he was a man of deeds and dreams rather than of
+speech, this was not the rôle he coveted, and he held his tongue; while
+Miranda, deftly paying out the line with one hand, with the other
+cleverly wielded the paddle so that the canoe slipped toward shore. She
+was too much absorbed in the operation to vouchsafe any explanation to
+Dave, but he saw that she intended making fast the other end of the line
+to a stake which jutted up close to the water’s edge.
+
+Miranda now slipped the line under her foot to hold it, and, taking both
+hands to her paddle, was about to make a landing, when suddenly there
+was a violent tug at one of the hooks. The line was torn from under her
+light foot, and at once dragged overboard. Dave saw what had happened;
+but he was wise enough not to say, even by look or tone, “I told you
+so!” Instead, he turned and pointed to the float, which was now acting
+very erratically, darting from side to side, and at times plunging quite
+under water. The glassy mirror of the lake was shattered to bits.
+
+“You’ve got him a’ready, Mirandy,” he cried in triumph; and his palpable
+elation quite covered Miranda’s chagrin. Two or three strong strokes of
+her paddle brought the canoe back to the float, and Dave had his reward.
+
+“Catch hold of the float, Dave,” she commanded, “and pull him aboard,
+while I hold the canoe.”
+
+With a great splashing and turmoil he hauled up a large togue, of twelve
+pounds or thereabouts, and landed it flopping in the bottom of the
+dugout. A stroke in the back of the neck from Miranda’s knife, sharp but
+humane, put a term to its struggles.
+
+While Dave gazed admiringly at the glittering spoil, Miranda began
+untying the line from the float.
+
+“What air ye doin’ now, Mirandy?” he inquired, as she proceeded to strip
+the bait from the remaining hooks, and throw the pieces overboard.
+
+“We won’t want any more togue for a week,” she explained. “This is such
+a fine, big one.” And she headed the canoe for the landing-place, under
+the shadow of the point.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter XV
+                            A Venison Steak
+
+
+Throughout the succeeding winter Dave managed to visit the clearing two
+or three times in the course of each month, but he could not see that he
+made any progress in Miranda’s favour. As at first, she was sometimes
+friendly, sometimes caustically indifferent. Only once did he perceive
+in her the smallest hint of gratification at his coming. That was the
+time when he came on his snow-shoes through the forest by moonlight, the
+snow giving a diffused glimmer that showed him the trail even through
+the densest thickets. Arriving in the morning, he surprised her at the
+door of the cow stable, where she had been foddering the cattle. Her
+face flushed at the sight of him; and a look came into her wide, dark
+eyes which even his modesty could not quite misunderstand. But his
+delight quickly crumbled: Miranda was loftily indifferent to him during
+all that visit, so much so that after he had gone Kirstie reproached her
+with incivility.
+
+“I can’t help it, mother!” she explained. “I don’t want to hate him, but
+what better is he than a butcher? His bread is stained with blood. Pah!
+I sometimes think I smell blood, the blood of the kind wood creatures,
+when he’s around.”
+
+“But you don’t want him not to come, girl, surely,” protested her
+mother.
+
+“Well, you know, it’s a pleasure to you to have him come once in a
+while,” said the girl, enigmatically.
+
+Dave continued his visits, biding his time. He lost no chance of
+familiarizing Miranda’s imagination with the needs of man as he imagined
+them, and with a rational conception of life as he conceived it. This he
+did not directly, but through the medium of conversation with Kirstie,
+to whom his words were sweetness. He was determined to break down
+Miranda’s prejudice against his calling, which to him was the only one
+worth a man’s while,—wholesome, sane, full of adventure, full of
+romance. He was determined, also, to overcome her deep aversion to flesh
+food. He felt that not till these two points were gained would Miranda
+become sufficiently human to understand human love or any truly human
+emotions. In this belief he strictly withheld his wooing, and waited
+till the barriers that opposed it should be undermined by his systematic
+attacks. He was too little learned in woman to realize that with Miranda
+his best wooing was the absence of all wooing; and so he builded better
+than he knew.
+
+During the cold months he was glad to be relieved of the presence of
+Kroof, who had proved, in her taciturn way, quite irreconcilable. He had
+tried in vain to purchase her favour with honey, good hive bees’ honey
+in the comb, carried all the way from the Settlement. She would have
+nothing to do with him at any price; and he felt that this discredited
+him in Miranda’s eyes. He hoped that Kroof would sleep late that spring
+in her lair under the pine root.
+
+But while Dave was labouring so assiduously, and, as he fancied, so
+subtly, to mould and fashion Miranda, she all unawares was moulding him.
+Unconsciously his rifle and his traps were losing zest for him; and the
+utter solitude of his camp beyond the Quah-Davic began to have manifest
+disadvantages. Once he hesitated so long over a good shot at a lynx,
+just because the creature looked unsuspecting, that in the end he was
+too late, and his store of pelts was the poorer by one good skin.
+Shooting a young cow moose in the deep snow, moreover, he felt an
+unwonted qualm when the gasping and bleeding beast turned upon him a
+look of anguished reproach. His hand was not quite so steady as usual
+when he gave her the knife in the throat. This was a weakness which he
+did not let himself examine too closely. He knew the flesh of the young
+cow was tender and good, and after freezing it he hung it up in his cold
+cellar. Though he would not for an instant have acknowledged it, even to
+himself, he was glad that bears were not his business during the winter,
+for he would almost certainly have felt a sense of guilt, of wrong to
+Miranda, in shooting them. For all this undercurrent of qualm in the
+hidden depths of his heart, however, his hunting was never more
+prosperous than during the January and February of that winter; and fox,
+lynx, wolverine, seemed not only to run upon his gun, but to seek his
+traps as a haven. He killed with an emphasis, as if to rebuke the waking
+germ of softness in his soul. But he had little of the old satisfaction,
+as he saw his peltries accumulate. His craft was now become a business,
+a mere routine necessity. For pleasure, he chose to watch Miranda as her
+feathered pensioners—snowbirds, wrens, rose grosbeaks, and a glossy crow
+or two—gathered about her of a morning for their meal of grain and
+crumbs. They alighted on her hair, her shoulders, her arms; and the
+round-headed, childlike grosbeaks would peck bread from her red lips;
+and a crow, every now and then, would sidle in briskly and give a
+mischievous tug at the string of her moccasin. To the girl, his heart
+needed no warming,—it burned by now with a fire which all his backwood’s
+stoicism could but ill disguise,—but to the birds, and through them to
+all the furry folk of the wood, his heart warmed as he regarded the
+beautiful sight. He noted that the birds were quite unafraid of Kirstie,
+who also fed them; but he saw that toward Miranda they showed an active,
+even aggressive ardour, striving jealously for the touch of her hand or
+foot or skirt when no tit-bits whatever were in question. And another
+sight there was, toward shut of winter’s evening, that moved him
+strangely. The wild, white hares (he and Kirstie and Miranda called them
+rabbits) would come leaping over the snow to the cabin door to be fed,
+with never cat or weasel on their trail. They would press around the
+girl, nibbling eagerly at her dole of clover, hay, and carrots; some
+crouching about her feet, some erect and striking at her petticoat with
+their nervous fore paws, all twinkling-eared, and all implicitly
+trustful of this kind Miranda of the clover.
+
+Toward spring Miranda began to be troubled about Kirstie’s health. She
+saw that the firm lines of her mother’s face were growing unwontedly
+sharp, the bones of her cheek and jaw strangely conspicuous. Then her
+solicitous scrutiny took note of a pallor under the skin, a greyish
+whiteness at the corners of her eyes, a lack of vividness in the usually
+brilliant scarlet of the lips; for up to now Kirstie had retained all
+the vital colouring and tone of youth. Then, too, there was a
+listlessness, a desire to rest and take breath after very ordinary tasks
+of chopping or of throwing fodder for the cattle. This puzzled the girl
+much more than Kirstie’s increasing tendency to sit dreaming over the
+hearth fire when there was work to be done. Miranda felt equal to doing
+all the winter work, and she knew that her mother, like herself, was
+ever a dreamer when the mood was on. But even this brooding abstraction
+came to worry her at last, when one morning, after a drifting storm
+which had piled the snow halfway up the windows, her mother let her
+shovel out all the paths unaided, with never a comment or excuse.
+Miranda was not aggrieved at this, by any means; but she began to be
+afraid, sorely afraid. It was so unlike the alert and busy Kirstie of
+old days. Of necessity, Miranda turned to Dave for counsel in her alarm,
+when next he came to the clearing.
+
+The conference took place in the warm twilight of the cow stable, where
+Dave, according to his custom, was helping Miranda at the milking, while
+Kirstie got supper. The young hunter looked serious, but not surprised.
+
+“I’ve took note o’ the change this two month back, Mirandy,” he said,
+“an’ was a-wonderin’ some how them big eyes of yourn, that can see
+things us ordinary folks can’t see, could be blind to what teched ye so
+close.”
+
+“I _wasn’t_ blind to it, Dave,” protested the girl, indignantly; “but I
+didn’t see how you could help any. Nor I don’t see now; but there was no
+one else I could speak to about it,” she added, with a break in her
+voice that distantly presaged tears.
+
+“I could help some, if you’d let me, Mirandy,” he hesitated, “for I know
+right well what she’s needin’.”
+
+“Well, what is it?” demanded the girl. There was that in his voice which
+oppressed her with a vague misgiving.
+
+“It’s good, fresh, roast meat she wants!” said Dave.
+
+There was a pause. Miranda turned and looked out through the stable
+door, across the glimmering fields.
+
+“It’s her blood’s got thin an’ poor,” continued Dave. “Nothin’ but flesh
+meat’ll build her up now, an’ she’s jest got to have it.” He was
+beginning to feel it was time that Miranda experienced the touch of a
+firm hand.
+
+“I don’t believe you!” said the girl, and turned hotly to her milking.
+
+“Well, we’ll see,” retorted Dave. In Miranda’s silence he read a tardy
+triumph for his views.
+
+That evening he took note of the fact that Kirstie came to supper with
+no appetite, though every dish of it was tempting and well cooked.
+Miranda observed this also. Her fresh pang of apprehension on her
+mother’s account was mixed with a resentful feeling that Dave would
+interpret every symptom as a confirmation of his own view. She was quite
+honest in her rejection of that view, for in her eyes flesh food was a
+kind of subtle poison. But she was too anxious about her mother’s health
+to commit herself in open hostility to anything, however extreme, which
+might be suggested in remedy. On this point she was resolved to hold
+aloof, letting the decision rest between her mother and Dave.
+
+Aroused by the young hunter’s talk, Kirstie was brighter than usual
+during the meal; but, to her great disappointment, Dave got up to go
+immediately after supper. He would take no persuasion, but insisted that
+he had come just to see if she and Miranda were well, and declared that
+affairs of supreme importance called him straight back to the camp.
+Kirstie was not convinced. She turned a face of reproach on Miranda, so
+frankly that the girl was compelled to take her meaning.
+
+“Oh! it isn’t my fault, mother,” she protested, with a little vexed
+laugh. “I’ve not been doing anything ugly to him. If he goes, it’s just
+his own obstinacy, for he knows we’d like him to stay as he always does.
+Let him go if he wants to!”
+
+“Mirandy,” said her mother, in a voice of grave rebuke, “I wish you
+would not be so hard with Dave. If you treated your dumb beasts like you
+treat him, I reckon they would never come to you a second time. You seem
+to forget that Dave and his father are our only friends,—and just now,
+Dave’s father being in the lumber camp, we’ve nobody but Dave here to
+look to.”
+
+“Oh! I’ve nothing against Dave, mother, except the blood on his hands,”
+retorted the girl, turning her face away.
+
+The young hunter shrugged his shoulders, deprecatingly, smiled a slow
+smile of understanding at Kirstie, and strode to the door.
+
+“Good night, both of ye,” he said cheerfully. “Ye’ll see me back,
+liker’n not, by this time to-morrow.”
+
+As he went, Miranda noticed with astonishment and a flush of warmth that
+for once in his career he was without his inseparable rifle. Kirstie, in
+the vacant silence that followed his going, had it on her tongue to say,
+“I do wish you could take to Dave, Miranda.” But the woman’s heart
+within her gave her warning in time, and she held her peace. Thanks to
+this prudence, Miranda went to bed that night with something of a glow
+at her heart. Dave’s coming without the rifle was a direct tribute to
+her influence, and to some extent outweighed his horrible suggestion
+that her mother should defile her mouth with meat.
+
+The next evening the chores were all done up; the “rabbits” had come and
+gone with their clover and carrots; and Kirstie and Miranda were sitting
+down to their supper, when in walked Dave. He carried a package of
+something done up in brown sacking. This time, too, he carried his
+rifle. Kirstie’s welcome was frankly eager, but Miranda saw the rifle,
+and froze. He caught her look, and with a flash of intuition understood
+it.
+
+“_Had_ to bring it along, Mirandy,” he explained, with a flush of
+embarrassment. “Couldn’t ha’ got here without it. The wolves have come
+back again, six of ’em. They set on to me at my own camp door.”
+
+“Oh, wolves!” exclaimed Miranda, in a tone of aversion. “They’re
+vermin.”
+
+Since that far-off day when, with her childish face flattened against
+the pane, her childish heart swelling with wrath and tears, she had
+watched the wolves attack Ten-Tine’s little herd, she had hated the
+ravening beasts with a whole-souled hate.
+
+“I hope to goodness you killed them all!” said Kirstie, with pious
+fervour.
+
+“Two got off; got the pelts of the others,” answered Dave.
+
+“Not too bad, that,” commented Kirstie, with approval; “now come and
+have some supper.”
+
+“Not jest yet, Kirstie,” he replied, undoing his package. “I’ve noticed
+lately ye was looking mighty peaked, an’ hadn’t much appetite, like. Now
+when folks has anything the matter with ’em I know as much about it as
+lots of the doctors, and I know what’s goin’ to set ye right up. If
+ye’ll lend me the loan of yer fire, an’ a frying-pan, I’ll have
+something for yer supper that’ll do ye more good than a bucketful of
+doctor’s medicine.”
+
+Miranda knew what was coming. She knew Dave had been all the way back to
+the camp, beyond the Quah-Davic, for meat, that he might run no risk of
+killing any of the beasts that were under her protection. She knew, too,
+that to make such a journey in the twenty-four hours he could scarce
+have had one hour’s sleep. None the less, she hardened her heart against
+him. She kept her eyes on her plate and listened with strained intensity
+for her mother’s word upon this vital subject.
+
+Kirstie’s interest was now very much awake. “There’s the fire, Dave,”
+she said, “and there’s the frying-pan hanging on the side of the
+dresser. But what have you got? I’ve felt this long while I’d like a bit
+of a change—not but what the food we’re used to, Miranda and me, is real
+good food and wholesome.”
+
+“Well, Kirstie,” he answered, taking a deep breath before the plunge,
+and at the same time throwing back the wrapping from a rosy cut of
+venison steak, “it’s jest nothin’ more nor less than fresh meat. It’s
+venison, clean an’ wholesome; and I’ll fry ye right now this tender
+slice I’m cuttin’ for ye.”
+
+Kirstie was startled quite out of her self-possession. The rule of the
+cabin against flesh meat was so long established, so well known at the
+Settlement, so fenced about with every sanction of principle and
+prejudice, that Dave’s words were of the nature of a challenge. She felt
+that she ought to be angry; but, as a matter of fact, she was only
+uneasy as to how Miranda would take so daring a proposal. At the same
+time she was suddenly conscious of an unholy craving for the forbidden
+thing. She glanced anxiously at Miranda, but the girl appeared to be
+wrapped up in her own thoughts.
+
+“But you know, Dave,” she protested rebukingly, “we neither of us ever
+touch meat of any kind. You know our opinions on this point.”
+
+The words themselves would have satisfied Miranda had she not detected a
+certain irresolution in the tone. They did not affect Dave in the least.
+For a moment he made no reply, for he was busy cutting thin slices off
+the steak. He spread them carefully in the hot butter, now spluttering
+in the pan over the coals; and then, straightening himself up from the
+task, knife in hand, he answered cheerfully: “That’s all right. But, ye
+see, Kirstie, all the folks reckon me somethin’ of a doctor, an’ this
+here meat I’m cookin’ for ye ain’t rightly food at all. It’s medicine;
+’tain’t right ye should hold off now, when ye need it as medicine.
+’Tain’t fair to Mirandy. I can see ye’ve jest been pinin’ away like, all
+winter. It’s new blood, with iron in it, ye need. It’s flesh meat, an’
+flesh meat only, that’ll give ye iron an’ new blood. When ye’re well,
+an’ yer old strong self agin, ye can quit meat if ye like,—an’ kick me
+out o’ the cabin for interferin’; but now—”
+
+He paused dramatically. He had talked right on, contrary to his silent
+habit, for a purpose. He knew the power of natural cravings. He was
+waiting for Kirstie’s elemental bodily needs to speak out in support of
+his argument. He waited just time for the savoury smell of the steak to
+fill the cabin and work its miracle. Now the spell was abroad. He looked
+to Kirstie for an answer.
+
+The instant she smelled that savour Kirstie knew that he was right.
+Steak, venison steak fried in butter, _was_ what she required. For weeks
+she had had no appetite; now she was ravenous. Moreover, a thousand
+lesser forces, set in motion by Dave’s long talks, were impelling her to
+just such a change as the eating of flesh would symbolize to her.
+But—Miranda? Kirstie stared at her in nervous apprehension, expecting an
+outburst of scorn. But Miranda was seemingly oblivious of all that went
+on in the cabin. Her unfathomed eyes, abstractedly wide open, were
+staring out through the white square of the window. She was trying hard
+to think about the mysterious blue-white wash of radiance that seemed to
+pour in palpable floods from the full moon;—about the furred and furtive
+creatures passing and repassing noiselessly, as she knew, across the lit
+patches of the glades;—about the herd of moose down in the firwoods,
+sleeping securely between walls of deep snow in the “yard,” which they
+had trodden for themselves a fortnight back;—of Kroof, coiled in her
+warm den under the pine root, with five feet of drift piled over her.
+But in reality she was steeling herself, with fierce desperation,
+against a strange appetite which was rising within her at the call of
+that insidious fragrance. With a kind of horror she realized that she
+was at war with herself—that one half her nature was really more than
+ready to partake of the forbidden food.
+
+Dave noticed the look of question which Kirstie had turned upon Miranda.
+
+“Oh, ye needn’t look to her, Kirstie, to back ye up in no foolishness,”
+he went on. “I spoke to her last night about it, an’ she hadn’t a word
+to say agin my medicine.”
+
+Still there was no comment from Miranda. If Miranda, to whom abstinence
+from flesh was a religion, could tolerate a compromise, why she herself,
+to whom it was merely a prejudice and a preference, might well break an
+ancient rule for an instant’s good. She had been inwardly anxious for
+months about her condition. After a second or two of doubt, her mind was
+made up; and when Kirstie made up her mind, it was in no halfway
+fashion.
+
+“I’ll try your doctoring, Dave,” she said slowly. “I’ll give it a fair
+trial. But while you’re about it, why don’t you cook enough for
+yourself, too? Have you put salt in the pan? And here’s a dash of
+pepper.”
+
+“No,” answered the young hunter, concealing his elation as he sprinkled
+the steak temperately with the proffered salt and pepper, “I don’t want
+none myself, I need meat onct in a while, er I git weak an’ no good. But
+there’s nothin’ suits my taste like the feeds I git here,—the pipin’ hot
+riz buckwheat cakes, with lots o’ butter an’ molasses, an’ the
+johnny-cake, an’ the potater pie, an’ the tasty ways ye cook eggs. I
+often think when I’m here that I wouldn’t care if I never seen a slice
+o’ fresh meat, er even bacon, agin. But our bodies is built a certain
+way, an’ there’s no gittin’ over Nature’s intention. We’ve got the teeth
+to prove it, an’ the insides, too,—I’ve read all about it in doctors’
+books. I read a heap in camp. Fact is, Kirstie, we’re built like the
+bear,—to live on all kinds of food, includin’ flesh,—an’ if we don’t git
+all kinds onct in a while, somethin’s bound to go wrong.”
+
+Never had Dave talked so much before; but now he was feverishly eager to
+have no opening for discussion. While he talked the venison was cooked
+and served. Kirstie ate it with a relish, which convinced him of the
+wisdom of his course. She ate all that he had fried; and he wisely
+refrained from cooking more, that her appetite might be kept on edge for
+it in the morning. Then she ate other things, with an unwonted zest.
+Miranda returned to the table, talking pleasantly of everything but
+health, and food, and hunting. Against herself she was angry; but on
+Dave, to his surprise, she smiled with a rare graciousness. She was
+mollified by his tact in characterizing the steak as medicine; and,
+moreover, by his statement of a preference for their ordinary bloodless
+table, he seemed in some way to range himself on her side, even while
+challenging her principles. But—oh, that savoury smell! It still
+enriched the air of the cabin; it still stirred riotous cravings in her
+astonished appetite. She trembled with a fear and hatred of herself.
+
+When Kirstie, with a face to which the old glow was already venturing
+back, laid down her knife and fork, and explained to her guest, “You’re
+a good doctor, and no mistake, Dave Titus; I declare I feel better
+already,” Miranda got up and went silently out into the moonlight to
+breathe new air and take counsel with herself.
+
+Dave would have followed her, but Kirstie stopped him. “Best let her
+be,” she said meaningly, in a low voice. “She’s got a heap to think over
+in the last half hour.”
+
+“But she took it a sight better’n I thought she would,” responded Dave.
+
+And all on account of a venison steak, his hopes soared higher than they
+had ever dared before.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XVI
+                        Death for a Little Life
+
+
+Thenceforward Kirstie twice or thrice a week medicined herself with
+fresh venison, provided assiduously by Young Dave, and by the time
+spring was fairly in possession of the clearing, she was her old strong
+self again. But as for Dave’s hopes, they had been reduced to
+desolation. Miranda had taken alarm at her sudden carnivorous craving,
+and in her effort to undo that moment’s weakness she had withdrawn
+herself to the utmost from Dave’s influence. She had been the further
+incited to this by an imagined aloofness on the part of her furred and
+feathered pensioners. A pair of foxes, doubtless vagrants from beyond
+her sphere, had spread slaughter among the hares as they returned from
+feeding at the cabin. The hungry raiders had laid an ambush at the edge
+of the clearing on two successive nights. They had killed recklessly.
+Then they vanished, doubtless driven away by the steady residents who
+knew how to kill discreetly and to guard their preserves from poachers.
+But the hares had taken alarm, and few came now o’ nights for Miranda’s
+carrots and clover. Miranda, with a little ache at her heart, concluded
+from this that she had forfeited her ascendency among the kin of the
+ancient wood. There had been a migration, too, among the squirrels, so
+that now these red busybodies were perceptibly fewer about the cabin
+roof. And the birds—they were nearly all gone. An unusually early
+spring, laying bare the fields in the lower country, and bringing out
+the insects before their wont, had scattered Miranda’s flocks a
+fortnight earlier than usual. No crumbs could take the place of swelling
+seeds and the first fat May-fly. But Miranda thought they were fled
+through distrust of her. Kroof, old Kroof the constant, was all
+unchanged when she came from her winter’s sleep; but this spring she
+brought an unusually fine cub with her, and the cub, of necessity, took
+a good deal of her time and attention away from Miranda. When Miranda
+was with her, roaming the still, transparent corridors, all the
+untroubled past came back, crystalline and flawless as of old. Once more
+the furtive folk went about their business in the secure peace of her
+neighbourhood; once more she revelled with a kind of intoxication in the
+miraculous fineness of her vision; once more she felt assured of the
+mastery of her look. But this was in the intervals between Dave’s
+visits. When he was at the clearing, everything was different. She was
+no longer sure of herself on any point. And the worst of it was that the
+more indifference to him she feigned, the less she felt. She was quite
+unconscious, all the while, that her mother was shrewdly watching her
+struggles. She was not unconscious, however, of Dave’s attitude. She saw
+that he seemed dull and worried, which gratified her, she knew not why,
+and confirmed her in her coolness. But at last, with a slow anger
+beginning to burn at his heart, he adopted the policy of ignoring her
+altogether, and giving all his thought to Kirstie, whereupon Miranda
+awoke to the conclusion that it was her plain duty to be civil to her
+mother’s guest.
+
+This change, not obtrusive, but of great moment to Dave, came over the
+girl in June, when the dandelions were starring the pasture grass. The
+sowing and the potato planting were just done. The lilac bushes beside
+the cabin were a mass of purple enchantment. It was not a time for hard
+indifference; and Dave was quick to catch the melting mood. His manner
+was such, however, that Miranda could not take alarm.
+
+“Mirandy,” said he, with the merest good comradeship in tone and air,
+“would ye take a little trip with me to-morrow, now that the crops can
+spare ye a bit?”
+
+“Where to, Dave?” interposed Kirstie, fearful lest the girl should
+refuse out of hand, before she knew what Dave proposed to do.
+
+“Why, I’ve got to go over the divide an’ run down the Big Fork in my
+canoe to Gabe White’s clearin’, with some medicine I’ve brought from the
+Settlement for his little boy what’s sick. He’s a leetle mite of a chap,
+five year old, with long, yaller curls, purty as a picture, but that
+peaked an’ thin, it goes to yer heart to see him. Gabe came in to the
+Settlement yesterday to see the doctor about him an’ git medicine; but
+he’s had to go right on to the city to sell his pelts, an’ git some
+stuff the doctor says the little feller must hev, what can’t be got in
+the Settlement at all. So Gabe give me this” (and he pulled a bottle out
+of the inside pocket of his hunting shirt) “to take to him right now,
+coz the little feller needs it badly. It’s a right purty trip, Mirandy,
+an’ the Big Fork’s got some rapids ’at’ll please ye. What ye say?”
+
+Dave was growing subtle under Miranda’s discipline. He knew that the
+picture of the small boy would draw her; and also that the sight of the
+ailing child, acting upon her quick sympathies, would awaken a new human
+interest and work secretly in favour of himself. The beauty of the
+scenery, the excitement of the rapids,—these were a secondary influence,
+yet he knew they would not be without appeal to the beauty-worshipping
+and fearless Miranda.
+
+The girl’s deep eyes lightened at the prospect. She would see something
+a little different, yet not alien or hostile,—a new river, other hills
+and woods, a deeper valley, a ruder cabin in a remoter clearing, a
+lonely woman,—above all, a little sick boy with long, yellow hair.
+
+“But it must be a long way off, Dave,” she protested, in a tone that
+invited contradiction.
+
+“Not so far as to the Settlement,” answered Dave; “an’ it don’t take
+half so long to go because o’ the quick run down river. I reckon,
+though, we’d best stay over night at White’s clearin’ and come back easy
+nex’ day—if you don’t mind, Kirstie! Sary Ann White’s a powerful fine
+woman, an’ Mirandy’s sure to like her. It’ll do her a sight of good,
+poor thing, to hev Mirandy to talk to a bit.”
+
+He wanted to say that just a look at Miranda’s wild loveliness would do
+Mrs. White a lot of good; but he had not quite the courage for such a
+bold compliment.
+
+“No, I don’t mind, if Miranda likes to go,” said Kirstie; “I shan’t be
+lonesome, as Kroof’ll be round most of the time.”
+
+It had come to be understood, and accepted without comment, that when
+Dave went anywhere with Miranda the jealous old bear remained at home.
+
+Until they were fairly off, Dave was in a fever of anxiety lest Miranda
+should change her mind. But this venture had genuinely caught her
+interest, and no whim tempted her to withdraw. After a breakfast eaten
+so early that the early June dawn was still throwing its streaks of cool
+red through the cabin window and discouraging the fire upon the hearth,
+Dave and Miranda set out. They followed the path to the spring among the
+alders, and then plunged direct into the woods, aiming a little to the
+east of north. The dew was thick in silver globules on the chips of the
+yard and on the plantain leaves. It beaded the slender grasses about the
+spring, and the young foliage of the alders, and the dazzling veils of
+the gossamer spiders. This time Dave took his rifle with him, and
+Miranda paid no heed to it.
+
+The woods were drenching wet, but unusually pervaded with light. The new
+risen sun sent its fresh rays far up the soundless vistas, and every
+damp leaf or shining facet of bark diffused its little dole of lustre to
+thin the gloom. As the sun got higher and the dew exhaled away, the
+twilight slightly deepened, the inexpressible clarity of the shadowed
+air returned, and the heart of the ancient wood resumed its magic. The
+awe, as of an enchantment working unseen, the meaning and expectant
+stillness, the confusion of near and far, the unreality of the
+familiar,—all this gripped the imagination of the two travellers just as
+sharply as if they had not been all their lives accustomed to it. The
+mystery of the ancient wood was not to be staled by use. These two,
+sensitive to its spell as a surface of glass to a breath, lay open to it
+in every nerve, and a tense silence fell upon their lips. In the silence
+was understanding of each other. It was Dave’s most potent wooing,
+against which Miranda had no warning, no defence.
+
+As they walked thus noiselessly, light-footed as the furtive folk
+themselves, suddenly from a bit of open just ahead of them there came
+the slender, belling cry of a young deer. They had arrived now, after
+three hours’ rapid walking, at a part of the forest unknown to Miranda.
+The open space was rock thinly covered with mosses and vines, an
+upthrust of the granite foundations of a hill which towered near by.
+
+It was an unheard-of thing for a young deer to give cry so heedlessly
+amid the perilous coverts of the wood. Both the travellers instinctively
+paused, and then stole forward with greater caution, peering through the
+branches. To the forest dwellers, beast or human, the unusual is always
+the suspicious, and therefore to be investigated. A few paces carried
+them both to a point where Miranda caught sight of the imprudent
+youngling.
+
+“Hush!” she whispered, laying her hand on Dave’s arm, “Look! the poor
+little thing’s lost. Don’t frighten it!”
+
+“There’ll be something else’ll frighten it afore long,” muttered Dave,
+“if it don’t quit its bla’tin’.”
+
+The words were hardly out of his mouth when the little animal jumped,
+trembled, started to run, and then looked piteously from side to side,
+as if uncertain which way to flee and from what peril. An instant more
+and the greyish-brown form of a lynx shot like lightning from the
+underbrush. It caught the young deer by the throat, dragged it down,
+tore it savagely, and began drinking its blood.
+
+“Kill it! kill it!” panted Miranda, starting forward. But Dave’s hand
+checked her.
+
+“Wait!” he said firmly. “The little critter’s dead; we can’t do it no
+good. Wait an’ we’ll git both the varmints. There’ll be a pair of ’em.”
+
+Under ordinary circumstances, Miranda would have resented the idea of
+getting “both the varmints”; but just now she was savage with pity for
+the young deer, and she chose to remember vindictively that far-off day
+when Ganner had come to the clearing, and only the valour of Star, the
+brindled ox, had saved herself and Michael, the calf, from a cruel
+death. She obeyed Dave’s command, therefore, and waited.
+
+But there was another who would not wait. The mother doe had heard her
+lost little one’s appeal. In wild haste, but noiseless on the deep
+carpet of the moss, she came leaping to the cry. She saw what Miranda
+and Dave saw. But she did not pause to calculate, or weigh the odds
+against her. With one bound she was out in the open. With the next she
+was upon the destroyer. The hungry lynx looked up just in time to avoid
+the fair impact of her descending hooves, which would have broken his
+back. As it was, he caught a glancing blow on the flank, which ripped
+his fine fur and hurled him several paces down the slope.
+
+Before he could fully recover, the deer was upon him again; and Miranda,
+her eyes glowing, her cheeks scarlet with excitement and exultation,
+clutched her companion’s arm with such a grip that her slim fingers hurt
+him deliciously. The lynx, alarmed and furious, twisted himself over and
+fixed both claws and teeth in his adversary’s leg, just below the
+shoulder. Fierce and strong as he was, he was nevertheless getting badly
+punished, when his mate appeared bounding down the slope, and with a
+sharp snarl sprang upon the doe’s neck, bearing her to her knees.
+
+“Shoot! shoot!” cried Miranda, springing away from Dave’s side to give
+him room. But his rifle was at his shoulder ere she spoke. With the word
+his shot rang out; and the second assailant dropped to the ground,
+kicking. Immediately Dave ran forward. The male lynx, disentangling
+himself, darted for cover; but just as he was disappearing, Dave gave
+him the second barrel, at short range, and the bullet caught him
+obliquely across the hind quarters, breaking his spine. Dave was noted
+as the best shot in all that region; but the marksmanship which he had
+just displayed was lost on Miranda. She took it for granted that to
+shoot was to hit, and to hit was to kill, as a matter of course. Dave’s
+first shot had killed. The animal was already motionless. But the
+writhings of the other lynx, prone in the bush, tore her heart.
+
+“Oh, how it’s suffering! Kill it, quick!” she panted. Dave ran up, swung
+his rifle in a short grip, and struck the beast a settling blow at the
+base of the skull. The deer, meanwhile, limping and bleeding, but not
+seriously the worse for her dreadful encounter, hobbled back to where
+the body of her young lay stretched upon the moss. She sniffed at it for
+a moment with her delicate nose, satisfied herself that it was quite
+dead, then moved off slowly into the shadows.
+
+Miranda went to each of the three slain animals in turn, and looked at
+them thoughtfully, while Dave waited in silence, uncertain what to do
+next. He felt that it behooved him to step warily while Miranda was
+wrestling with emotions. At last she said, with a sob in her voice, and
+her eyes very bright and large,—
+
+“Come, let’s get away from this horrid place!”
+
+Dave experienced a certain mild pang at the thought of leaving two good
+pelts behind him to be gnawed by foxes; but he followed Miranda without
+a word. It would have been a fatal error to talk of furs at that moment.
+As soon, however, as they were out of sight of the open slope, he turned
+aside and headed their course toward a rocky knoll which was visible
+through the trees.
+
+“What are you going that way for?” asked Miranda.
+
+“Likely the lou’-cerfies had their den in the rocks yonder,” was the
+reply; “we must find it.”
+
+“What do we want of their den?” queried the girl in surprise.
+
+“There’ll be a couple of lou’-cerfie kittens in it, I reckon,” said
+Dave, “an’ we must find ’em.”
+
+“What for?” demanded Miranda, suspiciously.
+
+Dave looked at her.
+
+“You’ve had me shoot the father an’ mother, Mirandy,” he said slowly,
+“for the sake of the deer. An’ now would ye hev the little ones starve
+to death?”
+
+“I never thought of that, Dave,” answered the girl, smitten with
+remorse; and she looked at him with a new approval. She thought to
+herself that he, hunter and blood-stained as he was, showed yet a
+readier and more reasonable tenderness for the furry kindred than she
+herself.
+
+For nearly half an hour they searched the hollows of the rocky knoll,
+and at last came upon a shallow cave overhung darkly by a mat of dwarf
+cedar. There were bones about the entrance, and inside, upon a bed of
+dry moss, were two small rusty brown, kitten-like objects curled softly
+together. Miranda’s discerning vision perceived them at once, but it
+took Dave’s eyes some seconds to adapt themselves to the gloom. Then the
+furry ball of “lou’-cerfie” kittens looked to him very pretty—something
+to be fondled and protected. He knew well how their helplessness would
+appeal to Miranda’s tender heart. Nevertheless, with a firmness of
+courage which, under the circumstances, few heroes would have arisen to,
+he stepped forward, stooped, untangled the soft ball, and with the heavy
+handle of his hunting-knife struck each kitten just one sharp stroke on
+the neck, killing it instantly and easily.
+
+“Poor little critters!” he muttered; “it was the only thing to do with
+’em,” and he turned to Miranda.
+
+The girl had backed out of the cave and now stood, with flushed face,
+staring at him fiercely.
+
+“You brute!” she exclaimed.
+
+Dave had been prepared for some discussion of his action. But he was not
+prepared for just this. He drew himself up.
+
+“I did think ye was a woman grown; an’ for all yer idees were kind of
+far-fetched, I’ve respected ’em a heap; an’ I won’t say but what they’ve
+influenced me, too. But now I see ye’re but a silly child an’ don’t
+reason. Did ye think, maybe, these here leetle mites o’ things could
+live an’ take keer o’ themselves?”
+
+He spoke coldly, scornfully; and there was a kind of mastery in his
+voice that quelled her. She was astonished, too. The colour in her face
+deepened, but she dropped her eyes.
+
+“I wanted to take them home, and tame them,” she explained, quite
+humbly.
+
+Dave’s stern face softened.
+
+“Ye’d never ’a’ been able to raise ’em. They’re too young, a sight too
+young. See, their eyes ain’t open. They’d have jest died on yer hands,
+Mirandy, sure an’ sartain!”
+
+“But—how _could_ you!” she protested, with no more anger left, but a sob
+of pity in her throat.
+
+“It was jest what _you_ do to the fish ye ketch, Mirandy, to stop their
+sufferin’.”
+
+Miranda looked up quickly, and her eyes grew large.
+
+“Do you know, I never thought of that before, Dave,” she replied. “I’ll
+never catch a fish again, long as I live! Let’s get away from here.”
+
+“Ye see,” began Dave, making up his mind to sow a few seeds of doubt in
+Miranda’s mind as to the correctness of her theories, “ye see, Mirandy,
+’tain’t possible to be consistent right through in this life; but what
+ye’ll find, life’ll make a fool o’ ye at one point or another. I ain’t
+a-goin’ to say I think ye’re all wrong, not by no means. Sence I’ve seen
+the way ye understand the live critters of the woods, an’ how they
+understand you, I’ve come to feel some different about killin’ ’em
+myself. But, Mirandy, Nature’s nature, an’ ye can’t do much by buckin’
+up agin her. Look now, ye told me to shoot the lou’-cerfie coz he killed
+the deer kid. But he didn’t go to kill it for ugliness, nor jest for
+himself to make a dinner off of—you know that. He killed it for his
+mate, too. Lou’-cerfie ain’t built so’s they can eat grass. If the she
+lou’-cerfie didn’t git the meat she needed, her kittens’d starve. She’s
+jest _got_ to kill. Nature’s put that law onto her, an’ onto the
+painters, an’ the foxes an’ wolves, the ’coons an’ the weasels. An’
+she’s put the same law, only not so heavy, onto the bears, an’ also onto
+humans, what’s all built to live on all kinds of food, meat among the
+rest. An’ to live right, and be their proper selves, they’ve all got to
+eat meat sometimes, for Nature don’t stand much foolin’ with her laws!”
+
+“_I’m_ well,” interrupted Miranda, eagerly, with the obvious retort.
+
+“Maybe ye won’t be always!” suggested Dave.
+
+“Then I’ll be sick—then I’ll _die_ before I’ll eat meat!” she protested
+passionately. “What’s the good of living, anyway, if it’s nothing but
+kill, kill, kill, and for one that lives a lot have got to die!”
+
+Dave shook his head soberly.
+
+“That’s what nobody, fur’s I can see, Mirandy, has ever been able to
+make out yet. I’ve thought about it a heap, an’ read about it a heap,
+alone in camp, an’ I can’t noways see through it. Oftentimes it’s seemed
+to me all life was jest like a few butterflies flitterin’ over a
+graveyard. But all the same, if we don’t go to too much foolish worryin’
+’bout what we can’t understand, we do feel it’s good to be alive; an’ I
+do think, Mirandy, this life _might_ be somethin’ finer than the finest
+kind of a dream.”
+
+Something in his voice, at these last words, thrilled Miranda, and at
+the same time put her on her guard.
+
+“Well,” she exclaimed positively, if not relevantly, “I’m never going to
+catch another fish.”
+
+The answer not being just what Dave needed for the support of his
+advance, he lost courage, and let the conversation drop.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XVII
+                       In the Roar of the Rapids
+
+
+A little before noon, when the midsummer heat of the outside world came
+filtering faintly down even into the cool vistas of the forest, and here
+and there a pale-blue butterfly danced with his mate across the clear
+shadow, and the aromatic wood smells came out more abundantly than was
+their wont, at the lure of the persuasive warmth, the travellers halted
+for noonmeat. Sitting on a fallen hemlock trunk beside a small but noisy
+brook, it was a frugal meal they made on the cheese and dark bread which
+Kirstie had put in Dave’s satchel. Their halt was brief; and as they set
+out again, Dave said:—
+
+“’Tain’t a mile from here to the Big Fork. Gabe’s canoe’s hid in the
+bushes just where this here brook falls in. Noisy, ain’t it?”
+
+“I love the sound,” exclaimed Miranda, stepping quickly and gaily, as if
+the light, musical clamour of the stream had got into her blood.
+
+“Well, the Big Fork’s a sight noisier,” continued Dave. “It’s heavy
+water, an’ just rapids on rapids all the ways down to Gabe’s clearing.
+Ye won’t be skeered, Mirandy?”
+
+The girl gave one of her rare laughs, very high-pitched, but brief,
+musical, and curiously elusive. She was excited at the prospect.
+
+“I reckon you know how to handle a canoe, Dave,” was all she said. The
+trust in her voice made Dave feel measurably nearer his purpose. He
+durst not speak, lest his elation should betray itself.
+
+In a little while there came another sound, not drowning or even
+obscuring the clear prattle of the brook, but serving as a heavy
+background to its brightness. It was a large, yet soft, pulsating
+thunder, and seemed to come from all sides at once; as if far-off herds,
+at march over hollow lands, were closing in upon them. Dave looked at
+Miranda. She gave him a shining glance of comprehension.
+
+“It’s the rapids!” she cried. “Do we go through those?”
+
+Dave laughed.
+
+“Not those! Not by a long chalk! That’s the ‘Big Soo’ ye hear, an’ it’s
+more a fall than a rapid. Ther’s an eddy an’ a still water jest below,
+an’ that’s where we take to the canoe.”
+
+As they went on, the great swelling noise seemed to Miranda to fill her
+soul, and worked a deep yet still excitement within her. Nevertheless,
+rapidly as its volume increased, the light chatter of the brook was
+upborne distinctly upon the flood of it. Then, suddenly, as the forest
+thinned ahead, and the white daylight confronted them, the voice of the
+brook was in an instant overwhelmed, utterly effaced. The softly
+pervasive thunder burst all at once into a trembling roar, vehement,
+conflicting, explosive; and they came out full in face of a long,
+distorted slope of cataract. White, yellow, tawny green, the waves
+bounded and wallowed down the loud steep; and here and there the black
+bulks of rock shouldered upward, opposing them eternally.
+
+Spellbound at the sight, Miranda stood gazing, while Dave fetched from
+the bushes a ruddy-yellow canoe of birch bark, and launched it in a
+quiet but foam-flecked back-water at their feet. In the bow he placed a
+compact bundle of bracken for Miranda to sit upon, with another flat
+bundle at her back, that the cross-bar might not gall her.
+
+“Best fer ye to sit low, Mirandy, ’stead o’ kneelin’,” he explained,
+“coz I’ll be standin’ up, with the pole, goin’ through some o’ the rips,
+an’ ye’ll be steadier sittin’ than kneelin’.”
+
+“But I paddle better kneeling,” protested Miranda.
+
+“Ye won’t need to paddle,” said Dave, a little grimly. “Ye’ll jest maybe
+fend a rock now an’ agin, that’s all. The current an’ me’ll do the
+rest.”
+
+The fall of the “Big Soo” ended in a basin very wide and deep, whose
+spacious caverns absorbed the fury of the waters and allowed them to
+flow off sullenly. Dave knelt in the stern, paddle in hand, and the long
+pole of white spruce sticking out behind the canoe, where he could lay
+his grasp upon it in an instant. A couple of strokes sent the little
+craft out into the smooth, purplish-amber swirls of the deep current,
+whereon the froth clusters wheeled slowly. A few minutes more and a
+green fringed overhang of rock was rounded, the last energy of the
+current spent itself in a deep and roomy channel, the uproar of the
+cataract mellowed suddenly to that pulsating thunder which they had
+heard at first, and the canoe, under Dave’s noiseless propulsion, shot
+forward over a surface as of dark brown glass. There was a mile of this
+still water, along which Miranda insisted upon paddling. The rocks rose
+straight from the channel, and the trees hung down from their rim, and
+the June sun, warmly flooding the trough of rock and water, made its
+grimness greatly beautiful. Then the rocks diminished, and the steep,
+richly green slopes of the hillsides came down to the water’s edge, and
+a rushing clamour began to swell in the distance. The currents awakened
+under the canoe, which darted forward more swiftly. The shouting of the
+“rips” seemed to rush up stream to meet them. The surface of the river
+began to slant away before them, not breaking yet, but furrowing into
+long, thready streaks. Then, far down the slant, a tossing white line of
+short breakers, drawn right across the channel, clambered toward them
+ravenously.
+
+“Ye’d better not paddle now, Mirandy,” said Dave, in a quiet voice,
+standing up for a moment to survey the channel, while the canoe slipped
+swiftly down toward the turmoil. “There’s rapids now all the way down to
+Gabe’s clearing. An’ we won’t be long goin’, neither.”
+
+[Illustration: ‘Stroke on the right!’ came Dave’s sharp order]
+
+A moment more, and to Miranda it seemed that the leafy shores ran by
+her, that the gnashing phalanx of the waves sprang up at her. She had
+never run a rapid before. Her experience of canoeing had all been gained
+on the lake. She caught her breath, but did not flinch as the tumbling
+waters seethed and yammered around her. Then her blood ran hot with the
+excitement of it; her nerves tingled. She wanted to cry out, to paddle
+wildly and fiercely. But she held herself under curb. She never moved.
+Only the grip of her hands on the paddle, which lay idle before her,
+tightened till the knuckles went white. There was no word from Dave; no
+sign of his presence save that the canoe shot straight as an arrow, and
+bit firmly upon the big surges, so that she knew his wrist of steel was
+in control. Suddenly, just ahead, sprang a square black rock, against
+which the mad rush of water upreared and fell back broken to either
+side. The canoe leaped straight at it, and Miranda held her breath.
+
+“Stroke on the right!” came Dave’s sharp order. She dipped her paddle
+strenuously, twice—thrice—and, swerving at the last moment, while the
+currents seethed up along her bulwarks, the canoe darted safely past.
+
+Miranda stopped paddling. There was a steeper slope in front, but a
+clear channel, the waves not high but wallowing inward toward the
+centre. Straight down this centre rushed the canoe, the surges clutching
+at her on both sides, yellow green, with white foam-streaks veining
+their very hearts. At the foot of the slope, singing sharply and shining
+in the sun, curved a succession of three great “ripples,” stationary in
+mid-channel, their back-curled crests thin and prismatic. Straight
+through these Dave steered. The three thin crests, thus swiftly divided,
+one after another, slapped Miranda coldly in the face, drenching her,
+and leaving a good bucketful of water in the canoe.
+
+“Oh!” gasped Miranda, at the shock, and shook her hair, laughing
+excitedly.
+
+There was gentler water now for a hundred yards or so, and Dave steered
+cautiously for shore.
+
+“We’ll hev to land an’ empty her out,” said he. “Ther’s no more big
+‘ripples’ like them there on the whole river; an’ we won’t take in water
+agin ’twixt here an’ Gabe’s.”
+
+“I don’t care if we do!” exclaimed Miranda, fervently. “It was splendid,
+Dave! And you did it just fine!”
+
+This commendation took him aback somewhat, and he was unable to show his
+appreciation of it except by a foolish grin, which remained on his face
+while he turned the canoe over and while he launched it again. It was
+still there when Miranda resumed her place in the bow; and, strangely
+enough, she felt no disposition to criticise him for it.
+
+The rest of the journey, lasting nearly an hour longer, was a ceaseless
+succession of rapids, with scant and few spaces of quiet water between.
+None were quite so long and violent as the first; but by the time the
+canoe slowed up in the reach of still water that ran through the
+interval meadow of Gabe’s clearing, Miranda felt fagged from the
+long-sustained excitement. She felt as if it had been she, not Dave,
+whose unerring eye and unfailing wrist had brought the canoe in triumph
+through the menace of the roaring races.
+
+They landed on the blossoming meadow strip, and Dave turned the canoe
+over among the grasses, under the shade of an elm that would serve to
+keep the afternoon sun from melting the rosin off the seams. Gabe’s
+cabin stood a stone’s throw back from the meadow, high enough up the
+slope to be clear of the spring freshets. It was a bare, uncared-for
+place, with black stumps still dotting all the fields of buckwheat and
+potatoes, a dishevelled-looking barn, and no vine or bush about the
+house. It gave Miranda a pang of pity to look at it. Her own cabin was
+lonely enough, but with a high, austere, clear loneliness that seemed to
+hold communion with the stars. The loneliness of this place was a
+shut-in, valley loneliness, without horizons and without hope. She felt
+sorry almost to tears for the white and sad-eyed woman who appeared in
+the cabin door to welcome them.
+
+“Sary Ann, this is Mirandy I spoke to ye about.”
+
+The two women shook hands somewhat shyly, and, after the silent fashion
+of their race, said nothing.
+
+“How’s Jimmy?” asked Dave.
+
+“’Baout the same, thank ye, Dave,” replied the woman, wearily, leading
+the way into the cabin.
+
+In a low chair near the window, playing listlessly with a dingy
+red-and-yellow rag doll, sat a thin-faced, pallid little boy with long,
+pale curls down on his shoulders. He lifted sorrowful blue eyes to
+Miranda’s face, as she, with a swift impulse of tenderness and
+compassion, rushed forward and knelt down to embrace him. Her vitality
+and the loving brightness of her look won the child at once. His wan
+little face lightened. He lifted the baby mouth to be kissed. Miranda
+pressed his fair head to her bosom gently, and had much ado to keep her
+eyes from running over, so worked the love and pity and the mothering
+hunger in her heart.
+
+“He takes to ye, Mirandy,” said the woman, smiling upon her. And Dave,
+his passion almost mastering him, blurted out proudly,—
+
+“An’ who wouldn’t take to her, I’d like to know?”
+
+He felt at this moment that Miranda was now all human, and could never
+quite go back to her mystic and uncanny wildness, her preference for the
+speechless, furry kin over her own warm, human kind. He produced the
+medicine from his satchel; and from Miranda’s attentive hand Jimmy took
+the stuff as if it had been nectar. Jimmy’s mother looked on with
+undisguised approval of the girl. Had she thought Miranda was going to
+stay any length of time, her mother-jealousy would have been aroused;
+but as it was she was only exquisitely relieved at the thought of
+Jimmy’s being in some one else’s care for a few hours. She whispered
+audibly—a mere chaffing pretence of a whisper it was—to Dave:—
+
+“It’s a right purty an’ a right smart little wife she’ll make fer ye,
+Dave Titus, an’ she’ll know how to mind yer babies. Ye’re a lucky man,
+an’ I hope ye understand how lucky ye air!”
+
+Poor Dave! She might as well have thrown a bucket of cold water in his
+face. For an instant he could have strangled the kindly, coarse-grained,
+well-meaning, silly woman, who stood beaming her pale goodwill upon them
+both. He cursed himself for not having warned her that Miranda could not
+be chaffed like a common Settlement girl. He saw Miranda’s face go
+scarlet to the ears, though she bent over Jimmy and pretended to have
+heard nothing; and he knew that in that moment his good work was all
+undone. For a few seconds he could say nothing, and the silence grew
+trying. Then he stammered out:—
+
+“I’m afeard ther’s no sich luck fer me, Sary Ann, though God knows I
+want her. But Mirandy don’t like me very well.”
+
+The woman stared at him incredulously.
+
+“Lord sakes, Dave Titus, then what’s she doin’ here alone with you?” she
+exclaimed, the weariness coming back into her voice at the last of the
+phrase. “Oh, you go ’long! You don’t know nothin’ about women!”
+
+This was quite too much for Dave, whose instincts, fined by long months
+in the companionship of only the great trees, the great winds, and the
+grave stars, had grown unerringly delicate. His own face flushed up now
+for Miranda’s sake.
+
+“I’d take it kindly of ye, Sary Ann, if ye’d quit the subject right
+there,” he said quietly. But there was a firmness in his voice which the
+woman understood.
+
+“The both of ye must be nigh dead for somethin’ to eat,” she said. “I
+must git ye supper right off.” And she turned to the fireplace and
+filled the kettle.
+
+Thereafter, through supper, and through the short evening, Miranda had
+never a word for Dave. She talked a little, kindly and without showing
+her resentment, to Mrs. White; but her attentions were entirely absorbed
+in little Jimmy. Indeed, she had Jimmy very much to herself, for Mrs.
+White got Dave to help with the chores and the milking. Afterward, about
+the hearth-fire,—maintained for its cheer and not for warmth,—Mrs. White
+confined her conversation largely to Dave. She was not angry at him on
+account of his rebuke—but vaguely aggrieved at Miranda as the cause of
+it. She began to feel that Miranda was different from other girls, from
+what she herself had been as a girl. Miranda’s fineness and
+sensitiveness were something of an offence to her, though she could not
+define them at all. She characterized them vaguely by the phrase “stuck
+up”; and became presently inclined to think that a fine fellow like Dave
+was too good for her. Still, she was a fair-minded woman in her worn,
+colourless way; and she could not but allow there must be a lot in
+Miranda if little Jimmy took to her so—“For a child knows a good heart,”
+she said to herself.
+
+Next morning, soon after dawn, the travellers were off, Miranda tearing
+herself with difficulty from little Jimmy’s embrace, and leaving him in
+a desolation of tears. She was quite civil and ordinary with Dave now,
+so much so that good, obtuse, weary Mrs. White concluded that all was at
+rights again. But Dave felt the icy difference; and he was too proud, if
+not for the time too hopeless, to try to thaw it. During all the long,
+laborious journey upward through the rapids, by poling, he did wonders
+of skill and strength, but in utter silence. His feats were not lost
+upon Miranda, but she hardened her heart resolutely; for now a shame,
+which she had never known before, gave tenacity to her anger. Through it
+all, however, she couldn’t help thrilling to the strife with the loud
+rapids, and exulting in the slow, inexorable conquest of them. The
+return march through the woods was in the main a silent one, as before;
+but how different a silence! Not electric with meaning, but cold, the
+silence of a walled chamber. And, as if the spirits of the wood
+maliciously enjoyed Dave’s discomfiture, they permitted no incident, no
+diversion. They kept the wood-folk all away, they emptied of all life
+and significance the forest spaces. And Dave grew sullen.
+
+Arriving back at the clearing just before sundown, they paused at the
+cabin door. Dave looked into Miranda’s eyes with something of reproach,
+something of appeal. Kirstie’s voice, talking cheerfully to Kroof, came
+from the raspberry brambles behind the house. Miranda stretched out her
+hand with a cool frankness, and returned his look blankly.
+
+“I’ve had a real good time, thank you, Dave,” she said. “You’ll find
+mother yonder, picking raspberries.”
+
+
+
+
+                             Chapter XVIII
+                        The Forfeit of the Alien
+
+
+All through the summer and early autumn Dave continued his fortnightly
+visits to the cabin in the clearing, and always Miranda treated him with
+the same cold, casual civility. She felt, or pretended to herself that
+she felt, grateful now to the blunt-fingered, wan woman over at Gabe
+White’s, who had rudely jostled her back to her senses when she was on
+the very edge of giving up her freedom and her personality to a man—a
+strong man, who would have absorbed her. She flung herself passionately
+once more into the fellowship of the furtive folk, the secrecy and
+wonder of the wood. As it was a human love which she was crushing out,
+and as she felt the need of humanity cravingly, though not
+understandingly, at her heart, she lavished upon Kirstie a
+demonstrativeness of affection such as she had never shown before. It
+pleased Kirstie, and she met it heartily in her calm, strong way; but
+she saw through it, and smiled at the back of her brain, scarcely daring
+to think her thought frankly, lest the girl’s intuition should discern
+it. She made much of Dave, but never before Miranda; and she kept
+encouraging the rather despondent man with the continual assertion:
+“It’ll be all right, Dave. Don’t fret, but bide your time.” To which
+Dave responded by biding his time with a quiet, unaggressive
+persistence; and if he fretted, he took pains not to show it.
+
+If Dave had an ally in Kirstie, he had consistent antagonists in all the
+folk of the wood; for never before in all Miranda’s semi-occult
+experience had the folk of the wood come so near to her. Kroof was her
+almost ceaseless companion, more devoted, if possible, than ever, and
+certainly more quick in comprehension of Miranda’s English. And Kroof’s
+cub, a particularly fine and well-grown young animal, was well-nigh as
+devoted as his mother. When these two were absent on some rare
+expedition of their own, undertaken by Kroof for the hardening of the
+cub’s muscles, then the very foxes took to following Miranda, close to
+heel, like dogs; and one drowsy fall afternoon, when she had lain down
+to sleep on a sloping patch of pine needles, the self-same big panther
+from whom she had rescued Dave came lazily and lay down beside her. His
+large purring at her ear awoke her. He purred still more loudly when she
+gently scratched him under the throat. She was filled with a curious
+exaltation as she marked how her influence over the wild things grew and
+widened. Nothing, she vowed, should ever lure her away from these clear
+shades, these silent folks whom she ruled by hand and eye, and this
+mysterious life which she alone could know. When Old Dave, for whom she
+cared warmly, made his now infrequent visits to the clearing, she had an
+inclination to avoid him, lest he should attack her purpose; and the
+thought of little Jimmy’s white face and baby mouth she put away
+obstinately, as most dangerous of all. And so it came that when October
+arrived, and all the forest everywhere was noiselessly astir with
+falling leaves, and the light of the blue began to peer in upon the
+places which had been closed to it all summer, by that time Miranda felt
+quite secure in her resolve; and Dave’s fight now was to keep the
+despair of his heart from writing itself large upon his face.
+
+Toward the end of that October Dave’s hunting took him to the rocky open
+ground where, in the previous June, he and Miranda had encountered the
+lynxes. He was looking for fresh meat for Kirstie, and game, that day,
+had kept aloof. Just as he recognized, with a kind of homesick ache of
+remembrance, the spot where he and Miranda had seemed, for a brief
+space, to be in perfect accord with each other,—how long ago and how
+unbelievable it appeared to him now!—his hunter’s eye caught a sight
+which brought the rifle to his shoulder. Just at the edge of the open a
+young bear stood greedily stripping blueberries from the laden bushes,
+and grunting with satisfaction at the sweet repast.
+
+“A bit of bear steak,” thought Dave, “will be jest the thing for
+Kirstie. She’s gittin’ a mite tired o’ deer’s meat!”
+
+An unhurried aim, a sharp, slapping report, and the handsome cub sank
+forward upon his snout, and rolled over, shot through the brain. Dave
+strode up to him. He had died instantly—so instantly and painlessly that
+his half-open mouth was still full of berries and small, dark green
+leaves. Dave felt his soft and glossy dark coat.
+
+“Ye’re a fine young critter,” he muttered half regretfully. “It was kind
+o’ mean to cut ye off when ye was havin’ such a good time all to
+yerself.”
+
+But Dave was not one to nurse an idle sentimentality. Without delay he
+skinned the carcase, and _cached_ the pelt carefully under a pile of
+heavy stones, intending to return for it the first day possible. He was
+going to the clearing now, and could not take a raw pelt with him, to
+damn him finally in Miranda’s eyes; but the skin was too fine a one to
+be left to the foxes and wolverines. When it was safely bestowed, he cut
+off the choicest portions of the carcase, wrapped them in leaves and
+tied them up in birch bark, slung the package over his shoulder, and set
+out in haste for the clearing. He was anxious that Kirstie should have
+bear steaks for supper that night.
+
+He had been but a little while gone from the rocky open, where the red
+carcase lay hideously affronting the sunlight, when another bear emerged
+in leisurely fashion from the shadows. It was an animal of huge size and
+with rusty fur that was greying about the snout. She paused to look
+around her. On the instant her body stiffened, and then she went
+crashing through the blueberry bushes to where that dreadful thing lay
+bleeding. She walked around it twice, with her nose in the air, and
+again with her nose to the ground. Then she backed away from it slowly
+down the slope, her stare fixed upon it as if she expected it might rise
+and follow. At the edge of the wood she wheeled quickly, and went at a
+savage gallop along the trail which Dave had taken.
+
+It was old Kroof; and Dave had killed her cub.
+
+She rushed on madly, a terrible avenger of blood; but so fast was Dave
+journeying that it was not much short of an hour before her instinct or
+some keen sense told her that he was close at hand. She was not blinded
+by her fury. Rather was she coolly and deliberately set upon a sufficing
+vengeance. She moderated her pace, and went softly; and soon she caught
+sight of her quarry some way ahead, striding swiftly down the
+brown-shadowed vistas.
+
+There was no other bear in all the forests so shrewd as Kroof; and she
+knew that for the hunter armed all her tremendous strength and fury were
+no match. She waited to catch him at a disadvantage. Her huge bulk kept
+the trail as noiselessly as a weasel or a mink. Young Dave, with all his
+woodcraft, all his alertness of sense, all his intuition, had no guess
+of the dark Nemesis which was so inexorably dogging his stride. He was
+in such haste that in spite of the autumn chill his hair clung moistly
+to his forehead. When he reached the rivulet flowing away from the cabin
+spring, he felt that he must have a wash-up before presenting himself.
+Under a big hemlock he dropped his bundle, threw off his cap, his belt,
+his shirt, and laid down his loaded rifle. Then, bare to the waist, he
+went on some twenty paces to a spot where the stream made a convenient
+pool, and knelt down to give himself a thorough freshening.
+
+Kroof’s little eyes gleamed redly. Here was her opportunity.
+
+She crept forward, keeping the trunk of the hemlock between herself and
+her foe, till she reached the things which Dave had thrown down under
+the tree. She sniffed at the rolled-up package and turned it over with
+her paw. Then, with one short, grunting cough of rage and pain, she
+launched herself upon the murderer of her cub.
+
+That savage cry was Dave’s first hint of danger. He looked up quickly,
+his head and shoulders dripping. He recognized Kroof. There was no time
+for choice. The huge animal was just upon him; but in that instant he
+understood the whole tragedy. His heart sickened. There was a great
+beech tree just across the pool, almost within arm’s length. With one
+bound he reached it. With the next he caught a branch and swung himself
+up, just eluding the vengeful sweep of Kroof’s paw.
+
+Nimbly he mounted, seeking a branch which would lead him to another tree
+and so back to the ground and his rifle; and Kroof, after a moment’s
+pause, climbed after him. But Dave could not find what he sought. Few
+were the trees in the ancient wood whose topmost branches did not twine
+closely with their neighbour trees. But with a man’s natural aversion to
+bathing in water that is not enlivened and inspirited by the direct
+sunlight, Dave had chosen a spot where the trees were scattered and the
+blue of the sky looked in. He climbed to a height of some forty or fifty
+feet from the ground before he found a branch that seemed to offer any
+hope at all. Out upon this he stepped, steadying himself by a slenderer
+branch above his head. Following it as far as the branch would support
+him, he saw that his position was all but hopeless. He could not, even
+by the most accurate and fortunate swing, catch the nearest branch of
+the nearest tree. He turned back, but Kroof was already at the fork. Her
+claws were already fixed upon the branch; she was crawling out to him
+slowly, inexorably; she had him in a trap.
+
+Dave stood tense and moveless, awaiting her. His face was white, his
+mouth set. He knew that in all human probability his hour was come; yet
+what might be done, he would do. Far below, between him and the mingling
+of rock and moss which formed the ground (he looked down upon it,
+chequered with the late sunlight), was a stout hemlock branch. At the
+last moment he would drop; and the branch—he would clutch at it—might
+perhaps break his fall, at least in part. It was a meagre chance, but
+his only one. He was not shaken by fear, but he felt aggrieved and
+disappointed at such a termination of his hopes; and the deadly irony of
+his fate stung him. The branch bent lower and lower as Kroof’s vast
+weight drew near. The branch above, too frail to endure his weight
+alone, still served to steady him. He kept his head erect, challenging
+death.
+
+It chanced that Miranda, not far off, had heard the roar with which
+Kroof had rushed to the attack. The fury of it had brought her in haste
+to the spot, surprised and apprehensive. She recognized Dave’s rifle and
+hunting-shirt under the hemlock tree, and her heart melted in a horrible
+fear. Then she saw Dave high up in the beech tree, his bare shoulders
+gleaming through the russet leaves. She saw Kroof, now not three feet
+from her prey. She saw the hate in the beast’s eyes and open jaws.
+
+“Kroof!” she cried, in a tone of fierce command; and Kroof heeded her no
+more than if she had been the wind whispering. “Kroof! Kroof!” she cried
+again, in anguished appeal, in piercing terror, as the savage animal
+crept on. Dave did not turn his head, but he called down in a quiet
+voice: “Ye can’t do it this time, Mirandy. I guess it’s good-by now, for
+good!”
+
+But Miranda’s face had suddenly set itself to stone. She snatched up the
+rifle. “Hold on!” she cried, and taking a careful, untrembling aim she
+pulled first one trigger, then the other, in such quick succession that
+the two reports came almost as one. Then she dropped the weapon, and
+stood staring wildly.
+
+The bear’s body heaved convulsively for a moment, then seemed to fall
+together on the branch, clutching at it. A second later and it rolled
+off, with a leisurely motion, and came plunging downward, soft, massive,
+enormous. It struck the ground with a sobbing thud. Miranda gave a low
+cry at the sound, turned away, and leaned against the trunk of the
+hemlock. Her face was toward the tree, and hidden in the bend of her
+arm.
+
+Dave knew now that all he had hoped for was his. Yet, after the first
+overwhelming, choking throb of exultation, his heart swelled with pity
+for the girl, with pity and immeasurable tenderness. He descended from
+his refuge, put on his hunting-shirt and belt, looked curiously at the
+empty rifle where it lay on the moss, and kicked the corded package of
+meat into a thicket. Then he went and stood close beside Miranda.
+
+After a moment or two he laid an arm about her shoulders and touched her
+with his large hand, lightly firm. “Ye wonderful Mirandy,” he said,
+“you’ve give me life over agin! I ain’t a-goin’ to thank ye, though,
+till I know what ye’re goin’ to do with me. My life’s been jest all
+yours since first I seen ye a woman grown. What’ll ye do with the life
+ye’ve saved, Mirandy?”
+
+He pressed her shoulder close against his heart, and leaned over, not
+quite daring to kiss the bronze-dark hair on which he breathed. The girl
+turned suddenly, with a sob, and caught hold of him, and hid her face in
+his breast. “Oh, Dave!” she cried, in a piteous voice, “take mother and
+me away from this place; I don’t want to live at the clearing any more.
+You’ve killed the old life I loved.” And she broke into a storm of
+tears.
+
+Dave waited till she was quieter. Then he said: “If I’ve changed your
+life, Mirandy, ye’ve changed mine a sight, too. I’ll hunt and trap no
+more, dear, an’ the beasts’ll hev no more trouble ’long o’ me. We’ll
+sell the clearin’, an’ go ’way down onto the Meramichi, where I can git
+a good job surveyin’ lumber. I’m right smart at that. An’ I reckon—oh, I
+love ye, an’ I need ye, an’ I reckon I can make ye happy, ye wonderful
+Mirandy.”
+
+The girl heard him through, then gently released herself from his arms.
+“You go an’ tell mother what I’ve done, Dave,” she said, in a steady
+voice, “and leave me here a little while with Kroof.”
+
+That evening, after Miranda had returned to the cabin, Kirstie and Dave
+came with spades and a lantern to the beech tree by the pool. Where they
+could find room in the rocky soil, they dug a grave; and there they
+buried old Kroof deeply, that neither might the claws of the wolverine
+disturb her, nor any lure of spring suns waken her from her sleep.
+
+
+                                PLYMOUTH
+                   WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, PRINTERS
+
+
+
+
+                               Footnotes
+
+
+[1]A species of large, grey lake trout.
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.
+
+--Retained copyright notice from the printed edition (which is
+  public-domain in the country of publication.)
+
+--In the text version, delimited italicized text with _underscores_ (the
+  HTML version displays the modified font.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Heart of the Ancient Wood, by 
+Charles G. D. Roberts
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+Project Gutenberg's The Heart of the Ancient Wood, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Heart of the Ancient Wood
+
+Author: Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2014 [EBook #47671]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marcia Brooks, Stephen Hutcheson, and the
+online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+                        BY THE MARSHES OF MINAS
+                        THE FORGE IN THE FOREST
+                         A SISTER TO EVANGELINE
+
+[Illustration: 'Get off!' she ordered sharply Page 153]
+
+
+
+
+                            THE HEART OF THE
+                              ANCIENT WOOD
+
+
+                                   BY
+                         CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
+
+
+                         WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                             METHUEN & CO.
+                          36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+                                 LONDON
+                                  1902
+
+
+ Copyright by Silver, Burdett & Company in the United States of America
+                         _All rights reserved_
+
+                                   To
+                              L. W. v. U.
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+  Chapter                                                            Page
+  I. The Watchers of the Trail                                          1
+  II. The Cabin in the Clearing                                        18
+  III. The Exiles from the Settlement                                  30
+  IV. Miranda and the Furtive Folk                                     46
+  V. Kroof, the She-bear                                               64
+  VI. The Initiation of Miranda                                        76
+  VII. The Intimates                                                   88
+  VIII. Axe and Antler                                                107
+  IX. The Pax Mirand�                                                 121
+  X. The Routing of the Philistines                                   133
+  XI. Miranda and Young Dave                                          145
+  XII. Young Dave at the Clearing                                     162
+  XIII. Milking-time                                                  173
+  XIV. Moonlight and Moose-call                                       187
+  XV. A Venison Steak                                                 203
+  XVI. Death for a Little Life                                        225
+  XVII. In the Roar of the Rapids                                     245
+  XVIII. The Forfeit of the Alien                                     262
+
+
+
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  "'Get off!' she ordered sharply"                         _Frontispiece_
+                                                              FACING PAGE
+  "She . . . stood motionless, erect and formidable"                   50
+  "She sprang up, . . . her whole weight straining on the tether"     102
+  "He ran wildly over the snow patches"                               140
+  "The moose recognized her"                                          196
+  "'Stroke on the right!' came Dave's sharp order"                    250
+
+
+
+
+                     THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter I
+                       The Watchers of the Trail
+
+
+Not indolently soft, like that which sifts in green shadow through the
+leafage of a summer garden, but tense, alertly and mysteriously
+expectant, was the silence of the forest. It was somehow like a vast
+bubble of glass, blown to a fineness so tenuous that a small sound, were
+it but to strike the one preordained and mystic note, might shatter it
+down in loud ruin. Yet it had existed there flawless for generations,
+transmuting into its own quality all such infrequent and inconsequent
+disturbance as might arise from the far-off cry of the panther, or the
+thin chirp of the clambering nuthatch, the long, solemn calling of the
+taciturn moose, twice or thrice repeated under the round October moon,
+or the noise of some great wind roaring heavily in the remote tops of
+pine and birch and hemlock. Few and slender were the rays of sun that
+pierced down through those high tops. The air that washed the endless
+vistas of brown-green shadow was of a marvellous clarity, not blurred by
+any stain of dust or vapour. Its magical transparency was confusing to
+an eye not born and bred to it, making the far branches seem near, and
+the near twigs unreal, disturbing the accustomed perspective, and
+hinting of some elvish deception in familiar and apparent things.
+
+The trail through the forest was rough and long unused. In spots the
+mosses and ground vines had so overgrown it that only the broad scars on
+the tree trunks, where the lumberman's axe had blazed them for a sign,
+served to distinguish it from a score of radiating vistas. But just
+here, where it climbed a long, gradual slope, the run of water down its
+slight hollow had sufficed to keep its worn stones partly bare.
+Moreover, though the furrowing steps of man had left it these many
+seasons untrodden, it was never wholly neglected. A path once fairly
+differentiated by the successive passings of feet will keep, almost
+forever, a spell for the persuasion of all that go afoot. The old trail
+served the flat, shuffling tread of Kroof, the great she-bear, as she
+led her half-grown cub to feast on the blueberry patches far up the
+mountain. It caught the whim of Ten-Tine, the caribou, as he convoyed
+his slim cows down to occasional pasturage in the alder swamps of the
+slow Quah-Davic.
+
+On this September afternoon, when the stillness seemed to wait
+wide-eyed, suddenly a cock-partridge came whirring up the trail,
+alighted on a gnarled limb, turned his outstretched head twice from side
+to side as he peered with his round beads of eyes, and then stiffened
+into the moveless semblance of one of the fungoid excrescences with
+which the tree was studded. A moment more and the sound of footsteps, of
+the nails of heavy boots striking on the stones, grew conspicuous
+against the silence. Up the trail came slouching, with a strong but
+laborious stride, a large, grizzled man in grey home-spuns. His trousers
+were stuffed unevenly into the tops of his rusty boots; on his head was
+a drooping, much-battered hat of a felt that had been brown; from his
+belt hung a large knife in a fur-fringed leather sheath; and over his
+shoulder he carried an axe, from the head of which swung a large bundle.
+The bundle was tied up in a soiled patchwork quilt of gaudy colours, and
+from time to time there came from it a flat clatter suggestive of tins.
+At one side protruded the black handle of a frying-pan, half wrapped up
+in newspaper.
+
+Had he been hunter or trapper, Dave Titus would have carried a gun. Or
+had he been a townsman, a villager, or even an ordinary small country
+farmer, he would have taken care to be well armed before penetrating a
+day's journey into the heart of the ancient wood. But being a lumberman,
+he was neither quite of the forest nor quite of the open. His winters he
+spent in the very deep of the wilderness, in a log camp crowded with his
+mates, eating salt pork, beans, hot bread; and too busy all day long
+with his unwearying axe to wage any war upon the furred and feathered
+people. His summers were passed with plough and hoe on a little
+half-tilled farm in the Settlements. He had, therefore, neither the
+desire to kill nor the impulse to fear, as he traversed, neutral and
+indifferent, these silent but not desolated territories. Not desolated;
+for the ancient wood was populous in its reserve. Observant, keen of
+vision, skilled in woodcraft though he was, the grave-faced old
+lumberman saw nothing in the tranquillity about him save tree trunks,
+and fallen, rotting remnants, and mossed hillocks, and thickets of
+tangled shrub. He noted the difference, not known to the general eye,
+between white spruce, black spruce, and fir, between grey birch and
+yellow birch, between withe-wood and viburnum; and he read
+instinctively, by the lichen growth about their edges, how many seasons
+had laid their disfeaturing touch upon those old scars of the axe which
+marked the trail. But for all his craft he thought himself alone. He
+guessed not of the many eyes that watched him.
+
+In truth, his progress was the focus of an innumerable attention. The
+furtive eyes that followed his movements were some of them timorously
+hostile, some impotently vindictive, some indifferent; but all alien.
+All were at one in the will to remain unseen; so all kept an unwinking
+immobility, and were swallowed up, as it were, in the universal
+stillness.
+
+The cock-partridge, a well-travelled bird who knew the Settlements and
+their violent perils, watched with indignant apprehension. Not without
+purpose had he come whirring so tumultuously up the trail, a warning to
+the ears of all the wood-folk. His fear was lest the coming of this grey
+man-figure should mean an invasion of those long, black sticks which
+went off with smoky bang when they were pointed. He effaced himself till
+his brown mottled feathers were fairly one with the mottled brown bark
+of his perch; but his liquid eyes lost not a least movement of the
+stranger.
+
+The nuthatch, who had been walking straight up the perpendicular trunk
+of a pine when the sound of the alien footsteps froze him, peered
+fixedly around the tree. His eye, a black point of inquiry, had never
+before seen anything like this clumsy and slow-moving shape, but knew it
+for something dangerous. His little slaty head, jutting at an acute
+angle from the bark, looked like a mere caprice of knot or wood fungus;
+but it had the singular quality of moving smoothly around the trunk, as
+the lumberman advanced, so as to keep him always in view.
+
+Equally curious, but quivering with fear, two wood-mice watched him
+intently, sitting under the broad leaf of a skunk-cabbage not three feet
+from the trail. Their whiskers touched each other's noses, conveying
+thrills and palpitations of terror as he drew near, drew nearer,
+came--and passed. But not unless that blind, unheeding heel had been on
+the very point of crushing them would they have disobeyed the prime law
+of their tribe, which taught them that to sit still was to sit unseen.
+
+A little farther back from the trail, under a spreading tangle of
+ironwood, on a bed of tawny moss crouched a hare. His ears lay quite
+flat along his back. His eyes watched with aversion, not unmixed with
+scorn, the heavy, tall creature that moved with such effort and such
+noise. "Never," thought the hare, disdainfully, "would he be able to
+escape from his enemies!" As the delicate current of air which pulses
+imperceptibly through the forest bore the scent of the man to the hare's
+hiding-place, the fine nostrils of the latter worked rapidly with
+dislike. On a sudden, however, came a waft of other scent; and the
+hare's form seemed to shrink to half its size, the nostrils rigidly
+dilating.
+
+It was the scent of the weasel--to the hare it was the very essence of
+death. But it passed in an instant, and then the hare's exact vision saw
+whence it came. For the weasel, unlike all the other folk of the wood,
+was moving. He was keeping pace with the man, at a distance of some ten
+feet from the trail. So fitted, however, was his colouring to his
+surrounding, so shadow-like in its soundless grace was his motion, that
+the man never discerned him. The weasel's eyes were fixed upon the
+intruder with a malignancy of hate that might well have seared through
+his unconsciousness. Fortunately for the big lumberman, the weasel's
+strength, stupendous for its size, was in no way commensurate with its
+malice; or the journey would have come to an end just there, and the
+gaudy bundle would have rested on the trail to be a long wonder to the
+mice.
+
+The weasel presently crossed the yet warm scent of a mink, whereupon he
+threw up his vain tracking of the woodman and turned off in disgust. He
+did not like the mink, and wondered what that fish-eater could be
+wanting so far back from the water. He was not afraid exactly,--few
+animals know fear so little as the weasel,--but he kept a small shred of
+prudence in his savage little heart, and he knew that the mink was
+scarcely less ferocious than himself, while nearly thrice his size.
+
+From the mossy crotch of an old ash tree, slanting over the trail, a
+pair of pale, yellow-green eyes, with fine black slits for pupils,
+watched the traveller's march. They were set in a round, furry head,
+which was pressed flat to the branch and partly overhung it. The
+pointed, tufted ears lay flat back upon the round brown head. Into the
+bark of the branch four sets of razor-edged claws dug themselves
+venomously; for the wild-cat knew, perhaps through some occult
+communication from its far-off domesticated kin of hearth and door-sill,
+that in man he saw the one unvanquishable enemy to all the folk of the
+wood. He itched fiercely to drop upon the man's bowed neck, just where
+it showed, red and defenceless, between the gaudy bundle and the rim of
+the brown hat. But the wild-cat, the lesser lynx, was heir to a ferocity
+well tempered with discretion, and the old lumberman slouched onward
+unharmed, all ignorant of that green gleam of hate playing upon his
+neck.
+
+It was a very different gaze which followed him from the heart of a
+little colony of rotting stumps, in a dark hollow near the trail. Here,
+in the cool gloom, sat Kroof, the bear, rocking her huge body
+contemplatively from side to side on her haunches, and occasionally
+slapping off a mosquito from the sensitive tip of her nose. She had no
+cub running with her that season, to keep her busy and anxious. For an
+hour she had been comfortably rocking, untroubled by fear or desire or
+indignation; but when the whirring of the cock-partridge gave her
+warning, and the grating of the nailed boots caught her ear, she had
+stiffened instantly into one of the big brown stumps. Her little red
+eyes followed the stranger with something like a twinkle in them. She
+had seen men before, and she neither actively feared them nor actively
+disliked them. Only, averse to needless trouble, she cared not to
+intrude herself on their notice; and therefore she obeyed the custom of
+the wood, and kept still. But the bear is far the most human of all the
+furry wood-folk, the most versatile and largely tolerant, the least
+enslaved by its surroundings. It has an ample sense of humour, also,
+that most humane of gifts; and it was with a certain relish that Kroof
+recognized in the grey-clad stranger one of those loud axemen from whose
+camp, far down by the Quah-Davic, she had only last winter stolen
+certain comforting rations of pork. Her impulse was to rock again with
+satisfaction at the thought, but that would have been out of keeping
+with her present character as a decaying stump, and she restrained
+herself. She also restrained a whimsical impulse to knock the gaudy
+bundle from the stranger's back with one sweep of her great paw, and see
+if it might not contain many curious and edifying things, if not even
+pork. It was not till she had watched him well up the trail and fairly
+over the crest of the slope that, with a deep, non-committal grunt, she
+again turned her attention to the mosquitoes, which had been learning
+all the tenderness of a bear's nose.
+
+These were but a few of the watchers of the trail, whose eyes,
+themselves unseen, scrutinized the invader of the ancient wood. Each
+step of all his journey was well noted. Not so securely and
+unconsideringly would he have gone, however, had he known that only the
+year before there had come a pair of panthers to occupy a vacant lair on
+the neighbouring mountain side. No, his axe would have swung free, and
+his eyes would have scanned searchingly every overhanging branch; for
+none knew better than old Dave Titus how dangerous a foe was the tawny
+northern panther. But just now, as it chanced, the panther pair were
+hunting away over in the other valley, the low, dense-wooded valley of
+the Quah-Davic.
+
+As matters stood, for all the watchers that marked him, the old
+lumberman walked amid no more imminent menace than that which glittered
+down upon him from four pairs of small bright eyes, high up among the
+forking limbs of an old pine. In a well-hidden hole, as in a nursery
+window, were bunched the smooth heads of four young squirrels,
+interested beyond measure in the strange animal plodding so heavily
+below them. Had they been Settlement squirrels they would, without
+doubt, have passed shrill comments, more or less uncomplimentary; for
+the squirrel loves free speech. But when he dwells among the folk of the
+ancient wood he, even he, learns reticence; and, in that neighbourhood,
+if a young squirrel talks out loud in the nest, the consequences which
+follow have a tendency to be final. When the old lumberman had passed
+out of their range of view, the four little heads disappeared into the
+musky brown depths of the nest, and talked the event over in the
+smallest of whispers.
+
+As the lumberman journeyed, covering good ground with his long,
+slouching stride, the trail gradually descended through a tract where
+moss-grown boulders were strown thick among the trees. Presently the
+clear green brown of the mid-forest twilight took a pallor ahead of him,
+and the air began to lose its pungency of bark and mould. Then came the
+flat, soft smell of sedge; and the trees fell away: and the traveller
+came out upon the shores of a lake. Its waters were outspread
+pearly-white from a fringe of pale green rushes, and the opposite shore
+looked black against the pale, hazy sky. A stone's throw beyond the
+sedge rose a little naked island of black rock, and in the sheen of
+water off its extremity there floated the black, solitary figure of a
+loon.
+
+As the lumberman came out clear of the trees, and the gaudy colours of
+his bundle caught its eye, the bird sank itself lower in the water till
+only its erect neck and wedge-shaped head were in view. Then, opening
+wide its beak, it sent forth its wild peal of inexplicable and
+disconcerting laughter--an affront to the silence, but a note of
+monition to all the creatures of the lake. The loon had seen men before,
+and despised them, and found pleasure in proclaiming the scorn. It
+despised even the long, black sticks that went off with smoky bang when
+pointed; for had it not learned, in another lake near the Settlement, to
+dive at the flash and so elude the futile, spattering pellets that flew
+from the stick.
+
+The lumberman gave neither a first nor a second thought to the loon at
+all, but quickened his pace in the cheerful open. The trail now led some
+way along the lake-side, till the shore became higher and rougher, and
+behind a cape of rock a bustling river emptied itself, carrying lines of
+foam and long ripples far out across the lake's placidity. From the cape
+of rock towered a bleak, storm-whitened rampike, which had been a pine
+tree before the lightning smote it. Its broken top was just now serving
+as the perch of a white-headed eagle. The great bird bent fierce yellow
+eyes upon the stranger,--eyes with a cruel-looking, straight overhang of
+brow,--and stretched its flat-crowned, snake-like head far out to regard
+him. It opened the rending sickle of its beak and yelped at him--three
+times at deliberated interval. Then the traveller vanished again into
+the gloom of the wood, and the arrogant bird plumed himself upon a
+triumph.
+
+The trail now touched the river, only to forsake it and plunge into the
+heart of a growth of young Canada balsam. This sweet-smelling region
+traversed, the soft roar of the stream was left behind, and the forest
+resumed its former monumental features. For another hour the man tramped
+steadily, growing more conscious of his load, more and more uninterested
+in his surroundings; and for another hour his every step was noted by
+intent, unwinking eyes from branch and thicket. Then again the woods
+fell apart with a spreading of daylight. He came out upon the spacious
+solitude of a clearing; pushed through the harsh belt of blackberry and
+raspberry canes, which grew as a neutral zone between forest and open;
+picked his way between the burned stumps and crimson fireweeds of a long
+desolate pasture; and threw down his bundle at the door of the loneliest
+cabin he had ever chanced to see.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter II
+                       The Cabin in the Clearing
+
+
+Though a spur of black, uncompromising spruce woods gave it near shelter
+on the north, the harshly naked clearing fell away from it on the other
+three sides, and left the cabin bleak. Not a shrub nor a sapling broke
+the bareness of the massive log walls, whence the peeling bark hung in
+strips that fluttered desolately to every wind. Only a few tall and
+ragged weeds, pale green, and with sparse, whitish grey seed-heads,
+straggled against the foundation logs. The rough deal door sagged on its
+hinges, half open. The door-sill gaped with a wide crack, rotted along
+the edges; and along the crack grew a little fringe of grass, ruthlessly
+crushed down by old Dave's gaudy bundle. The two small windows still
+held fragments of glass in their sashes,--glass thick with spiders'
+webs, and captive dust, and the _d�bris_ of withered insects. The
+wide-eaved roof, well built of split cedar-slabs, with a double overlay
+of bark, seemed to have turned a brave front to the assault of the
+seasons, and showed few casualties. Some thirty paces to one side stood
+another cabin, lower and more roughly built, whose roof had partly
+fallen in. This had been the barn,--this, with a battered lean-to of
+poles and interwoven spruce boughs against its southerly wall. The barn
+was set down at haphazard, in no calculated or contenting relation to
+the main building, but just as the lay of the hillocks had made it
+simplest to find a level for the foundations. All about it grew a tall,
+coarse grass, now grey and drily rustling, the brood of seeds which in
+past years had sifted through the chinks from the hay stored in the
+loft. The space between the two buildings, and for many square yards
+about the cabin door, was strewn thick with decaying chips, through
+which the dock and plantain leaves, hardy strangers from the Settlement,
+pushed up their broad, obtuse intrusion. Over toward the barn lay the
+bleached skeleton of a bob-sled, the rusted iron shoe partly twisted
+from one runner; and in the centre of the space, where the chips
+gathered thickest and the plantains had gained least ground, lay a split
+chopping-log, whose scars bore witness to the vigour of a vanished axe.
+
+The old lumberman fetched a deep breath, depressed by the immeasurable
+desolation. His eye wandered over the weedy fields, long fallow, and the
+rugged stump lots aflame here and there with patches of golden-rod and
+crimson fire-weed. To him these misplaced flares of colour seemed only
+to make the loneliness more forlorn, perhaps by their association with
+homelier and kindlier scenes. He leaned on his axe, and pointed
+indefinitely with his thumb.
+
+"Squat here! an' farm yon!" said he, with contemplative disapproval.
+"I'd see myself furder first! But Kirstie Craig's got grit for ten men!"
+
+Then he pushed the door open, lifting it to ease the hinge, and stepped
+peeringly inside. As he did so, a barn-swallow flickered out through a
+broken pane.
+
+The cabin contained two rooms, one much smaller than the other. The
+ceiling of the smaller room was formed by a loft at the level of the
+eaves, open toward the main room, which had no ceiling but the roof of
+slabs and bark. Here, running up through the east gable, was a chimney
+of rough stone, arched at the base to contain a roomy hearth, with
+swinging crane and rusted andirons. A settle of plank was fixed along
+the wall under the window. Down the middle of the room, its flank toward
+the hearth, ran a narrow table of two planks, supported by unsmoothed
+stakes driven into the floor. In the corner farthest from the chimney,
+over against the partition, was a shallow sleeping bunk, a mere oblong
+box partly filled with dry red pickings of spruce and hemlock. The floor
+was littered with dead leaves and with ashes wind-drifted from the
+hearth.
+
+Old Dave went over and glanced into the bunk. He found the spruce
+pickings scratched up toward one end, and arranged as they would be for
+no human occupant.
+
+"Critters been sleepin' here!" he muttered. Then laying down his bundle,
+he turned his attention to the hearth, and soon the old chimney tasted
+once more, after its long solitude, the cheer of the familiar heat.
+
+It was now close upon sundown, and the lumberman was hungry. He untied
+the grimy, many-coloured quilt. Kroof, the she-bear, had been right in
+her surmise as to that bundle. It did contain pork,--a small,
+well-salted chunk of it; and presently the red-and-white-streaked slices
+were sputtering crisply in the pan, while the walls and roof saturated
+themselves once more in old-remembered savours.
+
+By the time the woodman had made his meal of fried pork and bread, and
+had smoked out his little pipe of blackened clay, a lonely twilight had
+settled about the cabin in the clearing. He went to the door and looked
+out. A white mist, rising along the forest edges, seemed to cut him off
+from all the world of men; and a few large stars, at vast intervals,
+came out solemnly upon the round of sky. He shut the door, dropped the
+wooden latch into its slot, and threw a dry sliver upon the hearth to
+give him light for turning in. He was sparing of the firewood,
+remembering that Kirstie, when she came, would need it all. Then he took
+his pipe from his mouth, knocked out the ashes, wiped the stump on his
+sleeve, and put it in his pocket; took off his heavy boots, rolled
+himself in the coloured quilt, and tumbled comfortably into the bunk,
+untroubled by any thought of its previous tenants. No sooner was he
+still than the mice came out and began scampering across the loft. He
+felt the sound homely and companionable, and so fell asleep. As he slept
+the deep undreaming sleep of the wholesomely tired, the meagre fire
+burned low, sank into pulsating coals, and faded into blackness.
+
+It was, perhaps, an hour later that Old Dave sat up, suddenly wide
+awake. He had no idea why he did it. He had heard no noise. He was
+certainly not afraid. There was no tremor in his seasoned nerves.
+Nevertheless, he was all at once absolutely awake, every sense alert. He
+felt almost as if there were some unkindred presence in the cabin. His
+first impulse was to spring from the bunk, and investigate. But,
+doubtless because he had spent so great a portion of his life in the
+forest, and because he had all that day been subtly played upon by its
+influences, another instinct triumphed. He followed the immemorial
+fashion of the folk of the wood, and just kept still, waiting to learn
+by watching.
+
+He saw the two dim squares of the windows, and once imagined that one of
+them was for an instant shadowed. At this he smiled grimly there in the
+dark, well knowing that among all the forest-folk there was not one, not
+even the panther himself, so imprudent as to climb through a small
+window into a shut-up place, all reeking with the fresh and ominous
+scent of man.
+
+Still he listened, in that movelessness which the haunted neighbourhood
+had taught him. The scurrying of the mice had ceased. There was no wind,
+and the darkness seemed all ears. The door, presently, gave a slow,
+gentle creaking, as if some heavy body pushed softly against it, trying
+the latch. The woodsman noiselessly reached out, and felt the handle of
+his axe, leaning by the head of the bunk. But the latch held, and the
+menacing furtive pressure was not repeated. Then, upon the very middle
+of the roof, began a scratching, a light rattling of claws, and
+footfalls went padding delicately over the bark. This puzzled the
+woodsman, who wondered how the owner of those clawed and velveted feet
+could have reached the roof without some noise of climbing. The soft
+tread, with an occasional scratch and snap, moved up and down the roof
+several times; and once, during a pause, a deep breath, ending with a
+sharp sniffing sound, was heard through the thin roof. Then came a
+muffled thud upon the chips, as of the drop of a heavy animal.
+
+The spell was broken, and Old Dave rose from the bunk.
+
+"It's jumped down off the roof! wildcat, mebbe, or lynx. No painters
+'round, 'tain't likely; though't did sound heavy fur a cat!" said he to
+himself, as he strode to the door, axe in hand.
+
+Fearlessly he threw the door open, and looked out upon the glimmering
+night. The forest chill was in the air, the very breath and spirit of
+solitude. The mists gathered thickly a stone's throw from the cabin. He
+saw nothing that moved. He heard no stir. With a shrug of the shoulders
+he turned, latched the door again with just a trifle more exactness of
+precaution than before, lounged back to his bunk, and slept heedlessly
+till high dawn. A long finger of light, coldly rosy, came in through a
+broken pane to rouse him up.
+
+When he went outside, the mists yet clung white and chill about the
+clearing, and all the weed tops were beaded with thick dew. He noted
+that the chips were disturbed somewhat, but could find no definite
+track. Then, following a grassy path that led, through a young growth of
+alder, to the spring, he found signs. Down to the spring, and beyond,
+into the woods, a trail was drawn that spoke plain language to his
+wood-wise scrutiny. The grass was bent, the dew brushed off, by a body
+of some bulk and going close to the ground.
+
+"Painter!" he muttered, knitting his brows, and casting a wary glance
+about him. "Reckon Kirstie'd better bring a gun along!"
+
+All that day Dave Titus worked about the cabin and the barn. He mended
+the roof, patched the windows, rehung the door, filled the bunk--and the
+two similar ones in the smaller room--with aromatic fresh green spruce
+tips, and worked a miracle of rejuvenation upon the barn. He also
+cleaned out the spring, and chopped a handy pile of firewood. An old
+sheep-pen behind the barn he left in its ruins, saying to himself:--
+
+"What with the b'ars, an' the painters, Kirstie ain't goin' to want to
+mess with sheep, I reckon. She'll have lots to do to look after her
+critters!"
+
+By "critters" he meant the cow and the yoke of steers which were Kirstie
+Craig's property in the Settlement, and which, as he knew, she was to
+bring with her to her exile in the ancient wood.
+
+That night, being now quite at home in the lonely cabin, and assured as
+to the stability of the door, Dave Titus slept dreamlessly from dark to
+dawn in the pleasant fragrance of his bunk. From dark to dawn the mice
+scurried in the loft, the bats flickered about the eaves, the unknown
+furry bulks leaned on the door or padded softly up and down the roof,
+but troubled not his rest. Then the wild folk began to take account of
+the fact that the sovereignty of the clearing had been resumed by man,
+and word of the new order went secretly about the forest. When, next
+morning, Dave Titus made careful survey of the clearing's skirts,
+calculating what brush and poles would be needed for Kirstie's fencing,
+making rough guesses at the acreage, and noting with approval the
+richness of the good brown soil, he thought himself alone. But he was
+not alone. Speculative eyes, large and small, fierce and timorous, from
+all the edges of the ancient wood kept watch on him.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter III
+                     The Exiles from the Settlement
+
+
+Late that afternoon Kirstie Craig arrived. Her coming was a migration.
+
+The first announcement of her approach was the dull _tank, tank, a-tonk,
+tank_ of cow-bells down the trail, at sound of which Old Dave threw
+aside his axe and slouched away to meet her. There was heard a boy's
+voice shouting with young authority, "Gee! Gee, Bright! Gee, Star!" and
+the head of the procession came into view in the solemn green archway of
+the woods.
+
+The head of the procession was Kirstie Craig herself, a tall, erect,
+strong-stepping, long-limbed woman in blue-grey home-spuns, with a vivid
+scarlet kerchief tied over her head. She was leading, by a rope about
+its horns, a meekly tolerant black-and-white cow. To her left hand clung
+a skipping little figure in a pink calico frock, a broad-brimmed hat of
+coarse straw flung back from her hair and hanging by ribbons from her
+neck. This was the five-year-old Miranda, Kirstie Craig's daughter. She
+had ridden most of the journey, and now was full of excited interest
+over the approach to her new home. Following close behind came the yoke
+of long-horned, mild-eyed steers,--Bright, a light sorrel, and Star, a
+curious red-and-black brindle with a radiating splash of white in the
+middle of his forehead. These, lurching heavily on the yoke, were
+hauling a rude "drag," on which was lashed the meagre pile of Kirstie's
+belongings and supplies. Close at Star's heaving flank walked a lank and
+tow-haired boy from the Settlement, his long ox-goad in hand, and an
+expression of resigned dissatisfaction on his grey-eyed, ruddy young
+face. Liking, and thoroughly believing in, Kirstie Craig, he had
+impulsively yielded to her request, and let himself be hired to assist
+her flight into exile. But in so doing he had gone roughly counter to
+public opinion; for the Settlement, though stupidly inhospitable to
+Kirstie Craig, none the less resented her decision to leave it. Her
+scheme of occupying the deserted cabin, farming the deserted clearing,
+and living altogether aloof from her unloved and unloving fellows, was
+scouted on every hand as the freak of a madwoman; and Young Dave, just
+coming to the age when public opinion begins to seem important, felt
+uneasy at being identified with a matter of public ridicule. He saw
+himself already, in imagination, a theme for the fine wit of the
+Settlement. Nevertheless, he was glad to be helping Kirstie, for he was
+sound and fearless at heart, and he counted her a true friend if she did
+seem to him a bit queer. He was faithful, but disapproving. It was Old
+Dave alone, his father, who backed the woman's venture without criticism
+or demur. He had known Kirstie from small girlhood, and known her for a
+brave, loyal, silent, strongly-enduring soul; and in his eyes she did
+well to leave the Settlement, where a shallow spite, sharpened by her
+proud reticence and supplied with arrows of injury by her misfortunes,
+made life an undesisting and immitigable hurt to her.
+
+As she emerged from the twilight and came out upon the sunny bleakness
+of the clearing, the unspeakable loneliness of it struck a sudden pallor
+into her grave dark face. For a moment, even the humanity that was
+hostile to her seemed less cruel than this voiceless solitude. Then her
+resolution came back. The noble but somewhat immobile lines of her large
+features relaxed into a half smile at her own weakness. She took
+possession, as it were, by a sweeping gesture of her head; then silently
+gave her hand in greeting to Old Dave, who had ranged up beside her and
+swung the dancing Miranda to his shoulder. Nothing was said for several
+moments, as the party moved slowly up the slope; for they were folk of
+few words, these people, not praters like so many of their fellows in
+the Settlement.
+
+At last the pink frock began to wriggle on the lumberman's shoulder, and
+Miranda cried out:--
+
+"Let me down, Uncle Dave, I want to pick those pretty flowers for my
+mother."
+
+The crimson glories of the fireweed had filled her eyes with delight;
+and in a few minutes she was struggling after the procession with her
+small arms full of the long-stalked blooms.
+
+In front of the cabin door the procession stopped. Dave turned, and said
+seriously:--
+
+"I've done the best I could by ye, Kirstie; an' I reckon it ain't so bad
+a site for ye, after all. But ye'll be powerful lonesome."
+
+"Thank you kindly, Dave. But we ain't going to be lonesome, Miranda and
+me."
+
+"But there's painters 'round. You'd ought to hev a gun, Kirstie. I'll be
+sackin' out some stuff fur ye nex' week, Davey an' me, an' I reckon as
+how I'd better fetch ye a gun."
+
+"We'll be right hungry for a sight of your faces by that time, Dave,"
+said Kirstie, sweeping a look of tenderness over the boy's face, where
+he stood leaning on Star's brindled shoulder. "But I ain't scared of
+panthers. Don't you mind about the gun, now, for I don't want it, and I
+won't use it!"
+
+"She ain't skeered o' nothin' that walks," muttered Young Dave, with
+admiration.
+
+The strong face darkened.
+
+"Yes, I am, Davey," she answered; "I'm afeard of evil tongues."
+
+"Well, my girl, here ye're well quit of 'em," said the old lumberman, a
+slow anger burning on his rough-hewn face as he thought of certain busy
+backbiters in the Settlement.
+
+Just then Miranda's small voice chimed in.
+
+"Oh, Davey," she cried, catching gleefully at the boy's leg, "look at
+the nice, great big dog!" And her little brown finger pointed to a
+cluster of stumps, of all shapes and sizes, far over on the limits of
+the clearing. Her wide, brown eyes danced elvishly. The others followed
+her gaze, all staring intently; but they saw no excuse for her
+excitement.
+
+"It might be a b'ar she sees," said Old Dave; "but I can't spot it."
+
+"They're plenty hereabouts, I suppose," said Kirstie, rather
+indifferently, letting her eyes wander to other portions of her domain.
+
+"Ain't no bear there," asserted Young Dave, with all the confidence of
+his years. "It's a stump!"
+
+"Nice big dog! I want it, mother," piped Miranda, suddenly darting away.
+But her mother's firm hand fell upon her shoulder.
+
+"There's no big dog out here, child," she said quietly. And Old Dave,
+after puckering his keen eyes and knitting his shaggy brows in vain,
+exclaimed:--
+
+"Oh, quit yer foolin', Mirandy, ye little witch. 'Tain't nothin' but
+stumps, I tell ye."
+
+It was the child's eyes, however, that had the keener vision, the
+subtler knowledge; and, though now she let herself seem to be persuaded,
+and obediently carried her armful of fireweed into the cabin, she knew
+it was no stump she had been looking at. And as for Kroof, the she-bear,
+though she had indeed sat moveless as a stump among the stumps, she knew
+that the child had detected her. She saw that Miranda had the eyes that
+see everything and cannot be deceived.
+
+For two days the man and the boy stayed at the clearing to help Kirstie
+get settled. The fields rang pleasantly with the _tank, tank, a-tonk,
+tank_ of the cow-bells, as the cattle fed over the new pasturage. The
+edges of the clearing resounded with axe strokes, and busy voices echoed
+on the autumn air. There was much rough fencing to be built,--zig-zag
+arrangements of brush and saplings,--in order that Kirstie's "critters"
+might be shut in till the sense of home should so grow upon them as to
+keep them from straying.
+
+The two days done, Old Dave and Young Dave shouldered their axes and
+went away. Kirstie forthwith straightened her fine shoulders to the
+Atlas load of solitude which had threatened at first to overwhelm her;
+and she and Miranda settled down to a strangely silent routine. This was
+broken, however, at first, by weekly visits from Old Dave, who came to
+bring hay, and roots, and other provisions against the winter, together
+with large "hanks" of coarse homespun yarn, to occupy Kirstie's fingers
+during the long winter evenings.
+
+Kirstie was well fitted to the task she had so bravely set herself. She
+could swing an axe; and the fencing grew steadily through the fall. She
+could guide the plough; and before the snow came some ten acres of the
+long fallow sod had been turned up in brown furrows, to be ripened and
+mellowed by the frosts for next spring's planting. The black-and-white
+cow was still in good milk, and could be depended on not to go dry a day
+more than two months before calving. The steers were thrifty and sleek,
+and showed no signs of fretting for old pastures. The hoarse but homely
+music of the cow-bells, sounding all day over the fields, and giving out
+an occasional soft _tonk-a-tonk_ from the darkness of the stalls at
+night, came to content her greatly. The lines which she had brought from
+the Settlement smoothed themselves from about her mouth and eyes, and
+the large, sufficing beauty of her face was revealed in the peace of her
+new life.
+
+About seven years before this move to the cabin in the clearing, Kirstie
+Craig--then Kirstie MacAlister--had gone one evening to the cross-roads
+grocery which served the Settlement as General Intelligence Office. Here
+was the post-office as well, in a corner of the store, fitted up with
+some dozen of lettered and dusty pigeon-holes. Nodding soberly to the
+loafers who lounged about on the soap boxes and nail kegs, Kirstie
+stepped up to the counter to buy a quart of molasses. She was just
+passing over her gaudy blue-and-yellow pitcher to be filled, when a
+stranger came in who caught her attention. He did far more than catch
+her attention; for the stately and sombre girl, who had never before
+taken pains to look twice on any man's face, now felt herself grow hot
+and cold as this stranger's eyes glanced carelessly over her splendid
+form. She heard him ask the postmaster for lodgings. He spoke in a tired
+voice, and accents that set him apart from the men of the Settlement.
+She looked at him twice and yet again, noted with a pang that he seemed
+ill, and met his eye fairly for just one heart-beat. At once she flushed
+scarlet under it, snatched up her pitcher, and almost rushed from the
+store. The loafers were too much occupied with the new arrival to notice
+her perturbation; but he noticed it, and was pleased. Never before had
+he seen so splendid a girl as this black-haired, sphinx-faced creature,
+with the scarlet kerchief about her head. She was a picture that awoke
+the artist in him, and put him in haste to resume his palette and
+brushes.
+
+For Frank Craig, dilettante and man of the world, was a good deal of an
+artist when the mood seized him strongly enough. When another mood
+seized him, with sufficient vigour to overcome his native indolence, he
+was something of a musician; and again, more rarely, something of a
+poet. The temperament was his; but the steadiness of purpose, the
+decision of will, the long-enduring patience, these were not. He had
+just enough money to let him float through his world without work.
+Health he had not, and the poor semblance of it which mere youth
+supplied he had squandered childishly. Hearing of new health in the gift
+of the northern spruce woods, with their high, balsam-sweet airs, he had
+drifted away from his temptations, and at last sought out this remote
+backwoods settlement as a place where he might expect to get much for
+little. He was very good to look upon,--about as tall as Kirstie
+herself,--slender, active, alert in movement when not wearied,
+thoroughbred in every line of face and figure. His eyes, of a very deep
+greyish green under long black lashes, were penetrating in their
+clearness, but curiously unstable. In their beautiful depths there was
+waged forever a strange conflict between honesty and inconstancy. His
+face, pale and sallow, was clothed with a trimly pointed, close, dark
+beard; and his hair, just a trifle more abundant than the fashion of his
+world approved, was of a peculiar, tawny dark bronze.
+
+The air of the Settlement was healing and tonic to the lungs, and before
+he had breathed it a month he felt himself aglow with joyous life.
+Before he had breathed it a month he had won Kirstie MacAlister, to whom
+he seemed little less than a god. To him, on her part, she was a
+splendid mystery. Even her peculiarities of grammar and accent did no
+more than lend a piquancy to her strangeness. They appealed as a rough,
+fresh flavour to his wearied senses. Here, safe from the wasting world,
+he would really paint, would really write, and life would come to mean
+something. One day he and Kirstie went away on the rattling old
+mail-waggon, which visited the Settlement twice a week. Ten days later
+they came back as man and wife, whereat the Settlement showed no
+surprise whatever.
+
+For a whole year after the birth of his child, the great-eyed and
+fairy-like Miranda, Frank Craig stayed at the Settlement, seemingly
+content. He was loving, admiring, tactful, proud of his dark impressive
+wife, and the quickness with which she caught his purity of speech. Then
+one day he seemed restless. He talked of business in the city--of a
+month's absence that could not be avoided. With a kind of terror at her
+heart Kirstie heard him, but offered no hint of opposition to so
+reasonable a purpose. And by the next trip of the rattling mail-waggon
+he went, leaving the Settlement dark to Kirstie's eyes.
+
+But--he never came back. The months rolled by, and no word came of him;
+and Kirstie gnawed her heart out in proud anguish. Inquiry throughout
+the cities of the coast brought no hint of him. Then, as the months
+climbed into years, that tender humanity which resents misfortune as a
+crime started a rumour that Kirstie had been fooled. Perhaps there had
+been no marriage, went the whisper at first. "Served her right, with her
+airs, thinkin' she could ketch a gentleman!"--was the next development
+of it. Kirstie, with her superior air, had never been popular at best;
+and after her marriage the sufficiency and exclusiveness of her joy,
+coupled with the comparative fineness of speech which she adopted, made
+her the object of jealous criticism through all the country-side. When
+the temple of her soaring happiness came down about her ears, then was
+the time for her chastening, and the gossips of the Settlement took a
+hand in it with right good-will. Nothing else worth talking about
+happened in that neighbourhood during the next few years, so the little
+rumour was cherished and nourished. Presently it grew to a great
+scandal, and the gossips came to persuade themselves that things had not
+been as they should be. Kirstie, they said, was being very properly
+punished by Providence, and it was well to show that they, chaste souls,
+stood on the side of Providence. If Providence threw a stone, it was
+surely their place to throw three.
+
+At last some one of imagination vivid beyond that of the common run
+added a new feature. Some one else had heard from some one else of some
+one having seen Frank Craig in the city. There was at first a difference
+of opinion as to what city; but that little discrepancy was soon
+smoothed out. Then a woman was suggested, and forthwith it appeared that
+he had been seen driving with a handsome woman, behind a spanking pair,
+with liveried coachman and footman on the box. Thus gradually the myth
+acquired a colour to endear it to the unoccupied rural imagination.
+Kirstie's inquiries soon proved to her the utter baselessness of the
+scandal; but she was too proud to refute what she knew to be a cherished
+lie. She endured, for Miranda's sake, till the dark face grew lined, and
+the black eyes smouldered dangerously, and she began to fear lest she
+should do some one a hurt. At last, having heard by chance of that
+deserted clearing in the forest, she sold out her cottage at a sacrifice
+and fled from the bitter tongues.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter IV
+                      Miranda and the Furtive Folk
+
+
+From the very first day of her new life at the clearing, Miranda had
+found it to her taste. Her mother loved it for its peace, for its
+healing; but to the elvish child it had an incomparably deeper and more
+positive appeal. For her the place was not solitary. Her wide eyes saw
+what Kirstie could not see; and to her the forest edges--which she was
+not allowed to pass--were full of most satisfying playmates just waiting
+for her to invite their confidence. Meanwhile, she had the two steers
+and the black-and-white cow to talk to. Her mother noticed that when she
+sat down in the grass by the head of one of the animals, and began her
+low mysterious communication, it would stop its feeding and hearken
+motionless. The black-and-red brindle, Star, would sometimes follow her
+about like a dog, as if spelled by the child's solemn eyes. Then the
+solemn eyes on a sudden would dance with light; her lips would break
+into a peal of whimsical mirth, shrill but not loud; and the steer, with
+a flick of his tail and an offended snort, would turn again to his
+pasturing.
+
+In a hole in one of the logs, just under the eaves of the cabin, there
+was a family of red squirrels, the four youngsters about three-fourths
+grown and almost ready to shift for themselves. No sooner had the old
+lumberman and his son gone away than the squirrels began to make
+themselves much at home. They saw in Kirstie a huge and harmless
+creature, whose presence in the cabin was useful to scare away their
+enemies. But in Miranda they found a sort of puzzling kinship. The two
+old squirrels would twitch up and down on the edge of the roof,
+chattering shrilly to her, flirting their airy tails, and stretching
+down their heads to scan her searchingly with their keen protruding
+eyes; while Miranda, just below, would dance excitedly up and down in
+response, nodding her head, jerking her elbows, and chattering back at
+them in a quick, shrill voice. It was a very different voice to the soft
+murmurs in which she talked to the cattle; but to the squirrels it
+appeared satisfactory. Before she had been a week at the clearing the
+whole squirrel family seemed to regard her as one of themselves,
+snatching bread from her tiny brown fingers, and running up her skirt to
+her shoulder whensoever the freak possessed them. Kirstie, they
+ignored--the harmless, necessary Kirstie, mother to Miranda.
+
+No sooner were they fairly settled than the child discovered an
+incongruity in her gay pink calico frocks, and got her mother to bury
+them out of sight in the deal chest behind the door. She was at ease now
+only in the dull, blue-grey homespun, which made her feel at one with
+her quiet surroundings. Nevertheless the vein of contradiction which
+streaked her baby heart with bright inconsistencies bade her demand
+always a bit of scarlet ribbon about her neck. This whim Kirstie
+humoured with a smile, recognizing in it a perpetuation of the scarlet
+kerchief about her own black hair. As for Miranda's hair, it was black
+like her mother's when seen in shadow; but in the sunshine it showed
+certain tawny lights, a pledge of her fatherhood to all who had known
+Frank Craig.
+
+So the autumn slipped by; and the silent folk of the wood, watching her
+curiously and unwinkingly as she played while her mother built fences,
+came to know Miranda as a creature in some way not quite alien to
+themselves. They knew that she often saw them when her mother's eyes
+could not. Perceiving that her mother did not quite understand her, at
+times, when she tried to point out pretty animals among the trees, the
+child grew a little sensitive and reticent on the subject; and the
+furtive folk, who had at first inclined to resent her inescapable
+vision, presently realized her reserves and were appeased. Her grey
+little sprite of a figure might have darted in among the trees, turned
+to a statue, and become suddenly as invisible as any lynx, or cat, or
+hare, or pine-marten amongst them, except, indeed, for that disquieting
+flame of scarlet at her neck. This was a puzzle to all the folk of the
+wood, continually reminding them that this quiet-flitting creature did
+not really belong to the wood at all, but to the great woman with the
+red about her head, whose axe made so vexing a clamour amid the trees.
+As for Kroof, the bear, that bit of scarlet so interested her that one
+day, being curious, she came much nearer than she intended. Miranda saw
+her, of course, and gazed with wide-eyed longing for the "great big dog"
+as a playmate. Just then Kirstie saw her, too--very close at hand, and
+very huge.
+
+[Illustration: She . . . stood motionless, erect and formidable]
+
+For the first time, Kirstie Craig felt something like fear, not for
+herself, but for the child. Thrusting Miranda roughly behind her, she
+clutched her axe, and stood motionless, erect and formidable, awaiting
+attack. Her great black eyes blazed ominously upon the intruder. But
+Kroof, well filled with late berries, and sweet wild roots, and
+honeycomb, was in most amiable humour, and just shambled off lazily when
+she saw herself detected; whereupon Kirstie, with a short laugh of
+relief, threw down her axe and snatched the child to her breast.
+Miranda, however, was weeping salt tears of disappointment.
+
+"I want it, mother," she sobbed; "the nice big dog. You scared it away."
+
+Kirstie had heard more than enough about the dog.
+
+"Hark now, Miranda," she said severely, giving her shoulder a slight
+shake to enforce attention. "You just remember what I say. That ain't a
+dog; that's a bear; _a bear_, I say! And don't you ever go near it, or
+it'll eat you up. Mind you now, Miranda, or I'll just whip you well."
+
+Kirstie was a little fluttered and thrown off her poise at the idea of
+Miranda encountering the great animal alone, and perhaps attempting to
+bring it home to play with; so she forgot for a moment the wonted
+stringency of her logic. As for Miranda, she consented to obey, and held
+her tongue; but she clung secretly to her own opinion on the subject of
+the big dog. She knew very well that the fascinating animal did not want
+to eat her; and her mother's order seemed to her just one of those bits
+of maternal perversity which nobody can ever hope to understand.
+
+The incident, however, overshadowed the child's buoyant spirits for the
+best part of two whole days. It thrust so very far off the time she
+hoped for, when she might know and talk to the shy, furtive folk of the
+wood, with their strange, unwinking eyes. Her mother kept her now ever
+close to her skirts. She had no one to talk to about the things her
+mother did not understand, except the steers and the black-and-white
+cow, and the rather irrepressible squirrels.
+
+The winter, which presently fell white and soundless and sparkling about
+the lonely cabin, was to Miranda full of events. Before the snow Kirstie
+had repaired the old lean-to, turning it into a fowl-house; and now they
+had six prim hens to occupy it, and a splendid, flame-red cock who
+crowed most loftily. Miranda felt that this proud bird despised her, so
+she did not get on very well with him; but the hens were amiable, if
+uninteresting, and it was a perennial joy to search out their eggs in
+the loft or the corners of the stalls. Then there were the paths to be
+kept clear after every snow-fall,--the path to the spring, the path to
+the barn door and hen-house, the path to the woodpile. Uncle Dave had
+made her a hand-sled, and she had the exhilarating duty of hauling in
+the wood from the pile as fast as her mother could split it. It was a
+spirited race, this, in which her mother somehow always managed to keep
+just about one stick ahead.
+
+And the fishing--this was a great event, coming about once a week, if
+the weather suited. Both Kirstie and Miranda were semi-vegetarians.
+Frank Craig had been a decryer of flesh-meat, one who would have chosen
+to live on fruits and roots and grains and eggs, had not his body cried
+out against the theory of his brain. But he had so far infected his wife
+with his prejudice that neither she nor the child now touched meat in
+any form. The aversion, artificial on Kirstie's part, was instinctive on
+Miranda's. But as for fish--fish seemed to them both quite another
+matter. Even Miranda of the sympathies and the perceptions had no sense
+of fellowship for these cold-blooded, clammy, unpleasant things. She had
+a fierce little delight in catching them; she had a contented joy in
+eating them when fried to a savory brown in butter and yellow cornmeal.
+For Miranda was very close to Nature, and Nature laughs at consistency.
+
+The fishing in which Miranda so delighted took place in winter at the
+lake. When the weather seemed quite settled, Kirstie would set out on
+her strong snow-shoes, with Miranda, on her fairy facsimiles of them,
+striding bravely beside her, and follow the long, white trail down to
+the lake. Even to Miranda's discerning eyes the trail was lonely now,
+for most of the forest folk were either asleep, or abroad, or fearful
+lest their tinted coats should reveal them against the snowy surface.
+Once in a while she detected the hare squatting under a spruce bush,
+looking like a figure of snow in his winter coat; and once or twice,
+too, she saw the weasel, white now, with but a black tip to his tail as
+a warning to all who had cause to dread his cruelty. Miranda knew
+nothing about him, but she did not quite like the weasel, which was just
+as well, seeing that the weasel hated Miranda and all the world besides.
+As for the lynx and the brown cat, they kept warily aloof in their
+winter shyness. The wood-mice were asleep,--warm, furry balls buried in
+their dry nests far from sight; and Kroof, too, was dreaming away the
+frozen months in a hollow under a pine root, with five or six feet of
+snow drifted over her door to keep her sleep unjarred.
+
+Arrived at the lake, Kirstie would cut two holes through the ice with
+her nimble axe, bait two hooks with bits of fat pork, and put a line
+into Miranda's little mittened hands. The trout in the lake were
+numerous and hungry; and somehow Miranda's hook had ever the more deadly
+fascination for them, and Miranda's catch would outnumber Kirstie's by
+often three to one. Though her whole small being seemed absorbed in the
+fierce game, Miranda was all the time vividly aware of the white
+immensity enfolding her. The lifeless white level of the lake; the
+encircling shores all white; the higher fringe of trees, black beneath,
+but deeply garmented with white; the steep mountain-side, at the foot of
+the lake, all white; and over-brooding, glimmering, opalescent,
+fathomless, the flat white arch of sky. Across the whiteness of the
+mountain-side, one day, Miranda saw a dark beast moving, a beast that
+looked to her like a great cat. She saw it halt, gazing down at them;
+and even at that distance she could see it stretch wide its formidable
+jaws. A second more and she heard the cry which came from those
+formidable jaws,--a high, harsh, screeching wail, which amused her so
+that she forgot to land a fish. But her mother seemed troubled at the
+sound. She gazed very steadily for some seconds at the far-off shape,
+and then said: "Panthers, Miranda! I don't mind bears; but with panthers
+we've got to keep our eyes open. I reckon we'll get home before sundown
+to-day; and mind you keep right close by me every step."
+
+All this solicitude seemed to Miranda a lamentable mistake. She had no
+doubt in her own mind that the panther would be nice to play with.
+
+As I have said, the winter was for Miranda full of events. Twice, as she
+was carrying out the morning dish of hot potatoes and meal to the hens,
+she saw Ten-Tine, the bull caribou, cross the clearing with measured
+stately tread, his curious, patchy antlers held high, his muzzle
+stretched straight ahead of him, his demure cows at his heels. This was
+before the snow lay deep in the forest. Later on in the winter she would
+look out with eager interest every morning to see what visitors had been
+about the cabin during the night. Sometimes there was a fox track, very
+dainty, cleanly indented, and regular, showing that the animal who made
+it knew where he was going and had something definite in view. Hare
+tracks there were sure to be--she soon came to recognize those
+three-toed, triplicate clusters of impressions, stamped deeply upon the
+snow by the long, elastic jump. Whenever there was a weasel
+track,--narrow, finely pointed, treacherously innocent,--it was sure to
+be closely parallel to that of a leaping hare; and Miranda soon
+apprehended, by that instinct of hers, that the companionship was not
+like to be well for the hare. Once, to her horror, she found that a hare
+track ended suddenly, right under the cabin window, in a blood-stained
+patch, bestrewn with fur and bones. All about it the snow was swept as
+if by wings, and two strange footprints told the story. They were long,
+these two footprints--forked, with deep hooks for toes, and an obscure
+sort of brush mark behind them. This was where the owl had sat up on the
+snow for a few minutes after dining, to ponder on the merits of the
+general order of things, and of a good meal in particular. Miranda's
+imagination painted a picture of the big bird sitting there in the
+moonlight beside the bloody bones, his round, horned head turning slowly
+from one side to the other, his hooked beak snapping now and again in
+reminiscence, his sharp eyes wide open and flaming. There was also the
+track of a fox, which had come up from the direction of the barn,
+investigated the scene of action, and gone off at a sharp, decisive
+angle toward the woods. Miranda had no clew to tell her how stealthily
+that fox had come, or how nearly he had succeeded in catching an owl for
+his breakfast; but from that morning she bore a grudge against owls, and
+never could hear without a flash of wrath their hollow
+_two-hoo-hoo-whoo-oo_ echoing solemnly from the heart of the pinewood.
+
+But the owl was not the only bird that Miranda knew that winter. Well
+along in January, when the haws were all gone, and most of the withered
+rowan-berries had been eaten, and famine threatened such of the
+bird-folk as had not journeyed south, there came to the cabin brisk
+foraging flocks of the ivory-billed snow-bird. For these Miranda had
+crumbs ready always, and as word of her bounty went abroad in the
+forest, her feathered pensioners increased. Even a hungry crow would
+come now and then, glossy and sideling, watchful and audacious, to share
+the hospitality of this kind Miranda of the crumbs. She liked the crows,
+and would hear no ill of them from her mother; but most of all she liked
+those big, rosy-headed, trustful children, the pine-grosbeaks, who would
+almost let her take them in her hands. Whenever their wandering flocks
+came down to her, she held winter carnival for them.
+
+During those days when it was not fine enough to go out,--when the snow
+drove in great swirls and phantom armies across the open, and a dull
+roar came from the straining forest, and the fowls went to roost at
+midday, and the cattle munched contentedly in their stanchions, glad to
+be shut in,--then the cabin seemed very pleasant to Miranda. On such
+days the drifts were sometimes piled halfway up the windows. On such
+days the dry logs on the hearth blazed more brightly than their wont,
+and the flames sang more merrily up the chimney. On such days the piles
+of hot buckwheat cakes, drenched in butter and brown molasses, tasted
+more richly toothsome than at any time else, and on such days she
+learned to knit. This was very interesting. At first she knit gay
+black-and-red garters for her mother; and then, speedily mastering this
+rudimentary process, she was fairly launched on a stocking, with four
+needles. The stocking, of course, was for her mother, who would not find
+fault if it were knitted too tightly here and too loosely there. As for
+Kirstie herself, her nimble needles would click all day, turning out
+socks and mittens of wonderful thickness to supply the steady market of
+the lumber camps.
+
+One night, after just such a cosey, shut-in day, Miranda was awakened by
+a scratching sound on the roof. Throughout the cold weather Miranda
+slept with her mother in the main room, in a broad new bunk which had
+been substituted for the narrow one wherein Old Dave had slept on his
+first visit to the clearing. Miranda caught her mother's arm, and shook
+it gently. But Kirstie was already awake, lying with wide eyes,
+listening.
+
+"What's that, mother, trying to get in?" asked the child in a whisper.
+
+"Hush-sh-sh," replied Kirstie, laying her fingers on the child's mouth.
+
+The scratching came louder now, as the light snow was swept clear and
+the inquisitive claws reached the bark. Then it stopped. After a second
+or two of silence there was a loud, blowing sound, as if the visitor
+were clearing his nostrils from the snow and cold. This was followed by
+two or three long, penetrating sniffs, so curiously hungry in their
+suggestion that even Miranda's dauntless little heart beat very fast. As
+for Kirstie, she was decidedly nervous. Springing out of bed she ran to
+the hearth, raked the coals from the ashes, fanned them, heaped on birch
+bark and dry wood, and in a moment had a great blaze roaring up the
+chimney-throat. The glow from the windows streamed far out across the
+snow. To the visitor it proved disconcerting. There was one more sharp
+rattle of claws upon the roof, then a fluffy thump below the eaves. The
+snow had stopped falling hours before; and when, at daylight, Kirstie
+opened the door, there was the deep hollow where the panther had jumped
+down, and there was the floundering trail where he had fled.
+
+This incident made Miranda amend, in some degree, her first opinion of
+panthers.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter V
+                          Kroof, the She-bear
+
+
+Spring came early to the clearing that year. Kirstie's autumn furrows,
+dark and steaming, began to show in patches through the diminished snow.
+The chips before the house and the litter about the barn, drawing the
+sun strongly, were first of all uncovered; and over them, as to the
+conquest of new worlds, the haughty cock led forth his dames to scratch.
+"Saunders," Miranda had called him, in remembrance of a strutting beau
+at the Settlement; and with the advent of April cheer, and an increasing
+abundance of eggs, and an ever resounding cackle from his complacent
+partlets, his conceit became insufferable. One morning, when something
+she did offended his dignity, he had the presumption to face her with
+beak advanced and wide-ruffled neck feathers. But Saunders did not know
+Miranda. Quick as a flash of light she seized him by the legs, whirled
+him around her head, and flung him headlong, squawking with fear and
+shame, upon his own dunghill. It took him a good hour to recover his
+self-esteem, but after that Miranda stood out in his eyes as the one
+creature in the world to be respected.
+
+When the clearing was quite bare, except along the edges of the forest,
+and Kirstie was again at work on her fencing, the black-and-white cow
+gave birth to a black-and-white calf, which Miranda at once claimed as
+her own property. It was a very wobbly, knock-kneed little heifer; but
+Miranda admired it immensely, and with lofty disregard of its sex,
+christened it Michael.
+
+About this time the snow shrank away from her hollow under the pine
+root, and Kroof came forth to sun herself. She had lived all winter on
+nothing but the fat stored up on the spaces of her capacious frame.
+Nevertheless she was not famished--she had still a reserve to come and
+go on, till food should be abundant. A few days after waking up she bore
+a cub. It was the custom of her kind to bear two cubs at a birth; but
+Kroof, besides being by long odds the biggest she-bear ever known in
+that region, had a pronounced individuality of her own, and was just as
+well satisfied with herself over one cub as over two.
+
+The hollow under the pine root was warm and softly lined--a condition
+quite indispensable to the newcomer, which was about as unlike a bear as
+any baby creature of its size could well manage to be. It was blind,
+helpless, whimpering, more shapeless and clumsy-looking than the
+clumsiest conceivable pup, and almost naked. Its tender, hairless hide
+looked a poor thing to confront the world with; but its appetite was
+astounding, and Kroof's milk inexhaustible. In a few days a soft dark
+fur began to appear. As the mother sat, hour by hour, watching it and
+suckling it, half erect upon her haunches, her fore legs braced wide
+apart, her head stretched as far down as possible, her narrow red tongue
+hanging out to one side, her eyes half closed in rapture, it seemed to
+grow visibly beneath her absorbing gaze. Before four weeks had passed,
+the cub was covered with a jet black coat, soft and glossy. This being
+the case, he thought it time to open his eyes and look about.
+
+He was now about the size of a small cat, but of a much heavier build.
+His head, at this age, was shorter for its breadth than his mother's;
+the ears much larger, fan-like and conspicuous. His eyes, very softly
+vague at first, soon acquired a humorous, mischievous expression, which
+went aptly with the erect, inquisitive ears. Altogether he was a fine
+baby--a fair justification of Kroof's pride.
+
+The spring being now fairly forward, and pale, whitish-green shoots
+upthrusting themselves numerously through the dead leaves, and the big
+crimson leaf-bud of the skunk-cabbage vividly punctuating the sombreness
+of the swamp, Kroof led her infant forth to view their world. He had no
+such severe and continued education to undergo as that which falls to
+the lot of other youngsters among the folk of the ancient wood. For
+those others the first lesson, the hardest and the most tremendous in
+its necessity, was how to avoid their enemies. With this lesson
+ill-learned, all others found brief term; for the noiseless drama, in
+which all the folk of the forest had their parts, moved ever, through
+few scenes or through many, to a tragic close. But the bear, being for
+the most part dominant, had his immunities. Even the panther, swift and
+fierce and masterful, never deliberately sought quarrel with the bear,
+being mindful of his disastrous clutch and the lightning sweep of his
+paw. The bear-cub, therefore, going with its mother till almost full
+grown, gave no thought at all to enemies; and the cub with such a
+giantess as Kroof for its mother might safely make a mock even at
+panthers. Kroof's cub had thus but simple things to learn, following
+close at his mother's flank. During the first blind weeks of his cubhood
+he had, indeed, to acquire the prime virtue of silence, which was not
+easy, for he loved to whimper and grumble in a comfortable little
+fashion of his own. This was all right while Kroof was at home; but when
+she was out foraging, then silence was the thing. This he learned,
+partly from Kroof's admonitions, partly from a deep-seated instinct; and
+whenever he was left alone, he held his tongue. There was always the
+possibility slight but unpleasant, of a fox or a brown cat noting
+Kroof's absence, and seizing the chance to savour a delicate morsel of
+sucking bear.
+
+Wandering the silent woods with Kroof, the cub would sniff carefully at
+the moist earth and budding shoots wheresoever his mother stopped to
+dig. He thus learned where to find the starchy roots which form so large
+a part of the bear's food in spring. He found out the important
+difference between the sweet groundnuts and the fiery bitter bulb of the
+arum, or Indian turnip; and he learned to go over the grassy meadows by
+the lake and dig unerringly for the wild bean's nourishing tubers. He
+discovered, also, what old stumps to tear apart when he wanted a
+pleasantly acid tonic dose of the larv� of the wood-ant. Among these
+serious occupations he would gambol between his mother's feet, or caper
+hilariously on his hind legs. Soon he would have been taught to detect a
+bee tree, and to rob it of its delectable stores without getting his
+eyes stung out; but just then the mysterious forest fates dropped the
+curtain on his merry little play, as a reminder that not even for the
+great black bear could the rule of doom be relaxed.
+
+Kroof's first wanderings with the cub were in the neighbourhood of the
+clearing, where both were sometimes seen by Miranda. The sight of the
+cub so overjoyed her that she departed from her usual reticence as to
+the forest-folk, and told her mother about the lovely, glossy little dog
+that the nice, great big dog took about with her. The only result was
+that Kirstie gave her a sharp warning.
+
+"Dog!" she exclaimed severely; "didn't I tell you, Miranda, it was a
+bear? Bears are mostly harmless, if you leave them alone; but an old
+bear with a cub is mighty ugly. Mind what I say now, you keep by me and
+don't go too nigh the edge of the woods."
+
+And so, for the next few weeks, Miranda was watched very strictly, lest
+her childish daring should involve her with the bears.
+
+Along in the summer Kroof began to lead the cub wider afield. The longer
+journeys vexed the little animal at first, and tired him; so that
+sometimes he would throw himself down on his back, with pinky-white
+soles of protest in the air, and refuse to go a step farther. But in
+spite of the appeal of his quizzical little black snout, big ears, and
+twinkling eyes, old Kroof would box him sternly till he was glad enough
+to jump up and renew the march. With the exercise he got a little
+leaner, but much harder, and soon came to delight in the widest
+wandering. Nothing could tire him, and at the end of the journey he
+would chase rabbits, or weasels, or other elusive creatures, till
+convicted of futility by his mother's sarcastic comments.
+
+These wide wanderings were, indeed, the making of him, so that he
+promised to rival Kroof herself in prowess and stature; but alas! poor
+cub, they were also his undoing. Had he stayed at home--but even that
+might have little availed, for among the folk of the wood it is right at
+home that fate most surely strikes.
+
+One day they two were exploring far over in the next valley--the valley
+of the Quah-Davic, a tract little familiar to Kroof herself. At the noon
+hour Kroof lay down in a little hollow of coolness beside a spring that
+_drip-drop, drip-drop, drip-dropped_ from the face of a green rock. The
+cub, however, went untiringly exploring the thickets for fifty yards
+about, out of sight, indeed, but scrupulously never out of ear-shot.
+
+Near one of these thickets his nostrils caught a new and enthralling
+savour. He had never, in his brief life, smelled anything at all like
+it, but an unerring instinct told him it was the smell of something very
+good to eat. Pushing through the leafage he came upon the source of the
+fragrance. Under a slanting structure of logs he found a piece of flesh,
+yellowish-white, streaked thickly with dark reddish-brown,--and, oh, so
+sweet smelling! It was stuck temptingly on a forked point of wood. His
+ears stood up very wide and high in his eagerness. His sensitive
+nostrils wrinkled as he sniffed at the tempting find. He decided that he
+would just taste it, and then go fetch his mother. But it was a little
+high up for him. He rose, set his small white teeth into it, clutched it
+with his soft forepaws, and flung his whole weight upon it to pull it
+down.
+
+Kroof, dozing in her hollow of coolness, heard a small agonized screech,
+cut short horribly. On the instant her great body went tearing in a
+panic through the underbrush. She found poor cub crushed flat under the
+huge timbers of "a dead-fall," his glossy head and one paw sticking out
+piteously, his little red tongue protruding from his distorted mouth.
+
+Kroof needed no second look to know in her heart he was dead, stone
+dead; but in the rage of her grief she would not acknowledge it. She
+tore madly at the great timber,--so huge a thing to set to crush so
+small a life,--and so astonishing was the strength of her claws and her
+vast forearms that in the course of half an hour she had the trap fairly
+demolished. Softly she removed the crushed and shapeless body, licking
+the mouth, the nostrils, the pitifully staring eyes; snuggling it
+lightly as a breath, and moaning over it. She would lift the head a
+little with her paw, and redouble her caresses as it fell limply aside.
+Then it grew cold. This was testimony she could not pretend to ignore.
+She ceased the caresses which proved so vain to keep warmth in the
+little body she loved. With her snout held high in air she turned around
+slowly twice, as if in an appeal to some power not clearly apprehended;
+then, without another glance at her dead, she rushed off madly through
+the forest.
+
+All night she wandered aimlessly, hither and thither through the low
+Quah-Davic valley, over the lower slopes of the mountain, through tracts
+where she had never been, but of which she took no note; and toward noon
+of the following day she found herself once more in the ancient wood,
+not far from the clearing. She avoided widely the old den under the pine
+root, and at last threw herself down, worn out and with unsuckled teats
+fiercely aching, behind the trunk of a fallen hemlock.
+
+She slept heavily for an hour or two. Then she was awakened by the
+crying of a child. She knew it at once for Miranda's voice; and being in
+some way stirred by it, in spite of the preoccupation of her pain, she
+got up and moved noiselessly toward the sound.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter VI
+                       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 prot�g�e 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.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter VII
+                             The Intimates
+
+
+After this experience Miranda felt herself initiated, as she had so
+longed to be, into the full fellowship of the folk of the ancient wood.
+Almost every day Kroof came prowling about the edges of the clearing.
+Miranda was sure to catch sight of her before long and run to her with
+joyous caresses. Farther than a few steps into the open the big bear
+would not come, having no desire to cultivate Kirstie, or the cabin, or
+the cattle, or aught that appertained to civilization. But Kirstie,
+after watching from a courteous distance a few of these strange
+interviews, wisely gave the child a little more latitude. Miranda was
+permitted to go a certain fixed distance into the wood, but never so far
+as quite to lose sight of the cabin; and this permission was only for
+such times as she was with Kroof. Kirstie knew something about wild
+animals; and she knew that the black bear, when it formed an attachment,
+was inalienably and uncalculatingly loyal to it.
+
+As sometimes happens in an affection which runs counter to the lines of
+kinship, Kroof seemed more passionately devoted to the child than she
+had been to her own cub. She would gaze with eyes of rapture, her mouth
+hanging half open in foolish fondness, while Miranda, playing about her,
+acquired innumerable secrets of forest-lore. Whatsoever Miranda wanted
+her to do, she would strive to do, as soon as she could make out what it
+was; for, in truth, Miranda's speech, though very pleasant to her ear,
+was not very intelligible to her brain. On one point, however, she was
+inflexible. Perhaps for a distance of thrice her own length she would
+follow Miranda out into the clearing, but farther than that she would
+not go. Persuasions, petulance, argument, tears--Miranda tried them all,
+but in vain. When Miranda tried going behind and pushing, or going in
+front and pulling, the beast liked it, and her eyes would blink
+humorously. But her mind was made up. This obstinacy, so disappointing
+to Miranda, met with Kirstie's unqualified but unexpressed approval. She
+did not want Kroof's ponderous bulk hanging about the house or loafing
+around and getting in the way when she was at work in the fields.
+
+Though Kroof was averse to civilization, she was at the same time
+sagacious enough to see that she could not have Miranda always with her
+in the woods. She knew very well that the tall woman with red on her
+head was a very superior and mysterious kind of animal,--and that
+Miranda was her cub,--a most superior kind of cub, and always to be
+regarded with a secret awe, but still a cub, and belonging to the tall
+woman. Therefore she was not aggrieved when she found that she could not
+have Miranda with her in the woods for more than an hour or two at a
+time. In that hour or two, however, much could be done; and Kroof tried
+to teach Miranda many things which it is held good to know among the
+folk of the ancient wood. She would sniff at the mould and dig up
+sweet-smelling roots; and Miranda, observing the stems and leaves of
+them, soon came to know all the edible roots of the neighbourhood. Kroof
+showed her, also, the delicate dewberry, the hauntingly delicious
+capillaire, hidden under its trailing vines, the insipidly sweet Indian
+pear, and the harmless but rather cotton-woolly partridge-berry; and she
+taught her to shun the tempting purple fruit of the trillium, as well as
+the deadly snake-berry. The blueberry, dear alike to bears and men, did
+not grow in the heavy-timbered forest, but Miranda had known that fruit
+well from those earliest days in the Settlement, when she had so often
+stained her mouth with blueberry pie. As for the scarlet clusters of the
+pigeon-berry, carpeting the hillocks of the pasture, Miranda needed no
+teaching from Kroof to know that these were good. Then, there were all
+sorts of forest fungi, of many shapes and colours,--white, pink,
+delicate yellow, shining orange covered with warts, creamy drab, streaky
+green, and even strong crimson. Toadstools, Miranda called them at
+first, with indiscriminating dread and aversion. But Kroof taught her
+better. Some, indeed, the red ones and the warty ones in particular, the
+wise animal would dash to pieces with her paw; and these Miranda
+understood to be bad. In fact, their very appearance had something
+ominous in it, and to Miranda's eye they had _poison_ written all over
+them in big letters. But there was one very white and dainty-looking,
+sweet-smelling fungus which she would have sworn to as virtuous. As soon
+as she saw it, she thought of a peculiarly shy mushroom (she loved
+mushrooms), and ran to pick it up in triumph. But Kroof thrust her aside
+with such rudeness that she fell over a stump, much offended. Her
+indignation died away, however, as she saw Kroof tearing and stamping
+the pale mushrooms to minutest fragments, with every mark of loathing.
+From this Miranda gathered that the beautiful toadstool was a very
+monster of crime. It was, indeed; for it was none other than the deadly
+amanita, one small morsel of which would have hushed Miranda into the
+sleep which does not wake.
+
+Though Miranda was safe under Kroof's tutelage, it was perhaps just as
+well for her at that period of her youth that she was forbidden to stray
+from the clearing. For there was, indeed, one tribe among the folk of
+the wood against whose anger Kroof's protection would have very little
+availed. Had Miranda gone roaming, she and Kroof, they might have found
+a bee tree. It is doubtful if Kroof's sagacity would have told her that
+Miranda's skin was not adequate to an enterprise against bee trees. The
+zealous bear would have probably wanted honey for the child, and the
+result would have been such as to shake Kirstie's confidence in Kroof's
+judgment.
+
+There were, however, several well-inhabited ant-logs in that narrow
+circuit which Miranda was allowed to tread, and on a certain afternoon
+Kroof discovered one of these. She was much pleased. Here was a chance
+to show Miranda something very nice and very good for her health. Having
+attracted the child's attention, she ripped the rotten log to its heart,
+and began licking up the swarming insects and plump white larv�
+together. Here was a treat; but the incomprehensible Miranda, with a
+shuddering scream, ran away. Kroof was bewildered. She finished the
+ants, however, while she was about it. Whereafter she was called upon to
+hear a long lecture from Miranda, to the effect that ants were not good
+to eat, and that it was very cruel to tear open their nests and steal
+their eggs. Of course, as Kroof did not at all understand what she was
+driving at, there was no room for an argument; which, considering the
+points involved, is much to be regretted.
+
+Though Miranda had now, so to speak, the freedom of the wood, she was
+not really intimate with any of the furtive folk, saving only, of
+course, the irrepressible squirrels who lived in the cabin roof. She saw
+the wild creatures now very close at hand, and they went about their
+business under her eye without concern. They realized that it was no use
+trying with her their game of invisibility. No matter how perfect their
+stillness, no matter how absolutely they made themselves one with their
+surroundings, they felt her clear, unwavering, friendly eyes look them
+through and through. This was at first a troubling mystery to them. Who
+was this youngling,--for youth betrays itself even to the most primitive
+perceptions,--who, for all her youth, set their traditions and elaborate
+devices so easily at naught? Their instincts told them, however, that
+she was no foe to the weakest of them; and so they let her see them at
+their affairs unabashed, though avoiding her with a kind of careful awe.
+
+Kroof, too, they all avoided, but with a difference. They knew that she
+was not averse to an occasional meal of flesh meat, but that she would
+not greatly trouble herself in pursuit of it. All they had to do, these
+lesser folk of the wood, was to keep at a safe distance from the sweep
+of her mighty paw, and they felt at ease in her neighbourhood. All but
+the hare--_he_ knew that Kroof considered him and his long-eared
+children a special delicacy, well worth the effort of a bear. Miranda
+wondered why she could never see anything of the hare when she was out
+with Kroof. She did see him sometimes, indeed; but always at a distance,
+and for an instant only. On these occasions, Kroof did not see him at
+all; and Miranda soon came to realize that she could see more clearly
+than even the furtive folk themselves. They could hide themselves from
+each other by stillness and by self-effacement; but Miranda's eyes
+always inexorably distinguished the ruddy fox from the yellow-brown,
+rotten log on which he flattened himself. She instantly differentiated
+the moveless nuthatch from the knot on the trunk, the squatting grouse
+from the lichened stone, the wood-mouse from the curled brown leaf, the
+crouching wild-cat from the mottled branch. Consequently the furtive
+folk gradually began to pay her the tribute of ignoring her, which meant
+that they trusted her to let them alone. They kept their reserve; but
+under her interested scrutiny the nuthatch would walk up the
+rough-barked pine trunk and pick insects out from under the grey scales;
+the golden-winged woodpecker would hunt down the fat, white grubs which
+he delighted in, and hammer sharply on the dead wood a few feet above
+her head; the slim, brown stoat would chase beetles among the tree
+roots, untroubled by her discreet proximity; the beruffed cock-grouse
+would drum from the top of his stump till the air was full of the soft
+thunder of his vauntings, and his half-grown brood would dust themselves
+in the deserted ant-hill in the sunniest corner of the clearing. Only
+the pair of crows which, seeing great opportunities about the reoccupied
+clearing, had taken up their dwelling in the top of a tall spruce close
+behind the cabin, held suspiciously aloof from Miranda. They often
+talked her over, in harsh tones that jarred the ancient stillness; and
+they considered her intimacy with Kroof altogether contrary to the order
+of things. Being themselves exemplars of duplicity, they were quite
+convinced that Miranda had ulterior motives, too deep for them to
+fathom; and they therefore respected her immensely. But they did not
+trust her, of course. The shy rain-birds, however, trusted her, and
+would whistle to each other their long, melancholy calls foretelling
+rain, even though she were standing within a few steps of them, and
+staring at them with all her might; and this was a most unheard-of
+favour on the part of the rain-birds, who are too reticent to let
+themselves be heard when any one is near enough to see them. There might
+be three or four uttering their slow, inexpressibly pathetic cadences
+all around the clearing; but Kirstie could never catch a glimpse of
+them, though many a time she listened with deep longing in her heart as
+their remote voices thrilled across the dewy oncoming of the dusk.
+
+Miranda saw the panther only once again that year. It was about a month
+after her meeting with Kroof. She was alone, just upon the edge of the
+buckwheat field, and peering into the shadowy, transparent stillness to
+see what she could see. What she saw sent her little heart straight up
+into her mouth. There, not a dozen paces from her, lying flat along a
+fallen tree, was the panther. He was staring at her, with his eyes half
+shut. Startled though she was, Miranda's experience with Kroof had made
+her very self-confident. She stood moveless, staring back into those
+dangerous, half-shut eyes. After a moment or two the beautiful beast
+arose and stretched himself with great deliberation, reaching out and
+digging in his claws, as an ordinary cat does when it stretches. At the
+same time he yawned prodigiously, so that it seemed to Miranda he would
+surely split to his ears, and she looked right into his great pink
+throat. Then he stepped lightly down from the tree,--on the side
+farthest from Miranda,--and walked away with the air of not wishing to
+intrude.
+
+This same summer, too, so momentous in its events, Miranda first met
+Wapiti, the delicate-antlered buck, and Ganner, the big Canada lynx.
+Needless to say, they were not in company. One morning, as she sat in a
+fence corner, absorbed in building a little house of twigs around a sick
+butterfly, she heard a loud snort just at her elbow. Much startled, she
+gave a little cry as she looked up, and something jumped back from the
+fence. She saw a bright brown head, crowned with splendid, many-pronged
+antlers, and a pair of large, liquid eyes looking at her with mild
+wonder.
+
+"Oh, you _be-autiful_ deer, did I frighten you?" she cried, knowing the
+visitor by pictures she had seen; and she poked her little hand through
+the fence in greeting. The buck seemed very curious about the scarlet
+ribbon at her neck, and eyed it steadily for half a minute. Then he came
+close up to the fence again, and sniffed her hand with his fine black
+nostrils, opening and closing them sensitively. He let her stroke his
+smooth muzzle, and held his head quite still under the caressing of her
+hand. Then some unusual sound caught his ear. It was Kirstie hoeing
+potatoes near by; and presently the furrow she was following brought her
+into view behind the corner of the barn. The scarlet kerchief on her
+hair flamed hotly in the sun. The buck raised his head high, and stared,
+and finally seemed to decide that the apparition was a hostile one. With
+a snort, and an impatient stamp of his polished hoof, he wheeled about
+and trotted off into the wood.
+
+Her introduction to Ganner, the lynx, was under less gracious auspices.
+
+Michael, the calf, who had been growing excellently all summer, was kept
+tethered during the daytime to a stake in a corner of the wild-grass
+meadow, about fifty yards from the edge of the forest. A little nearer
+the cabin was a long thicket of blackberry brakes and elder bushes and
+wild clematis, forming a dense tangle, in which Miranda had, with great
+pains and at the cost of terrific scratches, formed herself a delectable
+hiding-place. Here she would play house, and sometimes take a nap, in
+the hot mornings, while her mother would be at work acres away, at the
+very opposite side of the clearing.
+
+One day, about eleven in the morning, Michael was lying at the limit of
+her tether nearest the cabin, when she saw a strange beast come out of
+the forest and halt to look at her. The animal was of a greyish rusty
+brown, very pale on the belly and neck, and nearly as tall as Michael
+herself; but its body was curiously short in proportion to the length of
+its powerful legs. It had a perfectly round face, with round glaring
+eyes, long stiff black tufts on the tips of its sharp-pointed ears, and
+a fierce-looking, whitish brown whisker brushed away, as it were, from
+under its chin. Its tail was a mere thick, brown stump of a tail,
+looking as if it had been chopped off short. The creature gazed all
+around, warily; then crouched low, its hind quarters rather higher in
+the air than its fore shoulders, and stepping softly, came straight for
+Michael.
+
+[Illustration: She sprang up, . . . her whole weight straining on the
+tether]
+
+Inexperienced as Michael was, she knew that this was nothing less than
+death itself approaching her. She sprang up, her awkward legs spread
+wide apart, her whole weight straining on the tether, her eyes, rolling
+white, fixed in horror on the dreadful object. From her throat came a
+long, shrill bleat of appeal and despair.
+
+There was no mistaking that cry. It brought Miranda from her playhouse
+in an instant. In the next instant she took in the situation. "Mother!
+_Mothe-e-er!_" she screamed at the top of her voice, and flew to the
+defence of her beloved Michael.
+
+The lynx, at this unexpected interference, stopped short. Miranda did
+not look formidable, and he was not alarmed by any means. But she looked
+unusual,--and that bit of bright red at her throat might mean something
+which he did not understand,--and there was something not quite natural,
+something to give him pause, in a youngster displaying this reckless
+courage. For a second or two, therefore, he sat straight up like a cat,
+considering; and his tufted ears the while, very erect, with the strange
+whiskers under his chin, gave him an air that was fiercely dignified.
+His hesitation, however, was but for a moment. Satisfied that Miranda
+did not count, he came on again, more swiftly; and Miranda, seeing that
+she had failed to frighten him away, just flung her arms around
+Michael's neck and screamed.
+
+The scream should have reached Kirstie's ear across the whole breadth of
+the clearing; but a flaw of wind carried it away, and the cabin
+intervened to dull its edge. Other ears than Kirstie's, however, heard
+it; heard, too, and understood Michael's bleating. The black-and-white
+cow was far away, in another pasture. (Kirstie saw her running
+frantically up and down along the fence, and thought the flies were
+tormenting her.) But just behind the thicket lay the two steers, Bright
+and Star, contemplatively chewing their midday cud. Both had risen
+heavily to their feet at Michael's first appeal. As Miranda's scream
+rang out, Bright's sorrel head appeared around the corner of the
+thicket, anxious to investigate. He stopped at sight of Ganner, held his
+muzzle high in air, snorted loudly, and shook his head with a great show
+of valour. Immediately after him came Star, the black-and-white brindle.
+But of a different temper was he. The moment his eyes fell upon
+Michael's foe and Miranda's, down went his long, straight horns, up went
+his brindled tail, and with a bellow of rage he charged.
+
+The gaunt steer was an antagonist whom Ganner had no stomach to face.
+With an angry snarl, which showed Miranda a terrifying set of white
+teeth in a very red mouth, he turned his stump of a tail, laid flat his
+tufted ears, and made for the forest with long, splendid leaps, his
+exaggerated hind legs seeming to volley him forward like a ball. In
+about five seconds he was out of sight among the trees; and Star,
+snorting and switching his tail, stood pawing the turf haughtily in
+front of Miranda and Michael.
+
+It was Miranda who named the big lynx "Ganner" that day; because, as she
+told her mother afterward, that was what he said when Star came and
+drove him away.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter VIII
+                             Axe and Antler
+
+
+The next winter went by in the main much like the former one. But more
+birds came to be fed as the season advanced, because Miranda's fame had
+gone abroad amongst them. The snow was not so deep, the cold not so
+severe. No panther came again to claw at their roof by night. But there
+were certain events which made the season stand out sharply from all
+others in the eyes of both Kirstie and Miranda.
+
+Throughout December and January Wapiti, the buck, with two slim does
+accompanying him, would come and hang about the barn for several days at
+a time, nibbling at the scattered straw. With the two steers, Star and
+Bright, Wapiti was not on very good terms. They would sometimes thrust
+at him resentfully, whereupon he would jump aside, as if on springs,
+stamp twice sharply with his polished fore hoofs, and level at them the
+fourteen threatening spear points of his antlers. But the challenge
+never came to anything. As for the black-and-white cow, she seemed to
+admire Wapiti greatly, though he met her admiration with the most lofty
+indifference. One day Miranda let him and the two does lick some coarse
+salt out of a dish, after which enchanting experience all three would
+follow her straight up to the cabin door. They even took to following
+Kirstie about, which pleased and flattered her more than she would
+acknowledge to Miranda, and earned them many a cold buckwheat pancake.
+To them the cold pancakes, though leathery and tough, were a tit-bit of
+delight; but along in January they tore themselves away from such
+raptures and removed to other feeding grounds.
+
+Toward spring, to Miranda's great delight, she made acquaintance with
+Ten-Tine, the splendid bull caribou whom she had just seen the winter
+before. He and his antlered cows were migrating southward by slow
+stages. They were getting tired of the dry moss and lichen of the
+barrens which lay a week's journey northward from the clearing. They
+began to crave the young shoots of willow and poplar that would now be
+bursting with sap along the more southerly streams. Looking from the
+window one morning, before the cattle had been let out, Miranda saw
+Ten-Tine emerge from the woods and start with long, swinging strides
+across the open. His curiously flattened, leaf-like antlers lay back on
+a level with his shoulders, and his nose pointed straight before him.
+The position was just the one to enable him to go through the woods
+without getting his horns entangled. From the middle of his forehead
+projected, at right angles to the rest of the antlers, two broad, flat,
+palmated prongs, a curious enlargement of the central ones. His cows,
+whose antlers were little less splendid than his own, but lacking in the
+frontal projection, followed at his heels. In colour he was of a very
+light, whitish-drab, quite unlike the warm brown of Wapiti's coat.
+
+In passing the barn Ten-Tine caught sight of some tempting fodder, and
+stopped to try it. Kirstie's straw proved very much to the taste of the
+whole herd. While they were feeding delightedly, Miranda stole out to
+make friends with them. She took, as a tribute, a few handfuls of the
+hens' buckwheat, in a bright yellow bowl. As she approached, Ten-Tine
+lifted his fine head and eyed her curiously. Had it been the rutting
+season, he would no doubt have straightway challenged her to mortal
+combat. But now, unless he saw a wolf, a panther, or a lynx, he was
+good-tempered and inquisitive. This small creature looked harmless, and
+there was undoubtedly something quite remarkable about her. What was
+that shining thing which she held out in front of her? And what was that
+other very bright thing around her neck? He stopped feeding, and watched
+her intently, his head held in an attitude of indecision, just a little
+lower than his shoulders. The cows took a look also, and felt curious,
+but were concerned rather to satisfy their hunger than their curiosity.
+They left the matter easily to Ten-Tine.
+
+Miranda had learned many things already from her year among the folk of
+the wood. One of these things was that all the furtive folk dreaded and
+resented rough movement. Their manners were always beyond reproach. The
+fiercest of them moved ever with an aristocratic grace and poise. They
+knew the difference between swiftness and haste. All abruptness they
+abhorred. In lines of beauty they eluded their enemies. They killed in
+curves.
+
+She did not, therefore, attempt to go straight up and take Ten-Tine's
+acquaintance by storm. She paused discreetly some dozen steps away, held
+out the dish to him, and murmured her inarticulate, soft persuasions.
+Not being versed in the caribou tongue, she trusted the tones of her
+voice to reveal her good intention.
+
+Seeing that she would come no nearer, Ten-Tine's curiosity refused to be
+balked. But he was dubious, very dubious. Like Wapiti, he stamped when
+he was in doubt; but the hoofs he stamped with were much larger,
+broader, clumsier, less polished than Wapiti's, being formed for running
+over such soft surfaces as bogland and snow insufficiently packed, where
+Wapiti's trim feet would cut through like knives.
+
+Step by step he drew nearer. There was something in Miranda's clear gaze
+that gave him confidence. At length he was near enough to touch the
+yellow bowl with his flexible upper lip. He saw that the bowl contained
+something. He extended his muzzle over the rim, and, to Miranda's
+surprise, blew into it. The grain flew in every direction, some of it
+sticking to his own moist lips. He drew back, a little startled. Then he
+licked his lips; and he liked the taste. Back went his muzzle into the
+interesting bowl; and, after sniffing again very gently, he licked up
+the whole contents.
+
+"Oh, greedy!" exclaimed Miranda, in tender rebuke, and started back to
+the cabin to get him some more.
+
+"Wouldn't Saunders be cross," she thought to herself, "if he knew I was
+giving his buckwheat to the nice deer?"
+
+Ten-Tine followed close behind her, sniffing inquisitively at the red
+ribbon on her neck. When Miranda went in for the buckwheat, he tried to
+enter with her, but his antlers had too much spread for the doorway.
+Kirstie, who was busy sweeping, looked up in amazement as the great head
+darkened her door.
+
+"Drat the child!" she exclaimed; "she'll be bringing all the beasts of
+the wood in to live with us before long."
+
+She did not grudge Ten-Tine the few handfuls of buckwheat, however,
+though he blew half of it over the floor so that she had to sweep it up.
+When he had finished, and perceived that no more was forthcoming, he
+backed off reluctantly from the door and began smelling around the
+window-sill, pushing his curious nose tentatively against the glass.
+
+Now it chanced that all the way down from the barrens Ten-Tine and his
+little herd had been hungrily pursued, although they did not know it.
+Four of the great grey timber wolves were on their track. Savage but
+prudent, the wolves were unwilling to attack the herd, for they knew the
+caribou's fighting prowess. But they awaited a chance to cut off one of
+the cows and hunt her down alone. For days they had kept the trail,
+faring very scantly by the way; and now they were both ravenous and
+enraged. Emerging from the woods, they saw the five cows at feed by the
+barn, with Ten-Tine nowhere in sight. The opportunity was too rare a one
+to miss. They seized it. All four gaunt forms abreast, they came
+galloping across the snow in silence, their long, grey snouts wrinkled,
+their white fangs uncovered, their grey-and-white shoulders rising and
+falling in unison, their cloudy tails floating straight out behind them.
+
+Just in time the cows saw them coming. There was a half second of
+motionless consternation. Then nimbly they sprang into a circle, hind
+quarters bunched together, levelled antlers all pointing outward. It was
+the accurate inherited discipline of generations.
+
+Without a sound, save a deep, gasping breath, the wolves made their
+leap, striving to clear that bayonet hedge of horns. Two were hurled
+back, yelping. One brought a cow to her knees, half clear of the circle,
+his fangs in her neck, and would have finished her but that her next
+neighbour prodded him so fiercely in the flank that he let go with a
+shrill snarl. But the fourth wolf found the weak point in the circle.
+The foolish young cow upon whom he sprang went wild at once with fright.
+She broke from the ring and fled. The next instant the wolf was at her
+throat.
+
+The moment he pulled her down the other wolves sprang upon her. The rest
+of the cows, maintaining their position of defence, viewed her plight
+with considerable unconcern, doubtless holding that her folly was well
+served, and that she was worth no better end. But Ten-Tine, who had
+suddenly taken in the situation, had other views about it. To him the
+foolish young cow was most important. With a shrill note of rage, half
+bleat, half bellow, he charged down to the rescue. The first wolf he
+struck was hurled against the corner of the barn, and came limping back
+to the fray with no great enthusiasm. Upon the next he came down with
+both front feet, fairly breaking the creature's back. Instantly the
+other two fastened upon his flanks, trying to pull him down; while he,
+bounding and rearing, strove heroically to shake them off in order to
+reach them with horns and hoofs. The bleeding cow, meanwhile, struggled
+to her feet and took refuge within the dauntless circle, which rather
+grudgingly opened to admit her. For this they must not be judged too
+harshly; for in caribou eyes she had committed the crime of crimes in
+breaking ranks and exposing the whole herd to destruction.
+
+At this stage in the encounter the valiant Ten-Tine found himself in
+desperate straits; but help came from an unexpected quarter. The factor
+which the wolves had not allowed for was Kirstie Craig. At the first
+sight of them Kirstie had been filled with silent rage. She had believed
+that wolves were quite extinct throughout all the neighbouring forests;
+and now in their return she saw a perpetual menace. But at least they
+were scarce, she knew that; and on the instant she resolved that this
+little pack should meet no milder fate than extermination.
+
+"It's wolves! Don't you stir outside this door!" she commanded grimly,
+in that voice which Miranda never dreamed of disobeying. Miranda,
+trembling with excitement, her eyes wide and her cheeks white, climbed
+to the window, and flattened her face against it. Kirstie rushed out,
+slamming the door.
+
+As she passed the chopping-block, Kirstie snatched up her axe. Her fine
+face was set like iron. The black eyes blazed fury. It was a desperate
+venture, to attack three maddened wolves, with no ally to support her
+save a caribou bull; but Kirstie, as we have seen, was not a woman for
+half measures.
+
+The first sweep of that poised and practised axe caught the nearest wolf
+just behind the fore quarters, and almost shore him in two. Thus
+suddenly freed on one side, Ten-Tine wheeled like lightning to catch his
+other assailant, but the animal sprang back. In evading Ten-Tine's
+horns, he almost fell over Kirstie, who, thus balked of her full deadly
+swing, just managed to fetch him a short stroke under the jaw with the
+flat of the blade. It was enough, however, to fell him for an instant,
+and that instant was enough for Ten-Tine. Bounding into the air, the big
+caribou came down with both sharp fore hoofs, like chisels, squarely on
+the middle of his adversary's ribs. The stroke was slaughterously
+decisive. Ribs of steel could not have endured it, and in a very few
+seconds the shape of bloody grey fur upon the snow bore scant
+resemblance to a wolf.
+
+The last of the pack, who had been lamed by Ten-Tine's onslaught, had
+prudently drawn off when he saw Kirstie coming. Now he turned tail.
+Kirstie, determined that not one should escape, gave chase. She could
+run as can few women. She was bent on her grim purpose of extermination.
+At first the wolf's lameness hindered him; but just as he was about to
+turn at bay and fight dumbly to the death, after the manner of his kind,
+the effort which he had been making loosened the strained muscles, and
+he found his pace. Stretching himself out on his long gallop, he shot
+away from his pursuer as if she had been standing still.
+
+Kirstie stopped, swung her axe, and hurled it after him with all her
+strength. It struck the mark. Had it struck true, edge on, it would have
+fulfilled her utmost intention; but it struck, with the thick of the
+head, squarely upon the brute's rump. The blow sent him rolling end over
+end across the snow. He yelped with astonishment and terror; but
+recovering himself again in a second, he went bounding like a grey ball
+of fur over a brush heap, and vanished down the forest arches.
+
+When Kirstie turned round she saw Miranda, white, pitiful, and
+bewildered, in the doorway; while Ten-Tine and his cows, without waiting
+to thank her, were trotting away across the white fields, their muzzles
+thrust far forward, their antlers laid along their backs. From Ten-Tine
+himself, and from the wounded young cow, the blood dripped scarlet and
+steaming at every stride.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter IX
+                            The Pax Mirand�
+
+
+After this experience, Kirstie would have been more anxious than before
+about Miranda, had it not been for the child's remarkable friendship
+with the great she-bear. As soon as the snow was gone, and the ancient
+wood again began to lure Miranda with its mystic stillness and
+transparent twilight, Kroof reappeared, as devoted as ever. When Kroof
+was absent, the woods were to the child a forbidden realm, into which
+she could only peer with longing and watch the furtive folk with those
+initiated eyes of hers.
+
+A little later when the mosses were dry, and when the ground was well
+heartened with the fecundating heats of June, Miranda had further proof
+of her peculiar powers of vision. One day she and Kroof came upon a
+partridge hen with her new-hatched brood, at the edge of a thicket of
+young birches. The hen went flopping and fluttering off among the trees,
+as if sorely wounded; and Kroof, convinced of a speedy capture, followed
+eagerly. She gave a glance about her first, however, to see if there
+were any partridge chicks in the neighbourhood. To Miranda's
+astonishment, the wise animal saw none. But Miranda saw them distinctly.
+There they were all about her, moveless little brown balls, exactly like
+the leaves and the moss and the scattered things of the forest floor.
+Some were half hidden under a leaf or twig; some squatted in the open,
+just in the positions in which the alarm had found them. They shut their
+eyes even, to make themselves more at one with their surroundings. They
+would have endured any fate, they would have died on the spot, rather
+than move, so perfect was their baby obedience to the partridge law.
+This obedience had its reward. It gave them invisibility to all the folk
+of the wood, friends and foes alike. But there was no such thing as
+deceiving Miranda's eyes. She was not concerned about the mother
+partridge, because she saw through her pretty trick and knew that Kroof
+could never catch her. Indeed, in her innocence she did not think good
+Kroof would hurt her if she did catch her, But these moveless chicks, on
+the other hand, were interesting. One--two--three--Miranda counted ten
+of them, and there were more about somewhere, she imagined. Presently
+the mother bird came flopping around in a circle, to see how things were
+going. She saw Miranda stoop and pick up one of the precious brown
+balls, and then another, curiously but gently. In her astonishment the
+distracted bird forgot Kroof for a second, and was almost caught.
+Escaping this peril by a sudden wild dash, and realizing that from
+Miranda there was no concealment, she flew straight into the densest
+part of the thicket and gave a peremptory call. At the sound each little
+motionless ball came to life. The two that were lying as if dead on
+Miranda's outstretched palms hopped to the ground; and all darted into
+the thicket. A few low but sharply articulated clucks, and the mother
+bird led her brood off swiftly through the bush; while Kroof, somewhat
+crestfallen, came shambling back to Miranda.
+
+All this time, in spite of the affair of the wolves, the attack of
+Ganner, the lynx, on Michael, and that tell-tale spot of blood and fur
+on the snow, where the owl had torn the hare for his midnight feast,
+Miranda had regarded the folk of the ancient wood as a gentle people,
+living for the most part in a voiceless amity. Her seeing eyes quite
+failed to see the unceasing tragedy of the stillness. She did not guess
+that the furtive folk, whom she watched about their business, went
+always with fear at their side and death lying in wait at every turn.
+She little dreamed that, for most of them, the very price of life itself
+was the ceaseless extinguishing of life.
+
+It was during the summer that Miranda found her first and only flaw in
+Kroof's perfections; for Kroof she regarded as second only to her mother
+among created beings. But on one memorable day, when she ran across the
+fields to meet Kroof at the edge of the wood, the great bear was too
+much occupied to come forward as usual. She was sniffing at something on
+the ground which she held securely under one of her huge paws. Miranda
+ran forward to see what it was.
+
+To her horror it was the warm and bleeding body of a hare.
+
+She shrank back, sickened at the sight. Then, in flaming indignation she
+struck Kroof again and again in the face with the palms of her little
+hands. Kroof was astonished,--temperately astonished,--for she always
+knew Miranda was peculiar. She lifted her snout high in the air to
+escape the blows, shut her eyes, and meekly withdrew the offending paw.
+
+"Oh, Kroof, how _could_ you! I hate you, bad Kroof! You are just like
+the wolves!" cried Miranda, her little bosom bursting with wrath and
+tears. Kroof understood that she was in grievous disgrace. Carrying the
+dead hare with her, Miranda ran out into the potato patch, fetched the
+hoe, returned to the spot where the bear still sat in penitential
+contemplation, and proceeded in condemnatory silence to dig a hole right
+under Kroof's nose. Here she buried the hare, tenderly smoothing the
+ground above it. Then throwing the hoe down violently, she flung her
+arms about Kroof's neck, and burst into a passion of tears.
+
+"How _could_ you do it, Kroof?" she sobbed. "Oh, perhaps you'll be
+wanting to eat up Miranda some day!"
+
+Kroof suffered herself to be led away from the unhappy spot. Soon
+Miranda grew calm, and the painful scene seemed forgotten. The rest of
+the afternoon was spent very pleasantly in eating wild raspberries along
+the farther side of the clearing. To Kroof's mind it gradually became
+clear that her offence lay in killing the hare; and as it was obvious
+that Miranda liked hares, she resolved never to offend again in this
+respect, at least while Miranda was anywhere in the neighbourhood. After
+Miranda had gone home, however, the philosophical Kroof strolled back
+discreetly to where the hare was buried. She dug it up, and ate it with
+great satisfaction, and afterward she smoothed down the earth again,
+that Miranda might not know.
+
+After this trying episode Miranda had every reason to believe that
+Kroof's reformation was complete. Little by little, as month followed
+month, and season followed season, and year rolled into year at the
+quiet cabin in the clearing, Miranda forgot the few scenes of blood
+which had been thrust upon her. The years now little varied one from
+another; yet to Miranda the life was not monotonous. Each season was for
+her full of events, full of tranquil uneventfulness for Kirstie. The
+cabin became more homelike as currant and lilac bushes grew up around
+it, a green, sweet covert for birds, and abundant scarlet-blossomed
+bean-vines mantled the barrenness of its weathered logs. The clearing
+prospered. The stock increased. Old Dave hardly ever visited at the
+clearing but he went back laden with stuff to sell for Kirstie at the
+Settlement. Among the folk of the forest Miranda's ascendency kept on
+growing, little by little, till, though none of the beasts came to know
+her as Kroof did, they all had a tendency to follow her at respectful
+distance, without seeming to do so. They never killed in her presence,
+so that a perpetual truce, as it were, came at last to rule within
+eyeshot of her inescapable gaze. Sometimes the advent of spring would
+bring Kroof to the clearing not alone, but with a furry and jolly black
+morsel of a cub at her side. The cub never detracted in the least from
+the devotion which she paid to Miranda. It always grew up to young
+bearhood in more or less amiable tolerance of its mother's
+incomprehensible friend, only to drift away at last to other feeding
+grounds; for Kroof was absolute in her own domain, and suffered not even
+her own offspring to trespass thereon, when once they had reached
+maturity. Cubs might come, and cubs might go; but the love of Kroof and
+Miranda was a thing that rested unchanging.
+
+In the winters, Miranda now did most of the knitting, while Kirstie
+wove, on a great clacking loom, the flax which her little farm produced
+abundantly. They had decided not to keep sheep at the clearing, lest
+their presence should lure back the wolves. One warm day toward spring,
+when Old Dave, laden with an ample pack of mittens, stockings, and socks
+which Miranda's active fingers had fashioned, was slowly trudging along
+the trail on his way back to the Settlement, he became aware that a pair
+of foxes followed him. They came not very near, nor did they pay him any
+marked attention. They merely seemed to "favour his company," as he
+himself put it. He was thus curiously escorted for perhaps a mile or
+two, to his great bewilderment; for he knew no reason why he should be
+so chosen out for honour in the wood. At another time, when similarly
+burdened, Wapiti, the buck, came up and sniffed at him, very amicably.
+During the next winter, when he was carrying the same magic merchandise,
+several hares went leaping beside him, not very near, but as if seeking
+the safety of his presence. The mystery of all this weighed upon him. He
+was at first half inclined to think that he was "ha'nted"; but
+fortunately he took thought to examine the tracks, and so assured
+himself that his inexplicable companions were of real flesh and blood.
+Nevertheless, he found himself growing shy of his periodical journeyings
+through the wood, and at last he opened his mind to Kirstie on the
+subject.
+
+Kirstie was amused in her grave way.
+
+"Why, Dave," she explained, "didn't you know Miranda was that thick with
+the wild things she's half wild herself? Weren't you carrying a lot of
+Miranda's knit stuff when the creatures followed you?"
+
+"That's so, Kirstie!" was the old lumberman's reply. "I recollec' as how
+the big buck kep' a-sniffin' at my pack of socks an' mits, too!"
+
+"They were some of Miranda's friends; and when they smelled of those
+mits they thought she was somewhere around, or else they knew you must
+be a friend of hers."
+
+Thenceforward Old Dave always looked for something of a procession in
+his honour whenever he carried Miranda's knittings to the Settlement;
+and he was intensely proud of the distinction. He talked about it among
+his gossips, of course; and therefore a lot of strange stories began to
+circulate. It was said by some that Kirstie and Miranda held converse
+with the beasts in plain English such as common mortals use, and knew
+all the secrets of the woods, and much besides that "humans" have no
+call to know. By others, more superstitious and fanatical, it was
+whispered that no mere animals formed the circle of Kirstie's
+associates, but that spirits, in the guise of hares, foxes, cats,
+panthers, bears, were her familiars at the solitary cabin. Such
+malicious tales cost Old Dave many a bitter hour, as well as more than
+one sharp combat, till the gossips learned to keep a bridle on their
+tongues when he was by. As for Young Dave, he had let the clearing and
+all its affairs drop from his mind, and, betaking himself to a wild
+region to the north of the Quah-Davic, was fast making his name as a
+hunter and trapper. He came but seldom to the Settlement, and when he
+came he had small ear for the Settlement scandals. His mind was growing
+large, and quiet, and tolerant, among the great solitudes.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter X
+                     The Routing of the Philistines
+
+
+In the seventh year of Kirstie's exile, something occurred which gave
+the Settlement gossip a fresh impulse, and added a colour of awe to the
+mystery which surrounded the clearing.
+
+The winter changed to a very open one, so that long before spring Kroof
+awoke in her lair under the pine root. There was not enough snow to keep
+her warm and asleep. But the ground was frozen, food was scarce, and she
+soon became hungry. Miranda observed her growing leanness, and tried the
+experiment of bringing her a mess of boiled beans from the cabin pot. To
+the hungry bear the beans were a revelation. She realized that Miranda's
+mother was in some way connected with the experience, and her long
+reserve melted away in the warmth of her responsive palate. The next
+day, about noon, as Kirstie and Miranda were sitting down to their meal,
+Kroof appeared at the cabin door and sniffed longingly at the threshold.
+
+"What's that sniffing at the door?" wondered Kirstie, with some
+uneasiness in her grave voice. But Miranda had flown at once to the
+window to look out.
+
+"Why, mother, it's Kroof!" she cried, clapping her hands with delight,
+and before her mother could say a word, she had thrown the door wide
+open. In shambled the bear forthwith, blinking her shrewd little eyes.
+She seated herself on her haunches, near the table, and gazed with
+intent curiosity at the fire. At this moment a dry stick snapped and
+crackled sharply, whereupon she backed off to a safer distance, but
+still kept her eyes upon the strange phenomenon.
+
+Both Kirstie and Miranda had been watching her with breathless interest,
+to see how she would comport herself, but now Miranda broke silence.
+
+"Oh! you dear old Kroof, we're so glad you've come at last to see us!"
+she cried, rushing over and flinging both arms around the animal's neck.
+Kirstie's face looked a doubtful indorsement of the welcome. Kroof paid
+no attention to Miranda's caresses beyond a hasty lick at her ear, and
+continued to study the fascinating flames. This quietness of demeanour
+reassured Kirstie, whose hospitality thereupon asserted itself.
+
+"Give the poor thing some buckwheat cakes, Miranda," she said. "I'm sure
+she's come because she's hungry."
+
+Miranda preferred to think the visit was due to no such interested
+motives; but she at once took up a plate of cakes which she had drenched
+in molasses for the requirements of her own taste. She set the plate on
+the edge of the table nearest to her visitor, and gently pulled the
+bear's snout down toward it. No second invitation was needed. The fire
+was forgotten. The enchanting smell of buckwheat cakes and molasses was
+a new one to Kroof's nostrils, but the taste for it was there, full
+grown and waiting. Out went her narrow red tongue. The cakes disappeared
+rather more rapidly than was consistent with good manners: the molasses
+was deftly licked up, and with a grin of rapture she looked about for
+more. Just in front of Kirstie stood a heaping dish of the dainties hot
+from the griddle. With an eager but tentative paw Kroof reached out for
+them. This was certainly not manners. Kirstie removed the dish beyond
+her reach, while Miranda firmly pushed the trespassing paw from the
+table.
+
+"No, Kroof, you shan't have any more at all, unless you are good!" she
+admonished, with hortatory finger uplifted.
+
+There are few animals so quick to take a hint as the bear, and Kroof's
+wits had grown peculiarly alert during her long intimacy with Miranda.
+She submitted with instant meekness, and waited, with tongue hanging
+out, while Miranda prepared her a huge bowl of bread and molasses. When
+she had eaten this, she investigated everything about the cabin, and
+finally went to sleep on a mat in the corner of the inner room. Before
+sundown she got up and wandered off to her lair, being still drowsy with
+winter sleep.
+
+After this the old bear came daily at noon to the cabin, dined with
+Kirstie and Miranda, and dozed away the afternoon on her mat in the
+chosen corner. Kirstie came to regard her as a member of the household.
+To the cattle and the poultry she paid no attention whatever. In a few
+days the oxen ceased to lower their horns as she passed; and the cock,
+Saunders's equally haughty successor, refrained from the shrill
+expletives of warning with which he had been wont to herald her
+approach.
+
+One afternoon, before spring had fairly set in, there came two unwelcome
+visitors to the cabin. In a lumber-camp some fifteen miles away, on a
+branch of the Quah-Davic, there had been trouble. Two of the "hands,"
+surly and mutinous all winter, had at last, by some special brutality,
+enraged the "boss" and their mates beyond all pardon. Hooted and beaten
+from the camp, they had started through the woods by the shortest road
+to the Settlement. Their hearts were black with pent-up fury. About
+three o'clock in the afternoon, they happened upon the clearing, and
+demanded something to eat.
+
+Though sullen, and with a kind of menace in their air, their words were
+civil enough at first, and Kirstie busied herself to supply what seemed
+to her their just demands. The laws of hospitality are very binding in
+the backwoods. Miranda, meanwhile, not liking the looks of the
+strangers, kept silently aloof and scrutinized them.
+
+When Kirstie had set before them a good meal,--hot tea, and hot boiled
+beans, and eggs, and white bread and butter,--they were disappointed
+because she gave them no pork, and they were not slow to demand it.
+
+"I've got none," said Kirstie; "we don't eat pork here. You ought to get
+along well enough on what's good enough for Miranda and me."
+
+For a backwoods house to be without pork, the indispensable, the
+universal, the lumberman's staff of life, was something unheard of. They
+both thought she was keeping back the pork out of meanness.
+
+"You lie!" exclaimed one, a lean, short, swarthy ruffian. The other got
+up and took a step toward the woman, where she stood, dauntlessly eying
+them. His scrubby red beard bristled, his massive shoulders hunched
+themselves ominously toward his big ears.
+
+"You git that pork, and be quick about it!" he commanded, with the
+addition of such phrases of emphasis as the lumberman uses, but does not
+use in the presence of women.
+
+"Beast!" exclaimed Kirstie, eyes and cheeks flaming. "Get out of this
+house." And she glanced about for a weapon. But in a second the ruffian
+had seized her. Though stronger than most men, she was no match for
+him--a noted bully and a cunning master of the tricks of the ring. She
+was thrown in a second. Miranda, with a scream of rage, snatched up a
+table knife and darted to her mother's aid; but the shorter ruffian, now
+delighted with the game, shouted: "Settle the old woman, Bill. I'll see
+to the gal!" and made a grab for Miranda.
+
+It had all happened so suddenly that Kirstie was, for a moment, stunned.
+Then, realizing the full horror of the situation, a strength as of
+madness came upon her. She set her teeth into the wrist of her assailant
+with such fury that he yelled and for a second loosed his hold. In that
+second, tearing herself half free, she clutched his throat with her long
+and powerful fingers. It was only an instant's respite, but it was
+enough to divert the other scoundrel's attention from Miranda. With a
+huge laugh he turned to free his mate from that throttling grip.
+
+His purpose was never fulfilled. Kroof, just at this instant, thrust her
+nose from the door of the inner room, half awake, and wondering at the
+disturbance. Her huge bulk was like a nightmare. The swarthy wretch
+stood for an instant spellbound in amazement. With a savage growl, Kroof
+launched herself at him, and he, darting around the table, wrenched the
+door open and fled.
+
+[Illustration: He ran wildly over the snow patches]
+
+The other miscreant, though well occupied with Kirstie's mad grip at his
+throat, had seen, from the corner of his eyes, that black monster emerge
+like fate and charge upon his comrade. To him, Kroof looked as big as an
+ox. With a gasping curse he tore himself free; and, hurling Kirstie half
+across the table, he rushed from the cabin. His panic was lest the
+monster should return and catch him, like a rat in a pit, where there
+was no chance of escape.
+
+As a matter of fact, Kroof _was_ just returning, with an angry
+realization that her foe could run faster than she could. And lo! here
+was another of the same breed in the very doorway before her. As she
+confronted him, his eyes nearly started from his head. With a yell he
+dodged past, nimble as a loon's neck. Savagely she struck out at him
+with her punishing paw. Had she caught him, there would have been one
+rogue the fewer, and blood on the cabin threshold. But she missed, and
+he went free. He ran wildly over the snow patches in pursuit of his
+fleeing comrade; while Kroof, all a-bristle with indignation, hurried
+into the cabin, to be hugged and praised with grateful tears by Kirstie
+and Miranda.
+
+When the first of the fugitives, the lean and swarthy one, reached the
+edge of the woods, he paused to look back. There was no one following
+but his comrade, who came up a moment later and clutched at him, panting
+heavily. Neither, for a minute or two, had breath for any word but a
+broken curse. The big, bristly scoundrel called Bill was bleeding at the
+wrist from Kirstie's bite, and his throat, purple and puffed, bore
+witness to the strength of Kirstie's fingers. The other had got off scot
+free. The two stared at each other, cowed and discomfited.
+
+"Ever see the likes o' that?" queried Bill, earnestly.
+
+"Be damned ef 'twan't the devil himself!" asseverated his companion.
+
+"Oh, hell! 'twere jest a b'ar!" retorted Bill, in a tone of would-be
+derision. "But bigger'n a steer! _I_ don't want none of it!"
+
+"B'ar er devil, what's the odds? Let's git, says I!" was the response;
+and simultaneously the two lifted their eyes to observe the sun and get
+their bearings. But it was not the sun they saw. Their jaws fell. Their
+hair rose. For a moment they stood rooted to the ground in abject
+horror.
+
+Right above their heads, crouched close upon the vast up-sloping limb of
+a hoary pine, lay a panther, looking down upon them with fixed, dilating
+stare. They saw his claws, protruding, and set firmly into the bark.
+They saw the backward, snarling curl of his lips as his head reached
+down toward them over the edge of his perch. For several choking
+heart-beats the picture bit itself into their coarse brains; then, with
+a gurgling cry that came as one voice from the two throats, both sprang
+aside like hares and ran wildly down the trail.
+
+Within a few hours of their arrival at the Settlement, this was the
+story on all lips,--that Kirstie's cabin was guarded by familiars, who
+could take upon themselves at will the form of bear, panther, wolf, or
+mad bull moose, for the terrorizing of such travellers as might chance
+to trespass upon that unholy solitude. The Settlement held a few
+superstitious souls who believed this tale; while the rest pretended to
+believe it because it gave them something to talk about. No one, in
+fact, was at all the worse for it, except the ruffian called Bill, who,
+on one of Young Dave's rare visits to the Settlement, got into an
+argument with him on the subject, and incidentally got a licking.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter XI
+                         Miranda and Young Dave
+
+
+After this the cabin in the clearing ran small risk of marauders. To the
+most sceptical homespun philosopher in the Settlement it seemed obvious
+that Kirstie and Miranda had something mysterious about them, and had
+forsaken their kind for the fellowship of the furtive kin. No one but
+Old Dave had any relish for a neighbourhood where bears kept guard, and
+lynxes slily frequented, and caribou bulls of a haughty temper made
+themselves free of the barnyard. As for Young Dave, unwilling to fall
+foul of the folk who were so friendly to Kirstie and Miranda, he carried
+his traps, his woodcraft, and his cunning rifle to a tract more remote
+from the clearing.
+
+Thus it came that Miranda grew to womanhood with no human companion but
+her mother. To her mother she stood so close that the two assimilated
+each other, as it were. Such education as Kirstie possessed, and such
+culture, narrow but significant, were Miranda's by absorption. For the
+rest, the quiet folk of the wood insensibly moulded her, and the great
+silences, and the wide wonder of the skies at night, and the solemnity
+of the wind. At seventeen she was a woman, mature beyond her years, but
+strange, with an elfish or a faun-like strangeness: as if a soul not all
+human dwelt in her human shape. Silent, wild, unsmiling, her sympathies
+were not with her own kind, but with the wild and silent folk who know
+not the sweetness of laughter. Yet she was given to moods of singing
+mirth, at long intervals; and her tenderness toward all pain, her horror
+of blood, were things equally alien to the wilderness creatures, her
+associates. It was doubtless this unbridgable divergence, combining with
+her sympathy and subtle comprehension, which secured her mysterious
+ascendency in the forest; for by this time it would never have occurred
+to her to step aside even for a panther or a bull moose in his fury.
+Something, somehow, in the air about her, told all the creatures that
+she was supreme.
+
+In appearance, Miranda was a contrast to her mother, though her
+colouring was almost the same. Miranda was a little less than middle
+height, slender, graceful, fine-boned, small of hand and foot,
+delicate-featured, her skin toned with the clear browns of health and
+the open air and the matchless cosmetic of the sun. Her abundance of
+bronze-black hair, shot with flame-glints wheresoever the sunlight
+struck it, came down low over a broad, low forehead. Her eyes, in which,
+as we have seen, lay very much of her power over the folk of the wood,
+were very large and dark. They possessed a singular transparency, akin
+to the magical charm of the forest shadows. There was something unreal
+and haunting in this inexplicable clarity of her gaze, something of that
+mystery which dwells in the reflections of a perfect mirror of water.
+Her nose, straight and well modelled, was rather large than small, with
+nostrils alertly sensitive to discern all the wilding savours, the
+clean, personal scents of the clean-living creatures of the wood, and
+even those inexpressibly elusive perfume-heralds which, on certain days,
+come upon the air, forerunning the changes of the seasons. Her mouth was
+large, but not too large for beauty, neither thin nor full, of a vivid
+scarlet, mobile and mutable, yet firm, and with the edges of the lips
+exactly defined. Habitually reposeful and self-controlled in movement,
+like her mother, her repose suggested that of a bird poised upon the
+wing, liable at any instant to incalculable celerities; while that of
+Kirstie was like the calm of a hill with the eternal disrupting fire at
+its heart. The scarlet ribbon which Miranda the woman, like Miranda the
+child, wore always about her neck, seemed in her the symbol of an
+ineradicable strangeness of spirit, while Kirstie's scarlet kerchief
+expressed but the passion which burned perennial beneath its wearer's
+quietude.
+
+Being in all respects natural and unselfconscious, it is not to be
+wondered at that Miranda was inconsistent. The truce which she had
+created about her--the _pax Mirand�_--had so long kept her eyes from the
+hated sight of blood that she had forgotten death, and did not more than
+half believe in pain. Nevertheless she was still a shaft of doom to the
+trout in the lake and river. Fishing was a delight to her. It satisfied
+some fierce instinct inherited from her forefathers, which she never
+thought to analyze. The musical rushing of the stream; the foam and
+clamour of the shallow falls; the deep, black, gleaming pools with the
+roots of larch and hemlock overhanging; the sullen purple and amber of
+the eddies with their slowly swirling patches of froth,--all these
+allured her, though with a threat. And then the stealthy casting of the
+small, baited hook or glittering fly, the tense expectancy, the
+electrifying tug upon the line, the thrill, the exultation of the
+landing, and the beauty of the spotted prey, silver and vermilion, on
+the olive carpet of the moss! It hardly occurred to her that they were
+breathing, sentient creatures, these fish of the pools. She would
+doubtless have resented the idea of any kinship between herself and
+these cold inhabiters of a hostile element. In fact, Miranda was very
+close to nature, and she could not escape her part in nature's never
+ceasing war of opposites.
+
+Late one afternoon in summer Miranda was loitering homeward from the
+stream with a goodly string of trout. It was a warm day and windless,
+and the time of year not that which favours the fisherman. But in those
+cold waters the fish will rise even in July and August, and Miranda's
+bait, or Miranda's home-tied fly, was always a killing lure to them. She
+carried her catch--one gaping-jawed two-pounder, and a half dozen
+smaller victims--strung through the crimson gills on a forked branch of
+alder. Her dark face was flushed; her hair (she never wore a hat) was
+dishevelled; her eyes were very wide and abstracted, taking in the
+varied shadows,--the boulders, the markings on the bark of the tree
+trunks, the occasional flickering moths, and the solemn little brown owl
+that sat in the cleft of the pine tree, yet seeming to see not these but
+something within or beyond them.
+
+Suddenly, however, they were arrested by a sight which scattered their
+abstraction. Their focus seemed to shorten, their expression
+concentrated to a strained intensity, then lightened to a greyness with
+anger as she took a hasty step forward, and paused, uncertain for a
+moment what to do.
+
+Before her was a little open glade, full of sun, secure and inviting. At
+its farther edge a thick-branched, low beech tree, reaching out from the
+confusion of trunks and vistas, cast a pleasant differentiated shade.
+Here in this shade a young man lay sleeping, sprawled carelessly, his
+head on one arm. He was tall, gaunt, clad in grey homespuns and a
+well-worn buckskin jacket. His red-brown hair was cut somewhat short,
+his light yellow moustache, long and silky, looked the lighter by
+contrast with the ruddy tan of his face. His rifle leaned against the
+tree near by, while he slept the luxurious sleep of an idle summer
+afternoon.
+
+But not five paces away crouched an immense panther, flattened to the
+ground, watching him.
+
+The beast was ready, at the first movement or sign of life, to spring
+upon the sleeper's throat. Its tail rigidly outstretched, twitched
+slightly at the tip. Its great, luminous eyes were so intently fixed
+upon the anticipated prey that it did not see Miranda's quiet approach.
+
+To the girl the sleeper seemed something very beautiful, in the
+impersonal way that a splendid flower, or a tall young tree in the open,
+or the scarlet-and-pearl of sunrise is beautiful--not a thing as near to
+herself as the beasts of the wood, whom she knew. But she was filled
+with strange, protective fury at the thought of peril to this
+interesting creature. Her hesitation was but for a moment. She knew the
+ferocity of the panther very well, and trembled lest the sleeper should
+move, or twitch a muscle. She stepped up close to his side, and fixed
+the animal's eyes with her disconcerting gaze.
+
+"Get off!" she ordered sharply, with a gesture of command.
+
+The beast had doubtless a very plentiful ignorance of the English
+language, but gesture is a universal speech. He understood it quite
+clearly. He faced her eye, and endured it for some seconds, being minded
+to dispute its authority. Then his glance shifted, his whole attitude
+changed. He rose from his crouching posture, his tail drooped, his
+tension relaxed, he looked back over his shoulder, then turned and
+padded furtively away. Just as he was leaving, the man awoke with a
+start, sat up, gave one wondering look at Miranda, caught sight of the
+panther's retreating form, and reached for his rifle.
+
+Quick as light, Miranda intervened. Stepping between his hand and its
+purpose, she flamed out against him with sudden anger.
+
+"How dare you--go to shoot him!" she cried, her voice trembling.
+
+He had sprung to his feet, and was staring at her flushed face with a
+mixture of admiration and bewilderment.
+
+"But he was goin' to jump onto me!" he protested.
+
+"Well," rejoined Miranda, curtly, "he didn't! And you've got no call to
+shoot him!"
+
+"Why didn't he?" asked the young man.
+
+"I drove him off. If I'd thought you'd shoot him, I'd have _let_ him
+jump onto you," was the cool reply.
+
+"Why didn't he jump onto _you_?" asked the stranger, his keen grey eyes
+lighting up as if he began to understand the situation.
+
+"Because he durs'n't,--and he wouldn't want to, neither!"
+
+"I calculate," said the stranger, holding out his hand, while a smile
+softened the thoughtful severity of his face, "that you must be little
+Mirandy."
+
+"My name _is_ Miranda," she answered, ignoring the outstretched hand;
+"but I'm sure I don't know who you are, coming here into my woods to
+kill my friends."
+
+"I wouldn't hurt a hair of 'em!" he asserted, with a mingling of fervour
+and amusement. "But ain't I one o' your friends, too, Mirandy? I used to
+be, anyway."
+
+He took a step nearer, still holding out a pleading hand. Miranda drew
+back, and put her hands behind her. "I don't know you," she persisted,
+but now with something of an air of wilfulness rather than of hostility.
+Old memories had begun to stir in forgotten chambers of her brain.
+
+"You _used_ to be friends with Young Dave," he said, in an eager half
+whisper. Miranda's beauty and the strangeness of it were getting into
+his long-untroubled blood.
+
+The girl at once put out her hand with a frank kindness. "Oh, I
+remember!" she said. "You've been a long time forgetting us, haven't
+you? But never mind. Come along with me to the clearing, and see mother,
+and get some supper."
+
+Dave flushed with pleasure at the invitation.
+
+"Thank ye kindly, Mirandy, I reckon I will," said he; and stepping to
+one side he picked up his rifle. But at the sight of the weapon
+Miranda's new friendliness froze up, and a resentful gleam came into her
+great eyes.
+
+"Let me heft it," she demanded abruptly, holding out an imperative hand.
+
+Dave gave it up at once, with a deprecating air, though a ghost of a
+smile flickered under the long, yellow droop of his moustache.
+
+Miranda had no interest in the weight or balance of the execrated
+weapon: possession of it was all her purpose.
+
+"I'll carry it," she remarked abruptly. "You take these," and handing
+over to him the string of trout, she turned to the trail.
+
+Dave followed, now at her side, now dropping respectfully behind, as the
+exigencies of the way required. Nothing was said for some time. The
+girl's instinctive interest in the man whom she had so opportunely
+protected was now quenched in antagonism, as she thought upon his
+murderous calling. With sharp resentment she imagined him nursing an
+indulgent contempt for her friendship with the furry and furtive
+creatures. She burned with retrospective compassion for all the beasts
+which had fallen to his bullets, or his blind and brutal traps. A trap
+was, in her eyes, the unpardonable horror. Had she not once, when a
+small girl, seen a lynx--perhaps it was Ganner himself--caught by the
+hind quarters in a dead-fall? The beast was not quite dead--it had been
+for days dying; its eyes were dulled, yet widely staring, and its
+tongue, black and swollen, stuck out between its grinning jaws. She had
+seen at once that the case was past relief; and she would have ended the
+torture had her little hands known how to kill. But helpless and
+anguished as she was, she had fled from the spot, and shudderingly cried
+her eyes out for an hour. Then it had come over her with a wrenching of
+remorse that the dreadful tongue craved water; and she had flown back
+with a tin cup of the assuaging fluid, only to find the animal just
+dead. The pain of thinking that she might have eased its last torments,
+and had not, bit the whole scene ineffaceably into her heart; and now,
+with this splendid trapper, the kind friend of her babyhood, walking at
+her side, the picture and its pangs returned with a horrible
+incongruity. But what most of all hardened her heart against the man was
+a sense of threat which his atmosphere conveyed to her,--a menace, in
+some vague way, to her whole system of life, her sympathies, her
+contentments, her calm.
+
+Dave, on his part, felt himself deep in the cold flood of disfavour, and
+solicitously pondered a way of return to the sunshine of his companion's
+smile. His half-wild intuition told him at once that Miranda's anger was
+connected with his rifle, and he in part understood her aversion to his
+craft. He hungered to conciliate her; and as he trod noiselessly the
+scented gloom of the arches, the mottled greens and greys and browns of
+the trail, he laid his plans with far-considering prudence. It was
+characteristic of his quietly masterful nature that he not once thought
+of conciliating by giving up gun and trap and turning to a vocation more
+humane. No, the ways and means which occupied his thoughts were the ways
+and means of converting Miranda to his own point of view. He felt,
+though not philosophic enough to formulate it clearly, that he had all
+nature behind him to help mould the girl to his will, while she stood
+not only alone, but with a grave peril of treason in her own heart.
+
+His silence was good policy with Miranda, who was used to silence and
+loved it. But being a woman, she loved another's silence even better
+than her own. "You are a hunter, ain't you?" she inquired at last,
+without turning her head.
+
+"Yes, Mirandy."
+
+"And a trapper, too?"
+
+"Yes, Mirandy; so they call me."
+
+"And you like to kill the beasts?"
+
+"Well, yes, Mirandy, kind of, least-ways, I like them; and, well, you've
+jest got to kill them, to live yourself. That's jest what they do, kill
+each other, so's they can live themselves. An' it's the only kind of
+life _I_ can live--'way in the woods, with the shadows, an' the silence,
+an' the trees, an' the sky, an' the clean smells, an' the whispers you
+can't never understand."
+
+Dave shut his mouth with a firm snap at the close of this unwonted
+outburst. Never to any one before had he so explained his passion for
+the hunter's life; and now Miranda, who had turned square about, was
+looking at him with a curious searching expression. It disconcerted him;
+and he feared, under those unescapable eyes, that he had talked
+nonsense. Nevertheless when she spoke there was a less chilling note in
+her voice, though the words were not encouraging.
+
+"If you like killing the creatures," she said slowly, "it's no place for
+you here. So maybe you hadn't better come to the clearing."
+
+"I don't like killing _your_ beasts, anyways," he protested eagerly.
+"An' ever sence I heard how you an' the bears an' the caribou was
+friends like, I've kep' clear the other side of the divide, an' never
+set a trap this side the Quah-Davic valley. As for these critters you
+take such stock in, Mirandy, I wouldn't harm a hair of one of 'em, I
+swear!"
+
+"You hadn't better! I'd kill you myself," she rejoined sharply, with a
+swift, dangerous flame in her strange gaze; "or I'd set Kroof on you,"
+she added, a gleam of mirth suddenly irradiating her face, and darkening
+her eyes richly, till Dave was confused by her loveliness. But he kept
+his wits sufficiently to perceive, as she set her face again up the
+trail, that he was permitted to go with her.
+
+"Who's Kroof?" he asked humbly, stepping close to her side and ignoring
+the fact that the pathway, just there, was but wide enough for one.
+
+"My best friend," answered Miranda. "You'll see at the clearing. You'd
+better look out for Kroof, let me tell you!"
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XII
+                       Young Dave at the Clearing
+
+
+During the rest of the journey--a matter of an hour's walking--there was
+little talk between Miranda and Dave; for the ancient wood has the
+property that it makes talk seem trivial. With those who journey through
+the great vistas and clear twilight of the trees, thoughts are apt to
+interchange by the medium of silence and sympathy, or else to remain
+uncommunicated. Whatever her misgivings, her resentments and
+hostilities, Miranda was absorbed in her companion. So deeply was she
+absorbed that she failed to notice an unwonted emptiness in the shadows
+about her.
+
+In very truth, the furtive folk had all fled away. The presence of the
+hunter filled them with instinctive fear; and in their chief defence,
+their moveless self-effacement, they had no more any confidence while
+within reach of Miranda's eyes. The stranger was like herself--and
+though they trusted her in all else, they knew the compulsion of nature,
+and feared lest she might betray them to her own kind. Therefore they
+held prudently aloof,--the hare and the porcupine, the fox and the red
+cat; the raccoon slipped into his hole in the maple tree, and the
+wood-mice scurried under the hemlock root, and the woodpecker kept the
+thickness of a tree between his foraging and Miranda's eye. Only the
+careless and inquisitive partridge, sitting on a birch limb just over
+the trail, curiously awaited their approach; till suddenly an intuition
+of peril awoke him, and he fled on wild wings away through the
+diminishing arches. Even the little brown owl in the pine crotch snapped
+his bill and hissed uneasily as the two passed under his perch. Yet all
+these signs, that would have been to her in other moods a loud
+proclamation of change, now passed unnoted. Miranda was receiving a new
+impression, and the experience engrossed her.
+
+Arrived at the edge of the clearing, Dave was struck by the alteration
+that had come over it since that day, thirteen years back, when he had
+aided Kirstie's flight from the Settlement. It was still bleak, and
+overbrooded by a vast unroutable stillness, for the swelling of the land
+lifted it from the forest's shelter and made it neighbour to the
+solitary sky. But the open fields were prosperous with blue-flowered
+flax, pink-and-white buckwheat, the green sombreness of potatoes, and
+the gallant ranks of corn; while half a dozen sleek cattle dotted the
+stumpy pasture. The fences were well kept. The cabin and the barn were
+hedged about with shining thickets of sunflower, florid hollyhocks, and
+scarlet-runner beans. It gave the young woodman a kind of pang,--this
+bit of homely sweetness projected, as it were, upon the infinite
+solitude of the universe. It made him think, somehow, of the smile of a
+lost child that does not know it is lost.
+
+Presently, to his astonishment, there rose up from behind a blackberry
+coppice the very biggest bear he had ever seen. The huge animal paused
+at sight of a stranger, and sat up on her hind quarters to inspect him.
+Then she dropped again upon all fours, shuffled to Miranda's side, and
+affectionately smuggled her nose into the girl's palm. Dave looked on
+with smiling admiration. The picture appealed to him. And Miranda,
+scanning his face with jealous keenness, could detect therein nothing
+but approval.
+
+"This is Kroof," said she, graciously.
+
+"Never seen such a fine bear in all my life!" exclaimed the young man,
+sincerely enough; and with a rash unmindfulness of the reserve which
+governs the manners of all the furtive folk (except the squirrels), he
+stretched out his hand to stroke Kroof's splendid coat.
+
+The presumption was instantly resented. With an indignant squeal Kroof
+swung aside and struck at the offending hand, missing it by a hair's
+breadth, as Dave snatched it back out of peril. A flush of anger
+darkened his face, but he said nothing. Miranda, however, was annoyed,
+feeling her hospitality dishonoured. With a harsh rebuke she slapped the
+bear sharply over the snout, and drew a little away from her.
+
+Kroof was amazed. Not since the episode of the hare had Miranda struck
+her, and then the baby hand had conveyed no offence. Now it was
+different: and she felt that the tall stranger was the cause of the
+difference. Her heart swelled fiercely within her furry sides. She gave
+Miranda one look of bitter reproach, and shambled off slowly down the
+green alleys of the potato field.
+
+During some moments of hesitation, Miranda looked from Kroof to Dave,
+and from Dave to Kroof. Then her heart smote her. With a little sob in
+her throat, she ran swiftly after the bear, and clung to her neck with
+murmured words of penitence. But Kroof, paying no attention whatever,
+kept her way steadily to the woods, dragging Miranda as if she had been
+a bramble caught on her fur. Not till she had reached the very edge of
+the forest, at the sunny corner where she had been wont to play with
+Miranda during the far-off first years of their friendship, did the old
+bear stop. There she turned, sat up on her haunches, eyed the girl's
+face steadily for some seconds, and then licked her gently on the ear.
+It meant forgiveness, reconciliation; but Kroof was too deeply hurt to
+go back with Miranda to the cabin. In response to the girl's
+persuasions, she but licked her hands assiduously, as if pleading to be
+not misunderstood, then dropped upon all fours and moved off into the
+forest, leaving Miranda to gaze after her with tearful eyes.
+
+When she went back to where the young hunter awaited her, Miranda's
+friendly interest had vanished, and in a chilly silence--very unlike
+that which had been eloquent between them a short half hour before--the
+two walked on up to the cabin. In Kirstie's welcome Dave found all the
+warmth he could wish, with never a reproach for his long years of
+neglect,--for which, therefore, he the more bitterly reproached himself.
+The best of all protections against the stings of self-reproach is the
+reproach of others; and of this protection Kirstie ruthlessly deprived
+him. She asked about all the details of his life as a solitary trapper,
+congratulated him on his success, appeared sympathetic toward his
+calling, and refrained from attempting his conversion to vegetarianism.
+Looking at her noble figure, her face still beautiful in its strength
+and calm, the young man harked back in his memory to the Settlement's
+scandals and decided that Frank Craig had never, of his own will,
+forsaken a woman so altogether gracious and desirable. He resolved that
+he would come often to the cabin in the clearing--even if Miranda _was_
+unpleasant to him.
+
+Unpleasant she certainly was, all the evening, coldly unconscious of his
+presence, except, of course, at supper, where civility as well as
+hospitality obliged her to keep his plate supplied, and not to sour his
+meal with an obstinate silence. He watched her stealthily while he
+talked to her mother; and the fact that her wild and subtle beauty,
+thrilling his blood, made ridiculous the anger in his heart, did not
+prevent his accomplishing a brave meal of eggs, steaming buttered
+pancakes with molasses, and sweet cottage cheese with currant jelly.
+Kirstie would not hear of his going that night, so he stayed, and slept
+in the bunk which his father had occupied a dozen years before.
+
+In the morning he was diligent to help with the barnyard chores, and won
+golden comment from Kirstie; but he found Miranda still ice to his
+admiration. About breakfast time, however, Kroof reappeared, with an air
+of having quite forgotten the evening's little unpleasantness. Of Dave
+she took no notice at all, looking through, beyond, and around him; but
+with her return Miranda's manner became a shade less austere. Her
+self-reproach was mitigated when she saw that her passing interest in
+the newcomer had not unpardonably wronged her old friend.
+
+Dave was bound for the Settlement, to arrange some business of bounties
+and pelt sales. In spite of Kirstie's hospitable arguments, he insisted
+on setting out as soon as breakfast was over. As he picked up his rifle
+from the corner beside his bunk, Miranda, as a sign of peace between
+them, handed him his pouch of bullets. But not so his big powder-flask,
+on its gay green cord. This she took to the door, and coolly emptied its
+contents into a clump of burdocks. Then, with an enigmatic smile, she
+handed back the flask to its owner.
+
+The young hunter was annoyed. Powder was, in his eyes, a sacred thing,
+and such a wanton waste of it seemed to him little less than criminal.
+
+"That was all the powder I had 'twixt here an' the Settlement," he said,
+in a tone of rebuke.
+
+"So much the better," said Miranda.
+
+"But I don't see no sense in wastin' it that way," he persisted.
+
+"No knowing what may happen between here and the Settlement," rejoined
+the girl, meaningly.
+
+Dave flushed with anger. "Didn't I pass ye my word I'd not harm a hair
+of one of your beasts?" he demanded.
+
+"Then what do you want with the powder this side of the Settlement?" she
+inquired, with tantalizing pertinence.
+
+The young hunter, though steady and clear in his thought, was by no
+means apt in repartee, and Miranda had him at a cruel disadvantage.
+Confused by her last question, he blundered badly in his reply.
+"But--what if a painter should jump onto me, like he was goin' to
+yesterday?" he protested.
+
+"I thought you promised you wouldn't harm a hair of one of them,"
+suggested Miranda, thoughtful yet triumphant.
+
+"Would you have me let the critter kill me, jest to keep my promise?" he
+asked, humour beginning to correct his vexation.
+
+"I don't see why not," murmured Miranda. "Anyhow, you've got to do
+without the powder. And you needn't be frightened, Dave,"--this very
+patronizingly,--"for your father never carries a gun on our trail, and
+he's never needed one yet."
+
+"Well, then," laughed Dave, "I'll try an' keep my hair on, an' not be
+clean skeered to death. Good-by, Kirstie! Good-by, Mirandy! I'll look
+'round this way afore long, like as not."
+
+"Inside of twelve years?" said Kirstie, with a rare smile, which robbed
+her words of all reproach.
+
+"Likely," responded Dave, and he swung off with long, active strides
+down the trail.
+
+Miranda's eyes followed him with reluctance.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XIII
+                              Milking-time
+
+
+Young Dave Titus was not without the rudiments of a knowledge of woman,
+few as had been his opportunities for acquiring that rarest and most
+difficult of sciences. He made no second visit to the cabin in the
+clearing till he had kept Miranda many weeks wondering at his absence.
+Then, when the stalks were whitey grey, and the pumpkins golden yellow
+in the corn-field, and the buckwheat patch was crisply brown, and the
+scarlet of the maples was beginning to fade out along the forest edges,
+he came drifting back lazily one late afternoon, just as the slow
+_tink-a-tonk_ of the cow-bells was beginning the mellow proclamation of
+milking-time and sundown. The tonic chill of autumn in the wilderness
+open caught his nostrils deliciously as he emerged from the warmer
+stillness of the woods. The smell, the sound of the cow-bells,--these
+were homely sweet after the day-long solitude of the trail. But the
+scene--the grey cabin lifted skyward on the gradual swell of the
+fields--was loneliness itself. The clearing seemed to Dave a little
+beautiful lost world, and it gave him an ache at the heart to think of
+the years that Miranda and Kirstie had dwelt in it alone.
+
+Just beyond the edge of the forest he came upon Kroof, grubbing and
+munching some wild roots. He spoke to her deferentially, but she swung
+her huge rump about and firmly ignored him. He was anxious to win the
+shrewd beast's favour, or at least her tolerance, both because she had
+stirred his imagination and because he felt that her good-will would be,
+in Miranda's eyes, a most convincing testimonial to his worth. But he
+wisely refrained from forcing himself upon her notice.
+
+"Go slow, my son, go slow. It's a she; an' more'n likely you don't know
+jest how to take her," he muttered to himself, after a fashion acquired
+in the interminable solitude of his camp. Leaving Kroof to her
+moroseness, he hastened up to the cabin, in hopes that he would be in
+time to help Kirstie and Miranda with the milking.
+
+Just before he got to the door he experienced a surprise, so far as he
+was capable of being surprised at anything which might take place in
+these unreal surroundings. From behind the cabin came Wapiti the buck,
+or perhaps a younger Wapiti, on whom the spirit of his sire had
+descended in double portion. Close after him came two does, sniffing
+doubtfully at the smell of a stranger on the air. To Wapiti a stranger
+at the cabin, where such visitants were unheard of, must needs be an
+enemy, or at least a suspect. He stepped delicately out into the path,
+stamped his fine hoof in defiance, and lowered his armory of antlers.
+They were keen and hard, these October antlers, for this was the moon of
+battle, and he was ready. In rutting season Wapiti was every inch a
+hero.
+
+Now Dave Titus well knew that this was no bluff of Wapiti's. He was
+amused and embarrassed. He could not fight this unexpected foe, for
+victory or defeat would be equally fatal to his hope of pleasing
+Miranda. As a consequence, here he was, Dave Titus, the noted hunter,
+the Nimrod, held up by a rutting buck! Well, the trouble was of
+Miranda's making. She'd have to get him out of it. Facing the defiant
+Wapiti at a distance of five or six paces, he rested the butt of his
+rifle on his toe and sent a mellow, resonant _heigh-lo, heigh-lo!_
+echoing over the still air. The forest edges took it up, answering again
+and again. Kirstie and Miranda came to the door to see who gave the
+summons, and they understood the situation at a glance.
+
+"Call off yer dawg, Mirandy," cried Young Dave, "an' I'll come an' pay
+ye a visit."
+
+"He thinks you're going to hurt us," explained Kirstie; and Miranda,
+with a gay laugh, ran to the rescue.
+
+"You mustn't frighten the good little boy, Wapiti," she cried, pushing
+the big deer out of her path and running to Dave's side. As soon as
+Wapiti saw Miranda with Dave, he comprehended that the stranger was not
+a foe. With a flourish of his horns he stepped aside and led his herd
+off through the barnyard.
+
+Arriving at the door, where Kirstie, gracious, but impassive, awaited
+him, Dave exclaimed: "She's saved my life ag'in, Kirstie, that girl o'
+yourn. First it's a painter, an' now it's a rutting buck. Wonder what
+it'll be next time!"
+
+"A rabbit, like as not, or a squir'l, maybe," suggested Miranda,
+unkindly.
+
+"Whatever it be," persisted Dave, "third time's luck for me, anyways. If
+you save my life agin, Mirandy, you'll hev' to take care o' me
+altogether. I'll git to kind of depend on ye."
+
+"Then I reckon, Dave, you'll get out of your next scrape by yourself,"
+answered Miranda, with discouraging decision.
+
+"That's one on you, Dave," remarked Kirstie, with a strictly neutral
+air. But behind Miranda's back she shot him a look which said, "Don't
+you mind what she says, she's all right in her heart!" which, indeed,
+was far from being the case. Had Dave been so injudicious as to woo
+openly at this stage of Miranda's feelings, he would have been dismissed
+with speedy emphasis.
+
+Dave was in time to help with the milking,--a process which he boyishly
+enjoyed. The cows, five of them, were by now lowing at the bars. Kirstie
+brought out three tin pails. "You can help us, if you like, Dave," she
+cried, while Miranda looked her doubt of such a clumsy creature's
+capacity for the gentle art of milking. "Can you milk?" she asked.
+
+"'Course I can, though I haven't had much chance, o' late years, to
+practise," said Dave.
+
+"Can you milk without hurting the cow? Are you sure? And can you draw
+off the strippings clean?" she persisted, manifestly sceptical.
+
+"Try me," said Dave.
+
+"Let him take old Whitey, Miranda. He'll get through with her, maybe,
+while we're milking the others," suggested Kirstie.
+
+"Oh, well, any one could milk Whitey," assented Miranda; and Dave, on
+his mettle, vowed within himself that he'd have old Whitey milked, and
+milked dry, and milked to her satisfaction, before either Kirstie or
+Miranda was through with her first milker. He stroked the cow on the
+flank, and scratched her belly gently, and established friendly
+relations with her before starting; and the elastic firmness of his
+strong hands chanced to suit Whitey's large teats. The animal eyed him
+with favour and gave down her milk affluently. As the full streams
+sounded more and more liquidly in his pail, Dave knew that he had the
+game in his hands, and took time to glance at his rivals. To his
+astonishment there was Kroof standing up on her haunches close beside
+Miranda, her narrow red tongue lolling from her lazily open jaws, while
+she watched the milky fountains with interest.
+
+While Kirstie's scarlet kerchiefed head was still pressed upon her
+milker's flank, and while Miranda was just beginning to draw off the
+rich "strippings" into a tin cup, Dave completed his task. His pail--he
+had milked the strippings in along with the rest--was foaming creamily
+to the brim. He arose and vaunted himself. "Some day, when I've got lots
+of time," he drawled, "I'll l'arn you two how to milk."
+
+"You needn't think you're done already," retorted Miranda, without
+looking up. "I'll get a quart more out of old Whitey, soon as I'm
+through here."
+
+But Kirstie came over and looked at the pail. "No, you won't, Miranda,
+not this time," she exclaimed. "Dave's beaten us, sure. Old Whitey never
+gave us a fuller pail in her life. Dave, you _can_ milk. You go and milk
+Michael over there, the black-an'-white one, for me. I'll leave you and
+Miranda, if you won't fall out, to finish up here, while I go and get an
+extra good supper for you, so's you'll come again soon. I know you men
+keep your hearts in your stomachs, just where we women know how to reach
+them easy. Where'd we have been if the Lord hadn't made us cooks!"
+
+Such unwonted pleasantry on the part of her sombre mother proved to
+Miranda that Dave was much in her graces, and she felt moved to a
+greater austerity in order that she might keep the balance true.
+Throughout the rest of the milking, she answered all Dave's attempts at
+conversation with briefest _yes_ or _no_, and presently reduced him to a
+discouraged silence. During supper,--which consisted of fresh trout
+fried in corn meal, and golden hot johnny-cake with red molasses, and
+eggs fried with tomatoes, and sweet curds with clotted cream, all in a
+perfection to justify Kirstie's promise,--Miranda relented a little, and
+talked freely. But Dave had been too much subdued to readily regain his
+cheer. It was his tongue now that knew but _yes_ and _no_. Confronted by
+this result of her unkindness, Miranda's sympathetic heart softened.
+Turning in her seat to slip a piece of johnny-cake, drenched in
+molasses, into the expectant mouth of Kroof who sat up beside her, she
+spoke to Dave in a tone whose sweetness thrilled him to the finger-tips.
+The instinct of coquetry, native and not unknown to the furtive folk
+themselves, was beginning to stir within Miranda's untaught heart.
+
+"I'm going down to the lake to-night, Dave," she said, "to set a night
+line and see if I can catch a togue.[1] There's a full moon, and the
+lake'll be worth looking at. Won't you come along with us?"
+
+"Won't I, Miranda? Couldn't think of nothin' I'd like better!" was the
+eager response.
+
+"We'll start soon as ever we get the dishes washed up," explained the
+girl. "And you can help us at that--what say, mother?"
+
+"Certainly, Dave can help us," answered Kirstie, "if you have the nerve
+to set the likes of him at woman's work. But I reckon I won't go with
+you to-night to the lake. Kroof and Dave'll be enough to look after
+you."
+
+"I'll look after Dave, more like," exclaimed Miranda, scornfully,
+remembering both Wapiti and the panther. "But what's the matter, mother?
+_Do_ come. It won't be the same without you."
+
+"Seems to me I'm tired to-night, kind of, and I just want to stay at
+home by the fire and think."
+
+Miranda sprang up, with concern in her face, and ran round to her
+mother's seat.
+
+"Tired, mother!" she cried, scanning her features anxiously. "Who ever
+heard of people like you and me, who are strong, and live right, being
+tired? I'm afraid you're not well, mother; I won't go one step!"
+
+"Yes, you will, dearie," answered her mother, and never yet had Miranda
+rebelled against that firm note in Kirstie's voice. "I really want to be
+alone to-night a bit, and think. Dave's visit has stirred up a lot of
+old thoughts, and I want to take a look at them. I reckoned they were
+dead and buried years ago!"
+
+"Are you sure you're not sick, mother?" went on Miranda, hesitatingly
+returning to her seat.
+
+"No, child, I'm not sick. But I have felt tired off an' on the last few
+days when there was no call to. I do begin to feel that this big
+solitude of the woods is wearing on me, someway. I've stood up under it
+all these years, Dave, and it's given me peace and strength when I
+needed it bad enough, God knows. But someway I reckon it's too big for
+me, and will crush me in the long run. I love the clearing, but I don't
+just want to end my days here."
+
+"Mother," cried Miranda, springing up again, "I never heard you talk so
+before in my life! Leave the clearing! Leave the woods! I _couldn't_
+live, I just couldn't, anywheres else at all!"
+
+"There's other places, Miranda," murmured Dave. But Kirstie continued
+the argument.
+
+"It's a sight different with you, child," she said thoughtfully. "You've
+grown up here. The woods and the sky have made you. They're in your
+blood. You live and breathe them. You were a queer baby--more a fairy or
+a wild thing than a human youngster--before ever you came to the
+clearing; and all the wild things seem to think you're one of
+themselves; and you see what other folks can't see--what the folks of
+the woods themselves can't see. Oh, yes! it's a sight different with
+you, Miranda. Your father used to watch you and say you'd grow up to be
+a faun woman or wood goddess, or else the fairies would carry you off.
+This place is all right for you. And I used to think I was that big and
+strong of spirit that I could stand up to it all the rest of my life.
+But I begin to think it's too big for me. I don't want to die here,
+Miranda!"
+
+Miranda stared at her, greatly troubled.
+
+"You won't die till I'm old enough to die too, mother," she cried, "for
+I just couldn't live without you one day. But," she added passionately,
+"I know I should die, quick, right off, if I had to go away from the
+clearing! I know I would!"
+
+She spoke with the fiercer positiveness, because, just as she was
+speaking, there came over her a doubt of her own words. In a flash she
+saw herself growing old here in the vast solitude, she and Kirstie
+together, and no one else anywhere to be seen. The figure so cruelly
+conspicuous in its absence bore a strange, dim likeness to Young Dave.
+She did not ask herself if it were possible that she could one day wish
+to desert the clearing, and the stillnesses, and all the folk of the
+ancient wood, but somewhere at the back of her heart she felt that it
+might even be so, and her heart contracted poignantly. She ran and flung
+both arms about Kroof's neck, and wiped a stealthy tear on the shaggy
+coat.
+
+Dave, with a quickening intuition born of his dread lest the trip to the
+lake should fall through, saw that the conversation was treading
+dangerous ground. He discreetly changed the subject to johnny-cake.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XIV
+                        Moonlight and Moose-call
+
+
+When Miranda was ready to start, the moon was up, low and large, shining
+broadly into the cabin window. Miranda brought forward a small,
+tin-covered kettle, containing some little fish for bait.
+
+"Where's your line an' hooks?" asked Dave.
+
+"I keep them in a hollow tree by the lake," said Miranda. "But don't you
+go to take that thing along, or you don't go with me!" she added
+sharply, as the young man picked up his rifle.
+
+He set it down again with alacrity.
+
+"But at night, Mirandy!" he protested. "Air ye sure it's safe?"
+
+"Don't come if you're afraid!" she answered witheringly, stepping out
+into the white light and the coldly pungent air.
+
+Dave was at her side in a moment, ignoring a taunt which could touch him
+least among men. At Miranda's other side was the great lumbering form of
+Kroof, with the girl's hand resting lovingly on her neck.
+
+"We'll not be long, mother," called Miranda to Kirstie, in the doorway.
+
+But before they had gone twenty paces, Kroof stopped short, and sat down
+to deliberate. She regarded it as her own peculiar office to protect
+Miranda (who needed no protection) on these nocturnal expeditions to
+which the girl was given in some moods. Was the obnoxious stranger to
+usurp her office and her privilege? Well, she would not share with him.
+She would stay where she was needed.
+
+"Come along, Kroof!" urged Miranda, with a little tug at her fur. But
+the jealous bear was obstinate. She wheeled and made for the cabin door.
+
+Miranda was irritated.
+
+"Let her stay, then!" she exclaimed, setting her face to the forest, and
+smiling in more gracious fashion upon Young Dave. Kroof was certainly
+very provoking.
+
+"That's all right!" said Dave, more pleased than he dare show. "She'll
+be company for yer mother till we git back."
+
+"Kroof seems to think she owns me!" mused Miranda. "I love her better
+than any one else in the world except mother; but I mustn't spoil her
+when she gets cross about nothing. She oughtn't to be so jealous when
+I'm nice to you, Dave! I'm very angry at her for being so silly. She
+ought to know you're nothing to me alongside of her; now, oughtn't she?"
+
+"Of course," assented Dave, with such cheerfulness as he could assume.
+Then he set himself craftily to win Miranda's approval by a minute
+account of the characteristics--mental, moral, and physical--of a tame
+bear named Pete, belonging to one of the lumbermen at the Settlement.
+The subject was sagaciously chosen, and had the effect of making Miranda
+feel measurably less remote from the world of men. It suggested to her a
+kind of possible understanding between the world of men and the world of
+the ancient wood.
+
+As they left the moonlit open, the long white fingers of the phantom
+light reached after them, down the dissolving arches. Then the last
+groping ray was left behind, and they walked in the soft dark. Dave
+found it an exquisite but imperative necessity to keep close at
+Miranda's elbow, touching her very skirt indeed, for even his trained
+woodland eyes could at first distinguish nothing. Miranda, however, with
+her miraculous vision, moved swiftly, unhesitatingly, as if in broad day
+and a plain way.
+
+Soon, however, Dave's eyes adapted themselves, and he could discern
+vague differences, denser masses, semi-translucencies in the enfolding
+depth of blackness. For there _was_ a light, of a kind, carried down by
+countless reflections and refractions from the lit, wet surfaces of the
+topmost leaves. Moreover, clean-blooded and fine-nerved as he was from
+his years of living under nature's ceaseless purgation, his other senses
+came to the aid of his baffled sight. He seemed to feel, rather than
+see, the massive bulk of the pine and birch trunks as his face
+approached them to the nearness of an arm's length. He felt, too, an
+added hardness and a swelling under the moss, wherever the network of
+roots came close to the parent trunk. His nostrils discerned the pine,
+the spruce, the hemlock, the balsam poplar, the aromatic moose-wood, as
+he passed them; and long before he came to it he knew the tamarack swamp
+was near. Only his ears could not aid him. Except for Miranda's
+footsteps, feather-soft upon the moss, and his own heavier but skilfully
+muffled tread, there was no sound in the forest but an indeterminate
+whisper, so thin that it might have been the speech of the leaves
+conferring, or the sap climbing through the smaller branches. Neither he
+nor Miranda uttered a word. The stillness was such that a voice would
+have profaned it. Finding it difficult to keep up without stumbling and
+making a rough noise, Dave frankly resigned himself to the girl's
+superior craft.
+
+"You've got to be eyes fer me here, you wonderful Mirandy, er I can't
+keep up with ye!" he whispered at her ear. The light warmth of his
+breath upon her neck made her tingle in a way that bewildered her; but
+she found it pleasant. When he took hold of her arm, very gently, to
+steady himself, rather to his surprise he was permitted. He was wise
+enough, however, not to attach too much importance to the favour. He
+pondered the fact that to Miranda, who was not a Settlement girl, it
+meant altogether nothing.
+
+Presently, just ahead of them, they saw a pair of palely-glowing eyes,
+about two feet from the ground. Miranda squeezed the hand inside her
+arm, as a sign that Dave was not to regret his rifle. As a matter of
+fact, he was not disposed to regret anything at that moment.
+
+"_Lou'-cerfie!_" he whispered at her ear, meaning the lynx, or
+_loup-cervier_ of the camps.
+
+"No, panther!" murmured Miranda, indifferently, going straight forward.
+At this startling word, Dave could not, under the circumstances, refrain
+from a certain misgiving. A panther is not good to meet in the dark. But
+the palely-glowing eyes sank mysteriously toward the ground and
+retreated as Miranda advanced; and in a few seconds they went floating
+off to one side and disappeared.
+
+"How on earth do ye do it, Mirandy?" whispered Dave, rather awestruck.
+
+"They know me," replied the girl; which seemed to her, but not to Dave,
+an all-sufficient answer.
+
+There was no more said. The magic of the dark held them both breathless.
+They were strung to a strange, electric pitch of sympathy and
+expectation. Dave's fingers, where they rested on the girl's arm,
+tingled curiously, deliciously. Once, close beside them, there was a
+sharp rattle of claws going up the bark of a fir tree, and then two
+little points of light, close together, gleamed down upon them from
+overhead. Both Miranda and Dave knew it was a raccoon, and said nothing.
+Farther on they came suddenly upon a spectrally luminous figure just in
+their path. It was nearly the height of a man. The ghostly light waxed
+and waned before their eyes. A timorous imagination might have been
+pardoned for calling it a spirit sent to warn them back from their
+venture. But they knew it was only a rotting birch stump turned
+phosphorescent. As they passed, Dave broke off a piece and crumbled it,
+and for some minutes the bluish light clung to his fingers, like a
+perfume.
+
+At last they heard an owl hoot solemnly in the distance.
+"_Tw'oh-hoo-hoo-hoo-ooo_," it went, a cold and melancholy sound.
+
+"We're near the lake," whispered Miranda. "I know Wah-hoo; he lives in
+an old tree close to the water. We're almost there." Then glimpses of
+light came, broken and thin, from the far-off moon-silvered surface.
+Then a breath of chill, though there was no wind. And then they came out
+upon the open shore.
+
+Miranda, with a decisive gesture, removed her arm from Dave's grasp, and
+side by side the two followed the long sweep of sandy beach curving off
+to the right.
+
+"See that point yonder," said Miranda, "with the lop-sided tree standing
+alone on it? I've got my line and hooks hidden in that tree."
+
+"How do ye set a night line without a boat?" queried Dave.
+
+"Got one, of course!" answered the girl. "Your father made me a dugout,
+last summer a year ago, and I keep it drawn up behind the point."
+
+The moon was high now, sailing in icy splendour of solitude over the
+immensity of the ancient wood. The lake was a windless mirror. The beach
+was very smooth and white, etched along its landward edges with the
+shadows of the trees. At one spot a cluster of three willows grew very
+near the water's brink, spreading a transparent and mysterious shadow.
+Just as Dave and Miranda came to this little oasis in the shining sand,
+across the water came the long, sonorous call of a bull moose. It was a
+deep note, melodious and far carrying, and seemed in some way the very
+spoken thought of the vastness.
+
+"That's what I call music!" said Dave.
+
+But before Miranda could respond, a thunderous bellow roared in answer
+from the blackness of the woods close by; there was a heavy crashing in
+the underbrush, and the towering front of another bull appeared at the
+edge of the sands, looking for his challenger. Catching sight of Dave
+and Miranda, he charged down upon them at once.
+
+"Get up a tree, quick!" cried Dave, slipping his long knife from its
+sheath and stepping in front of the girl.
+
+"Don't you meddle and there'll be no trouble!" said Miranda, sharply.
+"You stand behind that tree!" and seizing him by the arm she attempted
+to push him out of sight. But for a second he stupidly resisted.
+
+"Fool!" she flamed out at him. "What do you suppose I've done all these
+years without you?"
+
+[Illustration: The moose recognized her]
+
+The anger in her eyes pierced his senses and brought wisdom. He realized
+that somehow she was master of the situation, and he reluctantly stepped
+behind the big willow trunk. It was just in the nick of time, for the
+furious animal was almost upon them. At this moment a breath of air from
+the water carried Miranda's scent to the beast's nostrils, and he
+checked himself in doubt. At once Miranda gave a soft whistle and
+stepped out into the clear flood of moonlight. The moose recognized her,
+stood still, raised his gigantic antlers to their full height, and
+stretched toward her his long, flexible snout, sniffing amicably. Then,
+step by step, he approached, while she waited with her small hand held
+out to him, palm upward; and Dave looked on in wonder from behind his
+tree, still doubtful, his fingers gripping his knife-hilt.
+
+At this moment the first call sounded again across the lake. The moose
+forgot Miranda. He wheeled nimbly, lowered his head toward the great
+challenge, bellowed his answer, and charged along the shore to mortal
+combat. As he disappeared around a jutting spur of pines, a tall cow
+moose emerged from the shades and trotted after him.
+
+Miranda turned to Dave with an air of triumph, her anger forgotten.
+
+"I swan, Mirandy!" exclaimed the young hunter, "the girl as can manage a
+bull moose in callin' season is the Queen of the Forest, sure. I take
+off my cap to yer majesty!"
+
+"Put it on again, Dave," said she, not half displeased, "and we'll go
+set the night lines."
+
+Behind the point, hidden in a thicket of mixed huckleberry and ironwood,
+they found the wooden canoe, or dugout, in good condition. Dave ran it
+down into the water, and Miranda tossed in a roll of stout cod-line,
+with four large hooks depending from it, at four-foot intervals, by drop
+strings a foot and a half in length. The hooks she proceeded to bait
+from the tin kettle.
+
+"Why don't ye have more hooks on sech a len'th of line?" inquired Dave.
+
+"Don't want to catch more togue than we can eat," explained Miranda.
+"It's no fun catching them this way, and they're not much good salted."
+
+There was but one paddle, and this Dave captured. "You sit in the bow,
+Mirandy, an' see to the lines, an' I'll paddle ye out," said he.
+
+But Miranda would have none of it. "Look here, Dave," she exclaimed,
+"I'm doing this, and you're just a visitor. I declare, I'm almost sorry
+I brought you along. You just sit where you're put, and do as I tell
+you, or you won't come with me again."
+
+The young man squatted himself meekly on his knees, a little forward of
+amidship, but not far enough for his superior weight to put the canoe
+down by the bow. Then Miranda stepped in delicately, seated herself on a
+thwart at the stern, and dipped her paddle with precise and masterful
+stroke. The canoe shot noiselessly out of the shadow and into the
+unrippled sheen. Just off the point, about twenty yards from shore, lay
+a light wooden float at anchor. Beside this Miranda brought her canoe to
+a standstill, backing water silently with firm flexures of her wrist. To
+a rusty staple in the float she fastened one end of the line.
+
+"Deep water off this here point, I reckon," commented Dave.
+
+"Of course," answered Miranda. "The togue only lie in deep water."
+
+Dave was permitted to make comments, but to take no more active part in
+the proceedings. As he was a man of deeds and dreams rather than of
+speech, this was not the r�le he coveted, and he held his tongue; while
+Miranda, deftly paying out the line with one hand, with the other
+cleverly wielded the paddle so that the canoe slipped toward shore. She
+was too much absorbed in the operation to vouchsafe any explanation to
+Dave, but he saw that she intended making fast the other end of the line
+to a stake which jutted up close to the water's edge.
+
+Miranda now slipped the line under her foot to hold it, and, taking both
+hands to her paddle, was about to make a landing, when suddenly there
+was a violent tug at one of the hooks. The line was torn from under her
+light foot, and at once dragged overboard. Dave saw what had happened;
+but he was wise enough not to say, even by look or tone, "I told you
+so!" Instead, he turned and pointed to the float, which was now acting
+very erratically, darting from side to side, and at times plunging quite
+under water. The glassy mirror of the lake was shattered to bits.
+
+"You've got him a'ready, Mirandy," he cried in triumph; and his palpable
+elation quite covered Miranda's chagrin. Two or three strong strokes of
+her paddle brought the canoe back to the float, and Dave had his reward.
+
+"Catch hold of the float, Dave," she commanded, "and pull him aboard,
+while I hold the canoe."
+
+With a great splashing and turmoil he hauled up a large togue, of twelve
+pounds or thereabouts, and landed it flopping in the bottom of the
+dugout. A stroke in the back of the neck from Miranda's knife, sharp but
+humane, put a term to its struggles.
+
+While Dave gazed admiringly at the glittering spoil, Miranda began
+untying the line from the float.
+
+"What air ye doin' now, Mirandy?" he inquired, as she proceeded to strip
+the bait from the remaining hooks, and throw the pieces overboard.
+
+"We won't want any more togue for a week," she explained. "This is such
+a fine, big one." And she headed the canoe for the landing-place, under
+the shadow of the point.
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter XV
+                            A Venison Steak
+
+
+Throughout the succeeding winter Dave managed to visit the clearing two
+or three times in the course of each month, but he could not see that he
+made any progress in Miranda's favour. As at first, she was sometimes
+friendly, sometimes caustically indifferent. Only once did he perceive
+in her the smallest hint of gratification at his coming. That was the
+time when he came on his snow-shoes through the forest by moonlight, the
+snow giving a diffused glimmer that showed him the trail even through
+the densest thickets. Arriving in the morning, he surprised her at the
+door of the cow stable, where she had been foddering the cattle. Her
+face flushed at the sight of him; and a look came into her wide, dark
+eyes which even his modesty could not quite misunderstand. But his
+delight quickly crumbled: Miranda was loftily indifferent to him during
+all that visit, so much so that after he had gone Kirstie reproached her
+with incivility.
+
+"I can't help it, mother!" she explained. "I don't want to hate him, but
+what better is he than a butcher? His bread is stained with blood. Pah!
+I sometimes think I smell blood, the blood of the kind wood creatures,
+when he's around."
+
+"But you don't want him not to come, girl, surely," protested her
+mother.
+
+"Well, you know, it's a pleasure to you to have him come once in a
+while," said the girl, enigmatically.
+
+Dave continued his visits, biding his time. He lost no chance of
+familiarizing Miranda's imagination with the needs of man as he imagined
+them, and with a rational conception of life as he conceived it. This he
+did not directly, but through the medium of conversation with Kirstie,
+to whom his words were sweetness. He was determined to break down
+Miranda's prejudice against his calling, which to him was the only one
+worth a man's while,--wholesome, sane, full of adventure, full of
+romance. He was determined, also, to overcome her deep aversion to flesh
+food. He felt that not till these two points were gained would Miranda
+become sufficiently human to understand human love or any truly human
+emotions. In this belief he strictly withheld his wooing, and waited
+till the barriers that opposed it should be undermined by his systematic
+attacks. He was too little learned in woman to realize that with Miranda
+his best wooing was the absence of all wooing; and so he builded better
+than he knew.
+
+During the cold months he was glad to be relieved of the presence of
+Kroof, who had proved, in her taciturn way, quite irreconcilable. He had
+tried in vain to purchase her favour with honey, good hive bees' honey
+in the comb, carried all the way from the Settlement. She would have
+nothing to do with him at any price; and he felt that this discredited
+him in Miranda's eyes. He hoped that Kroof would sleep late that spring
+in her lair under the pine root.
+
+But while Dave was labouring so assiduously, and, as he fancied, so
+subtly, to mould and fashion Miranda, she all unawares was moulding him.
+Unconsciously his rifle and his traps were losing zest for him; and the
+utter solitude of his camp beyond the Quah-Davic began to have manifest
+disadvantages. Once he hesitated so long over a good shot at a lynx,
+just because the creature looked unsuspecting, that in the end he was
+too late, and his store of pelts was the poorer by one good skin.
+Shooting a young cow moose in the deep snow, moreover, he felt an
+unwonted qualm when the gasping and bleeding beast turned upon him a
+look of anguished reproach. His hand was not quite so steady as usual
+when he gave her the knife in the throat. This was a weakness which he
+did not let himself examine too closely. He knew the flesh of the young
+cow was tender and good, and after freezing it he hung it up in his cold
+cellar. Though he would not for an instant have acknowledged it, even to
+himself, he was glad that bears were not his business during the winter,
+for he would almost certainly have felt a sense of guilt, of wrong to
+Miranda, in shooting them. For all this undercurrent of qualm in the
+hidden depths of his heart, however, his hunting was never more
+prosperous than during the January and February of that winter; and fox,
+lynx, wolverine, seemed not only to run upon his gun, but to seek his
+traps as a haven. He killed with an emphasis, as if to rebuke the waking
+germ of softness in his soul. But he had little of the old satisfaction,
+as he saw his peltries accumulate. His craft was now become a business,
+a mere routine necessity. For pleasure, he chose to watch Miranda as her
+feathered pensioners--snowbirds, wrens, rose grosbeaks, and a glossy
+crow or two--gathered about her of a morning for their meal of grain and
+crumbs. They alighted on her hair, her shoulders, her arms; and the
+round-headed, childlike grosbeaks would peck bread from her red lips;
+and a crow, every now and then, would sidle in briskly and give a
+mischievous tug at the string of her moccasin. To the girl, his heart
+needed no warming,--it burned by now with a fire which all his
+backwood's stoicism could but ill disguise,--but to the birds, and
+through them to all the furry folk of the wood, his heart warmed as he
+regarded the beautiful sight. He noted that the birds were quite
+unafraid of Kirstie, who also fed them; but he saw that toward Miranda
+they showed an active, even aggressive ardour, striving jealously for
+the touch of her hand or foot or skirt when no tit-bits whatever were in
+question. And another sight there was, toward shut of winter's evening,
+that moved him strangely. The wild, white hares (he and Kirstie and
+Miranda called them rabbits) would come leaping over the snow to the
+cabin door to be fed, with never cat or weasel on their trail. They
+would press around the girl, nibbling eagerly at her dole of clover,
+hay, and carrots; some crouching about her feet, some erect and striking
+at her petticoat with their nervous fore paws, all twinkling-eared, and
+all implicitly trustful of this kind Miranda of the clover.
+
+Toward spring Miranda began to be troubled about Kirstie's health. She
+saw that the firm lines of her mother's face were growing unwontedly
+sharp, the bones of her cheek and jaw strangely conspicuous. Then her
+solicitous scrutiny took note of a pallor under the skin, a greyish
+whiteness at the corners of her eyes, a lack of vividness in the usually
+brilliant scarlet of the lips; for up to now Kirstie had retained all
+the vital colouring and tone of youth. Then, too, there was a
+listlessness, a desire to rest and take breath after very ordinary tasks
+of chopping or of throwing fodder for the cattle. This puzzled the girl
+much more than Kirstie's increasing tendency to sit dreaming over the
+hearth fire when there was work to be done. Miranda felt equal to doing
+all the winter work, and she knew that her mother, like herself, was
+ever a dreamer when the mood was on. But even this brooding abstraction
+came to worry her at last, when one morning, after a drifting storm
+which had piled the snow halfway up the windows, her mother let her
+shovel out all the paths unaided, with never a comment or excuse.
+Miranda was not aggrieved at this, by any means; but she began to be
+afraid, sorely afraid. It was so unlike the alert and busy Kirstie of
+old days. Of necessity, Miranda turned to Dave for counsel in her alarm,
+when next he came to the clearing.
+
+The conference took place in the warm twilight of the cow stable, where
+Dave, according to his custom, was helping Miranda at the milking, while
+Kirstie got supper. The young hunter looked serious, but not surprised.
+
+"I've took note o' the change this two month back, Mirandy," he said,
+"an' was a-wonderin' some how them big eyes of yourn, that can see
+things us ordinary folks can't see, could be blind to what teched ye so
+close."
+
+"I _wasn't_ blind to it, Dave," protested the girl, indignantly; "but I
+didn't see how you could help any. Nor I don't see now; but there was no
+one else I could speak to about it," she added, with a break in her
+voice that distantly presaged tears.
+
+"I could help some, if you'd let me, Mirandy," he hesitated, "for I know
+right well what she's needin'."
+
+"Well, what is it?" demanded the girl. There was that in his voice which
+oppressed her with a vague misgiving.
+
+"It's good, fresh, roast meat she wants!" said Dave.
+
+There was a pause. Miranda turned and looked out through the stable
+door, across the glimmering fields.
+
+"It's her blood's got thin an' poor," continued Dave. "Nothin' but flesh
+meat'll build her up now, an' she's jest got to have it." He was
+beginning to feel it was time that Miranda experienced the touch of a
+firm hand.
+
+"I don't believe you!" said the girl, and turned hotly to her milking.
+
+"Well, we'll see," retorted Dave. In Miranda's silence he read a tardy
+triumph for his views.
+
+That evening he took note of the fact that Kirstie came to supper with
+no appetite, though every dish of it was tempting and well cooked.
+Miranda observed this also. Her fresh pang of apprehension on her
+mother's account was mixed with a resentful feeling that Dave would
+interpret every symptom as a confirmation of his own view. She was quite
+honest in her rejection of that view, for in her eyes flesh food was a
+kind of subtle poison. But she was too anxious about her mother's health
+to commit herself in open hostility to anything, however extreme, which
+might be suggested in remedy. On this point she was resolved to hold
+aloof, letting the decision rest between her mother and Dave.
+
+Aroused by the young hunter's talk, Kirstie was brighter than usual
+during the meal; but, to her great disappointment, Dave got up to go
+immediately after supper. He would take no persuasion, but insisted that
+he had come just to see if she and Miranda were well, and declared that
+affairs of supreme importance called him straight back to the camp.
+Kirstie was not convinced. She turned a face of reproach on Miranda, so
+frankly that the girl was compelled to take her meaning.
+
+"Oh! it isn't my fault, mother," she protested, with a little vexed
+laugh. "I've not been doing anything ugly to him. If he goes, it's just
+his own obstinacy, for he knows we'd like him to stay as he always does.
+Let him go if he wants to!"
+
+"Mirandy," said her mother, in a voice of grave rebuke, "I wish you
+would not be so hard with Dave. If you treated your dumb beasts like you
+treat him, I reckon they would never come to you a second time. You seem
+to forget that Dave and his father are our only friends,--and just now,
+Dave's father being in the lumber camp, we've nobody but Dave here to
+look to."
+
+"Oh! I've nothing against Dave, mother, except the blood on his hands,"
+retorted the girl, turning her face away.
+
+The young hunter shrugged his shoulders, deprecatingly, smiled a slow
+smile of understanding at Kirstie, and strode to the door.
+
+"Good night, both of ye," he said cheerfully. "Ye'll see me back,
+liker'n not, by this time to-morrow."
+
+As he went, Miranda noticed with astonishment and a flush of warmth that
+for once in his career he was without his inseparable rifle. Kirstie, in
+the vacant silence that followed his going, had it on her tongue to say,
+"I do wish you could take to Dave, Miranda." But the woman's heart
+within her gave her warning in time, and she held her peace. Thanks to
+this prudence, Miranda went to bed that night with something of a glow
+at her heart. Dave's coming without the rifle was a direct tribute to
+her influence, and to some extent outweighed his horrible suggestion
+that her mother should defile her mouth with meat.
+
+The next evening the chores were all done up; the "rabbits" had come and
+gone with their clover and carrots; and Kirstie and Miranda were sitting
+down to their supper, when in walked Dave. He carried a package of
+something done up in brown sacking. This time, too, he carried his
+rifle. Kirstie's welcome was frankly eager, but Miranda saw the rifle,
+and froze. He caught her look, and with a flash of intuition understood
+it.
+
+"_Had_ to bring it along, Mirandy," he explained, with a flush of
+embarrassment. "Couldn't ha' got here without it. The wolves have come
+back again, six of 'em. They set on to me at my own camp door."
+
+"Oh, wolves!" exclaimed Miranda, in a tone of aversion. "They're
+vermin."
+
+Since that far-off day when, with her childish face flattened against
+the pane, her childish heart swelling with wrath and tears, she had
+watched the wolves attack Ten-Tine's little herd, she had hated the
+ravening beasts with a whole-souled hate.
+
+"I hope to goodness you killed them all!" said Kirstie, with pious
+fervour.
+
+"Two got off; got the pelts of the others," answered Dave.
+
+"Not too bad, that," commented Kirstie, with approval; "now come and
+have some supper."
+
+"Not jest yet, Kirstie," he replied, undoing his package. "I've noticed
+lately ye was looking mighty peaked, an' hadn't much appetite, like. Now
+when folks has anything the matter with 'em I know as much about it as
+lots of the doctors, and I know what's goin' to set ye right up. If
+ye'll lend me the loan of yer fire, an' a frying-pan, I'll have
+something for yer supper that'll do ye more good than a bucketful of
+doctor's medicine."
+
+Miranda knew what was coming. She knew Dave had been all the way back to
+the camp, beyond the Quah-Davic, for meat, that he might run no risk of
+killing any of the beasts that were under her protection. She knew, too,
+that to make such a journey in the twenty-four hours he could scarce
+have had one hour's sleep. None the less, she hardened her heart against
+him. She kept her eyes on her plate and listened with strained intensity
+for her mother's word upon this vital subject.
+
+Kirstie's interest was now very much awake. "There's the fire, Dave,"
+she said, "and there's the frying-pan hanging on the side of the
+dresser. But what have you got? I've felt this long while I'd like a bit
+of a change--not but what the food we're used to, Miranda and me, is
+real good food and wholesome."
+
+"Well, Kirstie," he answered, taking a deep breath before the plunge,
+and at the same time throwing back the wrapping from a rosy cut of
+venison steak, "it's jest nothin' more nor less than fresh meat. It's
+venison, clean an' wholesome; and I'll fry ye right now this tender
+slice I'm cuttin' for ye."
+
+Kirstie was startled quite out of her self-possession. The rule of the
+cabin against flesh meat was so long established, so well known at the
+Settlement, so fenced about with every sanction of principle and
+prejudice, that Dave's words were of the nature of a challenge. She felt
+that she ought to be angry; but, as a matter of fact, she was only
+uneasy as to how Miranda would take so daring a proposal. At the same
+time she was suddenly conscious of an unholy craving for the forbidden
+thing. She glanced anxiously at Miranda, but the girl appeared to be
+wrapped up in her own thoughts.
+
+"But you know, Dave," she protested rebukingly, "we neither of us ever
+touch meat of any kind. You know our opinions on this point."
+
+The words themselves would have satisfied Miranda had she not detected a
+certain irresolution in the tone. They did not affect Dave in the least.
+For a moment he made no reply, for he was busy cutting thin slices off
+the steak. He spread them carefully in the hot butter, now spluttering
+in the pan over the coals; and then, straightening himself up from the
+task, knife in hand, he answered cheerfully: "That's all right. But, ye
+see, Kirstie, all the folks reckon me somethin' of a doctor, an' this
+here meat I'm cookin' for ye ain't rightly food at all. It's medicine;
+'tain't right ye should hold off now, when ye need it as medicine.
+'Tain't fair to Mirandy. I can see ye've jest been pinin' away like, all
+winter. It's new blood, with iron in it, ye need. It's flesh meat, an'
+flesh meat only, that'll give ye iron an' new blood. When ye're well,
+an' yer old strong self agin, ye can quit meat if ye like,--an' kick me
+out o' the cabin for interferin'; but now--"
+
+He paused dramatically. He had talked right on, contrary to his silent
+habit, for a purpose. He knew the power of natural cravings. He was
+waiting for Kirstie's elemental bodily needs to speak out in support of
+his argument. He waited just time for the savoury smell of the steak to
+fill the cabin and work its miracle. Now the spell was abroad. He looked
+to Kirstie for an answer.
+
+The instant she smelled that savour Kirstie knew that he was right.
+Steak, venison steak fried in butter, _was_ what she required. For weeks
+she had had no appetite; now she was ravenous. Moreover, a thousand
+lesser forces, set in motion by Dave's long talks, were impelling her to
+just such a change as the eating of flesh would symbolize to her.
+But--Miranda? Kirstie stared at her in nervous apprehension, expecting
+an outburst of scorn. But Miranda was seemingly oblivious of all that
+went on in the cabin. Her unfathomed eyes, abstractedly wide open, were
+staring out through the white square of the window. She was trying hard
+to think about the mysterious blue-white wash of radiance that seemed to
+pour in palpable floods from the full moon;--about the furred and
+furtive creatures passing and repassing noiselessly, as she knew, across
+the lit patches of the glades;--about the herd of moose down in the
+firwoods, sleeping securely between walls of deep snow in the "yard,"
+which they had trodden for themselves a fortnight back;--of Kroof,
+coiled in her warm den under the pine root, with five feet of drift
+piled over her. But in reality she was steeling herself, with fierce
+desperation, against a strange appetite which was rising within her at
+the call of that insidious fragrance. With a kind of horror she realized
+that she was at war with herself--that one half her nature was really
+more than ready to partake of the forbidden food.
+
+Dave noticed the look of question which Kirstie had turned upon Miranda.
+
+"Oh, ye needn't look to her, Kirstie, to back ye up in no foolishness,"
+he went on. "I spoke to her last night about it, an' she hadn't a word
+to say agin my medicine."
+
+Still there was no comment from Miranda. If Miranda, to whom abstinence
+from flesh was a religion, could tolerate a compromise, why she herself,
+to whom it was merely a prejudice and a preference, might well break an
+ancient rule for an instant's good. She had been inwardly anxious for
+months about her condition. After a second or two of doubt, her mind was
+made up; and when Kirstie made up her mind, it was in no halfway
+fashion.
+
+"I'll try your doctoring, Dave," she said slowly. "I'll give it a fair
+trial. But while you're about it, why don't you cook enough for
+yourself, too? Have you put salt in the pan? And here's a dash of
+pepper."
+
+"No," answered the young hunter, concealing his elation as he sprinkled
+the steak temperately with the proffered salt and pepper, "I don't want
+none myself, I need meat onct in a while, er I git weak an' no good. But
+there's nothin' suits my taste like the feeds I git here,--the pipin'
+hot riz buckwheat cakes, with lots o' butter an' molasses, an' the
+johnny-cake, an' the potater pie, an' the tasty ways ye cook eggs. I
+often think when I'm here that I wouldn't care if I never seen a slice
+o' fresh meat, er even bacon, agin. But our bodies is built a certain
+way, an' there's no gittin' over Nature's intention. We've got the teeth
+to prove it, an' the insides, too,--I've read all about it in doctors'
+books. I read a heap in camp. Fact is, Kirstie, we're built like the
+bear,--to live on all kinds of food, includin' flesh,--an' if we don't
+git all kinds onct in a while, somethin's bound to go wrong."
+
+Never had Dave talked so much before; but now he was feverishly eager to
+have no opening for discussion. While he talked the venison was cooked
+and served. Kirstie ate it with a relish, which convinced him of the
+wisdom of his course. She ate all that he had fried; and he wisely
+refrained from cooking more, that her appetite might be kept on edge for
+it in the morning. Then she ate other things, with an unwonted zest.
+Miranda returned to the table, talking pleasantly of everything but
+health, and food, and hunting. Against herself she was angry; but on
+Dave, to his surprise, she smiled with a rare graciousness. She was
+mollified by his tact in characterizing the steak as medicine; and,
+moreover, by his statement of a preference for their ordinary bloodless
+table, he seemed in some way to range himself on her side, even while
+challenging her principles. But--oh, that savoury smell! It still
+enriched the air of the cabin; it still stirred riotous cravings in her
+astonished appetite. She trembled with a fear and hatred of herself.
+
+When Kirstie, with a face to which the old glow was already venturing
+back, laid down her knife and fork, and explained to her guest, "You're
+a good doctor, and no mistake, Dave Titus; I declare I feel better
+already," Miranda got up and went silently out into the moonlight to
+breathe new air and take counsel with herself.
+
+Dave would have followed her, but Kirstie stopped him. "Best let her
+be," she said meaningly, in a low voice. "She's got a heap to think over
+in the last half hour."
+
+"But she took it a sight better'n I thought she would," responded Dave.
+
+And all on account of a venison steak, his hopes soared higher than they
+had ever dared before.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XVI
+                        Death for a Little Life
+
+
+Thenceforward Kirstie twice or thrice a week medicined herself with
+fresh venison, provided assiduously by Young Dave, and by the time
+spring was fairly in possession of the clearing, she was her old strong
+self again. But as for Dave's hopes, they had been reduced to
+desolation. Miranda had taken alarm at her sudden carnivorous craving,
+and in her effort to undo that moment's weakness she had withdrawn
+herself to the utmost from Dave's influence. She had been the further
+incited to this by an imagined aloofness on the part of her furred and
+feathered pensioners. A pair of foxes, doubtless vagrants from beyond
+her sphere, had spread slaughter among the hares as they returned from
+feeding at the cabin. The hungry raiders had laid an ambush at the edge
+of the clearing on two successive nights. They had killed recklessly.
+Then they vanished, doubtless driven away by the steady residents who
+knew how to kill discreetly and to guard their preserves from poachers.
+But the hares had taken alarm, and few came now o' nights for Miranda's
+carrots and clover. Miranda, with a little ache at her heart, concluded
+from this that she had forfeited her ascendency among the kin of the
+ancient wood. There had been a migration, too, among the squirrels, so
+that now these red busybodies were perceptibly fewer about the cabin
+roof. And the birds--they were nearly all gone. An unusually early
+spring, laying bare the fields in the lower country, and bringing out
+the insects before their wont, had scattered Miranda's flocks a
+fortnight earlier than usual. No crumbs could take the place of swelling
+seeds and the first fat May-fly. But Miranda thought they were fled
+through distrust of her. Kroof, old Kroof the constant, was all
+unchanged when she came from her winter's sleep; but this spring she
+brought an unusually fine cub with her, and the cub, of necessity, took
+a good deal of her time and attention away from Miranda. When Miranda
+was with her, roaming the still, transparent corridors, all the
+untroubled past came back, crystalline and flawless as of old. Once more
+the furtive folk went about their business in the secure peace of her
+neighbourhood; once more she revelled with a kind of intoxication in the
+miraculous fineness of her vision; once more she felt assured of the
+mastery of her look. But this was in the intervals between Dave's
+visits. When he was at the clearing, everything was different. She was
+no longer sure of herself on any point. And the worst of it was that the
+more indifference to him she feigned, the less she felt. She was quite
+unconscious, all the while, that her mother was shrewdly watching her
+struggles. She was not unconscious, however, of Dave's attitude. She saw
+that he seemed dull and worried, which gratified her, she knew not why,
+and confirmed her in her coolness. But at last, with a slow anger
+beginning to burn at his heart, he adopted the policy of ignoring her
+altogether, and giving all his thought to Kirstie, whereupon Miranda
+awoke to the conclusion that it was her plain duty to be civil to her
+mother's guest.
+
+This change, not obtrusive, but of great moment to Dave, came over the
+girl in June, when the dandelions were starring the pasture grass. The
+sowing and the potato planting were just done. The lilac bushes beside
+the cabin were a mass of purple enchantment. It was not a time for hard
+indifference; and Dave was quick to catch the melting mood. His manner
+was such, however, that Miranda could not take alarm.
+
+"Mirandy," said he, with the merest good comradeship in tone and air,
+"would ye take a little trip with me to-morrow, now that the crops can
+spare ye a bit?"
+
+"Where to, Dave?" interposed Kirstie, fearful lest the girl should
+refuse out of hand, before she knew what Dave proposed to do.
+
+"Why, I've got to go over the divide an' run down the Big Fork in my
+canoe to Gabe White's clearin', with some medicine I've brought from the
+Settlement for his little boy what's sick. He's a leetle mite of a chap,
+five year old, with long, yaller curls, purty as a picture, but that
+peaked an' thin, it goes to yer heart to see him. Gabe came in to the
+Settlement yesterday to see the doctor about him an' git medicine; but
+he's had to go right on to the city to sell his pelts, an' git some
+stuff the doctor says the little feller must hev, what can't be got in
+the Settlement at all. So Gabe give me this" (and he pulled a bottle out
+of the inside pocket of his hunting shirt) "to take to him right now,
+coz the little feller needs it badly. It's a right purty trip, Mirandy,
+an' the Big Fork's got some rapids 'at'll please ye. What ye say?"
+
+Dave was growing subtle under Miranda's discipline. He knew that the
+picture of the small boy would draw her; and also that the sight of the
+ailing child, acting upon her quick sympathies, would awaken a new human
+interest and work secretly in favour of himself. The beauty of the
+scenery, the excitement of the rapids,--these were a secondary
+influence, yet he knew they would not be without appeal to the
+beauty-worshipping and fearless Miranda.
+
+The girl's deep eyes lightened at the prospect. She would see something
+a little different, yet not alien or hostile,--a new river, other hills
+and woods, a deeper valley, a ruder cabin in a remoter clearing, a
+lonely woman,--above all, a little sick boy with long, yellow hair.
+
+"But it must be a long way off, Dave," she protested, in a tone that
+invited contradiction.
+
+"Not so far as to the Settlement," answered Dave; "an' it don't take
+half so long to go because o' the quick run down river. I reckon,
+though, we'd best stay over night at White's clearin' and come back easy
+nex' day--if you don't mind, Kirstie! Sary Ann White's a powerful fine
+woman, an' Mirandy's sure to like her. It'll do her a sight of good,
+poor thing, to hev Mirandy to talk to a bit."
+
+He wanted to say that just a look at Miranda's wild loveliness would do
+Mrs. White a lot of good; but he had not quite the courage for such a
+bold compliment.
+
+"No, I don't mind, if Miranda likes to go," said Kirstie; "I shan't be
+lonesome, as Kroof'll be round most of the time."
+
+It had come to be understood, and accepted without comment, that when
+Dave went anywhere with Miranda the jealous old bear remained at home.
+
+Until they were fairly off, Dave was in a fever of anxiety lest Miranda
+should change her mind. But this venture had genuinely caught her
+interest, and no whim tempted her to withdraw. After a breakfast eaten
+so early that the early June dawn was still throwing its streaks of cool
+red through the cabin window and discouraging the fire upon the hearth,
+Dave and Miranda set out. They followed the path to the spring among the
+alders, and then plunged direct into the woods, aiming a little to the
+east of north. The dew was thick in silver globules on the chips of the
+yard and on the plantain leaves. It beaded the slender grasses about the
+spring, and the young foliage of the alders, and the dazzling veils of
+the gossamer spiders. This time Dave took his rifle with him, and
+Miranda paid no heed to it.
+
+The woods were drenching wet, but unusually pervaded with light. The new
+risen sun sent its fresh rays far up the soundless vistas, and every
+damp leaf or shining facet of bark diffused its little dole of lustre to
+thin the gloom. As the sun got higher and the dew exhaled away, the
+twilight slightly deepened, the inexpressible clarity of the shadowed
+air returned, and the heart of the ancient wood resumed its magic. The
+awe, as of an enchantment working unseen, the meaning and expectant
+stillness, the confusion of near and far, the unreality of the
+familiar,--all this gripped the imagination of the two travellers just
+as sharply as if they had not been all their lives accustomed to it. The
+mystery of the ancient wood was not to be staled by use. These two,
+sensitive to its spell as a surface of glass to a breath, lay open to it
+in every nerve, and a tense silence fell upon their lips. In the silence
+was understanding of each other. It was Dave's most potent wooing,
+against which Miranda had no warning, no defence.
+
+As they walked thus noiselessly, light-footed as the furtive folk
+themselves, suddenly from a bit of open just ahead of them there came
+the slender, belling cry of a young deer. They had arrived now, after
+three hours' rapid walking, at a part of the forest unknown to Miranda.
+The open space was rock thinly covered with mosses and vines, an
+upthrust of the granite foundations of a hill which towered near by.
+
+It was an unheard-of thing for a young deer to give cry so heedlessly
+amid the perilous coverts of the wood. Both the travellers instinctively
+paused, and then stole forward with greater caution, peering through the
+branches. To the forest dwellers, beast or human, the unusual is always
+the suspicious, and therefore to be investigated. A few paces carried
+them both to a point where Miranda caught sight of the imprudent
+youngling.
+
+"Hush!" she whispered, laying her hand on Dave's arm, "Look! the poor
+little thing's lost. Don't frighten it!"
+
+"There'll be something else'll frighten it afore long," muttered Dave,
+"if it don't quit its bla'tin'."
+
+The words were hardly out of his mouth when the little animal jumped,
+trembled, started to run, and then looked piteously from side to side,
+as if uncertain which way to flee and from what peril. An instant more
+and the greyish-brown form of a lynx shot like lightning from the
+underbrush. It caught the young deer by the throat, dragged it down,
+tore it savagely, and began drinking its blood.
+
+"Kill it! kill it!" panted Miranda, starting forward. But Dave's hand
+checked her.
+
+"Wait!" he said firmly. "The little critter's dead; we can't do it no
+good. Wait an' we'll git both the varmints. There'll be a pair of 'em."
+
+Under ordinary circumstances, Miranda would have resented the idea of
+getting "both the varmints"; but just now she was savage with pity for
+the young deer, and she chose to remember vindictively that far-off day
+when Ganner had come to the clearing, and only the valour of Star, the
+brindled ox, had saved herself and Michael, the calf, from a cruel
+death. She obeyed Dave's command, therefore, and waited.
+
+But there was another who would not wait. The mother doe had heard her
+lost little one's appeal. In wild haste, but noiseless on the deep
+carpet of the moss, she came leaping to the cry. She saw what Miranda
+and Dave saw. But she did not pause to calculate, or weigh the odds
+against her. With one bound she was out in the open. With the next she
+was upon the destroyer. The hungry lynx looked up just in time to avoid
+the fair impact of her descending hooves, which would have broken his
+back. As it was, he caught a glancing blow on the flank, which ripped
+his fine fur and hurled him several paces down the slope.
+
+Before he could fully recover, the deer was upon him again; and Miranda,
+her eyes glowing, her cheeks scarlet with excitement and exultation,
+clutched her companion's arm with such a grip that her slim fingers hurt
+him deliciously. The lynx, alarmed and furious, twisted himself over and
+fixed both claws and teeth in his adversary's leg, just below the
+shoulder. Fierce and strong as he was, he was nevertheless getting badly
+punished, when his mate appeared bounding down the slope, and with a
+sharp snarl sprang upon the doe's neck, bearing her to her knees.
+
+"Shoot! shoot!" cried Miranda, springing away from Dave's side to give
+him room. But his rifle was at his shoulder ere she spoke. With the word
+his shot rang out; and the second assailant dropped to the ground,
+kicking. Immediately Dave ran forward. The male lynx, disentangling
+himself, darted for cover; but just as he was disappearing, Dave gave
+him the second barrel, at short range, and the bullet caught him
+obliquely across the hind quarters, breaking his spine. Dave was noted
+as the best shot in all that region; but the marksmanship which he had
+just displayed was lost on Miranda. She took it for granted that to
+shoot was to hit, and to hit was to kill, as a matter of course. Dave's
+first shot had killed. The animal was already motionless. But the
+writhings of the other lynx, prone in the bush, tore her heart.
+
+"Oh, how it's suffering! Kill it, quick!" she panted. Dave ran up, swung
+his rifle in a short grip, and struck the beast a settling blow at the
+base of the skull. The deer, meanwhile, limping and bleeding, but not
+seriously the worse for her dreadful encounter, hobbled back to where
+the body of her young lay stretched upon the moss. She sniffed at it for
+a moment with her delicate nose, satisfied herself that it was quite
+dead, then moved off slowly into the shadows.
+
+Miranda went to each of the three slain animals in turn, and looked at
+them thoughtfully, while Dave waited in silence, uncertain what to do
+next. He felt that it behooved him to step warily while Miranda was
+wrestling with emotions. At last she said, with a sob in her voice, and
+her eyes very bright and large,--
+
+"Come, let's get away from this horrid place!"
+
+Dave experienced a certain mild pang at the thought of leaving two good
+pelts behind him to be gnawed by foxes; but he followed Miranda without
+a word. It would have been a fatal error to talk of furs at that moment.
+As soon, however, as they were out of sight of the open slope, he turned
+aside and headed their course toward a rocky knoll which was visible
+through the trees.
+
+"What are you going that way for?" asked Miranda.
+
+"Likely the lou'-cerfies had their den in the rocks yonder," was the
+reply; "we must find it."
+
+"What do we want of their den?" queried the girl in surprise.
+
+"There'll be a couple of lou'-cerfie kittens in it, I reckon," said
+Dave, "an' we must find 'em."
+
+"What for?" demanded Miranda, suspiciously.
+
+Dave looked at her.
+
+"You've had me shoot the father an' mother, Mirandy," he said slowly,
+"for the sake of the deer. An' now would ye hev the little ones starve
+to death?"
+
+"I never thought of that, Dave," answered the girl, smitten with
+remorse; and she looked at him with a new approval. She thought to
+herself that he, hunter and blood-stained as he was, showed yet a
+readier and more reasonable tenderness for the furry kindred than she
+herself.
+
+For nearly half an hour they searched the hollows of the rocky knoll,
+and at last came upon a shallow cave overhung darkly by a mat of dwarf
+cedar. There were bones about the entrance, and inside, upon a bed of
+dry moss, were two small rusty brown, kitten-like objects curled softly
+together. Miranda's discerning vision perceived them at once, but it
+took Dave's eyes some seconds to adapt themselves to the gloom. Then the
+furry ball of "lou'-cerfie" kittens looked to him very pretty--something
+to be fondled and protected. He knew well how their helplessness would
+appeal to Miranda's tender heart. Nevertheless, with a firmness of
+courage which, under the circumstances, few heroes would have arisen to,
+he stepped forward, stooped, untangled the soft ball, and with the heavy
+handle of his hunting-knife struck each kitten just one sharp stroke on
+the neck, killing it instantly and easily.
+
+"Poor little critters!" he muttered; "it was the only thing to do with
+'em," and he turned to Miranda.
+
+The girl had backed out of the cave and now stood, with flushed face,
+staring at him fiercely.
+
+"You brute!" she exclaimed.
+
+Dave had been prepared for some discussion of his action. But he was not
+prepared for just this. He drew himself up.
+
+"I did think ye was a woman grown; an' for all yer idees were kind of
+far-fetched, I've respected 'em a heap; an' I won't say but what they've
+influenced me, too. But now I see ye're but a silly child an' don't
+reason. Did ye think, maybe, these here leetle mites o' things could
+live an' take keer o' themselves?"
+
+He spoke coldly, scornfully; and there was a kind of mastery in his
+voice that quelled her. She was astonished, too. The colour in her face
+deepened, but she dropped her eyes.
+
+"I wanted to take them home, and tame them," she explained, quite
+humbly.
+
+Dave's stern face softened.
+
+"Ye'd never 'a' been able to raise 'em. They're too young, a sight too
+young. See, their eyes ain't open. They'd have jest died on yer hands,
+Mirandy, sure an' sartain!"
+
+"But--how _could_ you!" she protested, with no more anger left, but a
+sob of pity in her throat.
+
+"It was jest what _you_ do to the fish ye ketch, Mirandy, to stop their
+sufferin'."
+
+Miranda looked up quickly, and her eyes grew large.
+
+"Do you know, I never thought of that before, Dave," she replied. "I'll
+never catch a fish again, long as I live! Let's get away from here."
+
+"Ye see," began Dave, making up his mind to sow a few seeds of doubt in
+Miranda's mind as to the correctness of her theories, "ye see, Mirandy,
+'tain't possible to be consistent right through in this life; but what
+ye'll find, life'll make a fool o' ye at one point or another. I ain't
+a-goin' to say I think ye're all wrong, not by no means. Sence I've seen
+the way ye understand the live critters of the woods, an' how they
+understand you, I've come to feel some different about killin' 'em
+myself. But, Mirandy, Nature's nature, an' ye can't do much by buckin'
+up agin her. Look now, ye told me to shoot the lou'-cerfie coz he killed
+the deer kid. But he didn't go to kill it for ugliness, nor jest for
+himself to make a dinner off of--you know that. He killed it for his
+mate, too. Lou'-cerfie ain't built so's they can eat grass. If the she
+lou'-cerfie didn't git the meat she needed, her kittens'd starve. She's
+jest _got_ to kill. Nature's put that law onto her, an' onto the
+painters, an' the foxes an' wolves, the 'coons an' the weasels. An'
+she's put the same law, only not so heavy, onto the bears, an' also onto
+humans, what's all built to live on all kinds of food, meat among the
+rest. An' to live right, and be their proper selves, they've all got to
+eat meat sometimes, for Nature don't stand much foolin' with her laws!"
+
+"_I'm_ well," interrupted Miranda, eagerly, with the obvious retort.
+
+"Maybe ye won't be always!" suggested Dave.
+
+"Then I'll be sick--then I'll _die_ before I'll eat meat!" she protested
+passionately. "What's the good of living, anyway, if it's nothing but
+kill, kill, kill, and for one that lives a lot have got to die!"
+
+Dave shook his head soberly.
+
+"That's what nobody, fur's I can see, Mirandy, has ever been able to
+make out yet. I've thought about it a heap, an' read about it a heap,
+alone in camp, an' I can't noways see through it. Oftentimes it's seemed
+to me all life was jest like a few butterflies flitterin' over a
+graveyard. But all the same, if we don't go to too much foolish worryin'
+'bout what we can't understand, we do feel it's good to be alive; an' I
+do think, Mirandy, this life _might_ be somethin' finer than the finest
+kind of a dream."
+
+Something in his voice, at these last words, thrilled Miranda, and at
+the same time put her on her guard.
+
+"Well," she exclaimed positively, if not relevantly, "I'm never going to
+catch another fish."
+
+The answer not being just what Dave needed for the support of his
+advance, he lost courage, and let the conversation drop.
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter XVII
+                       In the Roar of the Rapids
+
+
+A little before noon, when the midsummer heat of the outside world came
+filtering faintly down even into the cool vistas of the forest, and here
+and there a pale-blue butterfly danced with his mate across the clear
+shadow, and the aromatic wood smells came out more abundantly than was
+their wont, at the lure of the persuasive warmth, the travellers halted
+for noonmeat. Sitting on a fallen hemlock trunk beside a small but noisy
+brook, it was a frugal meal they made on the cheese and dark bread which
+Kirstie had put in Dave's satchel. Their halt was brief; and as they set
+out again, Dave said:--
+
+"'Tain't a mile from here to the Big Fork. Gabe's canoe's hid in the
+bushes just where this here brook falls in. Noisy, ain't it?"
+
+"I love the sound," exclaimed Miranda, stepping quickly and gaily, as if
+the light, musical clamour of the stream had got into her blood.
+
+"Well, the Big Fork's a sight noisier," continued Dave. "It's heavy
+water, an' just rapids on rapids all the ways down to Gabe's clearing.
+Ye won't be skeered, Mirandy?"
+
+The girl gave one of her rare laughs, very high-pitched, but brief,
+musical, and curiously elusive. She was excited at the prospect.
+
+"I reckon you know how to handle a canoe, Dave," was all she said. The
+trust in her voice made Dave feel measurably nearer his purpose. He
+durst not speak, lest his elation should betray itself.
+
+In a little while there came another sound, not drowning or even
+obscuring the clear prattle of the brook, but serving as a heavy
+background to its brightness. It was a large, yet soft, pulsating
+thunder, and seemed to come from all sides at once; as if far-off herds,
+at march over hollow lands, were closing in upon them. Dave looked at
+Miranda. She gave him a shining glance of comprehension.
+
+"It's the rapids!" she cried. "Do we go through those?"
+
+Dave laughed.
+
+"Not those! Not by a long chalk! That's the 'Big Soo' ye hear, an' it's
+more a fall than a rapid. Ther's an eddy an' a still water jest below,
+an' that's where we take to the canoe."
+
+As they went on, the great swelling noise seemed to Miranda to fill her
+soul, and worked a deep yet still excitement within her. Nevertheless,
+rapidly as its volume increased, the light chatter of the brook was
+upborne distinctly upon the flood of it. Then, suddenly, as the forest
+thinned ahead, and the white daylight confronted them, the voice of the
+brook was in an instant overwhelmed, utterly effaced. The softly
+pervasive thunder burst all at once into a trembling roar, vehement,
+conflicting, explosive; and they came out full in face of a long,
+distorted slope of cataract. White, yellow, tawny green, the waves
+bounded and wallowed down the loud steep; and here and there the black
+bulks of rock shouldered upward, opposing them eternally.
+
+Spellbound at the sight, Miranda stood gazing, while Dave fetched from
+the bushes a ruddy-yellow canoe of birch bark, and launched it in a
+quiet but foam-flecked back-water at their feet. In the bow he placed a
+compact bundle of bracken for Miranda to sit upon, with another flat
+bundle at her back, that the cross-bar might not gall her.
+
+"Best fer ye to sit low, Mirandy, 'stead o' kneelin'," he explained,
+"coz I'll be standin' up, with the pole, goin' through some o' the rips,
+an' ye'll be steadier sittin' than kneelin'."
+
+"But I paddle better kneeling," protested Miranda.
+
+"Ye won't need to paddle," said Dave, a little grimly. "Ye'll jest maybe
+fend a rock now an' agin, that's all. The current an' me'll do the
+rest."
+
+The fall of the "Big Soo" ended in a basin very wide and deep, whose
+spacious caverns absorbed the fury of the waters and allowed them to
+flow off sullenly. Dave knelt in the stern, paddle in hand, and the long
+pole of white spruce sticking out behind the canoe, where he could lay
+his grasp upon it in an instant. A couple of strokes sent the little
+craft out into the smooth, purplish-amber swirls of the deep current,
+whereon the froth clusters wheeled slowly. A few minutes more and a
+green fringed overhang of rock was rounded, the last energy of the
+current spent itself in a deep and roomy channel, the uproar of the
+cataract mellowed suddenly to that pulsating thunder which they had
+heard at first, and the canoe, under Dave's noiseless propulsion, shot
+forward over a surface as of dark brown glass. There was a mile of this
+still water, along which Miranda insisted upon paddling. The rocks rose
+straight from the channel, and the trees hung down from their rim, and
+the June sun, warmly flooding the trough of rock and water, made its
+grimness greatly beautiful. Then the rocks diminished, and the steep,
+richly green slopes of the hillsides came down to the water's edge, and
+a rushing clamour began to swell in the distance. The currents awakened
+under the canoe, which darted forward more swiftly. The shouting of the
+"rips" seemed to rush up stream to meet them. The surface of the river
+began to slant away before them, not breaking yet, but furrowing into
+long, thready streaks. Then, far down the slant, a tossing white line of
+short breakers, drawn right across the channel, clambered toward them
+ravenously.
+
+"Ye'd better not paddle now, Mirandy," said Dave, in a quiet voice,
+standing up for a moment to survey the channel, while the canoe slipped
+swiftly down toward the turmoil. "There's rapids now all the way down to
+Gabe's clearing. An' we won't be long goin', neither."
+
+[Illustration: 'Stroke on the right!' came Dave's sharp order]
+
+A moment more, and to Miranda it seemed that the leafy shores ran by
+her, that the gnashing phalanx of the waves sprang up at her. She had
+never run a rapid before. Her experience of canoeing had all been gained
+on the lake. She caught her breath, but did not flinch as the tumbling
+waters seethed and yammered around her. Then her blood ran hot with the
+excitement of it; her nerves tingled. She wanted to cry out, to paddle
+wildly and fiercely. But she held herself under curb. She never moved.
+Only the grip of her hands on the paddle, which lay idle before her,
+tightened till the knuckles went white. There was no word from Dave; no
+sign of his presence save that the canoe shot straight as an arrow, and
+bit firmly upon the big surges, so that she knew his wrist of steel was
+in control. Suddenly, just ahead, sprang a square black rock, against
+which the mad rush of water upreared and fell back broken to either
+side. The canoe leaped straight at it, and Miranda held her breath.
+
+"Stroke on the right!" came Dave's sharp order. She dipped her paddle
+strenuously, twice--thrice--and, swerving at the last moment, while the
+currents seethed up along her bulwarks, the canoe darted safely past.
+
+Miranda stopped paddling. There was a steeper slope in front, but a
+clear channel, the waves not high but wallowing inward toward the
+centre. Straight down this centre rushed the canoe, the surges clutching
+at her on both sides, yellow green, with white foam-streaks veining
+their very hearts. At the foot of the slope, singing sharply and shining
+in the sun, curved a succession of three great "ripples," stationary in
+mid-channel, their back-curled crests thin and prismatic. Straight
+through these Dave steered. The three thin crests, thus swiftly divided,
+one after another, slapped Miranda coldly in the face, drenching her,
+and leaving a good bucketful of water in the canoe.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Miranda, at the shock, and shook her hair, laughing
+excitedly.
+
+There was gentler water now for a hundred yards or so, and Dave steered
+cautiously for shore.
+
+"We'll hev to land an' empty her out," said he. "Ther's no more big
+'ripples' like them there on the whole river; an' we won't take in water
+agin 'twixt here an' Gabe's."
+
+"I don't care if we do!" exclaimed Miranda, fervently. "It was splendid,
+Dave! And you did it just fine!"
+
+This commendation took him aback somewhat, and he was unable to show his
+appreciation of it except by a foolish grin, which remained on his face
+while he turned the canoe over and while he launched it again. It was
+still there when Miranda resumed her place in the bow; and, strangely
+enough, she felt no disposition to criticise him for it.
+
+The rest of the journey, lasting nearly an hour longer, was a ceaseless
+succession of rapids, with scant and few spaces of quiet water between.
+None were quite so long and violent as the first; but by the time the
+canoe slowed up in the reach of still water that ran through the
+interval meadow of Gabe's clearing, Miranda felt fagged from the
+long-sustained excitement. She felt as if it had been she, not Dave,
+whose unerring eye and unfailing wrist had brought the canoe in triumph
+through the menace of the roaring races.
+
+They landed on the blossoming meadow strip, and Dave turned the canoe
+over among the grasses, under the shade of an elm that would serve to
+keep the afternoon sun from melting the rosin off the seams. Gabe's
+cabin stood a stone's throw back from the meadow, high enough up the
+slope to be clear of the spring freshets. It was a bare, uncared-for
+place, with black stumps still dotting all the fields of buckwheat and
+potatoes, a dishevelled-looking barn, and no vine or bush about the
+house. It gave Miranda a pang of pity to look at it. Her own cabin was
+lonely enough, but with a high, austere, clear loneliness that seemed to
+hold communion with the stars. The loneliness of this place was a
+shut-in, valley loneliness, without horizons and without hope. She felt
+sorry almost to tears for the white and sad-eyed woman who appeared in
+the cabin door to welcome them.
+
+"Sary Ann, this is Mirandy I spoke to ye about."
+
+The two women shook hands somewhat shyly, and, after the silent fashion
+of their race, said nothing.
+
+"How's Jimmy?" asked Dave.
+
+"'Baout the same, thank ye, Dave," replied the woman, wearily, leading
+the way into the cabin.
+
+In a low chair near the window, playing listlessly with a dingy
+red-and-yellow rag doll, sat a thin-faced, pallid little boy with long,
+pale curls down on his shoulders. He lifted sorrowful blue eyes to
+Miranda's face, as she, with a swift impulse of tenderness and
+compassion, rushed forward and knelt down to embrace him. Her vitality
+and the loving brightness of her look won the child at once. His wan
+little face lightened. He lifted the baby mouth to be kissed. Miranda
+pressed his fair head to her bosom gently, and had much ado to keep her
+eyes from running over, so worked the love and pity and the mothering
+hunger in her heart.
+
+"He takes to ye, Mirandy," said the woman, smiling upon her. And Dave,
+his passion almost mastering him, blurted out proudly,--
+
+"An' who wouldn't take to her, I'd like to know?"
+
+He felt at this moment that Miranda was now all human, and could never
+quite go back to her mystic and uncanny wildness, her preference for the
+speechless, furry kin over her own warm, human kind. He produced the
+medicine from his satchel; and from Miranda's attentive hand Jimmy took
+the stuff as if it had been nectar. Jimmy's mother looked on with
+undisguised approval of the girl. Had she thought Miranda was going to
+stay any length of time, her mother-jealousy would have been aroused;
+but as it was she was only exquisitely relieved at the thought of
+Jimmy's being in some one else's care for a few hours. She whispered
+audibly--a mere chaffing pretence of a whisper it was--to Dave:--
+
+"It's a right purty an' a right smart little wife she'll make fer ye,
+Dave Titus, an' she'll know how to mind yer babies. Ye're a lucky man,
+an' I hope ye understand how lucky ye air!"
+
+Poor Dave! She might as well have thrown a bucket of cold water in his
+face. For an instant he could have strangled the kindly, coarse-grained,
+well-meaning, silly woman, who stood beaming her pale goodwill upon them
+both. He cursed himself for not having warned her that Miranda could not
+be chaffed like a common Settlement girl. He saw Miranda's face go
+scarlet to the ears, though she bent over Jimmy and pretended to have
+heard nothing; and he knew that in that moment his good work was all
+undone. For a few seconds he could say nothing, and the silence grew
+trying. Then he stammered out:--
+
+"I'm afeard ther's no sich luck fer me, Sary Ann, though God knows I
+want her. But Mirandy don't like me very well."
+
+The woman stared at him incredulously.
+
+"Lord sakes, Dave Titus, then what's she doin' here alone with you?" she
+exclaimed, the weariness coming back into her voice at the last of the
+phrase. "Oh, you go 'long! You don't know nothin' about women!"
+
+This was quite too much for Dave, whose instincts, fined by long months
+in the companionship of only the great trees, the great winds, and the
+grave stars, had grown unerringly delicate. His own face flushed up now
+for Miranda's sake.
+
+"I'd take it kindly of ye, Sary Ann, if ye'd quit the subject right
+there," he said quietly. But there was a firmness in his voice which the
+woman understood.
+
+"The both of ye must be nigh dead for somethin' to eat," she said. "I
+must git ye supper right off." And she turned to the fireplace and
+filled the kettle.
+
+Thereafter, through supper, and through the short evening, Miranda had
+never a word for Dave. She talked a little, kindly and without showing
+her resentment, to Mrs. White; but her attentions were entirely absorbed
+in little Jimmy. Indeed, she had Jimmy very much to herself, for Mrs.
+White got Dave to help with the chores and the milking. Afterward, about
+the hearth-fire,--maintained for its cheer and not for warmth,--Mrs.
+White confined her conversation largely to Dave. She was not angry at
+him on account of his rebuke--but vaguely aggrieved at Miranda as the
+cause of it. She began to feel that Miranda was different from other
+girls, from what she herself had been as a girl. Miranda's fineness and
+sensitiveness were something of an offence to her, though she could not
+define them at all. She characterized them vaguely by the phrase "stuck
+up"; and became presently inclined to think that a fine fellow like Dave
+was too good for her. Still, she was a fair-minded woman in her worn,
+colourless way; and she could not but allow there must be a lot in
+Miranda if little Jimmy took to her so--"For a child knows a good
+heart," she said to herself.
+
+Next morning, soon after dawn, the travellers were off, Miranda tearing
+herself with difficulty from little Jimmy's embrace, and leaving him in
+a desolation of tears. She was quite civil and ordinary with Dave now,
+so much so that good, obtuse, weary Mrs. White concluded that all was at
+rights again. But Dave felt the icy difference; and he was too proud, if
+not for the time too hopeless, to try to thaw it. During all the long,
+laborious journey upward through the rapids, by poling, he did wonders
+of skill and strength, but in utter silence. His feats were not lost
+upon Miranda, but she hardened her heart resolutely; for now a shame,
+which she had never known before, gave tenacity to her anger. Through it
+all, however, she couldn't help thrilling to the strife with the loud
+rapids, and exulting in the slow, inexorable conquest of them. The
+return march through the woods was in the main a silent one, as before;
+but how different a silence! Not electric with meaning, but cold, the
+silence of a walled chamber. And, as if the spirits of the wood
+maliciously enjoyed Dave's discomfiture, they permitted no incident, no
+diversion. They kept the wood-folk all away, they emptied of all life
+and significance the forest spaces. And Dave grew sullen.
+
+Arriving back at the clearing just before sundown, they paused at the
+cabin door. Dave looked into Miranda's eyes with something of reproach,
+something of appeal. Kirstie's voice, talking cheerfully to Kroof, came
+from the raspberry brambles behind the house. Miranda stretched out her
+hand with a cool frankness, and returned his look blankly.
+
+"I've had a real good time, thank you, Dave," she said. "You'll find
+mother yonder, picking raspberries."
+
+
+
+
+                             Chapter XVIII
+                        The Forfeit of the Alien
+
+
+All through the summer and early autumn Dave continued his fortnightly
+visits to the cabin in the clearing, and always Miranda treated him with
+the same cold, casual civility. She felt, or pretended to herself that
+she felt, grateful now to the blunt-fingered, wan woman over at Gabe
+White's, who had rudely jostled her back to her senses when she was on
+the very edge of giving up her freedom and her personality to a man--a
+strong man, who would have absorbed her. She flung herself passionately
+once more into the fellowship of the furtive folk, the secrecy and
+wonder of the wood. As it was a human love which she was crushing out,
+and as she felt the need of humanity cravingly, though not
+understandingly, at her heart, she lavished upon Kirstie a
+demonstrativeness of affection such as she had never shown before. It
+pleased Kirstie, and she met it heartily in her calm, strong way; but
+she saw through it, and smiled at the back of her brain, scarcely daring
+to think her thought frankly, lest the girl's intuition should discern
+it. She made much of Dave, but never before Miranda; and she kept
+encouraging the rather despondent man with the continual assertion:
+"It'll be all right, Dave. Don't fret, but bide your time." To which
+Dave responded by biding his time with a quiet, unaggressive
+persistence; and if he fretted, he took pains not to show it.
+
+If Dave had an ally in Kirstie, he had consistent antagonists in all the
+folk of the wood; for never before in all Miranda's semi-occult
+experience had the folk of the wood come so near to her. Kroof was her
+almost ceaseless companion, more devoted, if possible, than ever, and
+certainly more quick in comprehension of Miranda's English. And Kroof's
+cub, a particularly fine and well-grown young animal, was well-nigh as
+devoted as his mother. When these two were absent on some rare
+expedition of their own, undertaken by Kroof for the hardening of the
+cub's muscles, then the very foxes took to following Miranda, close to
+heel, like dogs; and one drowsy fall afternoon, when she had lain down
+to sleep on a sloping patch of pine needles, the self-same big panther
+from whom she had rescued Dave came lazily and lay down beside her. His
+large purring at her ear awoke her. He purred still more loudly when she
+gently scratched him under the throat. She was filled with a curious
+exaltation as she marked how her influence over the wild things grew and
+widened. Nothing, she vowed, should ever lure her away from these clear
+shades, these silent folks whom she ruled by hand and eye, and this
+mysterious life which she alone could know. When Old Dave, for whom she
+cared warmly, made his now infrequent visits to the clearing, she had an
+inclination to avoid him, lest he should attack her purpose; and the
+thought of little Jimmy's white face and baby mouth she put away
+obstinately, as most dangerous of all. And so it came that when October
+arrived, and all the forest everywhere was noiselessly astir with
+falling leaves, and the light of the blue began to peer in upon the
+places which had been closed to it all summer, by that time Miranda felt
+quite secure in her resolve; and Dave's fight now was to keep the
+despair of his heart from writing itself large upon his face.
+
+Toward the end of that October Dave's hunting took him to the rocky open
+ground where, in the previous June, he and Miranda had encountered the
+lynxes. He was looking for fresh meat for Kirstie, and game, that day,
+had kept aloof. Just as he recognized, with a kind of homesick ache of
+remembrance, the spot where he and Miranda had seemed, for a brief
+space, to be in perfect accord with each other,--how long ago and how
+unbelievable it appeared to him now!--his hunter's eye caught a sight
+which brought the rifle to his shoulder. Just at the edge of the open a
+young bear stood greedily stripping blueberries from the laden bushes,
+and grunting with satisfaction at the sweet repast.
+
+"A bit of bear steak," thought Dave, "will be jest the thing for
+Kirstie. She's gittin' a mite tired o' deer's meat!"
+
+An unhurried aim, a sharp, slapping report, and the handsome cub sank
+forward upon his snout, and rolled over, shot through the brain. Dave
+strode up to him. He had died instantly--so instantly and painlessly
+that his half-open mouth was still full of berries and small, dark green
+leaves. Dave felt his soft and glossy dark coat.
+
+"Ye're a fine young critter," he muttered half regretfully. "It was kind
+o' mean to cut ye off when ye was havin' such a good time all to
+yerself."
+
+But Dave was not one to nurse an idle sentimentality. Without delay he
+skinned the carcase, and _cached_ the pelt carefully under a pile of
+heavy stones, intending to return for it the first day possible. He was
+going to the clearing now, and could not take a raw pelt with him, to
+damn him finally in Miranda's eyes; but the skin was too fine a one to
+be left to the foxes and wolverines. When it was safely bestowed, he cut
+off the choicest portions of the carcase, wrapped them in leaves and
+tied them up in birch bark, slung the package over his shoulder, and set
+out in haste for the clearing. He was anxious that Kirstie should have
+bear steaks for supper that night.
+
+He had been but a little while gone from the rocky open, where the red
+carcase lay hideously affronting the sunlight, when another bear emerged
+in leisurely fashion from the shadows. It was an animal of huge size and
+with rusty fur that was greying about the snout. She paused to look
+around her. On the instant her body stiffened, and then she went
+crashing through the blueberry bushes to where that dreadful thing lay
+bleeding. She walked around it twice, with her nose in the air, and
+again with her nose to the ground. Then she backed away from it slowly
+down the slope, her stare fixed upon it as if she expected it might rise
+and follow. At the edge of the wood she wheeled quickly, and went at a
+savage gallop along the trail which Dave had taken.
+
+It was old Kroof; and Dave had killed her cub.
+
+She rushed on madly, a terrible avenger of blood; but so fast was Dave
+journeying that it was not much short of an hour before her instinct or
+some keen sense told her that he was close at hand. She was not blinded
+by her fury. Rather was she coolly and deliberately set upon a sufficing
+vengeance. She moderated her pace, and went softly; and soon she caught
+sight of her quarry some way ahead, striding swiftly down the
+brown-shadowed vistas.
+
+There was no other bear in all the forests so shrewd as Kroof; and she
+knew that for the hunter armed all her tremendous strength and fury were
+no match. She waited to catch him at a disadvantage. Her huge bulk kept
+the trail as noiselessly as a weasel or a mink. Young Dave, with all his
+woodcraft, all his alertness of sense, all his intuition, had no guess
+of the dark Nemesis which was so inexorably dogging his stride. He was
+in such haste that in spite of the autumn chill his hair clung moistly
+to his forehead. When he reached the rivulet flowing away from the cabin
+spring, he felt that he must have a wash-up before presenting himself.
+Under a big hemlock he dropped his bundle, threw off his cap, his belt,
+his shirt, and laid down his loaded rifle. Then, bare to the waist, he
+went on some twenty paces to a spot where the stream made a convenient
+pool, and knelt down to give himself a thorough freshening.
+
+Kroof's little eyes gleamed redly. Here was her opportunity.
+
+She crept forward, keeping the trunk of the hemlock between herself and
+her foe, till she reached the things which Dave had thrown down under
+the tree. She sniffed at the rolled-up package and turned it over with
+her paw. Then, with one short, grunting cough of rage and pain, she
+launched herself upon the murderer of her cub.
+
+That savage cry was Dave's first hint of danger. He looked up quickly,
+his head and shoulders dripping. He recognized Kroof. There was no time
+for choice. The huge animal was just upon him; but in that instant he
+understood the whole tragedy. His heart sickened. There was a great
+beech tree just across the pool, almost within arm's length. With one
+bound he reached it. With the next he caught a branch and swung himself
+up, just eluding the vengeful sweep of Kroof's paw.
+
+Nimbly he mounted, seeking a branch which would lead him to another tree
+and so back to the ground and his rifle; and Kroof, after a moment's
+pause, climbed after him. But Dave could not find what he sought. Few
+were the trees in the ancient wood whose topmost branches did not twine
+closely with their neighbour trees. But with a man's natural aversion to
+bathing in water that is not enlivened and inspirited by the direct
+sunlight, Dave had chosen a spot where the trees were scattered and the
+blue of the sky looked in. He climbed to a height of some forty or fifty
+feet from the ground before he found a branch that seemed to offer any
+hope at all. Out upon this he stepped, steadying himself by a slenderer
+branch above his head. Following it as far as the branch would support
+him, he saw that his position was all but hopeless. He could not, even
+by the most accurate and fortunate swing, catch the nearest branch of
+the nearest tree. He turned back, but Kroof was already at the fork. Her
+claws were already fixed upon the branch; she was crawling out to him
+slowly, inexorably; she had him in a trap.
+
+Dave stood tense and moveless, awaiting her. His face was white, his
+mouth set. He knew that in all human probability his hour was come; yet
+what might be done, he would do. Far below, between him and the mingling
+of rock and moss which formed the ground (he looked down upon it,
+chequered with the late sunlight), was a stout hemlock branch. At the
+last moment he would drop; and the branch--he would clutch at it--might
+perhaps break his fall, at least in part. It was a meagre chance, but
+his only one. He was not shaken by fear, but he felt aggrieved and
+disappointed at such a termination of his hopes; and the deadly irony of
+his fate stung him. The branch bent lower and lower as Kroof's vast
+weight drew near. The branch above, too frail to endure his weight
+alone, still served to steady him. He kept his head erect, challenging
+death.
+
+It chanced that Miranda, not far off, had heard the roar with which
+Kroof had rushed to the attack. The fury of it had brought her in haste
+to the spot, surprised and apprehensive. She recognized Dave's rifle and
+hunting-shirt under the hemlock tree, and her heart melted in a horrible
+fear. Then she saw Dave high up in the beech tree, his bare shoulders
+gleaming through the russet leaves. She saw Kroof, now not three feet
+from her prey. She saw the hate in the beast's eyes and open jaws.
+
+"Kroof!" she cried, in a tone of fierce command; and Kroof heeded her no
+more than if she had been the wind whispering. "Kroof! Kroof!" she cried
+again, in anguished appeal, in piercing terror, as the savage animal
+crept on. Dave did not turn his head, but he called down in a quiet
+voice: "Ye can't do it this time, Mirandy. I guess it's good-by now, for
+good!"
+
+But Miranda's face had suddenly set itself to stone. She snatched up the
+rifle. "Hold on!" she cried, and taking a careful, untrembling aim she
+pulled first one trigger, then the other, in such quick succession that
+the two reports came almost as one. Then she dropped the weapon, and
+stood staring wildly.
+
+The bear's body heaved convulsively for a moment, then seemed to fall
+together on the branch, clutching at it. A second later and it rolled
+off, with a leisurely motion, and came plunging downward, soft, massive,
+enormous. It struck the ground with a sobbing thud. Miranda gave a low
+cry at the sound, turned away, and leaned against the trunk of the
+hemlock. Her face was toward the tree, and hidden in the bend of her
+arm.
+
+Dave knew now that all he had hoped for was his. Yet, after the first
+overwhelming, choking throb of exultation, his heart swelled with pity
+for the girl, with pity and immeasurable tenderness. He descended from
+his refuge, put on his hunting-shirt and belt, looked curiously at the
+empty rifle where it lay on the moss, and kicked the corded package of
+meat into a thicket. Then he went and stood close beside Miranda.
+
+After a moment or two he laid an arm about her shoulders and touched her
+with his large hand, lightly firm. "Ye wonderful Mirandy," he said,
+"you've give me life over agin! I ain't a-goin' to thank ye, though,
+till I know what ye're goin' to do with me. My life's been jest all
+yours since first I seen ye a woman grown. What'll ye do with the life
+ye've saved, Mirandy?"
+
+He pressed her shoulder close against his heart, and leaned over, not
+quite daring to kiss the bronze-dark hair on which he breathed. The girl
+turned suddenly, with a sob, and caught hold of him, and hid her face in
+his breast. "Oh, Dave!" she cried, in a piteous voice, "take mother and
+me away from this place; I don't want to live at the clearing any more.
+You've killed the old life I loved." And she broke into a storm of
+tears.
+
+Dave waited till she was quieter. Then he said: "If I've changed your
+life, Mirandy, ye've changed mine a sight, too. I'll hunt and trap no
+more, dear, an' the beasts'll hev no more trouble 'long o' me. We'll
+sell the clearin', an' go 'way down onto the Meramichi, where I can git
+a good job surveyin' lumber. I'm right smart at that. An' I reckon--oh,
+I love ye, an' I need ye, an' I reckon I can make ye happy, ye wonderful
+Mirandy."
+
+The girl heard him through, then gently released herself from his arms.
+"You go an' tell mother what I've done, Dave," she said, in a steady
+voice, "and leave me here a little while with Kroof."
+
+That evening, after Miranda had returned to the cabin, Kirstie and Dave
+came with spades and a lantern to the beech tree by the pool. Where they
+could find room in the rocky soil, they dug a grave; and there they
+buried old Kroof deeply, that neither might the claws of the wolverine
+disturb her, nor any lure of spring suns waken her from her sleep.
+
+
+                                PLYMOUTH
+                   WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, PRINTERS
+
+
+
+
+                               Footnotes
+
+
+[1]A species of large, grey lake trout.
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber's Notes
+
+
+--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.
+
+--Retained copyright notice from the printed edition (which is
+  public-domain in the country of publication.)
+
+--In the text version, delimited italicized text with _underscores_ (the
+  HTML version displays the modified font.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Heart of the Ancient Wood, by 
+Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD ***
+
+***** This file should be named 47671-8.txt or 47671-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Heart of the Ancient Wood, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Heart of the Ancient Wood
+
+Author: Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2014 [EBook #47671]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marcia Brooks, Stephen Hutcheson, and the
+online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div id="cover" class="img">
+<img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD" width="500" height="777" />
+</div>
+<p class="tbcenter"><span class="large">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</span></p>
+<p class="center">BY THE MARSHES OF MINAS
+<br />THE FORGE IN THE FOREST
+<br />A SISTER TO EVANGELINE</p>
+<div class="img" id="fig1">
+<img src="images/front.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="794" />
+<p class="center"><span class="small">&lsquo;Get off!&rsquo; she ordered sharply
+<span class="jr"><a href="#Page_153">Page 153</a></span></span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="box">
+<h1>THE HEART OF THE
+<br />ANCIENT WOOD</h1>
+<p class="center"><span class="smaller">BY</span>
+<br /><span class="large">CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS</span></p>
+<p class="tbcenter"><span class="smaller">WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS</span></p>
+<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">METHUEN &amp; CO.
+<br />36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+<br />LONDON
+<br />1902</span></p>
+<p class="tbcenter"><span class="smaller"><span class="sc">Copyright by Silver, Burdett &amp; Company in the United States of America</span>
+<br /><i>All rights reserved</i></span></p>
+</div>
+<p class="center">To
+<br />L. W. v. U.</p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<dl class="toc">
+<dt class="jr small"><span class="jl">Chapter</span> Page</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c1"><span class="cn">I. </span>The Watchers of the Trail</a> 1</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c2"><span class="cn">II. </span>The Cabin in the Clearing</a> 18</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c3"><span class="cn">III. </span>The Exiles from the Settlement</a> 30</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c4"><span class="cn">IV. </span>Miranda and the Furtive Folk</a> 46</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c5"><span class="cn">V. </span>Kroof, the She-bear</a> 64</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c6"><span class="cn">VI. </span>The Initiation of Miranda</a> 76</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c7"><span class="cn">VII. </span>The Intimates</a> 88</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c8"><span class="cn">VIII. </span>Axe and Antler</a> 107</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c9"><span class="cn">IX. </span>The Pax Mirand&aelig;</a> 121</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c10"><span class="cn">X. </span>The Routing of the Philistines</a> 133</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c11"><span class="cn">XI. </span>Miranda and Young Dave</a> 145</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c12"><span class="cn">XII. </span>Young Dave at the Clearing</a> 162</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c13"><span class="cn">XIII. </span>Milking-time</a> 173</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c14"><span class="cn">XIV. </span>Moonlight and Moose-call</a> 187</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c15"><span class="cn">XV. </span>A Venison Steak</a> 203</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c16"><span class="cn">XVI. </span>Death for a Little Life</a> 225</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c17"><span class="cn">XVII. </span>In the Roar of the Rapids</a> 245</dt>
+<dt><a href="#c18"><span class="cn">XVIII. </span>The Forfeit of the Alien</a> 262</dt>
+</dl>
+<h2 class="eee">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+<dl class="toc">
+<dt><a href="#fig1">&ldquo;&lsquo;Get off!&rsquo; she ordered sharply&rdquo;</a> <i>Frontispiece</i></dt>
+<dt class="jr small"><span class="smaller">FACING PAGE</span></dt>
+<dt><a href="#fig2">&ldquo;She . . . stood motionless, erect and formidable&rdquo;</a> 50</dt>
+<dt><a href="#fig3">&ldquo;She sprang up, . . . her whole weight straining on the tether&rdquo;</a> 102</dt>
+<dt><a href="#fig4">&ldquo;He ran wildly over the snow patches&rdquo;</a> 140</dt>
+<dt><a href="#fig5">&ldquo;The moose recognized her&rdquo;</a> 196</dt>
+<dt><a href="#fig6">&ldquo;&lsquo;Stroke on the right!&rsquo; came Dave&rsquo;s sharp order&rdquo;</a> 250</dt>
+</dl>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_1">1</div>
+<h1 title="">THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD</h1>
+<h2 id="c1">Chapter I
+<br /><span class="small">The Watchers of the Trail</span></h2>
+<p>Not indolently soft, like that which
+sifts in green shadow through the
+leafage of a summer garden, but tense,
+alertly and mysteriously expectant, was the
+silence of the forest. It was somehow
+like a vast bubble of glass, blown to a
+fineness so tenuous that a small sound,
+were it but to strike the one preordained
+and mystic note, might shatter it down in
+loud ruin. Yet it had existed there flawless
+for generations, transmuting into its
+own quality all such infrequent and inconsequent
+disturbance as might arise from
+the far-off cry of the panther, or the thin
+chirp of the clambering nuthatch, the
+long, solemn calling of the taciturn moose,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_2">2</span>
+twice or thrice repeated under the round
+October moon, or the noise of some great
+wind roaring heavily in the remote tops
+of pine and birch and hemlock. Few and
+slender were the rays of sun that pierced
+down through those high tops. The air
+that washed the endless vistas of brown-green
+shadow was of a marvellous clarity,
+not blurred by any stain of dust or vapour.
+Its magical transparency was confusing to
+an eye not born and bred to it, making
+the far branches seem near, and the near
+twigs unreal, disturbing the accustomed
+perspective, and hinting of some elvish
+deception in familiar and apparent things.</p>
+<p>The trail through the forest was rough
+and long unused. In spots the mosses
+and ground vines had so overgrown it
+that only the broad scars on the tree
+trunks, where the lumberman&rsquo;s axe had
+blazed them for a sign, served to distinguish
+it from a score of radiating vistas.
+But just here, where it climbed a long,
+gradual slope, the run of water down its
+slight hollow had sufficed to keep its worn
+stones partly bare. Moreover, though
+<span class="pb" id="Page_3">3</span>
+the furrowing steps of man had left it
+these many seasons untrodden, it was
+never wholly neglected. A path once
+fairly differentiated by the successive passings
+of feet will keep, almost forever, a
+spell for the persuasion of all that go
+afoot. The old trail served the flat,
+shuffling tread of Kroof, the great she-bear,
+as she led her half-grown cub to
+feast on the blueberry patches far up the
+mountain. It caught the whim of Ten-Tine,
+the caribou, as he convoyed his slim
+cows down to occasional pasturage in the
+alder swamps of the slow Quah-Davic.</p>
+<p>On this September afternoon, when the
+stillness seemed to wait wide-eyed, suddenly
+a cock-partridge came whirring up
+the trail, alighted on a gnarled limb,
+turned his outstretched head twice from
+side to side as he peered with his round
+beads of eyes, and then stiffened into the
+moveless semblance of one of the fungoid
+excrescences with which the tree was
+studded. A moment more and the sound
+of footsteps, of the nails of heavy boots
+striking on the stones, grew conspicuous
+<span class="pb" id="Page_4">4</span>
+against the silence. Up the trail came
+slouching, with a strong but laborious
+stride, a large, grizzled man in grey home-spuns.
+His trousers were stuffed unevenly
+into the tops of his rusty boots;
+on his head was a drooping, much-battered
+hat of a felt that had been brown;
+from his belt hung a large knife in a fur-fringed
+leather sheath; and over his
+shoulder he carried an axe, from the
+head of which swung a large bundle.
+The bundle was tied up in a soiled patchwork
+quilt of gaudy colours, and from
+time to time there came from it a flat
+clatter suggestive of tins. At one side
+protruded the black handle of a frying-pan,
+half wrapped up in newspaper.</p>
+<p>Had he been hunter or trapper, Dave
+Titus would have carried a gun. Or
+had he been a townsman, a villager, or
+even an ordinary small country farmer,
+he would have taken care to be well
+armed before penetrating a day&rsquo;s journey
+into the heart of the ancient wood. But
+being a lumberman, he was neither quite
+of the forest nor quite of the open. His
+<span class="pb" id="Page_5">5</span>
+winters he spent in the very deep of the
+wilderness, in a log camp crowded with
+his mates, eating salt pork, beans, hot
+bread; and too busy all day long with his
+unwearying axe to wage any war upon the
+furred and feathered people. His summers
+were passed with plough and hoe on
+a little half-tilled farm in the Settlements.
+He had, therefore, neither the desire to
+kill nor the impulse to fear, as he traversed,
+neutral and indifferent, these silent but
+not desolated territories. Not desolated;
+for the ancient wood was populous in
+its reserve. Observant, keen of vision,
+skilled in woodcraft though he was, the
+grave-faced old lumberman saw nothing
+in the tranquillity about him save tree
+trunks, and fallen, rotting remnants, and
+mossed hillocks, and thickets of tangled
+shrub. He noted the difference, not
+known to the general eye, between white
+spruce, black spruce, and fir, between grey
+birch and yellow birch, between withe-wood
+and viburnum; and he read instinctively,
+by the lichen growth about
+their edges, how many seasons had laid
+<span class="pb" id="Page_6">6</span>
+their disfeaturing touch upon those old
+scars of the axe which marked the trail.
+But for all his craft he thought himself
+alone. He guessed not of the many eyes
+that watched him.</p>
+<p>In truth, his progress was the focus of
+an innumerable attention. The furtive
+eyes that followed his movements were
+some of them timorously hostile, some
+impotently vindictive, some indifferent;
+but all alien. All were at one in the will
+to remain unseen; so all kept an unwinking
+immobility, and were swallowed up, as
+it were, in the universal stillness.</p>
+<p>The cock-partridge, a well-travelled
+bird who knew the Settlements and their
+violent perils, watched with indignant
+apprehension. Not without purpose had
+he come whirring so tumultuously up the
+trail, a warning to the ears of all the wood-folk.
+His fear was lest the coming of
+this grey man-figure should mean an invasion
+of those long, black sticks which
+went off with smoky bang when they
+were pointed. He effaced himself till his
+brown mottled feathers were fairly one
+<span class="pb" id="Page_7">7</span>
+with the mottled brown bark of his perch;
+but his liquid eyes lost not a least movement
+of the stranger.</p>
+<p>The nuthatch, who had been walking
+straight up the perpendicular trunk of a
+pine when the sound of the alien footsteps
+froze him, peered fixedly around the tree.
+His eye, a black point of inquiry, had
+never before seen anything like this
+clumsy and slow-moving shape, but knew
+it for something dangerous. His little
+slaty head, jutting at an acute angle from
+the bark, looked like a mere caprice of
+knot or wood fungus; but it had the
+singular quality of moving smoothly
+around the trunk, as the lumberman
+advanced, so as to keep him always in
+view.</p>
+<p>Equally curious, but quivering with
+fear, two wood-mice watched him intently,
+sitting under the broad leaf of a skunk-cabbage
+not three feet from the trail.
+Their whiskers touched each other&rsquo;s
+noses, conveying thrills and palpitations
+of terror as he drew near, drew nearer,
+came&mdash;and passed. But not unless that
+<span class="pb" id="Page_8">8</span>
+blind, unheeding heel had been on the
+very point of crushing them would they
+have disobeyed the prime law of their
+tribe, which taught them that to sit still
+was to sit unseen.</p>
+<p>A little farther back from the trail,
+under a spreading tangle of ironwood,
+on a bed of tawny moss crouched a
+hare. His ears lay quite flat along his
+back. His eyes watched with aversion,
+not unmixed with scorn, the heavy, tall
+creature that moved with such effort and
+such noise. &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; thought the hare,
+disdainfully, &ldquo;would he be able to escape
+from his enemies!&rdquo; As the delicate
+current of air which pulses imperceptibly
+through the forest bore the scent of the
+man to the hare&rsquo;s hiding-place, the fine
+nostrils of the latter worked rapidly with
+dislike. On a sudden, however, came a
+waft of other scent; and the hare&rsquo;s form
+seemed to shrink to half its size, the
+nostrils rigidly dilating.</p>
+<p>It was the scent of the weasel&mdash;to the
+hare it was the very essence of death.
+But it passed in an instant, and then the
+<span class="pb" id="Page_9">9</span>
+hare&rsquo;s exact vision saw whence it came.
+For the weasel, unlike all the other folk
+of the wood, was moving. He was keeping
+pace with the man, at a distance of
+some ten feet from the trail. So fitted,
+however, was his colouring to his surrounding,
+so shadow-like in its soundless
+grace was his motion, that the man never
+discerned him. The weasel&rsquo;s eyes were
+fixed upon the intruder with a malignancy
+of hate that might well have seared through
+his unconsciousness. Fortunately for the
+big lumberman, the weasel&rsquo;s strength, stupendous
+for its size, was in no way commensurate
+with its malice; or the journey
+would have come to an end just there, and
+the gaudy bundle would have rested on
+the trail to be a long wonder to the mice.</p>
+<p>The weasel presently crossed the yet
+warm scent of a mink, whereupon he threw
+up his vain tracking of the woodman and
+turned off in disgust. He did not like
+the mink, and wondered what that fish-eater
+could be wanting so far back from
+the water. He was not afraid exactly,&mdash;few
+animals know fear so little as the
+<span class="pb" id="Page_10">10</span>
+weasel,&mdash;but he kept a small shred of
+prudence in his savage little heart, and he
+knew that the mink was scarcely less
+ferocious than himself, while nearly thrice
+his size.</p>
+<p>From the mossy crotch of an old ash
+tree, slanting over the trail, a pair of pale,
+yellow-green eyes, with fine black slits
+for pupils, watched the traveller&rsquo;s march.
+They were set in a round, furry head,
+which was pressed flat to the branch and
+partly overhung it. The pointed, tufted
+ears lay flat back upon the round brown
+head. Into the bark of the branch four
+sets of razor-edged claws dug themselves
+venomously; for the wild-cat knew, perhaps
+through some occult communication
+from its far-off domesticated kin of hearth
+and door-sill, that in man he saw the one
+unvanquishable enemy to all the folk of
+the wood. He itched fiercely to drop
+upon the man&rsquo;s bowed neck, just where it
+showed, red and defenceless, between the
+gaudy bundle and the rim of the brown
+hat. But the wild-cat, the lesser lynx, was
+heir to a ferocity well tempered with discretion,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_11">11</span>
+and the old lumberman slouched
+onward unharmed, all ignorant of that
+green gleam of hate playing upon his
+neck.</p>
+<p>It was a very different gaze which followed
+him from the heart of a little colony
+of rotting stumps, in a dark hollow near
+the trail. Here, in the cool gloom, sat
+Kroof, the bear, rocking her huge body
+contemplatively from side to side on her
+haunches, and occasionally slapping off a
+mosquito from the sensitive tip of her
+nose. She had no cub running with her
+that season, to keep her busy and anxious.
+For an hour she had been comfortably
+rocking, untroubled by fear or desire or
+indignation; but when the whirring of the
+cock-partridge gave her warning, and the
+grating of the nailed boots caught her ear,
+she had stiffened instantly into one of the
+big brown stumps. Her little red eyes
+followed the stranger with something like
+a twinkle in them. She had seen men
+before, and she neither actively feared
+them nor actively disliked them. Only,
+averse to needless trouble, she cared not
+<span class="pb" id="Page_12">12</span>
+to intrude herself on their notice; and
+therefore she obeyed the custom of the
+wood, and kept still. But the bear is far
+the most human of all the furry wood-folk,
+the most versatile and largely tolerant,
+the least enslaved by its surroundings.
+It has an ample sense of humour, also,
+that most humane of gifts; and it was with
+a certain relish that Kroof recognized in
+the grey-clad stranger one of those loud
+axemen from whose camp, far down by
+the Quah-Davic, she had only last winter
+stolen certain comforting rations of pork.
+Her impulse was to rock again with satisfaction
+at the thought, but that would
+have been out of keeping with her present
+character as a decaying stump, and she
+restrained herself. She also restrained a
+whimsical impulse to knock the gaudy
+bundle from the stranger&rsquo;s back with one
+sweep of her great paw, and see if it might
+not contain many curious and edifying
+things, if not even pork. It was not till
+she had watched him well up the trail and
+fairly over the crest of the slope that, with
+a deep, non-committal grunt, she again
+<span class="pb" id="Page_13">13</span>
+turned her attention to the mosquitoes,
+which had been learning all the tenderness
+of a bear&rsquo;s nose.</p>
+<p>These were but a few of the watchers
+of the trail, whose eyes, themselves unseen,
+scrutinized the invader of the ancient wood.
+Each step of all his journey was well noted.
+Not so securely and unconsideringly would
+he have gone, however, had he known
+that only the year before there had come
+a pair of panthers to occupy a vacant lair
+on the neighbouring mountain side. No,
+his axe would have swung free, and his
+eyes would have scanned searchingly every
+overhanging branch; for none knew better
+than old Dave Titus how dangerous a foe
+was the tawny northern panther. But
+just now, as it chanced, the panther pair
+were hunting away over in the other valley,
+the low, dense-wooded valley of the Quah-Davic.</p>
+<p>As matters stood, for all the watchers
+that marked him, the old lumberman
+walked amid no more imminent menace
+than that which glittered down upon him
+from four pairs of small bright eyes, high
+<span class="pb" id="Page_14">14</span>
+up among the forking limbs of an old
+pine. In a well-hidden hole, as in a nursery
+window, were bunched the smooth
+heads of four young squirrels, interested
+beyond measure in the strange animal
+plodding so heavily below them. Had
+they been Settlement squirrels they would,
+without doubt, have passed shrill comments,
+more or less uncomplimentary;
+for the squirrel loves free speech. But
+when he dwells among the folk of the
+ancient wood he, even he, learns reticence;
+and, in that neighbourhood, if a young
+squirrel talks out loud in the nest, the
+consequences which follow have a tendency
+to be final. When the old lumberman
+had passed out of their range of view,
+the four little heads disappeared into the
+musky brown depths of the nest, and talked
+the event over in the smallest of whispers.</p>
+<p>As the lumberman journeyed, covering
+good ground with his long, slouching
+stride, the trail gradually descended
+through a tract where moss-grown boulders
+were strown thick among the trees.
+Presently the clear green brown of the
+<span class="pb" id="Page_15">15</span>
+mid-forest twilight took a pallor ahead of
+him, and the air began to lose its pungency
+of bark and mould. Then came
+the flat, soft smell of sedge; and the trees
+fell away: and the traveller came out
+upon the shores of a lake. Its waters
+were outspread pearly-white from a fringe
+of pale green rushes, and the opposite
+shore looked black against the pale, hazy
+sky. A stone&rsquo;s throw beyond the sedge
+rose a little naked island of black rock, and
+in the sheen of water off its extremity there
+floated the black, solitary figure of a loon.</p>
+<p>As the lumberman came out clear of the
+trees, and the gaudy colours of his bundle
+caught its eye, the bird sank itself lower
+in the water till only its erect neck and
+wedge-shaped head were in view. Then,
+opening wide its beak, it sent forth
+its wild peal of inexplicable and disconcerting
+laughter&mdash;an affront to the silence,
+but a note of monition to all the creatures
+of the lake. The loon had seen men
+before, and despised them, and found
+pleasure in proclaiming the scorn. It
+despised even the long, black sticks that
+<span class="pb" id="Page_16">16</span>
+went off with smoky bang when pointed;
+for had it not learned, in another lake
+near the Settlement, to dive at the flash
+and so elude the futile, spattering pellets
+that flew from the stick.</p>
+<p>The lumberman gave neither a first
+nor a second thought to the loon at all,
+but quickened his pace in the cheerful
+open. The trail now led some way along
+the lake-side, till the shore became higher
+and rougher, and behind a cape of rock
+a bustling river emptied itself, carrying
+lines of foam and long ripples far out
+across the lake&rsquo;s placidity. From the
+cape of rock towered a bleak, storm-whitened
+rampike, which had been a pine
+tree before the lightning smote it. Its
+broken top was just now serving as the
+perch of a white-headed eagle. The
+great bird bent fierce yellow eyes upon
+the stranger,&mdash;eyes with a cruel-looking,
+straight overhang of brow,&mdash;and stretched
+its flat-crowned, snake-like head far out to
+regard him. It opened the rending sickle
+of its beak and yelped at him&mdash;three times
+at deliberated interval. Then the traveller
+<span class="pb" id="Page_17">17</span>
+vanished again into the gloom of the
+wood, and the arrogant bird plumed
+himself upon a triumph.</p>
+<p>The trail now touched the river, only
+to forsake it and plunge into the heart
+of a growth of young Canada balsam.
+This sweet-smelling region traversed, the
+soft roar of the stream was left behind,
+and the forest resumed its former monumental
+features. For another hour the
+man tramped steadily, growing more conscious
+of his load, more and more uninterested
+in his surroundings; and for
+another hour his every step was noted by
+intent, unwinking eyes from branch and
+thicket. Then again the woods fell apart
+with a spreading of daylight. He came
+out upon the spacious solitude of a clearing;
+pushed through the harsh belt of
+blackberry and raspberry canes, which
+grew as a neutral zone between forest and
+open; picked his way between the burned
+stumps and crimson fireweeds of a long
+desolate pasture; and threw down his
+bundle at the door of the loneliest cabin
+he had ever chanced to see.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_18">18</div>
+<h2 id="c2">Chapter II
+<br /><span class="small">The Cabin in the Clearing</span></h2>
+<p>Though a spur of black, uncompromising
+spruce woods gave it near
+shelter on the north, the harshly naked
+clearing fell away from it on the other
+three sides, and left the cabin bleak. Not
+a shrub nor a sapling broke the bareness
+of the massive log walls, whence the peeling
+bark hung in strips that fluttered
+desolately to every wind. Only a few
+tall and ragged weeds, pale green, and
+with sparse, whitish grey seed-heads,
+straggled against the foundation logs.
+The rough deal door sagged on its hinges,
+half open. The door-sill gaped with a
+wide crack, rotted along the edges; and
+along the crack grew a little fringe of
+grass, ruthlessly crushed down by old
+Dave&rsquo;s gaudy bundle. The two small windows
+still held fragments of glass in their
+<span class="pb" id="Page_19">19</span>
+sashes,&mdash;glass thick with spiders&rsquo; webs,
+and captive dust, and the <i>d&eacute;bris</i> of withered
+insects. The wide-eaved roof, well built
+of split cedar-slabs, with a double overlay
+of bark, seemed to have turned a brave
+front to the assault of the seasons, and
+showed few casualties. Some thirty paces
+to one side stood another cabin, lower and
+more roughly built, whose roof had partly
+fallen in. This had been the barn,&mdash;this,
+with a battered lean-to of poles and
+interwoven spruce boughs against its
+southerly wall. The barn was set down
+at haphazard, in no calculated or contenting
+relation to the main building, but
+just as the lay of the hillocks had made
+it simplest to find a level for the foundations.
+All about it grew a tall, coarse
+grass, now grey and drily rustling, the
+brood of seeds which in past years had
+sifted through the chinks from the hay
+stored in the loft. The space between
+the two buildings, and for many square
+yards about the cabin door, was strewn
+thick with decaying chips, through which
+the dock and plantain leaves, hardy
+<span class="pb" id="Page_20">20</span>
+strangers from the Settlement, pushed
+up their broad, obtuse intrusion. Over
+toward the barn lay the bleached skeleton
+of a bob-sled, the rusted iron shoe partly
+twisted from one runner; and in the
+centre of the space, where the chips
+gathered thickest and the plantains had
+gained least ground, lay a split chopping-log,
+whose scars bore witness to the
+vigour of a vanished axe.</p>
+<p>The old lumberman fetched a deep
+breath, depressed by the immeasurable
+desolation. His eye wandered over the
+weedy fields, long fallow, and the rugged
+stump lots aflame here and there with
+patches of golden-rod and crimson fire-weed.
+To him these misplaced flares of
+colour seemed only to make the loneliness
+more forlorn, perhaps by their association
+with homelier and kindlier scenes.
+He leaned on his axe, and pointed indefinitely
+with his thumb.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Squat here! an&rsquo; farm yon!&rdquo; said
+he, with contemplative disapproval. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d
+see myself furder first! But Kirstie
+Craig&rsquo;s got grit for ten men!&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_21">21</div>
+<p>Then he pushed the door open, lifting
+it to ease the hinge, and stepped peeringly
+inside. As he did so, a barn-swallow
+flickered out through a broken pane.</p>
+<p>The cabin contained two rooms, one
+much smaller than the other. The ceiling
+of the smaller room was formed by a
+loft at the level of the eaves, open toward
+the main room, which had no ceiling but
+the roof of slabs and bark. Here, running
+up through the east gable, was a
+chimney of rough stone, arched at the
+base to contain a roomy hearth, with
+swinging crane and rusted andirons. A
+settle of plank was fixed along the wall
+under the window. Down the middle of
+the room, its flank toward the hearth, ran
+a narrow table of two planks, supported
+by unsmoothed stakes driven into the
+floor. In the corner farthest from the
+chimney, over against the partition, was
+a shallow sleeping bunk, a mere oblong
+box partly filled with dry red pickings
+of spruce and hemlock. The floor was
+littered with dead leaves and with ashes
+wind-drifted from the hearth.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_22">22</div>
+<p>Old Dave went over and glanced into
+the bunk. He found the spruce pickings
+scratched up toward one end, and
+arranged as they would be for no human
+occupant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Critters been sleepin&rsquo; here!&rdquo; he muttered.
+Then laying down his bundle, he
+turned his attention to the hearth, and
+soon the old chimney tasted once more,
+after its long solitude, the cheer of the
+familiar heat.</p>
+<p>It was now close upon sundown, and
+the lumberman was hungry. He untied
+the grimy, many-coloured quilt. Kroof, the
+she-bear, had been right in her surmise as
+to that bundle. It did contain pork,&mdash;a
+small, well-salted chunk of it; and presently
+the red-and-white-streaked slices
+were sputtering crisply in the pan, while
+the walls and roof saturated themselves
+once more in old-remembered savours.</p>
+<p>By the time the woodman had made
+his meal of fried pork and bread, and
+had smoked out his little pipe of blackened
+clay, a lonely twilight had settled
+about the cabin in the clearing. He went
+<span class="pb" id="Page_23">23</span>
+to the door and looked out. A white
+mist, rising along the forest edges, seemed
+to cut him off from all the world of
+men; and a few large stars, at vast intervals,
+came out solemnly upon the round
+of sky. He shut the door, dropped the
+wooden latch into its slot, and threw a
+dry sliver upon the hearth to give him
+light for turning in. He was sparing of
+the firewood, remembering that Kirstie,
+when she came, would need it all. Then
+he took his pipe from his mouth, knocked
+out the ashes, wiped the stump on his
+sleeve, and put it in his pocket; took off
+his heavy boots, rolled himself in the
+coloured quilt, and tumbled comfortably
+into the bunk, untroubled by any thought
+of its previous tenants. No sooner was
+he still than the mice came out and began
+scampering across the loft. He felt the
+sound homely and companionable, and
+so fell asleep. As he slept the deep
+undreaming sleep of the wholesomely
+tired, the meagre fire burned low, sank
+into pulsating coals, and faded into blackness.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_24">24</div>
+<p>It was, perhaps, an hour later that Old
+Dave sat up, suddenly wide awake. He
+had no idea why he did it. He had
+heard no noise. He was certainly not
+afraid. There was no tremor in his seasoned
+nerves. Nevertheless, he was all
+at once absolutely awake, every sense
+alert. He felt almost as if there were
+some unkindred presence in the cabin.
+His first impulse was to spring from
+the bunk, and investigate. But, doubtless
+because he had spent so great a
+portion of his life in the forest, and
+because he had all that day been subtly
+played upon by its influences, another
+instinct triumphed. He followed the
+immemorial fashion of the folk of the
+wood, and just kept still, waiting to learn
+by watching.</p>
+<p>He saw the two dim squares of the
+windows, and once imagined that one of
+them was for an instant shadowed. At
+this he smiled grimly there in the dark,
+well knowing that among all the forest-folk
+there was not one, not even the
+panther himself, so imprudent as to climb
+<span class="pb" id="Page_25">25</span>
+through a small window into a shut-up
+place, all reeking with the fresh and ominous
+scent of man.</p>
+<p>Still he listened, in that movelessness
+which the haunted neighbourhood had
+taught him. The scurrying of the mice
+had ceased. There was no wind, and the
+darkness seemed all ears. The door,
+presently, gave a slow, gentle creaking,
+as if some heavy body pushed softly
+against it, trying the latch. The woodsman
+noiselessly reached out, and felt the
+handle of his axe, leaning by the head
+of the bunk. But the latch held, and
+the menacing furtive pressure was not
+repeated. Then, upon the very middle
+of the roof, began a scratching, a light
+rattling of claws, and footfalls went padding
+delicately over the bark. This puzzled
+the woodsman, who wondered how
+the owner of those clawed and velveted
+feet could have reached the roof without
+some noise of climbing. The soft tread,
+with an occasional scratch and snap,
+moved up and down the roof several
+times; and once, during a pause, a deep
+<span class="pb" id="Page_26">26</span>
+breath, ending with a sharp sniffing sound,
+was heard through the thin roof. Then
+came a muffled thud upon the chips, as
+of the drop of a heavy animal.</p>
+<p>The spell was broken, and Old Dave
+rose from the bunk.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s jumped down off the roof! wildcat,
+mebbe, or lynx. No painters &rsquo;round,
+&rsquo;tain&rsquo;t likely; though&rsquo;t did sound heavy
+fur a cat!&rdquo; said he to himself, as he
+strode to the door, axe in hand.</p>
+<p>Fearlessly he threw the door open, and
+looked out upon the glimmering night.
+The forest chill was in the air, the very
+breath and spirit of solitude. The mists
+gathered thickly a stone&rsquo;s throw from the
+cabin. He saw nothing that moved.
+He heard no stir. With a shrug of the
+shoulders he turned, latched the door
+again with just a trifle more exactness of
+precaution than before, lounged back to
+his bunk, and slept heedlessly till high
+dawn. A long finger of light, coldly
+rosy, came in through a broken pane to
+rouse him up.</p>
+<p>When he went outside, the mists yet
+<span class="pb" id="Page_27">27</span>
+clung white and chill about the clearing,
+and all the weed tops were beaded with
+thick dew. He noted that the chips were
+disturbed somewhat, but could find no
+definite track. Then, following a grassy
+path that led, through a young growth
+of alder, to the spring, he found signs.
+Down to the spring, and beyond, into
+the woods, a trail was drawn that spoke
+plain language to his wood-wise scrutiny.
+The grass was bent, the dew brushed off,
+by a body of some bulk and going close
+to the ground.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Painter!&rdquo; he muttered, knitting his
+brows, and casting a wary glance about
+him. &ldquo;Reckon Kirstie&rsquo;d better bring a
+gun along!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>All that day Dave Titus worked about
+the cabin and the barn. He mended the
+roof, patched the windows, rehung the
+door, filled the bunk&mdash;and the two similar
+ones in the smaller room&mdash;with aromatic
+fresh green spruce tips, and worked
+a miracle of rejuvenation upon the barn.
+He also cleaned out the spring, and
+chopped a handy pile of firewood. An
+<span class="pb" id="Page_28">28</span>
+old sheep-pen behind the barn he left in
+its ruins, saying to himself:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What with the b&rsquo;ars, an&rsquo; the painters,
+Kirstie ain&rsquo;t goin&rsquo; to want to mess with
+sheep, I reckon. She&rsquo;ll have lots to do
+to look after her critters!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>By &ldquo;critters&rdquo; he meant the cow and
+the yoke of steers which were Kirstie
+Craig&rsquo;s property in the Settlement, and
+which, as he knew, she was to bring with
+her to her exile in the ancient wood.</p>
+<p>That night, being now quite at home in
+the lonely cabin, and assured as to the
+stability of the door, Dave Titus slept
+dreamlessly from dark to dawn in the
+pleasant fragrance of his bunk. From
+dark to dawn the mice scurried in the loft,
+the bats flickered about the eaves, the unknown
+furry bulks leaned on the door or
+padded softly up and down the roof, but
+troubled not his rest. Then the wild folk
+began to take account of the fact that the
+sovereignty of the clearing had been resumed
+by man, and word of the new
+order went secretly about the forest.
+When, next morning, Dave Titus made
+<span class="pb" id="Page_29">29</span>
+careful survey of the clearing&rsquo;s skirts, calculating
+what brush and poles would be
+needed for Kirstie&rsquo;s fencing, making rough
+guesses at the acreage, and noting with
+approval the richness of the good brown
+soil, he thought himself alone. But he
+was not alone. Speculative eyes, large
+and small, fierce and timorous, from all
+the edges of the ancient wood kept watch
+on him.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_30">30</div>
+<h2 id="c3">Chapter III
+<br /><span class="small">The Exiles from the Settlement</span></h2>
+<p>Late that afternoon Kirstie Craig
+arrived. Her coming was a migration.</p>
+<p>The first announcement of her approach
+was the dull <i>tank, tank, a-tonk, tank</i> of cow-bells
+down the trail, at sound of which Old
+Dave threw aside his axe and slouched
+away to meet her. There was heard a
+boy&rsquo;s voice shouting with young authority,
+&ldquo;Gee! Gee, Bright! Gee, Star!&rdquo;
+and the head of the procession came into
+view in the solemn green archway of the
+woods.</p>
+<p>The head of the procession was Kirstie
+Craig herself, a tall, erect, strong-stepping,
+long-limbed woman in blue-grey home-spuns,
+with a vivid scarlet kerchief tied
+over her head. She was leading, by a rope
+about its horns, a meekly tolerant black-and-white
+cow. To her left hand clung a
+<span class="pb" id="Page_31">31</span>
+skipping little figure in a pink calico frock,
+a broad-brimmed hat of coarse straw flung
+back from her hair and hanging by ribbons
+from her neck. This was the five-year-old
+Miranda, Kirstie Craig&rsquo;s daughter.
+She had ridden most of the journey, and
+now was full of excited interest over the
+approach to her new home. Following
+close behind came the yoke of long-horned,
+mild-eyed steers,&mdash;Bright, a light
+sorrel, and Star, a curious red-and-black
+brindle with a radiating splash of white in
+the middle of his forehead. These, lurching
+heavily on the yoke, were hauling a
+rude &ldquo;drag,&rdquo; on which was lashed the
+meagre pile of Kirstie&rsquo;s belongings and
+supplies. Close at Star&rsquo;s heaving flank
+walked a lank and tow-haired boy from
+the Settlement, his long ox-goad in hand,
+and an expression of resigned dissatisfaction
+on his grey-eyed, ruddy young face.
+Liking, and thoroughly believing in,
+Kirstie Craig, he had impulsively yielded
+to her request, and let himself be hired to
+assist her flight into exile. But in so doing
+he had gone roughly counter to public
+<span class="pb" id="Page_32">32</span>
+opinion; for the Settlement, though
+stupidly inhospitable to Kirstie Craig,
+none the less resented her decision to
+leave it. Her scheme of occupying the
+deserted cabin, farming the deserted clearing,
+and living altogether aloof from her
+unloved and unloving fellows, was scouted
+on every hand as the freak of a madwoman;
+and Young Dave, just coming
+to the age when public opinion begins to
+seem important, felt uneasy at being identified
+with a matter of public ridicule. He
+saw himself already, in imagination, a theme
+for the fine wit of the Settlement. Nevertheless,
+he was glad to be helping Kirstie,
+for he was sound and fearless at heart,
+and he counted her a true friend if she
+did seem to him a bit queer. He was
+faithful, but disapproving. It was Old
+Dave alone, his father, who backed the
+woman&rsquo;s venture without criticism or demur.
+He had known Kirstie from small
+girlhood, and known her for a brave, loyal,
+silent, strongly-enduring soul; and in his
+eyes she did well to leave the Settlement,
+where a shallow spite, sharpened by her
+<span class="pb" id="Page_33">33</span>
+proud reticence and supplied with arrows
+of injury by her misfortunes, made life an
+undesisting and immitigable hurt to her.</p>
+<p>As she emerged from the twilight and
+came out upon the sunny bleakness of
+the clearing, the unspeakable loneliness of
+it struck a sudden pallor into her grave
+dark face. For a moment, even the
+humanity that was hostile to her seemed
+less cruel than this voiceless solitude.
+Then her resolution came back. The
+noble but somewhat immobile lines of
+her large features relaxed into a half smile
+at her own weakness. She took possession,
+as it were, by a sweeping gesture of
+her head; then silently gave her hand in
+greeting to Old Dave, who had ranged up
+beside her and swung the dancing Miranda
+to his shoulder. Nothing was said
+for several moments, as the party moved
+slowly up the slope; for they were folk of
+few words, these people, not praters like
+so many of their fellows in the Settlement.</p>
+<p>At last the pink frock began to wriggle
+on the lumberman&rsquo;s shoulder, and Miranda
+cried out:&mdash;</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_34">34</div>
+<p>&ldquo;Let me down, Uncle Dave, I want to
+pick those pretty flowers for my mother.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The crimson glories of the fireweed
+had filled her eyes with delight; and in
+a few minutes she was struggling after
+the procession with her small arms full
+of the long-stalked blooms.</p>
+<p>In front of the cabin door the procession
+stopped. Dave turned, and said
+seriously:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done the best I could by ye,
+Kirstie; an&rsquo; I reckon it ain&rsquo;t so bad a
+site for ye, after all. But ye&rsquo;ll be powerful
+lonesome.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you kindly, Dave. But we
+ain&rsquo;t going to be lonesome, Miranda and
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But there&rsquo;s painters &rsquo;round. You&rsquo;d
+ought to hev a gun, Kirstie. I&rsquo;ll be
+sackin&rsquo; out some stuff fur ye nex&rsquo; week,
+Davey an&rsquo; me, an&rsquo; I reckon as how I&rsquo;d
+better fetch ye a gun.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be right hungry for a sight of
+your faces by that time, Dave,&rdquo; said
+Kirstie, sweeping a look of tenderness
+over the boy&rsquo;s face, where he stood leaning
+<span class="pb" id="Page_35">35</span>
+on Star&rsquo;s brindled shoulder. &ldquo;But
+I ain&rsquo;t scared of panthers. Don&rsquo;t you
+mind about the gun, now, for I don&rsquo;t
+want it, and I won&rsquo;t use it!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She ain&rsquo;t skeered o&rsquo; nothin&rsquo; that
+walks,&rdquo; muttered Young Dave, with admiration.</p>
+<p>The strong face darkened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I am, Davey,&rdquo; she answered;
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afeard of evil tongues.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, my girl, here ye&rsquo;re well quit
+of &rsquo;em,&rdquo; said the old lumberman, a slow
+anger burning on his rough-hewn face as
+he thought of certain busy backbiters in
+the Settlement.</p>
+<p>Just then Miranda&rsquo;s small voice chimed
+in.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Davey,&rdquo; she cried, catching gleefully
+at the boy&rsquo;s leg, &ldquo;look at the nice,
+great big dog!&rdquo; And her little brown
+finger pointed to a cluster of stumps, of
+all shapes and sizes, far over on the limits
+of the clearing. Her wide, brown eyes
+danced elvishly. The others followed her
+gaze, all staring intently; but they saw
+no excuse for her excitement.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_36">36</div>
+<p>&ldquo;It might be a b&rsquo;ar she sees,&rdquo; said
+Old Dave; &ldquo;but I can&rsquo;t spot it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re plenty hereabouts, I suppose,&rdquo;
+said Kirstie, rather indifferently,
+letting her eyes wander to other portions
+of her domain.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t no bear there,&rdquo; asserted Young
+Dave, with all the confidence of his years.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a stump!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nice big dog! I want it, mother,&rdquo;
+piped Miranda, suddenly darting away.
+But her mother&rsquo;s firm hand fell upon her
+shoulder.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no big dog out here, child,&rdquo;
+she said quietly. And Old Dave, after
+puckering his keen eyes and knitting his
+shaggy brows in vain, exclaimed:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, quit yer foolin&rsquo;, Mirandy, ye
+little witch. &rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t nothin&rsquo; but stumps, I
+tell ye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was the child&rsquo;s eyes, however, that
+had the keener vision, the subtler knowledge;
+and, though now she let herself
+seem to be persuaded, and obediently
+carried her armful of fireweed into the
+cabin, she knew it was no stump she had
+<span class="pb" id="Page_37">37</span>
+been looking at. And as for Kroof,
+the she-bear, though she had indeed sat
+moveless as a stump among the stumps,
+she knew that the child had detected her.
+She saw that Miranda had the eyes that
+see everything and cannot be deceived.</p>
+<p>For two days the man and the boy
+stayed at the clearing to help Kirstie get
+settled. The fields rang pleasantly with
+the <i>tank, tank, a-tonk, tank</i> of the cow-bells,
+as the cattle fed over the new pasturage.
+The edges of the clearing resounded with
+axe strokes, and busy voices echoed on
+the autumn air. There was much rough
+fencing to be built,&mdash;zig-zag arrangements
+of brush and saplings,&mdash;in order
+that Kirstie&rsquo;s &ldquo;critters&rdquo; might be shut
+in till the sense of home should so grow
+upon them as to keep them from straying.</p>
+<p>The two days done, Old Dave and Young
+Dave shouldered their axes and went away.
+Kirstie forthwith straightened her fine
+shoulders to the Atlas load of solitude
+which had threatened at first to overwhelm
+her; and she and Miranda settled down
+to a strangely silent routine. This was
+<span class="pb" id="Page_38">38</span>
+broken, however, at first, by weekly visits
+from Old Dave, who came to bring hay,
+and roots, and other provisions against
+the winter, together with large &ldquo;hanks&rdquo;
+of coarse homespun yarn, to occupy
+Kirstie&rsquo;s fingers during the long winter
+evenings.</p>
+<p>Kirstie was well fitted to the task she
+had so bravely set herself. She could
+swing an axe; and the fencing grew
+steadily through the fall. She could guide
+the plough; and before the snow came
+some ten acres of the long fallow sod had
+been turned up in brown furrows, to be
+ripened and mellowed by the frosts for next
+spring&rsquo;s planting. The black-and-white
+cow was still in good milk, and could be
+depended on not to go dry a day more
+than two months before calving. The
+steers were thrifty and sleek, and showed
+no signs of fretting for old pastures. The
+hoarse but homely music of the cow-bells,
+sounding all day over the fields, and giving
+out an occasional soft <i>tonk-a-tonk</i> from
+the darkness of the stalls at night, came
+to content her greatly. The lines which
+<span class="pb" id="Page_39">39</span>
+she had brought from the Settlement
+smoothed themselves from about her
+mouth and eyes, and the large, sufficing
+beauty of her face was revealed in the
+peace of her new life.</p>
+<p>About seven years before this move to
+the cabin in the clearing, Kirstie Craig&mdash;then
+Kirstie MacAlister&mdash;had gone one
+evening to the cross-roads grocery which
+served the Settlement as General Intelligence
+Office. Here was the post-office
+as well, in a corner of the store, fitted up
+with some dozen of lettered and dusty
+pigeon-holes. Nodding soberly to the
+loafers who lounged about on the soap
+boxes and nail kegs, Kirstie stepped up
+to the counter to buy a quart of molasses.
+She was just passing over her gaudy blue-and-yellow
+pitcher to be filled, when a
+stranger came in who caught her attention.
+He did far more than catch her attention;
+for the stately and sombre girl, who had
+never before taken pains to look twice on
+any man&rsquo;s face, now felt herself grow hot
+and cold as this stranger&rsquo;s eyes glanced
+carelessly over her splendid form. She
+<span class="pb" id="Page_40">40</span>
+heard him ask the postmaster for lodgings.
+He spoke in a tired voice, and
+accents that set him apart from the men
+of the Settlement. She looked at him
+twice and yet again, noted with a pang
+that he seemed ill, and met his eye fairly
+for just one heart-beat. At once she
+flushed scarlet under it, snatched up her
+pitcher, and almost rushed from the store.
+The loafers were too much occupied with
+the new arrival to notice her perturbation;
+but he noticed it, and was pleased. Never
+before had he seen so splendid a girl as
+this black-haired, sphinx-faced creature,
+with the scarlet kerchief about her head.
+She was a picture that awoke the artist in
+him, and put him in haste to resume his
+palette and brushes.</p>
+<p>For Frank Craig, dilettante and man
+of the world, was a good deal of an artist
+when the mood seized him strongly
+enough. When another mood seized
+him, with sufficient vigour to overcome
+his native indolence, he was something of
+a musician; and again, more rarely, something
+of a poet. The temperament was
+<span class="pb" id="Page_41">41</span>
+his; but the steadiness of purpose, the
+decision of will, the long-enduring patience,
+these were not. He had just enough
+money to let him float through his world
+without work. Health he had not, and
+the poor semblance of it which mere youth
+supplied he had squandered childishly.
+Hearing of new health in the gift of the
+northern spruce woods, with their high,
+balsam-sweet airs, he had drifted away
+from his temptations, and at last sought
+out this remote backwoods settlement as
+a place where he might expect to get
+much for little. He was very good to look
+upon,&mdash;about as tall as Kirstie herself,&mdash;slender,
+active, alert in movement when
+not wearied, thoroughbred in every line
+of face and figure. His eyes, of a very
+deep greyish green under long black
+lashes, were penetrating in their clearness,
+but curiously unstable. In their beautiful
+depths there was waged forever a
+strange conflict between honesty and inconstancy.
+His face, pale and sallow, was
+clothed with a trimly pointed, close, dark
+beard; and his hair, just a trifle more
+<span class="pb" id="Page_42">42</span>
+abundant than the fashion of his world
+approved, was of a peculiar, tawny dark
+bronze.</p>
+<p>The air of the Settlement was healing
+and tonic to the lungs, and before he had
+breathed it a month he felt himself aglow
+with joyous life. Before he had breathed
+it a month he had won Kirstie MacAlister,
+to whom he seemed little less than a god.
+To him, on her part, she was a splendid
+mystery. Even her peculiarities of grammar
+and accent did no more than lend
+a piquancy to her strangeness. They appealed
+as a rough, fresh flavour to his
+wearied senses. Here, safe from the wasting
+world, he would really paint, would
+really write, and life would come to mean
+something. One day he and Kirstie went
+away on the rattling old mail-waggon, which
+visited the Settlement twice a week. Ten
+days later they came back as man and
+wife, whereat the Settlement showed no
+surprise whatever.</p>
+<p>For a whole year after the birth of his
+child, the great-eyed and fairy-like Miranda,
+Frank Craig stayed at the Settlement,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_43">43</span>
+seemingly content. He was loving,
+admiring, tactful, proud of his dark impressive
+wife, and the quickness with which
+she caught his purity of speech. Then
+one day he seemed restless. He talked
+of business in the city&mdash;of a month&rsquo;s
+absence that could not be avoided. With
+a kind of terror at her heart Kirstie heard
+him, but offered no hint of opposition to
+so reasonable a purpose. And by the next
+trip of the rattling mail-waggon he went,
+leaving the Settlement dark to Kirstie&rsquo;s
+eyes.</p>
+<p>But&mdash;he never came back. The months
+rolled by, and no word came of him; and
+Kirstie gnawed her heart out in proud
+anguish. Inquiry throughout the cities of
+the coast brought no hint of him. Then,
+as the months climbed into years, that tender
+humanity which resents misfortune as
+a crime started a rumour that Kirstie had
+been fooled. Perhaps there had been
+no marriage, went the whisper at first.
+&ldquo;Served her right, with her airs, thinkin&rsquo;
+she could ketch a gentleman!&rdquo;&mdash;was the
+next development of it. Kirstie, with her
+<span class="pb" id="Page_44">44</span>
+superior air, had never been popular at
+best; and after her marriage the sufficiency
+and exclusiveness of her joy, coupled with
+the comparative fineness of speech which
+she adopted, made her the object of jealous
+criticism through all the country-side.
+When the temple of her soaring happiness
+came down about her ears, then was the
+time for her chastening, and the gossips
+of the Settlement took a hand in it with
+right good-will. Nothing else worth talking
+about happened in that neighbourhood
+during the next few years, so the little
+rumour was cherished and nourished.
+Presently it grew to a great scandal, and
+the gossips came to persuade themselves
+that things had not been as they should
+be. Kirstie, they said, was being very
+properly punished by Providence, and it
+was well to show that they, chaste souls,
+stood on the side of Providence. If Providence
+threw a stone, it was surely their
+place to throw three.</p>
+<p>At last some one of imagination vivid
+beyond that of the common run added a
+new feature. Some one else had heard
+<span class="pb" id="Page_45">45</span>
+from some one else of some one having
+seen Frank Craig in the city. There was
+at first a difference of opinion as to what
+city; but that little discrepancy was soon
+smoothed out. Then a woman was suggested,
+and forthwith it appeared that he
+had been seen driving with a handsome
+woman, behind a spanking pair, with liveried
+coachman and footman on the box.
+Thus gradually the myth acquired a colour
+to endear it to the unoccupied rural imagination.
+Kirstie&rsquo;s inquiries soon proved to
+her the utter baselessness of the scandal;
+but she was too proud to refute what she
+knew to be a cherished lie. She endured,
+for Miranda&rsquo;s sake, till the dark face grew
+lined, and the black eyes smouldered
+dangerously, and she began to fear lest
+she should do some one a hurt. At last,
+having heard by chance of that deserted
+clearing in the forest, she sold out her
+cottage at a sacrifice and fled from the
+bitter tongues.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_46">46</div>
+<h2 id="c4">Chapter IV
+<br /><span class="small">Miranda and the Furtive Folk</span></h2>
+<p>From the very first day of her new
+life at the clearing, Miranda had
+found it to her taste. Her mother loved
+it for its peace, for its healing; but to the
+elvish child it had an incomparably deeper
+and more positive appeal. For her the
+place was not solitary. Her wide eyes
+saw what Kirstie could not see; and to
+her the forest edges&mdash;which she was not
+allowed to pass&mdash;were full of most satisfying
+playmates just waiting for her to
+invite their confidence. Meanwhile, she
+had the two steers and the black-and-white
+cow to talk to. Her mother noticed
+that when she sat down in the grass by the
+head of one of the animals, and began her
+low mysterious communication, it would
+stop its feeding and hearken motionless.
+The black-and-red brindle, Star, would
+<span class="pb" id="Page_47">47</span>
+sometimes follow her about like a dog,
+as if spelled by the child&rsquo;s solemn eyes.
+Then the solemn eyes on a sudden would
+dance with light; her lips would break
+into a peal of whimsical mirth, shrill but
+not loud; and the steer, with a flick of
+his tail and an offended snort, would turn
+again to his pasturing.</p>
+<p>In a hole in one of the logs, just under
+the eaves of the cabin, there was a family
+of red squirrels, the four youngsters about
+three-fourths grown and almost ready to
+shift for themselves. No sooner had the
+old lumberman and his son gone away
+than the squirrels began to make themselves
+much at home. They saw in
+Kirstie a huge and harmless creature,
+whose presence in the cabin was useful
+to scare away their enemies. But in
+Miranda they found a sort of puzzling
+kinship. The two old squirrels would
+twitch up and down on the edge of the
+roof, chattering shrilly to her, flirting their
+airy tails, and stretching down their heads
+to scan her searchingly with their keen
+protruding eyes; while Miranda, just below,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_48">48</span>
+would dance excitedly up and down
+in response, nodding her head, jerking her
+elbows, and chattering back at them in a
+quick, shrill voice. It was a very different
+voice to the soft murmurs in which
+she talked to the cattle; but to the
+squirrels it appeared satisfactory. Before
+she had been a week at the clearing the
+whole squirrel family seemed to regard
+her as one of themselves, snatching bread
+from her tiny brown fingers, and running
+up her skirt to her shoulder whensoever
+the freak possessed them. Kirstie, they
+ignored&mdash;the harmless, necessary Kirstie,
+mother to Miranda.</p>
+<p>No sooner were they fairly settled than
+the child discovered an incongruity in her
+gay pink calico frocks, and got her mother
+to bury them out of sight in the deal
+chest behind the door. She was at ease
+now only in the dull, blue-grey homespun,
+which made her feel at one with
+her quiet surroundings. Nevertheless the
+vein of contradiction which streaked her
+baby heart with bright inconsistencies bade
+her demand always a bit of scarlet ribbon
+<span class="pb" id="Page_49">49</span>
+about her neck. This whim Kirstie humoured
+with a smile, recognizing in it a
+perpetuation of the scarlet kerchief about
+her own black hair. As for Miranda&rsquo;s
+hair, it was black like her mother&rsquo;s when
+seen in shadow; but in the sunshine it
+showed certain tawny lights, a pledge of
+her fatherhood to all who had known
+Frank Craig.</p>
+<p>So the autumn slipped by; and the
+silent folk of the wood, watching her
+curiously and unwinkingly as she played
+while her mother built fences, came to
+know Miranda as a creature in some way
+not quite alien to themselves. They
+knew that she often saw them when her
+mother&rsquo;s eyes could not. Perceiving that
+her mother did not quite understand her,
+at times, when she tried to point out
+pretty animals among the trees, the child
+grew a little sensitive and reticent on the
+subject; and the furtive folk, who had at
+first inclined to resent her inescapable
+vision, presently realized her reserves and
+were appeased. Her grey little sprite of
+a figure might have darted in among the
+<span class="pb" id="Page_50">50</span>
+trees, turned to a statue, and become suddenly
+as invisible as any lynx, or cat, or
+hare, or pine-marten amongst them, except,
+indeed, for that disquieting flame
+of scarlet at her neck. This was a puzzle
+to all the folk of the wood, continually
+reminding them that this quiet-flitting
+creature did not really belong to the
+wood at all, but to the great woman with
+the red about her head, whose axe made
+so vexing a clamour amid the trees.
+As for Kroof, the bear, that bit of scarlet
+so interested her that one day, being
+curious, she came much nearer than she
+intended. Miranda saw her, of course,
+and gazed with wide-eyed longing for the
+&ldquo;great big dog&rdquo; as a playmate. Just
+then Kirstie saw her, too&mdash;very close
+at hand, and very huge.</p>
+<div class="img" id="fig2">
+<img src="images/p078.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="787" />
+<p class="center"><span class="small">She . . . stood motionless, erect and formidable</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_51">51</div>
+<p>For the first time, Kirstie Craig felt
+something like fear, not for herself, but
+for the child. Thrusting Miranda roughly
+behind her, she clutched her axe, and
+stood motionless, erect and formidable,
+awaiting attack. Her great black eyes
+blazed ominously upon the intruder. But
+Kroof, well filled with late berries, and
+sweet wild roots, and honeycomb, was in
+most amiable humour, and just shambled
+off lazily when she saw herself detected;
+whereupon Kirstie, with a short laugh of
+relief, threw down her axe and snatched
+the child to her breast. Miranda, however,
+was weeping salt tears of disappointment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I want it, mother,&rdquo; she sobbed; &ldquo;the
+nice big dog. You scared it away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Kirstie had heard more than enough
+about the dog.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hark now, Miranda,&rdquo; she said severely,
+giving her shoulder a slight shake
+to enforce attention. &ldquo;You just remember
+what I say. That ain&rsquo;t a dog; that&rsquo;s
+a bear; <i>a bear</i>, I say! And don&rsquo;t you
+ever go near it, or it&rsquo;ll eat you up. Mind
+you now, Miranda, or I&rsquo;ll just whip you
+well.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Kirstie was a little fluttered and thrown
+off her poise at the idea of Miranda encountering
+the great animal alone, and
+perhaps attempting to bring it home to
+play with; so she forgot for a moment
+<span class="pb" id="Page_52">52</span>
+the wonted stringency of her logic. As
+for Miranda, she consented to obey, and
+held her tongue; but she clung secretly
+to her own opinion on the subject of the
+big dog. She knew very well that the
+fascinating animal did not want to eat
+her; and her mother&rsquo;s order seemed to
+her just one of those bits of maternal perversity
+which nobody can ever hope to
+understand.</p>
+<p>The incident, however, overshadowed
+the child&rsquo;s buoyant spirits for the best
+part of two whole days. It thrust so very
+far off the time she hoped for, when she
+might know and talk to the shy, furtive
+folk of the wood, with their strange, unwinking
+eyes. Her mother kept her now
+ever close to her skirts. She had no one
+to talk to about the things her mother
+did not understand, except the steers and
+the black-and-white cow, and the rather
+irrepressible squirrels.</p>
+<p>The winter, which presently fell white
+and soundless and sparkling about the
+lonely cabin, was to Miranda full of
+events. Before the snow Kirstie had repaired
+<span class="pb" id="Page_53">53</span>
+the old lean-to, turning it into a
+fowl-house; and now they had six prim
+hens to occupy it, and a splendid, flame-red
+cock who crowed most loftily. Miranda
+felt that this proud bird despised
+her, so she did not get on very well with
+him; but the hens were amiable, if uninteresting,
+and it was a perennial joy to
+search out their eggs in the loft or the
+corners of the stalls. Then there were
+the paths to be kept clear after every
+snow-fall,&mdash;the path to the spring, the
+path to the barn door and hen-house, the
+path to the woodpile. Uncle Dave had
+made her a hand-sled, and she had the
+exhilarating duty of hauling in the wood
+from the pile as fast as her mother could
+split it. It was a spirited race, this, in
+which her mother somehow always managed
+to keep just about one stick ahead.</p>
+<p>And the fishing&mdash;this was a great
+event, coming about once a week, if the
+weather suited. Both Kirstie and Miranda
+were semi-vegetarians. Frank Craig
+had been a decryer of flesh-meat, one who
+would have chosen to live on fruits and
+<span class="pb" id="Page_54">54</span>
+roots and grains and eggs, had not his
+body cried out against the theory of his
+brain. But he had so far infected his wife
+with his prejudice that neither she nor the
+child now touched meat in any form. The
+aversion, artificial on Kirstie&rsquo;s part, was
+instinctive on Miranda&rsquo;s. But as for fish&mdash;fish
+seemed to them both quite another
+matter. Even Miranda of the sympathies
+and the perceptions had no sense of fellowship
+for these cold-blooded, clammy, unpleasant
+things. She had a fierce little
+delight in catching them; she had a contented
+joy in eating them when fried to a
+savory brown in butter and yellow cornmeal.
+For Miranda was very close to
+Nature, and Nature laughs at consistency.</p>
+<p>The fishing in which Miranda so delighted
+took place in winter at the lake.
+When the weather seemed quite settled,
+Kirstie would set out on her strong snow-shoes,
+with Miranda, on her fairy facsimiles
+of them, striding bravely beside
+her, and follow the long, white trail down
+to the lake. Even to Miranda&rsquo;s discerning
+eyes the trail was lonely now, for most
+<span class="pb" id="Page_55">55</span>
+of the forest folk were either asleep, or
+abroad, or fearful lest their tinted coats
+should reveal them against the snowy surface.
+Once in a while she detected the
+hare squatting under a spruce bush, looking
+like a figure of snow in his winter
+coat; and once or twice, too, she saw the
+weasel, white now, with but a black tip to
+his tail as a warning to all who had cause
+to dread his cruelty. Miranda knew nothing
+about him, but she did not quite like
+the weasel, which was just as well, seeing
+that the weasel hated Miranda and all the
+world besides. As for the lynx and the
+brown cat, they kept warily aloof in their
+winter shyness. The wood-mice were
+asleep,&mdash;warm, furry balls buried in their
+dry nests far from sight; and Kroof, too,
+was dreaming away the frozen months in
+a hollow under a pine root, with five or
+six feet of snow drifted over her door to
+keep her sleep unjarred.</p>
+<p>Arrived at the lake, Kirstie would cut
+two holes through the ice with her nimble
+axe, bait two hooks with bits of fat pork,
+and put a line into Miranda&rsquo;s little mittened
+<span class="pb" id="Page_56">56</span>
+hands. The trout in the lake were
+numerous and hungry; and somehow
+Miranda&rsquo;s hook had ever the more
+deadly fascination for them, and Miranda&rsquo;s
+catch would outnumber Kirstie&rsquo;s
+by often three to one. Though her
+whole small being seemed absorbed in
+the fierce game, Miranda was all the time
+vividly aware of the white immensity enfolding
+her. The lifeless white level of
+the lake; the encircling shores all white;
+the higher fringe of trees, black beneath,
+but deeply garmented with white; the
+steep mountain-side, at the foot of the
+lake, all white; and over-brooding, glimmering,
+opalescent, fathomless, the flat
+white arch of sky. Across the whiteness
+of the mountain-side, one day, Miranda
+saw a dark beast moving, a beast that
+looked to her like a great cat. She saw
+it halt, gazing down at them; and even at
+that distance she could see it stretch wide
+its formidable jaws. A second more and
+she heard the cry which came from those
+formidable jaws,&mdash;a high, harsh, screeching
+wail, which amused her so that she
+<span class="pb" id="Page_57">57</span>
+forgot to land a fish. But her mother
+seemed troubled at the sound. She
+gazed very steadily for some seconds at
+the far-off shape, and then said: &ldquo;Panthers,
+Miranda! I don&rsquo;t mind bears; but
+with panthers we&rsquo;ve got to keep our eyes
+open. I reckon we&rsquo;ll get home before
+sundown to-day; and mind you keep
+right close by me every step.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>All this solicitude seemed to Miranda
+a lamentable mistake. She had no doubt
+in her own mind that the panther would
+be nice to play with.</p>
+<p>As I have said, the winter was for Miranda
+full of events. Twice, as she was
+carrying out the morning dish of hot
+potatoes and meal to the hens, she saw
+Ten-Tine, the bull caribou, cross the clearing
+with measured stately tread, his curious,
+patchy antlers held high, his muzzle
+stretched straight ahead of him, his demure
+cows at his heels. This was before
+the snow lay deep in the forest. Later
+on in the winter she would look out with
+eager interest every morning to see what
+visitors had been about the cabin during
+<span class="pb" id="Page_58">58</span>
+the night. Sometimes there was a fox
+track, very dainty, cleanly indented, and
+regular, showing that the animal who made
+it knew where he was going and had something
+definite in view. Hare tracks there
+were sure to be&mdash;she soon came to recognize
+those three-toed, triplicate clusters
+of impressions, stamped deeply upon the
+snow by the long, elastic jump. Whenever
+there was a weasel track,&mdash;narrow,
+finely pointed, treacherously innocent,&mdash;it
+was sure to be closely parallel to that
+of a leaping hare; and Miranda soon apprehended,
+by that instinct of hers, that
+the companionship was not like to be well
+for the hare. Once, to her horror, she
+found that a hare track ended suddenly,
+right under the cabin window, in a blood-stained
+patch, bestrewn with fur and
+bones. All about it the snow was swept
+as if by wings, and two strange footprints
+told the story. They were long,
+these two footprints&mdash;forked, with deep
+hooks for toes, and an obscure sort of
+brush mark behind them. This was
+where the owl had sat up on the snow
+<span class="pb" id="Page_59">59</span>
+for a few minutes after dining, to ponder
+on the merits of the general order of
+things, and of a good meal in particular.
+Miranda&rsquo;s imagination painted a picture
+of the big bird sitting there in the moonlight
+beside the bloody bones, his round,
+horned head turning slowly from one side
+to the other, his hooked beak snapping
+now and again in reminiscence, his sharp
+eyes wide open and flaming. There was
+also the track of a fox, which had come
+up from the direction of the barn, investigated
+the scene of action, and gone off at
+a sharp, decisive angle toward the woods.
+Miranda had no clew to tell her how
+stealthily that fox had come, or how nearly
+he had succeeded in catching an owl for
+his breakfast; but from that morning she
+bore a grudge against owls, and never could
+hear without a flash of wrath their hollow
+<i>two-hoo-hoo-whoo-oo</i> echoing solemnly from
+the heart of the pinewood.</p>
+<p>But the owl was not the only bird that
+Miranda knew that winter. Well along
+in January, when the haws were all gone,
+and most of the withered rowan-berries
+<span class="pb" id="Page_60">60</span>
+had been eaten, and famine threatened
+such of the bird-folk as had not journeyed
+south, there came to the cabin brisk
+foraging flocks of the ivory-billed snow-bird.
+For these Miranda had crumbs
+ready always, and as word of her bounty
+went abroad in the forest, her feathered
+pensioners increased. Even a hungry crow
+would come now and then, glossy and sideling,
+watchful and audacious, to share the
+hospitality of this kind Miranda of the
+crumbs. She liked the crows, and would
+hear no ill of them from her mother; but
+most of all she liked those big, rosy-headed,
+trustful children, the pine-grosbeaks,
+who would almost let her take them
+in her hands. Whenever their wandering
+flocks came down to her, she held winter
+carnival for them.</p>
+<p>During those days when it was not fine
+enough to go out,&mdash;when the snow drove
+in great swirls and phantom armies across
+the open, and a dull roar came from the
+straining forest, and the fowls went to
+roost at midday, and the cattle munched
+contentedly in their stanchions, glad to be
+<span class="pb" id="Page_61">61</span>
+shut in,&mdash;then the cabin seemed very
+pleasant to Miranda. On such days the
+drifts were sometimes piled halfway up
+the windows. On such days the dry logs
+on the hearth blazed more brightly than
+their wont, and the flames sang more merrily
+up the chimney. On such days the
+piles of hot buckwheat cakes, drenched in
+butter and brown molasses, tasted more
+richly toothsome than at any time else,
+and on such days she learned to knit.
+This was very interesting. At first she
+knit gay black-and-red garters for her
+mother; and then, speedily mastering
+this rudimentary process, she was fairly
+launched on a stocking, with four needles.
+The stocking, of course, was for her
+mother, who would not find fault if it
+were knitted too tightly here and too
+loosely there. As for Kirstie herself, her
+nimble needles would click all day, turning
+out socks and mittens of wonderful
+thickness to supply the steady market of
+the lumber camps.</p>
+<p>One night, after just such a cosey, shut-in
+day, Miranda was awakened by a
+<span class="pb" id="Page_62">62</span>
+scratching sound on the roof. Throughout
+the cold weather Miranda slept with
+her mother in the main room, in a broad
+new bunk which had been substituted for
+the narrow one wherein Old Dave had
+slept on his first visit to the clearing.
+Miranda caught her mother&rsquo;s arm, and
+shook it gently. But Kirstie was already
+awake, lying with wide eyes, listening.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that, mother, trying to get
+in?&rdquo; asked the child in a whisper.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hush-sh-sh,&rdquo; replied Kirstie, laying
+her fingers on the child&rsquo;s mouth.</p>
+<p>The scratching came louder now, as
+the light snow was swept clear and the
+inquisitive claws reached the bark. Then
+it stopped. After a second or two of
+silence there was a loud, blowing sound,
+as if the visitor were clearing his nostrils
+from the snow and cold. This was followed
+by two or three long, penetrating
+sniffs, so curiously hungry in their suggestion
+that even Miranda&rsquo;s dauntless little
+heart beat very fast. As for Kirstie,
+she was decidedly nervous. Springing
+out of bed she ran to the hearth, raked
+<span class="pb" id="Page_63">63</span>
+the coals from the ashes, fanned them,
+heaped on birch bark and dry wood, and
+in a moment had a great blaze roaring up
+the chimney-throat. The glow from the
+windows streamed far out across the snow.
+To the visitor it proved disconcerting.
+There was one more sharp rattle of claws
+upon the roof, then a fluffy thump below
+the eaves. The snow had stopped falling
+hours before; and when, at daylight, Kirstie
+opened the door, there was the deep hollow
+where the panther had jumped down, and
+there was the floundering trail where he
+had fled.</p>
+<p>This incident made Miranda amend,
+in some degree, her first opinion of panthers.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_64">64</div>
+<h2 id="c5">Chapter V
+<br /><span class="small">Kroof, the She-bear</span></h2>
+<p>Spring came early to the clearing
+that year. Kirstie&rsquo;s autumn furrows,
+dark and steaming, began to show
+in patches through the diminished snow.
+The chips before the house and the litter
+about the barn, drawing the sun strongly,
+were first of all uncovered; and over
+them, as to the conquest of new worlds,
+the haughty cock led forth his dames to
+scratch. &ldquo;Saunders,&rdquo; Miranda had called
+him, in remembrance of a strutting beau
+at the Settlement; and with the advent
+of April cheer, and an increasing abundance
+of eggs, and an ever resounding
+cackle from his complacent partlets, his
+conceit became insufferable. One morning,
+when something she did offended his
+dignity, he had the presumption to face
+her with beak advanced and wide-ruffled
+<span class="pb" id="Page_65">65</span>
+neck feathers. But Saunders did not
+know Miranda. Quick as a flash of
+light she seized him by the legs, whirled
+him around her head, and flung him headlong,
+squawking with fear and shame, upon
+his own dunghill. It took him a good
+hour to recover his self-esteem, but after
+that Miranda stood out in his eyes as the
+one creature in the world to be respected.</p>
+<p>When the clearing was quite bare, except
+along the edges of the forest, and
+Kirstie was again at work on her fencing,
+the black-and-white cow gave birth to a
+black-and-white calf, which Miranda at
+once claimed as her own property. It
+was a very wobbly, knock-kneed little
+heifer; but Miranda admired it immensely,
+and with lofty disregard of its
+sex, christened it Michael.</p>
+<p>About this time the snow shrank away
+from her hollow under the pine root, and
+Kroof came forth to sun herself. She
+had lived all winter on nothing but the
+fat stored up on the spaces of her capacious
+frame. Nevertheless she was not
+famished&mdash;she had still a reserve to come
+<span class="pb" id="Page_66">66</span>
+and go on, till food should be abundant.
+A few days after waking up she bore a
+cub. It was the custom of her kind to
+bear two cubs at a birth; but Kroof,
+besides being by long odds the biggest
+she-bear ever known in that region, had a
+pronounced individuality of her own, and
+was just as well satisfied with herself over
+one cub as over two.</p>
+<p>The hollow under the pine root was
+warm and softly lined&mdash;a condition quite
+indispensable to the newcomer, which
+was about as unlike a bear as any baby
+creature of its size could well manage to
+be. It was blind, helpless, whimpering,
+more shapeless and clumsy-looking than
+the clumsiest conceivable pup, and almost
+naked. Its tender, hairless hide looked a
+poor thing to confront the world with;
+but its appetite was astounding, and
+Kroof&rsquo;s milk inexhaustible. In a few
+days a soft dark fur began to appear. As
+the mother sat, hour by hour, watching
+it and suckling it, half erect upon her
+haunches, her fore legs braced wide apart,
+her head stretched as far down as possible,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_67">67</span>
+her narrow red tongue hanging out to one
+side, her eyes half closed in rapture, it
+seemed to grow visibly beneath her absorbing
+gaze. Before four weeks had
+passed, the cub was covered with a jet
+black coat, soft and glossy. This being
+the case, he thought it time to open his
+eyes and look about.</p>
+<p>He was now about the size of a small
+cat, but of a much heavier build. His
+head, at this age, was shorter for its
+breadth than his mother&rsquo;s; the ears much
+larger, fan-like and conspicuous. His
+eyes, very softly vague at first, soon
+acquired a humorous, mischievous expression,
+which went aptly with the erect,
+inquisitive ears. Altogether he was a
+fine baby&mdash;a fair justification of Kroof&rsquo;s
+pride.</p>
+<p>The spring being now fairly forward,
+and pale, whitish-green shoots upthrusting
+themselves numerously through the
+dead leaves, and the big crimson leaf-bud
+of the skunk-cabbage vividly punctuating
+the sombreness of the swamp, Kroof led
+her infant forth to view their world. He
+<span class="pb" id="Page_68">68</span>
+had no such severe and continued education
+to undergo as that which falls to the
+lot of other youngsters among the folk of
+the ancient wood. For those others the
+first lesson, the hardest and the most
+tremendous in its necessity, was how to
+avoid their enemies. With this lesson
+ill-learned, all others found brief term;
+for the noiseless drama, in which all the
+folk of the forest had their parts, moved
+ever, through few scenes or through many,
+to a tragic close. But the bear, being for
+the most part dominant, had his immunities.
+Even the panther, swift and fierce
+and masterful, never deliberately sought
+quarrel with the bear, being mindful of
+his disastrous clutch and the lightning
+sweep of his paw. The bear-cub, therefore,
+going with its mother till almost full
+grown, gave no thought at all to enemies;
+and the cub with such a giantess as Kroof
+for its mother might safely make a mock
+even at panthers. Kroof&rsquo;s cub had thus
+but simple things to learn, following close
+at his mother&rsquo;s flank. During the first
+blind weeks of his cubhood he had, indeed,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_69">69</span>
+to acquire the prime virtue of silence, which
+was not easy, for he loved to whimper and
+grumble in a comfortable little fashion of
+his own. This was all right while Kroof
+was at home; but when she was out foraging,
+then silence was the thing. This he
+learned, partly from Kroof&rsquo;s admonitions,
+partly from a deep-seated instinct; and
+whenever he was left alone, he held his
+tongue. There was always the possibility
+slight but unpleasant, of a fox or a brown
+cat noting Kroof&rsquo;s absence, and seizing
+the chance to savour a delicate morsel of
+sucking bear.</p>
+<p>Wandering the silent woods with Kroof,
+the cub would sniff carefully at the moist
+earth and budding shoots wheresoever his
+mother stopped to dig. He thus learned
+where to find the starchy roots which
+form so large a part of the bear&rsquo;s food in
+spring. He found out the important difference
+between the sweet groundnuts
+and the fiery bitter bulb of the arum, or
+Indian turnip; and he learned to go
+over the grassy meadows by the lake and
+dig unerringly for the wild bean&rsquo;s nourishing
+<span class="pb" id="Page_70">70</span>
+tubers. He discovered, also, what
+old stumps to tear apart when he wanted
+a pleasantly acid tonic dose of the larv&aelig;
+of the wood-ant. Among these serious
+occupations he would gambol between his
+mother&rsquo;s feet, or caper hilariously on his
+hind legs. Soon he would have been
+taught to detect a bee tree, and to rob it
+of its delectable stores without getting his
+eyes stung out; but just then the mysterious
+forest fates dropped the curtain on
+his merry little play, as a reminder that
+not even for the great black bear could
+the rule of doom be relaxed.</p>
+<p>Kroof&rsquo;s first wanderings with the cub
+were in the neighbourhood of the clearing,
+where both were sometimes seen by
+Miranda. The sight of the cub so overjoyed
+her that she departed from her
+usual reticence as to the forest-folk, and
+told her mother about the lovely, glossy
+little dog that the nice, great big dog took
+about with her. The only result was that
+Kirstie gave her a sharp warning.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dog!&rdquo; she exclaimed severely; &ldquo;didn&rsquo;t
+I tell you, Miranda, it was a bear? Bears
+<span class="pb" id="Page_71">71</span>
+are mostly harmless, if you leave them
+alone; but an old bear with a cub is mighty
+ugly. Mind what I say now, you keep
+by me and don&rsquo;t go too nigh the edge of
+the woods.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so, for the next few weeks, Miranda
+was watched very strictly, lest her childish
+daring should involve her with the
+bears.</p>
+<p>Along in the summer Kroof began to
+lead the cub wider afield. The longer
+journeys vexed the little animal at first,
+and tired him; so that sometimes he would
+throw himself down on his back, with
+pinky-white soles of protest in the air,
+and refuse to go a step farther. But in
+spite of the appeal of his quizzical little
+black snout, big ears, and twinkling eyes,
+old Kroof would box him sternly till he
+was glad enough to jump up and renew
+the march. With the exercise he got a
+little leaner, but much harder, and soon
+came to delight in the widest wandering.
+Nothing could tire him, and at the end
+of the journey he would chase rabbits, or
+weasels, or other elusive creatures, till convicted
+<span class="pb" id="Page_72">72</span>
+of futility by his mother&rsquo;s sarcastic
+comments.</p>
+<p>These wide wanderings were, indeed,
+the making of him, so that he promised to
+rival Kroof herself in prowess and stature;
+but alas! poor cub, they were also his undoing.
+Had he stayed at home&mdash;but
+even that might have little availed, for
+among the folk of the wood it is right at
+home that fate most surely strikes.</p>
+<p>One day they two were exploring far
+over in the next valley&mdash;the valley of
+the Quah-Davic, a tract little familiar to
+Kroof herself. At the noon hour Kroof
+lay down in a little hollow of coolness
+beside a spring that <i>drip-drop, drip-drop,
+drip-dropped</i> from the face of a green rock.
+The cub, however, went untiringly exploring
+the thickets for fifty yards about, out
+of sight, indeed, but scrupulously never
+out of ear-shot.</p>
+<p>Near one of these thickets his nostrils
+caught a new and enthralling savour. He
+had never, in his brief life, smelled anything
+at all like it, but an unerring instinct
+told him it was the smell of something very
+<span class="pb" id="Page_73">73</span>
+good to eat. Pushing through the leafage
+he came upon the source of the fragrance.
+Under a slanting structure of logs he found
+a piece of flesh, yellowish-white, streaked
+thickly with dark reddish-brown,&mdash;and,
+oh, so sweet smelling! It was stuck temptingly
+on a forked point of wood. His ears
+stood up very wide and high in his eagerness.
+His sensitive nostrils wrinkled as
+he sniffed at the tempting find. He decided
+that he would just taste it, and then
+go fetch his mother. But it was a little
+high up for him. He rose, set his small
+white teeth into it, clutched it with his soft
+forepaws, and flung his whole weight upon
+it to pull it down.</p>
+<p>Kroof, dozing in her hollow of coolness,
+heard a small agonized screech, cut short
+horribly. On the instant her great body
+went tearing in a panic through the underbrush.
+She found poor cub crushed flat
+under the huge timbers of &ldquo;a dead-fall,&rdquo;
+his glossy head and one paw sticking out
+piteously, his little red tongue protruding
+from his distorted mouth.</p>
+<p>Kroof needed no second look to know
+<span class="pb" id="Page_74">74</span>
+in her heart he was dead, stone dead; but
+in the rage of her grief she would not acknowledge
+it. She tore madly at the
+great timber,&mdash;so huge a thing to set to
+crush so small a life,&mdash;and so astonishing
+was the strength of her claws and her vast
+forearms that in the course of half an
+hour she had the trap fairly demolished.
+Softly she removed the crushed and shapeless
+body, licking the mouth, the nostrils,
+the pitifully staring eyes; snuggling it
+lightly as a breath, and moaning over it.
+She would lift the head a little with her
+paw, and redouble her caresses as it fell
+limply aside. Then it grew cold. This
+was testimony she could not pretend to
+ignore. She ceased the caresses which
+proved so vain to keep warmth in the little
+body she loved. With her snout held
+high in air she turned around slowly twice,
+as if in an appeal to some power not clearly
+apprehended; then, without another glance
+at her dead, she rushed off madly through
+the forest.</p>
+<p>All night she wandered aimlessly, hither
+and thither through the low Quah-Davic
+<span class="pb" id="Page_75">75</span>
+valley, over the lower slopes of the mountain,
+through tracts where she had never
+been, but of which she took no note; and
+toward noon of the following day she found
+herself once more in the ancient wood, not
+far from the clearing. She avoided widely
+the old den under the pine root, and at
+last threw herself down, worn out and
+with unsuckled teats fiercely aching, behind
+the trunk of a fallen hemlock.</p>
+<p>She slept heavily for an hour or two.
+Then she was awakened by the crying of
+a child. She knew it at once for Miranda&rsquo;s
+voice; and being in some way stirred
+by it, in spite of the preoccupation of her
+pain, she got up and moved noiselessly
+toward the sound.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_76">76</div>
+<h2 id="c6">Chapter VI
+<br /><span class="small">The Initiation of Miranda</span></h2>
+<p>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 &ldquo;a turn.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_77">77</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Between the straight grey trunks Miranda&rsquo;s
+clear eyes saw something move.</p>
+<p>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&rsquo;s heart went
+out to it, as it sat up there in the shadows,
+watching her steadily with wide pale eyes.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_78">78</div>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, pretty pussy! pretty pussy!&rdquo;
+called Miranda, stretching out her hands
+to it coaxingly, and running into the
+wood.</p>
+<p>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 <i>pfuff</i> 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.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_79">79</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>This is what Kroof had heard and was
+coming to investigate. But other ears
+heard it, too.</p>
+<p>A tawny form, many times larger than
+the perfidious brown cat, but not altogether
+unlike it in shape, crept stealthily
+<span class="pb" id="Page_80">80</span>
+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.</p>
+<p>He made absolutely no sound, yet something
+within Miranda&rsquo;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&rsquo;s fear. Of an
+animal, however fierce, she had no instinctive
+terror; and now, though she
+<span class="pb" id="Page_81">81</span>
+knew that the cruel-eyed beast before her
+was the panther, it was a sort of indignant
+curiosity that was uppermost in her
+mind.</p>
+<p>The beast shifted his eyes uneasily
+under her unwavering look. He experienced
+a moment&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;great big dog,&rdquo;&mdash;which she knew
+quite well, however, to be a bear,&mdash;she
+seemed to realize how frightened she had
+been of the panther; and she recognized
+<span class="pb" id="Page_82">82</span>
+that strong defence had come. With a
+convulsive sob she sprang and hid her
+tear-stained little face in the bear&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>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 prot&eacute;g&eacute;e of Kroof&rsquo;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
+<span class="pb" id="Page_83">83</span>
+mate&mdash;who was more savage though less
+powerful than himself&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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&rsquo;s remotest idea. In every
+other respect, however, she showed herself
+most appreciative of Kroof&rsquo;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&rsquo;s belly, she suddenly went
+fast asleep, being wearied by her wanderings
+and her emotions.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_84">84</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miranda!&rdquo; she called. And then
+louder,&mdash;and yet louder,&mdash;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
+<span class="pb" id="Page_85">85</span>
+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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure enough,&rdquo; she muttered; &ldquo;the
+child was right. She knows a sight more
+about the beasts than I do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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
+<span class="pb" id="Page_86">86</span>
+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:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miranda, where <i>have</i> you been?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The child stopped, looked around, but
+still clung to Kroof&rsquo;s fur.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, mother!&rdquo; she cried, eager and
+breathless, and trying to tell everything
+at once, &ldquo;I was all lost&mdash;and I was just
+going to be eaten up&mdash;and the dear, good,
+big bear came and frightened the panther
+away&mdash;and we were just going home&mdash;and
+<i>do</i> come and speak to the dear, lovely, big
+bear! Oh, don&rsquo;t let it go away! <i>don&rsquo;t</i> let
+it!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But on this point Kroof had her own
+views. It was Miranda she had adopted,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_87">87</span>
+not Kirstie; and she felt a kind of jealousy
+of Miranda&rsquo;s mother. Even while
+Miranda was speaking, the bear swung
+aside and briskly shambled off, leaving
+the child half in tears.</p>
+<p>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&rsquo;s quick
+and tolerant mind. She at once realized
+the value to Miranda of such an affection
+as Kroof&rsquo;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.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_88">88</div>
+<h2 id="c7">Chapter VII
+<br /><span class="small">The Intimates</span></h2>
+<p>After this experience Miranda felt
+herself initiated, as she had so longed
+to be, into the full fellowship of the folk
+of the ancient wood. Almost every day
+Kroof came prowling about the edges of
+the clearing. Miranda was sure to catch
+sight of her before long and run to her
+with joyous caresses. Farther than a few
+steps into the open the big bear would not
+come, having no desire to cultivate Kirstie,
+or the cabin, or the cattle, or aught that
+appertained to civilization. But Kirstie,
+after watching from a courteous distance
+a few of these strange interviews, wisely
+gave the child a little more latitude.
+Miranda was permitted to go a certain
+fixed distance into the wood, but never so
+far as quite to lose sight of the cabin; and
+this permission was only for such times as
+<span class="pb" id="Page_89">89</span>
+she was with Kroof. Kirstie knew something
+about wild animals; and she knew
+that the black bear, when it formed an
+attachment, was inalienably and uncalculatingly
+loyal to it.</p>
+<p>As sometimes happens in an affection
+which runs counter to the lines of kinship,
+Kroof seemed more passionately devoted
+to the child than she had been to her own
+cub. She would gaze with eyes of rapture,
+her mouth hanging half open in foolish
+fondness, while Miranda, playing about
+her, acquired innumerable secrets of forest-lore.
+Whatsoever Miranda wanted her to
+do, she would strive to do, as soon as she
+could make out what it was; for, in truth,
+Miranda&rsquo;s speech, though very pleasant
+to her ear, was not very intelligible to her
+brain. On one point, however, she was
+inflexible. Perhaps for a distance of thrice
+her own length she would follow Miranda
+out into the clearing, but farther than that
+she would not go. Persuasions, petulance,
+argument, tears&mdash;Miranda tried them all,
+but in vain. When Miranda tried going
+behind and pushing, or going in front
+<span class="pb" id="Page_90">90</span>
+and pulling, the beast liked it, and her
+eyes would blink humorously. But her
+mind was made up. This obstinacy, so
+disappointing to Miranda, met with Kirstie&rsquo;s
+unqualified but unexpressed approval.
+She did not want Kroof&rsquo;s ponderous bulk
+hanging about the house or loafing around
+and getting in the way when she was at
+work in the fields.</p>
+<p>Though Kroof was averse to civilization,
+she was at the same time sagacious
+enough to see that she could not have
+Miranda always with her in the woods.
+She knew very well that the tall woman
+with red on her head was a very superior
+and mysterious kind of animal,&mdash;and
+that Miranda was her cub,&mdash;a most superior
+kind of cub, and always to be
+regarded with a secret awe, but still a
+cub, and belonging to the tall woman.
+Therefore she was not aggrieved when
+she found that she could not have Miranda
+with her in the woods for more
+than an hour or two at a time. In that
+hour or two, however, much could be
+done; and Kroof tried to teach Miranda
+<span class="pb" id="Page_91">91</span>
+many things which it is held good to
+know among the folk of the ancient
+wood. She would sniff at the mould
+and dig up sweet-smelling roots; and
+Miranda, observing the stems and leaves
+of them, soon came to know all the edible
+roots of the neighbourhood. Kroof
+showed her, also, the delicate dewberry,
+the hauntingly delicious capillaire, hidden
+under its trailing vines, the insipidly
+sweet Indian pear, and the harmless but
+rather cotton-woolly partridge-berry; and
+she taught her to shun the tempting purple
+fruit of the trillium, as well as the
+deadly snake-berry. The blueberry, dear
+alike to bears and men, did not grow in
+the heavy-timbered forest, but Miranda
+had known that fruit well from those earliest
+days in the Settlement, when she had
+so often stained her mouth with blueberry
+pie. As for the scarlet clusters of the
+pigeon-berry, carpeting the hillocks of
+the pasture, Miranda needed no teaching
+from Kroof to know that these were
+good. Then, there were all sorts of forest
+fungi, of many shapes and colours,&mdash;white,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_92">92</span>
+pink, delicate yellow, shining
+orange covered with warts, creamy drab,
+streaky green, and even strong crimson.
+Toadstools, Miranda called them at first,
+with indiscriminating dread and aversion.
+But Kroof taught her better. Some, indeed,
+the red ones and the warty ones in
+particular, the wise animal would dash to
+pieces with her paw; and these Miranda
+understood to be bad. In fact, their very
+appearance had something ominous in it,
+and to Miranda&rsquo;s eye they had <i>poison</i>
+written all over them in big letters. But
+there was one very white and dainty-looking,
+sweet-smelling fungus which she
+would have sworn to as virtuous. As
+soon as she saw it, she thought of a
+peculiarly shy mushroom (she loved
+mushrooms), and ran to pick it up in
+triumph. But Kroof thrust her aside
+with such rudeness that she fell over a
+stump, much offended. Her indignation
+died away, however, as she saw Kroof
+tearing and stamping the pale mushrooms
+to minutest fragments, with every mark
+of loathing. From this Miranda gathered
+<span class="pb" id="Page_93">93</span>
+that the beautiful toadstool was a
+very monster of crime. It was, indeed;
+for it was none other than the deadly
+amanita, one small morsel of which
+would have hushed Miranda into the
+sleep which does not wake.</p>
+<p>Though Miranda was safe under
+Kroof&rsquo;s tutelage, it was perhaps just as
+well for her at that period of her youth
+that she was forbidden to stray from the
+clearing. For there was, indeed, one
+tribe among the folk of the wood against
+whose anger Kroof&rsquo;s protection would
+have very little availed. Had Miranda
+gone roaming, she and Kroof, they might
+have found a bee tree. It is doubtful if
+Kroof&rsquo;s sagacity would have told her that
+Miranda&rsquo;s skin was not adequate to an
+enterprise against bee trees. The zealous
+bear would have probably wanted honey
+for the child, and the result would have
+been such as to shake Kirstie&rsquo;s confidence
+in Kroof&rsquo;s judgment.</p>
+<p>There were, however, several well-inhabited
+ant-logs in that narrow circuit
+which Miranda was allowed to tread, and
+<span class="pb" id="Page_94">94</span>
+on a certain afternoon Kroof discovered
+one of these. She was much pleased.
+Here was a chance to show Miranda
+something very nice and very good for
+her health. Having attracted the child&rsquo;s
+attention, she ripped the rotten log to its
+heart, and began licking up the swarming
+insects and plump white larv&aelig; together.
+Here was a treat; but the incomprehensible
+Miranda, with a shuddering scream,
+ran away. Kroof was bewildered. She
+finished the ants, however, while she was
+about it. Whereafter she was called upon
+to hear a long lecture from Miranda, to
+the effect that ants were not good to eat,
+and that it was very cruel to tear open
+their nests and steal their eggs. Of
+course, as Kroof did not at all understand
+what she was driving at, there was no
+room for an argument; which, considering
+the points involved, is much to be regretted.</p>
+<p>Though Miranda had now, so to speak,
+the freedom of the wood, she was not
+really intimate with any of the furtive folk,
+saving only, of course, the irrepressible
+<span class="pb" id="Page_95">95</span>
+squirrels who lived in the cabin roof. She
+saw the wild creatures now very close at
+hand, and they went about their business
+under her eye without concern. They
+realized that it was no use trying with
+her their game of invisibility. No matter
+how perfect their stillness, no matter
+how absolutely they made themselves one
+with their surroundings, they felt her clear,
+unwavering, friendly eyes look them
+through and through. This was at first
+a troubling mystery to them. Who was
+this youngling,&mdash;for youth betrays itself
+even to the most primitive perceptions,&mdash;who,
+for all her youth, set their traditions
+and elaborate devices so easily at naught?
+Their instincts told them, however, that
+she was no foe to the weakest of them;
+and so they let her see them at their affairs
+unabashed, though avoiding her with a
+kind of careful awe.</p>
+<p>Kroof, too, they all avoided, but with
+a difference. They knew that she was
+not averse to an occasional meal of flesh
+meat, but that she would not greatly
+trouble herself in pursuit of it. All they
+<span class="pb" id="Page_96">96</span>
+had to do, these lesser folk of the wood,
+was to keep at a safe distance from the
+sweep of her mighty paw, and they felt
+at ease in her neighbourhood. All but
+the hare&mdash;<i>he</i> knew that Kroof considered
+him and his long-eared children a special
+delicacy, well worth the effort of a bear.
+Miranda wondered why she could never
+see anything of the hare when she was out
+with Kroof. She did see him sometimes,
+indeed; but always at a distance, and for
+an instant only. On these occasions,
+Kroof did not see him at all; and Miranda
+soon came to realize that she could
+see more clearly than even the furtive folk
+themselves. They could hide themselves
+from each other by stillness and by self-effacement;
+but Miranda&rsquo;s eyes always
+inexorably distinguished the ruddy fox
+from the yellow-brown, rotten log on
+which he flattened himself. She instantly
+differentiated the moveless nuthatch from
+the knot on the trunk, the squatting grouse
+from the lichened stone, the wood-mouse
+from the curled brown leaf, the crouching
+wild-cat from the mottled branch. Consequently
+<span class="pb" id="Page_97">97</span>
+the furtive folk gradually began
+to pay her the tribute of ignoring her,
+which meant that they trusted her to let
+them alone. They kept their reserve;
+but under her interested scrutiny the nuthatch
+would walk up the rough-barked
+pine trunk and pick insects out from under
+the grey scales; the golden-winged woodpecker
+would hunt down the fat, white
+grubs which he delighted in, and hammer
+sharply on the dead wood a few feet above
+her head; the slim, brown stoat would
+chase beetles among the tree roots, untroubled
+by her discreet proximity; the
+beruffed cock-grouse would drum from
+the top of his stump till the air was full
+of the soft thunder of his vauntings, and
+his half-grown brood would dust themselves
+in the deserted ant-hill in the sunniest
+corner of the clearing. Only the
+pair of crows which, seeing great opportunities
+about the reoccupied clearing, had
+taken up their dwelling in the top of a
+tall spruce close behind the cabin, held
+suspiciously aloof from Miranda. They
+often talked her over, in harsh tones that
+<span class="pb" id="Page_98">98</span>
+jarred the ancient stillness; and they considered
+her intimacy with Kroof altogether
+contrary to the order of things. Being
+themselves exemplars of duplicity, they
+were quite convinced that Miranda had
+ulterior motives, too deep for them to
+fathom; and they therefore respected her
+immensely. But they did not trust her,
+of course. The shy rain-birds, however,
+trusted her, and would whistle to each
+other their long, melancholy calls foretelling
+rain, even though she were standing
+within a few steps of them, and staring at
+them with all her might; and this was
+a most unheard-of favour on the part of
+the rain-birds, who are too reticent to let
+themselves be heard when any one is near
+enough to see them. There might be
+three or four uttering their slow, inexpressibly
+pathetic cadences all around the
+clearing; but Kirstie could never catch a
+glimpse of them, though many a time she
+listened with deep longing in her heart
+as their remote voices thrilled across the
+dewy oncoming of the dusk.</p>
+<p>Miranda saw the panther only once
+<span class="pb" id="Page_99">99</span>
+again that year. It was about a month
+after her meeting with Kroof. She was
+alone, just upon the edge of the buckwheat
+field, and peering into the shadowy,
+transparent stillness to see what she could
+see. What she saw sent her little heart
+straight up into her mouth. There, not
+a dozen paces from her, lying flat along
+a fallen tree, was the panther. He was
+staring at her, with his eyes half shut.
+Startled though she was, Miranda&rsquo;s experience
+with Kroof had made her very self-confident.
+She stood moveless, staring
+back into those dangerous, half-shut eyes.
+After a moment or two the beautiful beast
+arose and stretched himself with great
+deliberation, reaching out and digging in
+his claws, as an ordinary cat does when it
+stretches. At the same time he yawned
+prodigiously, so that it seemed to Miranda
+he would surely split to his ears, and she
+looked right into his great pink throat.
+Then he stepped lightly down from the
+tree,&mdash;on the side farthest from Miranda,&mdash;and
+walked away with the air of not
+wishing to intrude.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_100">100</div>
+<p>This same summer, too, so momentous
+in its events, Miranda first met Wapiti,
+the delicate-antlered buck, and Ganner,
+the big Canada lynx. Needless to say,
+they were not in company. One morning,
+as she sat in a fence corner, absorbed
+in building a little house of twigs around
+a sick butterfly, she heard a loud snort
+just at her elbow. Much startled, she
+gave a little cry as she looked up, and
+something jumped back from the fence.
+She saw a bright brown head, crowned
+with splendid, many-pronged antlers, and
+a pair of large, liquid eyes looking at her
+with mild wonder.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you <i>be-autiful</i> deer, did I frighten
+you?&rdquo; she cried, knowing the visitor by
+pictures she had seen; and she poked her
+little hand through the fence in greeting.
+The buck seemed very curious about the
+scarlet ribbon at her neck, and eyed it
+steadily for half a minute. Then he
+came close up to the fence again, and
+sniffed her hand with his fine black nostrils,
+opening and closing them sensitively.
+He let her stroke his smooth muzzle, and
+<span class="pb" id="Page_101">101</span>
+held his head quite still under the caressing
+of her hand. Then some unusual
+sound caught his ear. It was Kirstie
+hoeing potatoes near by; and presently
+the furrow she was following brought her
+into view behind the corner of the barn.
+The scarlet kerchief on her hair flamed
+hotly in the sun. The buck raised his
+head high, and stared, and finally seemed
+to decide that the apparition was a hostile
+one. With a snort, and an impatient
+stamp of his polished hoof, he wheeled
+about and trotted off into the wood.</p>
+<p>Her introduction to Ganner, the lynx,
+was under less gracious auspices.</p>
+<p>Michael, the calf, who had been growing
+excellently all summer, was kept tethered
+during the daytime to a stake in a
+corner of the wild-grass meadow, about
+fifty yards from the edge of the forest.
+A little nearer the cabin was a long
+thicket of blackberry brakes and elder
+bushes and wild clematis, forming a dense
+tangle, in which Miranda had, with great
+pains and at the cost of terrific scratches,
+formed herself a delectable hiding-place.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_102">102</span>
+Here she would play house, and sometimes
+take a nap, in the hot mornings,
+while her mother would be at work acres
+away, at the very opposite side of the
+clearing.</p>
+<p>One day, about eleven in the morning,
+Michael was lying at the limit of her
+tether nearest the cabin, when she saw a
+strange beast come out of the forest and
+halt to look at her. The animal was of a
+greyish rusty brown, very pale on the
+belly and neck, and nearly as tall as
+Michael herself; but its body was curiously
+short in proportion to the length
+of its powerful legs. It had a perfectly
+round face, with round glaring eyes, long
+stiff black tufts on the tips of its sharp-pointed
+ears, and a fierce-looking, whitish
+brown whisker brushed away, as it were,
+from under its chin. Its tail was a mere
+thick, brown stump of a tail, looking as if it
+had been chopped off short. The creature
+gazed all around, warily; then crouched
+low, its hind quarters rather higher in the
+air than its fore shoulders, and stepping
+softly, came straight for Michael.</p>
+<div class="img" id="fig3">
+<img src="images/p148.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="805" />
+<p class="center"><span class="small">She sprang up, . . . her whole weight straining on the tether</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_103">103</div>
+<p>Inexperienced as Michael was, she
+knew that this was nothing less than
+death itself approaching her. She sprang
+up, her awkward legs spread wide apart,
+her whole weight straining on the tether,
+her eyes, rolling white, fixed in horror on
+the dreadful object. From her throat
+came a long, shrill bleat of appeal and
+despair.</p>
+<p>There was no mistaking that cry. It
+brought Miranda from her playhouse in
+an instant. In the next instant she took
+in the situation. &ldquo;Mother! <i>Mothe-e-er!</i>&rdquo;
+she screamed at the top of her voice,
+and flew to the defence of her beloved
+Michael.</p>
+<p>The lynx, at this unexpected interference,
+stopped short. Miranda did not
+look formidable, and he was not alarmed
+by any means. But she looked unusual,&mdash;and
+that bit of bright red at her throat
+might mean something which he did not
+understand,&mdash;and there was something
+not quite natural, something to give him
+pause, in a youngster displaying this reckless
+courage. For a second or two,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_104">104</span>
+therefore, he sat straight up like a cat,
+considering; and his tufted ears the while,
+very erect, with the strange whiskers
+under his chin, gave him an air that was
+fiercely dignified. His hesitation, however,
+was but for a moment. Satisfied
+that Miranda did not count, he came on
+again, more swiftly; and Miranda, seeing
+that she had failed to frighten him away,
+just flung her arms around Michael&rsquo;s
+neck and screamed.</p>
+<p>The scream should have reached Kirstie&rsquo;s
+ear across the whole breadth of the
+clearing; but a flaw of wind carried it
+away, and the cabin intervened to dull its
+edge. Other ears than Kirstie&rsquo;s, however,
+heard it; heard, too, and understood
+Michael&rsquo;s bleating. The black-and-white
+cow was far away, in another pasture.
+(Kirstie saw her running frantically up
+and down along the fence, and thought
+the flies were tormenting her.) But just
+behind the thicket lay the two steers,
+Bright and Star, contemplatively chewing
+their midday cud. Both had risen
+heavily to their feet at Michael&rsquo;s first
+<span class="pb" id="Page_105">105</span>
+appeal. As Miranda&rsquo;s scream rang out,
+Bright&rsquo;s sorrel head appeared around the
+corner of the thicket, anxious to investigate.
+He stopped at sight of Ganner,
+held his muzzle high in air, snorted
+loudly, and shook his head with a great
+show of valour. Immediately after him
+came Star, the black-and-white brindle.
+But of a different temper was he. The
+moment his eyes fell upon Michael&rsquo;s foe
+and Miranda&rsquo;s, down went his long,
+straight horns, up went his brindled tail,
+and with a bellow of rage he charged.</p>
+<p>The gaunt steer was an antagonist whom
+Ganner had no stomach to face. With an
+angry snarl, which showed Miranda a terrifying
+set of white teeth in a very red
+mouth, he turned his stump of a tail, laid
+flat his tufted ears, and made for the forest
+with long, splendid leaps, his exaggerated
+hind legs seeming to volley him forward
+like a ball. In about five seconds he was
+out of sight among the trees; and Star,
+snorting and switching his tail, stood pawing
+the turf haughtily in front of Miranda
+and Michael.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_106">106</div>
+<p>It was Miranda who named the big
+lynx &ldquo;Ganner&rdquo; that day; because, as she
+told her mother afterward, that was what
+he said when Star came and drove him
+away.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_107">107</div>
+<h2 id="c8">Chapter VIII
+<br /><span class="small">Axe and Antler</span></h2>
+<p>The next winter went by in the main
+much like the former one. But
+more birds came to be fed as the season
+advanced, because Miranda&rsquo;s fame had
+gone abroad amongst them. The snow
+was not so deep, the cold not so severe.
+No panther came again to claw at their
+roof by night. But there were certain
+events which made the season stand out
+sharply from all others in the eyes of both
+Kirstie and Miranda.</p>
+<p>Throughout December and January Wapiti,
+the buck, with two slim does accompanying
+him, would come and hang about
+the barn for several days at a time, nibbling
+at the scattered straw. With the two
+steers, Star and Bright, Wapiti was not on
+very good terms. They would sometimes
+thrust at him resentfully, whereupon he
+<span class="pb" id="Page_108">108</span>
+would jump aside, as if on springs, stamp
+twice sharply with his polished fore hoofs,
+and level at them the fourteen threatening
+spear points of his antlers. But the challenge
+never came to anything. As for the
+black-and-white cow, she seemed to admire
+Wapiti greatly, though he met her admiration
+with the most lofty indifference.
+One day Miranda let him and the two
+does lick some coarse salt out of a dish,
+after which enchanting experience all three
+would follow her straight up to the cabin
+door. They even took to following Kirstie
+about, which pleased and flattered her
+more than she would acknowledge to
+Miranda, and earned them many a cold
+buckwheat pancake. To them the cold
+pancakes, though leathery and tough, were
+a tit-bit of delight; but along in January
+they tore themselves away from such
+raptures and removed to other feeding
+grounds.</p>
+<p>Toward spring, to Miranda&rsquo;s great delight,
+she made acquaintance with Ten-Tine,
+the splendid bull caribou whom she
+had just seen the winter before. He and
+<span class="pb" id="Page_109">109</span>
+his antlered cows were migrating southward
+by slow stages. They were getting
+tired of the dry moss and lichen of the
+barrens which lay a week&rsquo;s journey northward
+from the clearing. They began to
+crave the young shoots of willow and poplar
+that would now be bursting with sap
+along the more southerly streams. Looking
+from the window one morning, before
+the cattle had been let out, Miranda saw
+Ten-Tine emerge from the woods and
+start with long, swinging strides across the
+open. His curiously flattened, leaf-like
+antlers lay back on a level with his shoulders,
+and his nose pointed straight before
+him. The position was just the one to
+enable him to go through the woods without
+getting his horns entangled. From
+the middle of his forehead projected, at
+right angles to the rest of the antlers, two
+broad, flat, palmated prongs, a curious enlargement
+of the central ones. His cows,
+whose antlers were little less splendid than
+his own, but lacking in the frontal projection,
+followed at his heels. In colour
+he was of a very light, whitish-drab,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_110">110</span>
+quite unlike the warm brown of Wapiti&rsquo;s
+coat.</p>
+<p>In passing the barn Ten-Tine caught
+sight of some tempting fodder, and stopped
+to try it. Kirstie&rsquo;s straw proved very much
+to the taste of the whole herd. While
+they were feeding delightedly, Miranda
+stole out to make friends with them. She
+took, as a tribute, a few handfuls of the
+hens&rsquo; buckwheat, in a bright yellow bowl.
+As she approached, Ten-Tine lifted his
+fine head and eyed her curiously. Had
+it been the rutting season, he would no
+doubt have straightway challenged her
+to mortal combat. But now, unless he
+saw a wolf, a panther, or a lynx, he was
+good-tempered and inquisitive. This
+small creature looked harmless, and there
+was undoubtedly something quite remarkable
+about her. What was that shining
+thing which she held out in front of her?
+And what was that other very bright thing
+around her neck? He stopped feeding,
+and watched her intently, his head held
+in an attitude of indecision, just a little
+lower than his shoulders. The cows took
+<span class="pb" id="Page_111">111</span>
+a look also, and felt curious, but were
+concerned rather to satisfy their hunger
+than their curiosity. They left the matter
+easily to Ten-Tine.</p>
+<p>Miranda had learned many things already
+from her year among the folk of
+the wood. One of these things was that
+all the furtive folk dreaded and resented
+rough movement. Their manners were
+always beyond reproach. The fiercest of
+them moved ever with an aristocratic grace
+and poise. They knew the difference between
+swiftness and haste. All abruptness
+they abhorred. In lines of beauty
+they eluded their enemies. They killed
+in curves.</p>
+<p>She did not, therefore, attempt to go
+straight up and take Ten-Tine&rsquo;s acquaintance
+by storm. She paused discreetly
+some dozen steps away, held out the dish
+to him, and murmured her inarticulate,
+soft persuasions. Not being versed in
+the caribou tongue, she trusted the tones
+of her voice to reveal her good intention.</p>
+<p>Seeing that she would come no nearer,
+Ten-Tine&rsquo;s curiosity refused to be balked.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_112">112</span>
+But he was dubious, very dubious. Like
+Wapiti, he stamped when he was in doubt;
+but the hoofs he stamped with were much
+larger, broader, clumsier, less polished than
+Wapiti&rsquo;s, being formed for running over
+such soft surfaces as bogland and snow
+insufficiently packed, where Wapiti&rsquo;s trim
+feet would cut through like knives.</p>
+<p>Step by step he drew nearer. There
+was something in Miranda&rsquo;s clear gaze
+that gave him confidence. At length he
+was near enough to touch the yellow bowl
+with his flexible upper lip. He saw that
+the bowl contained something. He extended
+his muzzle over the rim, and, to
+Miranda&rsquo;s surprise, blew into it. The
+grain flew in every direction, some of it
+sticking to his own moist lips. He drew
+back, a little startled. Then he licked his
+lips; and he liked the taste. Back went
+his muzzle into the interesting bowl; and,
+after sniffing again very gently, he licked
+up the whole contents.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, greedy!&rdquo; exclaimed Miranda, in
+tender rebuke, and started back to the
+cabin to get him some more.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_113">113</div>
+<p>&ldquo;Wouldn&rsquo;t Saunders be cross,&rdquo; she
+thought to herself, &ldquo;if he knew I was
+giving his buckwheat to the nice deer?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Ten-Tine followed close behind her,
+sniffing inquisitively at the red ribbon on
+her neck. When Miranda went in for the
+buckwheat, he tried to enter with her, but
+his antlers had too much spread for the
+doorway. Kirstie, who was busy sweeping,
+looked up in amazement as the great
+head darkened her door.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Drat the child!&rdquo; she exclaimed;
+&ldquo;she&rsquo;ll be bringing all the beasts of the
+wood in to live with us before long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She did not grudge Ten-Tine the few
+handfuls of buckwheat, however, though
+he blew half of it over the floor so that she
+had to sweep it up. When he had finished,
+and perceived that no more was
+forthcoming, he backed off reluctantly
+from the door and began smelling around
+the window-sill, pushing his curious nose
+tentatively against the glass.</p>
+<p>Now it chanced that all the way down
+from the barrens Ten-Tine and his little
+herd had been hungrily pursued, although
+<span class="pb" id="Page_114">114</span>
+they did not know it. Four of the great
+grey timber wolves were on their track.
+Savage but prudent, the wolves were unwilling
+to attack the herd, for they knew
+the caribou&rsquo;s fighting prowess. But they
+awaited a chance to cut off one of the
+cows and hunt her down alone. For days
+they had kept the trail, faring very scantly
+by the way; and now they were both
+ravenous and enraged. Emerging from
+the woods, they saw the five cows at feed
+by the barn, with Ten-Tine nowhere in
+sight. The opportunity was too rare a
+one to miss. They seized it. All four
+gaunt forms abreast, they came galloping
+across the snow in silence, their long,
+grey snouts wrinkled, their white fangs
+uncovered, their grey-and-white shoulders
+rising and falling in unison, their cloudy
+tails floating straight out behind them.</p>
+<p>Just in time the cows saw them coming.
+There was a half second of motionless consternation.
+Then nimbly they sprang into
+a circle, hind quarters bunched together,
+levelled antlers all pointing outward. It
+was the accurate inherited discipline of
+generations.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_115">115</div>
+<p>Without a sound, save a deep, gasping
+breath, the wolves made their leap, striving
+to clear that bayonet hedge of horns.
+Two were hurled back, yelping. One
+brought a cow to her knees, half clear of
+the circle, his fangs in her neck, and would
+have finished her but that her next neighbour
+prodded him so fiercely in the flank
+that he let go with a shrill snarl. But the
+fourth wolf found the weak point in the
+circle. The foolish young cow upon whom
+he sprang went wild at once with fright.
+She broke from the ring and fled. The
+next instant the wolf was at her throat.</p>
+<p>The moment he pulled her down the
+other wolves sprang upon her. The rest
+of the cows, maintaining their position of
+defence, viewed her plight with considerable
+unconcern, doubtless holding that her
+folly was well served, and that she was
+worth no better end. But Ten-Tine,
+who had suddenly taken in the situation,
+had other views about it. To him the
+foolish young cow was most important.
+With a shrill note of rage, half bleat, half
+bellow, he charged down to the rescue.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_116">116</span>
+The first wolf he struck was hurled against
+the corner of the barn, and came limping
+back to the fray with no great enthusiasm.
+Upon the next he came down with both
+front feet, fairly breaking the creature&rsquo;s back.
+Instantly the other two fastened upon his
+flanks, trying to pull him down; while he,
+bounding and rearing, strove heroically to
+shake them off in order to reach them
+with horns and hoofs. The bleeding cow,
+meanwhile, struggled to her feet and took
+refuge within the dauntless circle, which
+rather grudgingly opened to admit her.
+For this they must not be judged too
+harshly; for in caribou eyes she had committed
+the crime of crimes in breaking
+ranks and exposing the whole herd to
+destruction.</p>
+<p>At this stage in the encounter the valiant
+Ten-Tine found himself in desperate
+straits; but help came from an unexpected
+quarter. The factor which the wolves had
+not allowed for was Kirstie Craig. At
+the first sight of them Kirstie had been
+filled with silent rage. She had believed
+that wolves were quite extinct throughout
+<span class="pb" id="Page_117">117</span>
+all the neighbouring forests; and now in
+their return she saw a perpetual menace.
+But at least they were scarce, she knew
+that; and on the instant she resolved
+that this little pack should meet no milder
+fate than extermination.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s wolves! Don&rsquo;t you stir outside
+this door!&rdquo; she commanded grimly, in
+that voice which Miranda never dreamed
+of disobeying. Miranda, trembling with
+excitement, her eyes wide and her cheeks
+white, climbed to the window, and flattened
+her face against it. Kirstie rushed
+out, slamming the door.</p>
+<p>As she passed the chopping-block,
+Kirstie snatched up her axe. Her fine
+face was set like iron. The black eyes
+blazed fury. It was a desperate venture,
+to attack three maddened wolves, with no
+ally to support her save a caribou bull;
+but Kirstie, as we have seen, was not a
+woman for half measures.</p>
+<p>The first sweep of that poised and
+practised axe caught the nearest wolf just
+behind the fore quarters, and almost shore
+him in two. Thus suddenly freed on
+<span class="pb" id="Page_118">118</span>
+one side, Ten-Tine wheeled like lightning
+to catch his other assailant, but the animal
+sprang back. In evading Ten-Tine&rsquo;s
+horns, he almost fell over Kirstie, who,
+thus balked of her full deadly swing, just
+managed to fetch him a short stroke under
+the jaw with the flat of the blade. It
+was enough, however, to fell him for an
+instant, and that instant was enough for
+Ten-Tine. Bounding into the air, the
+big caribou came down with both sharp
+fore hoofs, like chisels, squarely on the
+middle of his adversary&rsquo;s ribs. The
+stroke was slaughterously decisive. Ribs
+of steel could not have endured it, and in
+a very few seconds the shape of bloody
+grey fur upon the snow bore scant resemblance
+to a wolf.</p>
+<p>The last of the pack, who had been
+lamed by Ten-Tine&rsquo;s onslaught, had prudently
+drawn off when he saw Kirstie
+coming. Now he turned tail. Kirstie,
+determined that not one should escape,
+gave chase. She could run as can few
+women. She was bent on her grim purpose
+of extermination. At first the wolf&rsquo;s
+<span class="pb" id="Page_119">119</span>
+lameness hindered him; but just as he
+was about to turn at bay and fight dumbly
+to the death, after the manner of his kind,
+the effort which he had been making
+loosened the strained muscles, and he
+found his pace. Stretching himself out
+on his long gallop, he shot away from
+his pursuer as if she had been standing
+still.</p>
+<p>Kirstie stopped, swung her axe, and
+hurled it after him with all her strength.
+It struck the mark. Had it struck true,
+edge on, it would have fulfilled her utmost
+intention; but it struck, with the thick
+of the head, squarely upon the brute&rsquo;s
+rump. The blow sent him rolling end
+over end across the snow. He yelped
+with astonishment and terror; but recovering
+himself again in a second, he went
+bounding like a grey ball of fur over a
+brush heap, and vanished down the forest
+arches.</p>
+<p>When Kirstie turned round she saw
+Miranda, white, pitiful, and bewildered,
+in the doorway; while Ten-Tine and his
+cows, without waiting to thank her, were
+<span class="pb" id="Page_120">120</span>
+trotting away across the white fields, their
+muzzles thrust far forward, their antlers
+laid along their backs. From Ten-Tine
+himself, and from the wounded young
+cow, the blood dripped scarlet and steaming
+at every stride.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_121">121</div>
+<h2 id="c9">Chapter IX
+<br /><span class="small">The Pax Mirand&aelig;</span></h2>
+<p>After this experience, Kirstie would
+have been more anxious than before
+about Miranda, had it not been for
+the child&rsquo;s remarkable friendship with the
+great she-bear. As soon as the snow was
+gone, and the ancient wood again began
+to lure Miranda with its mystic stillness
+and transparent twilight, Kroof reappeared,
+as devoted as ever. When Kroof was
+absent, the woods were to the child a
+forbidden realm, into which she could
+only peer with longing and watch the
+furtive folk with those initiated eyes of
+hers.</p>
+<p>A little later when the mosses were
+dry, and when the ground was well heartened
+with the fecundating heats of June,
+Miranda had further proof of her peculiar
+powers of vision. One day she and
+<span class="pb" id="Page_122">122</span>
+Kroof came upon a partridge hen with
+her new-hatched brood, at the edge of a
+thicket of young birches. The hen went
+flopping and fluttering off among the
+trees, as if sorely wounded; and Kroof,
+convinced of a speedy capture, followed
+eagerly. She gave a glance about her
+first, however, to see if there were any
+partridge chicks in the neighbourhood.
+To Miranda&rsquo;s astonishment, the wise
+animal saw none. But Miranda saw
+them distinctly. There they were all
+about her, moveless little brown balls,
+exactly like the leaves and the moss and
+the scattered things of the forest floor.
+Some were half hidden under a leaf or
+twig; some squatted in the open, just in
+the positions in which the alarm had
+found them. They shut their eyes even,
+to make themselves more at one with
+their surroundings. They would have
+endured any fate, they would have died
+on the spot, rather than move, so perfect
+was their baby obedience to the partridge
+law. This obedience had its reward.
+It gave them invisibility to all the folk of
+<span class="pb" id="Page_123">123</span>
+the wood, friends and foes alike. But there
+was no such thing as deceiving Miranda&rsquo;s
+eyes. She was not concerned about the
+mother partridge, because she saw through
+her pretty trick and knew that Kroof could
+never catch her. Indeed, in her innocence
+she did not think good Kroof would
+hurt her if she did catch her, But these
+moveless chicks, on the other hand, were
+interesting. One&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;Miranda
+counted ten of them, and there were
+more about somewhere, she imagined.
+Presently the mother bird came flopping
+around in a circle, to see how things were
+going. She saw Miranda stoop and pick
+up one of the precious brown balls, and
+then another, curiously but gently. In
+her astonishment the distracted bird forgot
+Kroof for a second, and was almost
+caught. Escaping this peril by a sudden
+wild dash, and realizing that from Miranda
+there was no concealment, she flew
+straight into the densest part of the
+thicket and gave a peremptory call. At
+the sound each little motionless ball came
+to life. The two that were lying as if
+<span class="pb" id="Page_124">124</span>
+dead on Miranda&rsquo;s outstretched palms
+hopped to the ground; and all darted
+into the thicket. A few low but sharply
+articulated clucks, and the mother bird
+led her brood off swiftly through the
+bush; while Kroof, somewhat crestfallen,
+came shambling back to Miranda.</p>
+<p>All this time, in spite of the affair of
+the wolves, the attack of Ganner, the lynx,
+on Michael, and that tell-tale spot of
+blood and fur on the snow, where the
+owl had torn the hare for his midnight
+feast, Miranda had regarded the folk of
+the ancient wood as a gentle people,
+living for the most part in a voiceless
+amity. Her seeing eyes quite failed to
+see the unceasing tragedy of the stillness.
+She did not guess that the furtive folk,
+whom she watched about their business,
+went always with fear at their side and
+death lying in wait at every turn. She
+little dreamed that, for most of them, the
+very price of life itself was the ceaseless
+extinguishing of life.</p>
+<p>It was during the summer that Miranda
+found her first and only flaw in Kroof&rsquo;s
+<span class="pb" id="Page_125">125</span>
+perfections; for Kroof she regarded as
+second only to her mother among created
+beings. But on one memorable day,
+when she ran across the fields to meet
+Kroof at the edge of the wood, the great
+bear was too much occupied to come forward
+as usual. She was sniffing at something
+on the ground which she held
+securely under one of her huge paws.
+Miranda ran forward to see what it was.</p>
+<p>To her horror it was the warm and
+bleeding body of a hare.</p>
+<p>She shrank back, sickened at the sight.
+Then, in flaming indignation she struck
+Kroof again and again in the face with the
+palms of her little hands. Kroof was
+astonished,&mdash;temperately astonished,&mdash;for
+she always knew Miranda was peculiar.
+She lifted her snout high in the air to
+escape the blows, shut her eyes, and
+meekly withdrew the offending paw.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Kroof, how <i>could</i> you! I hate
+you, bad Kroof! You are just like the
+wolves!&rdquo; cried Miranda, her little bosom
+bursting with wrath and tears. Kroof
+understood that she was in grievous disgrace.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_126">126</span>
+Carrying the dead hare with her,
+Miranda ran out into the potato patch,
+fetched the hoe, returned to the spot
+where the bear still sat in penitential contemplation,
+and proceeded in condemnatory
+silence to dig a hole right under
+Kroof&rsquo;s nose. Here she buried the hare,
+tenderly smoothing the ground above it.
+Then throwing the hoe down violently,
+she flung her arms about Kroof&rsquo;s neck,
+and burst into a passion of tears.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How <i>could</i> you do it, Kroof?&rdquo; she
+sobbed. &ldquo;Oh, perhaps you&rsquo;ll be wanting
+to eat up Miranda some day!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Kroof suffered herself to be led away
+from the unhappy spot. Soon Miranda
+grew calm, and the painful scene seemed
+forgotten. The rest of the afternoon was
+spent very pleasantly in eating wild raspberries
+along the farther side of the clearing.
+To Kroof&rsquo;s mind it gradually became
+clear that her offence lay in killing the
+hare; and as it was obvious that Miranda
+liked hares, she resolved never to offend
+again in this respect, at least while Miranda
+was anywhere in the neighbourhood.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_127">127</span>
+After Miranda had gone home, however,
+the philosophical Kroof strolled back discreetly
+to where the hare was buried. She
+dug it up, and ate it with great satisfaction,
+and afterward she smoothed down the
+earth again, that Miranda might not know.</p>
+<p>After this trying episode Miranda had
+every reason to believe that Kroof&rsquo;s reformation
+was complete. Little by little,
+as month followed month, and season followed
+season, and year rolled into year
+at the quiet cabin in the clearing, Miranda
+forgot the few scenes of blood which
+had been thrust upon her. The years
+now little varied one from another; yet
+to Miranda the life was not monotonous.
+Each season was for her full of events,
+full of tranquil uneventfulness for Kirstie.
+The cabin became more homelike as currant
+and lilac bushes grew up around it,
+a green, sweet covert for birds, and abundant
+scarlet-blossomed bean-vines mantled
+the barrenness of its weathered logs. The
+clearing prospered. The stock increased.
+Old Dave hardly ever visited at the clearing
+but he went back laden with stuff to
+<span class="pb" id="Page_128">128</span>
+sell for Kirstie at the Settlement. Among
+the folk of the forest Miranda&rsquo;s ascendency
+kept on growing, little by little, till, though
+none of the beasts came to know her as
+Kroof did, they all had a tendency to follow
+her at respectful distance, without
+seeming to do so. They never killed in
+her presence, so that a perpetual truce, as
+it were, came at last to rule within eyeshot
+of her inescapable gaze. Sometimes the
+advent of spring would bring Kroof to the
+clearing not alone, but with a furry and
+jolly black morsel of a cub at her side.
+The cub never detracted in the least from
+the devotion which she paid to Miranda.
+It always grew up to young bearhood in
+more or less amiable tolerance of its
+mother&rsquo;s incomprehensible friend, only
+to drift away at last to other feeding
+grounds; for Kroof was absolute in her
+own domain, and suffered not even her
+own offspring to trespass thereon, when
+once they had reached maturity. Cubs
+might come, and cubs might go; but the
+love of Kroof and Miranda was a thing
+that rested unchanging.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_129">129</div>
+<p>In the winters, Miranda now did most
+of the knitting, while Kirstie wove, on a
+great clacking loom, the flax which her
+little farm produced abundantly. They
+had decided not to keep sheep at the
+clearing, lest their presence should lure
+back the wolves. One warm day toward
+spring, when Old Dave, laden with an
+ample pack of mittens, stockings, and
+socks which Miranda&rsquo;s active fingers had
+fashioned, was slowly trudging along the
+trail on his way back to the Settlement,
+he became aware that a pair of foxes followed
+him. They came not very near,
+nor did they pay him any marked attention.
+They merely seemed to &ldquo;favour
+his company,&rdquo; as he himself put it. He
+was thus curiously escorted for perhaps a
+mile or two, to his great bewilderment;
+for he knew no reason why he should be
+so chosen out for honour in the wood.
+At another time, when similarly burdened,
+Wapiti, the buck, came up and sniffed at
+him, very amicably. During the next
+winter, when he was carrying the same
+magic merchandise, several hares went
+<span class="pb" id="Page_130">130</span>
+leaping beside him, not very near, but as
+if seeking the safety of his presence. The
+mystery of all this weighed upon him.
+He was at first half inclined to think that
+he was &ldquo;ha&rsquo;nted&rdquo;; but fortunately he took
+thought to examine the tracks, and so
+assured himself that his inexplicable companions
+were of real flesh and blood.
+Nevertheless, he found himself growing
+shy of his periodical journeyings through
+the wood, and at last he opened his mind
+to Kirstie on the subject.</p>
+<p>Kirstie was amused in her grave way.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Dave,&rdquo; she explained, &ldquo;didn&rsquo;t
+you know Miranda was that thick with
+the wild things she&rsquo;s half wild herself?
+Weren&rsquo;t you carrying a lot of Miranda&rsquo;s
+knit stuff when the creatures followed
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so, Kirstie!&rdquo; was the old lumberman&rsquo;s
+reply. &ldquo;I recollec&rsquo; as how the
+big buck kep&rsquo; a-sniffin&rsquo; at my pack of
+socks an&rsquo; mits, too!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They were some of Miranda&rsquo;s friends;
+and when they smelled of those mits they
+thought she was somewhere around, or
+<span class="pb" id="Page_131">131</span>
+else they knew you must be a friend of
+hers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Thenceforward Old Dave always looked
+for something of a procession in his
+honour whenever he carried Miranda&rsquo;s
+knittings to the Settlement; and he was
+intensely proud of the distinction. He
+talked about it among his gossips, of
+course; and therefore a lot of strange
+stories began to circulate. It was said by
+some that Kirstie and Miranda held converse
+with the beasts in plain English such
+as common mortals use, and knew all the
+secrets of the woods, and much besides
+that &ldquo;humans&rdquo; have no call to know.
+By others, more superstitious and fanatical,
+it was whispered that no mere animals
+formed the circle of Kirstie&rsquo;s associates,
+but that spirits, in the guise of
+hares, foxes, cats, panthers, bears, were
+her familiars at the solitary cabin. Such
+malicious tales cost Old Dave many a bitter
+hour, as well as more than one sharp
+combat, till the gossips learned to keep a
+bridle on their tongues when he was by.
+As for Young Dave, he had let the clearing
+<span class="pb" id="Page_132">132</span>
+and all its affairs drop from his mind,
+and, betaking himself to a wild region to
+the north of the Quah-Davic, was fast
+making his name as a hunter and trapper.
+He came but seldom to the Settlement,
+and when he came he had small ear for
+the Settlement scandals. His mind was
+growing large, and quiet, and tolerant,
+among the great solitudes.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_133">133</div>
+<h2 id="c10">Chapter X
+<br /><span class="small">The Routing of the Philistines</span></h2>
+<p>In the seventh year of Kirstie&rsquo;s exile,
+something occurred which gave the
+Settlement gossip a fresh impulse, and
+added a colour of awe to the mystery
+which surrounded the clearing.</p>
+<p>The winter changed to a very open one,
+so that long before spring Kroof awoke
+in her lair under the pine root. There
+was not enough snow to keep her warm
+and asleep. But the ground was frozen,
+food was scarce, and she soon became
+hungry. Miranda observed her growing
+leanness, and tried the experiment of
+bringing her a mess of boiled beans from
+the cabin pot. To the hungry bear the
+beans were a revelation. She realized that
+Miranda&rsquo;s mother was in some way connected
+with the experience, and her long
+reserve melted away in the warmth of her
+<span class="pb" id="Page_134">134</span>
+responsive palate. The next day, about
+noon, as Kirstie and Miranda were sitting
+down to their meal, Kroof appeared at
+the cabin door and sniffed longingly at
+the threshold.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that sniffing at the door?&rdquo;
+wondered Kirstie, with some uneasiness
+in her grave voice. But Miranda had
+flown at once to the window to look out.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, mother, it&rsquo;s Kroof!&rdquo; she cried,
+clapping her hands with delight, and before
+her mother could say a word, she had
+thrown the door wide open. In shambled
+the bear forthwith, blinking her
+shrewd little eyes. She seated herself on
+her haunches, near the table, and gazed
+with intent curiosity at the fire. At this
+moment a dry stick snapped and crackled
+sharply, whereupon she backed off to a
+safer distance, but still kept her eyes upon
+the strange phenomenon.</p>
+<p>Both Kirstie and Miranda had been
+watching her with breathless interest, to
+see how she would comport herself, but
+now Miranda broke silence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! you dear old Kroof, we&rsquo;re so
+<span class="pb" id="Page_135">135</span>
+glad you&rsquo;ve come at last to see us!&rdquo; she
+cried, rushing over and flinging both
+arms around the animal&rsquo;s neck. Kirstie&rsquo;s
+face looked a doubtful indorsement of
+the welcome. Kroof paid no attention
+to Miranda&rsquo;s caresses beyond a hasty lick
+at her ear, and continued to study the
+fascinating flames. This quietness of
+demeanour reassured Kirstie, whose hospitality
+thereupon asserted itself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Give the poor thing some buckwheat
+cakes, Miranda,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure
+she&rsquo;s come because she&rsquo;s hungry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Miranda preferred to think the visit
+was due to no such interested motives;
+but she at once took up a plate of cakes
+which she had drenched in molasses for
+the requirements of her own taste. She
+set the plate on the edge of the table
+nearest to her visitor, and gently pulled
+the bear&rsquo;s snout down toward it. No
+second invitation was needed. The fire
+was forgotten. The enchanting smell of
+buckwheat cakes and molasses was a new
+one to Kroof&rsquo;s nostrils, but the taste for
+it was there, full grown and waiting. Out
+<span class="pb" id="Page_136">136</span>
+went her narrow red tongue. The cakes
+disappeared rather more rapidly than was
+consistent with good manners: the molasses
+was deftly licked up, and with a
+grin of rapture she looked about for
+more. Just in front of Kirstie stood a
+heaping dish of the dainties hot from the
+griddle. With an eager but tentative
+paw Kroof reached out for them. This
+was certainly not manners. Kirstie removed
+the dish beyond her reach, while
+Miranda firmly pushed the trespassing
+paw from the table.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, Kroof, you shan&rsquo;t have any more
+at all, unless you are good!&rdquo; she admonished,
+with hortatory finger uplifted.</p>
+<p>There are few animals so quick to take
+a hint as the bear, and Kroof&rsquo;s wits had
+grown peculiarly alert during her long intimacy
+with Miranda. She submitted with
+instant meekness, and waited, with tongue
+hanging out, while Miranda prepared her
+a huge bowl of bread and molasses. When
+she had eaten this, she investigated everything
+about the cabin, and finally went to
+sleep on a mat in the corner of the inner
+<span class="pb" id="Page_137">137</span>
+room. Before sundown she got up and
+wandered off to her lair, being still drowsy
+with winter sleep.</p>
+<p>After this the old bear came daily at
+noon to the cabin, dined with Kirstie and
+Miranda, and dozed away the afternoon
+on her mat in the chosen corner. Kirstie
+came to regard her as a member of the
+household. To the cattle and the poultry
+she paid no attention whatever. In a few
+days the oxen ceased to lower their horns
+as she passed; and the cock, Saunders&rsquo;s
+equally haughty successor, refrained from
+the shrill expletives of warning with which
+he had been wont to herald her approach.</p>
+<p>One afternoon, before spring had fairly
+set in, there came two unwelcome visitors
+to the cabin. In a lumber-camp some
+fifteen miles away, on a branch of the
+Quah-Davic, there had been trouble. Two
+of the &ldquo;hands,&rdquo; surly and mutinous all
+winter, had at last, by some special brutality,
+enraged the &ldquo;boss&rdquo; and their mates
+beyond all pardon. Hooted and beaten
+from the camp, they had started through
+the woods by the shortest road to the
+<span class="pb" id="Page_138">138</span>
+Settlement. Their hearts were black with
+pent-up fury. About three o&rsquo;clock in the
+afternoon, they happened upon the clearing,
+and demanded something to eat.</p>
+<p>Though sullen, and with a kind of menace
+in their air, their words were civil
+enough at first, and Kirstie busied herself
+to supply what seemed to her their just
+demands. The laws of hospitality are
+very binding in the backwoods. Miranda,
+meanwhile, not liking the looks of the
+strangers, kept silently aloof and scrutinized
+them.</p>
+<p>When Kirstie had set before them a
+good meal,&mdash;hot tea, and hot boiled
+beans, and eggs, and white bread and
+butter,&mdash;they were disappointed because
+she gave them no pork, and they were
+not slow to demand it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got none,&rdquo; said Kirstie; &ldquo;we
+don&rsquo;t eat pork here. You ought to get
+along well enough on what&rsquo;s good enough
+for Miranda and me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>For a backwoods house to be without
+pork, the indispensable, the universal, the
+lumberman&rsquo;s staff of life, was something
+<span class="pb" id="Page_139">139</span>
+unheard of. They both thought she was
+keeping back the pork out of meanness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You lie!&rdquo; exclaimed one, a lean, short,
+swarthy ruffian. The other got up and
+took a step toward the woman, where she
+stood, dauntlessly eying them. His
+scrubby red beard bristled, his massive
+shoulders hunched themselves ominously
+toward his big ears.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You git that pork, and be quick
+about it!&rdquo; he commanded, with the addition
+of such phrases of emphasis as the
+lumberman uses, but does not use in the
+presence of women.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Beast!&rdquo; exclaimed Kirstie, eyes and
+cheeks flaming. &ldquo;Get out of this house.&rdquo;
+And she glanced about for a weapon. But
+in a second the ruffian had seized her.
+Though stronger than most men, she was
+no match for him&mdash;a noted bully and a
+cunning master of the tricks of the ring.
+She was thrown in a second. Miranda,
+with a scream of rage, snatched up a table
+knife and darted to her mother&rsquo;s aid; but
+the shorter ruffian, now delighted with the
+game, shouted: &ldquo;Settle the old woman,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_140">140</span>
+Bill. I&rsquo;ll see to the gal!&rdquo; and made a
+grab for Miranda.</p>
+<p>It had all happened so suddenly that
+Kirstie was, for a moment, stunned. Then,
+realizing the full horror of the situation, a
+strength as of madness came upon her.
+She set her teeth into the wrist of her
+assailant with such fury that he yelled
+and for a second loosed his hold. In that
+second, tearing herself half free, she clutched
+his throat with her long and powerful fingers.
+It was only an instant&rsquo;s respite, but
+it was enough to divert the other scoundrel&rsquo;s
+attention from Miranda. With a
+huge laugh he turned to free his mate
+from that throttling grip.</p>
+<p>His purpose was never fulfilled. Kroof,
+just at this instant, thrust her nose from
+the door of the inner room, half awake,
+and wondering at the disturbance. Her
+huge bulk was like a nightmare. The
+swarthy wretch stood for an instant spellbound
+in amazement. With a savage
+growl, Kroof launched herself at him, and
+he, darting around the table, wrenched the
+door open and fled.</p>
+<div class="img" id="fig4">
+<img src="images/p196.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="796" />
+<p class="center"><span class="small">He ran wildly over the snow patches</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_141">141</div>
+<p>The other miscreant, though well occupied
+with Kirstie&rsquo;s mad grip at his throat,
+had seen, from the corner of his eyes, that
+black monster emerge like fate and charge
+upon his comrade. To him, Kroof looked
+as big as an ox. With a gasping curse he
+tore himself free; and, hurling Kirstie
+half across the table, he rushed from the
+cabin. His panic was lest the monster
+should return and catch him, like a rat in
+a pit, where there was no chance of escape.</p>
+<p>As a matter of fact, Kroof <i>was</i> just returning,
+with an angry realization that her
+foe could run faster than she could. And
+lo! here was another of the same breed in
+the very doorway before her. As she confronted
+him, his eyes nearly started from
+his head. With a yell he dodged past,
+nimble as a loon&rsquo;s neck. Savagely she
+struck out at him with her punishing paw.
+Had she caught him, there would have
+been one rogue the fewer, and blood on
+the cabin threshold. But she missed, and
+he went free. He ran wildly over the
+snow patches in pursuit of his fleeing comrade;
+while Kroof, all a-bristle with indignation,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_142">142</span>
+hurried into the cabin, to be hugged
+and praised with grateful tears by Kirstie
+and Miranda.</p>
+<p>When the first of the fugitives, the lean
+and swarthy one, reached the edge of the
+woods, he paused to look back. There
+was no one following but his comrade, who
+came up a moment later and clutched at
+him, panting heavily. Neither, for a minute
+or two, had breath for any word but a
+broken curse. The big, bristly scoundrel
+called Bill was bleeding at the wrist from
+Kirstie&rsquo;s bite, and his throat, purple and
+puffed, bore witness to the strength of
+Kirstie&rsquo;s fingers. The other had got off
+scot free. The two stared at each other,
+cowed and discomfited.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ever see the likes o&rsquo; that?&rdquo; queried
+Bill, earnestly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Be damned ef &rsquo;twan&rsquo;t the devil himself!&rdquo;
+asseverated his companion.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, hell! &rsquo;twere jest a b&rsquo;ar!&rdquo; retorted
+Bill, in a tone of would-be derision. &ldquo;But
+bigger&rsquo;n a steer! <i>I</i> don&rsquo;t want none of it!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;B&rsquo;ar er devil, what&rsquo;s the odds? Let&rsquo;s
+git, says I!&rdquo; was the response; and simultaneously
+<span class="pb" id="Page_143">143</span>
+the two lifted their eyes to observe
+the sun and get their bearings. But
+it was not the sun they saw. Their jaws
+fell. Their hair rose. For a moment
+they stood rooted to the ground in abject
+horror.</p>
+<p>Right above their heads, crouched close
+upon the vast up-sloping limb of a hoary
+pine, lay a panther, looking down upon
+them with fixed, dilating stare. They saw
+his claws, protruding, and set firmly into
+the bark. They saw the backward, snarling
+curl of his lips as his head reached
+down toward them over the edge of his
+perch. For several choking heart-beats
+the picture bit itself into their coarse
+brains; then, with a gurgling cry that
+came as one voice from the two throats,
+both sprang aside like hares and ran wildly
+down the trail.</p>
+<p>Within a few hours of their arrival at
+the Settlement, this was the story on all
+lips,&mdash;that Kirstie&rsquo;s cabin was guarded
+by familiars, who could take upon themselves
+at will the form of bear, panther,
+wolf, or mad bull moose, for the terrorizing
+<span class="pb" id="Page_144">144</span>
+of such travellers as might chance to
+trespass upon that unholy solitude. The
+Settlement held a few superstitious souls
+who believed this tale; while the rest pretended
+to believe it because it gave them
+something to talk about. No one, in fact,
+was at all the worse for it, except the ruffian
+called Bill, who, on one of Young
+Dave&rsquo;s rare visits to the Settlement, got
+into an argument with him on the subject,
+and incidentally got a licking.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_145">145</div>
+<h2 id="c11">Chapter XI
+<br /><span class="small">Miranda and Young Dave</span></h2>
+<p>After this the cabin in the clearing
+ran small risk of marauders. To
+the most sceptical homespun philosopher
+in the Settlement it seemed obvious that
+Kirstie and Miranda had something mysterious
+about them, and had forsaken
+their kind for the fellowship of the furtive
+kin. No one but Old Dave had any
+relish for a neighbourhood where bears
+kept guard, and lynxes slily frequented,
+and caribou bulls of a haughty temper
+made themselves free of the barnyard.
+As for Young Dave, unwilling to fall
+foul of the folk who were so friendly to
+Kirstie and Miranda, he carried his traps,
+his woodcraft, and his cunning rifle to a
+tract more remote from the clearing.</p>
+<p>Thus it came that Miranda grew to
+womanhood with no human companion
+<span class="pb" id="Page_146">146</span>
+but her mother. To her mother she
+stood so close that the two assimilated
+each other, as it were. Such education as
+Kirstie possessed, and such culture, narrow
+but significant, were Miranda&rsquo;s by
+absorption. For the rest, the quiet folk
+of the wood insensibly moulded her, and
+the great silences, and the wide wonder
+of the skies at night, and the solemnity
+of the wind. At seventeen she was a
+woman, mature beyond her years, but
+strange, with an elfish or a faun-like
+strangeness: as if a soul not all human
+dwelt in her human shape. Silent, wild,
+unsmiling, her sympathies were not with
+her own kind, but with the wild and
+silent folk who know not the sweetness of
+laughter. Yet she was given to moods
+of singing mirth, at long intervals; and
+her tenderness toward all pain, her horror
+of blood, were things equally alien to the
+wilderness creatures, her associates. It
+was doubtless this unbridgable divergence,
+combining with her sympathy and subtle
+comprehension, which secured her mysterious
+ascendency in the forest; for by
+<span class="pb" id="Page_147">147</span>
+this time it would never have occurred to
+her to step aside even for a panther or
+a bull moose in his fury. Something,
+somehow, in the air about her, told all the
+creatures that she was supreme.</p>
+<p>In appearance, Miranda was a contrast
+to her mother, though her colouring was
+almost the same. Miranda was a little
+less than middle height, slender, graceful,
+fine-boned, small of hand and foot, delicate-featured,
+her skin toned with the
+clear browns of health and the open air
+and the matchless cosmetic of the sun.
+Her abundance of bronze-black hair, shot
+with flame-glints wheresoever the sunlight
+struck it, came down low over a
+broad, low forehead. Her eyes, in which,
+as we have seen, lay very much of her
+power over the folk of the wood, were
+very large and dark. They possessed a
+singular transparency, akin to the magical
+charm of the forest shadows. There was
+something unreal and haunting in this
+inexplicable clarity of her gaze, something
+of that mystery which dwells in the reflections
+of a perfect mirror of water. Her
+<span class="pb" id="Page_148">148</span>
+nose, straight and well modelled, was
+rather large than small, with nostrils
+alertly sensitive to discern all the wilding
+savours, the clean, personal scents of the
+clean-living creatures of the wood, and
+even those inexpressibly elusive perfume-heralds
+which, on certain days, come upon
+the air, forerunning the changes of the
+seasons. Her mouth was large, but not
+too large for beauty, neither thin nor full,
+of a vivid scarlet, mobile and mutable,
+yet firm, and with the edges of the lips
+exactly defined. Habitually reposeful
+and self-controlled in movement, like her
+mother, her repose suggested that of a
+bird poised upon the wing, liable at any
+instant to incalculable celerities; while
+that of Kirstie was like the calm of a hill
+with the eternal disrupting fire at its
+heart. The scarlet ribbon which Miranda
+the woman, like Miranda the child, wore
+always about her neck, seemed in her the
+symbol of an ineradicable strangeness of
+spirit, while Kirstie&rsquo;s scarlet kerchief expressed
+but the passion which burned
+perennial beneath its wearer&rsquo;s quietude.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_149">149</div>
+<p>Being in all respects natural and unselfconscious,
+it is not to be wondered
+at that Miranda was inconsistent. The
+truce which she had created about her&mdash;the
+<i>pax Mirand&aelig;</i>&mdash;had so long kept
+her eyes from the hated sight of blood
+that she had forgotten death, and did not
+more than half believe in pain. Nevertheless
+she was still a shaft of doom to the
+trout in the lake and river. Fishing was
+a delight to her. It satisfied some fierce
+instinct inherited from her forefathers,
+which she never thought to analyze.
+The musical rushing of the stream; the
+foam and clamour of the shallow falls;
+the deep, black, gleaming pools with the
+roots of larch and hemlock overhanging;
+the sullen purple and amber of the eddies
+with their slowly swirling patches of froth,&mdash;all
+these allured her, though with a
+threat. And then the stealthy casting of
+the small, baited hook or glittering fly,
+the tense expectancy, the electrifying tug
+upon the line, the thrill, the exultation of
+the landing, and the beauty of the spotted
+prey, silver and vermilion, on the olive
+<span class="pb" id="Page_150">150</span>
+carpet of the moss! It hardly occurred
+to her that they were breathing, sentient
+creatures, these fish of the pools. She
+would doubtless have resented the idea
+of any kinship between herself and these
+cold inhabiters of a hostile element. In
+fact, Miranda was very close to nature,
+and she could not escape her part in
+nature&rsquo;s never ceasing war of opposites.</p>
+<p>Late one afternoon in summer Miranda
+was loitering homeward from the stream
+with a goodly string of trout. It was a
+warm day and windless, and the time of
+year not that which favours the fisherman.
+But in those cold waters the fish will rise
+even in July and August, and Miranda&rsquo;s
+bait, or Miranda&rsquo;s home-tied fly, was always
+a killing lure to them. She carried
+her catch&mdash;one gaping-jawed two-pounder,
+and a half dozen smaller victims&mdash;strung
+through the crimson gills on a forked
+branch of alder. Her dark face was
+flushed; her hair (she never wore a hat) was
+dishevelled; her eyes were very wide and
+abstracted, taking in the varied shadows,&mdash;the
+boulders, the markings on the bark
+<span class="pb" id="Page_151">151</span>
+of the tree trunks, the occasional flickering
+moths, and the solemn little brown
+owl that sat in the cleft of the pine tree,
+yet seeming to see not these but something
+within or beyond them.</p>
+<p>Suddenly, however, they were arrested
+by a sight which scattered their abstraction.
+Their focus seemed to shorten, their expression
+concentrated to a strained intensity,
+then lightened to a greyness with
+anger as she took a hasty step forward,
+and paused, uncertain for a moment what
+to do.</p>
+<p>Before her was a little open glade, full
+of sun, secure and inviting. At its farther
+edge a thick-branched, low beech
+tree, reaching out from the confusion of
+trunks and vistas, cast a pleasant differentiated
+shade. Here in this shade a young
+man lay sleeping, sprawled carelessly, his
+head on one arm. He was tall, gaunt,
+clad in grey homespuns and a well-worn
+buckskin jacket. His red-brown hair
+was cut somewhat short, his light yellow
+moustache, long and silky, looked the
+lighter by contrast with the ruddy tan of
+<span class="pb" id="Page_152">152</span>
+his face. His rifle leaned against the tree
+near by, while he slept the luxurious sleep
+of an idle summer afternoon.</p>
+<p>But not five paces away crouched an
+immense panther, flattened to the ground,
+watching him.</p>
+<p>The beast was ready, at the first movement
+or sign of life, to spring upon the
+sleeper&rsquo;s throat. Its tail rigidly outstretched,
+twitched slightly at the tip.
+Its great, luminous eyes were so intently
+fixed upon the anticipated prey that it did
+not see Miranda&rsquo;s quiet approach.</p>
+<p>To the girl the sleeper seemed something
+very beautiful, in the impersonal
+way that a splendid flower, or a tall young
+tree in the open, or the scarlet-and-pearl
+of sunrise is beautiful&mdash;not a thing as
+near to herself as the beasts of the wood,
+whom she knew. But she was filled with
+strange, protective fury at the thought
+of peril to this interesting creature. Her
+hesitation was but for a moment. She
+knew the ferocity of the panther very
+well, and trembled lest the sleeper should
+move, or twitch a muscle. She stepped
+<span class="pb" id="Page_153">153</span>
+up close to his side, and fixed the animal&rsquo;s
+eyes with her disconcerting gaze.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Get off!&rdquo; she ordered sharply, with
+a gesture of command.</p>
+<p>The beast had doubtless a very plentiful
+ignorance of the English language, but
+gesture is a universal speech. He understood
+it quite clearly. He faced her eye,
+and endured it for some seconds, being
+minded to dispute its authority. Then
+his glance shifted, his whole attitude
+changed. He rose from his crouching
+posture, his tail drooped, his tension
+relaxed, he looked back over his shoulder,
+then turned and padded furtively away.
+Just as he was leaving, the man awoke
+with a start, sat up, gave one wondering
+look at Miranda, caught sight of the
+panther&rsquo;s retreating form, and reached for
+his rifle.</p>
+<p>Quick as light, Miranda intervened.
+Stepping between his hand and its purpose,
+she flamed out against him with
+sudden anger.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How dare you&mdash;go to shoot him!&rdquo;
+she cried, her voice trembling.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_154">154</div>
+<p>He had sprung to his feet, and was
+staring at her flushed face with a mixture
+of admiration and bewilderment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But he was goin&rsquo; to jump onto me!&rdquo;
+he protested.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; rejoined Miranda, curtly, &ldquo;he
+didn&rsquo;t! And you&rsquo;ve got no call to shoot
+him!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo; asked the young man.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I drove him off. If I&rsquo;d thought you&rsquo;d
+shoot him, I&rsquo;d have <i>let</i> him jump onto
+you,&rdquo; was the cool reply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t he jump onto <i>you</i>?&rdquo;
+asked the stranger, his keen grey eyes
+lighting up as if he began to understand
+the situation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because he durs&rsquo;n&rsquo;t,&mdash;and he wouldn&rsquo;t
+want to, neither!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I calculate,&rdquo; said the stranger, holding
+out his hand, while a smile softened
+the thoughtful severity of his face, &ldquo;that
+you must be little Mirandy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My name <i>is</i> Miranda,&rdquo; she answered,
+ignoring the outstretched hand; &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m
+sure I don&rsquo;t know who you are, coming
+here into my woods to kill my friends.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_155">155</div>
+<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t hurt a hair of &rsquo;em!&rdquo; he
+asserted, with a mingling of fervour and
+amusement. &ldquo;But ain&rsquo;t I one o&rsquo; your
+friends, too, Mirandy? I used to be,
+anyway.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He took a step nearer, still holding
+out a pleading hand. Miranda drew
+back, and put her hands behind her.
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know you,&rdquo; she persisted,
+but now with something of an air of
+wilfulness rather than of hostility. Old
+memories had begun to stir in forgotten
+chambers of her brain.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You <i>used</i> to be friends with Young
+Dave,&rdquo; he said, in an eager half whisper.
+Miranda&rsquo;s beauty and the strangeness of
+it were getting into his long-untroubled
+blood.</p>
+<p>The girl at once put out her hand with
+a frank kindness. &ldquo;Oh, I remember!&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been a long time forgetting
+us, haven&rsquo;t you? But never mind.
+Come along with me to the clearing, and
+see mother, and get some supper.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dave flushed with pleasure at the invitation.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_156">156</div>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank ye kindly, Mirandy, I reckon
+I will,&rdquo; said he; and stepping to one side
+he picked up his rifle. But at the sight
+of the weapon Miranda&rsquo;s new friendliness
+froze up, and a resentful gleam came into
+her great eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let me heft it,&rdquo; she demanded
+abruptly, holding out an imperative
+hand.</p>
+<p>Dave gave it up at once, with a deprecating
+air, though a ghost of a smile flickered
+under the long, yellow droop of his
+moustache.</p>
+<p>Miranda had no interest in the weight
+or balance of the execrated weapon: possession
+of it was all her purpose.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll carry it,&rdquo; she remarked abruptly.
+&ldquo;You take these,&rdquo; and handing over to
+him the string of trout, she turned to the
+trail.</p>
+<p>Dave followed, now at her side, now
+dropping respectfully behind, as the exigencies
+of the way required. Nothing
+was said for some time. The girl&rsquo;s instinctive
+interest in the man whom she
+had so opportunely protected was now
+<span class="pb" id="Page_157">157</span>
+quenched in antagonism, as she thought
+upon his murderous calling. With sharp
+resentment she imagined him nursing an
+indulgent contempt for her friendship
+with the furry and furtive creatures. She
+burned with retrospective compassion for
+all the beasts which had fallen to his bullets,
+or his blind and brutal traps. A
+trap was, in her eyes, the unpardonable
+horror. Had she not once, when a small
+girl, seen a lynx&mdash;perhaps it was Ganner
+himself&mdash;caught by the hind quarters in
+a dead-fall? The beast was not quite
+dead&mdash;it had been for days dying; its
+eyes were dulled, yet widely staring, and
+its tongue, black and swollen, stuck out
+between its grinning jaws. She had seen
+at once that the case was past relief; and
+she would have ended the torture had her
+little hands known how to kill. But helpless
+and anguished as she was, she had fled
+from the spot, and shudderingly cried her
+eyes out for an hour. Then it had come
+over her with a wrenching of remorse that
+the dreadful tongue craved water; and she
+had flown back with a tin cup of the assuaging
+<span class="pb" id="Page_158">158</span>
+fluid, only to find the animal just
+dead. The pain of thinking that she
+might have eased its last torments, and
+had not, bit the whole scene ineffaceably
+into her heart; and now, with this splendid
+trapper, the kind friend of her babyhood,
+walking at her side, the picture and
+its pangs returned with a horrible incongruity.
+But what most of all hardened
+her heart against the man was a sense of
+threat which his atmosphere conveyed to
+her,&mdash;a menace, in some vague way, to
+her whole system of life, her sympathies,
+her contentments, her calm.</p>
+<p>Dave, on his part, felt himself deep
+in the cold flood of disfavour, and solicitously
+pondered a way of return to the
+sunshine of his companion&rsquo;s smile. His
+half-wild intuition told him at once that
+Miranda&rsquo;s anger was connected with his
+rifle, and he in part understood her aversion
+to his craft. He hungered to conciliate
+her; and as he trod noiselessly the
+scented gloom of the arches, the mottled
+greens and greys and browns of the trail,
+he laid his plans with far-considering prudence.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_159">159</span>
+It was characteristic of his quietly
+masterful nature that he not once thought
+of conciliating by giving up gun and trap
+and turning to a vocation more humane.
+No, the ways and means which occupied
+his thoughts were the ways and means
+of converting Miranda to his own point
+of view. He felt, though not philosophic
+enough to formulate it clearly, that he had
+all nature behind him to help mould the
+girl to his will, while she stood not only
+alone, but with a grave peril of treason in
+her own heart.</p>
+<p>His silence was good policy with
+Miranda, who was used to silence and
+loved it. But being a woman, she loved
+another&rsquo;s silence even better than her own.
+&ldquo;You are a hunter, ain&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; she inquired
+at last, without turning her head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Mirandy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And a trapper, too?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Mirandy; so they call me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you like to kill the beasts?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, yes, Mirandy, kind of, least-ways,
+I like them; and, well, you&rsquo;ve jest
+got to kill them, to live yourself. That&rsquo;s
+<span class="pb" id="Page_160">160</span>
+jest what they do, kill each other, so&rsquo;s
+they can live themselves. An&rsquo; it&rsquo;s the
+only kind of life <i>I</i> can live&mdash;&rsquo;way in the
+woods, with the shadows, an&rsquo; the silence,
+an&rsquo; the trees, an&rsquo; the sky, an&rsquo; the clean
+smells, an&rsquo; the whispers you can&rsquo;t never
+understand.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dave shut his mouth with a firm snap
+at the close of this unwonted outburst.
+Never to any one before had he so
+explained his passion for the hunter&rsquo;s
+life; and now Miranda, who had turned
+square about, was looking at him with a
+curious searching expression. It disconcerted
+him; and he feared, under those
+unescapable eyes, that he had talked nonsense.
+Nevertheless when she spoke
+there was a less chilling note in her voice,
+though the words were not encouraging.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you like killing the creatures,&rdquo; she
+said slowly, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s no place for you here.
+So maybe you hadn&rsquo;t better come to the
+clearing.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like killing <i>your</i> beasts, anyways,&rdquo;
+he protested eagerly. &ldquo;An&rsquo; ever
+sence I heard how you an&rsquo; the bears an&rsquo;
+<span class="pb" id="Page_161">161</span>
+the caribou was friends like, I&rsquo;ve kep&rsquo;
+clear the other side of the divide, an&rsquo;
+never set a trap this side the Quah-Davic
+valley. As for these critters you take
+such stock in, Mirandy, I wouldn&rsquo;t harm
+a hair of one of &rsquo;em, I swear!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You hadn&rsquo;t better! I&rsquo;d kill you myself,&rdquo;
+she rejoined sharply, with a swift,
+dangerous flame in her strange gaze; &ldquo;or
+I&rsquo;d set Kroof on you,&rdquo; she added, a gleam
+of mirth suddenly irradiating her face, and
+darkening her eyes richly, till Dave was
+confused by her loveliness. But he kept
+his wits sufficiently to perceive, as she set
+her face again up the trail, that he was
+permitted to go with her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s Kroof?&rdquo; he asked humbly,
+stepping close to her side and ignoring
+the fact that the pathway, just there, was
+but wide enough for one.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My best friend,&rdquo; answered Miranda.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see at the clearing. You&rsquo;d better
+look out for Kroof, let me tell you!&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_162">162</div>
+<h2 id="c12">Chapter XII
+<br /><span class="small">Young Dave at the Clearing</span></h2>
+<p>During the rest of the journey&mdash;a
+matter of an hour&rsquo;s walking&mdash;there
+was little talk between Miranda and
+Dave; for the ancient wood has the
+property that it makes talk seem trivial.
+With those who journey through the
+great vistas and clear twilight of the trees,
+thoughts are apt to interchange by the
+medium of silence and sympathy, or else
+to remain uncommunicated. Whatever
+her misgivings, her resentments and hostilities,
+Miranda was absorbed in her companion.
+So deeply was she absorbed that
+she failed to notice an unwonted emptiness
+in the shadows about her.</p>
+<p>In very truth, the furtive folk had all
+fled away. The presence of the hunter
+filled them with instinctive fear; and in
+their chief defence, their moveless self-effacement,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_163">163</span>
+they had no more any confidence
+while within reach of Miranda&rsquo;s
+eyes. The stranger was like herself&mdash;and
+though they trusted her in all else,
+they knew the compulsion of nature, and
+feared lest she might betray them to her
+own kind. Therefore they held prudently
+aloof,&mdash;the hare and the porcupine, the
+fox and the red cat; the raccoon slipped
+into his hole in the maple tree, and the
+wood-mice scurried under the hemlock
+root, and the woodpecker kept the thickness
+of a tree between his foraging and
+Miranda&rsquo;s eye. Only the careless and
+inquisitive partridge, sitting on a birch
+limb just over the trail, curiously awaited
+their approach; till suddenly an intuition
+of peril awoke him, and he fled on wild
+wings away through the diminishing
+arches. Even the little brown owl in the
+pine crotch snapped his bill and hissed
+uneasily as the two passed under his
+perch. Yet all these signs, that would
+have been to her in other moods a loud
+proclamation of change, now passed unnoted.
+Miranda was receiving a new
+<span class="pb" id="Page_164">164</span>
+impression, and the experience engrossed
+her.</p>
+<p>Arrived at the edge of the clearing,
+Dave was struck by the alteration that had
+come over it since that day, thirteen years
+back, when he had aided Kirstie&rsquo;s flight
+from the Settlement. It was still bleak,
+and overbrooded by a vast unroutable
+stillness, for the swelling of the land lifted
+it from the forest&rsquo;s shelter and made it
+neighbour to the solitary sky. But the
+open fields were prosperous with blue-flowered
+flax, pink-and-white buckwheat,
+the green sombreness of potatoes, and the
+gallant ranks of corn; while half a dozen
+sleek cattle dotted the stumpy pasture.
+The fences were well kept. The cabin
+and the barn were hedged about with
+shining thickets of sunflower, florid hollyhocks,
+and scarlet-runner beans. It gave
+the young woodman a kind of pang,&mdash;this
+bit of homely sweetness projected, as
+it were, upon the infinite solitude of the
+universe. It made him think, somehow,
+of the smile of a lost child that does not
+know it is lost.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_165">165</div>
+<p>Presently, to his astonishment, there
+rose up from behind a blackberry coppice
+the very biggest bear he had ever seen.
+The huge animal paused at sight of a
+stranger, and sat up on her hind quarters
+to inspect him. Then she dropped again
+upon all fours, shuffled to Miranda&rsquo;s side,
+and affectionately smuggled her nose into
+the girl&rsquo;s palm. Dave looked on with
+smiling admiration. The picture appealed
+to him. And Miranda, scanning his face
+with jealous keenness, could detect therein
+nothing but approval.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is Kroof,&rdquo; said she, graciously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never seen such a fine bear in all my
+life!&rdquo; exclaimed the young man, sincerely
+enough; and with a rash unmindfulness
+of the reserve which governs the manners
+of all the furtive folk (except the squirrels),
+he stretched out his hand to stroke
+Kroof&rsquo;s splendid coat.</p>
+<p>The presumption was instantly resented.
+With an indignant squeal Kroof
+swung aside and struck at the offending
+hand, missing it by a hair&rsquo;s breadth, as
+Dave snatched it back out of peril. A
+<span class="pb" id="Page_166">166</span>
+flush of anger darkened his face, but
+he said nothing. Miranda, however,
+was annoyed, feeling her hospitality dishonoured.
+With a harsh rebuke she
+slapped the bear sharply over the snout,
+and drew a little away from her.</p>
+<p>Kroof was amazed. Not since the
+episode of the hare had Miranda struck
+her, and then the baby hand had conveyed
+no offence. Now it was different:
+and she felt that the tall stranger was the
+cause of the difference. Her heart swelled
+fiercely within her furry sides. She gave
+Miranda one look of bitter reproach, and
+shambled off slowly down the green alleys
+of the potato field.</p>
+<p>During some moments of hesitation,
+Miranda looked from Kroof to Dave, and
+from Dave to Kroof. Then her heart
+smote her. With a little sob in her
+throat, she ran swiftly after the bear, and
+clung to her neck with murmured words
+of penitence. But Kroof, paying no
+attention whatever, kept her way steadily
+to the woods, dragging Miranda as if she
+had been a bramble caught on her fur.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_167">167</span>
+Not till she had reached the very edge of
+the forest, at the sunny corner where she
+had been wont to play with Miranda during
+the far-off first years of their friendship,
+did the old bear stop. There she
+turned, sat up on her haunches, eyed the
+girl&rsquo;s face steadily for some seconds, and
+then licked her gently on the ear. It
+meant forgiveness, reconciliation; but
+Kroof was too deeply hurt to go back
+with Miranda to the cabin. In response
+to the girl&rsquo;s persuasions, she but licked
+her hands assiduously, as if pleading to
+be not misunderstood, then dropped upon
+all fours and moved off into the forest,
+leaving Miranda to gaze after her with
+tearful eyes.</p>
+<p>When she went back to where the
+young hunter awaited her, Miranda&rsquo;s
+friendly interest had vanished, and in a
+chilly silence&mdash;very unlike that which
+had been eloquent between them a short
+half hour before&mdash;the two walked on up
+to the cabin. In Kirstie&rsquo;s welcome Dave
+found all the warmth he could wish, with
+never a reproach for his long years
+<span class="pb" id="Page_168">168</span>
+of neglect,&mdash;for which, therefore, he the
+more bitterly reproached himself. The
+best of all protections against the stings
+of self-reproach is the reproach of others;
+and of this protection Kirstie ruthlessly
+deprived him. She asked about all the
+details of his life as a solitary trapper,
+congratulated him on his success, appeared
+sympathetic toward his calling,
+and refrained from attempting his conversion
+to vegetarianism. Looking at
+her noble figure, her face still beautiful
+in its strength and calm, the young man
+harked back in his memory to the Settlement&rsquo;s
+scandals and decided that Frank
+Craig had never, of his own will, forsaken
+a woman so altogether gracious and desirable.
+He resolved that he would come
+often to the cabin in the clearing&mdash;even
+if Miranda <i>was</i> unpleasant to him.</p>
+<p>Unpleasant she certainly was, all the
+evening, coldly unconscious of his presence,
+except, of course, at supper, where
+civility as well as hospitality obliged her
+to keep his plate supplied, and not to
+sour his meal with an obstinate silence.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_169">169</span>
+He watched her stealthily while he talked
+to her mother; and the fact that her wild
+and subtle beauty, thrilling his blood,
+made ridiculous the anger in his heart,
+did not prevent his accomplishing a
+brave meal of eggs, steaming buttered
+pancakes with molasses, and sweet cottage
+cheese with currant jelly. Kirstie would
+not hear of his going that night, so he
+stayed, and slept in the bunk which his
+father had occupied a dozen years before.</p>
+<p>In the morning he was diligent to help
+with the barnyard chores, and won golden
+comment from Kirstie; but he found
+Miranda still ice to his admiration.
+About breakfast time, however, Kroof
+reappeared, with an air of having quite
+forgotten the evening&rsquo;s little unpleasantness.
+Of Dave she took no notice at all,
+looking through, beyond, and around him;
+but with her return Miranda&rsquo;s manner
+became a shade less austere. Her self-reproach
+was mitigated when she saw that
+her passing interest in the newcomer had
+not unpardonably wronged her old friend.</p>
+<p>Dave was bound for the Settlement, to
+<span class="pb" id="Page_170">170</span>
+arrange some business of bounties and
+pelt sales. In spite of Kirstie&rsquo;s hospitable
+arguments, he insisted on setting out
+as soon as breakfast was over. As he
+picked up his rifle from the corner beside
+his bunk, Miranda, as a sign of
+peace between them, handed him his
+pouch of bullets. But not so his big
+powder-flask, on its gay green cord. This
+she took to the door, and coolly emptied
+its contents into a clump of burdocks.
+Then, with an enigmatic smile, she handed
+back the flask to its owner.</p>
+<p>The young hunter was annoyed. Powder
+was, in his eyes, a sacred thing, and
+such a wanton waste of it seemed to him
+little less than criminal.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That was all the powder I had &rsquo;twixt
+here an&rsquo; the Settlement,&rdquo; he said, in a tone
+of rebuke.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So much the better,&rdquo; said Miranda.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t see no sense in wastin&rsquo;
+it that way,&rdquo; he persisted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No knowing what may happen between
+here and the Settlement,&rdquo; rejoined
+the girl, meaningly.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_171">171</div>
+<p>Dave flushed with anger. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I
+pass ye my word I&rsquo;d not harm a hair of
+one of your beasts?&rdquo; he demanded.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then what do you want with the
+powder this side of the Settlement?&rdquo; she
+inquired, with tantalizing pertinence.</p>
+<p>The young hunter, though steady and
+clear in his thought, was by no means apt
+in repartee, and Miranda had him at a
+cruel disadvantage. Confused by her last
+question, he blundered badly in his reply.
+&ldquo;But&mdash;what if a painter should jump
+onto me, like he was goin&rsquo; to yesterday?&rdquo;
+he protested.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you promised you wouldn&rsquo;t
+harm a hair of one of them,&rdquo; suggested
+Miranda, thoughtful yet triumphant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Would you have me let the critter
+kill me, jest to keep my promise?&rdquo; he
+asked, humour beginning to correct his
+vexation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why not,&rdquo; murmured
+Miranda. &ldquo;Anyhow, you&rsquo;ve got to do
+without the powder. And you needn&rsquo;t
+be frightened, Dave,&rdquo;&mdash;this very patronizingly,&mdash;&ldquo;for
+your father never carries
+<span class="pb" id="Page_172">172</span>
+a gun on our trail, and he&rsquo;s never needed
+one yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; laughed Dave, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll try
+an&rsquo; keep my hair on, an&rsquo; not be clean
+skeered to death. Good-by, Kirstie!
+Good-by, Mirandy! I&rsquo;ll look &rsquo;round this
+way afore long, like as not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Inside of twelve years?&rdquo; said Kirstie,
+with a rare smile, which robbed her words
+of all reproach.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Likely,&rdquo; responded Dave, and he
+swung off with long, active strides down
+the trail.</p>
+<p>Miranda&rsquo;s eyes followed him with reluctance.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_173">173</div>
+<h2 id="c13">Chapter XIII
+<br /><span class="small">Milking-time</span></h2>
+<p>Young Dave Titus was not without
+the rudiments of a knowledge of
+woman, few as had been his opportunities
+for acquiring that rarest and most difficult
+of sciences. He made no second visit to
+the cabin in the clearing till he had kept
+Miranda many weeks wondering at his
+absence. Then, when the stalks were
+whitey grey, and the pumpkins golden
+yellow in the corn-field, and the buckwheat
+patch was crisply brown, and the
+scarlet of the maples was beginning to
+fade out along the forest edges, he came
+drifting back lazily one late afternoon,
+just as the slow <i>tink-a-tonk</i> of the cow-bells
+was beginning the mellow proclamation of
+milking-time and sundown. The tonic
+chill of autumn in the wilderness open
+caught his nostrils deliciously as he
+<span class="pb" id="Page_174">174</span>
+emerged from the warmer stillness of the
+woods. The smell, the sound of the cow-bells,&mdash;these
+were homely sweet after the
+day-long solitude of the trail. But the
+scene&mdash;the grey cabin lifted skyward on
+the gradual swell of the fields&mdash;was loneliness
+itself. The clearing seemed to Dave
+a little beautiful lost world, and it gave
+him an ache at the heart to think of the
+years that Miranda and Kirstie had dwelt
+in it alone.</p>
+<p>Just beyond the edge of the forest he
+came upon Kroof, grubbing and munching
+some wild roots. He spoke to her
+deferentially, but she swung her huge
+rump about and firmly ignored him. He
+was anxious to win the shrewd beast&rsquo;s
+favour, or at least her tolerance, both because
+she had stirred his imagination and
+because he felt that her good-will would
+be, in Miranda&rsquo;s eyes, a most convincing
+testimonial to his worth. But he wisely
+refrained from forcing himself upon her
+notice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Go slow, my son, go slow. It&rsquo;s a
+she; an&rsquo; more&rsquo;n likely you don&rsquo;t know
+<span class="pb" id="Page_175">175</span>
+jest how to take her,&rdquo; he muttered to himself,
+after a fashion acquired in the interminable
+solitude of his camp. Leaving Kroof
+to her moroseness, he hastened up to the
+cabin, in hopes that he would be in time
+to help Kirstie and Miranda with the
+milking.</p>
+<p>Just before he got to the door he experienced
+a surprise, so far as he was capable
+of being surprised at anything which might
+take place in these unreal surroundings.
+From behind the cabin came Wapiti the
+buck, or perhaps a younger Wapiti, on
+whom the spirit of his sire had descended
+in double portion. Close after him came
+two does, sniffing doubtfully at the smell
+of a stranger on the air. To Wapiti a
+stranger at the cabin, where such visitants
+were unheard of, must needs be an enemy,
+or at least a suspect. He stepped delicately
+out into the path, stamped his fine
+hoof in defiance, and lowered his armory
+of antlers. They were keen and hard, these
+October antlers, for this was the moon
+of battle, and he was ready. In rutting
+season Wapiti was every inch a hero.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_176">176</div>
+<p>Now Dave Titus well knew that this
+was no bluff of Wapiti&rsquo;s. He was amused
+and embarrassed. He could not fight
+this unexpected foe, for victory or defeat
+would be equally fatal to his hope of pleasing
+Miranda. As a consequence, here he
+was, Dave Titus, the noted hunter, the
+Nimrod, held up by a rutting buck!
+Well, the trouble was of Miranda&rsquo;s making.
+She&rsquo;d have to get him out of it.
+Facing the defiant Wapiti at a distance
+of five or six paces, he rested the butt of
+his rifle on his toe and sent a mellow,
+resonant <i>heigh-lo, heigh-lo!</i> echoing over
+the still air. The forest edges took it up,
+answering again and again. Kirstie and
+Miranda came to the door to see who
+gave the summons, and they understood
+the situation at a glance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Call off yer dawg, Mirandy,&rdquo; cried
+Young Dave, &ldquo;an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll come an&rsquo; pay ye a
+visit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He thinks you&rsquo;re going to hurt us,&rdquo;
+explained Kirstie; and Miranda, with a
+gay laugh, ran to the rescue.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t frighten the good little
+<span class="pb" id="Page_177">177</span>
+boy, Wapiti,&rdquo; she cried, pushing the big
+deer out of her path and running to Dave&rsquo;s
+side. As soon as Wapiti saw Miranda
+with Dave, he comprehended that the
+stranger was not a foe. With a flourish
+of his horns he stepped aside and led his
+herd off through the barnyard.</p>
+<p>Arriving at the door, where Kirstie,
+gracious, but impassive, awaited him, Dave
+exclaimed: &ldquo;She&rsquo;s saved my life ag&rsquo;in,
+Kirstie, that girl o&rsquo; yourn. First it&rsquo;s a
+painter, an&rsquo; now it&rsquo;s a rutting buck.
+Wonder what it&rsquo;ll be next time!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A rabbit, like as not, or a squir&rsquo;l,
+maybe,&rdquo; suggested Miranda, unkindly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Whatever it be,&rdquo; persisted Dave,
+&ldquo;third time&rsquo;s luck for me, anyways. If
+you save my life agin, Mirandy, you&rsquo;ll
+hev&rsquo; to take care o&rsquo; me altogether. I&rsquo;ll git
+to kind of depend on ye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I reckon, Dave, you&rsquo;ll get out
+of your next scrape by yourself,&rdquo; answered
+Miranda, with discouraging decision.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s one on you, Dave,&rdquo; remarked
+Kirstie, with a strictly neutral air. But
+behind Miranda&rsquo;s back she shot him a
+<span class="pb" id="Page_178">178</span>
+look which said, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you mind what
+she says, she&rsquo;s all right in her heart!&rdquo;
+which, indeed, was far from being the
+case. Had Dave been so injudicious as
+to woo openly at this stage of Miranda&rsquo;s
+feelings, he would have been dismissed
+with speedy emphasis.</p>
+<p>Dave was in time to help with the
+milking,&mdash;a process which he boyishly
+enjoyed. The cows, five of them, were
+by now lowing at the bars. Kirstie
+brought out three tin pails. &ldquo;You can
+help us, if you like, Dave,&rdquo; she cried,
+while Miranda looked her doubt of such
+a clumsy creature&rsquo;s capacity for the gentle
+art of milking. &ldquo;Can you milk?&rdquo; she
+asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Course I can, though I haven&rsquo;t had
+much chance, o&rsquo; late years, to practise,&rdquo;
+said Dave.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can you milk without hurting the
+cow? Are you sure? And can you
+draw off the strippings clean?&rdquo; she persisted,
+manifestly sceptical.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Try me,&rdquo; said Dave.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let him take old Whitey, Miranda.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_179">179</span>
+He&rsquo;ll get through with her, maybe, while
+we&rsquo;re milking the others,&rdquo; suggested
+Kirstie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, well, any one could milk Whitey,&rdquo;
+assented Miranda; and Dave, on his
+mettle, vowed within himself that he&rsquo;d
+have old Whitey milked, and milked dry,
+and milked to her satisfaction, before
+either Kirstie or Miranda was through
+with her first milker. He stroked the
+cow on the flank, and scratched her belly
+gently, and established friendly relations
+with her before starting; and the elastic
+firmness of his strong hands chanced to
+suit Whitey&rsquo;s large teats. The animal
+eyed him with favour and gave down her
+milk affluently. As the full streams
+sounded more and more liquidly in his
+pail, Dave knew that he had the game in
+his hands, and took time to glance at his
+rivals. To his astonishment there was
+Kroof standing up on her haunches close
+beside Miranda, her narrow red tongue
+lolling from her lazily open jaws, while she
+watched the milky fountains with interest.</p>
+<p>While Kirstie&rsquo;s scarlet kerchiefed head
+<span class="pb" id="Page_180">180</span>
+was still pressed upon her milker&rsquo;s flank,
+and while Miranda was just beginning to
+draw off the rich &ldquo;strippings&rdquo; into a tin
+cup, Dave completed his task. His pail&mdash;he
+had milked the strippings in along
+with the rest&mdash;was foaming creamily to
+the brim. He arose and vaunted himself.
+&ldquo;Some day, when I&rsquo;ve got lots of
+time,&rdquo; he drawled, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll l&rsquo;arn you two how
+to milk.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;re done already,&rdquo;
+retorted Miranda, without looking
+up. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll get a quart more out of
+old Whitey, soon as I&rsquo;m through here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Kirstie came over and looked at
+the pail. &ldquo;No, you won&rsquo;t, Miranda, not
+this time,&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Dave&rsquo;s beaten
+us, sure. Old Whitey never gave us a
+fuller pail in her life. Dave, you <i>can</i>
+milk. You go and milk Michael over
+there, the black-an&rsquo;-white one, for me.
+I&rsquo;ll leave you and Miranda, if you won&rsquo;t
+fall out, to finish up here, while I go and
+get an extra good supper for you, so&rsquo;s
+you&rsquo;ll come again soon. I know you
+men keep your hearts in your stomachs,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_181">181</span>
+just where we women know how to reach
+them easy. Where&rsquo;d we have been if the
+Lord hadn&rsquo;t made us cooks!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Such unwonted pleasantry on the part
+of her sombre mother proved to Miranda
+that Dave was much in her graces, and
+she felt moved to a greater austerity in
+order that she might keep the balance
+true. Throughout the rest of the milking,
+she answered all Dave&rsquo;s attempts at
+conversation with briefest <i>yes</i> or <i>no</i>, and
+presently reduced him to a discouraged
+silence. During supper,&mdash;which consisted
+of fresh trout fried in corn meal, and
+golden hot johnny-cake with red molasses,
+and eggs fried with tomatoes, and sweet
+curds with clotted cream, all in a perfection
+to justify Kirstie&rsquo;s promise,&mdash;Miranda
+relented a little, and talked freely.
+But Dave had been too much subdued
+to readily regain his cheer. It was his
+tongue now that knew but <i>yes</i> and <i>no</i>.
+Confronted by this result of her unkindness,
+Miranda&rsquo;s sympathetic heart softened.
+Turning in her seat to slip a piece
+of johnny-cake, drenched in molasses,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_182">182</span>
+into the expectant mouth of Kroof who
+sat up beside her, she spoke to Dave in a
+tone whose sweetness thrilled him to the
+finger-tips. The instinct of coquetry,
+native and not unknown to the furtive
+folk themselves, was beginning to stir
+within Miranda&rsquo;s untaught heart.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going down to the lake to-night,
+Dave,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;to set a night line and
+see if I can catch a togue.<a class="fn" id="fr_1" href="#fn_1">[1]</a> There&rsquo;s a full
+moon, and the lake&rsquo;ll be worth looking at.
+Won&rsquo;t you come along with us?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t I, Miranda? Couldn&rsquo;t think
+of nothin&rsquo; I&rsquo;d like better!&rdquo; was the eager
+response.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll start soon as ever we get the
+dishes washed up,&rdquo; explained the girl.
+&ldquo;And you can help us at that&mdash;what
+say, mother?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly, Dave can help us,&rdquo; answered
+Kirstie, &ldquo;if you have the nerve to set the
+likes of him at woman&rsquo;s work. But I
+reckon I won&rsquo;t go with you to-night to
+the lake. Kroof and Dave&rsquo;ll be enough
+to look after you.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_183">183</div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll look after Dave, more like,&rdquo; exclaimed
+Miranda, scornfully, remembering
+both Wapiti and the panther. &ldquo;But what&rsquo;s
+the matter, mother? <i>Do</i> come. It won&rsquo;t
+be the same without you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Seems to me I&rsquo;m tired to-night, kind
+of, and I just want to stay at home by the
+fire and think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Miranda sprang up, with concern in
+her face, and ran round to her mother&rsquo;s
+seat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tired, mother!&rdquo; she cried, scanning
+her features anxiously. &ldquo;Who ever heard
+of people like you and me, who are strong,
+and live right, being tired? I&rsquo;m afraid
+you&rsquo;re not well, mother; I won&rsquo;t go one
+step!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you will, dearie,&rdquo; answered her
+mother, and never yet had Miranda rebelled
+against that firm note in Kirstie&rsquo;s
+voice. &ldquo;I really want to be alone to-night
+a bit, and think. Dave&rsquo;s visit has stirred
+up a lot of old thoughts, and I want to
+take a look at them. I reckoned they
+were dead and buried years ago!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you sure you&rsquo;re not sick, mother?&rdquo;
+<span class="pb" id="Page_184">184</span>
+went on Miranda, hesitatingly returning to
+her seat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, child, I&rsquo;m not sick. But I have
+felt tired off an&rsquo; on the last few days when
+there was no call to. I do begin to feel
+that this big solitude of the woods is wearing
+on me, someway. I&rsquo;ve stood up under
+it all these years, Dave, and it&rsquo;s given me
+peace and strength when I needed it bad
+enough, God knows. But someway I
+reckon it&rsquo;s too big for me, and will crush
+me in the long run. I love the clearing,
+but I don&rsquo;t just want to end my days
+here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; cried Miranda, springing up
+again, &ldquo;I never heard you talk so before
+in my life! Leave the clearing! Leave
+the woods! I <i>couldn&rsquo;t</i> live, I just couldn&rsquo;t,
+anywheres else at all!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s other places, Miranda,&rdquo; murmured
+Dave. But Kirstie continued the
+argument.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a sight different with you, child,&rdquo;
+she said thoughtfully. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve grown up
+here. The woods and the sky have made
+you. They&rsquo;re in your blood. You live and
+<span class="pb" id="Page_185">185</span>
+breathe them. You were a queer baby&mdash;more
+a fairy or a wild thing than a human
+youngster&mdash;before ever you came to the
+clearing; and all the wild things seem to
+think you&rsquo;re one of themselves; and you
+see what other folks can&rsquo;t see&mdash;what the
+folks of the woods themselves can&rsquo;t see.
+Oh, yes! it&rsquo;s a sight different with you, Miranda.
+Your father used to watch you and
+say you&rsquo;d grow up to be a faun woman
+or wood goddess, or else the fairies would
+carry you off. This place is all right for you.
+And I used to think I was that big and
+strong of spirit that I could stand up to
+it all the rest of my life. But I begin to
+think it&rsquo;s too big for me. I don&rsquo;t want
+to die here, Miranda!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Miranda stared at her, greatly troubled.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You won&rsquo;t die till I&rsquo;m old enough to
+die too, mother,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;for I just
+couldn&rsquo;t live without you one day. But,&rdquo;
+she added passionately, &ldquo;I know I should
+die, quick, right off, if I had to go away
+from the clearing! I know I would!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She spoke with the fiercer positiveness,
+because, just as she was speaking, there
+<span class="pb" id="Page_186">186</span>
+came over her a doubt of her own words.
+In a flash she saw herself growing old here
+in the vast solitude, she and Kirstie together,
+and no one else anywhere to be
+seen. The figure so cruelly conspicuous
+in its absence bore a strange, dim likeness
+to Young Dave. She did not ask herself
+if it were possible that she could one day
+wish to desert the clearing, and the stillnesses,
+and all the folk of the ancient wood,
+but somewhere at the back of her heart
+she felt that it might even be so, and her
+heart contracted poignantly. She ran and
+flung both arms about Kroof&rsquo;s neck, and
+wiped a stealthy tear on the shaggy coat.</p>
+<p>Dave, with a quickening intuition born
+of his dread lest the trip to the lake should
+fall through, saw that the conversation was
+treading dangerous ground. He discreetly
+changed the subject to johnny-cake.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_187">187</div>
+<h2 id="c14">Chapter XIV
+<br /><span class="small">Moonlight and Moose-call</span></h2>
+<p>When Miranda was ready to start,
+the moon was up, low and large,
+shining broadly into the cabin window.
+Miranda brought forward a small, tin-covered
+kettle, containing some little fish for
+bait.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s your line an&rsquo; hooks?&rdquo; asked
+Dave.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I keep them in a hollow tree by the
+lake,&rdquo; said Miranda. &ldquo;But don&rsquo;t you
+go to take that thing along, or you don&rsquo;t
+go with me!&rdquo; she added sharply, as the
+young man picked up his rifle.</p>
+<p>He set it down again with alacrity.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But at night, Mirandy!&rdquo; he protested.
+&ldquo;Air ye sure it&rsquo;s safe?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t come if you&rsquo;re afraid!&rdquo; she
+answered witheringly, stepping out into
+the white light and the coldly pungent air.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_188">188</div>
+<p>Dave was at her side in a moment, ignoring
+a taunt which could touch him
+least among men. At Miranda&rsquo;s other
+side was the great lumbering form of
+Kroof, with the girl&rsquo;s hand resting lovingly
+on her neck.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll not be long, mother,&rdquo; called
+Miranda to Kirstie, in the doorway.</p>
+<p>But before they had gone twenty paces,
+Kroof stopped short, and sat down to
+deliberate. She regarded it as her own
+peculiar office to protect Miranda (who
+needed no protection) on these nocturnal
+expeditions to which the girl was given
+in some moods. Was the obnoxious
+stranger to usurp her office and her privilege?
+Well, she would not share with
+him. She would stay where she was
+needed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come along, Kroof!&rdquo; urged Miranda,
+with a little tug at her fur. But
+the jealous bear was obstinate. She
+wheeled and made for the cabin door.</p>
+<p>Miranda was irritated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let her stay, then!&rdquo; she exclaimed,
+setting her face to the forest, and smiling
+<span class="pb" id="Page_189">189</span>
+in more gracious fashion upon Young
+Dave. Kroof was certainly very provoking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right!&rdquo; said Dave, more
+pleased than he dare show. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll be
+company for yer mother till we git
+back.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Kroof seems to think she owns me!&rdquo;
+mused Miranda. &ldquo;I love her better than
+any one else in the world except mother;
+but I mustn&rsquo;t spoil her when she gets
+cross about nothing. She oughtn&rsquo;t to be
+so jealous when I&rsquo;m nice to you, Dave!
+I&rsquo;m very angry at her for being so silly.
+She ought to know you&rsquo;re nothing to me
+alongside of her; now, oughtn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; assented Dave, with
+such cheerfulness as he could assume.
+Then he set himself craftily to win Miranda&rsquo;s
+approval by a minute account of
+the characteristics&mdash;mental, moral, and
+physical&mdash;of a tame bear named Pete,
+belonging to one of the lumbermen at
+the Settlement. The subject was sagaciously
+chosen, and had the effect of
+making Miranda feel measurably less remote
+<span class="pb" id="Page_190">190</span>
+from the world of men. It suggested
+to her a kind of possible understanding
+between the world of men and
+the world of the ancient wood.</p>
+<p>As they left the moonlit open, the long
+white fingers of the phantom light reached
+after them, down the dissolving arches.
+Then the last groping ray was left behind,
+and they walked in the soft dark. Dave
+found it an exquisite but imperative necessity
+to keep close at Miranda&rsquo;s elbow,
+touching her very skirt indeed, for even
+his trained woodland eyes could at first
+distinguish nothing. Miranda, however,
+with her miraculous vision, moved swiftly,
+unhesitatingly, as if in broad day and a
+plain way.</p>
+<p>Soon, however, Dave&rsquo;s eyes adapted
+themselves, and he could discern vague
+differences, denser masses, semi-translucencies
+in the enfolding depth of blackness.
+For there <i>was</i> a light, of a kind,
+carried down by countless reflections and
+refractions from the lit, wet surfaces of the
+topmost leaves. Moreover, clean-blooded
+and fine-nerved as he was from his years
+<span class="pb" id="Page_191">191</span>
+of living under nature&rsquo;s ceaseless purgation,
+his other senses came to the aid of
+his baffled sight. He seemed to feel,
+rather than see, the massive bulk of the
+pine and birch trunks as his face approached
+them to the nearness of an
+arm&rsquo;s length. He felt, too, an added
+hardness and a swelling under the moss,
+wherever the network of roots came close
+to the parent trunk. His nostrils discerned
+the pine, the spruce, the hemlock,
+the balsam poplar, the aromatic moose-wood,
+as he passed them; and long before
+he came to it he knew the tamarack
+swamp was near. Only his ears could
+not aid him. Except for Miranda&rsquo;s footsteps,
+feather-soft upon the moss, and his
+own heavier but skilfully muffled tread,
+there was no sound in the forest but an
+indeterminate whisper, so thin that it
+might have been the speech of the leaves
+conferring, or the sap climbing through
+the smaller branches. Neither he nor
+Miranda uttered a word. The stillness
+was such that a voice would have profaned
+it. Finding it difficult to keep up
+<span class="pb" id="Page_192">192</span>
+without stumbling and making a rough
+noise, Dave frankly resigned himself to
+the girl&rsquo;s superior craft.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to be eyes fer me here,
+you wonderful Mirandy, er I can&rsquo;t keep
+up with ye!&rdquo; he whispered at her ear.
+The light warmth of his breath upon her
+neck made her tingle in a way that bewildered
+her; but she found it pleasant.
+When he took hold of her arm, very
+gently, to steady himself, rather to his
+surprise he was permitted. He was wise
+enough, however, not to attach too much
+importance to the favour. He pondered
+the fact that to Miranda, who was not a
+Settlement girl, it meant altogether nothing.</p>
+<p>Presently, just ahead of them, they saw
+a pair of palely-glowing eyes, about two feet
+from the ground. Miranda squeezed the
+hand inside her arm, as a sign that Dave
+was not to regret his rifle. As a matter
+of fact, he was not disposed to regret anything
+at that moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Lou&rsquo;-cerfie!</i>&rdquo; he whispered at her ear,
+meaning the lynx, or <i>loup-cervier</i> of the
+camps.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_193">193</div>
+<p>&ldquo;No, panther!&rdquo; murmured Miranda,
+indifferently, going straight forward. At
+this startling word, Dave could not, under
+the circumstances, refrain from a certain
+misgiving. A panther is not good to
+meet in the dark. But the palely-glowing
+eyes sank mysteriously toward the
+ground and retreated as Miranda advanced;
+and in a few seconds they went
+floating off to one side and disappeared.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How on earth do ye do it, Mirandy?&rdquo;
+whispered Dave, rather awestruck.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They know me,&rdquo; replied the girl;
+which seemed to her, but not to Dave, an
+all-sufficient answer.</p>
+<p>There was no more said. The magic
+of the dark held them both breathless.
+They were strung to a strange, electric
+pitch of sympathy and expectation.
+Dave&rsquo;s fingers, where they rested on the
+girl&rsquo;s arm, tingled curiously, deliciously.
+Once, close beside them, there was a sharp
+rattle of claws going up the bark of a fir
+tree, and then two little points of light,
+close together, gleamed down upon them
+from overhead. Both Miranda and Dave
+<span class="pb" id="Page_194">194</span>
+knew it was a raccoon, and said nothing.
+Farther on they came suddenly upon a
+spectrally luminous figure just in their
+path. It was nearly the height of a man.
+The ghostly light waxed and waned before
+their eyes. A timorous imagination
+might have been pardoned for calling it
+a spirit sent to warn them back from their
+venture. But they knew it was only a
+rotting birch stump turned phosphorescent.
+As they passed, Dave broke off a
+piece and crumbled it, and for some
+minutes the bluish light clung to his
+fingers, like a perfume.</p>
+<p>At last they heard an owl hoot solemnly
+in the distance. &ldquo;<i>Tw&rsquo;oh-hoo-hoo-hoo-ooo</i>,&rdquo;
+it went, a cold and melancholy sound.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re near the lake,&rdquo; whispered
+Miranda. &ldquo;I know Wah-hoo; he lives
+in an old tree close to the water. We&rsquo;re
+almost there.&rdquo; Then glimpses of light
+came, broken and thin, from the far-off
+moon-silvered surface. Then a breath of
+chill, though there was no wind. And
+then they came out upon the open shore.</p>
+<p>Miranda, with a decisive gesture, removed
+<span class="pb" id="Page_195">195</span>
+her arm from Dave&rsquo;s grasp, and
+side by side the two followed the long
+sweep of sandy beach curving off to the
+right.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;See that point yonder,&rdquo; said Miranda,
+&ldquo;with the lop-sided tree standing alone
+on it? I&rsquo;ve got my line and hooks hidden
+in that tree.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do ye set a night line without a
+boat?&rdquo; queried Dave.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Got one, of course!&rdquo; answered the
+girl. &ldquo;Your father made me a dugout,
+last summer a year ago, and I keep it
+drawn up behind the point.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The moon was high now, sailing in icy
+splendour of solitude over the immensity
+of the ancient wood. The lake was a
+windless mirror. The beach was very
+smooth and white, etched along its landward
+edges with the shadows of the trees.
+At one spot a cluster of three willows
+grew very near the water&rsquo;s brink, spreading
+a transparent and mysterious shadow.
+Just as Dave and Miranda came to this
+little oasis in the shining sand, across the
+water came the long, sonorous call of a
+<span class="pb" id="Page_196">196</span>
+bull moose. It was a deep note, melodious
+and far carrying, and seemed in some
+way the very spoken thought of the vastness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I call music!&rdquo; said Dave.</p>
+<p>But before Miranda could respond, a
+thunderous bellow roared in answer from
+the blackness of the woods close by; there
+was a heavy crashing in the underbrush,
+and the towering front of another bull
+appeared at the edge of the sands, looking
+for his challenger. Catching sight of
+Dave and Miranda, he charged down upon
+them at once.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Get up a tree, quick!&rdquo; cried Dave,
+slipping his long knife from its sheath and
+stepping in front of the girl.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you meddle and there&rsquo;ll be no
+trouble!&rdquo; said Miranda, sharply. &ldquo;You
+stand behind that tree!&rdquo; and seizing him
+by the arm she attempted to push him
+out of sight. But for a second he stupidly
+resisted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fool!&rdquo; she flamed out at him. &ldquo;What
+do you suppose I&rsquo;ve done all these years
+without you?&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="img" id="fig5">
+<img src="images/p258.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="805" />
+<p class="center"><span class="small">The moose recognized her</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_197">197</div>
+<p>The anger in her eyes pierced his senses
+and brought wisdom. He realized that
+somehow she was master of the situation,
+and he reluctantly stepped behind the big
+willow trunk. It was just in the nick of
+time, for the furious animal was almost
+upon them. At this moment a breath of
+air from the water carried Miranda&rsquo;s scent
+to the beast&rsquo;s nostrils, and he checked
+himself in doubt. At once Miranda gave
+a soft whistle and stepped out into the
+clear flood of moonlight. The moose recognized
+her, stood still, raised his gigantic
+antlers to their full height, and stretched
+toward her his long, flexible snout, sniffing
+amicably. Then, step by step, he
+approached, while she waited with her
+small hand held out to him, palm upward;
+and Dave looked on in wonder from behind
+his tree, still doubtful, his fingers
+gripping his knife-hilt.</p>
+<p>At this moment the first call sounded
+again across the lake. The moose forgot
+Miranda. He wheeled nimbly, lowered
+his head toward the great challenge, bellowed
+his answer, and charged along the
+<span class="pb" id="Page_198">198</span>
+shore to mortal combat. As he disappeared
+around a jutting spur of pines, a tall cow
+moose emerged from the shades and trotted
+after him.</p>
+<p>Miranda turned to Dave with an air of
+triumph, her anger forgotten.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I swan, Mirandy!&rdquo; exclaimed the
+young hunter, &ldquo;the girl as can manage
+a bull moose in callin&rsquo; season is the Queen
+of the Forest, sure. I take off my cap
+to yer majesty!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Put it on again, Dave,&rdquo; said she, not
+half displeased, &ldquo;and we&rsquo;ll go set the
+night lines.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Behind the point, hidden in a thicket
+of mixed huckleberry and ironwood, they
+found the wooden canoe, or dugout, in
+good condition. Dave ran it down into
+the water, and Miranda tossed in a roll of
+stout cod-line, with four large hooks depending
+from it, at four-foot intervals, by
+drop strings a foot and a half in length.
+The hooks she proceeded to bait from the
+tin kettle.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t ye have more hooks on
+sech a len&rsquo;th of line?&rdquo; inquired Dave.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_199">199</div>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t want to catch more togue than
+we can eat,&rdquo; explained Miranda. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+no fun catching them this way, and they&rsquo;re
+not much good salted.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was but one paddle, and this
+Dave captured. &ldquo;You sit in the bow,
+Mirandy, an&rsquo; see to the lines, an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll
+paddle ye out,&rdquo; said he.</p>
+<p>But Miranda would have none of it.
+&ldquo;Look here, Dave,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+doing this, and you&rsquo;re just a visitor. I
+declare, I&rsquo;m almost sorry I brought you
+along. You just sit where you&rsquo;re put, and
+do as I tell you, or you won&rsquo;t come with
+me again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The young man squatted himself meekly
+on his knees, a little forward of amidship,
+but not far enough for his superior weight
+to put the canoe down by the bow. Then
+Miranda stepped in delicately, seated herself
+on a thwart at the stern, and dipped
+her paddle with precise and masterful
+stroke. The canoe shot noiselessly out
+of the shadow and into the unrippled
+sheen. Just off the point, about twenty
+yards from shore, lay a light wooden float
+<span class="pb" id="Page_200">200</span>
+at anchor. Beside this Miranda brought
+her canoe to a standstill, backing water
+silently with firm flexures of her wrist.
+To a rusty staple in the float she fastened
+one end of the line.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Deep water off this here point, I
+reckon,&rdquo; commented Dave.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; answered Miranda. &ldquo;The
+togue only lie in deep water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dave was permitted to make comments,
+but to take no more active part in the proceedings.
+As he was a man of deeds and
+dreams rather than of speech, this was
+not the r&ocirc;le he coveted, and he held his
+tongue; while Miranda, deftly paying out
+the line with one hand, with the other
+cleverly wielded the paddle so that the
+canoe slipped toward shore. She was too
+much absorbed in the operation to vouchsafe
+any explanation to Dave, but he saw
+that she intended making fast the other
+end of the line to a stake which jutted up
+close to the water&rsquo;s edge.</p>
+<p>Miranda now slipped the line under
+her foot to hold it, and, taking both
+hands to her paddle, was about to make
+<span class="pb" id="Page_201">201</span>
+a landing, when suddenly there was a violent
+tug at one of the hooks. The line
+was torn from under her light foot, and
+at once dragged overboard. Dave saw
+what had happened; but he was wise
+enough not to say, even by look or tone,
+&ldquo;I told you so!&rdquo; Instead, he turned and
+pointed to the float, which was now acting
+very erratically, darting from side to side,
+and at times plunging quite under water.
+The glassy mirror of the lake was shattered
+to bits.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got him a&rsquo;ready, Mirandy,&rdquo;
+he cried in triumph; and his palpable
+elation quite covered Miranda&rsquo;s chagrin.
+Two or three strong strokes of her paddle
+brought the canoe back to the float, and
+Dave had his reward.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Catch hold of the float, Dave,&rdquo; she
+commanded, &ldquo;and pull him aboard, while
+I hold the canoe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>With a great splashing and turmoil he
+hauled up a large togue, of twelve pounds
+or thereabouts, and landed it flopping in
+the bottom of the dugout. A stroke in
+the back of the neck from Miranda&rsquo;s knife,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_202">202</span>
+sharp but humane, put a term to its struggles.</p>
+<p>While Dave gazed admiringly at the
+glittering spoil, Miranda began untying
+the line from the float.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What air ye doin&rsquo; now, Mirandy?&rdquo;
+he inquired, as she proceeded to strip the
+bait from the remaining hooks, and throw
+the pieces overboard.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We won&rsquo;t want any more togue for
+a week,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;This is such
+a fine, big one.&rdquo; And she headed the
+canoe for the landing-place, under the
+shadow of the point.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_203">203</div>
+<h2 id="c15">Chapter XV
+<br /><span class="small">A Venison Steak</span></h2>
+<p>Throughout the succeeding
+winter Dave managed to visit the
+clearing two or three times in the course
+of each month, but he could not see that
+he made any progress in Miranda&rsquo;s favour.
+As at first, she was sometimes friendly,
+sometimes caustically indifferent. Only
+once did he perceive in her the smallest
+hint of gratification at his coming. That
+was the time when he came on his snow-shoes
+through the forest by moonlight,
+the snow giving a diffused glimmer that
+showed him the trail even through the
+densest thickets. Arriving in the morning,
+he surprised her at the door of the
+cow stable, where she had been foddering
+the cattle. Her face flushed at the sight
+of him; and a look came into her wide,
+dark eyes which even his modesty could
+<span class="pb" id="Page_204">204</span>
+not quite misunderstand. But his delight
+quickly crumbled: Miranda was loftily
+indifferent to him during all that visit, so
+much so that after he had gone Kirstie
+reproached her with incivility.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t help it, mother!&rdquo; she explained.
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to hate him, but
+what better is he than a butcher? His
+bread is stained with blood. Pah! I
+sometimes think I smell blood, the blood
+of the kind wood creatures, when he&rsquo;s
+around.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you don&rsquo;t want him not to come,
+girl, surely,&rdquo; protested her mother.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you know, it&rsquo;s a pleasure to
+you to have him come once in a while,&rdquo;
+said the girl, enigmatically.</p>
+<p>Dave continued his visits, biding his
+time. He lost no chance of familiarizing
+Miranda&rsquo;s imagination with the needs of
+man as he imagined them, and with a
+rational conception of life as he conceived
+it. This he did not directly, but through
+the medium of conversation with Kirstie,
+to whom his words were sweetness. He
+was determined to break down Miranda&rsquo;s
+<span class="pb" id="Page_205">205</span>
+prejudice against his calling, which to him
+was the only one worth a man&rsquo;s while,&mdash;wholesome,
+sane, full of adventure, full of
+romance. He was determined, also, to
+overcome her deep aversion to flesh food.
+He felt that not till these two points were
+gained would Miranda become sufficiently
+human to understand human love or any
+truly human emotions. In this belief he
+strictly withheld his wooing, and waited till
+the barriers that opposed it should be undermined
+by his systematic attacks. He
+was too little learned in woman to realize
+that with Miranda his best wooing was
+the absence of all wooing; and so he
+builded better than he knew.</p>
+<p>During the cold months he was glad to
+be relieved of the presence of Kroof, who
+had proved, in her taciturn way, quite
+irreconcilable. He had tried in vain to
+purchase her favour with honey, good
+hive bees&rsquo; honey in the comb, carried all
+the way from the Settlement. She would
+have nothing to do with him at any price;
+and he felt that this discredited him in
+Miranda&rsquo;s eyes. He hoped that Kroof
+<span class="pb" id="Page_206">206</span>
+would sleep late that spring in her lair
+under the pine root.</p>
+<p>But while Dave was labouring so assiduously,
+and, as he fancied, so subtly, to
+mould and fashion Miranda, she all unawares
+was moulding him. Unconsciously
+his rifle and his traps were losing zest for
+him; and the utter solitude of his camp
+beyond the Quah-Davic began to have
+manifest disadvantages. Once he hesitated
+so long over a good shot at a lynx,
+just because the creature looked unsuspecting,
+that in the end he was too late,
+and his store of pelts was the poorer by
+one good skin. Shooting a young cow
+moose in the deep snow, moreover, he
+felt an unwonted qualm when the gasping
+and bleeding beast turned upon him a look
+of anguished reproach. His hand was
+not quite so steady as usual when he gave
+her the knife in the throat. This was
+a weakness which he did not let himself
+examine too closely. He knew the flesh
+of the young cow was tender and good,
+and after freezing it he hung it up in his
+cold cellar. Though he would not for
+<span class="pb" id="Page_207">207</span>
+an instant have acknowledged it, even to
+himself, he was glad that bears were not
+his business during the winter, for he
+would almost certainly have felt a sense
+of guilt, of wrong to Miranda, in shooting
+them. For all this undercurrent of qualm
+in the hidden depths of his heart, however,
+his hunting was never more prosperous
+than during the January and February
+of that winter; and fox, lynx, wolverine,
+seemed not only to run upon his gun, but
+to seek his traps as a haven. He killed
+with an emphasis, as if to rebuke the waking
+germ of softness in his soul. But
+he had little of the old satisfaction, as he
+saw his peltries accumulate. His craft
+was now become a business, a mere routine
+necessity. For pleasure, he chose to
+watch Miranda as her feathered pensioners&mdash;snowbirds,
+wrens, rose grosbeaks,
+and a glossy crow or two&mdash;gathered
+about her of a morning for their
+meal of grain and crumbs. They alighted
+on her hair, her shoulders, her arms; and
+the round-headed, childlike grosbeaks
+would peck bread from her red lips; and
+<span class="pb" id="Page_208">208</span>
+a crow, every now and then, would sidle
+in briskly and give a mischievous tug at
+the string of her moccasin. To the girl,
+his heart needed no warming,&mdash;it burned
+by now with a fire which all his backwood&rsquo;s
+stoicism could but ill disguise,&mdash;but
+to the birds, and through them to all
+the furry folk of the wood, his heart
+warmed as he regarded the beautiful sight.
+He noted that the birds were quite unafraid
+of Kirstie, who also fed them; but
+he saw that toward Miranda they showed
+an active, even aggressive ardour, striving
+jealously for the touch of her hand or foot
+or skirt when no tit-bits whatever were
+in question. And another sight there was,
+toward shut of winter&rsquo;s evening, that
+moved him strangely. The wild, white
+hares (he and Kirstie and Miranda called
+them rabbits) would come leaping over
+the snow to the cabin door to be fed, with
+never cat or weasel on their trail. They
+would press around the girl, nibbling
+eagerly at her dole of clover, hay, and
+carrots; some crouching about her feet,
+some erect and striking at her petticoat
+<span class="pb" id="Page_209">209</span>
+with their nervous fore paws, all twinkling-eared,
+and all implicitly trustful of
+this kind Miranda of the clover.</p>
+<p>Toward spring Miranda began to be
+troubled about Kirstie&rsquo;s health. She saw
+that the firm lines of her mother&rsquo;s face
+were growing unwontedly sharp, the bones
+of her cheek and jaw strangely conspicuous.
+Then her solicitous scrutiny took
+note of a pallor under the skin, a greyish
+whiteness at the corners of her eyes, a lack
+of vividness in the usually brilliant scarlet
+of the lips; for up to now Kirstie had
+retained all the vital colouring and tone
+of youth. Then, too, there was a listlessness,
+a desire to rest and take breath after
+very ordinary tasks of chopping or of
+throwing fodder for the cattle. This
+puzzled the girl much more than Kirstie&rsquo;s
+increasing tendency to sit dreaming over
+the hearth fire when there was work to be
+done. Miranda felt equal to doing all
+the winter work, and she knew that her
+mother, like herself, was ever a dreamer
+when the mood was on. But even this
+brooding abstraction came to worry her
+<span class="pb" id="Page_210">210</span>
+at last, when one morning, after a drifting
+storm which had piled the snow halfway
+up the windows, her mother let her shovel
+out all the paths unaided, with never a
+comment or excuse. Miranda was not
+aggrieved at this, by any means; but she
+began to be afraid, sorely afraid. It was
+so unlike the alert and busy Kirstie of
+old days. Of necessity, Miranda turned
+to Dave for counsel in her alarm, when
+next he came to the clearing.</p>
+<p>The conference took place in the warm
+twilight of the cow stable, where Dave,
+according to his custom, was helping
+Miranda at the milking, while Kirstie got
+supper. The young hunter looked serious,
+but not surprised.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve took note o&rsquo; the change this two
+month back, Mirandy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;an&rsquo;
+was a-wonderin&rsquo; some how them big eyes
+of yourn, that can see things us ordinary
+folks can&rsquo;t see, could be blind to what
+teched ye so close.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I <i>wasn&rsquo;t</i> blind to it, Dave,&rdquo; protested
+the girl, indignantly; &ldquo;but I didn&rsquo;t see
+how you could help any. Nor I don&rsquo;t
+<span class="pb" id="Page_211">211</span>
+see now; but there was no one else I
+could speak to about it,&rdquo; she added, with
+a break in her voice that distantly presaged
+tears.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I could help some, if you&rsquo;d let me,
+Mirandy,&rdquo; he hesitated, &ldquo;for I know
+right well what she&rsquo;s needin&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, what is it?&rdquo; demanded the
+girl. There was that in his voice which
+oppressed her with a vague misgiving.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s good, fresh, roast meat she
+wants!&rdquo; said Dave.</p>
+<p>There was a pause. Miranda turned
+and looked out through the stable door,
+across the glimmering fields.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s her blood&rsquo;s got thin an&rsquo; poor,&rdquo;
+continued Dave. &ldquo;Nothin&rsquo; but flesh
+meat&rsquo;ll build her up now, an&rsquo; she&rsquo;s jest
+got to have it.&rdquo; He was beginning to
+feel it was time that Miranda experienced
+the touch of a firm hand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe you!&rdquo; said the girl,
+and turned hotly to her milking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;ll see,&rdquo; retorted Dave. In
+Miranda&rsquo;s silence he read a tardy triumph
+for his views.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_212">212</div>
+<p>That evening he took note of the fact
+that Kirstie came to supper with no appetite,
+though every dish of it was tempting
+and well cooked. Miranda observed this
+also. Her fresh pang of apprehension on
+her mother&rsquo;s account was mixed with a
+resentful feeling that Dave would interpret
+every symptom as a confirmation of
+his own view. She was quite honest in her
+rejection of that view, for in her eyes flesh
+food was a kind of subtle poison. But
+she was too anxious about her mother&rsquo;s
+health to commit herself in open hostility
+to anything, however extreme, which
+might be suggested in remedy. On this
+point she was resolved to hold aloof, letting
+the decision rest between her mother
+and Dave.</p>
+<p>Aroused by the young hunter&rsquo;s talk,
+Kirstie was brighter than usual during the
+meal; but, to her great disappointment,
+Dave got up to go immediately after
+supper. He would take no persuasion,
+but insisted that he had come just to see
+if she and Miranda were well, and declared
+that affairs of supreme importance
+<span class="pb" id="Page_213">213</span>
+called him straight back to the camp.
+Kirstie was not convinced. She turned a
+face of reproach on Miranda, so frankly
+that the girl was compelled to take her
+meaning.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! it isn&rsquo;t my fault, mother,&rdquo; she
+protested, with a little vexed laugh.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not been doing anything ugly to
+him. If he goes, it&rsquo;s just his own obstinacy,
+for he knows we&rsquo;d like him to stay
+as he always does. Let him go if he
+wants to!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mirandy,&rdquo; said her mother, in a voice
+of grave rebuke, &ldquo;I wish you would not
+be so hard with Dave. If you treated
+your dumb beasts like you treat him, I
+reckon they would never come to you a
+second time. You seem to forget that
+Dave and his father are our only friends,&mdash;and
+just now, Dave&rsquo;s father being in
+the lumber camp, we&rsquo;ve nobody but Dave
+here to look to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;ve nothing against Dave,
+mother, except the blood on his hands,&rdquo;
+retorted the girl, turning her face away.</p>
+<p>The young hunter shrugged his shoulders,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_214">214</span>
+deprecatingly, smiled a slow smile
+of understanding at Kirstie, and strode to
+the door.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good night, both of ye,&rdquo; he said
+cheerfully. &ldquo;Ye&rsquo;ll see me back, liker&rsquo;n
+not, by this time to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As he went, Miranda noticed with
+astonishment and a flush of warmth that
+for once in his career he was without his
+inseparable rifle. Kirstie, in the vacant
+silence that followed his going, had it on
+her tongue to say, &ldquo;I do wish you could
+take to Dave, Miranda.&rdquo; But the woman&rsquo;s
+heart within her gave her warning in time,
+and she held her peace. Thanks to this
+prudence, Miranda went to bed that night
+with something of a glow at her heart.
+Dave&rsquo;s coming without the rifle was a direct
+tribute to her influence, and to some
+extent outweighed his horrible suggestion
+that her mother should defile her mouth
+with meat.</p>
+<p>The next evening the chores were all
+done up; the &ldquo;rabbits&rdquo; had come and
+gone with their clover and carrots; and
+Kirstie and Miranda were sitting down
+<span class="pb" id="Page_215">215</span>
+to their supper, when in walked Dave.
+He carried a package of something done
+up in brown sacking. This time, too, he
+carried his rifle. Kirstie&rsquo;s welcome was
+frankly eager, but Miranda saw the rifle,
+and froze. He caught her look, and with
+a flash of intuition understood it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Had</i> to bring it along, Mirandy,&rdquo; he
+explained, with a flush of embarrassment.
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t ha&rsquo; got here without it. The
+wolves have come back again, six of &rsquo;em.
+They set on to me at my own camp
+door.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, wolves!&rdquo; exclaimed Miranda, in
+a tone of aversion. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re vermin.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Since that far-off day when, with her
+childish face flattened against the pane,
+her childish heart swelling with wrath and
+tears, she had watched the wolves attack
+Ten-Tine&rsquo;s little herd, she had hated the
+ravening beasts with a whole-souled hate.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I hope to goodness you killed them
+all!&rdquo; said Kirstie, with pious fervour.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Two got off; got the pelts of the
+others,&rdquo; answered Dave.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not too bad, that,&rdquo; commented
+<span class="pb" id="Page_216">216</span>
+Kirstie, with approval; &ldquo;now come and
+have some supper.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not jest yet, Kirstie,&rdquo; he replied, undoing
+his package. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve noticed lately
+ye was looking mighty peaked, an&rsquo; hadn&rsquo;t
+much appetite, like. Now when folks has
+anything the matter with &rsquo;em I know as
+much about it as lots of the doctors, and
+I know what&rsquo;s goin&rsquo; to set ye right up.
+If ye&rsquo;ll lend me the loan of yer fire, an&rsquo;
+a frying-pan, I&rsquo;ll have something for yer
+supper that&rsquo;ll do ye more good than a
+bucketful of doctor&rsquo;s medicine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Miranda knew what was coming. She
+knew Dave had been all the way back to
+the camp, beyond the Quah-Davic, for
+meat, that he might run no risk of killing
+any of the beasts that were under
+her protection. She knew, too, that to
+make such a journey in the twenty-four
+hours he could scarce have had one hour&rsquo;s
+sleep. None the less, she hardened her
+heart against him. She kept her eyes on
+her plate and listened with strained intensity
+for her mother&rsquo;s word upon this vital
+subject.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_217">217</div>
+<p>Kirstie&rsquo;s interest was now very much
+awake. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s the fire, Dave,&rdquo; she
+said, &ldquo;and there&rsquo;s the frying-pan hanging
+on the side of the dresser. But what
+have you got? I&rsquo;ve felt this long
+while I&rsquo;d like a bit of a change&mdash;not
+but what the food we&rsquo;re used to, Miranda
+and me, is real good food and wholesome.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Kirstie,&rdquo; he answered, taking a
+deep breath before the plunge, and at the
+same time throwing back the wrapping
+from a rosy cut of venison steak, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s
+jest nothin&rsquo; more nor less than fresh meat.
+It&rsquo;s venison, clean an&rsquo; wholesome; and
+I&rsquo;ll fry ye right now this tender slice I&rsquo;m
+cuttin&rsquo; for ye.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Kirstie was startled quite out of her
+self-possession. The rule of the cabin
+against flesh meat was so long established,
+so well known at the Settlement, so fenced
+about with every sanction of principle and
+prejudice, that Dave&rsquo;s words were of the
+nature of a challenge. She felt that she
+ought to be angry; but, as a matter of
+fact, she was only uneasy as to how
+Miranda would take so daring a proposal.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_218">218</span>
+At the same time she was suddenly conscious
+of an unholy craving for the forbidden
+thing. She glanced anxiously
+at Miranda, but the girl appeared to be
+wrapped up in her own thoughts.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you know, Dave,&rdquo; she protested
+rebukingly, &ldquo;we neither of us ever touch
+meat of any kind. You know our opinions
+on this point.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The words themselves would have satisfied
+Miranda had she not detected a certain
+irresolution in the tone. They did
+not affect Dave in the least. For a moment
+he made no reply, for he was busy
+cutting thin slices off the steak. He
+spread them carefully in the hot butter,
+now spluttering in the pan over the coals;
+and then, straightening himself up from
+the task, knife in hand, he answered cheerfully:
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right. But, ye see,
+Kirstie, all the folks reckon me somethin&rsquo;
+of a doctor, an&rsquo; this here meat I&rsquo;m cookin&rsquo;
+for ye ain&rsquo;t rightly food at all. It&rsquo;s medicine;
+&rsquo;tain&rsquo;t right ye should hold off now,
+when ye need it as medicine. &rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t fair
+to Mirandy. I can see ye&rsquo;ve jest been
+<span class="pb" id="Page_219">219</span>
+pinin&rsquo; away like, all winter. It&rsquo;s new
+blood, with iron in it, ye need. It&rsquo;s flesh
+meat, an&rsquo; flesh meat only, that&rsquo;ll give ye
+iron an&rsquo; new blood. When ye&rsquo;re well, an&rsquo;
+yer old strong self agin, ye can quit meat
+if ye like,&mdash;an&rsquo; kick me out o&rsquo; the cabin
+for interferin&rsquo;; but now&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He paused dramatically. He had talked
+right on, contrary to his silent habit, for a
+purpose. He knew the power of natural
+cravings. He was waiting for Kirstie&rsquo;s
+elemental bodily needs to speak out in
+support of his argument. He waited just
+time for the savoury smell of the steak to
+fill the cabin and work its miracle. Now
+the spell was abroad. He looked to
+Kirstie for an answer.</p>
+<p>The instant she smelled that savour
+Kirstie knew that he was right. Steak,
+venison steak fried in butter, <i>was</i> what
+she required. For weeks she had had no
+appetite; now she was ravenous. Moreover,
+a thousand lesser forces, set in motion
+by Dave&rsquo;s long talks, were impelling
+her to just such a change as the eating
+of flesh would symbolize to her. But&mdash;Miranda?
+<span class="pb" id="Page_220">220</span>
+Kirstie stared at her in nervous
+apprehension, expecting an outburst of
+scorn. But Miranda was seemingly oblivious
+of all that went on in the cabin.
+Her unfathomed eyes, abstractedly wide
+open, were staring out through the white
+square of the window. She was trying
+hard to think about the mysterious blue-white
+wash of radiance that seemed to
+pour in palpable floods from the full
+moon;&mdash;about the furred and furtive
+creatures passing and repassing noiselessly,
+as she knew, across the lit patches
+of the glades;&mdash;about the herd of moose
+down in the firwoods, sleeping securely
+between walls of deep snow in the &ldquo;yard,&rdquo;
+which they had trodden for themselves a
+fortnight back;&mdash;of Kroof, coiled in her
+warm den under the pine root, with five
+feet of drift piled over her. But in reality
+she was steeling herself, with fierce desperation,
+against a strange appetite which was
+rising within her at the call of that insidious
+fragrance. With a kind of horror she
+realized that she was at war with herself&mdash;that
+one half her nature was really more
+<span class="pb" id="Page_221">221</span>
+than ready to partake of the forbidden
+food.</p>
+<p>Dave noticed the look of question which
+Kirstie had turned upon Miranda.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, ye needn&rsquo;t look to her, Kirstie, to
+back ye up in no foolishness,&rdquo; he went on.
+&ldquo;I spoke to her last night about it, an&rsquo; she
+hadn&rsquo;t a word to say agin my medicine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Still there was no comment from Miranda.
+If Miranda, to whom abstinence
+from flesh was a religion, could tolerate a
+compromise, why she herself, to whom it
+was merely a prejudice and a preference,
+might well break an ancient rule for an
+instant&rsquo;s good. She had been inwardly
+anxious for months about her condition.
+After a second or two of doubt, her mind
+was made up; and when Kirstie made up
+her mind, it was in no halfway fashion.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll try your doctoring, Dave,&rdquo; she
+said slowly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give it a fair trial.
+But while you&rsquo;re about it, why don&rsquo;t you
+cook enough for yourself, too? Have
+you put salt in the pan? And here&rsquo;s a
+dash of pepper.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered the young hunter,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_222">222</span>
+concealing his elation as he sprinkled the
+steak temperately with the proffered salt
+and pepper, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want none myself,
+I need meat onct in a while, er I git weak
+an&rsquo; no good. But there&rsquo;s nothin&rsquo; suits my
+taste like the feeds I git here,&mdash;the pipin&rsquo;
+hot riz buckwheat cakes, with lots o&rsquo; butter
+an&rsquo; molasses, an&rsquo; the johnny-cake, an&rsquo;
+the potater pie, an&rsquo; the tasty ways ye cook
+eggs. I often think when I&rsquo;m here that
+I wouldn&rsquo;t care if I never seen a slice o&rsquo;
+fresh meat, er even bacon, agin. But our
+bodies is built a certain way, an&rsquo; there&rsquo;s
+no gittin&rsquo; over Nature&rsquo;s intention. We&rsquo;ve
+got the teeth to prove it, an&rsquo; the insides,
+too,&mdash;I&rsquo;ve read all about it in
+doctors&rsquo; books. I read a heap in camp.
+Fact is, Kirstie, we&rsquo;re built like the bear,&mdash;to
+live on all kinds of food, includin&rsquo;
+flesh,&mdash;an&rsquo; if we don&rsquo;t git all kinds onct
+in a while, somethin&rsquo;s bound to go wrong.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Never had Dave talked so much before;
+but now he was feverishly eager to
+have no opening for discussion. While
+he talked the venison was cooked and
+served. Kirstie ate it with a relish, which
+<span class="pb" id="Page_223">223</span>
+convinced him of the wisdom of his
+course. She ate all that he had fried;
+and he wisely refrained from cooking
+more, that her appetite might be kept on
+edge for it in the morning. Then she
+ate other things, with an unwonted zest.
+Miranda returned to the table, talking
+pleasantly of everything but health, and
+food, and hunting. Against herself she
+was angry; but on Dave, to his surprise,
+she smiled with a rare graciousness. She
+was mollified by his tact in characterizing
+the steak as medicine; and, moreover, by
+his statement of a preference for their ordinary
+bloodless table, he seemed in some
+way to range himself on her side, even
+while challenging her principles. But&mdash;oh,
+that savoury smell! It still enriched
+the air of the cabin; it still stirred riotous
+cravings in her astonished appetite.
+She trembled with a fear and hatred of
+herself.</p>
+<p>When Kirstie, with a face to which the
+old glow was already venturing back, laid
+down her knife and fork, and explained to
+her guest, &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a good doctor, and
+<span class="pb" id="Page_224">224</span>
+no mistake, Dave Titus; I declare I feel
+better already,&rdquo; Miranda got up and
+went silently out into the moonlight to
+breathe new air and take counsel with
+herself.</p>
+<p>Dave would have followed her, but
+Kirstie stopped him. &ldquo;Best let her
+be,&rdquo; she said meaningly, in a low voice.
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s got a heap to think over in the
+last half hour.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But she took it a sight better&rsquo;n I
+thought she would,&rdquo; responded Dave.</p>
+<p>And all on account of a venison steak,
+his hopes soared higher than they had
+ever dared before.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_225">225</div>
+<h2 id="c16">Chapter XVI
+<br /><span class="small">Death for a Little Life</span></h2>
+<p>Thenceforward Kirstie twice
+or thrice a week medicined herself
+with fresh venison, provided assiduously
+by Young Dave, and by the time spring
+was fairly in possession of the clearing,
+she was her old strong self again. But
+as for Dave&rsquo;s hopes, they had been reduced
+to desolation. Miranda had taken
+alarm at her sudden carnivorous craving,
+and in her effort to undo that moment&rsquo;s
+weakness she had withdrawn herself to
+the utmost from Dave&rsquo;s influence. She
+had been the further incited to this by an
+imagined aloofness on the part of her
+furred and feathered pensioners. A pair
+of foxes, doubtless vagrants from beyond
+her sphere, had spread slaughter among
+the hares as they returned from feeding
+at the cabin. The hungry raiders had
+laid an ambush at the edge of the clearing
+<span class="pb" id="Page_226">226</span>
+on two successive nights. They had
+killed recklessly. Then they vanished,
+doubtless driven away by the steady residents
+who knew how to kill discreetly and
+to guard their preserves from poachers.
+But the hares had taken alarm, and few
+came now o&rsquo; nights for Miranda&rsquo;s carrots
+and clover. Miranda, with a little ache
+at her heart, concluded from this that
+she had forfeited her ascendency among
+the kin of the ancient wood. There had
+been a migration, too, among the squirrels,
+so that now these red busybodies
+were perceptibly fewer about the cabin
+roof. And the birds&mdash;they were nearly
+all gone. An unusually early spring, laying
+bare the fields in the lower country,
+and bringing out the insects before their
+wont, had scattered Miranda&rsquo;s flocks a
+fortnight earlier than usual. No crumbs
+could take the place of swelling seeds
+and the first fat May-fly. But Miranda
+thought they were fled through distrust
+of her. Kroof, old Kroof the constant,
+was all unchanged when she came from
+her winter&rsquo;s sleep; but this spring she
+<span class="pb" id="Page_227">227</span>
+brought an unusually fine cub with her,
+and the cub, of necessity, took a good
+deal of her time and attention away from
+Miranda. When Miranda was with her,
+roaming the still, transparent corridors,
+all the untroubled past came back, crystalline
+and flawless as of old. Once more
+the furtive folk went about their business
+in the secure peace of her neighbourhood;
+once more she revelled with a
+kind of intoxication in the miraculous
+fineness of her vision; once more she
+felt assured of the mastery of her look.
+But this was in the intervals between
+Dave&rsquo;s visits. When he was at the clearing,
+everything was different. She was
+no longer sure of herself on any point.
+And the worst of it was that the more
+indifference to him she feigned, the less
+she felt. She was quite unconscious, all
+the while, that her mother was shrewdly
+watching her struggles. She was not unconscious,
+however, of Dave&rsquo;s attitude.
+She saw that he seemed dull and worried,
+which gratified her, she knew not why,
+and confirmed her in her coolness. But
+<span class="pb" id="Page_228">228</span>
+at last, with a slow anger beginning to
+burn at his heart, he adopted the policy
+of ignoring her altogether, and giving all
+his thought to Kirstie, whereupon Miranda
+awoke to the conclusion that it
+was her plain duty to be civil to her
+mother&rsquo;s guest.</p>
+<p>This change, not obtrusive, but of great
+moment to Dave, came over the girl in
+June, when the dandelions were starring
+the pasture grass. The sowing and the
+potato planting were just done. The lilac
+bushes beside the cabin were a mass of
+purple enchantment. It was not a time
+for hard indifference; and Dave was quick
+to catch the melting mood. His manner
+was such, however, that Miranda could
+not take alarm.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mirandy,&rdquo; said he, with the merest
+good comradeship in tone and air, &ldquo;would
+ye take a little trip with me to-morrow, now
+that the crops can spare ye a bit?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where to, Dave?&rdquo; interposed Kirstie,
+fearful lest the girl should refuse out of
+hand, before she knew what Dave proposed
+to do.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_229">229</div>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, I&rsquo;ve got to go over the divide
+an&rsquo; run down the Big Fork in my canoe to
+Gabe White&rsquo;s clearin&rsquo;, with some medicine
+I&rsquo;ve brought from the Settlement for his
+little boy what&rsquo;s sick. He&rsquo;s a leetle mite of
+a chap, five year old, with long, yaller curls,
+purty as a picture, but that peaked an&rsquo;
+thin, it goes to yer heart to see him. Gabe
+came in to the Settlement yesterday to
+see the doctor about him an&rsquo; git medicine;
+but he&rsquo;s had to go right on to the city to
+sell his pelts, an&rsquo; git some stuff the doctor
+says the little feller must hev, what can&rsquo;t
+be got in the Settlement at all. So Gabe
+give me this&rdquo; (and he pulled a bottle out
+of the inside pocket of his hunting shirt)
+&ldquo;to take to him right now, coz the little
+feller needs it badly. It&rsquo;s a right purty
+trip, Mirandy, an&rsquo; the Big Fork&rsquo;s got some
+rapids &rsquo;at&rsquo;ll please ye. What ye say?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dave was growing subtle under Miranda&rsquo;s
+discipline. He knew that the
+picture of the small boy would draw her;
+and also that the sight of the ailing child,
+acting upon her quick sympathies, would
+awaken a new human interest and work secretly
+<span class="pb" id="Page_230">230</span>
+in favour of himself. The beauty of
+the scenery, the excitement of the rapids,&mdash;these
+were a secondary influence, yet he
+knew they would not be without appeal
+to the beauty-worshipping and fearless
+Miranda.</p>
+<p>The girl&rsquo;s deep eyes lightened at the
+prospect. She would see something a
+little different, yet not alien or hostile,&mdash;a
+new river, other hills and woods, a
+deeper valley, a ruder cabin in a remoter
+clearing, a lonely woman,&mdash;above all, a
+little sick boy with long, yellow hair.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But it must be a long way off, Dave,&rdquo;
+she protested, in a tone that invited contradiction.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not so far as to the Settlement,&rdquo;
+answered Dave; &ldquo;an&rsquo; it don&rsquo;t take half
+so long to go because o&rsquo; the quick run
+down river. I reckon, though, we&rsquo;d best
+stay over night at White&rsquo;s clearin&rsquo; and
+come back easy nex&rsquo; day&mdash;if you don&rsquo;t
+mind, Kirstie! Sary Ann White&rsquo;s a powerful
+fine woman, an&rsquo; Mirandy&rsquo;s sure to like
+her. It&rsquo;ll do her a sight of good, poor
+thing, to hev Mirandy to talk to a bit.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_231">231</div>
+<p>He wanted to say that just a look at
+Miranda&rsquo;s wild loveliness would do Mrs.
+White a lot of good; but he had not quite
+the courage for such a bold compliment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t mind, if Miranda likes to
+go,&rdquo; said Kirstie; &ldquo;I shan&rsquo;t be lonesome,
+as Kroof&rsquo;ll be round most of the time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It had come to be understood, and accepted
+without comment, that when Dave
+went anywhere with Miranda the jealous
+old bear remained at home.</p>
+<p>Until they were fairly off, Dave was in
+a fever of anxiety lest Miranda should
+change her mind. But this venture had
+genuinely caught her interest, and no whim
+tempted her to withdraw. After a breakfast
+eaten so early that the early June
+dawn was still throwing its streaks of cool
+red through the cabin window and discouraging
+the fire upon the hearth, Dave
+and Miranda set out. They followed the
+path to the spring among the alders, and
+then plunged direct into the woods, aiming
+a little to the east of north. The dew
+was thick in silver globules on the chips
+of the yard and on the plantain leaves. It
+<span class="pb" id="Page_232">232</span>
+beaded the slender grasses about the spring,
+and the young foliage of the alders, and
+the dazzling veils of the gossamer spiders.
+This time Dave took his rifle with him,
+and Miranda paid no heed to it.</p>
+<p>The woods were drenching wet, but
+unusually pervaded with light. The new
+risen sun sent its fresh rays far up the
+soundless vistas, and every damp leaf or
+shining facet of bark diffused its little dole
+of lustre to thin the gloom. As the sun
+got higher and the dew exhaled away, the
+twilight slightly deepened, the inexpressible
+clarity of the shadowed air returned,
+and the heart of the ancient wood resumed
+its magic. The awe, as of an enchantment
+working unseen, the meaning and
+expectant stillness, the confusion of near
+and far, the unreality of the familiar,&mdash;all
+this gripped the imagination of the two
+travellers just as sharply as if they had
+not been all their lives accustomed to it.
+The mystery of the ancient wood was not
+to be staled by use. These two, sensitive
+to its spell as a surface of glass to a breath,
+lay open to it in every nerve, and a tense
+<span class="pb" id="Page_233">233</span>
+silence fell upon their lips. In the silence
+was understanding of each other. It was
+Dave&rsquo;s most potent wooing, against which
+Miranda had no warning, no defence.</p>
+<p>As they walked thus noiselessly, light-footed
+as the furtive folk themselves, suddenly
+from a bit of open just ahead of
+them there came the slender, belling cry
+of a young deer. They had arrived now,
+after three hours&rsquo; rapid walking, at a part
+of the forest unknown to Miranda. The
+open space was rock thinly covered with
+mosses and vines, an upthrust of the
+granite foundations of a hill which towered
+near by.</p>
+<p>It was an unheard-of thing for a young
+deer to give cry so heedlessly amid the
+perilous coverts of the wood. Both the
+travellers instinctively paused, and then
+stole forward with greater caution, peering
+through the branches. To the forest
+dwellers, beast or human, the unusual is
+always the suspicious, and therefore to be
+investigated. A few paces carried them
+both to a point where Miranda caught
+sight of the imprudent youngling.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_234">234</div>
+<p>&ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; she whispered, laying her
+hand on Dave&rsquo;s arm, &ldquo;Look! the poor
+little thing&rsquo;s lost. Don&rsquo;t frighten it!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be something else&rsquo;ll frighten
+it afore long,&rdquo; muttered Dave, &ldquo;if it don&rsquo;t
+quit its bla&rsquo;tin&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The words were hardly out of his
+mouth when the little animal jumped,
+trembled, started to run, and then looked
+piteously from side to side, as if uncertain
+which way to flee and from what peril.
+An instant more and the greyish-brown
+form of a lynx shot like lightning from the
+underbrush. It caught the young deer
+by the throat, dragged it down, tore it
+savagely, and began drinking its blood.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Kill it! kill it!&rdquo; panted Miranda,
+starting forward. But Dave&rsquo;s hand
+checked her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; he said firmly. &ldquo;The little
+critter&rsquo;s dead; we can&rsquo;t do it no good.
+Wait an&rsquo; we&rsquo;ll git both the varmints.
+There&rsquo;ll be a pair of &rsquo;em.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Under ordinary circumstances, Miranda
+would have resented the idea of getting
+&ldquo;both the varmints&rdquo;; but just now she
+<span class="pb" id="Page_235">235</span>
+was savage with pity for the young deer,
+and she chose to remember vindictively
+that far-off day when Ganner had come to
+the clearing, and only the valour of Star,
+the brindled ox, had saved herself and
+Michael, the calf, from a cruel death. She
+obeyed Dave&rsquo;s command, therefore, and
+waited.</p>
+<p>But there was another who would not
+wait. The mother doe had heard her
+lost little one&rsquo;s appeal. In wild haste,
+but noiseless on the deep carpet of the
+moss, she came leaping to the cry. She
+saw what Miranda and Dave saw. But
+she did not pause to calculate, or weigh the
+odds against her. With one bound she
+was out in the open. With the next she
+was upon the destroyer. The hungry
+lynx looked up just in time to avoid the
+fair impact of her descending hooves,
+which would have broken his back. As
+it was, he caught a glancing blow on the
+flank, which ripped his fine fur and hurled
+him several paces down the slope.</p>
+<p>Before he could fully recover, the deer
+was upon him again; and Miranda, her
+<span class="pb" id="Page_236">236</span>
+eyes glowing, her cheeks scarlet with
+excitement and exultation, clutched her
+companion&rsquo;s arm with such a grip that
+her slim fingers hurt him deliciously.
+The lynx, alarmed and furious, twisted
+himself over and fixed both claws and
+teeth in his adversary&rsquo;s leg, just below the
+shoulder. Fierce and strong as he was,
+he was nevertheless getting badly punished,
+when his mate appeared bounding
+down the slope, and with a sharp snarl
+sprang upon the doe&rsquo;s neck, bearing her
+to her knees.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shoot! shoot!&rdquo; cried Miranda, springing
+away from Dave&rsquo;s side to give him
+room. But his rifle was at his shoulder
+ere she spoke. With the word his shot
+rang out; and the second assailant dropped
+to the ground, kicking. Immediately
+Dave ran forward. The male lynx, disentangling
+himself, darted for cover; but
+just as he was disappearing, Dave gave
+him the second barrel, at short range, and
+the bullet caught him obliquely across the
+hind quarters, breaking his spine. Dave
+was noted as the best shot in all that
+<span class="pb" id="Page_237">237</span>
+region; but the marksmanship which he
+had just displayed was lost on Miranda.
+She took it for granted that to shoot was
+to hit, and to hit was to kill, as a matter
+of course. Dave&rsquo;s first shot had killed.
+The animal was already motionless. But
+the writhings of the other lynx, prone in
+the bush, tore her heart.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, how it&rsquo;s suffering! Kill it,
+quick!&rdquo; she panted. Dave ran up,
+swung his rifle in a short grip, and struck
+the beast a settling blow at the base of
+the skull. The deer, meanwhile, limping
+and bleeding, but not seriously the worse
+for her dreadful encounter, hobbled back
+to where the body of her young lay
+stretched upon the moss. She sniffed at
+it for a moment with her delicate nose,
+satisfied herself that it was quite dead,
+then moved off slowly into the shadows.</p>
+<p>Miranda went to each of the three
+slain animals in turn, and looked at them
+thoughtfully, while Dave waited in silence,
+uncertain what to do next. He felt that
+it behooved him to step warily while
+Miranda was wrestling with emotions.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_238">238</span>
+At last she said, with a sob in her voice,
+and her eyes very bright and large,&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, let&rsquo;s get away from this horrid
+place!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dave experienced a certain mild pang
+at the thought of leaving two good pelts
+behind him to be gnawed by foxes; but
+he followed Miranda without a word. It
+would have been a fatal error to talk of
+furs at that moment. As soon, however,
+as they were out of sight of the open
+slope, he turned aside and headed their
+course toward a rocky knoll which was
+visible through the trees.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are you going that way for?&rdquo;
+asked Miranda.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Likely the lou&rsquo;-cerfies had their den
+in the rocks yonder,&rdquo; was the reply; &ldquo;we
+must find it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do we want of their den?&rdquo;
+queried the girl in surprise.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be a couple of lou&rsquo;-cerfie kittens
+in it, I reckon,&rdquo; said Dave, &ldquo;an&rsquo; we
+must find &rsquo;em.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What for?&rdquo; demanded Miranda, suspiciously.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_239">239</div>
+<p>Dave looked at her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve had me shoot the father an&rsquo;
+mother, Mirandy,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;for
+the sake of the deer. An&rsquo; now would ye
+hev the little ones starve to death?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never thought of that, Dave,&rdquo;
+answered the girl, smitten with remorse;
+and she looked at him with a new approval.
+She thought to herself that he,
+hunter and blood-stained as he was,
+showed yet a readier and more reasonable
+tenderness for the furry kindred than she
+herself.</p>
+<p>For nearly half an hour they searched
+the hollows of the rocky knoll, and at
+last came upon a shallow cave overhung
+darkly by a mat of dwarf cedar. There
+were bones about the entrance, and inside,
+upon a bed of dry moss, were two small
+rusty brown, kitten-like objects curled
+softly together. Miranda&rsquo;s discerning
+vision perceived them at once, but it took
+Dave&rsquo;s eyes some seconds to adapt themselves
+to the gloom. Then the furry ball
+of &ldquo;lou&rsquo;-cerfie&rdquo; kittens looked to him
+very pretty&mdash;something to be fondled
+<span class="pb" id="Page_240">240</span>
+and protected. He knew well how their
+helplessness would appeal to Miranda&rsquo;s
+tender heart. Nevertheless, with a firmness
+of courage which, under the circumstances,
+few heroes would have arisen
+to, he stepped forward, stooped, untangled
+the soft ball, and with the heavy handle
+of his hunting-knife struck each kitten
+just one sharp stroke on the neck, killing
+it instantly and easily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor little critters!&rdquo; he muttered;
+&ldquo;it was the only thing to do with &rsquo;em,&rdquo;
+and he turned to Miranda.</p>
+<p>The girl had backed out of the cave
+and now stood, with flushed face, staring
+at him fiercely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You brute!&rdquo; she exclaimed.</p>
+<p>Dave had been prepared for some discussion
+of his action. But he was not prepared
+for just this. He drew himself up.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I did think ye was a woman grown;
+an&rsquo; for all yer idees were kind of far-fetched,
+I&rsquo;ve respected &rsquo;em a heap; an&rsquo; I
+won&rsquo;t say but what they&rsquo;ve influenced
+me, too. But now I see ye&rsquo;re but a silly
+child an&rsquo; don&rsquo;t reason. Did ye think,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_241">241</span>
+maybe, these here leetle mites o&rsquo; things
+could live an&rsquo; take keer o&rsquo; themselves?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He spoke coldly, scornfully; and there
+was a kind of mastery in his voice that
+quelled her. She was astonished, too.
+The colour in her face deepened, but
+she dropped her eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wanted to take them home, and tame
+them,&rdquo; she explained, quite humbly.</p>
+<p>Dave&rsquo;s stern face softened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;d never &rsquo;a&rsquo; been able to raise &rsquo;em.
+They&rsquo;re too young, a sight too young.
+See, their eyes ain&rsquo;t open. They&rsquo;d have
+jest died on yer hands, Mirandy, sure an&rsquo;
+sartain!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But&mdash;how <i>could</i> you!&rdquo; she protested,
+with no more anger left, but a sob of pity
+in her throat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was jest what <i>you</i> do to the fish ye
+ketch, Mirandy, to stop their sufferin&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Miranda looked up quickly, and her
+eyes grew large.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know, I never thought of
+that before, Dave,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+never catch a fish again, long as I live!
+Let&rsquo;s get away from here.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_242">242</div>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye see,&rdquo; began Dave, making up his
+mind to sow a few seeds of doubt in
+Miranda&rsquo;s mind as to the correctness of
+her theories, &ldquo;ye see, Mirandy, &rsquo;tain&rsquo;t
+possible to be consistent right through in
+this life; but what ye&rsquo;ll find, life&rsquo;ll make
+a fool o&rsquo; ye at one point or another. I
+ain&rsquo;t a-goin&rsquo; to say I think ye&rsquo;re all wrong,
+not by no means. Sence I&rsquo;ve seen the
+way ye understand the live critters of the
+woods, an&rsquo; how they understand you,
+I&rsquo;ve come to feel some different about
+killin&rsquo; &rsquo;em myself. But, Mirandy, Nature&rsquo;s
+nature, an&rsquo; ye can&rsquo;t do much by
+buckin&rsquo; up agin her. Look now, ye told
+me to shoot the lou&rsquo;-cerfie coz he killed
+the deer kid. But he didn&rsquo;t go to kill it
+for ugliness, nor jest for himself to make
+a dinner off of&mdash;you know that. He
+killed it for his mate, too. Lou&rsquo;-cerfie
+ain&rsquo;t built so&rsquo;s they can eat grass. If the
+she lou&rsquo;-cerfie didn&rsquo;t git the meat she
+needed, her kittens&rsquo;d starve. She&rsquo;s jest
+<i>got</i> to kill. Nature&rsquo;s put that law onto
+her, an&rsquo; onto the painters, an&rsquo; the foxes
+an&rsquo; wolves, the &rsquo;coons an&rsquo; the weasels.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_243">243</span>
+An&rsquo; she&rsquo;s put the same law, only not so
+heavy, onto the bears, an&rsquo; also onto
+humans, what&rsquo;s all built to live on all
+kinds of food, meat among the rest. An&rsquo;
+to live right, and be their proper selves,
+they&rsquo;ve all got to eat meat sometimes,
+for Nature don&rsquo;t stand much foolin&rsquo; with
+her laws!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>I&rsquo;m</i> well,&rdquo; interrupted Miranda,
+eagerly, with the obvious retort.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Maybe ye won&rsquo;t be always!&rdquo; suggested
+Dave.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll be sick&mdash;then I&rsquo;ll <i>die</i>
+before I&rsquo;ll eat meat!&rdquo; she protested passionately.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the good of living,
+anyway, if it&rsquo;s nothing but kill, kill, kill,
+and for one that lives a lot have got to
+die!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dave shook his head soberly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what nobody, fur&rsquo;s I can see,
+Mirandy, has ever been able to make out
+yet. I&rsquo;ve thought about it a heap, an&rsquo;
+read about it a heap, alone in camp, an&rsquo; I
+can&rsquo;t noways see through it. Oftentimes
+it&rsquo;s seemed to me all life was jest like a
+few butterflies flitterin&rsquo; over a graveyard.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_244">244</span>
+But all the same, if we don&rsquo;t go to too
+much foolish worryin&rsquo; &rsquo;bout what we can&rsquo;t
+understand, we do feel it&rsquo;s good to be
+alive; an&rsquo; I do think, Mirandy, this
+life <i>might</i> be somethin&rsquo; finer than the
+finest kind of a dream.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Something in his voice, at these last
+words, thrilled Miranda, and at the same
+time put her on her guard.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she exclaimed positively, if
+not relevantly, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m never going to catch
+another fish.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The answer not being just what Dave
+needed for the support of his advance,
+he lost courage, and let the conversation
+drop.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_245">245</div>
+<h2 id="c17">Chapter XVII
+<br /><span class="small">In the Roar of the Rapids</span></h2>
+<p>A little before noon, when the
+midsummer heat of the outside
+world came filtering faintly down even
+into the cool vistas of the forest, and here
+and there a pale-blue butterfly danced
+with his mate across the clear shadow,
+and the aromatic wood smells came out
+more abundantly than was their wont, at
+the lure of the persuasive warmth, the
+travellers halted for noonmeat. Sitting
+on a fallen hemlock trunk beside a small
+but noisy brook, it was a frugal meal they
+made on the cheese and dark bread which
+Kirstie had put in Dave&rsquo;s satchel. Their
+halt was brief; and as they set out again,
+Dave said:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t a mile from here to the Big
+Fork. Gabe&rsquo;s canoe&rsquo;s hid in the bushes
+just where this here brook falls in.
+Noisy, ain&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_246">246</div>
+<p>&ldquo;I love the sound,&rdquo; exclaimed Miranda,
+stepping quickly and gaily, as if the light,
+musical clamour of the stream had got
+into her blood.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, the Big Fork&rsquo;s a sight noisier,&rdquo;
+continued Dave. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s heavy water, an&rsquo;
+just rapids on rapids all the ways down to
+Gabe&rsquo;s clearing. Ye won&rsquo;t be skeered,
+Mirandy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The girl gave one of her rare laughs,
+very high-pitched, but brief, musical, and
+curiously elusive. She was excited at the
+prospect.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I reckon you know how to handle a
+canoe, Dave,&rdquo; was all she said. The
+trust in her voice made Dave feel measurably
+nearer his purpose. He durst not
+speak, lest his elation should betray itself.</p>
+<p>In a little while there came another
+sound, not drowning or even obscuring the
+clear prattle of the brook, but serving as a
+heavy background to its brightness. It
+was a large, yet soft, pulsating thunder,
+and seemed to come from all sides at once;
+as if far-off herds, at march over hollow
+lands, were closing in upon them. Dave
+<span class="pb" id="Page_247">247</span>
+looked at Miranda. She gave him a shining
+glance of comprehension.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the rapids!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Do we
+go through those?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dave laughed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not those! Not by a long chalk!
+That&rsquo;s the &lsquo;Big Soo&rsquo; ye hear, an&rsquo; it&rsquo;s
+more a fall than a rapid. Ther&rsquo;s an eddy
+an&rsquo; a still water jest below, an&rsquo; that&rsquo;s where
+we take to the canoe.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As they went on, the great swelling
+noise seemed to Miranda to fill her soul,
+and worked a deep yet still excitement
+within her. Nevertheless, rapidly as its
+volume increased, the light chatter of the
+brook was upborne distinctly upon the
+flood of it. Then, suddenly, as the forest
+thinned ahead, and the white daylight confronted
+them, the voice of the brook was
+in an instant overwhelmed, utterly effaced.
+The softly pervasive thunder burst all at
+once into a trembling roar, vehement, conflicting,
+explosive; and they came out full
+in face of a long, distorted slope of cataract.
+White, yellow, tawny green, the waves
+bounded and wallowed down the loud
+<span class="pb" id="Page_248">248</span>
+steep; and here and there the black bulks
+of rock shouldered upward, opposing them
+eternally.</p>
+<p>Spellbound at the sight, Miranda stood
+gazing, while Dave fetched from the bushes
+a ruddy-yellow canoe of birch bark, and
+launched it in a quiet but foam-flecked
+back-water at their feet. In the bow he
+placed a compact bundle of bracken for
+Miranda to sit upon, with another flat
+bundle at her back, that the cross-bar
+might not gall her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Best fer ye to sit low, Mirandy, &rsquo;stead
+o&rsquo; kneelin&rsquo;,&rdquo; he explained, &ldquo;coz I&rsquo;ll be
+standin&rsquo; up, with the pole, goin&rsquo; through
+some o&rsquo; the rips, an&rsquo; ye&rsquo;ll be steadier sittin&rsquo;
+than kneelin&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I paddle better kneeling,&rdquo; protested
+Miranda.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye won&rsquo;t need to paddle,&rdquo; said Dave,
+a little grimly. &ldquo;Ye&rsquo;ll jest maybe fend a
+rock now an&rsquo; agin, that&rsquo;s all. The current
+an&rsquo; me&rsquo;ll do the rest.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The fall of the &ldquo;Big Soo&rdquo; ended in a
+basin very wide and deep, whose spacious
+caverns absorbed the fury of the waters
+<span class="pb" id="Page_249">249</span>
+and allowed them to flow off sullenly.
+Dave knelt in the stern, paddle in hand,
+and the long pole of white spruce sticking
+out behind the canoe, where he could lay
+his grasp upon it in an instant. A couple
+of strokes sent the little craft out into the
+smooth, purplish-amber swirls of the deep
+current, whereon the froth clusters wheeled
+slowly. A few minutes more and a green
+fringed overhang of rock was rounded,
+the last energy of the current spent itself
+in a deep and roomy channel, the uproar
+of the cataract mellowed suddenly to that
+pulsating thunder which they had heard at
+first, and the canoe, under Dave&rsquo;s noiseless
+propulsion, shot forward over a surface
+as of dark brown glass. There was a
+mile of this still water, along which Miranda
+insisted upon paddling. The rocks
+rose straight from the channel, and the
+trees hung down from their rim, and the
+June sun, warmly flooding the trough of
+rock and water, made its grimness greatly
+beautiful. Then the rocks diminished,
+and the steep, richly green slopes of the
+hillsides came down to the water&rsquo;s edge,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_250">250</span>
+and a rushing clamour began to swell in
+the distance. The currents awakened
+under the canoe, which darted forward
+more swiftly. The shouting of the &ldquo;rips&rdquo;
+seemed to rush up stream to meet them.
+The surface of the river began to slant
+away before them, not breaking yet, but
+furrowing into long, thready streaks. Then,
+far down the slant, a tossing white line of
+short breakers, drawn right across the channel,
+clambered toward them ravenously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;d better not paddle now, Mirandy,&rdquo;
+said Dave, in a quiet voice, standing
+up for a moment to survey the channel,
+while the canoe slipped swiftly down toward
+the turmoil. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s rapids now
+all the way down to Gabe&rsquo;s clearing. An&rsquo;
+we won&rsquo;t be long goin&rsquo;, neither.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="img" id="fig6">
+<img src="images/p324.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="792" />
+<p class="center"><span class="small">&lsquo;Stroke on the right!&rsquo; came Dave&rsquo;s sharp order</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_251">251</div>
+<p>A moment more, and to Miranda it
+seemed that the leafy shores ran by her,
+that the gnashing phalanx of the waves
+sprang up at her. She had never run a
+rapid before. Her experience of canoeing
+had all been gained on the lake. She
+caught her breath, but did not flinch as
+the tumbling waters seethed and yammered
+around her. Then her blood ran hot with
+the excitement of it; her nerves tingled.
+She wanted to cry out, to paddle wildly
+and fiercely. But she held herself under
+curb. She never moved. Only the grip
+of her hands on the paddle, which lay idle
+before her, tightened till the knuckles
+went white. There was no word from
+Dave; no sign of his presence save that
+the canoe shot straight as an arrow, and
+bit firmly upon the big surges, so that she
+knew his wrist of steel was in control.
+Suddenly, just ahead, sprang a square black
+rock, against which the mad rush of water
+upreared and fell back broken to either
+side. The canoe leaped straight at it, and
+Miranda held her breath.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stroke on the right!&rdquo; came Dave&rsquo;s
+sharp order. She dipped her paddle
+strenuously, twice&mdash;thrice&mdash;and, swerving
+at the last moment, while the currents
+seethed up along her bulwarks, the canoe
+darted safely past.</p>
+<p>Miranda stopped paddling. There was
+a steeper slope in front, but a clear channel,
+the waves not high but wallowing inward
+<span class="pb" id="Page_252">252</span>
+toward the centre. Straight down
+this centre rushed the canoe, the surges
+clutching at her on both sides, yellow
+green, with white foam-streaks veining
+their very hearts. At the foot of the
+slope, singing sharply and shining in the
+sun, curved a succession of three great
+&ldquo;ripples,&rdquo; stationary in mid-channel, their
+back-curled crests thin and prismatic.
+Straight through these Dave steered.
+The three thin crests, thus swiftly divided,
+one after another, slapped Miranda coldly
+in the face, drenching her, and leaving
+a good bucketful of water in the
+canoe.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; gasped Miranda, at the shock,
+and shook her hair, laughing excitedly.</p>
+<p>There was gentler water now for a
+hundred yards or so, and Dave steered
+cautiously for shore.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll hev to land an&rsquo; empty her out,&rdquo;
+said he. &ldquo;Ther&rsquo;s no more big &lsquo;ripples&rsquo;
+like them there on the whole river; an&rsquo;
+we won&rsquo;t take in water agin &rsquo;twixt here
+an&rsquo; Gabe&rsquo;s.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care if we do!&rdquo; exclaimed
+<span class="pb" id="Page_253">253</span>
+Miranda, fervently. &ldquo;It was splendid,
+Dave! And you did it just fine!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This commendation took him aback
+somewhat, and he was unable to show his
+appreciation of it except by a foolish grin,
+which remained on his face while he turned
+the canoe over and while he launched it
+again. It was still there when Miranda
+resumed her place in the bow; and,
+strangely enough, she felt no disposition
+to criticise him for it.</p>
+<p>The rest of the journey, lasting nearly an
+hour longer, was a ceaseless succession of
+rapids, with scant and few spaces of quiet
+water between. None were quite so long
+and violent as the first; but by the time the
+canoe slowed up in the reach of still water
+that ran through the interval meadow of
+Gabe&rsquo;s clearing, Miranda felt fagged from
+the long-sustained excitement. She felt
+as if it had been she, not Dave, whose
+unerring eye and unfailing wrist had
+brought the canoe in triumph through
+the menace of the roaring races.</p>
+<p>They landed on the blossoming meadow
+strip, and Dave turned the canoe over
+<span class="pb" id="Page_254">254</span>
+among the grasses, under the shade of an
+elm that would serve to keep the afternoon
+sun from melting the rosin off the
+seams. Gabe&rsquo;s cabin stood a stone&rsquo;s throw
+back from the meadow, high enough up
+the slope to be clear of the spring freshets.
+It was a bare, uncared-for place, with black
+stumps still dotting all the fields of buckwheat
+and potatoes, a dishevelled-looking
+barn, and no vine or bush about the house.
+It gave Miranda a pang of pity to look
+at it. Her own cabin was lonely enough,
+but with a high, austere, clear loneliness
+that seemed to hold communion with the
+stars. The loneliness of this place was a
+shut-in, valley loneliness, without horizons
+and without hope. She felt sorry almost
+to tears for the white and sad-eyed woman
+who appeared in the cabin door to welcome
+them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sary Ann, this is Mirandy I spoke to
+ye about.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The two women shook hands somewhat
+shyly, and, after the silent fashion of their
+race, said nothing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How&rsquo;s Jimmy?&rdquo; asked Dave.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_255">255</div>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Baout the same, thank ye, Dave,&rdquo; replied
+the woman, wearily, leading the way
+into the cabin.</p>
+<p>In a low chair near the window, playing
+listlessly with a dingy red-and-yellow rag
+doll, sat a thin-faced, pallid little boy with
+long, pale curls down on his shoulders.
+He lifted sorrowful blue eyes to Miranda&rsquo;s
+face, as she, with a swift impulse of tenderness
+and compassion, rushed forward and
+knelt down to embrace him. Her vitality
+and the loving brightness of her look won
+the child at once. His wan little face
+lightened. He lifted the baby mouth to
+be kissed. Miranda pressed his fair head
+to her bosom gently, and had much ado
+to keep her eyes from running over, so
+worked the love and pity and the mothering
+hunger in her heart.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He takes to ye, Mirandy,&rdquo; said the
+woman, smiling upon her. And Dave,
+his passion almost mastering him, blurted
+out proudly,&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An&rsquo; who wouldn&rsquo;t take to her, I&rsquo;d like
+to know?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He felt at this moment that Miranda was
+<span class="pb" id="Page_256">256</span>
+now all human, and could never quite go
+back to her mystic and uncanny wildness,
+her preference for the speechless, furry kin
+over her own warm, human kind. He produced
+the medicine from his satchel; and
+from Miranda&rsquo;s attentive hand Jimmy
+took the stuff as if it had been nectar.
+Jimmy&rsquo;s mother looked on with undisguised
+approval of the girl. Had she
+thought Miranda was going to stay any
+length of time, her mother-jealousy would
+have been aroused; but as it was she was
+only exquisitely relieved at the thought
+of Jimmy&rsquo;s being in some one else&rsquo;s care
+for a few hours. She whispered audibly&mdash;a
+mere chaffing pretence of a whisper
+it was&mdash;to Dave:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a right purty an&rsquo; a right smart
+little wife she&rsquo;ll make fer ye, Dave Titus,
+an&rsquo; she&rsquo;ll know how to mind yer babies.
+Ye&rsquo;re a lucky man, an&rsquo; I hope ye understand
+how lucky ye air!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Poor Dave! She might as well have
+thrown a bucket of cold water in his face.
+For an instant he could have strangled the
+kindly, coarse-grained, well-meaning, silly
+<span class="pb" id="Page_257">257</span>
+woman, who stood beaming her pale goodwill
+upon them both. He cursed himself
+for not having warned her that Miranda
+could not be chaffed like a common Settlement
+girl. He saw Miranda&rsquo;s face go
+scarlet to the ears, though she bent over
+Jimmy and pretended to have heard nothing;
+and he knew that in that moment
+his good work was all undone. For a few
+seconds he could say nothing, and the
+silence grew trying. Then he stammered
+out:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afeard ther&rsquo;s no sich luck fer me,
+Sary Ann, though God knows I want her.
+But Mirandy don&rsquo;t like me very well.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The woman stared at him incredulously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Lord sakes, Dave Titus, then what&rsquo;s
+she doin&rsquo; here alone with you?&rdquo; she exclaimed,
+the weariness coming back into
+her voice at the last of the phrase. &ldquo;Oh,
+you go &rsquo;long! You don&rsquo;t know nothin&rsquo;
+about women!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This was quite too much for Dave, whose
+instincts, fined by long months in the companionship
+of only the great trees, the great
+<span class="pb" id="Page_258">258</span>
+winds, and the grave stars, had grown unerringly
+delicate. His own face flushed
+up now for Miranda&rsquo;s sake.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d take it kindly of ye, Sary Ann, if
+ye&rsquo;d quit the subject right there,&rdquo; he said
+quietly. But there was a firmness in his
+voice which the woman understood.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The both of ye must be nigh dead
+for somethin&rsquo; to eat,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I must
+git ye supper right off.&rdquo; And she turned
+to the fireplace and filled the kettle.</p>
+<p>Thereafter, through supper, and through
+the short evening, Miranda had never a
+word for Dave. She talked a little, kindly
+and without showing her resentment, to
+Mrs. White; but her attentions were entirely
+absorbed in little Jimmy. Indeed,
+she had Jimmy very much to herself, for
+Mrs. White got Dave to help with the
+chores and the milking. Afterward, about
+the hearth-fire,&mdash;maintained for its cheer
+and not for warmth,&mdash;Mrs. White confined
+her conversation largely to Dave.
+She was not angry at him on account of
+his rebuke&mdash;but vaguely aggrieved at
+Miranda as the cause of it. She began
+<span class="pb" id="Page_259">259</span>
+to feel that Miranda was different from
+other girls, from what she herself had been
+as a girl. Miranda&rsquo;s fineness and sensitiveness
+were something of an offence to
+her, though she could not define them at
+all. She characterized them vaguely by
+the phrase &ldquo;stuck up&rdquo;; and became
+presently inclined to think that a fine fellow
+like Dave was too good for her. Still,
+she was a fair-minded woman in her worn,
+colourless way; and she could not but
+allow there must be a lot in Miranda if
+little Jimmy took to her so&mdash;&ldquo;For a
+child knows a good heart,&rdquo; she said to
+herself.</p>
+<p>Next morning, soon after dawn, the
+travellers were off, Miranda tearing herself
+with difficulty from little Jimmy&rsquo;s embrace,
+and leaving him in a desolation of
+tears. She was quite civil and ordinary
+with Dave now, so much so that good,
+obtuse, weary Mrs. White concluded that
+all was at rights again. But Dave felt the
+icy difference; and he was too proud, if
+not for the time too hopeless, to try to
+thaw it. During all the long, laborious
+<span class="pb" id="Page_260">260</span>
+journey upward through the rapids, by
+poling, he did wonders of skill and
+strength, but in utter silence. His feats
+were not lost upon Miranda, but she
+hardened her heart resolutely; for now a
+shame, which she had never known before,
+gave tenacity to her anger. Through
+it all, however, she couldn&rsquo;t help thrilling
+to the strife with the loud rapids, and
+exulting in the slow, inexorable conquest
+of them. The return march through the
+woods was in the main a silent one, as
+before; but how different a silence! Not
+electric with meaning, but cold, the silence
+of a walled chamber. And, as if the spirits
+of the wood maliciously enjoyed Dave&rsquo;s
+discomfiture, they permitted no incident,
+no diversion. They kept the wood-folk
+all away, they emptied of all life and significance
+the forest spaces. And Dave
+grew sullen.</p>
+<p>Arriving back at the clearing just before
+sundown, they paused at the cabin door.
+Dave looked into Miranda&rsquo;s eyes with
+something of reproach, something of appeal.
+Kirstie&rsquo;s voice, talking cheerfully
+<span class="pb" id="Page_261">261</span>
+to Kroof, came from the raspberry brambles
+behind the house. Miranda stretched
+out her hand with a cool frankness, and
+returned his look blankly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had a real good time, thank you,
+Dave,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find mother
+yonder, picking raspberries.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_262">262</div>
+<h2 id="c18">Chapter XVIII
+<br /><span class="small">The Forfeit of the Alien</span></h2>
+<p>All through the summer and early
+autumn Dave continued his fortnightly
+visits to the cabin in the clearing,
+and always Miranda treated him with the
+same cold, casual civility. She felt, or
+pretended to herself that she felt, grateful
+now to the blunt-fingered, wan woman
+over at Gabe White&rsquo;s, who had rudely
+jostled her back to her senses when she
+was on the very edge of giving up her
+freedom and her personality to a man&mdash;a
+strong man, who would have absorbed
+her. She flung herself passionately once
+more into the fellowship of the furtive
+folk, the secrecy and wonder of the wood.
+As it was a human love which she was
+crushing out, and as she felt the need
+of humanity cravingly, though not understandingly,
+at her heart, she lavished upon
+<span class="pb" id="Page_263">263</span>
+Kirstie a demonstrativeness of affection
+such as she had never shown before. It
+pleased Kirstie, and she met it heartily
+in her calm, strong way; but she saw
+through it, and smiled at the back of her
+brain, scarcely daring to think her thought
+frankly, lest the girl&rsquo;s intuition should
+discern it. She made much of Dave, but
+never before Miranda; and she kept
+encouraging the rather despondent man
+with the continual assertion: &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be all
+right, Dave. Don&rsquo;t fret, but bide your
+time.&rdquo; To which Dave responded by
+biding his time with a quiet, unaggressive
+persistence; and if he fretted, he took
+pains not to show it.</p>
+<p>If Dave had an ally in Kirstie, he had
+consistent antagonists in all the folk of
+the wood; for never before in all Miranda&rsquo;s
+semi-occult experience had the
+folk of the wood come so near to her.
+Kroof was her almost ceaseless companion,
+more devoted, if possible, than ever, and
+certainly more quick in comprehension
+of Miranda&rsquo;s English. And Kroof&rsquo;s cub,
+a particularly fine and well-grown young
+<span class="pb" id="Page_264">264</span>
+animal, was well-nigh as devoted as his
+mother. When these two were absent on
+some rare expedition of their own, undertaken
+by Kroof for the hardening of the
+cub&rsquo;s muscles, then the very foxes took
+to following Miranda, close to heel, like
+dogs; and one drowsy fall afternoon,
+when she had lain down to sleep on a
+sloping patch of pine needles, the self-same
+big panther from whom she had
+rescued Dave came lazily and lay down
+beside her. His large purring at her ear
+awoke her. He purred still more loudly
+when she gently scratched him under the
+throat. She was filled with a curious
+exaltation as she marked how her influence
+over the wild things grew and widened.
+Nothing, she vowed, should ever
+lure her away from these clear shades,
+these silent folks whom she ruled by hand
+and eye, and this mysterious life which
+she alone could know. When Old Dave,
+for whom she cared warmly, made his
+now infrequent visits to the clearing, she
+had an inclination to avoid him, lest he
+should attack her purpose; and the
+<span class="pb" id="Page_265">265</span>
+thought of little Jimmy&rsquo;s white face and
+baby mouth she put away obstinately, as
+most dangerous of all. And so it came
+that when October arrived, and all the
+forest everywhere was noiselessly astir
+with falling leaves, and the light of the
+blue began to peer in upon the places
+which had been closed to it all summer,
+by that time Miranda felt quite secure in
+her resolve; and Dave&rsquo;s fight now was to
+keep the despair of his heart from writing
+itself large upon his face.</p>
+<p>Toward the end of that October Dave&rsquo;s
+hunting took him to the rocky open
+ground where, in the previous June, he
+and Miranda had encountered the lynxes.
+He was looking for fresh meat for Kirstie,
+and game, that day, had kept aloof. Just
+as he recognized, with a kind of homesick
+ache of remembrance, the spot where he
+and Miranda had seemed, for a brief
+space, to be in perfect accord with each
+other,&mdash;how long ago and how unbelievable
+it appeared to him now!&mdash;his
+hunter&rsquo;s eye caught a sight which brought
+the rifle to his shoulder. Just at the
+<span class="pb" id="Page_266">266</span>
+edge of the open a young bear stood
+greedily stripping blueberries from the
+laden bushes, and grunting with satisfaction
+at the sweet repast.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A bit of bear steak,&rdquo; thought Dave,
+&ldquo;will be jest the thing for Kirstie. She&rsquo;s
+gittin&rsquo; a mite tired o&rsquo; deer&rsquo;s meat!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>An unhurried aim, a sharp, slapping
+report, and the handsome cub sank forward
+upon his snout, and rolled over,
+shot through the brain. Dave strode up
+to him. He had died instantly&mdash;so instantly
+and painlessly that his half-open
+mouth was still full of berries and small,
+dark green leaves. Dave felt his soft and
+glossy dark coat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;re a fine young critter,&rdquo; he muttered
+half regretfully. &ldquo;It was kind o&rsquo;
+mean to cut ye off when ye was havin&rsquo;
+such a good time all to yerself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Dave was not one to nurse an idle
+sentimentality. Without delay he skinned
+the carcase, and <i>cached</i> the pelt carefully
+under a pile of heavy stones, intending to
+return for it the first day possible. He
+was going to the clearing now, and could
+<span class="pb" id="Page_267">267</span>
+not take a raw pelt with him, to damn
+him finally in Miranda&rsquo;s eyes; but the
+skin was too fine a one to be left to the
+foxes and wolverines. When it was safely
+bestowed, he cut off the choicest portions
+of the carcase, wrapped them in leaves
+and tied them up in birch bark, slung the
+package over his shoulder, and set out in
+haste for the clearing. He was anxious
+that Kirstie should have bear steaks for
+supper that night.</p>
+<p>He had been but a little while gone
+from the rocky open, where the red carcase
+lay hideously affronting the sunlight,
+when another bear emerged in leisurely
+fashion from the shadows. It was an
+animal of huge size and with rusty fur
+that was greying about the snout. She
+paused to look around her. On the
+instant her body stiffened, and then she
+went crashing through the blueberry
+bushes to where that dreadful thing lay
+bleeding. She walked around it twice,
+with her nose in the air, and again with
+her nose to the ground. Then she backed
+away from it slowly down the slope, her
+<span class="pb" id="Page_268">268</span>
+stare fixed upon it as if she expected it
+might rise and follow. At the edge of
+the wood she wheeled quickly, and went
+at a savage gallop along the trail which
+Dave had taken.</p>
+<p>It was old Kroof; and Dave had killed
+her cub.</p>
+<p>She rushed on madly, a terrible avenger
+of blood; but so fast was Dave journeying
+that it was not much short of an hour
+before her instinct or some keen sense told
+her that he was close at hand. She was
+not blinded by her fury. Rather was she
+coolly and deliberately set upon a sufficing
+vengeance. She moderated her pace, and
+went softly; and soon she caught sight
+of her quarry some way ahead, striding
+swiftly down the brown-shadowed vistas.</p>
+<p>There was no other bear in all the forests
+so shrewd as Kroof; and she knew that
+for the hunter armed all her tremendous
+strength and fury were no match. She
+waited to catch him at a disadvantage.
+Her huge bulk kept the trail as noiselessly
+as a weasel or a mink. Young
+Dave, with all his woodcraft, all his alertness
+<span class="pb" id="Page_269">269</span>
+of sense, all his intuition, had no
+guess of the dark Nemesis which was so
+inexorably dogging his stride. He was in
+such haste that in spite of the autumn
+chill his hair clung moistly to his forehead.
+When he reached the rivulet flowing
+away from the cabin spring, he felt that
+he must have a wash-up before presenting
+himself. Under a big hemlock he dropped
+his bundle, threw off his cap, his belt, his
+shirt, and laid down his loaded rifle. Then,
+bare to the waist, he went on some twenty
+paces to a spot where the stream made a
+convenient pool, and knelt down to give
+himself a thorough freshening.</p>
+<p>Kroof&rsquo;s little eyes gleamed redly. Here
+was her opportunity.</p>
+<p>She crept forward, keeping the trunk
+of the hemlock between herself and her
+foe, till she reached the things which Dave
+had thrown down under the tree. She
+sniffed at the rolled-up package and turned
+it over with her paw. Then, with one
+short, grunting cough of rage and pain,
+she launched herself upon the murderer
+of her cub.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_270">270</div>
+<p>That savage cry was Dave&rsquo;s first hint of
+danger. He looked up quickly, his head
+and shoulders dripping. He recognized
+Kroof. There was no time for choice.
+The huge animal was just upon him; but
+in that instant he understood the whole
+tragedy. His heart sickened. There
+was a great beech tree just across the
+pool, almost within arm&rsquo;s length. With
+one bound he reached it. With the next
+he caught a branch and swung himself up,
+just eluding the vengeful sweep of Kroof&rsquo;s
+paw.</p>
+<p>Nimbly he mounted, seeking a branch
+which would lead him to another tree and
+so back to the ground and his rifle; and
+Kroof, after a moment&rsquo;s pause, climbed
+after him. But Dave could not find what
+he sought. Few were the trees in the
+ancient wood whose topmost branches did
+not twine closely with their neighbour
+trees. But with a man&rsquo;s natural aversion
+to bathing in water that is not enlivened
+and inspirited by the direct sunlight, Dave
+had chosen a spot where the trees were
+scattered and the blue of the sky looked
+<span class="pb" id="Page_271">271</span>
+in. He climbed to a height of some forty
+or fifty feet from the ground before he
+found a branch that seemed to offer any
+hope at all. Out upon this he stepped,
+steadying himself by a slenderer branch
+above his head. Following it as far as the
+branch would support him, he saw that his
+position was all but hopeless. He could
+not, even by the most accurate and fortunate
+swing, catch the nearest branch of the
+nearest tree. He turned back, but Kroof
+was already at the fork. Her claws were
+already fixed upon the branch; she was
+crawling out to him slowly, inexorably;
+she had him in a trap.</p>
+<p>Dave stood tense and moveless, awaiting
+her. His face was white, his mouth
+set. He knew that in all human probability
+his hour was come; yet what might
+be done, he would do. Far below, between
+him and the mingling of rock and
+moss which formed the ground (he looked
+down upon it, chequered with the late
+sunlight), was a stout hemlock branch.
+At the last moment he would drop; and
+the branch&mdash;he would clutch at it&mdash;might
+<span class="pb" id="Page_272">272</span>
+perhaps break his fall, at least in
+part. It was a meagre chance, but his only
+one. He was not shaken by fear, but he
+felt aggrieved and disappointed at such a
+termination of his hopes; and the deadly
+irony of his fate stung him. The branch
+bent lower and lower as Kroof&rsquo;s vast
+weight drew near. The branch above, too
+frail to endure his weight alone, still served
+to steady him. He kept his head erect,
+challenging death.</p>
+<p>It chanced that Miranda, not far off, had
+heard the roar with which Kroof had rushed
+to the attack. The fury of it had brought
+her in haste to the spot, surprised and apprehensive.
+She recognized Dave&rsquo;s rifle
+and hunting-shirt under the hemlock tree,
+and her heart melted in a horrible fear.
+Then she saw Dave high up in the beech
+tree, his bare shoulders gleaming through
+the russet leaves. She saw Kroof, now
+not three feet from her prey. She saw the
+hate in the beast&rsquo;s eyes and open jaws.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Kroof!&rdquo; she cried, in a tone of fierce
+command; and Kroof heeded her no more
+than if she had been the wind whispering.
+<span class="pb" id="Page_273">273</span>
+&ldquo;Kroof! Kroof!&rdquo; she cried again, in anguished
+appeal, in piercing terror, as the
+savage animal crept on. Dave did not
+turn his head, but he called down in a
+quiet voice: &ldquo;Ye can&rsquo;t do it this time,
+Mirandy. I guess it&rsquo;s good-by now, for
+good!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Miranda&rsquo;s face had suddenly set
+itself to stone. She snatched up the
+rifle. &ldquo;Hold on!&rdquo; she cried, and taking
+a careful, untrembling aim she pulled first
+one trigger, then the other, in such quick
+succession that the two reports came almost
+as one. Then she dropped the
+weapon, and stood staring wildly.</p>
+<p>The bear&rsquo;s body heaved convulsively
+for a moment, then seemed to fall together
+on the branch, clutching at it. A
+second later and it rolled off, with a leisurely
+motion, and came plunging downward,
+soft, massive, enormous. It struck
+the ground with a sobbing thud. Miranda
+gave a low cry at the sound, turned
+away, and leaned against the trunk of the
+hemlock. Her face was toward the tree,
+and hidden in the bend of her arm.</p>
+<div class="pb" id="Page_274">274</div>
+<p>Dave knew now that all he had hoped for
+was his. Yet, after the first overwhelming,
+choking throb of exultation, his heart
+swelled with pity for the girl, with pity
+and immeasurable tenderness. He descended
+from his refuge, put on his hunting-shirt
+and belt, looked curiously at the
+empty rifle where it lay on the moss, and
+kicked the corded package of meat into a
+thicket. Then he went and stood close
+beside Miranda.</p>
+<p>After a moment or two he laid an arm
+about her shoulders and touched her with
+his large hand, lightly firm. &ldquo;Ye wonderful
+Mirandy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve give
+me life over agin! I ain&rsquo;t a-goin&rsquo; to
+thank ye, though, till I know what ye&rsquo;re
+goin&rsquo; to do with me. My life&rsquo;s been jest
+all yours since first I seen ye a woman
+grown. What&rsquo;ll ye do with the life ye&rsquo;ve
+saved, Mirandy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He pressed her shoulder close against
+his heart, and leaned over, not quite daring
+to kiss the bronze-dark hair on which
+he breathed. The girl turned suddenly,
+with a sob, and caught hold of him,
+<span class="pb" id="Page_275">275</span>
+and hid her face in his breast. &ldquo;Oh,
+Dave!&rdquo; she cried, in a piteous voice,
+&ldquo;take mother and me away from this
+place; I don&rsquo;t want to live at the clearing
+any more. You&rsquo;ve killed the old life I
+loved.&rdquo; And she broke into a storm of
+tears.</p>
+<p>Dave waited till she was quieter. Then
+he said: &ldquo;If I&rsquo;ve changed your life, Mirandy,
+ye&rsquo;ve changed mine a sight, too.
+I&rsquo;ll hunt and trap no more, dear, an&rsquo; the
+beasts&rsquo;ll hev no more trouble &rsquo;long o&rsquo; me.
+We&rsquo;ll sell the clearin&rsquo;, an&rsquo; go &rsquo;way down
+onto the Meramichi, where I can git a
+good job surveyin&rsquo; lumber. I&rsquo;m right
+smart at that. An&rsquo; I reckon&mdash;oh, I
+love ye, an&rsquo; I need ye, an&rsquo; I reckon I
+can make ye happy, ye wonderful Mirandy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The girl heard him through, then
+gently released herself from his arms.
+&ldquo;You go an&rsquo; tell mother what I&rsquo;ve done,
+Dave,&rdquo; she said, in a steady voice, &ldquo;and
+leave me here a little while with Kroof.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>That evening, after Miranda had returned
+to the cabin, Kirstie and Dave
+<span class="pb" id="Page_276">276</span>
+came with spades and a lantern to the
+beech tree by the pool. Where they
+could find room in the rocky soil, they
+dug a grave; and there they buried old
+Kroof deeply, that neither might the claws
+of the wolverine disturb her, nor any lure
+of spring suns waken her from her sleep.</p>
+<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">PLYMOUTH
+<br />WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, PRINTERS</span></p>
+<h2 class="eee">Footnotes</h2>
+<div class="fnblock"><div class="fndef"><a class="fn"  id="fn_1" href="#fr_1">[1]</a>A species of large, grey lake trout.
+</div>
+</div>
+<h2 class="eee">Transcriber&rsquo;s Notes</h2>
+<ul><li>Silently corrected a few palpable typos.</li>
+<li>Retained copyright notice from the printed edition (which is public-domain in the country of publication.)</li>
+<li>In the text version, delimited italicized text with _underscores_ (the HTML version displays the modified font.)</li></ul>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Heart of the Ancient Wood, by 
+Charles G. D. Roberts
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-28 03:20:11 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-28 03:20:11 -0800
commit	a0be1dcfc028adc3a6ed710b684977201b102368 (patch)
tree	33e94f3c4ad85904a30cdadd649775d022bdb8c7