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diff --git a/old/61888-0.txt b/old/61888-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index de19ea3..0000000 --- a/old/61888-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2714 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chinook, the Cinnamon Cub, by Allen Chaffee - -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: Chinook, the Cinnamon Cub - -Author: Allen Chaffee - -Illustrator: Peter Da Ru - -Release Date: April 22, 2020 [EBook #61888] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHINOOK, THE CINNAMON CUB *** - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -[Illustration: “Now swim!” commanded their mother.] - - - - - CHINOOK - THE CINNAMON CUB - - BY - - ALLEN CHAFFEE - Author of “SITKA, The Snow Baby,” “FUZZY WUZZ, - The Little Brown Bear,” “TWINKLY EYES, - The Little Black Bear,” etc. - - - ILLUSTRATED BY - PETER DA RU - - MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY - SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS - - - - - Copyright, 1924 - By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY - Springfield, Massachusetts - All Rights Reserved - - Bradley Quality Books - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - FOREWORD - - Here are stories of the wild life of the rich woods of - Oregon. - - In following the adventures of Chinook, the cinnamon bear - and his sister Snookie (western prototypes of the jolly - black bears of New England), and of the Ranger’s Boy, the - child will learn of tree mice and burrow mice, and of the - little mountain pack-rats who build tepees, of those giant - mousers, the bobcat and the California mountain lion, to say - nothing of the bat, pika, elk, and “snowshoe rabbit,” and - the ever present Douglas squirrel. - - He will wander through forests of spruce and fir to the - snow-clad peaks, and back along cascading rivers, as the two - cubs learn of the world in which they live. - - The Literary Review of the New York _Evening Post_ has said - of a black bear book: “The little bear will delight all - children just because he is a ball of mischief, sagacity, - awkwardness—a real bear. Allen Chaffee’s books are unusual - for vivacity, humor, and truth to the characters of the no - longer dumb beasts.” - - The Publishers. - - - - - CONTENTS - - I A Boy and a Bear - II The Cubs Learn to Swim - III The California Lion - IV The Home in the Squirrel’s Nest - V Mr. and Mrs. Tree Mouse - VI Mazama the Mysterious - VII Lost in the Fog - VIII Team Work - IX Rat Town - X A Live Snowball - XI The Indian Trapper - XII In the Raven’s Nest - XIII Chinook Plays the Clown - XIV A Mouse on Wings - XV The Smuggler - XVI Douglas Squirrel Has Company - XVII Wapiti - XVIII A Cougar Goes Coasting - XIX Mountain Beaver - XX The Big ’Quake - - - - - CHINOOK THE CINNAMON CUB - - - - - CHAPTER I - - A BOY AND A BEAR - - -The golden dawn of a June day in the Oregon woods streamed in slant bars -between the tall trunks of the yellow pines, and into the rocky gulch -where Mother Brown Bear had her den. - -Dewdrops gleamed like diamonds on every flower and fern and spider web -that bordered the cascading creek. Mrs. Tree Mouse peered with bright, -beady eyes as a small, roguish face peeked from the cave mouth. Then out -into the warming sunshine burst two of the most roly-poly little brown -bears that she had ever seen. For a few minutes they wrestled like two -boys, standing up on their short hind legs to pummel one another, or -galloping about in a game of tag. Their small, flat feet made prints in -the soft earth for all the world like the prints of a human child’s -foot, and their black eyes twinkled with fun. It was Chinook and his -sister Snookie, their soft fur gleaming cinnamon-brown in the sunshine. - -Then the huge form of Mother Brown Bear came lumbering through the cave -mouth, and with a soft rumble deep down in her chest she bade them -follow her. She made her way lumberingly down over the crags and fallen -logs to a stump where she might breakfast on a great cluster of yellow -mushrooms. The cubs had had their milk in the cave, but they always -wanted to sample everything their mother ate, and they went scrambling -after her as fast as their short legs and fat sides would let them. - -The canyon in which they had been born that spring was a wild mass of -tumbled rocks and mossy boulders where, years before, a landslide or an -earthquake might have tossed them. Just below their cave lay a tangle of -fallen tree trunks piled crisscross, and overgrown with a jungle of the -mammoth ferns that throve in that moist soil. Just now these logs were -encrusted with the brilliant-hued mushrooms that Mother Brown Bear -loved. Later there would be blueberries and wild blackberries where now -pale blossoms shone in the sunlight. In the stream to which their -cascading streamlet led were trout, and in the great river beyond were -salmon who came from the sea to lay their eggs in the gravel. On the -mountainsides about them, where the wind-swept junipers twisted like -gnomes above the rocky ledges, lived burrow mice and wood rats who would -furnish good sport when the berries failed. It was a splendid bit of -wilderness on which Mother Brown Bear had staked out her claim, and the -cubs were eager to be taken exploring. - -They had nearly reached a point where the huge fallen trunks, propped -breast high to a man on their broken branches, threw long black shadows -along the ground in which the cubs could hide in case of danger, when -Mother Brown Bear sounded a note of warning deep down in her throat. - -Someone was coming along the trail. With the fur bristling along the -back of her neck, she rose to her hind legs and listened, wriggling her -nose this way and that to detect what manner of creature it could be. He -was certainly a noisy animal, for the fallen branches cracked under his -feet. That meant that he was without fear. He must be large and -ferocious. But the wind blew in the wrong direction to carry the message -to her nose. - -Chinook also rose to his hind legs ready to fight, and he too peered -this way and that, sniffing and cocking his ears in his effort to see -what it was. Snookie, though she reared up in a pose that looked like -fight, preferred to take her stand behind her mother, and while Chinook -genuinely hoped there would be a good scrap, Snookie privately wished -there wouldn’t. For Snookie was the smaller cub, and in her bouts with -her brother she always seemed to get the worst of it. - -“Whoof! Who is it?” asked Mother Brown Bear under her breath. “_Whoof!_” -echoed her small son aggressively, and “Whoof!” said Snookie in a wee, -small voice. - -Then along the trail came someone attired in blue overalls and a wide -straw hat, who walked on his hind legs like a bear and carried a fishy -smelling rod over his shoulder. It was the Ranger’s Boy, who meant to -surprise his mother with a string of trout for breakfast. - -“Grr!” warned Mother Brown Bear. “Don’t come any nearer, or I’ll do -something dreadful to you.” For she was always afraid that harm would -come to her wee, fuzzy children. The Ranger was in charge of these -woods, and he and the man cub had never harmed her, though of course, -she told herself, she was large enough to have fought off a whole family -of rangers. But with her babies it was different. They had come into the -world soft and helpless, and it would still be many moons before they -could look out for themselves. “G-r-r!” she warned the Boy again. But he -had stopped in his tracks to stare at them. - -With Chinook it was far different. He felt so fine and fit that he just -itched for a fight with someone beside Snookie, and he growled a “Come -on!” deep down in his furry chest. - -“Hello, there!” exclaimed the Boy softly from the far side of the -windfall, his eyes laughing as he saw the two new little bears standing -there ready for fight. He knew better than to come any nearer their -mother, but he also knew there was no need to run away, so long as he -kept his distance. “You’re a funny rascal,” he told Chinook. “A regular -scrapper, aren’t you? I wouldn’t mind making friends with you some day,” -and his voice was reassuring. Chinook understood the Boy’s tone, and his -quiet attitude, better than the words. - -“I’ll fight you any time,” growled Chinook, and he struck an even -saucier pose, his little black eyes twinkling roguishly. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - THE CUBS LEARN TO SWIM - - -“G-r-r! Better go on!” warned Mother Brown Bear, and at that, the -Ranger’s Boy thought best to march down the trail. But some day, he -promised himself, he was going to see more of that bear cub. As for -Chinook, he was consumed with a great curiosity to know more of the man -cub who walked on his hind legs all the way. - -What an interesting world it was that lay all about him! First there had -been the sour-tasting ants and buttery grubs that his mother was always -finding under the fallen logs and boulders. Then there was Douglas, the -red-brown squirrel he could never catch, but who was always running -right across his trail till it seemed the easiest thing in the world to -nab him, only that some way Douglas always managed to leap beyond reach -just in the nick of time. Douglas claimed that the woods belonged to him -and that the bears were trespassing on his domain, and from the safety -of some limb too small for a bear cub, he would hurl jeers and insulting -challenges at Chinook. - -“That’s because he’s afraid of us,” Mother Brown Bear told her son. -“Douglas is bluffing. He knows that bears are fond of having squirrel -for supper.” - -For a while after the Boy had passed out of sight, the cubs were allowed -to practise walking on the fallen logs. When they fell off, they were so -fat and so round, and the moist ground so soft, that it did not hurt -them. Besides, the moment they felt themselves slipping, they could put -out their claws and cling to the rough bark. By and by the Boy returned -along the way he had come, but by this time Mother Brown Bear had led -the cubs far up the gulch to where a spot of sunshine invited a cat nap. -Even as she dozed, she kept one eye half open, and one ear cocked for -the slightest sound beyond the calling of nestling birds and the barking -and scrambling of noisy Douglas and his family, and the tinkling of the -wee cascades that led to the river. The cubs rolled and tumbled over -her, or coasted off her huge back, boxed and wrestled and played hide -and seek, or came up to pat her huge, furry face with little love pats. - -It was a warm day, and when she had had her nap and the cubs their milk, -and a nap of their own, and the sun threw her shadow directly beneath -her, she decided that it would be a good time to teach them to swim. For -woods babies were likely any time to fall into the water, and if there -were any possible way of getting into trouble, Chinook, especially, was -sure to find it. - -“Come!” she bade them with an affectionate soft rumble deep in her -throat, and she led the way down to the little river and on to where it -spread out shallowly over gravelly banks and the sun took some of the -chill out of the water. Mother Brown Bear waded in slowly. Chinook tried -first one fore paw, then the other, in this strange new element that was -not air, though one could see straight through it to the pebbly ground -beneath. Snookie backed off, whimpering. “Come on!” commanded Mother -Brown Bear. “Follow me.” - -Chinook, less fearful than his sister, but still wary, because of the -coldness and the strange wetness of it, followed for a few steps, then -ran splashing back to shore, where he stood shaking first one foot, then -another with a shower of sparkling drops. - -“Snookie, come here!” ordered Mother Brown Bear. But Snookie only -whimpered. “Chinook, show your sister that you are not afraid,” she -coaxed, and Chinook, with a show of bravado, waded in. But the instant -the water was deep enough to start lifting him off his feet, he turned -in a panic and again dashed madly back to solid ground. - -“Snookie!” called Mother Brown Bear, wading back to shore, “climb on my -back.” This the smaller cub willingly did. She liked to ride on Mother’s -back, hanging on to the long fur with her handlike paws. “Come, -Chinook!” and Mother Brown Bear waded back into the river with both -youngsters gleefully taking a ride. As she went in deeper, Snookie -looked back at the receding shore line, and clung faster to her mother’s -fur. Still deeper went their chariot, till at last it reached deep -water. “Now swim!” commanded their mother, and with a suddenness that -unseated them, she made a dive and shook them from her back, then turned -and paddled to shore without once heeding Snookie’s strangling squeal -for help. - -The cubs naturally struggled wildly to find a footing, and as they pawed -and clawed about, their legs worked the same way as when they ran, which -was just the way they ought to have worked. Then they discovered that by -spreading their legs even wider and scooping at the water with their -paws, they could do better still. Their vigorous paddling not only -served to keep their noses above water, but Chinook, less frightened -than his twin, turned his eyes to where his mother stood waiting on the -river bank, and struck out towards her with all his might. Snookie, -seeing his wee stub of a tail near her jaws, grabbed hold and let him -tow her, and soon they had their feet once more on the gravelly shore. -Puffing and panting, and dripping chilly drops, the cubs would have -rested, but that Mother Brown Bear set off on a gallop into the woods. - -“Wait for me!” squealed Snookie. - -“Wait!” panted Chinook, and the cubs galloped after her, Why was Mother -so unkind today? - - - - - CHAPTER III - - THE CALIFORNIA LION - - -Mother Brown Bear had a reason for running away and making the cubs -follow, for by the time she was willing to stop, their shivering bodies -were all in a glow of warmth, and what with a few good shakings of her -wet fur, and a little help from their mother’s rough tongue, and the -sunny June breeze, they were soon dry and fluffy, and ready for -anything. - -The next day Mother Brown Bear again took them swimming, and they found -they liked it. The day after, she decided to go fishing, for the streams -were full of trout, and she loved trout even better than the roots and -mushrooms that she could find near home. This time she towed the cubs -across the river. Chinook took her stub of a tail in his teeth to help -him as he swam, and Snookie took his tail. - -When they had reached the riffles where the fishing was good, Mother -Brown Bear simply stood there like a floating log with one barbed paw -held under water, ready to spear any fish that swam too near. With her -sharp claws she could impale the slippery fellows, and toss them to -shore, where the cubs sat watching. They still drank milk, but with -their sharp little teeth they sampled everything their mother ate, to -see what it was like. They were having great fun this afternoon. In the -clear water they could see the shining bodies of the finny ones darting -along, and taking Mother Brown Bear for just a big brown log. Then she -would send a fish flapping to shore, and the cubs would try to catch the -slippery fellow. - -The three bears had started late that day, and it was getting on towards -sunset. The high peaks to the westward had already cut off the ruddy -globe of light and left deep shadows creeping upon them, when Mother -Brown Bear, crunching her fish on the river bank, caught a strange -message on the wind that swept downstream. Her nose began to wriggle. - -“What is it?” questioned Chinook softly through his nose. - -“Hush!” breathed Mother Brown Bear, and the fur rose along her spine, as -her nerves tensed with anger. The cubs, feeling her mood, crept closer, -the fur rising frightened along their tiny spines. - -Away down along the river bank a moving gray-brown shadow stirred the -salmon-berry bushes and made a faint lapping sound as it drank at a -pool. As the night wind blew to their inquiring nostrils, it telegraphed -that here was a huge foe. It told Mother Brown Bear distinctly that down -there, fishing, was Cougar, the California mountain lion, most dreaded -of all her enemies. She might have stood him off in single combat, had -he ever been so rash as to attack a grown bear, but here were the cubs, -so little and helpless! The only reason Cougar would ever have for -coming near would be if he wanted bear cub for breakfast. Many moons -ago, while exploring a distant mountain range, she had seen him lying in -wait for rabbits, and when she located her den in the gulch, she had -supposed that he still lived many miles from the spot. But here he was, -as she could see by peering from behind a boulder, crouched on the -shelving bank of the river with one paw dangling, barbed and ready to -spear a fish. Perhaps it had been a poor rabbit year and he had moved -into her territory. That would never do! From now on, she must keep -close watch of the cubs. Perhaps he need never learn that she had these -furry children to protect. If they went quietly now downstream, with the -wind blowing from him to them, they might cross the river lower down. -Then if he should cross their trail, he would lose their scent at the -point where they entered the water. But once let the giant cat learn of -the den by the cascades, and he would be watching it, like a cat at a -mouse hole, for the first moment when she had to leave her children -unprotected. - -Now a bear, for all his weight, can pad along as softly as any other -mouser when he wants to, and this time, at least, the little family got -safely home without discovery. But when the great, tawny-brown cat had -caught his supper and eaten it, he decided to see what might be farther -downstream, and thus he happened upon the bear-scented footprints that -the three had left behind them. - -“Ah, ha!” sniffed Cougar, who was longer than a man is tall. “Juicy, -tender young bear cubs! Just wait till I can catch one! What a feast it -will be!” and he licked his whiskered lips in pleased anticipation. - -But when he came to the point where the bears had crossed the river, he -lost their trail, and though he sniffed about for a long time, he could -not find what had become of them. Cats hate getting wet, and he wouldn’t -have swum the river except in a real emergency. - -Now it happened that the Ranger was after that very mountain lion, for -Cougar had been killing elk and deer, and these were Uncle Sam’s woods, -where deer are protected except for a little while each fall. But when -Cougar had moved from his old den on the other side of the mountain, the -Ranger had lost track of him. - -One day, though, the Ranger’s Boy, on his way over the Pass with a -pack-horse to the Logging Camp where they bought flour and coffee, heard -something that sounded almost like a man sawing wood. It was away off up -the mountainside. The Boy listened, and if his mother hadn’t expected -him back by supper time, he would have climbed the slope to see who it -could be. If he had done so, he wouldn’t have caught so much as a -glimpse of the purring lion, who would have run at the first whiff of a -human being. But if the Boy had had his father’s pocket telescope with -him, he would have seen, stretched out flat on a shelving rock ledge, -which his fur almost matched, the long, slender, pantherlike animal, as -heavy as a grown man, with his small head nodding drowsily in the -sunshine because he had been up all night exploring. And in his dreams -Cougar licked his lips, for he was dreaming of nosing out the den where -Mother Brown Bear had her cubs. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - THE HOME IN THE SQUIRREL’S NEST - - -Douglas, the squirrel, whose fur just matched the red-brown tree trunks, -was as saucy as his eastern cousins, the red squirrels. He had been -named after a famous explorer, just as Chinook was named for the Indians -who lived in that part of Oregon. - -It used to seem to the little bear as if the squirrel took delight in -teasing him, while so surely as Chinook tried to slip away and hide from -his mother, Douglas was sure to spy out his hiding place from some -branch overhead, and chatter and scream about it for all the woods to -hear. Then with a “catch-me-if-you-can” sort of challenge, he would go -whisking almost under the cub’s nose, and away. Chinook would go racing -after him, for he, as well as Douglas, could climb trees as easily as a -cat. His sharp claws clung to the bark even better than Mother Brown -Bear’s. But always the squirrel was too quick for him. Then when the -little bear would give it up and back his way to the ground, Douglas -would come and perch on a limb just out of reach, and hurl saucy threats -at him, or race up and down and around the tree trunk, his tail jerking -with his wrath. “These are _my_ woods,” he was always asserting. “My -pine cones! My mushrooms! Go away!” At which Chinook would retort: “I’ll -eat you alive, if you don’t look out!” - -Then Douglas would seat himself away out on some slender branch where -Chinook could not have reached him, had he tried, and taking a pine cone -up in his handlike paws, he would nibble it around and around, and eat -the delicious kernels, while the little bear’s mouth watered for a -taste, then throw the empty cone down on his head. - -The day after their fishing trip, Mother Brown Bear decided that if -Cougar was anywhere about, they had better stay at home, where in an -emergency she could order the cubs into the den and stand guard over -them. Chinook, having nothing better to do, therefore decided to catch -Douglas if it were possible for him to do so. - -Away up in the yellow pine above the den was a great mass of sticks and -moss and dried pine needles that looked as if it might be Douglas’ nest. -In fact, he had often seen the squirrel run into that very tree. He did -not know that Douglas and his family had just built a larger nest in a -taller tree, for a bear’s little eyes are not so good as his nose for -telling what is going on about him. Today, sure enough, Douglas ran up -the trunk of the yellow pine with his cheeks stuffed full of mushroom -that he meant to put away for a rainy day. Chinook scrambled after him. -But Douglas, instead of going to the nest, only leapt to the limb of the -neighboring spruce, and from it to a tree beyond. Chinook determined, so -long as he was up there, to have a look at the nest. - -Now it happened that Mrs. Rufus Tree Mouse had moved into the nest that -Douglas had abandoned. The little red mouse peered with frightened eyes -at the advancing cub, then with a soft “hush!” to her babies, she -cuddled them up in a warm ball away inside in the innermost chamber of -her new house, and waited, trembling, to see what the cub would do. -Chinook, finding the nest apparently deserted, though alluring, mousy -odors clung to it, decided to curl up in the crotch of a limb where he -could see if Douglas came back, and so comfortably was he lodged in the -hammocking crevice, and so drowsy did the stillness of the noonday -warmth make him feel, that the first thing Mrs. Rufus knew, the little -bear was fast asleep, right there, as it were, in her front yard. - -“Dear me,” she whispered to Father Tree Mouse, when he came home with a -mouthful of soft lichen for the nursery walls. “Here is that bear cub, -right where he can see us if we so much as peek from the door, and there -is nothing to prevent his tearing the nest to pieces and eating us all -alive.” - -“I haven’t forgotten how to run,” soothed Father Tree Mouse. - -“Nor I. But what about the babies? We could only take two of them with -us. We’d have to leave two behind.” - -“That isn’t what I meant,” explained Father Tree Mouse, “Don’t worry! -The minute that monster wakes, I’ll run out along that lower limb in -plain sight, and he’ll be so eager to catch me that he’ll never look -your way.” - -“All right, then you keep watch while I feed the babies and get them to -sleep. If they keep squealing this way, they’ll wake him, sure,” and the -little red mouse began nursing her mouselets as a cat does her kittens. - -She was thinking, what a shame to have to move, just as they had lined -walls and floor so daintily. The squirrel family had laid a good, firm -foundation of sticks too large for a mouse to handle, and the roof was -as tight and dry as new by the time they had plastered it. From their -post away up among the high interlacing branches, they could run from -one tree to the next and need never go down to the ground at all if they -didn’t want to, for they could find all the pine twig bark and—on the -tree next door, all the nice, green spruce needles that they could eat. -Father Tree Mouse had been sleeping in a little shack of his own, out on -the end of the branch, ever since the babies had come, from there he -could see all that went on around them, and put his mate on her guard by -sounding a signal squeak. - -Chinook stirred in his sleep, and the little mother trembled. Would -Father Tree Mouse be able to do as he had planned when that monstrous -cub awoke? - - - - - CHAPTER V - - MR. AND MRS. TREE MOUSE - - -Now as anyone understands who knows much about meadow mice, they nest on -the ground, and they are the one kind of game a bear can always count on -when the roots and berries are all gone and the trout streams frozen. - -Once upon a time, ever and ever so many thousands of years ago, there -was a mouse who was wiser than the rest. When bears and bobcats pursued -her, she took refuge in the tree tops. One night it seemed as if every -creature in the woods was after her, and when she had reached the snug -crotch of a high limb where she could hide from them, she decided it was -wiser to stay there all night. The next morning for breakfast she -sampled the bark, and to her surprise, found the flavor first rate. Then -she began to ask herself why she need ever come down at all. She trilled -for her mate, for she had a sweet little birdlike voice when she sang, -and they discussed the situation. They had just been thinking of -building a nest where the babies would be safe when they came, and they -finally decided to build it away up high in the tree. - -Those babies, after having grown up in the tree top, saw no reason why -they should go back to the ground either, and they too built homes in -the tree tops, so high that bears and bobcats never thought of looking -for them there. Where before they had eaten grass and other things that -they could find on the ground, now they nibbled bark and spruce fans, -and the tender butt ends of the pine needles. That way the whole tribe -came to live in trees. Their relatives who had stayed on the ground all -got caught, and there were only the families of those who had become -arboreal. Now their neighbors were birds and squirrels, and when they -wanted to go exploring, they could run out along one branch till it -crossed the branch of another tree. In time Mother Nature changed their -little furry coats from the gray-brown of the soil to the red-brown of -the Oregon tree trunks, so that their enemies could not see them when -they crouched along the limbs. She changed their teeth to stronger ones -that could gnaw the bark more easily, and she gave them the kind of eyes -that can see in the dark, because when the pretty little fellows went to -feeding among the greenery, their rufous coats showed up too plainly by -daylight. Finally, their Great Mother found that they needed longer -tails than they had on the ground to help them keep their balance when -they had to leap from branch to branch. And after Mother Nature had done -all that for them, they found that they were so safe that they could -build great, roomy nests in the very tree tops where they could raise -their children. Sometimes they found an abandoned squirrel’s nest that -made a first rate framework, and converted it into a palace of many -rooms. These they carpeted beautifully with cedar fans and bits of dry -moss and lichen for the babies to creep around on. The young bachelor -mice were generally satisfied with one-room cabins away out on the tips -of the limbs where they could come and go as they pleased, but as the -young people became more experienced in nest building, and as they found -that they needed larger quarters, they would often build a whole colony -of nests around some tree trunk, with the different apartments resting -on different branches, but with one main hallway that ran around the -trunk so that they could visit back and forth without going out of -doors. As the dust blew over these nests of sticks and spruce fans, and -the rain moistened the dust, and the seeds of tiny plants blew on this -rich soil, the apartment house would come to look like a bit of the -ground beneath, and on cold nights the thick walls would keep out the -rain and the wind and make it all as snug and homelike as anything you -can imagine. - -That is how Mr. and Mrs. Tree Mouse came to be living so high above the -ground, in the branches of this great pine tree. They really preferred -spruce, because the bark has a better flavor, and, too, because most of -their friends lived in the spruce trees; but when Douglas, the squirrel, -had abandoned this great, roomy nest, it had seemed like too good a -bargain to let go, and they had promptly moved in. - -They were really awfully frightened when they saw Chinook come -scrambling so near, for they had heard him tell Douglas how he would eat -him alive if he ever caught him. The pretty little red mother mouse had -just gotten her four babies asleep when Chinook finished his nap, and -with a yawn and a stretch, began looking about him to see where he was. - -Now was the time for Father Tree Mouse to distract his attention, for -any moment, the cub might start investigating the nest. With a -high-pitched little squeak, the brave mite started to run along the limb -just below, but he scuttled so fast that Chinook decided it was no use -trying to catch him, and just sat there blinking sleepily in the -sunshine. At that, Father Tree Mouse came back, and this time he -pretended to have a broken leg, which made him limp along so slowly that -even Chinook might have caught him. Just barely out of reach of the -little bear’s barbed paw, Father Tree Mouse limped down the tree trunk -and out along the limb. This time the cub ran after him so fast that -Father Mouse’s heart thumped with terror. But he must get that bear -clear out of their tree, and at last he dropped to the ground and raced -madly across an open space to another tree, with Chinook close at his -heels. His ruse was working altogether too well, for the little bear all -but clapped his paw on him once. He did get the tip of his long tail. -But Father Tree Mouse remembered a knothole he had seen one day when out -exploring, and straight for that knothole he darted, tumbling into it -not an instant too soon. For a time Chinook watched the knothole for him -to come out, but by and by his mother called him, and when he came back, -Father Tree Mouse had left and gone back home. - -“Do you know,” he told Mother Tree Mouse, “we ought to find some nice, -big knothole and move into it before that bear comes back.” And before -another night had passed, they had found one, and moved the babies. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - MAZAMA THE MYSTERIOUS - - -Sometimes in the black of night, the cubs would be awakened by a weird, -unearthly screech, but peer as they might from the mouth of their den -into the shadowy woods they could never see what manner of creature it -could be. When they asked Mother Brown Bear, she said it would be better -for them to watch and find out for themselves. Mother Brown Bear wanted -them to learn to use their wits for they were going to need them, in -their life of hunting and being hunted. - -Sometimes the cubs thought they saw two great round eyes gleaming at -them in the moonlight, high up in the branches of a tree. Weird voice -and gleaming eyes, that was their first impression of Mazama the -Mysterious, whose hunting call startled every mouse till its trembling -set the grasses waving and showed Mazama where it was hiding. - -One night Mother Brown Bear decided to take Snookie and Chinook on a -mousing expedition. Now the mice which were her favorite game were the -stupid burrow mice who live in tunnels underground and often destroy -whole crops for the farmers. The forest floor is threaded with these -tunnels, whose entrances are hidden beneath stumps and fallen logs, or -come out beneath overhanging rocks; and the moment danger threatens, -into one of these tunnels they will pop, and run and run, away down -underneath the sod. But a bear’s sharp nose can smell a mouse even when -it is hiding underground, and if he cannot catch it in the open, he can -sometimes dig it out, though he has to be pretty spry, because while he -is digging at one point, the mouse may be running to some other branch -of his tunnel. That night Mother Brown Bear wasn’t so anxious to catch -mice herself as she was to teach the cubs. But though Snookie and -Chinook raced joyously after every red-backed burrow mouse they saw, -till they had chased them all into their secret tunnels, they caught not -one of the fleet-footed fellows. - -By and by the great, round, yellow moon peeped into the pine woods. -Suddenly a weird, unearthly cry shivered through the air, and the cubs -shrank trembling against their mother. It was Mazama the Mysterious. -“Watch, now!” whispered Mother Brown Bear. “You’ll soon find out what -you’ve been afraid of.” Then across the opening between the tall tree -trunks swept a gray shape as soundlessly as a shadow. It was nothing but -a bird, a round-eyed barn-owl, though with a beak as sharp as a scimitar -and great curved claws like swords. A mouse came to the door of his -tunnel right beneath the huge gray bird, and feeling as if the great -eyes were upon him, made a dash for a better hiding place, but with one -swift dart the owl had set his beak in him and was winging his silent -way to the limb of a tree, where he held the mouse down with one talon -while he ate him alive, and at the despairing squeak of his victim, -every burrow mouse within earshot told himself: “Thank goodness, I’m not -in _his_ skin!” But because they had very little brains, they started -right out into the open again to hunt their suppers, and the next thing -they knew, Mazama had caught another of them. While the three bears -watched, he swooped again and again on his silent wings at the mice he -could see so plainly with his great round eyes. So this, thought -Chinook, was what had frightened him,—only a bird! There is nothing like -looking a terror straight in the face. - -Just as Mother Brown Bear was ready to start for home, another -terrifying sound pierced the stillness, and it was startlingly near. The -sound came from behind them, and the breeze was in the wrong direction -to tell them what it was. It was the screeching, catlike voice that -betrayed its owner. “Is it Cougar?” trembled Snookie. - -“No, come and I’ll show you who it is,” and Mother Brown Bear began -circling till they could approach the newcomer with the wind in their -faces, Chinook wriggled his nose inquiringly. “It’s a cat, even if it -isn’t Cougar,” he decided. - -“Yes, it’s a cat, but no one we need be afraid of. It’s Paddy-paws, the -bobcat. He’s a great mouser. Better watch him: you can learn a lot from -the way he goes about it,” Mother Brown Bear told them softly. - -“He might catch us too,” shivered Snookie, clutching at her mother with -both arms. - -“Not now that you’ve grown as big as he is.” - -“Is he a good fighter, Mother?” asked Chinook. - -“He can put up one of the best fights of any animal of his size, if his -life or his kittens are in danger. But he never courts trouble, and he -will leave you alone if you leave him alone.” - -“Huh!” sniffed Chinook. “I’ll bet he isn’t any better mouser than I’m -going to be.” - -“Don’t boast,” said Mother Brown Bear. “It would be better to watch and -see how he does it.” - -“Is he a better mouser than Mazama?” - -“Watch and see,” was all Mother Brown Bear would tell them. - -Once when the Ranger’s Boy had caught a glimpse of Paddy-paws crouched -along the limb of a tree, he had at first taken him for merely the -largest and handsomest tiger cat he had ever seen. “Pussy, pussy!” he -had called ingratiatingly, wondering how a house cat came to be in the -woods. - -“_P-f-f-f!_” had hissed Paddy-paws, leaping away to another tree. Then -the Boy had seen how his tail was bobbed, and his ears pointed, and how -large his paws were, and how wildly his yellow eyes gleamed. - -“You’re certainly not very friendly,” thought the Boy, “but I suppose -it’s because you’re afraid. You are trying to frighten me with all that -hissing.” - -At first the cubs could only see that something moved stealthily, body -held close to the ground, through the shadows of the tree trunks. Then -as the big cat pounced on a mouse, they could see that he was a -handsome, tawny fellow with spots on his sides. Then Mazama gave another -screech. - -The bobcat answered with an angry yowl. “Keep out of my hunting -grounds!” he yelled at Mazama, and began sniffing about till he -discovered a big mouse hole. Crouched there ready to pounce the minute -its tenant showed his face, his attention was distracted by another -mouse, who ran across the open, and with one leap he was upon it with a -pitiless barbed paw. But Mazama had also been after that mouse, and the -same instant Paddy caught it by the tail, the great owl snapped his beak -in the mouse’s neck. - -“_Pht-t-t!_” warned Paddy-paws. “That’s my mouse. Let go!” and he -slapped with his free paw at the bird. Mazama gave a hoot of rage and -slashed at the bobcat with one foot as he raised his wings and sailed -away, bearing the bone of contention in his beak. The cat had a red -scratch down one ear. That punishing claw had come very near his face. -But he also clutched a handful of owl feathers. - -“How much better,” pointed out Mother Brown Bear, “not to have scrapped -over one miserable mouse. Now they’re both hurt. And there are a million -mice left to catch.” - -Paddy-paws ran away into the shadows, perhaps to massage, with moistened -paw, the stinging scratch on his ear. - -“He’s feeling real scrappy tonight,” laughed Chinook. “But he sure is -‘some mouser.’” - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - LOST IN THE FOG - - -August came, with its hot sun and the salt-smelling white fog from the -ocean. Mother Brown Bear decided to take the cubs on a trip high among -the cool mountain peaks. “You know Chinook means snow-eater,” she told -her son. “We must see if the name fits. When the warm West winds come in -spring and melt the snow, the Indians call it the Chinook. And when the -first of their tribe named himself, he took a bite of snow. They even -call these big salmon that come from the sea to spawn the Chinook -salmon, because every spring they swim so far up these icy streams.” - -“Snow would taste good today,” panted the little bear, “but I thought it -only came in winter.” - -“Away up on the high peaks,” his mother told him, “there is snow all the -year around. But you are going to see even more exciting things than -summer snow before we have finished our trip.” - -It was strange, starting out in the fog. Though the gray mist shut off -all the way before him, and Chinook could hardly see a tree trunk right -ahead, he could tell it was there by the message his wonderful little -nose gave him. He could tell even better in this moist air than he had -been able to in dry weather, and he could tell the difference between a -pine tree and a spruce tree as easily as the Ranger’s Boy could have -told, with his eyes shut, whether they were going to have onions or -cabbage for dinner. - -The woods were strangely still today. The birds had little heart to sing -when, for all they could see, some enemy might be creeping up behind -them; for birds have to depend on their eyes more than their noses. As -the cubs padded along after their mother, the scent of whose warm fur -led the way, Chinook paused to sniff a delicious odor that was new to -him. Following his nose, he presently came to a swampy place where his -feet sank into the moist ground and his face was brushed by tiger -lilies. Now a lily means something very different to a bear from what it -does to a bee or a boy. It was the onionlike bulbs at their roots that -interested Mother Brown Bear’s young hopeful. It was the lily he had -smelled, and that made his mouth water. In another instant, without once -calling to tell his mother what had become of him, he started digging -them up with his claws and gobbling them down, till his furry face was -streaked with mud and his sides were rounded. - -After he had eaten all the lily bulbs he could possibly hold, he began -to wonder if his mother and Snookie were waiting for him. More likely -they had not even missed him. Now his stomach, which was used to very -little besides the warm milk from which he had not yet been weaned, -began hurting dreadfully. The little bear whimpered, but he didn’t dare -make much of a noise after what his mother had told him about Cougar, -the California lion, and his fondness for having bear cub for breakfast. -On all sides Chinook could see nothing but gray fog. My, how his stomach -ached! And he was lost from the great, wise mother who always knew how -to make his troubles disappear. What if Cougar were hiding there in the -fog, ready to pounce upon him as Paddy-paws pounced on the mice? Slowly -it came to him that there was no one to come to the rescue, unless he -rescued himself, and he set his wits to work. Why, of course! Why hadn’t -he thought before that all he had to do was to follow his own trail back -to where it crossed the one his mother had left for him to follow! For a -bear, like most four-footed folk, has little scent glands in his feet, -and everywhere he goes, he leaves a trace of his own peculiar perfume on -the ground. It isn’t often strong enough for a boy to detect, but a cat, -or a dog, or a bear, or a mouse can tell it easily. So around and around -went the little lost bear, retracing every step of the way he had come -through the mystic maze that was the lily swamp, till at last he came -out on the trail where Mother Brown Bear had left her big footprints. -With a happy squeal he raced ahead. His mother was just coming back for -him; but to his hurt surprise she only gave him a sound spank with her -paw, and growled for him to come along, quick! But when he told her -about the stomach ache, she stopped and hunted around with her nose in -the fog until she had found a certain little red mushroom. “Eat that,” -she told him, “and you’ll soon feel better.” - -Chinook obediently bit off the top of the toadstool, but instantly -wished he hadn’t, for it had the most puckery, peppery taste, not at all -like those he had sampled before. He didn’t want to swallow such -medicine, but she insisted. Then for a few minutes he felt worse than -ever, But as soon as he got over feeling seasick and the lily bulbs had -come up the way they had gone down, he began to feel better. But it was -a meek little bear who promised never again to sample anything his -mother had not told him to eat. - -For a while the cubs raced merrily along, while Mother Brown Bear kept -up a lively clip. But as they climbed more and more steeply over the -canyon walls, their feet felt heavier and their breath came shorter. -After a while they reached an altitude where the fog did not follow, but -lay like a cloud in the canyon beneath them. Up here, above the fog -belt, the sun was shining, birds were singing, and the world was bright -with the green of fir trees and the pink and blue of wild flowers that -had a mild sweetish taste. Puffy white clouds sailed slowly across the -deep blue of the sky, and the air was so cool and bracing that the cubs -forgot their fatigue and started playing tag. - -Then a terrifying thing happened. The ground, which had always been so -firm beneath their feet, began to rock with a sidewise motion that -fairly made them dizzy. One long quiver, and the earth ceased quaking, -but it was their first earthquake, and the cubs did not know what might -happen next. Their mother explained it to them. - -Away down deep underground, she told them, it was not solid rock and -earth, but steam from the subterranean fires that sometimes spouted out -of the volcanic peaks. It was this steam that made the ground rock, out -there on the Pacific Coast. Once within her memory there had been a -mountain, that white-topped one they could see far ahead, that had -spouted red fire into the night, for it was a volcano, and there had -been an eruption. And even though that had happened a hundred miles -away, it had shaken the ground so hard (there had been such a big -earthquake) that the rocks had gone sliding down the mountainsides with -a noise like thunder, and in some places the earth had cracked right -open for ever so many feet. - -“Will that ever happen again?” asked Snookie, her eyes round with awe. - -“What has happened once may always happen again,” was all Mother Brown -Bear could tell her. “If we do have a big earthquake, we must run right -out into the open, because it may shake our den to pieces.” - -Little did she dream that the day might come when the cubs would be glad -to remember her advice. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - TEAM WORK - - -As the three bears crossed the shallow head of the river, whose course -they had been following up the mountainsides, from the grass almost -under their feet leapt what at first glimpse they took to be a mammoth -mouse. - -Of course they chased it. Soon they noticed that it ran very differently -from the mice they had known. Instead of scuttling along on all fours, -with its long tail streaming out behind, this one gave mammoth leaps, -and its tail was just a bunch of brown fur. Then they noticed what long -ears it had, and what broad hind feet. “It’s a hare,” signalled Mother -Brown Bear, “a ‘snowshoe rabbit.’” - -The big brown hare raced so fast that it was soon out of sight; then -instead of staying safely away, back it came circling, to stand on its -hind legs with its long ears pointed forward to catch the sounds these -strange newcomers were making, and its paws folded on its furry chest. -The minute it caught sight of the pursuing cubs, it leapt away again -with such great bounds that the bears again lost sight of it. - -“You’d never catch it that way in a million years,” Mother Brown Bear -laughed, her black eyes twinkling as the cubs returned. - -“Why not?” Chinook demanded. “Let’s wait until it comes back, and have -another try.” - -“I don’t mind resting here a while,” said Mother Brown Bear, seating -herself with her back to a rock and her legs straight out in front of -her, while the cubs sprawled out in the sunshine. Up here so high above -their woods, where the wind was cool, the sun felt good on their fur. - -“In chasing a hare,” Mother Brown Bear told them, “you never want to -follow right along in its tracks, because it can generally outrun you.” - -“I thought you said it was a rabbit,” said Snookie. - -“They call this one a snowshoe rabbit,” her mother explained, “but it’s -really a hare, a snowshoe hare. You see how broad its feet are. In -winter when there is snow on the mountainsides, its wide furry feet keep -it on the tops of the drifts, where an animal with slender feet sinks -in. In creeping up on a hare, you can sometimes pounce the way a bobcat -pounces on a mouse, but that is only possible when the wind’s in your -face (blowing from the hare to you) and it’s curled up asleep and -doesn’t see you. If the wind blows from you to the hare, it gets your -scent, and takes warning. Then remember, you can’t make the teeniest, -weeniest sound or it catches it with those great, funnel-like ears. But -where a thing is hard to catch in a straightaway race for it, that is -the time to try strategy, and where one pursuer cannot catch a supper -that runs so fast, it is sometimes possible for partners to work it -between them. I have seen a family of bobcats bring down a ‘snowshoe -rabbit’ by careful teamwork.” - -“Tell us about it,” begged the cubs, who did not see the hare looking at -them from behind the stump, to which it had circled in its foolish -curiosity to find out more about its enemies. It was wriggling its nose -this way and that, for the wind was in its face, and for the moment it -was safe. - -“It was a cold moonlight night,” began Mother Brown Bear, “when -Paddy-paws and his mate went ‘rabbit’ hunting and took their five -half-grown kittens along. The kittens were handsome, bright-eyed little -fellows anxious to learn how to do everything their parents did. Well, -first Paddy himself gave chase to a big brown hare, who went hopping -away so fast that the heavy cat was all out of breath before he had come -anywhere near his quarry. But Mrs. Paddy-paws had stationed the kittens -around every here and there through the woods, and just as the old cat -had to give it up for the time, she was right there ready to take his -place. They made a regular relay race of it. When Mrs. Paddy-paws had -chased the hare around in a circle and got so winded that _she_ had to -stop, the nearest kitten took up the race, and by that time Paddy had -his breath back and cut straight across the circle to take the kitten’s -place. All this time, of course, the hare was getting more and more worn -out, but it still kept leaping ahead so fast that it nearly got away -after all. Yes, sir, it took every one of those seven cats to catch that -hare. They certainly worked hard for the quick lunch that they got out -of it, and they had to work harder still before they had caught enough -to satisfy those hungry kittens. But teamwork finally did it.” - -At that, the hare, whose eyes had been nearly popping out of his head -with surprise, leapt away as fast as he could go. - -“Hey, Snookie,” Chinook gave his sister a resounding slap, “Let’s try a -relay race the next time we see a hare.” - -“All right, but you needn’t hit so hard,” and Snookie landed him a biff -that sent them tumbling downhill in a wrestling match. - -Mother Brown Bear yawned and stretched. “Come, children,” she bade them, -as she rose to her feet, “we have a long way to go if we are to have -supper in Rat Town.” - -At the word, the cubs went racing after her, and a little further on, -their eyes brightened when they came to a footprint that looked almost -like a squirrel’s but which smelled distinctly mousy. It was the track -of a mountain pack-rat. The cubs sniffed curiously. It was a part of -their schooling to learn the meaning of every odor, for next year, when -they had to earn their own livings, they would have to know where to -find enough to eat, and then their noses would be a bigger help than -eyes and ears put together. - -For a few minutes they followed the trail of the pack-rat, which smelled -stronger and stronger. Of a sudden, the rat himself darted off to the -right. Mother Brown Bear watched to see if the cubs would profit by what -she had just been telling them. Quick as thought, Snookie was after that -rat. Quick as thought, Chinook saved his breath and watched to see where -the race would lead, and when the rat began circling further to the -right, so that the wind was in his face, Chinook made a dash across the -circle and took Snookie’s place. “Good work!” thought Mother Brown Bear, -proud that her children were so quick to learn. For a couple of minutes -Chinook raced with all his might, but the rat ran faster. Then Snookie -came leaping downhill to take his place as the rat darted past her, and -just as she lost her balance and went tumbling head over ears, her -brother had taken a short cut and was ready to take her place; and the -next thing that old rat knew, he was flattened out under Chinook’s paw. - -“You see,” Mother Brown Bear told them, “there is nothing like team -work. The reason a bear is so brainy is because he is always watching -other forest folk to see what he can learn from them; and when cubs are -too little to make their way alone, they want to stand by each other.” - -“How Mother does love to preach,” thought Chinook, but he didn’t dare -say so, and the time was coming when he was glad to remember what she -had told him. But if his nose was any judge, they were nearing the Rat -Town she had promised to show them. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - RAT TOWN - - -The village they were approaching looked like a toy Indian encampment, -with its tiny tepees of sticks and trash. - -The inhabitants were not much larger than burrow mice, were these -mountain pack-rats, so-called, who scurried about packing great armfuls -of twigs and leaves to make their homes secure. Some of the tepees were -built as high as Chinook’s head, when he stood on his hind legs, and he -could have crawled inside, had the doorways been large enough. How such -tiny fellows could build so high, he could not imagine till he saw half -a dozen rats setting one stick in place with their squirrel-like paws. - -At the approach of the three bears, the sentinel mice, who had been -sitting on their roof-tops, promptly stamped a warning signal, and every -rat in Rat Town scampered, terrified, into his tent. - -“Hurray!” Chinook exulted. “Watch me catch them!” - -“You’ll not find it so easy as you might think,” his mother warned him. -“They have none of them lost the use of their hind legs.” And indeed, -the three bears had a lively time of it before Mother Brown Bear had -satisfied her keen mountain appetite. Still, it was a paradise for -mousers. - -That same night the Ranger’s Boy was having his own experience with -Oregon pack-rats. - -The Forest Ranger, in his horseback trips through the mountains, found -it convenient to have a shelter shack in the fir woods just beneath -Lookout Peak. This time the Boy had gone with his father, who had to -find out how much timber up that way was ripe for cutting, for a lumber -company wanted to buy some. For the first time that summer, they were to -spend a couple of nights at the cabin. To their surprise, they found -that a family of little pack-rats had taken possession in their absence. -The blankets were chewed and pieces torn off, presumably so that the rat -babies would have a soft bed. The flour that the Ranger had left in a -bag hung from the rafters so that the porcupines couldn’t reach it had -been spilled through a hole that the rats had chewed in one corner of -the bag, for, unlike the prickly ones, the little rats had been able to -run down the string as easily as so many circus acrobats. The lid had -been lifted off the tea jar and the tea had been sampled, though with no -great relish, for most of it had been left untouched. Even as the Boy -entered the dusky doorway, he spied three of the mouse-like gray rats, -no larger than chipmunks, tugging with their handlike paws at the lid of -the molasses can, which appeared to fit too tightly for them to manage. -The dusty paw marks up and down its sides told that they must have tried -it many times. At the Boy’s laugh, they ran, but they were bold, and -were soon back again, working away in the shadows that his candle -lantern threw. - -That night the Boy, who slept in a bunk of fir boughs opposite his -father’s, was awakened by a great scuffling and scurrying over floor and -roof, and once by angry squeaks and squeals. Another time something warm -and furry, with toe nails that tickled, ran across his forehead. A third -time he was awakened by a resounding thump. It was one of his heavy -hiking boots, which he had been advised to take to bed with him—for fear -the rodents might have a relish for smoked-tanned moose hide smeared -with neat’s-foot oil. They had evidently tugged at the heavy boot until -they had hauled it over the edge of the bunk. The Boy watched them with -one eye half open to see what would happen next. With a huge sound of -scraping over the split log floor, the three little rats dragged the -boot to one corner of the cabin, and there tugged and panted in their -effort to drag it into their hole. The Boy, feeling assured that that -was something they could never do, and knowing that they could never -lift it to carry it away through the cabin window, and being in that -optimistically drowsy state where one doesn’t care much what happens -anyway, allowed himself to fall asleep again. - -In the morning he found the appropriated boot filled to the top with -stores the little rats had sought to hide there. First there was his -soap, which they had nibbled all around the edges with their pointed -teeth. Next came a mixture of pine nuts, bits of the cold lunch the -Ranger had brought in his saddle-bags and thrown in the cold fireplace, -a button they had chewed from his sleeve, and a much-gnawed pencil, -while the toe of the boot was stuffed with half a dozen burrs which they -evidently treasured, and with the fragments of the greasy paper in which -they had brought their breakfast bacon. As for the bacon itself, that -was nowhere to be seen, though a greasy, paw-marked trail led up the -side of the cabin wall and into a corner of the rafters. The tin in -which they had stowed it for safekeeping had been uncovered and -thoroughly decorated with telltale footprints. The Ranger and his Boy -doubled with laughter. - -“Pack-rats are a pest,” pronounced the Ranger, when he found his own -boots, still safe at the foot of his bunk but nibbled all across the -tops. “I’ll take you up to an abandoned mining camp some day, where the -pack-rats have taken possession of every cabin. With doors and windows -boarded up so that bears and bobcats can’t get in, they live there, -producing about four litters a year of perhaps four to a litter, till -there must be thousands of them. Where nothing larger than a weasel can -get at them to keep their numbers down, it’s destroyed the Balance of -Nature. Some day I’d like to find the time to clear them out, or there -will soon be such millions that they’ll come migrating around the -settlements, destroying crops and doing no end of damage.” - -“How are you going to ‘clean them out,’ Dad? Going to take the Pied -Piper along?” laughed the Boy. - -“All I’ll have to do, I imagine, is to destroy the old log cabins, -because as soon as the hawks and owls, bears and bobcats, foxes and -coyotes, and all the animals whose natural food they are, can get at -them, the Balance will soon be restored. As for the Pied Piper, I don’t -know if these rats care for music, but thank goodness, they aren’t the -common Norway, disease-spreading rat of our city wharves. ‘Trade rats,’ -campers call these little fellows, because they have a funny way of -trading some of their trash for some of the food they salvage. There, -just look at that!” and he reached for the butter tin, which also had -been raided. It was half full of bark. “I suppose they think that kind -of trade will square it with us.” - -“Well, they may relish bark for breakfast,” sighed the Boy, “but I’d as -soon have bacon and butter to go with these biscuits. Thank goodness, I -put the biscuit tin under a heavy weight last night. I thought I had -placed the bacon there, too.” - -“You did,” agreed the Ranger, “but not under a heavy enough weight. See, -they lifted that hardwood stick right off! You wouldn’t think they had -the strength to, but I suppose it’s team work.” - -“The brazen things!” howled the Boy, convulsed with mirth, for one rat -had just peeked over the edge of the table, filched a half biscuit from -his very plate and made off with it, and now sat with a fragment he had -broken off eating it as he sat up squirrel-wise holding the biscuit in -his paws. - -“They really seem more like squirrels than rats,” thought the Boy aloud. -He was noticing that instead of the coarse hair and naked tails of the -city rat, they had soft gray fur and snowy under sides, with tails -almost as thick as a ground squirrel’s. - -“They aren’t real rats,” agreed his father, “but mice, in spite of the -name. In some places they have taken to nesting in the tree tops, and in -some places they burrow. They nest in the branches overhanging swampy -places, and burrow in sandy plateaus. But up here in the higher -altitudes they either live among the rocks or build tepees of trash.” - -“Dad, do they store food for winter?” - -“Just like squirrels, and there is one thing they do that is rabbitlike. -I’ve seen them drum an alarm on the ground with their heels when they -have to send a warning signal a long distance.” - -“They’re sure cunning rascals.” - -“Altogether too ’cute for me. I wouldn’t mind an occasional half pound -of bacon, if only they wouldn’t dig up the pine seeds that I plant in my -reforesting nurseries.” - -“They are vegetarians, mostly, aren’t they?” - -“Yes, and down in San Luis Potosi they sell them at the market stalls to -be cooked like rabbits. Look out! Is that your pocket knife that -fellow’s dragging across your bunk?” - -The Boy made a dash for his property. “Can you beat it!” - -But up in Rat Town they were giving Chinook a merry chase. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - A LIVE SNOWBALL - - -The day after they visited Rat Town, Mother Brown Bear led the cubs high -above the surrounding mountain slopes to where a sandy meadow stretched -to the foot of snow-clad Lookout Peak. - -This eleven-thousand-foot sky-meadow was a riot of wild flowers. Yellow -mimulas and purple pussy-paws carpeted the ground beneath their feet, -while snowy slopes, blue in the cloud shadows, towered to the summit or -swept in a long slope to the spruce woods lying dark green beneath them. -The air was as fresh as a drink from a snow-fed river. - -What amazed the cubs was that great swarms of red and black butterflies -danced above them. Snookie and Chinook had a gay time trying to catch -them. Where the purple and white honey-lupin set their noses wriggling, -the butterflies danced in a cloud. Mother Brown Bear was amazed to see -butterflies in this chill altitude, for though she had been a great -traveller, she had always before found them down in the warm meadows -where the bees gathered the honey that she loved. She did not know that -these butterflies were migrating South for the winter. But they had not -come all this way to chase butterflies. - -What Mother Brown Bear liked best about the summer snow fields was that -here she often found whole swarms of frozen grasshoppers. To hunt for -this delicacy she now called the cubs to the foot of the nearest -snowbank, and while she dug and sniffed and feasted, they lapped the -strange white stuff that felt so cold. Then Snookie fell down and rolled -head over heels, and to Chinook’s surprise, the half melted snow clung -to her till she looked like a little white bear instead of a cinnamon -cub. The next thing Mother Brown Bear knew, the cubs were climbing the -steep snowbanks for the sake of coasting down. Sometimes they sat with -feet straight out in front of them, but oftener they threw themselves -down flat on their stomachs and did it “belly bumps.” Over and over and -over they tried it, while their mother searched for grasshoppers, till -she really began to worry for fear they might wear all their fur off. -They never forgot the fun they had on their first snow slide. - -Now Chinook little dreamed that the Ranger’s Boy who had passed them one -day was right down there in the fir woods whose pointed spires he could -see from an overhanging ledge. Nor did the Boy dream that the roguish -little bear was also off on a camping trip. - -Chinook, having found the snow harder on the northern slope and easier -to slide on, had started off with a sturdy shove of his boylike hind -feet and had set himself going so far and so fast that he couldn’t stop. -On the warm western slope the snowbank soon came to a stop, and there -Snookie was content to coast while her mother nosed about for frozen -grasshoppers. But on the northern side it sloped in an unbroken expanse -of hard white that glittered in the reddening sunlight, and never -stopped until it had reached in a long tongue down the gulch into the -fir woods. - -“What’s that?” exclaimed the Ranger’s Boy, as he and his father peered -at a small black object darting over the snow field; but it went so fast -that they couldn’t make out what was coming. - -Now the snow up above, where the chill winds blew, was crusted hard and -firm, and the little bear, for it was he, just skimmed along as if he -were on ice. But down in the gulch where the snow ran into the fir -woods, the top few inches had partly melted till it was just sticky, and -clung to the feet like a plaster. As Chinook reached the level stretch -and tried to get to all fours, he only succeeded in turning head over -heels with the momentum of his long slide. The next thing he knew, the -soft snow began sticking to him inches deep, till, by the time he had -stopped rolling and come to a standstill, the Boy would have taken him -for a mammoth snowball if he hadn’t seen him coming. - -“Dad, I want that cub!” he shouted, stripping off his coat as he ran, -but clinging to the coiled lead rope he had on his arm. - -“Leave him alone!” warned his father, who was leading the pack-horse; -but the Boy had already thrown his coat over the struggling snowball, -and the Ranger raced to his assistance. - -Five minutes later a man and a boy, both scratched and bleeding but -completely triumphant, had a small and frightened and very angry little -bear on one end of the lead rope, with the other end tied to a fir tree. - -“Now watch me make friends with him!” the Boy exulted, running to the -cabin for something to feed his unexpected guest. - -“I’ll watch!” his father laughed, starting after the pack-horse. - -[Illustration: He turned head over heels with the momentum of the -slide.] - -The Boy searched the cabin hastily. There on the top shelf stood a -tightly lidded tin pail of brown sugar that the dampness had converted -into one great lump. Chipping off a pocketful of hard lumps, the Boy -returned to where the little bear chafed and struggled at the end of his -leash. Had they not known just how to tie the knot, he would have choked -himself. He was just beginning to gnaw on the rope when the Boy threw -him a great hard lump of the sugar. Then he went around the corner of -the cabin and peeked to see what would happen. - -Chinook, finding the woods as silent as if he were the only living thing -about, paused in his chewing to wriggle his nose at the delicious -smelling tidbit, and suddenly he realized that he was famished. What -could it be, he asked himself? Not wild honey, but something almost as -good! After all, he found himself unhurt, and if that Boy came again, he -thought he could hold his own in a tussle. - -Gingerly he reached forth a snowy paw to draw the goody nearer, then he -licked the brown lump with an inquiring pink tongue. Um! Never in all -his short life had he tasted anything better. Bears have a great sweet -tooth. He crunched it delightedly. - -Now began an experiment that the Boy had performed with other wild folk. -Would the cub be too frightened to respond? Stepping quietly into view, -he held out a great handful of the tempting lumps, and the little bear -sniffed longingly. But at the same time he eyed the blue-overalled biped -with not a little suspicion. He remembered, however, that it was the -same Boy who had passed them once before, and who had not harmed him; -but then Mother Brown Bear had taught him to be wary of what he did not -understand. - -By and by the Boy threw him another lump of sugar. That was a language -he did understand. Chinook snapped it up, and his mouth watered for -more. He could smell that the Boy had more to give him. Softly, slowly -and ever so unalarmingly, the Boy came a few steps nearer, holding out -the sweets, the cub watching intently. It took quite a while, for the -little bear had to focus his mind so whole-heartedly on the feast before -him as to forget those amazing moments when Boy and Ranger had thrown -their coats over his head and fore paws and knotted the rope around his -neck. But after all, Chinook had never in all his life received a hurt, -and his mother was not there to sound her suspicions. Why not consider -the Boy a friend? In the stillness of the mountain twilight the miracle -was accomplished, and the furry woods boy allowed the human Boy to feed -him. - -Then from behind a fallen log not two stones’ throw distant the Boy saw -the massive head and shoulders of Mother Brown Bear. That might be a -different story. His father saw her too, for from the high little cabin -window he called: “_Quick! Inside!_” Out he drew his revolver, in case -the alarmed mother should think it necessary to demolish the cub’s -abductor. But the Boy ran indoors, and then both watched from the -window. - -“Aw, it’s all right!” Chinook assured his mother, and she could tell -from one sniff at his sugary face that he had been faring well. But she -was still so nervous at having found him gone, and so angry at the -thought that he had been captured, that—after nuzzling him all over to -make sure no bones were broken—she only grunted a harsh “Come on!” to -hide her fear, and led the way rapidly back into the woods, where -Snookie waited. But Chinook was brought up so abruptly by his tether -that his feet slid out from under him. - -“Could I cut him loose?” whispered the Boy. - -“No need,” smiled his father, for even as they spoke, Mother Brown Bear -came back to gnaw furiously at the rope, and in a moment the little bear -was free. - -“Now he’ll wear a collar,” laughed the Boy. - -“Don’t you believe it! His mother will have the rest of that rope off in -no time,” the Ranger reassured him. - -“Isn’t it a shame we couldn’t be friends, that little bear and I?” - -“You could, if this were a National Park where bears are never hunted.” - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - THE INDIAN TRAPPER - - -While on Lookout Peak, the cubs were shown the elk that Cougar hunted, -and once they found his huge, catlike footprints, which made Mother -Brown Bear take the cubs hustling back to safer territory without pause -for rabbit hunting. - -On their return trip, she took them circling southward along a little -travelled trail, till after camping for several days through the green -gloom of a spruce wood, where tiny streams tinkled unseen among the -dense undergrowth, and wild berries, lily roots and pine nuts spiced -their diet, they came to a stand of mammoth sugar pines, with whose -equally mammoth cones the cubs played football. Here they came very near -pouncing on a prickly porcupine, for which, their mother told them, they -would have been sorry, for his barbed stiff hair would have hurt their -paws terribly. - -When it rained, they found an incense cedar, beneath whose flat, ferny -yellow-green fronds they kept as dry as they would have been in their -rock den. It was all a part of their education, for the more -tree-learning they acquired, the better would they be able to take care -of themselves and their families in the years to come. - -As they got down to the lower levels, not far from the seashore, Mother -Brown Bear showed them a grove of giant Redwoods (Sequoia Sempervirens), -which in that moist climate were always green. The cubs felt as small as -mice beside the Big Trees, up and down whose awesome trunks they -climbed, exploring. These trees had been seedlings when the world was -young, four thousand years ago: they were almost prehistoric monsters of -the vegetable kingdom. The cubs were disappointed to find that the cones -of these huge trees were the tiniest of any they had even seen. They -found a hole in a fallen log that would have made a den for a dozen -bears rolled into one, and they coaxed hard to be allowed to stay there; -but Mother Brown Bear, sniffing inquiringly about, found that it -belonged to another bear who must have been, like themselves, off -camping, and would not have allowed them to hunt in his territory. - -Then vacation time was over, and they were safely back in their spruce -woods, with the grove of yellow pines for neighbors. And thankful they -were to see the old familiar spots, for a bear loves home, despite his -vacation rambling. The soft haze of Indian summer had turned to frosty -mornings when Douglas, the red squirrel, and all his tribe chattered -busily garnering the pine and spruce nuts for their winter larder. Mrs. -Tree Mouse had her children trained to look out for themselves, and -Paddy-paws the bobcat and Mazama the mysterious owl had reduced the -numbers of the red-backed burrow mice who ran squeaking across the open. -Mother Cinnamon Bear left the cubs more and more to their own devices. - -One day Chinook discovered a strange footprint. It was not that of any -four-footed creature, nor was it that of the Ranger and his Boy. It was -that of the Indian Trapper who caught forest people for their fur. He -came every winter to set traps for bears and bobcats, foxes, skunks, and -other furry folk, and once Chinook came upon one of the bob kittens who -cried pitifully, with her paw caught fast in a steely-smelling thing -that had been hidden under the leaves and baited with a fish. And it was -the last time he ever saw that kitten! After that Chinook avoided the -neighborhood of that steel smell. But Snookie had yet to become -trap-wise. Mother Brown Bear had been off on a trip by herself, or she -could have told the cubs that the smell of steel and Indian moccasins -was a danger signal. - -But one day she came back, just as the two cubs had started off on a -nutting expedition. The cold rains had set in, and they were all -beginning to feel sleepy, as bears do in winter, even when it isn’t cold -enough to make hibernating necessary. It must have been that Snookie was -thinking about how nice it would be to find some snug hollow tree and -curl up with her toes inside, and one paw over her nose, and sleep for a -week at a time. At any rate, without once noticing where she was going, -she stepped into a lynx trap. It caught her middle toe, and she gave a -yell of pain. - -Now it happened that Mother Bear was quite a distance back along the -trail, and the Indian Trapper was not far ahead. For a time Snookie -tugged and struggled to get free, while Chinook sniffed about her -worriedly, his fur bristling as he detected the warning smell of steel. -But though the ribbon of the breeze soon began to tell him that the -Trapper was coming, he would not leave her. He could still fight. - -On came the Trapper. He carried a belt axe, and when he saw the handsome -brown bear cub, he thought what a fine little fur rug her coat would -make for his cabin floor. Swinging his belt axe, he was about to strike -Snookie over the head. But at that psychological moment a small-sized -ball of fury hurled itself at his legs. It was Chinook, and he set his -sharp white teeth into the Indian’s leg and clawed to such good effect -that the Trapper turned his attention wholly to the bear he hadn’t -caught. That saved Snookie for the moment, and in just another instant -Mother Brown Bear came galloping to the scene of action with such a -growl of fury that the man forgot his axe and leapt for a limb of the -nearest tree. He made it just in time to draw himself out of Mother -Brown Bear’s reach, though Chinook had clung to his leg till he found -himself swinging in midair. Then while Snookie tugged agonizingly to get -her toe free, Chinook and Mother Brown Bear kept watch on the trapper, -the latter standing furiously on her hind legs to try to reach his feet, -while Chinook growled awful threats. - -Finally with one good jerk and a cry of anguish, Snookie was free of the -trap, though she ran limping down the trail with her toe still in the -steel teeth. With a final volley of threats, Mother Brown Bear and her -son left the Trapper feeling about as bad as the cub felt with her -bloody little foot—that would forever after leave a four-toed footprint. - -“If it hadn’t been for you,” Mother Brown Bear told Chinook, “your -sister would have been killed and eaten.” - -“Huh!” sniffed her young hopeful, “we cubs fight, but I guess we’d stand -by each other when there’s trouble.” - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - IN THE RAVEN’S NEST - - -That winter was a mild one, and though Mother Cinnamon Bear slept most -of it away in the den among the rocks, she wouldn’t let the cubs come -with her. Ever since she had gone off on that trip without them, she had -left them more and more to their own devices, till now she told them -plainly that they must find themselves a place to hibernate. Snookie -found another den just big enough for herself, and lined it with pine -needles to make it soft and warm. Chinook preferred a hollow tree, from -which hung great clusters of gray-green mistletoe with its wax-white -berries. Several times they had crossed the trail of Cougar, the -mountain lion, and he was glad to find a hole into which he himself -could barely squeeze, and high enough above ground that Cougar wouldn’t -be likely to notice it as he went by. There he would sleep for a -while—say, several weeks, longer if it turned too cold—then he would -sally forth for a few mice. But he found he hadn’t much of an appetite -when he didn’t exercise. - -It was not till April that the cubs learned why Mother Brown Bear had -thought the old cave would be crowded. - -There were two new little brown bears and a black one, and their mother -wouldn’t let anyone so rough as the yearling cubs come near the helpless -mites. For when the new baby brothers and sister had been born, they had -been no larger than long-legged, cocker-spaniel babies and not half so -well clothed. Even when they were two months old they were barely strong -enough to follow their mother when she went out for mushrooms. - -“Huh! They’re no good!” decided Snookie and Chinook. “We can have more -fun by ourselves.” - -They couldn’t remember that they too, just a twelve-month ago, had been -blind and helpless, and no end of nuisance. - -It was along in May that Snookie took a notion to explore the cliff wall -high above the foaming waters of the swollen river. Chinook preferred to -stay down by the river spearing the salmon who came leaping over the -falls and swimming upstream against the rapids to lay their eggs in the -shallows, where the newly hatched fish would be safer than they would -have been in the ocean. - -Snookie, reaching the wind-swept edge of the canyon wall where nothing -but twisted mountain pines and junipers could keep their foothold, found -the dwarfed trees flattened out to leeward of the wind that blew -steadily from off the broad Pacific. The little bear found that she -could walk right on top of the low-flung branches, so closely were they -matted from years of clinging together for mutual protection. Some of -these sturdy dwarfed and ancient trees grew so low and so rooflike that -Snookie could barely stand upright under the canopy they made. It was a -wonderful place to play. - -A mammoth bird’s nest had been tucked away in a cranny of the rocks, -right on the canyon rim, and at first a great black bird sat on it. By -and by Snookie saw that the great black bird was gone and that a black -speck winged its way down to the river. This seemed like a good time to -inspect that nest. She found five delicious tasting eggs, and she had -just finished her meal and was trying to lick the egg from her chin, -when the great bird came back. It was Mrs. Raven, and my, what threats -and insults she did screech at Snookie! At her cries Mr. Raven, too, -appeared and joined in the clamor. (And all this time their visitor was -too surprised to think.) Then the mother bird was upon her, beating her -with her wings. The little bear hid her eyes, but her ears were still -exposed, and she gave a squeal of protest, for they would have driven -her right over the canyon rim, and Snookie had no wings. Then the father -raven pecked a beakful of fur right out of the middle of her back. - -Suddenly the little bear remembered the tunnels of dwarf pine trees just -above, and making a blind dash for them, with the birds still beating -her, she crawled under this shelter, where the ravens could not follow. - -My, but she was a sore little bear! But here she was, at any rate, safe, -if not altogether sound, and she told herself she knew something about -ravens that Chinook hadn’t learned. Besides, those eggs certainly were -delicious, she comforted herself, as she curled up to sleep off her -troubles. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - CHINOOK PLAYS THE CLOWN - - -Chinook had fished till his sides were rounded with his catch, then he -had curled up in a ball in a tree top and taken a nap, while Snookie was -having her adventure. - -When he awoke, he went for a swim in the sunny shallows, and then he was -hungry again, for Chinook was growing fast. Just as the lowering sun -began sending slant bars through the trees that fringed the canyon rim, -he came to where the canyon floor widened into a meadow sweet with -honey-lupin, shoulder high. Bees hummed among the blossoms, and it -occurred to him that there might be a bee tree somewhere near by. Sure -enough, a tantalizing odor came to him on the breeze. It was the work of -but a few minutes to follow his nose till he found the tree where the -bees were going in and out in a black swarm. - -The owners objected hotly to his discovery of their hidden stores, but -they couldn’t sting much through his thick fur. They really could do -little harm except about his face, and with slaps of his fore paws he -kept the insects away from his eyes and nose as he climbed the tree. -Then a red hot fellow left a sting in his sensitive nose and several -burned his ears and lips, but he had had experience of bee trees before, -and he managed to keep his eyes protected. Then, oh, joy of joys, he had -his head in the hollow where they kept their honey, and as he sampled -it, he considered it more than worth the stings they had given him. Face -and fore paws quickly became plastered with the sticky mass, and when he -had made very sure he could reach no more, he backed down the tree -leaving sticky paw marks all along the trunk. - -Now the ground beneath was strewn with dried pine needles and fallen -leaves, and when he walked, the leaves stuck to his feet. Biting at them -to see what was the matter, he got his sticky face all plastered with -twigs and leaves, and trying to wipe them off with his fore paws, he -only made things worse, until his eyes were too covered with leaves and -he couldn’t even see where he was going. Stumbling blindly about, and -still slapping at the bees who seemed to want to get eaten alive, he -fairly tripped over his clumsy feet, which were now twice as wide as -they ought to have been. He bumped and tumbled about, and wandered -around and around, now pawing at his eyes but only making more leaves -stick to his lids, plastering them the tighter. It was a senseless -predicament to have gotten into. Then his ears pricked to the sound of -running water. Enraged bees still scrambled through his fur looking for -a vulnerable spot in which to leave their stings, but Chinook was headed -for that sound of running water. It would cool the feverish feeling in -his nose. - -Just as the little bear had begun to wonder if he were not wandering -around in some bad dream, he stumbled off the bank and went splash into -a deep pool. Striking out as vigorously as if he knew just where he were -going, he began circling around and around, for it was a tiny whirlpool -he had fallen into. It was lucky for him it wasn’t a large one. But the -swift, churning water did its work on him: it washed off the honey and -the clinging leaves. - -As soon as Chinook could open his eyes again, he floundered out of that -pool a cleansed and chastened little bear. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - A MOUSE ON WINGS - - -“What’s that?” whispered Snookie, as the cubs were starting out one -evening in the glow of the long June sunset to explore a new part of the -woods. - -“A bird, of course!” Chinook told her, as an orange-winged creature that -at first looked as large as a crow swooped and darted after the flying -insects which were its prey. But as the cubs came nearer, they could see -that the body that carried those wide wings was only the size of a -sparrow’s. - -“It is not a bird,” said Snookie, “It has no feathers.” - -“It’s a mouse, then,” guessed Chinook. - -“Did you ever see a mouse fly?” asked his sister scornfully. - -“Well, you see one now, don’t you?” - -“I don’t know whether I do or not,” for by now the cubs could see that -the strange creature had perfectly naked wings that looked as thin as -maple leaves, and that its little body was covered with fine fur. It was -Nyc-ter-is, the bat, and except that he had no particular tail, he did -look more than a little like a mouse, though his face and ears were -rounder. His fore arms seemed to be fast to the first half of his wings, -and there three of his fingers had grown so long that they held out the -rest of the wing like the ribs of an umbrella. His thumbs, which came -just halfway along the upper edge of the wing, had great hooked claws on -them, and Snookie wondered what they could be for. He was altogether the -queerest looking small person the cubs had ever seen, as he swooped and -circled after moths and crickets and mosquitoes. - -Chinook made a leap to catch him and have a closer look, but quick as -was the little bear, the bat was quicker. He squeaked viciously, and -showed his teeth, which grated together warningly. - -“You little fiend!” laughed Chinook. “Are you really threatening to bite -us?” - -“I’ll certainly fight if I have to!” the eerie mite assured them in a -high-pitched squeak that they understood as plain as bear talk, and off -he darted to the limb of a tree, where hung his mate, head downward. - -The cubs followed curiously. It looked as if Mrs. Red Bat had simply -hung herself up by her thumbs, with her wings folded. “That’s one way of -taking a nap,” Chinook exclaimed, “Let’s try it!” - -“Oh, look!” cried Snookie, “she’s got four baby bats!” And sure enough, -there were the wee mites, having their supper and hanging from their -mother’s teats. - -They watched for a while. Just at dusk the mother bat flew off to get -her own supper, but though they had been watching closely, the cubs -could not see what she had done with her babies. There seemed to be no -nest, and though they climbed the tree to find out, there was not the -sign of a baby bat anywhere to be found. Then when the cubs had -forgotten all about it in the fun of chasing crickets, she suddenly -swooped so near that they could plainly see her. What was their -amazement to find that she still carried the four little bats clinging -to her teats! They must have been heavy youngsters, too; but her wings -were powerful, being so large for such a small body, and her devotion -seemed to be equal to that of any other mammal. - -That same June the Ranger and his Boy came, one day, upon a mother red -bat hanging head downward, asleep, with her little ones, with her thumbs -hooked in a low branch of a seedling yellow pine; but so still she hung, -and so like the tree trunk was her orange tint, that even in full -sunlight she might have escaped observation, had the Boy not been -uncommonly accustomed to using his eyes. Gently he reached out a hand -and lifted one of the baby bats from where it clung to its mother. It -was too sleepy to protest. Its wee face looked as grotesque as that of a -gnome the size of his thumb. - -“Dad, do you suppose I could tame it?” the Boy asked the Ranger. - -“It might die for need of its mother’s milk,” his father told him, “But -I once tamed a half-grown bat. They make gentle pets if you treat them -right, but if they consider it necessary to their safety, they can bite -ferociously. - -“Most of our bats migrate South about September. I have heard sailors -say that they sometimes fly hundreds of miles to reach the islands of -the tropics. - -“These red bats, and their cousins the big hoary bats, are clean enough; -but when I was down in Mexico I found a species that had the most -disagreeable musky odor. They used to collect literally by the hundreds -about old buildings and in church belfries and wherever they could find -a dark cranny to hide in, till they simply made it impossible for people -to come near. Those Mexican bats are the kind that live in eaves and -ruins—” - -“And in Hallowe’en pictures?” - -“I dare say! As they fly only in the dark, I suppose they need their -scent to help take the place of sight. They go with the Gila monsters -and rattle-snakes.” - -“What good are they, anyway?” wondered the Boy. - -“People used to think them just an unmitigated pest, those smelly -Mexican bats. But they do eat mosquitoes. I suppose they do their part, -down in the malarial districts, in helping to exterminate the malarial -mosquitoes. They certainly do devour incredible numbers of insects, so I -suppose they have their place in the scheme of things. - -“Be that as it may, we do have a bat, the big-eared desert bat, that is -known to help the farmer, and that deserves to be protected, just as -much as the insect-eating birds. But people generally kill them on -sight. These nice clean red bats, too, help to keep the Balance of -Nature. I have never killed one in my life.” - -The Boy’s eyes marvelled as he gently gave the wee bat to its sleeping -mother. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - THE SMUGGLER - - -The Ranger had been puzzled by strange footprints he had found on the -river bank. He had also been disturbed to learn that the lumbermen just -over the pass were getting liquor. The lumber boss complained that in -some mysterious way they were getting the forbidden stuff. There had -been several serious accidents in felling the great trees because the -men had been drinking. The Ranger suspected that there might be a -smuggler about who was bringing rum from some point alongshore up the -river, but he could find neither the man nor his cache. - -This summer the Ranger had his hands full, what with the danger of -forest fires, and a dozen other things. The Boy wished he might help. - -It fell to Chinook to play the instrument of destiny. Sniffing around -one day, he found a cave in the rocks above the river bank from which -issued the most enticing odor. It was like nothing he had ever whiffed -before. It smelled as if it might be good, and he meant to find it. - -A few days later the Ranger’s Boy, looking for human footprints along -the river bank, suddenly stopped to peer, for there—in an opening -between the trees—was the little bear performing the most amazing -antics. The strange part of it was that the usually alert cub didn’t -even notice that the Boy was there. - -He had a brown jug in his forepaws, and first he lay down flat on his -stomach and took a long drink, then, after spilling some of it on the -ground, he sat back, leaning against a stump with his legs straight out -in front, as he tipped the jug with both paws. (The Boy could scarcely -keep from laughing aloud, but he kept tight hold on himself, for he -wanted to see more.) - -When the jug seemed to have been emptied, the little bear attempted to -arise and walk on his hind feet, but to the Boy who had seen similar -human antics, it was plain that Chinook was intoxicated. He reeled from -side to side, barely able to keep his balance, and then he fell flat on -his back, still clinging to the jug, and, lying there with all fours in -the air, began hoisting it about with his hind feet. He would have made -a good circus clown, thought the Boy, for now he was turning -somersaults, and now he was on his hind legs circling around and around -with a joyous dancing step. It must have made him seasick, though we -will draw the veil. But it had given the Boy an idea. - -“Father!” he announced that night, “I’ll bet I know where the smuggler -keeps his stuff!” and he related what he had seen that afternoon. Sure -enough, they found a cave next day into which the rum had been smuggled, -and, lying in wait, a few days later, they caught the smuggler. But -Chinook never knew why, on his return trip to the cave of tantalizing -odors, the jugs were all smashed and their contents gone. - -[Illustration: He had the brown jug in his forepaws.] - -“Never mind,” he thought, chasing a pine cone. “I’ll bet I can find -another bee tree.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - DOUGLAS SQUIRREL HAS COMPANY - - -For several weeks the smell of wood smoke had come from the South. It -was that warning smoke that had kept the Ranger ready at a moment’s -notice from the fire lookouts to summon a hundred helpers from the -lumber camp to cut a fire trench, for in the drier woods of California -raged fearful forest fires. - -About that time the cubs began to notice that their woods were being -visited by a number of furred and feathered folk who did not belong -there. Foxes slunk along the shadows as if aware that they were in -unknown territory. A prickly porcupine family, a mother and four -children, came lumbering, fearless and unafraid in their protecting -spines. A black and white striped skunk and her five kittens came soon -after, leaving tiny bearlike footprints, and when one of the young foxes -would have pounced on the littlest kitten, the kitten turned its back -and raised its plumy tail, and stamped its feet angrily, and the mother -fox signalled for her son to run fast, or something terrible would -happen. The skunks also were completely unafraid. - -Birds flew in increasing numbers through the tree tops, a few deer came -feeding in a famished manner on the ferns and bracken, and any number of -brown little cottontails came gnawing hungrily at every bit of green -stuff they could reach without being caught. Douglas the squirrel -watched from his tree top in amazement. For it was the squirrels who -came in greatest numbers—gray squirrels and red squirrels and little -striped chipmunks. These fairly swarmed through the tree tops, while the -smoke yellowed the stifling air and the sun glowed red all day long. The -woods in which they had had their homes had burned, and while the wind -for the most part came from the sea and blew the smoke eastward, the -more experienced of the four-footed folk knew that the way to escape was -neither to go with the wind nor against it, but at right angles to the -march of the flames. - -Douglas, who had come to feel that he owned the woods around Mother -Brown Bear’s den, swore and scolded and barked insults at the refugees, -but it didn’t do him a particle of good. The best he could do was to -hold his own particular spruce tree from their onslaught. The rich, -nut-filled spruce cones and the great, heavy yellow pine cones on which -he had feasted fat all summer, and all the huge stores of these good -things that he had hidden in every hollow log and cranny of the -rocks—all these riches that would have lasted him for years if left -undisturbed were being appropriated by the starving hordes whose own -stores had been burned. - -If the cubs hadn’t been so fond of nuts themselves that they really -preferred them to squirrel meat, they would have had a great time that -summer, for some of the younger squirrels were not a bit cautious. - -“What are all you folks coming here for, anyway?” Douglas demanded, as -an old gray squirrel came running along his favorite limb. - -“For something to eat,” answered the old fellow wearily, cutting off a -spruce cone and turning it rapidly in his paws as he cut one scale after -another to lay bare the nut. “Personally, I mean to keep on till I find -a certain grove of lodgepole pines that I happen to know about.” - -“Why, are they better than these?” Douglas demanded impudently. - -“The nuts are no better, perhaps, but there are sure to be more of them. -I’ve traveled many a weary mile since my youth, for my family has been -driven by fire, or drouth and poor nut crops, to one grove after -another; but never yet have I known a lodgepole not to be full of nuts; -for if one year’s crop has failed, there are still the crops of past -years clinging to the branches. No, sir! I never knew a grove of -lodgepole pines where there weren’t nuts in abundance.” - -“Well, then, why didn’t you move into one long ago?” Douglas was still -rude. - -“Why don’t you move somewhere else yourself?” asked the old squirrel -patiently. - -“Because this is _my_ tree! These are _my_ woods! This is my _home_! My -family and friends all live right around here. What a question to ask! -Why should I move? Why should I go some place else?” he barked, his tail -jerking angrily at every phrase. - -“Don’t you see,” the old squirrel chittered mildly, “that _we_ love our -homes? Why, every last one of us had our own tree that no one else ever -dreamed of intruding upon, except to run through the branches when it -didn’t seem safe on the ground. Of course we never objected to anyone -running across our back yard if he had to. But no one ever dreamed of -touching our stores. Why, we knew every twig and knothole, and every -place a nut was hidden. I assure you we never would have left our homes -if we hadn’t been driven to it. But I can see your heart has never been -softened by trouble. You have had life too easy here.” But Douglas was -not listening. He had started down to fight and threaten and try to -drive a family of half-starved refugees from some stores he had thought -safely hidden along the under side of a log. Mrs. Douglas, ashamed of -her mate, stayed close to her nest, though she saw her pantries being -invaded. “I do hope Douglas won’t give them a wrong impression about our -family,” she told herself. - -Just then Chinook, the little brown bear, came along. “I’ll eat you -alive!” he challenged Douglas, and started merrily after him. By the -time Douglas had thrown his pursuer off the track and returned to the -scene, his stores had been raided by dozens of immigrant squirrels. - -“Now I’ll have to work hard all fall,” Douglas complained to any who -might listen, “to collect enough for winter.” - -“Why not?” called the old squirrel. “It isn’t the way of the woods to -corner more than you can eat. What right had you to those nuts, when -others were starving? No one will bother your cache if you keep it down -to a reasonable size, but beyond that, these woods are for all. If -anything, it is you red squirrels who do the stealing from us gray -squirrels,” - -What Douglas retorted wouldn’t be fit to print. - -“My!” chirped a young gray squirrel who had been down getting a quick -lunch. He had been following his more experienced fellow refugee for -miles. “I had the awfullest time crossing the open spaces! Did you ever -see so many hawks and owls in your life?” - -“That is why I always went around the long way where I could leap from -one tree to another,” said the old squirrel. “We didn’t cross half as -many open spaces as some of those young fellows who got caught.” - -“How ever did you know where to go?” marvelled the young squirrel. - -“Oh, I always have an eye out for a possible emergency, and every time I -go on a vacation ramble, I notice where there is good feeding, and then -I try to make a mental map of the region. You young fellows are more -agile, but you haven’t had our experience, all the same. Every summer, -when it gets to a time when everything is ripe and I can live off the -country, I go forest-cruising, and I don’t do it altogether for a good -time, either.” - -“That brown squirrel with the orange underneath, he’s a handsome -fellow,” ventured the young gray squirrel. - -“Douglas?” The old squirrel sniffed in disgust. “I much prefer that -fellow,” nodding to where a big Oregon chipmunk sat on a stump and gave -every passer-by a sociable “Chuck! Chuck!” He had only a few black -stripes to adorn the brown of his coat. - -“Why, he’s the plainest chipmunk I ever saw,” said the young gray -squirrel. “Not half as handsome as ours.” - -“All the same, I’ll wager he never has a grouch like the kind your -handsome Douglas has just been exhibiting. You certainly come to know -squirrel nature when a big calamity like this rubs off our surface -manners!” - -“You certainly do, sir,” agreed the young squirrel. “Here comes Douglas -back again.” - -“To jaw us, I suppose. If I weren’t so rheumatic, I’d lick him for his -impudence.” - -“I’ll lick him for you,” volunteered the young squirrel, and the last -thing Chinook saw, Douglas was being chased ferociously through the tree -tops. - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - WAPITI - - -That fall when Snookie and Chinook went camping, they first made their -way back to Lookout Peak, for a few days of coasting and chasing -pack-rats and “snowshoe rabbits,” then they took a ridge trail and -journeyed clear over into a mountain valley where grazed a herd of elk. - -These wapiti (American cousins of the European stag) were the largest -deer the cubs had ever seen, and one of them had the most ferocious -great wide antlers. - -“I’d hate to get that bull after me,” said Snookie. - -“Well, you can tell his head end from a long way off,” observed Chinook. - -“By the antlers?” - -“You can tell, when he’s too far away to see his horns.” - -“How?” - -“By his tail end. Don’t you see that big light-colored patch?” referring -to the rump spots they wore. - -“That’s right,” reflected Snookie. “Look at them trailing up through the -woods.” For as the wind shifted and carried the herd the scent of the -two bears, the wapiti had taken alarm. - -“I expect they can follow each other from a long way off,” reasoned -Snookie, “their tail ends show up so plainly.” Her mother had taught her -to look for the reason in everything. - -“There’s always a reason,” her brother agreed. “Whoof! There’s Cougar!” -Far away across the meadow they could see the giant cat creeping -sinuously like a gray-brown shadow against the dark green of the spruce -woods. Cougar had craftily come up with the wind in his nostrils, and he -could smell the elk when they could not get his scent. - -“He’ll never dare attack them,” thought Snookie, who had been chased and -wounded by a mule deer she had come too near at the rutting season. - -“He won’t dare come near the bull,” said Chinook. “But I’ll bet he’d -like to catch a young cow.” But though the two cubs waited, interested, -till after dark, Cougar still crouched in the forest fringe. As night -had fallen, nothing but the light rump patches showed where the herd was -gathering to go to sleep. The cubs were mystified when, every now and -then, one of these light patches would completely disappear, when in the -dusk they could see no more than if the great animals had been swallowed -by the earth. Then as suddenly, there they would be again, “I know,” -Chinook reasoned it out. “It must be when they turn around facing this -way that we can’t see the rump spots.” - -If they hadn’t still been a little afraid of Cougar, yearling cubs that -they were, they would have crept nearer to see what was going on over -there where, for aught they knew, the lion still crouched ready for a -spring. After awhile they gave it up. As an actual fact, Cougar too had -given it up, as the herd picked the very centre of the meadow in which -to sleep, and the antlered bull still kept watch over his harem. - -That night, after the stars came out, the cubs made their way to the -head of a river they had been following, and against the quaking aspen -that grew in the moist ground, they stretched as high as they could -reach, and clawed the bark to show how tall they were. Chinook was -slightly larger than his sister, though she fought so well that now she -could always hold her own in a scrap. Soon, he decided, he wouldn’t have -her tagging him everywhere he went. She was always so much more -cautious, so much less ready to take a chance. She took life too -seriously. By another year or so he’d be staking out his own range, -holding it against all comers, and perhaps finding a mate. He certainly -was getting to be a big bear. He wasn’t even sure if he were really -afraid of Cougar any more. Still, he’d be happier if only the great cat -would go away. When he thought of his long winter sleeps, he didn’t like -the idea of having such a neighbor to come up on him when he wasn’t -looking. Cougar was so quick and agile! - -Here in the boggy ground about the spring they caught a frog apiece, but -they were not really hungry, for all day they had been stuffing great -pawfuls of thimbleberries, elderberries, blackberries, dogwood seed and -even spiny wild gooseberries, to say nothing of several kinds of nuts -and roots, into their mouths. They had also had good luck with their -mousing. Their sides were getting fatter and fatter. They would be well -prepared for the winter cold. - -After a brief nap, they started on to another mountainside to see what -that was like. In these clear altitudes the stars were so many more than -they had been in the moist lower slopes, and so much more brilliant, -that they had no trouble whatever in finding their way. Down through the -head of a canyon, then up again they climbed, till by dawn they were -once more high above timberline. Where broken slide-rock led to the -snowbanks of the peaks, they began hearing a curious little noise -halfway between a bark and a bleat. It was like no sound the cubs had -ever heard before, and it was the hardest thing in the world to tell -where it came from. Now the nasal “Eh! Eh!” seemed to sound from under -their very feet, and they would begin digging gleefully. In another -minute it would sound from away off to the right or the left, or at any -rate it seemed to (the ruse was a bit of ventriloquism). To the cubs it -was most mysterious. - -When at last yellow dawn had streamed warmingly from peak to distant -peak, Chinook saw a small brown ball of fur the size of a half-grown -cottontail dart from the rock right before his eyes. As he had looked -off over the peaks, he must have glanced straight at the creature. But -it was hidden in the rock-slide before Chinook could get over his -surprise. In a few minutes it appeared on a rock higher up, but went -back into some tunnel before the cubs could get into action. Its ears -were too round for those of a bunny, though, and it had seemed to have -no tail at all. For it was a pika, a “little chief hare,” who makes hay -for its winter stores and lives alone on the highest peaks, buried under -feet of snow the better half of the year. It would make tender eating, -if only the cubs could catch it. - -Thereafter they spent several hours digging among the rocks, but always, -just as they thought they surely had it cornered, the pika would squeak -from some place else. Were there several pikas, or was it only one? They -did not know, but when they got too hungry, they gave it up to hunt for -something surer. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - COUGAR GOES COASTING - - -On the rock-slide there had been not so much as a spear of grass to eat, -and the cubs trod hungrily back to timber line. - -That day they spent chasing “snowshoe rabbits,” and the chase took them -back to the alpine meadow where they had watched the wapiti. There the -cubs took a nap beneath an upturned tree root, for now they loved to -sleep by day so that they could be out all night when there was so much -more going on in the woods about them. - -A weird screech sounded from the dark depths of the spruces. It was -Cougar! The cry came again. - -The great cat must have been trying hard to startle small game out of -its safe hiding, for, as the cubs drew nearer, they could hear the death -scream of a hare. All night Cougar hunted, while the cubs caught mice -and nibbled spruce nuts just to leeward of him. At times the lion crept -back to watch the wapiti, who again slept in a circle in the very centre -of the open space; but with the old bull on guard with his sharp antlers -Cougar kept his distance. - -That night brought the first snow of the season whirling over the high -country. The cubs noticed that the wapiti grazed restlessly that morning -through the melting whiteness. By and by they began to gather into line, -with the old bull at their head, and started off along a highway marked -by the hoofs and paws of countless travellers. The trail led over the -Pass into a lower valley. The cubs followed curiously, and as the wapiti -got their scent the whole herd began to run. - -Now Cougar, after having satisfied his appetite, had taken a cross-cut -to one of his haunts so as to keep his fur dry. It was a favorite haunt -because it directly overlooked all who came by on the trail from the -Pass. Just below, to the north, sloped a long snowbank left from the -winter. Stretched out in the noonday warmth of his overhanging rock -ledge, where the September sun had quickly melted off the snow, with -nothing but a twisted juniper to cut off his view, he snoozed with one -eye half open; and his pale brown coat matched the rock so perfectly -that it would have taken a sharp eye to see him. - -Suddenly his ears pricked to a sound from the Pass, and his yellow eyes -narrowed as through the snow-covered notch appeared the broad antlers -and massive head and shoulders of the approaching bull wapiti. At the -same time the wind brought him unmistakable evidence that the whole herd -was following, and he could hear the approaching clap of hoof-beats on -the run. - -Cougar’s muscles tensed as he drew his legs beneath him ready for a -spring. It was the chance he had been longing for. He would wait till -the old bull was safely past, and most of the cows were strung along the -narrow trail between the bull and himself. Then he would bring down his -meat. - -The cubs, lumbering along well to the rear of the herd, which had -occasionally kicked a stone from the zigzag trail, arrived at the Pass -just in time to see what happened. - -Cougar, flattened till his flat head seemed a part of the flat rock -itself, and even the alert old bull wouldn’t have noticed him, had he -looked at the overhanging ledge, waited till all the herd but one had -trailed on down the mountainside. As the last young wapiti came along, -Cougar leapt upon her back. The force of his spring knocked her down, -which was what he had intended. But one thing he had not planned for: -the new soft snow, covering the hard last winter’s yield, made his own -feet slip out from under him; and still gripping the wapiti, he slid -down, down, down the long snowbank, which as it grew steeper and steeper -finally sent him head over heels. The great cat hissed and yowled. He, -for one, was not fond of coasting. Fully thirty feet below he came to a -stop when he bumped into a tree trunk. - -The last the cubs saw of Cougar was the great cat disgustedly biting the -snowballs from between his toes. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - MOUNTAIN BEAVER - - -Above the moist, ferny floor of a densely shaded mountain slope of -almost tropic richness, the cubs had noticed a squirrel barking in an -alder thicket. - -As they approached to find out what he was barking at, their noses began -telling them that here was a whole colony of creatures they had never -smelled before. Soon they could see that the ground was a network of -their tiny trails, together with an occasional footprint that had been -left by the bobcat family. - -Not a movement was made above ground, but their sharp ears could detect -scufflings and scrapings from underneath their feet. At the end of a -fallen log Chinook found a dump of earth where a hole large enough for a -woodchuck gave off that same strange scent. Merrily he started digging. -Well, he dug and he dug and he dug! He was digging the roof from a -branching tunnel, his nose telling him at every turn which way his prey -was retreating. But still he dug and he dug. Several times he heard a -tiny growling, and a snapping of angry teeth, but for half an hour he -dug as fast as he could without once catching up with the fleeing -rodent. But that only made the little bear the more determined. - -Snookie, too, was digging, and he certainly didn’t mean to let her catch -one before he did. The tunnel dwellers smelled a bit like muskrats and a -bit like bunnies, but, had they only known it, they were mountain -beaver, a species like nothing else at all, but called beavers by the -Indians because of their soft fur. They look more like woodchucks than -anything else, because naturally all this digging had developed the most -powerful shoulder muscles. - -Well, that whole oozy slope was fairly honeycombed with branching -tunnels, and though the two cubs dug till they were tired, and no end -covered with mud, the creatures kept escaping through their connecting -runways. Somehow, it never occurred to the little bears to lie in wait -at their exit holes as a bobcat might have done. They were too -impatient. - -Then, two feet underground, Chinook came to a great round hole almost -large enough for him to have curled up in himself, and here indeed was a -feast for the pair of them; for though the anxious parents had long -since carried all the babies out of the nursery and dragged them to -safety by the backs of their necks, opening off the nursery chamber were -several clean, mud-plastered storerooms filled with fern roots, tender -twigs and juicy bits of bark. Snookie remembered that she had seen -several trees completely girdled by gnawing teeth. This, then, was the -reason why. - -After they had fed their fill, for a small sample of such hearty fare -went a long way with them, the cubs gave up the chase and climbed into a -tree where they could take a nap. When they awoke, the moon had risen. -Down on the ground beneath, where before had been no sign of any living -thing, now scampered mountain beaver by the dozen. Some of them were -sitting up squirrel-like and eating, with a root or stalk held in their -handlike paws. Others were carrying great bundles of green stuff in -their jaws and dropping it beside their doorways, with stems all laid -neatly side by side, as if to dry it out before storing it. Still others -were rapidly rebuilding their depleted tunnels. But though the cubs -promptly came down and tried to have more fun, again they had the same -baffling experience. They caught not one mountain beaver. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - THE BIG ’QUAKE - - -“How I wish Cougar would go somewhere else to make his home!” Chinook -kept wishing as November’s chill came on. “This looks like a hard -winter. My fur has come in lots thicker than last year, and the -squirrels have all laid in their winter stores earlier. I’ll bet you -anything, once we get to sleep, we won’t want to wake up till spring!” - -“And Cougar might get hungry before we woke,” Snookie caught his -thought. “I wonder! How I wonder if he really would have the courage to -attack us, now that we’re so big?” - -“He could sneak up on us while we slept, and he’d just about have us at -his mercy,” her brother pointed out. “I find I can’t possibly squeeze -into that hole I slept in last year. But if Cougar doesn’t mind bringing -down wapiti, how do we know he wouldn’t tackle yearling cub?” - -For all that, Snookie and Chinook soon found themselves getting so -drowsy that they just couldn’t keep awake much longer, Cougar or no -Cougar. One feels that way when one hibernates. They had found -themselves a rock den apiece near where their mother lived, and already -the snow had covered her doorway, and they wouldn’t have known she was -there but for the steaming breath that melted a yellowed hole in the -white. - -“Confound that Cougar!” growled Chinook. “Why doesn’t something dreadful -happen to him?” - -He was startled out of his first delicious snooze, a few weeks later, by -feeling the rocks tremble. A low sound like distant thunder, yet that -was not thunder, sounded, seemingly from deep underground. - -“It’s another earthquake,” he told himself, as a second trembling set -the smaller rocks to sliding down the gulch. Instantly some advice his -mother had once given him brought him wide awake with a snap. The rock -den was not safe! He must make for the open! - -Snookie too remembered, and the two cubs raced up the gulch to an open -space where the great trees were still quivering. “Is it all over?” -whimpered Snookie, for she still felt that dizzying sidewise motion -beneath her feet. - -It was not all over, for this was a big ’quake such as only comes in -years. A shake heavier than before sent the rock-slide of their gulch -shooting down among the fallen logs. Larger rock-slides thundered down -the mountainsides. Mother Brown Bear and the little sister and brothers -of that summer’s raising went racing from their dens, the youngsters too -scared to know which way to turn, for it was their first earthquake. One -took to a tall tree, and clung there while it swayed. One started down -along the rock-slide, and when, later, they found him, he lay there half -buried, cut and bleeding, and glad to pull through alive. - -One of the new cubs ran out on the fallen logs, and was half buried -beneath chips and branches as the whole structure shifted, then she -struggled free and wisely climbed a sapling. Mother Brown Bear herself -ran out into the middle of another open space. - -It all took place in a good deal less time than it takes to tell it. - -Then came a jerk that fairly took Chinook’s feet from under him, and -with a louder subterranean growling the Big ’Quake came. Dead trees came -crashing down, huge boulders pounded down the mountainsides and shook -the ground anew, and a slab of canyon wall was jolted loose along a -fault line and went splashing into the roiling river. Then came hail in -great, driving sheets, and it was over. The cubs ducked to shelter as -the icy pellets struck about their ears. There was an overhanging rock -ledge that had withstood the wild confusion. - -When they peeked to see what had happened, they found a great crack, as -deep as a sapling pine and so wide they wouldn’t have ventured to leap -across, where before had been level earth. It was an altered landscape -in which they found themselves. - -Then a comic sight struck their eyes. It was Cougar, whose den must have -been shaken to pieces in all this tumult. The great cat was racing along -with his tail tucked trembling between his legs, and his ears laid flat -against the hail, while, to judge from the way his body hugged the -earth, he was too terrified to stand. His nose was pointed down canyon -towards the Coast, and at the rate he was speeding, Chinook thought it -would be safe to count on his never coming back. As his own fright -dissolved at the feel of the earth once more firm beneath his feet, -Chinook’s little black eyes began to twinkle. His wish had come true. - - THE END - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Chinook, the Cinnamon Cub, by Allen Chaffee - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHINOOK, THE CINNAMON CUB *** - -***** This file should be named 61888-0.txt or 61888-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/8/8/61888/ - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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