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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77766 ***
+
+
+
+
+                                 _The_
+                               WILD HEART
+
+
+                                  _By
+                          Emma-Lindsay Squier_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                        WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
+                          GENE STRATTON-PORTER
+
+                   _Illustrations and Decorations by_
+                              PAUL BRANSOM
+
+                     Cosmopolitan Book Corporation
+                        NEW YORK        MCMXXII
+
+
+                 _Copyright, 1922, by Cosmopolitan Book
+                    Corporation, New York. All rights
+                 reserved, including that of translation
+                  into foreign languages, including the
+                              Scandinavian_
+
+
+                  _First printing_       _March, 1922_
+                  _Second printing_      _April, 1922_
+
+
+                _Printed in the United States of America_
+
+
+                              DEDICATED TO
+
+                              _BASIL KING_
+
+               WITH DEEPEST GRATITUDE FOR THE INSPIRATION
+               AND ENCOURAGEMENT THROUGH WHICH THE WILD
+               HEART STORIES FOUND WRITTEN EXPRESSION,
+               AND FOR THE TITLE OF THE SERIES WHICH THUS
+               CAME INTO BEING.
+
+
+
+
+                    THE ILLUSTRATIONS _and_ CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+ Skygak discovered that catching mice was
+   Three-Spot’s chief vocation                               SKYGAK   12
+ He circled slowly above our heads                                    32
+ U-Chu-Ka never failed to answer our call                  U-CHU-KA   34
+ For the dogs had lost the lighter scent                  SANCTUARY   47
+ He questioningly sniffed the breeze                THE FAERY NIGHT   66
+ Cannon came charging in a whirlwind of         THE FRIENDSHIP THAT
+   feathers                                                  FAILED   82
+ His constant barking set the grown-ups
+   against him                                           STOP THIEF  101
+ If Clarence had been a man, he would have
+   endowed orphanages                                       O’HENRY  124
+ Timothy clung to the bottle habit          TIMOTHY, THE DIRTY BEAR  145
+ Sometimes the bandit birds swooped down            THE BANDIT BIRD  168
+ Her nostrils dilated at the hated human
+   scent                                     MY FRIEND THE PRINCESS  189
+ A wild thing of the deep woods, ruled by
+   pain instead of kindliness                                 ETHEL  208
+
+
+
+
+                            AN INTRODUCTION
+                   _Which might better be entitled_:
+                 Some Youngsters Find the Wrong Parents
+
+                                  _By_
+
+                          Gene Stratton-Porter
+
+
+Since “The Wild Heart” is throbbing with the same blood that pulses in
+the heart of every human being who goes to the fields and woods and
+fraternizes with the creatures that home there, since the feet that
+carry a wild heart on its journey are following the same path that a few
+peculiar feet have made, what they have found and what the heart has
+learned is the same thing that similar feet have been finding and hearts
+have been learning since the beginning of time.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The author of this book pronounces it “very simple, having no literary
+style or value.” Perhaps this estimate indicates modesty on her part,
+but it is not the truth concerning the book. Thoreau once wrote: “It
+takes two to speak the truth—one to speak and the other to hear.” Those
+of us who have made our own path through the wilds know the truth when
+we hear it. The first law that can be laid down concerning any work
+worthy to be put into the hands of the public is the old law that every
+writer should write concerning matters of his own personal observation.
+Whenever any writer follows this old rule, working with sincerity of
+heart, with inborn insight concerning his chosen subject, following the
+promptings of a simple human heart, and using a certain facility in the
+choice of words, which is a gift of God primarily, that author must
+evolve good work. Laying down these specifications as law which governs
+every masterpiece that ever has been produced, it will be observed that
+“The Wild Heart” follows them as naturally as water flows to the sea,
+possibly as unconsciously.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+To anyone who knows the fields and woods the book carries the conviction
+of truth. Those who do not know nature will not believe many of these
+statements, because they have not learned that when one goes into the
+haunts of the wild calmly, fearlessly, absolutely in tune with Nature,
+one is perfectly safe. The people who go to fraternize with the free
+creatures, to learn the secrets of Nature, to protect, to love, to
+fellowship with the wild, wear an invincible armor.
+
+Enos Mills will tell you that he tramps the Rocky Mountains for weeks at
+a time absolutely without a weapon. Arthur Heming will tell you that he
+travels Canada from side to side, north and south, passing all kinds of
+wild creatures at all seasons and under any conditions, and nothing
+touches him.
+
+I can tell you that my face has been within two feet of a coiled
+rattlesnake ready to strike, but it did not strike. Two minutes later a
+man antagonistic to the wild passed the same location and immediately
+the snake disclosed itself and was ready to fight.
+
+Very recently some children playing at the edge of the desert found a
+scorpion. They coaxed it onto a piece of bark and were carrying it
+around playing with it. So long as they felt no fear of the creature, it
+was quiescent in their hands. The instant they carried it among grown
+people who recognized it and were afraid, the trouble began. When the
+wild thing entered the atmosphere of fear and was surrounded by the
+taint of that acid which is exhaled from the body of any human being
+experiencing fear, that instant it was on guard and ready to strike.
+
+Any human being carrying in his breast a wild heart knows instinctively
+how to fraternize with the wild. Anyone carrying a heart of fear and
+antagonism will have a troubled journey through forest or desert. The
+writer of this book proves that she carries a wild heart in her breast.
+Her records are unquestionably true. They are precisely the same things
+that happen to anyone having a heart in tune with Nature.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So the book passes, first, because it speaks the truth. It needs only
+that these records should be read to gain an idea of the degree of
+insight possessed by the writer. The nice comprehension of what the wild
+is thinking and feeling, the keen perception of the “why” of things,
+pass the book on the grounds of insight. The simple unassuming manner in
+which the record is kept proves it the emanation of a human heart
+without guile, effervescing love, not only for the beauties of field and
+forest, but for the living creatures that home there.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is modest of the writer to say that her book has “no literary style
+or value,” but the book proves the reverse. Throughout will be found the
+value of truth, the exquisite style of utter simplicity, the best plain
+common word chosen to tell the plain common story; and it is a very
+difficult thing always to find the right words with which to tell any
+story. There are only about twenty thousand words in the English
+language. When you compare this number with the number of objects
+existing in the world, the number of ideas that have sprung and will
+spring in the human brain, it easily can be appreciated that it is
+sometimes difficult to find the right word by which to express one’s
+meaning clearly and simply; for there always is one word which, better
+than any other, will portray a situation or describe an object.
+
+Any author who is actuated by sincerity will always choose the plain
+simple word which expresses his meaning plainly and simply. The one
+thing that sets apart the work of any writer is the ability to express
+himself in plain simple language that common people can understand and
+appreciate. It was on this subject that Martin Luther once said:
+“Hebrew, Latin, and Greek I spare until we learned ones come together,
+and then we make it so curled and finical that God Himself wondereth at
+us.”
+
+That is precisely the reason why nine-tenths of the Nature books written
+in this country have been failures. They are “so curled and finical”
+that only the “learned ones” can understand what they are all about.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+To me it is an atrocity to tag a bird, a butterfly, or a flower with
+several inches of Latin or Greek per each. Every living creature should
+have a common, simple, descriptive name that a common human being who
+wants to know what it is can learn and remember. I do truly believe
+“that God Himself wondereth at us” if He takes the time to look at many
+of the books to be found in our libraries concerning the most exquisite
+and beautiful of His creatures.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I believe that any normal man or woman would be intensely interested in
+the organism of a moth, the delicate parts so beautifully evolved to
+serve their purpose; but what common person could wade through a large
+volume crammed from end to end with such terms as _patagia_, _jugum_,
+_discocellulars_, _phagocytes_? It is such works on Nature that have
+kept the Nature lovers of many generations out of the fields and woods.
+They had not the education, the time, nor the inclination to be
+sufficiently “curled and finical” to be specific. They could take no one
+specimen and learn it, because they could not identify it. In a book
+such as “The Wild Heart” there is no word that a ten-year-old child can
+not comprehend; while there is a wonderful beauty and facility in the
+choice of words, in the sincerity of expression, and the sympathetic
+insight.
+
+I certainly wish that a copy of this book may go into every home in the
+world, for two reasons: the first, that men and women may learn how
+anyone with a sympathetic heart devoid of fear may fraternize with the
+wild; and for the other very excellent reason that it may do something
+toward teaching parents that all children are not alike and can not
+possibly be run through the same groove.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Here and there in a family there is born a child with a wild heart. It
+is nothing less than a tragedy when such a child is cursed with the
+wrong parents. God gives to only a few of His children a wild heart, a
+musical ear, facile fingers. The man or woman who keeps a child born
+with the love of the woods in its heart from contact with Nature, who
+destroys the trust that God placed in its heart, and instils fear bred
+by man, does a dreadful thing, a thing that must end in disaster. Nature
+does not reveal her secrets to everyone. Creatures of the wild will not
+be brothers with any save a very few specially endowed human beings.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Today my heart sickens at the thought of what would have happened to me
+if, when I told my Mother I had been talking with the fairies and what
+they said and did, she had whipped me for not speaking the truth; if,
+when I came from the woods with my apron torn and soiled, full of dirty
+specimens, my heart overflowing with the wonders of my discoveries, I
+had been beaten and forbidden to go again. If we are to have truly great
+art, literature, or science in the future, many, perhaps most, of those
+who are to do the work will be born into this world in simple common
+homes like the Indiana homes in which the author of “The Wild Heart” and
+I were born. What we as a nation produce in wonder-work along any
+creative line in the future is going to depend upon the ability of
+parents of this generation to recognize and to foster unusual gifts in
+their children when they first detect them. The mother who whips a child
+because it happens to have been born with a wild heart does a thing so
+wickedly cruel that there are no words in which to describe the
+situation adequately. If this book will serve the one purpose of making
+fathers and mothers of the coming generation sympathetic and kindly to
+the little wild hearts that they bring into the world, it will perform a
+very great work indeed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                               _Part One_
+                             _The Story of_
+                                 SKYGAK
+                          AN OLD-MAN SEA-GULL
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+ _Skygak discovered that catching mice was Three-Spot’s chief vocation,
+                     and he made her life a burden._
+
+
+Skygak was an old-man sea-gull. He had circled and screamed over the
+waters of Puget Sound for many a season, and it is doubtful if there is
+anything in aërial lore that he did not know. He was an expert at
+fishing, and could swoop down on an unsuspecting smelt from a dizzy
+height and have the shiny fish down his gullet without so much as
+touching his webbed feet to the water’s surface. He could snatch up a
+sidling red crab before it could seek the shelter of a rock, and drop it
+neatly and accurately on a stone, to dart down upon the mangled remains
+before the juicy meal could be purloined by any of his kindred.
+
+He knew when storms were coming, and sometimes, when the skies were
+clearest and the sun warmest, he would spiral up to a great height and
+scream in long, quavering cadences that grew louder as the rain and wind
+approached. Then the Siwash clam-diggers on the beach would gather up
+their bags and shovels and bid their women see to brushwood, for they
+knew the cry of the sea-gull when the Storm-God rides. They respected
+the gray gull’s warning.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We were children on the shores of Puget Sound, Brother and I. From our
+little log cabin, with its porch roof slanting low like an old-fashioned
+pokebonnet, we would watch the sea-gulls circle in the sky or bob lazily
+on the blue waters of the bay like so many feathered corks.
+
+We knew Skygak among the other gulls, for one wing was white, the other
+gray. So when we saw him, we named him by a queer, fanciful name that
+seemed to fit a bird of air and water. And because the boat landing in
+front of the cabin furnished a resting place for webbed feet on sunshiny
+days, Skygak made it his headquarters, and we came to look for him and
+to be fond of him.
+
+When we sailed in the tiny twelve-foot boat with its home-made
+leg-o’-mutton sail or paddled in the dugout canoe made for us by a
+Siwash Indian chief, we looked for Skygak in every flock of sea-gulls
+that passed us, and it was our superstition, made on the spur of the
+moment, as children’s fancies are, that if he flew over us we would have
+good luck, and that a wish made on the instant would come true.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But we never dreamed that Skygak of the air lanes would one day be an
+intimate friend of ours, for we had been told by sailor and Indian
+alike—and who knows more of seafaring birds than they?—that sea-gulls
+could not be tamed. The Siwash chief who had given us our dugout canoe
+knew the habits of the winged scavengers and loved them. Perhaps the
+primitive heart of him, held in leash by the white man’s civilization,
+was tuned to the wild, untamed heart of the gulls, for they flocked
+around his beach shanty unafraid, and ate the scraps of clams he flung
+to them; but he had never touched one of the gray brethren.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And so it happened, on a day of mists and clouds, that Skygak came into
+our lives as something more than a gray-and-white winged bird whose
+passage above our boat would make a wish come true.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was a day typical of autumn in the Sound country. Gray rain pattered
+ceaselessly into gray waters that stretched away to meet a leaden
+horizon, and low-hanging clouds swirled restlessly with every gust of
+wind. But the smell of wet pines was in the air; the grass was green and
+glistening with iridescent beads. It was a day when the out-of-doors
+called the hardy one to don overshoes, raincoat, and sou’wester hat and
+fare forth to breathe the wet fragrance of woods and field, to feel the
+soft rain on uplifted face, and to listen for the storm cry of the gulls
+circling against the sky.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Brother and I, clad against the rain, stood in wonder at the shore end
+of the float. For there on the far end was Skygak, a miserable, dripping
+figure hunched dejectedly on the wet planking. His once sleek wings hung
+limply at his sides, his feathers were draggled and unkempt, his head
+was hanging miserably as if the light but steady drizzle were torment to
+him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Above him soared and circled his kindred of the sky, wondering, no
+doubt, what was wrong, for now and again one of them would turn in a
+half-circle, spinning on the tip of one great wing, and scream sharply,
+as if in invitation to Skygak to join the airy tribe. And the old-man
+sea-gull would turn one eye up to the birds above him and give vent to a
+plaintive, longing cry. His draggled wings would flap in the rain as if
+sheer force of will must bear him upward, then relax hopelessly as if
+the effort made him more miserable.
+
+We watched and speculated, Brother and I, for never had we seen a gull
+in such a plight. We saw that he was denied the water, too, for he would
+stalk, with the wobbly, swinging motion of a web-foot tribe, to the edge
+of the float, crane his neck as if about to launch himself upon the
+rain-beaten waves, and then retreat to the middle of the wharf once
+more. A gull who could neither fly nor swim! What had happened?
+
+We took the problem to the Siwash chief a mile up the beach, mending a
+fish-net in his warm and smoky shanty. He listened impassively, yet with
+interest. And he returned with us to the float to diagnose the gull’s
+ailment.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When he saw Skygak, he grunted briefly but sympathetically. The bird had
+been caught in the swell behind a large boat—a battle-ship,
+probably—when it was discharging oil, he told us. It was not an uncommon
+thing, he said. The gull’s feathers were soaked with the heavy oil, and
+until it had evaporated, or until new feathers should grow, Skygak would
+be helpless both in the air and in the sea, and since he could not
+provide food for himself he would starve to death.
+
+So spoke the Siwash chief, but his philosophy was not ours. We told each
+other that Skygak should not die, and we called to the wet, miserable
+gull that we would take care of him, but he did not even raise his head.
+
+What should we feed him? We had neither clams nor fish, and we were
+afraid to go too near him, lest he mistake our friendly intentions and
+take to the water in self-defense, to be weighted down by his oil-soaked
+feathers.
+
+With the permission of our always sympathetic mother we salvaged cookies
+from the jar behind the kitchen stove. We took cold griddle cakes, too,
+and scraps of meat and bread. And with these dainties we set about the
+task of winning the gray gull’s confidence and of saving him from the
+misfortune which had overtaken him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Carefully and very quietly we went down the float, as near as we could
+approach without Skygak’s taking alarm. When he showed signs of
+restlessness, we advanced no further, but put a chunk of meat upon the
+planks and withdrew to watch and wait.
+
+The gull, at first indifferent to everything but his unexplainable
+plight, gradually felt hunger’s urge, and his long neck craned toward
+our offering of food. Slowly he waddled toward it, a grotesque gray
+bundle of draggled feathers, and with one vigorous gulp the meat
+disappeared.
+
+Then we tossed him a chunk of bread softened with water, and this time
+Skygak did not hesitate. The first morsel had aroused an appetite which
+for the time being supplanted misery. He stalked forward and swallowed
+the food, turning on us the broadside of one black eye, as if asking for
+more.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Nor did we refuse him. We tossed him, piece by piece, the food we had
+brought with us, and returned to the pantry for more. Always we placed
+the bread or meat a little nearer the shore and the cabin, and Skygak
+followed the morsels anxiously, greedily, satisfying a hunger which must
+have been of long and painful duration.
+
+Early dusk was upon us when we finally succeeded in tolling the gray
+gull through the front yard into the chicken run, and into an unused
+brooder house which offered a shelter against the rainy night.
+
+The lamps were lighted in the little log cabin when we completed our
+self-appointed task of making Skygak comfortable, and our only regret
+was that we could not give our friend a blanket. We feared he would not
+understand.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+That was the beginning of a threesided friendship. The first few days of
+Skygak’s convalescence were spent in huddled misery, and he moved only
+when Brother or I came into the brooder house with food and water. Then
+the rain ceased, Indian summer came smilingly upon the Sound country,
+and when the sun shone warmly, Skygak decided that life was not all a
+haze of gloom, and he set about vigorously to restore himself to a
+normal condition. Hour after hour he pulled and massaged his feathers
+until some of the heavy oil was loosened. The sunshine helped to dry his
+draggled plumage, new feathers commenced to grow, and little by little
+Skygak became his old cocky self.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+His affection for Brother and me was as apparent as was his dislike for
+all other members of the human race. The grown-ups he would not trust,
+and passers-by annoyed and alarmed him. But he would follow us about
+wherever we went, stalking along behind us with grotesque dignity, and
+when invited, would fly up on my shoulder or on Brother’s to receive
+bits of food from our fingers and to snap playfully at us with his
+great, powerful bill when we pretended to box with him.
+
+The liberty of the ranch was his, but his favorite spot was a corner of
+the front porch where he would sit for hours in solemn contemplation of
+the bay in front. People who went by on the trail looked in wonder at
+the gray gull apparently very much at home in a little log cabin.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Soon he learned to eat with the chickens, and when the bran mash was
+spread for them in a long, wooden trough, Skygak would be there before
+the bucket was emptied. Then, as the hens came flocking around, the gull
+would spread his magnificent wings, open his huge beak to its widest
+extent, and scream shrilly and fiercely, laying about him with his
+yellow beak like a warrior swinging a deadly sword. The startled
+poultry, unused to this changeling of the sea and sky, would scurry away
+with distressed and frightened cackles, and Skygak would eat his fill at
+the trough, pausing occasionally to administer punishment to any daring
+cockerel who ventured too near. Many a bunch of feathers have I seen
+hanging from his bill, like a scalplock hung from the belt of an Indian
+brave, mute witness to a battle of brief but bloody duration.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Our animals soon learned that this wandering guest was to be respected.
+Tinker, the rat terrier, learned to his cost that Skygak was not a hen
+to be chased from the front porch, if he chose to stay there.
+
+Between our cat, Three-Spot, and the gull, a bitter feud developed,
+which had for its beginning such a small thing as a mouse. One had been
+killed in a trap, and Brother tendered it to Skygak as an experiment.
+The delicacy was new, but wholly acceptable, and with one ecstatic snap
+of his beak Skygak swallowed it, and afterward, as Brother averred,
+fairly licked his chops. Three-Spot sulked and gloomed because of the
+slight, but her cup of woe was not full.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+For in some mysterious manner, Skygak discovered that catching mice was
+Three-Spot’s chief vocation, and he made her life a burden. One morning
+we heard an outraged yowl from the cat and an answering scream from
+Skygak. On the back porch we found the two, Three-Spot crouched over a
+dead mouse, eyes gleaming dangerously, tail switching from side to side,
+and every hair erect. The bird was advancing cautiously, but
+relentlessly, wings outspread, beak wide open, screaming and snapping at
+every step. Three-Spot did not lack courage, but her experience had not
+included juggernaut gulls, and when the terrifying yellow beak was hard
+upon her, she fled, spitting venomously, and Skygak, like a disreputable
+robber chief, swallowed her hard-earned prize in one mouthful.
+
+From that time, when he was not following Brother and me, or dozing on
+the front porch, or bullying the hens, he was trailing Three-Spot about,
+a relentless gray shadow, and if the luckless cat succeeded in keeping
+for herself one mouse that she caught, it was when Skygak was asleep in
+the brooder house.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Slowly but surely the old-man sea-gull recovered from his affliction.
+Some of the oil-soaked feathers dropped out, and new ones took their
+place, and he risked short flights from time to time, cautiously at
+first, as if not sure of his powers, and then with increasing
+confidence. He ventured out into the water with perfect ease, and we
+knew it would be but a short time before he had completely regained his
+health.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When first he flew we were afraid we had lost him, but he returned at
+night-time, hungry and eager to be taken up on my shoulder. After that,
+when he flew, it was to come back to us as naturally as if we, and not
+the sea-gulls, were his kindred.
+
+But there came a day when a feeling of restlessness was in the air.
+Brother and I, attuned to the moods of the woods and of out-of-door
+things, felt it keenly, and we were not surprised when we saw overhead
+the V formation of the wild geese flying southward.
+
+Then the sea-gulls commenced to scream in short, sharp cadences, and a
+flock of the gray-and-white birds flew overhead, rising higher and
+higher as is the habit of the gray ones when the migrating call comes.
+
+Skygak heard the call—that we could not doubt—for he was restless and
+would stretch himself on tiptoe, flapping his wings, turning his head up
+to the sky where a gray cloud of birds were flying. Then he would
+scream—short, broken cries as if torn by indecision. He loved us, we
+knew, but he was of the air lanes; the gray gulls were his kindred.
+Sooner or later he must go with them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+His flights grew longer, and once we did not see him for three days.
+Even when he was with us, he was ill at ease. The wild heart of him was
+longing for the untrammeled freedom of the winds and the sea, and gaunt
+cliffs untouched by foot of man. He forgot to box with us; he no longer
+bullied the poultry yard; he even neglected to watch for Three-Spot’s
+trophies of the hunt.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And then he went away. A week passed, and we mourned him bitterly. It
+was not so much his going—we knew we must expect that—but we had wanted
+to tell him good-by when he left, to wave our hands to him and wish him
+Godspeed, to watch him until he was only a speck in the sky. The Siwash
+chief said Skygak would never come back—but he did, once more.
+
+It was on a day of crystal clearness, when the clouds were like tiny
+white boats in the sky. We stood in the yard, hand in hand, watching the
+wild geese pass overhead and the flocks of sea-gulls flying high above
+them. From the west came a gray cloud of the seabirds, with one gull
+flying far in the lead. And as we watched, the leader left the flock of
+winging gulls and, like a falling star, swooped down upon us, spiraling
+lower and lower. We held our breath as we watched, for somehow, we knew,
+we knew—
+
+A flash of one white wing showed clearly. I tried to speak, but no words
+came. Closer and closer came the bird, Skygak, our old-man sea-gull, and
+when he was no higher than the roof of the house, he circled slowly
+above our heads. Then he screamed twice—long, plaintive cries that we
+knew meant farewell.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We were crying, but we waved our hands to him and called, “Good-by,
+good-by!” And slowly he rose once more, the white of one white wing
+melting into gray. Higher and higher he winged, to take his place at the
+head of the flock.... He was just a speck against the sky, and still we
+called our farewells to him in words choked with tears—the specks
+vanished into cloudy distance—Skygak had gone forever.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _He circled slowly above our heads_
+]
+
+But it was not without a thought of us. We shall always believe that he
+halted the winged caravan to tell us good-by—and the Siwash chief
+believes it, too.
+
+
+
+
+                             _Introducing_
+                                U-CHU-KA
+                               THE JUMPER
+
+
+
+
+                               _Part Two_
+                                U-CHU-KA
+
+
+Upon the Hill Trail, which Brother and I called ours because we loved it
+so, you may yet see a little clearing made in the midst of red
+huckleberry bushes, Oregon grape, and dark green salal shrubs. As long
+as we lived in the little cabin by the bay, we never allowed underbrush
+to creep into this spot on the Hill Trail, for it was sacred to the
+memory of U-Chu-Ka, the only monument we could give him.
+
+U-Chu-Ka was a tiny rabbit—a “jack-rabbit,” I suppose natural historians
+would have called him. But we gave him the name that in the Chinook
+language means “the jumper,” and we never called him anything else.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                               _Part Two_
+                                U-CHU-KA
+                               THE JUMPER
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _He never failed to
+  answer our call_
+]
+
+
+I remember the day we first saw him—a wee baby rabbit he was, escaped
+somehow from his mother’s vigilance, and so much interested in the big
+world outside the burrow where he had spent his short life that he
+hardly knew whether to be afraid of us or merely curious. In such a case
+he no doubt remembered his mother’s warning, for he “froze.” By this I
+mean that he remained rigid, the tan of his fur blending with the
+mottled greenery and the brown tones of the forest undergrowth. But
+Brother and I could “freeze” too, having learned the art from the woods
+creatures whom we knew and loved. So we stood perfectly still, and then
+it was a case of seeing who could hold out the longer.
+
+It was U-Chu-Ka who finally capitulated in the battle of freezing. His
+curiosity became greater than his fear, and he sat up on his haunches,
+his tiny forefeet held primly over his stomach, his ears—much too long
+for him—tilted questioningly in our direction, and his black dot of a
+nose twitching ceaselessly.
+
+We were, I am sure, the first human beings U-Chu-Ka had seen, and
+although behind him were countless rabbit traditions as to what fearful
+creatures humans were, U-Chu-Ka, being so young, was possessed of
+optimism and confidence. Brother and I were so happy when the little
+fellow with his soft brown eyes decided that we were friends to be
+trusted! Oh, if we had only realized that there were other people not so
+friendly to little brown rabbits, whom U-Chu-Ka might have the
+misfortune to meet!
+
+But we never thought of that. Our one realization was that here was a
+new woods friend, and we set ourselves to the task of winning his heart.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was not hard. Indeed, when I think of it now, it seems so pitifully
+easy. And I wonder, if every one knew just how easy it was, if men would
+carry sticks that shoot flame and death into the domain of the woods
+creatures—if they would not carry apples instead.
+
+It was an apple that first won U-Chu-Ka’s heart. Brother had one, of
+course, and we nibbled bites off and placed the juicy morsels on the
+trail in front of us. Then, walking quietly backward, we waited at a
+safe distance for the wind to carry the delectable apple fragrance to
+U-Chu-Ka’s wiggling nose.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Nor was it long before one satiny ear—so fragile that it was almost
+transparent—drooped and then rose again. The twitching nose worked
+harder; U-Chu-Ka sat up straighter than ever; and then, with funny
+little hops, he came toward us, hesitating occasionally, once pausing to
+sit up on his haunches as if asking himself if he were doing the right
+thing in approaching thus boldly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Finally he came to the bits of apple and promptly forgot his fear in his
+delight at the unknown dainty. By the time he had eaten the few morsels
+we had spread out for him, we had others ready, this time only at arm’s
+length.
+
+Later we proffered bits of the fruit in our hands, held very steadily so
+that no jerking should alarm the little brown rabbit. At first he was
+undecided whether to accept the morsels so close to the big human
+creatures, but something, I am sure, told him that there was no harm in
+us. In the end he hopped over to my outstretched hand and nibbled
+daintily at the apple, while I held my arm so still it ached.
+
+What Mother Rabbit would have said of the way we stuffed U-Chu-Ka, that
+day, I do not know, but I am sure she would not have approved. We fed
+him until his small stomach was round as a ball. When the apple diet
+seemed to pall, we gathered tender blades of grass, and very soon the
+little brown one would not take alarm at our movements, but would watch
+us with solemn baby dignity, sitting up on his haunches or squatting in
+a round ball, his tiny ears laid over his back—a sure sign that he was
+no longer nervous.
+
+How we hated to leave him that day! We didn’t take him down the hill and
+make him a home by the log cabin, for we had no wish to frighten him,
+and as for foraging for himself in the woods, we were sure U-Chu-Ka knew
+how to go about it. So we left him at the bend of the trail where we had
+first seen him. We called it U-Chu-Ka’s corner, and we left the core of
+the apple for him to nibble on after we had gone.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next afternoon about the same time—for the woods creatures are apt
+to do certain things at certain hours—we came up the Hill Trail,
+whistling, and were almost at U-Chu-Ka’s corner before it occurred to us
+that the sound might frighten him away if he were still in that
+neighborhood. But curiosity is a rabbit’s strongest trait, and suddenly
+there he was, hopping out of the underbrush into the little clearing as
+if in response to our call—indeed as if he had been waiting.
+
+We had brought offerings of lettuce and cabbage leaves, and this time it
+was not half so long before U-Chu-Ka would eat from our hands and permit
+us to fondle his velvet softness.
+
+We came every day after that, always whistling, with choicest tidbits
+for our little friend. He would come into his “corner” hopping out from
+the greenery like a tiny puffball, sit up very primly, ears tilted, his
+nose wiggling, until he was sure it was his friends. Then down the trail
+toward us he would bound, with such long hops that his hind feet seemed
+to go above his head. Oh, U-Chu-Ka, little brown one, if we only had not
+taught you to have confidence in humans—to come unafraid when we
+whistled!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+As the summer went by, U-Chu-Ka grew and grew. From a baby rabbit he
+became a half-grown rabbit, and we realized that before long he would be
+a very large rabbit indeed. But he never failed to answer our call, and
+through the long summer afternoons we would play upon the hill, the
+three of us. We played house, U-Chu-Ka submitting without protest to
+being dressed in a doll’s frock, with a tiny hat tying back his ears. He
+was our child, and we rocked him to sleep, sent him to school,
+disciplined him at times, and pretended that he talked to us. If I could
+only give you a picture of U-Chu-Ka, half-grown now, in a blue gingham
+doll dress, his brown paws stuck through the short sleeves, his white
+knob of a tail flashing impudently from behind when he hopped about, and
+his soft brown eyes grotesquely large under the white hat tied under his
+chin!
+
+And then, one day—it is a day I do not like to think of—we decided that
+U-Chu-Ka should have a birthday party. So we took cookies, apples, and
+lettuce sandwiches up the hill. It was hot, with scarcely a breeze, and
+sounds carried distinctly. From far away we heard a whistled tune, and
+we knew that some infrequent passer-by was on the Hill Trail. The sound
+grew louder as we climbed, and then—a single shot that sent echoes
+vibrating against the startled hills.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A gunshot! It was not such an infrequent sound through the woods that
+skirted the Bay, but our hearts suddenly contracted as if a hand had
+clutched them.
+
+We said not a word to each other, but broke into a jogging trot that
+brought us hot and panting to the top of the hill. From there it was but
+a hundred yards or so to U-Chu-Ka’s corner, and we ran doggedly, with a
+great fear tearing at our hearts.
+
+Oh, that moment! U-Chu-Ka’s corner was empty—but perhaps he would come
+if we whistled! We tried to form our dry lips for the sound, but none
+came. For we saw simultaneously, in the little clearing, a bright red
+patch on the low-hanging ferns—a little tuft of brown fur and a bit of
+white down.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The hunter had come and gone. U-Chu-Ka could not have known that the
+long stick pointed at him was filled with flame and death. We could
+picture the scene so well—the man, swinging carelessly down along the
+trail whistling, the gun over his shoulder—a sudden halt as a little
+brown rabbit hopped out from the underbrush into the small clearing and
+raised himself inquisitively on his haunches—a flash—a bundle of limp
+fur, blood-stained—a little brown pelt dangling pathetically down from a
+leather belt. Perhaps the man whistled again as he went down the trail.
+He could not know that two children, back by the little clearing, were
+sobbing their hearts out with their faces buried in the cool, green
+moss, because of a playmate who would come no more.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We tamed no more rabbits, Brother and I. We felt that we had been the
+cause of our friend’s death, and the least we could do was to refrain
+from putting confidence into other woods creatures, to be shattered by
+humans who did not know or care about the wild heart.
+
+And so we planted twin-flower vines in the little clearing, and edged it
+with yellow Johnny-jump-up plants. It was our futile way of saying to
+U-Chu-Ka how sorry we were—how we loved him and how we missed him.
+
+And today on the Hill Trail you may see U-Chu-Ka’s corner, grown over a
+bit now, because no one chops away the underbrush. But still the
+twin-flowers and the Johnny-jump-up’s bloom there in memory of U-Chu-Ka,
+the little brown friend who lives on in our hearts and our loving
+memory.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _For the dogs had lost the lighter scent_
+]
+
+                              _Part Three_
+                               SANCTUARY
+
+
+No doubt it was a silly name to give a deer—“Leonard”—but Brother and I
+named him on the spur of the moment, and, probably because we did not
+know the Indian word for “fawn,” we resorted to the prosaic title to
+which our woods friend learned to respond.
+
+Our acquaintance with Leonard began in such a dramatic way and with such
+suddenness that we had no time to think about a suitable name—although
+we did remember to name him even in the first chaotic moment of meeting.
+It was a habit that came to us as naturally as breathing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was during those days of licensed killing known as “the deer season.”
+All day long, from across the bay, a mile in width, came the
+long-drawn-out baying of hounds and an occasional shot. On our side of
+the bay, too, high up in the wooded hills, we could hear the hounds at
+chase, and our hearts were heavy, being weighted with fear for the
+hunted things of the woods. We wondered if the hunters would find the
+salt-lick which we had stumbled upon in our wanderings and where we had
+spent many breathless hours watching for the slim-limbed does and the
+antlered bucks to come and take refreshment.
+
+We stood outside the little log cabin, our faces raised to the hills,
+our hands clasped tightly together, listening shiveringly to the hunting
+cry of the dogs. They were in full chase, we knew, after some luckless
+deer. We felt so helpless, yet so eager to help protect our friends of
+the wilds. I wonder if our unexpressed prayer did not have something to
+do with what happened.
+
+The baying of the hounds alternated with the crash of the underbrush
+where they were running, men coming close behind. The dogs were skirting
+the top of a hill. All at once their baying became a series of
+whimpering barks. They were for the moment off the scent.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And then, down the hill, with such flying leaps that he scarcely touched
+the earth, came a little deer, a fawn, heading straight for the cabin.
+Was he mad with fear that he sought the home of humans? Or did he know
+by that unexplainable power which animals have that we were friends,
+that we would protect his life with ours—did he, I wonder? For he
+cleared the four-foot fence with a bound and trotted up to us, then
+stood trembling, his soft eyes glazed with fright, white foam at the
+corners of his mouth.
+
+This is not a fiction story; I am telling it as it happened.
+
+The little fawn thrust his hot, dry nose against my hand, and when
+Brother and I, recovering from our petrified amazement, put our arms
+around his velvety neck, he did not shrink away, but pressed against us
+as if mutely begging protection.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+If you have never had a wild creature throw itself upon your mercy, if
+you have never known the feeling of a soft, brown deer body pressed
+against yours in pleading and in confidence, you can not realize the
+wild thrill of ecstasy that went through us.
+
+“His name is Leonard!” I found breath to say, my face against the
+velvety neck of the little deer.
+
+But Brother, being a man in embryo, was thinking of sterner things. The
+hounds, he reminded me, would shortly find the scent of the deer. If
+they came baying down the hill, the fawn would take fright and dart away
+before we could stop him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was not a pleasant picture, but what were we to do? The short,
+whining barks of the dogs had already changed to the long, triumphant
+cadence of the hound in full cry. They would come down the hill, the
+hunters would claim Leonard as their game, they would—
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“Meat!” whispered Brother tensely, and cryptic as it may sound to the
+reader I understood perfectly. I wondered that I had not thought of it
+myself. Brother outlined a plan of action in a few brief words while the
+baby deer, with knees wobbling sadly, turned terror-haunted eyes up the
+hill, his delicate nostrils quivering, yet made no move to leave us.
+
+It took my best efforts to lead the little fawn into the shelter of the
+brooder house. The scent was foreign to anything he had known before,
+and the darkness terrified him anew. He could not have known that safety
+lay within that strange place, but he did know—of that I am sure—that he
+could trust himself with me, for he came, hesitatingly, urged always by
+my voice and my hands gently caressing him. He went with me, even
+through the door, into the semi-darkness of the frame brooder house, and
+though when I swung the door shut he nervously leaped away from my side,
+it was to return an instant later, as if begging my pardon for his
+involuntary action.
+
+Brother, in the meantime, had dashed into the kitchen and emerged as
+quickly with a juicy steak—it was to have been cooked for dinner that
+night—which he hacked into chunks with his jackknife as he raced up the
+hill.
+
+With my eyes against a crack I could see him panting upward to the point
+where Leonard had emerged from the underbrush of the woods.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And scarcely had he arrived when a lean hound, with lolling tongue and
+nose to the ground, burst from the shrubbery, uttering a long-drawn-out
+bay. The little deer beside me shook in every limb, and I was trembling,
+too, as if it were I, not Leonard, whom the dogs were trailing. We
+crouched there in the darkness, the wild thing of the woods and the
+child who loved the wild things of the woods, and in those tense moments
+I felt the heart of the baby deer pounding against my body. Can you
+wonder why now, when I see the body of a deer killed in the hunt, I can
+not congratulate the hunter on his prowess? I know how the deer at bay
+stood still and trembled! I know how his soft, brown eyes grew wide with
+helpless terror. I know how his heart pounded suffocatingly. And I can
+not be glad for the hunter; I am only sorry that he does not understand.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And up on the hill Brother was acting his part in the drama. When the
+first lean hound swung into sight, he deftly tossed a chunk of red,
+juicy meat in his pathway. The dog ignored the first piece, so intent
+was he on the fresh scent of the deer. But another chunk aimed just
+ahead of him was a temptation not to be withstood, and he gobbled it up,
+pausing a second in his chase. Another dog followed him out of the
+underbrush, finding the first piece of meat Brother had thrown.
+
+It did not take long for the two hounds to finish off the entire steak
+so obligingly tossed to them by the small boy almost hidden in a clump
+of tall ferns. And when it was gone, Leonard was safe, for the dogs,
+with the smell of fresh meat in their nostrils, had lost the lighter
+scent of the little deer’s flying hoofs, and they sniffed shamefacedly
+and with befuddled yappings, until the hunters came cursing down the
+hill and crashing into the open, to berate the dogs soundly for having
+lost the game—as they supposed—in the woods.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They could not know that the little boy in the clump of ferns, looking
+on so innocently, was responsible for the hounds’ failure, nor that
+their game was at that instant held tightly in the arms of a little girl
+who was shaking with excitement as well as with fear, lest something
+happen to betray the refugee’s hiding-place.
+
+But nothing did. The men stamped back into the woods, taking the hounds
+with them, and that day at least we heard no more baying on the hill.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And Leonard—we were afraid to let him go back to the woods until the
+deer season had passed or until he was of a size better able to care for
+himself. The grown-ups helped us, and we contrived a pen with wire
+netting over the top and sides as well, with the brooder house as
+shelter for nights. And here we kept Leonard a willing prisoner, while
+the hounds bayed on the hills and shots echoed across the water. How we
+wished, when we heard them, that we could make a place of refuge for
+every hunted thing in the world to come to and be cared for. But Leonard
+at least was safe, and he seemed to know it, too. Though he trembled
+whenever he heard the long hunting cry of the dogs, he did not take
+refuge even in the brooder house. He knew, I think, that he was in
+sanctuary.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+As the days went on, we released our little deer from his pen, first
+with a collar and a rope, and then with nothing to hold him. He followed
+us like a dog, trotting beside us with dainty, mincing steps, sometimes
+leaping ahead of us, turning to look back at us, his large ears at an
+angle, his slim young body silhouetted against the green of the woods.
+
+He soon learned his name and would come bounding out to us when we
+called. We fed him things his ancestors probably never tasted—cookies,
+apples, lettuce leaves, and candy, in addition to the grass and tender
+leaves we brought him before we allowed him to accompany us. But best of
+all the dainties we gave him was the chewing gum that Brother in a
+playful moment tendered him. Leonard accepted it daintily, as was his
+wont, and chewed it, as Brother and I remarked, with an actual
+expression of surprise coming into his brown eyes. He chewed and chewed.
+Perhaps he thought it a new variety of cud. At any rate, he gave it his
+hearty indorsement, and after that he would nose in Brother’s pockets to
+find the stick of gum that was always there for him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So Leonard became one of our happy family, and though we knew that
+sometime in the distant future we should have on our hands the problem
+of what to do with an antlered buck who had forgotten the ways of the
+woods and accepted those of civilization, we did not feel sorry about
+it, being content to dwell in the happy present, while Leonard seemed
+content as well.
+
+But one night I woke to find Brother’s hand tugging at mine. He was
+whispering to me that something was outside Leonard’s pen—perhaps it was
+a bear or a wildcat trying to get at him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Foolish children we may have been, but we were not cowardly. It never
+occurred to us to rouse the grown-ups. Leonard was our friend and our
+responsibility. From my window the two of us crept out on the roof,
+white nightgowned figures, shaking with cold and excitement. From the
+roof we dropped easily to the railing of the picket fence at the back of
+the cabin and from there to the ground.
+
+Like two little white wraiths we crept along in the shadow of the fence
+until we could see the outlines of the brooder house and the pen which
+enclosed it. There was a moon, but it was thickly hidden by clouds. All
+we could distinguish was a dark form against the wire netting, a shape
+that moved restlessly, now away from the pen, now back to it.
+
+As our eyes became accustomed to the darkness, we saw that Leonard was
+in the pen outside the brooder house, and we questioned each other
+silently. Surely no deer would come thus to meet an enemy animal that
+wanted to destroy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And then, as if in answer to our question, the clouds parted and a pale
+moon turned the darkness into half-shadowed light. With the sudden
+effulgence came the weird gleam of four eyes turned in our direction—for
+our scent had carried to sensitive nostrils. Brother and I, for an
+instant, caught each other’s hands and gasped.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then two of the luminous lights vanished, as the slim animal outside the
+pen sprang away in great bounds that carried her into the shadows beyond
+our ken—but not before we had recognized the slim, fleeing form for a
+doe. We knew it was Leonard’s mother, who had found her baby.
+
+We climbed back into our window as silently as we had left it. Brother
+in his cot, and I in mine, stared up into the darkness, trying to tell
+ourselves that ours was the right to keep the fawn we had befriended,
+yet knowing that the mother heart was calling for the little brown deer
+whom we loved so well. And we knew that in the end we must relinquish
+our claim—Leonard, after all, belonged to the woods, and the mother
+heart of the woods was calling.
+
+Because we loved him so, we tried to pretend, the next day, that the
+deer we had seen was not Leonard’s mother—that it was merely a friend
+from the woods who had come down by moonlight to pay a nocturnal call.
+In our hearts, though, we knew better. Leonard all the day was restless;
+he pricked his ears continually as if waiting for a voice from the
+forest. We could scarcely coax him out of his distrait mood, even with a
+double ration of the chewing gum he loved so well.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next night sleep was impossible. Though we heard nothing, we knew,
+somehow, that outside Leonard’s pen was a slim brown body pressed close
+against the wire netting. We rose, at last, and crept out over the roof
+and down to the ground. The doe was there, as we had foreseen. At our
+approach she bounded away with only the faintest rustle of leaves and
+snapping of twigs to mark her progress. But knowing that she would not
+go far—that she would come back to her baby—Brother and I went quickly
+forward and opened the door of the pen.
+
+Leonard came to us and thrust his nose against my hand. We knelt on the
+ground, putting our arms around him, pressing our faces against his
+soft, brown neck, telling him with tears behind our whispered words that
+he must go with his mother, that the danger season was passed, and that
+he was free to go back to his kindred.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We stole away, but Leonard followed us, as if asking where we went and
+why he was not to go with us. For the first time we pushed him away from
+us, though you can not know what it meant to us to do it. He stood still
+then, as if wondering, perhaps a little hurt, and we, not daring to look
+back, ran for the fence, clambered upon it, and gained the roof.
+
+Once there, we could not resist watching a bit, and it was not long
+before the two luminous eyes gleamed from the underbrush. Then we saw a
+shapely, dark body come slowly into the open, and Leonard, with light,
+springing bounds, had rushed to meet his mother. For an instant we saw
+again the glowing orbs of two pairs of eyes. Then the lights vanished;
+two dark bodies moved side by side into the blackness of the woods; we
+heard the light crackle of underbrush; and then silence.
+
+Silently we crept into our beds, and long afterward I heard Brother’s
+choking whisper coming through the darkness—my own face was buried in
+the pillow:
+
+“I know—Leonard’s going to miss—his—gum—”
+
+We cried ourselves to sleep that night, thinking of an empty pen and of
+a little brown friend gone from us forever.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _He questioningly sniffed the breeze._
+]
+
+
+
+
+                              _Part Four_
+                            THE FAERY NIGHT
+
+
+There came a night in June when the moon rose a great, yellow ball of
+light over the fir trees that crowned the hill. It was a night for
+adventure, for magic and mystery. And I, wide awake on the camp cot in
+the front yard of the cabin, listened to the faint lapping of the water
+upon the beach not a single stone’s-throw away, and to the wordless song
+of the pine trees as the night wind swept drowsy fingers across their
+branches—harps that woke to melody only when the daylight had gone and
+the stars stole out to listen to their song. The puffy maple tree which
+guarded the little log cabin was murmuring softly to itself, its leaves
+nodding to each other as if confiding some wonderful secret, and the
+giant fir tree on the other side of the porch stood erect and motionless
+as if it were a sentinel and thus disdained to gossip.
+
+From far out in the bay came faint splashes which told of salmon
+leaping, and now and then the distant cry of a night bird, so faint as
+to be only the shadow of a sound. In the air was the smell of grass
+freshly wet with dew, of pine trees drenched and glistening, of wild
+syringa on the hillside, and, more pronounced, the scent of the tiny
+Mother of God roses that clambered over the cabin in a white and
+fragrant wreath.
+
+The stars were bright as the tears of angels, from which the Chinook
+Indians say they were made, and the moon in their midst flooded hill and
+bay with a silvery light made more intense by the blackness of the
+forest.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Somehow there was a hint of expectancy in the air, as if the summer had
+looked forward to this one night and was a-thrill with the joy of its
+coming. I could not sleep, for I was attuned to the things of the
+out-of-doors, and I, too, was a-thrill with the expectation of
+something—I knew not what.
+
+I watched Altair rise over the “Happy Family” pines with his two
+attendant stars that are like the outspread wings of an eagle, and I
+kissed my hand to him in greeting.
+
+A star fell, leaving a trailing line of light in its wake, and suddenly
+I felt a little sad, for a Siwash Indian chief had told us that when a
+star fell, it was a flower tossed by the hand of a good spirit from
+Paradise to ease the pain of a soul passing out into the Great Darkness.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then Amarillo, the big yellow cat, padded across the grass with little
+throaty mewings of greeting, and I felt the light thud of his body as he
+leaped on the bed and settled himself at my feet. He, too, was restless,
+for he would raise and lower his tawny head and would sometimes turn his
+golden eyes upon me as if seeking an explanation for the thrill that was
+in the night.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So I was not surprised when I heard a faint, familiar scraping which
+told me that Brother had climbed from his bedroom window and was sliding
+down the roof to the fence.
+
+Since we had only one camp cot, Brother and I must needs take turns
+sleeping out of doors. And although this night was mine, I knew that he,
+too, had felt its magic and could not abide the stuffy darkness of the
+cabin when the world outside was bathed in moonlight. He came tiptoeing
+around the corner of the house very quietly so as not to waken the
+grown-ups, and Amarillo purred loudly as he saw him come, and dug his
+claws into the bedclothes with contented, prickling sounds.
+
+Brother was fully dressed, and he put his lips close to my ear as he
+whispered: “Do you know what kind of a night this is?”
+
+“No,” I answered breathlessly.
+
+“A fairy night!” he breathed with awe. “The old fisherman told me that
+on moonlight nights the fairies dance in the moss ring on the Hill
+Trail. Come quick, let’s go!”
+
+I needed no second bidding. Even as he spoke, I was drawing over my head
+the knee-length dress I had worn during the day, and was feeling for my
+moccasins tucked away from the dew under the rubber covering of the bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hand in hand we slipped out of the yard and up the trail, moving as
+silently as wraiths. Amarillo followed to the edge of the woods and then
+slipped away on business of his own.
+
+Up the hill we hurried, up the narrow trail patched with moonlight and
+shadows. The wet branches of the pines brushed across our faces; our
+bare legs were swished by fern fronds as we passed. Sometimes a twig
+crackled underfoot, and now and then we heard a slight rustling in the
+underbrush where a little animal was moving.
+
+We passed by the spring which gurgled dreamily into the pool shadowed by
+ferns and alders. A mother deer and her baby were drinking there, and
+although they turned their great eyes upon us, luminous in the moonlight
+that sifted through the branches, they did not start or run as we stole
+by.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The top of the hill was gained at last, and the Hill Trail which we
+called ours. Well we knew the fairy ring, a circle of moss in a
+clearing, ringed around with pink twin-flowers and wild strawberry
+vines, a fitting place for elfin feet to dance on a moonlight night. And
+as we neared the clearing flooded by the bright moonlight, we trembled
+with ecstasy and anticipation. That the fairies did dance there we never
+doubted, but would they reveal themselves to the eyes of mortals, even
+such friendly mortals as ourselves?
+
+Crouched behind a cedar log and screened by salal bushes, we watched and
+waited, our eyes glued to the moss ring in the patch of moon silver—but
+no fairies came.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Just the same it _was_ a fairy night, as you shall see. For presently a
+little brown bear came out into the clearing, making considerably more
+noise than his size warranted, sat up on his haunches, and sniffed the
+breeze questioningly. He nibbled daintily at the leaves of a red
+huckleberry bush, and having finished his nocturnal repast, walked
+pigeon-toed over to a cedar tree, scratched his back against it, making
+rumbling noises of content, and finally raised himself to his full
+height—which was not so high after all—and marked how tall he was on the
+shaggy bark of the tree by scratching it deeply with his claws. Then he
+waddled away in his bow-legged fashion, and we heard the faint crashing
+of the underbrush as he passed through.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There came a wakeful brown rabbit, who hopped into the very center of
+the fairy ring, wiggled his ears and nose, and then began to make an
+elaborate toilet—in honor, we thought, of the elfin ball. He washed his
+paws with care and gave each tapering ear a thorough massage. Last, he
+twisted like a contortionist to assure himself that his white knob of a
+tail was in perfect order, and finally being satisfied with his
+inspection, he loped leisurely away without so much as the crackle of a
+twig.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next two visitors to the moonlit clearing were two baby skunks
+striped with brown and white and with graceful tufts of white for tails.
+Strangely enough, Brother and I were not afraid of what might happen
+should they suddenly be aware of our presence and become frightened, for
+it seemed to us that we too belonged to the fairy night and that nothing
+could happen to mar the perfect beauty of it. The little animals played
+like kittens, dashing out at each other from the shadows and rolling
+about in mock ferocity, but presently they, too, stole away, silently,
+as wood creatures move, and we were left alone with the moonlit night
+and the empty fairy ring.
+
+Then from the direction of the trail came a cry of pain—like a human
+cry. The spell of the night was shattered, and we gripped each other’s
+hands and thought of flight. But again came the sound, a whimpering cry
+like a child in distress, and the fear which had clutched at our hearts
+vanished as suddenly, for we knew it must be an animal—some woods friend
+sorely hurt. So without further pause we left the shelter of the log and
+hurried across the clearing to the trail. The sound came from beyond the
+“Happy Family” pines, and we hastened toward it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the lumber clearing just off the trail we found what we had half
+expected—a young fox caught in a steel trap by his front paws, and he
+was whimpering with the pain of it. The dark eyes which he turned toward
+us showed a frenzied, greenish light, and as we came nearer, he yelped
+sharply, tugging frantically at the sharp teeth which never relaxed
+their grip.
+
+The pity in our hearts made us forgetful of his fear, but as we started
+toward him, he wrenched backward, dragging the heavy trap to the full
+length of the chain, his small, gray-brown body a-quiver with terror and
+pain. So then we waited, approaching very quietly and slowly. Finally
+his struggles ceased from sheer fatigue, and the eyes which he turned
+upon us were dull and lifeless. Brother tried to hold me back, but I
+would not have it so, and coming very close to the little fox, I put my
+hand on his soft, furry head. He did not bite or even cringe. Perhaps
+his pain was so great that he could suffer no more and so could not be
+afraid, or perhaps it was because he sensed that my touch was a friendly
+one and that help was near at hand.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Together Brother and I pried the steel jaws apart, and the little fox,
+set free, limped away for a few feet and then fell exhausted. So I
+picked him up, and walking quietly so as not to hurt or alarm him, we
+sought again the forest pool, mottled now with deep shadows and pale
+lights. The mother deer and her baby had gone, and in the cool, gurgling
+water of the little stream we bathed the wounded feet of our friend and
+named him “Reginald.” We made sure that the paws were not broken, only
+lacerated by the sharp teeth of the trap, and when he began to stir and
+move his head in quick jerks from side to side, we set him down on the
+cool moss. After a little while he commenced to lick the hurt paws, very
+gently at first and then with increasing confidence, and he did not go
+away at once. He feared us no more than he would have feared a brother
+and sister fox. So for an hour, until the moonlight gleams became
+fainter and the shadows deeper, the three of us lingered by the forest
+pool. Brother and I pretended that Reginald talked to us and that he
+could understand what we said to him. And when finally he finished
+licking his paws and slipped away into the darkness, we regained once
+more the moonlit Hill Trail and started for home.
+
+But there was one thing we must do, and we turned back to “Reginald’s
+clearing,” as we called it. In the waning light we found the trap which
+had so cruelly hurt our little friend, and we unwound the chain from the
+tree. Into the blackness of the underbrush we flung it and laughed
+defiantly as we heard it crash in the thicket. Then, as if some avenging
+power were hard on our heels, we fled down the trail out of the wood and
+stole into the yard without even the creaking of a gate to betray us.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Thrilled to the very core of my being, I huddled into bed. And Amarillo,
+who had long since returned, arched his back and yawned widely as if to
+imply that such a nocturnal excursion was not respectable.
+
+Brother started to tiptoe around to the fence and thus gain the roof and
+his bedroom, but I stopped him with a sharp hiss, and he tiptoed back to
+me.
+
+“What shall we say if some hunter asks us about the trap?” I breathed
+into his ear, and he doubled up and laughed noiselessly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“We will tell him that anything can happen on a fairy night,” he
+whispered back and stole away to the fence, while I watched the moon
+settle behind the distant blue hills, and with the ensuing darkness came
+the breath of the morning breeze. The fairy night was over.
+
+
+
+
+                _Part Five_| THE FRIENDSHIP THAT FAILED
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                              _Part Five_
+                       THE FRIENDSHIP THAT FAILED
+
+
+On the shores of Puget Sound, where the woods come down to the shore to
+fraternize with the little white-capped waves of the bay, lived Henry,
+the heron. How old he was before Brother and I came to know him, we
+could not tell. But an old-man bird he must have been surely, for his
+was a knowledge of fishing that comes from long experience.
+
+Every day we would watch him from our little log cabin—watch him sail
+majestically toward the float, pause directly above, and flap down upon
+it, using his lanky legs as balancing weights. He would stand there for
+many moments, turning his head slightly from side to side as if
+revolving in his mind whether he had done the wise thing in coming, and
+what his next move ought to be.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _Cannon came charging in a whirlwind of feathers._
+]
+
+Such a deliberate bird Henry seemed, but this apparent deliberation was
+only one of the tricks of his trade. I am sure that had I been a fish, I
+would have believed there was nothing to fear from the immobile bunch of
+gray feathers balanced on two skinny stilt legs, and I would have swum
+merrily under the very tip of his beak. But Henry’s sharp, black eyes
+missed nothing, as the hapless fish found to their cost when they
+ventured too near the surface. With one lightning swoop the great bill
+cleaved the water, and the next instant a shiny fish was wriggling in
+his beak.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Sometimes he did his fishing while standing in the water up to his
+knees—or where his knees would be if herons had such things. With his
+head drawn in between his feathered shoulders and his long beak sticking
+out at right angles like a lance at rest, he seemed to be taking a
+siesta, and only the occasional plunge of his long bill into the water,
+and the accompanying twinkle of a small silver fish as it flapped in
+amazement before it slid down into his gullet, proved that he was
+awake—and hungry.
+
+We gave Henry his name when he was but an acquaintance of ours. We never
+really hoped to have him for a friend, but we liked him, and we felt
+that he liked us, too. So when he did his fishing on our float or
+knee-deep in the water of the little cove before the cabin, we threw
+scraps of bread to him, which he accepted gravely and always dipped in
+the salt water before swallowing.
+
+We used to hear his strange, mournful cry late at night as he flew
+northward past the cove on his way to the pine tree where he lived, and
+we always pretended he was giving us a greeting before he turned in for
+the night.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We found out, too, where he made his home. We had often seen him land on
+a bony, fallen tree half a mile up the beach, which jutted straight out
+into the water and which we called “the Pointing Finger.” Once, in our
+explorations along the beach trail, we saw Henry standing on the gray
+shaft of the dead tree, and as we watched, he stooped slightly, then
+flapped upward and flew into a tall pine tree almost in front of us.
+When we stood under it, we could distinguish the outlines of a nest high
+up in the branches. Perhaps at that time there was a Mrs. Henry and
+maybe some young Henrys—I do not know. But certain it was that when he
+became a friend of ours by reason of a happening which might have ended
+in tragedy for him, he seemed to be without family cares or
+responsibilities.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+During the season when the salmon were running, the Old Fisherman, who
+was at once our mentor and playfellow, spread his nets from the
+shore-line straight out into the bay for a hundred yards, leaving them
+there the night through to catch the large silver salmon on their way to
+the creeks to spawn. One of these nights he had laid his net near the
+Pointing Finger, and Brother and I, going with him in his creaky,
+flat-bottomed boat to see the result of the haul, heard ahead of us a
+great splashing, and saw dimly outlined in the midst of the cork floats
+a dark body that flapped and struggled.
+
+We whispered excitedly that perhaps a seal had become entangled in the
+net, but the Old Fisherman thought it only a salmon, or perhaps a
+dogfish whose pointed snout had been caught in the meshes of the cords.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But it was neither seal nor salmon, for on rowing close to the net we
+saw by the light of the Old Fisherman’s lantern a huge, gray bird with
+flapping wings and slashing beak. It was Henry, the heron, who had
+alighted on one of the cork floaters, perhaps thinking it safe footing,
+and had thus become hopelessly snared in the net.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+What was even worse, he had hurt himself cruelly in his struggles, for
+one long leg was dangling helplessly, and one of his wide gray wings
+hung limp at his side. When the Old Fisherman, with gruff words but
+tender hands, released him from the cords which bound him, he could not
+fly, but flapped helplessly upon the water. And so it was that we lifted
+him into the boat and tied a gunnysack around him so that he should not
+injure himself further, for he did not understand that our intentions
+were kindly and snapped at us fiercely with his huge beak.
+
+The Old Fisherman, who had lived with the Indians and who had acquired
+their curative gifts, took Henry, the heron, in charge when we reached
+the little cabin in the cove, first muzzling him by tying a stout cord
+about his beak. Then he set the broken wing and put the leg in splints.
+The grown-ups suggested putting Henry in the hen-house for the night,
+but Brother and I would not have it so, and with their help we
+constructed a pen behind the kitchen stove where he could be warm and
+comfortable. We left him moving his head jerkily from side to side,
+blinking his beady eyes now and then and snapping his bill as if in
+troubled retrospect.
+
+But during the next week Henry, the heron, came to know that we were his
+friends and that he had nothing to fear from us. He allowed us to stroke
+him and would accept morsels of food from our fingers, even taking care
+not to nip us with his powerful beak.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When he had finally ceased to fear us, we gave him the liberty of the
+back-yard, and he would stalk about stiffly like a peg-legged veteran of
+the wars. But most of the time he would stand with his head drawn in
+between his shoulders, the picture of dejection, and Brother and I knew
+he was longing for the freedom of the air and the water which had been
+his. He was longing for the cool lapping of little waves against his
+legs, for the silver gleam of fish in the blue depths; and he wanted to
+fly once more—to circle over the bay, to flap down upon the Pointing
+Finger. Perhaps he was even lonesome for the nest in the pine tree. At
+any rate we were sorry for his sadness and set about to remedy it as
+best we could. We fished indefatigably from the float, and the Old
+Fisherman brought us smelts and silver perch from his nets.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then, to make our guest feel more at home, we would put our catch in a
+washtub filled with water, and Henry would fish for them choosing his
+prey with calculating eye and gobbling it up with one great peck. It was
+the best we could do for him, and we felt that he appreciated that, too,
+for he obligingly hunted down every fish in the tub, and then would turn
+his grave head toward us, giving us the broadside effect of one shiny
+eye, whether in thanks or in petition for more we could not determine.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But it was really due to Cannon, our bantam rooster, that Henry’s
+convalescence was not entirely unendurable. Cannon was the eldest son of
+Liberty, a small bantam hen who had brought forth her brood on the
+fourth of July—hence her name and his. He was the undisputed king of the
+poultry yard, for a strain of game cock in his blood had made him
+fearless of everything and an unspeakable bully. There was no hen or
+cock of twice his size who dared come near his end of the feed trough,
+and even Prince, the mammoth White Rock rooster, stood in awe of him.
+Perhaps he was merely amused at the airs Cannon gave himself, and so let
+the tiny cock have his way, but at any rate his record of combat was
+unsullied by a single defeat.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I have seen many a strange friendship between animals and between birds,
+too, but never one so curious as that of Henry, the heron, and Cannon,
+the bantam rooster. For friends they were, and real friends, too. They
+became acquainted when Cannon, flying into the back-yard one day, spied
+the stiff-legged Henry and immediately decided to do battle with him. He
+ruffled up his neck feathers, whirled round and round with one wing
+dusting the ground, and advancing on Henry, dared him to come on and
+fight. At first Brother and I thought to rescue Cannon from what we
+believed would be his sure death. But we were wrong; for Henry regarded
+the little brown cock contemplatively, snapped his bill in warning, then
+blinked and turned away as if overcome with boredom. But Cannon was not
+used to being ignored. If his enemies would not fight, they must at
+least give way before him. So his neck ruff distended more and more, his
+tiny comb glowed an angry red, and in his best game-cock fashion he
+hopped up and down stiffly, trying to strike at the heron’s broad,
+feathered breast above him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Henry eyed him curiously, almost saturninely, and at last with a sort of
+wearied annoyance gave one sweep of his broad bill, and Cannon was sent
+tumbling in a scurry of brown feathers and outraged squawks. But he was
+a warrior; back he came in a series of frenzied leaps, and once more
+Henry’s massive bill swept him lightly but conclusively aside.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Time after time, to the number of twelve, Cannon came charging in a
+whirlwind of feathers, trying to slash the feathered breast of his
+passive enemy, always to be met by the calm but decisive buffet of
+Henry’s beak. At last it was a wearied little bantam cock who stopped
+pantingly and turned his back upon the gray heron, owning himself
+defeated.
+
+Perhaps it was respect for Henry’s superior prowess which actuated
+Cannon, and perhaps the merry little bantam’s pluck appealed to the
+grave fisher bird, for they became almost at once inseparable friends.
+Cannon deserted his feathered acquaintances and spent his time in the
+back-yard with Henry. When finally the invalid was well enough to hobble
+down on the float, Cannon went with him and would stand beside him while
+Henry, the heron, swooped joyfully upon minnows and silver smelt and
+gobbled them down with a zest he had never displayed when fishing in the
+washtub. Such became the intimacy of the tall Henry and the diminutive
+Cannon that Henry would even share his catch with Cannon, dropping down
+upon the float a small, wriggling fish for Cannon’s delectation.
+
+We noticed that at first the bantam rooster eyed askance the flapping
+tidbits offered by his friend. He was not accustomed to such lively
+food, but little by little he learned to peck and devour the fish with
+the same relish that Henry showed for them. He became a feathered
+parasite, depending almost entirely upon the heron for his meals.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was such a pleasant friendship—comradeship between man and man always
+is—and it was broken up, I am sorry to say, in the usual way—by a woman.
+
+As Henry grew stronger, his leg and wing knit rapidly. And on the day
+when the Old Fisherman removed the bandages and pronounced the patient
+out of danger, we feared our heron friend would leave us. But he did
+not. He had become accustomed to the float, to the cabin, to the yard,
+and to Brother and me. Above all, there was Cannon, the bantam rooster.
+So he stayed with us, flapping up into the firtree in the front yard at
+night to roost, and fishing from the float or the beach in the daytime.
+It was an idyllic state of affairs which might have lasted indefinitely
+had it not been for Sironda, the Black Minorca hen.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“Si” we sometimes called her for short, and we had known her from the
+day of her birth. Even before that; for Brother and I had set the very
+egg in the incubator from which she was hatched. She was a trim little
+hen with shiny black feathers, a red comb that fell coquettishly over
+one eye, and a “singing voice” that made her the prima donna among the
+poultry. She was in every respect fitted to make an impressionable
+cockerel forget the ties of friendship, and Brother and I have always
+believed that she mapped out a campaign to that end after seeing how
+well Cannon fared by trailing at Henry’s heels.
+
+She took to wandering down upon the float, singing softly to herself and
+ostensibly on the lookout for bugs, but, as we noticed, keeping an eye
+upon Cannon and his fisher friend and always drawing nearer and nearer
+to the pair.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Finally she grew so bold as to come up to Cannon’s side, and when Henry,
+the heron, next dropped a shining smelt upon the float, the bantam,
+innately chivalrous, voiced a high-pitched invitation to Sironda to
+partake of the dainty.
+
+Cannon, watching her, was content to have her devour the juicy morsel,
+but not so was Henry. He would fish willingly for Cannon, but not for
+his lady friends, and with one hair-raising scream he opened his huge
+bill, spread his wings and lunged for Sironda, who dropped the remnants
+of the fish and fled down the float, half running, half flying, and
+uttering hysterical cackles.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Cannon watched her precipitous retreat with a surprised and worried
+countenance; then he turned upon Henry. And though Brother and I could
+not hear what was said, I am sure that there were fierce words between
+them, for Henry had to knock Cannon down three times in rapid succession
+before the irate bantam turned heel and followed Sironda up the float
+and into the yard.
+
+The rift in the lute had come, and it grew wider. For Sironda became
+bolder in her advances, and Cannon, flattered by her feminine wiles,
+laid his fish—of Henry’s catching—at her feet. It was a triangle
+situation which could end only in one way. For at the end of each
+one-sided fight Cannon would stalk away with outraged dignity in every
+ruffled feather, and Henry would gaze after him sadly and would
+thereafter peck at the swarms of silver smelt solemnly and without zest.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And so he left us. One day he tried his massive wings and sailed upward
+and outward into the blue sky, circled in midair as if trying his
+strength, and then flapped quietly away toward the Pointing Finger, and
+as he flew, he uttered a mournful cry that trailed behind him like a
+wisp of smoke.
+
+And Cannon, the thankless one, did not even know that he had gone. He
+was scratching worms for Sironda. But I really think it broke Henry’s
+heart, for he never came to our float again. And I am positive that he
+became a woman-hater and remained a bachelor the rest of his life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _His constant barking set the grown-ups against him._
+]
+
+                               _Part Six_
+                               STOP THIEF
+
+
+In the days when the roving fisher boats chugged into the little cove to
+set their nets for salmon or silver smelt, we spent most of our time on
+the bay. We knew every broad-beamed gray launch that rounded Green
+Point, a mile away, and we knew most of the fishermen who owned them. We
+would wait until the coughing engine was silent and the anchor was cast;
+then we would hoist the sail of our tiny, round-bottomed skiff and,
+using an oar for a rudder, skim out across the ruffled surface of the
+bay to pay a visit to the swarthy-visaged men with heavy, grizzled
+beards and rough, red hands. They always made us welcome in their
+strange and guttural tongues, for we took them apples from the orchard,
+and sometimes a glass of jelly or a loaf of home-made bread. And in
+exchange they gave us curious souvenirs of their travels—dried starfish
+of monstrous size, lovely, iridescent shells, and reed baskets bartered
+from the Siwash Indians.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The boat we knew best was called _Rosenzweig_, which, the Austrian
+owners said, meant “Rose-branch.” These two fishermen, dark, powerful
+men, anchored just beyond our float in the smelt and salmon seasons, and
+we were fond of them. They let us help them haul in the nets, and more
+than once Brother and I have stood in huge hip boots many sizes too
+large, tugging at wet ropes heavy with seaweed, excitedly pulling at the
+drag net and watching for the first glint of splashing silver in the
+brown meshes which would tell us that the net was nearly to the beach
+and filled with fish.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We were always sorry to see the _Rosenzweig_ leave us, and it was always
+a day of rejoicing when we sighted the little gray boat chugging around
+the Point, its bow and stern piled high with seine and drag nets. The
+two fishermen brought us a gift each time—we expected it. Sometimes it
+would be a bunch of letters with Austrian stamps attached—Brother and I
+were confirmed philatelists; sometimes it was a sugar-cured salmon, and
+once they brought us a carved canoe paddle which they had purchased of a
+Nittenat chief, far up the straits toward Alaska.
+
+But the day of days was when, coming alongside their gray boat just as
+the anchor splashed, we were greeted by Andrin, the elder brother, who
+grinned delightedly and signified in his broken English that he had
+something wonderful for us.
+
+We clambered over the gunwale of the _Rosenzweig_, with its littered
+deck and its heavy, perpetual smell of fish, seaweed, and tar calking,
+and Karl, the younger fisherman, made us shut our eyes while he carried
+something up from the hold and put it on the deck, something that
+thrashed about wetly and barked in a high-pitched baby voice much like a
+puppy’s.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We opened our eyes and stared in amazement. For there, before us on the
+deck, was a baby seal! He was wet and shiny brown, with great, bright
+eyes that peered at us curiously, but without fear, and delicate
+nostrils with neat, gentlemanly whiskers protruding from each side. With
+his tiny fore-flappers he propelled himself along the deck, barking
+constantly. Andrin threw him a piece of dried fish, which he caught in
+the air and devoured instantly.
+
+“We bring you nice present,” said Karl, showing his white teeth in a
+smile, and he indicated the baby seal, who reared himself up as high as
+he could on his front flappers and barked vociferously.
+
+That we were delighted goes without saying. We had seen many seals from
+a distance, but never had we thought to have one for a friend.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Often one would pop out of the water in the wake of our boat as we rowed
+to town, his wet, sleek head blackly silhouetted against the blue water.
+And if we whistled or called, he would follow us indefinitely, for seals
+have more than their share of curiosity. They are interested in strange
+sounds and in bright colors. Once, when Brother was wearing a red
+sweater, a seal followed our boat for nearly a mile.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We had often known when they were near us in the Bay even without seeing
+them. For when we saw a salmon jumping many times, in a series of
+frenzied leaps, we knew it was not through sport, but because he was
+pursued by a seal who would surely seize him the minute his strength
+gave out. We had seen salmon nets spread in the water with only a row of
+fish heads remaining in the meshes. Robber seals had neatly bitten off
+the rest of the body. Once, while Brother and I were swimming far out
+from the float, a smooth, heavy body brushed against mine, and I
+screamed with fear. But an instant later a brown, wet head arose not
+twenty yards away, and two bright eyes were turned on me inquiringly as
+if to ask why I had been frightened.
+
+You see, we were well acquainted with the seal family at long distance,
+but never before had we been so close to one of the brown brethren.
+
+I took a piece of fish from Karl’s hand and stooped toward the baby
+seal, who turned his head from side to side, sniffed once or twice, and
+then dragged himself along the deck to me, taking the friendship
+offering gingerly from my outstretched fingers. A little later he found
+a warm, sunny place on a pile of nets and turned over on his back,
+scratching himself negligently with one of his fore-flappers.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Karl said he would not take it amiss if we scratched him under the chin,
+and indeed he did not. He stretched his head back and closed his eyes,
+while we gently stroked the glossy fur, which, as it dried, became gray
+rather than brown in color.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The fishermen told us that the baby seal had attended a net-robbing
+expedition with his mother. Both the lady seal and her baby had become
+entangled in the nets. The mother had fought and had finally escaped.
+But the baby they had loosed from the heavy meshes, and had taken him,
+barking and protesting, on board the _Rosenzweig_, where they had kept
+him in the hold, first as a prisoner and then as a pet, to bring to
+Brother and me.
+
+I know they were sorry to part with Alfred, as we christened the little
+seal, but they needed the hold of their small boat for their catches of
+fish. They could not afford to turn it permanently into a bath-tub for a
+water-baby who could not live long away from the element to which he was
+accustomed. So when the _Rosenzweig_ chugged away a few days later,
+Alfred was left to our care, with a hundred instructions as to how to
+regulate his diet and behavior.
+
+The grown-ups were none too pleased at our latest pet, and it was a
+tribute to Alfred’s winning ways that he finally established himself as
+firmly in their affection as in ours. For there was no doubting his
+intelligence, handicapped as it was by his unwieldy body that seemed
+half fish and half animal.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He learned to respond to his name sooner than most dogs, and he
+displayed his love for us in a manner which was unmistakable. At first
+we were afraid to let him go into the bay for fear he would swim away
+and leave us. We did not know how large seals had to be before they
+could earn their living in the water, but we chose to think—selfishly
+perhaps—that Alfred was too small to make his way in a submarine contest
+of wits against older and more experienced of his kindred.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We need not have worried, however, for the baby seal adopted us in the
+same spirit that we had adopted him. He evidently had no thought of
+leaving us. The float in front of the cabin was his headquarters, and
+from it he would slide off into the water, rolling and splashing like a
+young dolphin, to return when he was tired or when we called him.
+
+I can see him now, his small, sleek head, with its great brown eyes,
+sticking up out of the water, at our call pointing for the float like a
+periscope; lifting himself by his wet fore-flappers with their short,
+clicking nails and dragging himself toward us, leaving in his wake a
+trail of salt water.
+
+It was his constant barking which at first had set the grown-ups against
+him, so we made him refrain from it. He learned that when we said, with
+finger upraised reprovingly, “Alfred, less noise!” he must be quiet, or
+there would be no piece of dried fish for him, no bottle of milk, and no
+gum-drops.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It might not have been necessary to bring Alfred up on the bottle,
+especially as the fishermen of the _Rosenzweig_ had been feeding him
+dried fish ever since they had caught him, but our experience with other
+baby animals had convinced us that milk was a pleasant if not absolutely
+essential form of food. So we trained Alfred to drink from a bottle with
+a rubber nipple, and he loved it. He broke the first two, banging them
+down on the float, so Brother and I devised a padded bag for it. From
+this Alfred daily took his milk, blinking his great, shining eyes at us
+and pausing occasionally to bark. We came to know it for his sign of
+approval.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The gum-drops were given to him experimentally. Brother maintained that
+the Esquimaux lived on them, and that Alfred, being a relative of
+northern fur-bearing seals, would doubtless thrive on the same diet. His
+reasoning may have been faulty in theory, but in practise it was
+amazingly successful. Many a time did Brother and I row the three miles
+to town for the special purpose of purchasing gum-drops for Alfred. He
+seemed to know instinctively when we had the candy with us, for when, in
+returning, we reached the Pointing Finger, half-way between Green Point
+and the cove, we could make out a black speck on the float ahead of us,
+a speck that wriggled and flopped and finally slid down into the water.
+Then we would see a round dot against the blue little waves of the bay,
+a dot that resolved itself into a sleek, brown head, and there would be
+Alfred, swimming toward the boat, lifting himself as high out of the
+water as he could, his eyes fixed upon us beamingly. We always made him
+wait until we reached the float and moored the boat, then we would toss
+him the candy a piece at a time, making him catch it in midair.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+As Alfred grew older and larger, we trained him to do some of the things
+we had seen his kindred do in the circuses. And how eager he was to
+learn! He put Brother and me to shame, for we hated lessons. He loved
+them. We taught him to balance an indoor baseball on the tip of his
+brown nose, and when he saw us coming down the float with his ball in
+our hands, he would set up a hilarious barking and wriggle over to us,
+his head moving up and down in an ecstasy of anticipation. There was no
+barking, though, when he went through his tricks. If Alfred had been a
+man, his power of concentration would have made him a millionaire. He
+would sit, moment after moment, posing the ball on his nose, flexing his
+body from side to side to keep the balance, his bright, intelligent eyes
+fixed steadily on the leathern sphere.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We taught him to “play dead,” to dive from a high springboard, and to
+fetch us a stick that we threw into the water.
+
+Some people say there is nothing in heredity. I am sure there is. I do
+not pretend to be an expert on the question, but I can account in no
+other way for Alfred’s deflection from the path of respectability. It
+was certainly not because of lack of nourishment that he took to robbing
+seine nets of salmon. I am rather inclined to think it was his mother’s
+waywardness which was cropping out in him. At any rate, he took to
+making nocturnal excursions, and in the morning we would find him on the
+float, stretched out listlessly, his stomach actually distended by too
+much food, and he would eye with disdain the padded bottle of milk and
+the pieces of griddle cake we had brought for his breakfast.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Still we did not suspect that our friend had become a net robber until
+the Old Fisherman descended on us one morning with wrath in his eye. He
+told us of having made the rounds of his salmon nets the night before to
+find the bodies neatly snipped from half a dozen king salmon. He had
+even caught the fish burglar in the act of amputating a Chinook salmon’s
+silver body from its head, and the seal had stared at him in the lantern
+light and had barked at him.
+
+That it was Alfred, he was sure. Brother and I demurred that one seal
+was much like another. But no, said the Old Fisherman; this was a small
+seal, a seal unafraid of people, an impudent, half-grown seal—Alfred!
+
+“And he chose the best fish o’ the lot,” he fumed. “If he’d taken a
+dog-salmon, now—but no, he has to pick out the kings, the steel-heads
+and the Chinooks!”
+
+We faced Alfred and charged him with suspicion of robbery. It seemed to
+us that he avoided our questioning eyes. He flapped over to his ball at
+the side of the float and occupied himself in trying to hoist it on his
+nose. It was perfectly clear to us that his conscience was clouded with
+guilt.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+What to do? We loved Alfred dearly, but we loved the Old Fisherman, too,
+and his living depended upon the hauls of fish he made. A scanty living
+it was at best, and we could not bear the thought of being even
+indirectly the cause of poverty descending upon him.
+
+We built a wire cage in which we confined Alfred the next night, much
+against his will. And the Old Fisherman reported in the morning that no
+salmon had been stolen. But the following night heredity and appetite
+proved stronger than the wire netting we had devised, and Alfred robbed
+the seine net, near the Pointing Finger, of three large steel-heads.
+
+The question of turning Alfred loose was a difficult one. We had never
+restrained him in any way, and our float and the beach beside it were
+the only homes he knew. The Old Fisherman spoke of killing, but that was
+against the law, since the seals of Puget Sound are considered in the
+same class with sea-gulls and other scavengers. Besides, Brother and I
+would never have permitted such a thing. Alfred was our friend. Somewhat
+of a reprobate, it is true, but after all, he had as much right to the
+salmon in the Bay as had the Old Fisherman. It was not his fault that he
+could not understand the man-made ethics by which human beings assumed
+control over the water and its inhabitants.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then the next morning, as if in response to prayer, the _Rosenzweig_
+came chugging around Green Point. Hardly had its anchor splashed when
+Brother and I were easing our boat alongside and clambering up to the
+smelly deck.
+
+We told Karl and Andrin, all in a breath, how Alfred, the seal baby, had
+grown up to be a salmon thief, just like his mother. We told how sorry
+we were for the Old Fisherman, and how we could not seem to explain to
+Alfred about controlling his appetite.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Karl and Andrin took counsel with each other. We hung hopefully upon the
+strange foreign sentences that we could not understand. Then Karl
+grinned broadly. They were going to buy a new boat, he said, a bigger
+boat. They could fix a sort of a tank for Alfred, wherein he could
+submerge himself in water. There would be no question of fish; he would
+have his fill of them. They had missed him, Karl said. He had been “such
+a smart babee!”
+
+So Alfred left us as he had come to us—on board the _Rosenzweig_. He
+nuzzled against my hand like a dog as I gave him a gum-drop, and his
+shining eyes were fixed on me with so much affection in them that I had
+to blink hard to keep from crying. He had forgotten Karl and Andrin. His
+heart was plainly in our keeping.
+
+But the parting had to be. It was with sorrowful faces that we watched
+the _Rosenzweig_ weigh anchor and commence to chug out into the current.
+
+Brother and I stood on the float, trying to pretend to each other that
+we weren’t down-hearted, when suddenly I spied between the boards
+Alfred’s ball.
+
+“Oh,” I cried, “he must have that to remember us by.”
+
+We piled into the little white boat and, pulling on the oars with all
+our might, set out in pursuit of the gray fishing launch. Our cries
+finally reached Karl and Andrin, for the engine stopped, and in a few
+minutes we came alongside.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“Alfred’s ball!” we explained breathlessly. “He’d be lonesome without
+it.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And at the sound of our voices, we heard a high-pitched barking from the
+hold. It was Alfred, who was calling to us as best he knew how, begging
+us not to leave him, asking us to please take him home with us—
+
+We did not wait for the fishermen’s thanks. We were on the verge of
+tears. So the engine started again its steady drumming, the propeller
+churned the water into green and white whirlpools, and the _Rosenzweig_
+made out towards the Straits, while our little boat rocked gently in her
+wake.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And then, as we sat there, a sleek brown head appeared out of the water
+not a dozen yards from the stern—a shiny seal head with brilliant,
+intelligent eyes. It was not Alfred, of course, but for an instant we
+thought it might be. For the space of a few breaths the eyes watched us
+intently, then the head disappeared from sight.
+
+“I’ll bet it was Alfred’s mother,” said Brother solemnly, “wanting to
+know what we’d done with her child.”
+
+“Well,” said I, “what has happened is her own fault. If only she hadn’t
+made a robber of him!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              _Part Seven_
+                        O’HENRY, THE QUAIL BABY
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _If Clarence had been a man, he would have endowed orphanages._
+]
+
+                              _Part Seven_
+                                O’HENRY
+                                 _The_
+                               QUAIL BABY
+
+
+It was upon the Hill Trail that Brother and I came to know O’Henry, the
+Quail Baby. You would have liked our Hill Trail. It ran from the old
+logging chute, just at the top of the hill above the cabin, straight
+through woods of pine and fir until it ended at Bright Creek, two miles
+distant, a turbulent little stream full of rapids and miniature
+waterfalls, where the lady salmon fought their way up through the fresh
+water to deposit their eggs. The Hill Trail was bordered by ferns and
+salal bushes, with delicate, overhanging red huckleberry bushes and rows
+of young alders who whispered to each other all day like children in
+church. On either side of the brown ribbon that was the trail a carpet
+of grass and green moss stretched back into the deep woods, and
+tapestries of twin-flower vines and wild blackberry bushes hung from
+stump and fallen tree. The sunlight slanted down through the tall pines
+and touched the trail with tapering fingers of light as if it loved it.
+Even in the hottest summer there was always a little breeze that stirred
+the alders into sleepy gossip and set the pine trees humming gently to
+themselves. There was the scent of pine-needles, of fallen leaves, of
+wet moss.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We loved the Hill Trail best on the drowsy days of summer, when the
+shadows of the trees were long and cool, and the gentle splash of the
+tiny waterfall deep in the woods came like distant music. It was on such
+a day that we lay in the cool, deep moss near the Fairy Ring and stared
+through interlacing branches at the blue patchwork sky. We heard the
+tap-tap of a woodpecker not far away, the drowsy hum of a bee, and the
+shrill twittering of a flock of juncoes who were flying overhead. Then
+from afar came a call that we knew and loved, the deep woods call of the
+quail, with its three clear notes which said, as we imagined, “Oh,
+_Hen_-ry! Oh, _Hen_-ry!”
+
+The Chinook Indians say that long ago a lady quail was unfaithful to her
+mate, but afterward repented. Her husband never forgave her, however,
+and would not come back to her, so now she goes through the forest
+calling plaintively to him, “Oh, _Hen_-ry!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+As we listened, the quail call came nearer, then a faint, almost
+imperceptible scurry of leaves that told us that a bevy of the little
+brown birds was close at hand. Indeed, closer at hand than we thought,
+for at that instant a mother quail tripped out from the underbrush and
+at sight of us stopped short with an imperative danger note, sounded, as
+we suspected, in warning to the children who were following her. We had
+not moved, but the mother heart was filled with terror. There was a whir
+of wings, and she rose in the air for a short distance, then fell,
+crashing heavily into a clump of fern.
+
+“She’s hurt,” said Brother in a low tone, and quietly yet quickly we
+rose to our feet, our one thought to aid the little brown lady in her
+distress. But as we came near her—so near that my outstretched hand
+almost touched her—she fluttered away out through the clearing and down
+the trail, one wing dragging piteously.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Of course you must know it was only a trick. Brother and I should have
+known it, for we had heard of it many times. But such was the excellent
+acting of the brown mother bird, with her trailing wing, her helpless
+fluttering, and pitiful little cries, that we never questioned her
+sincerity. Half a dozen times we almost touched her, and each time she
+eluded us and fluttered a few feet ahead. Then suddenly with triumphant
+whir of strong wings she rose in a graceful arc and disappeared in the
+thickness of the forest shadows.
+
+We stood and laughed—a little ruefully, for we prided ourselves upon our
+woodcraft. Then I touched Brother’s arm as a thought came to me.
+
+“Her children are back by the Fairy Ring,” I told him. “Let us hide
+there and see if she will return to them.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So down the trail we sped, across the little clearing, and stooped
+behind a thick screen of salal bushes. Nor had we long to wait, for
+presently there was a soft flutter of wings, a scuttle of leaves, and
+out from the underbrush, at almost the very spot where we had first seen
+her, came the mother quail uttering a soft, piping call which meant
+“Danger is past; all’s well!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+As if by magic, a dozen tiny brown bodies scurried out from under
+leaves, baby birds the size of bantam chicks. They eddied around and
+behind her like little leaves in the wind, and she spoke to them in
+soft, maternal notes, telling them perhaps of the two fierce humans from
+whom she had saved them by exposing herself to capture.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But quails can not count, it seems. For when the little brown mother
+tripped daintily away into the deep greenery of the fern brake with her
+brood at her heels, we heard a tiny, piping cry so small as to be only a
+dot of sound. Following it, we came upon the place where Mrs. Quail’s
+children had hidden themselves, and there we found a baby quail whose
+tiny legs had been caught in a twin-flower vine, and who was trying to
+wrench himself free with all his little might. It was but the work of an
+instant to release the little dark brown puffball, and as I held him in
+my hands he peeped shrilly and mournfully.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We could not bear the thought of leaving him there in the woods on the
+chance that his mother would hear him and come to him. Perhaps our doubt
+of her was unjust, but at any rate I carried him down the Hill Trail,
+through the orchard, and to the little log cabin. Cupped warmly in my
+hands, he went to sleep, and when he woke up, he forgot that he had been
+frightened, for he was a very tiny quail, and his life had been so brief
+that he had not had time to learn the great fear which all too soon
+becomes a part of every woods creature’s life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+That night we put him in a little box with warm flannel covers over him,
+which we hoped would take the place of his mother’s feathers, and the
+next morning we thought to give him into the keeping of some
+philanthropic hen to rear with her own children.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+O’Henry, the Quail Baby, did not know that he was not a chicken; but the
+hens knew the difference, and there was not one lady among them, I am
+sorry to say, who would stretch her maternal spirit to include him in
+her family. We tried him on Sironda, the black Minorca hen, who had
+obligingly hatched out and mothered everything, from Barred Plymouth
+Rock chicks to white Pekin ducklings, and who had even reared a family
+of lanky young turkeys. But although Sironda was fussily attentive to
+her own brood of three-day-old chicks, she clucked sharply when we
+shoved O’Henry in under her spreading wings, and tried to scalp him with
+a vigorous peck.
+
+Nor would Liberty, the bantam hen, accept him as a foster child. She
+squawked as if he were some vicious animal, and only prompt attention on
+our part saved him from a terrible death.
+
+So we brought up O’Henry by hand and built for him a wire pen where he
+could spend his days. We dared not let him loose in the poultry yard,
+for it seemed that every hen, matron and maiden lady alike, resented the
+presence of the little woods stranger and would have rejoiced in
+scalping him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Brother and I lightened O’Henry’s captivity as much as we could. We
+taught him to come to us when we whistled his family call, and we would
+carry him about on our shoulders, balancing there like a tight-rope
+performer. We took him with us when we rowed in our little boat on the
+bay, and he would perch on the bow, keeping himself upright with
+fluttering wings and tail, cocking his tiny head on one side when the
+sea-gulls flew over, and uttering at times a faint and thoughtful note.
+
+However, it was really due to Clarence, the gray gander, that O’Henry’s
+life became a happy one at the cove. Clarence was full of years and
+dignity, and a born philanthropist. If he had been a man, he would have
+endowed orphanages and given newsboy dinners. As it was, he had a
+passion for fathering the young things of the poultry yard, much to the
+dismay of the various mothers.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There was never a queerer sight than Clarence, the huge gander, going
+the rounds of the hen-coops of a morning, making coaxing noises to lure
+the young chicks out from under their mothers’ wings. The mother hens
+were imprisoned to prevent their scratching in the garden, and Clarence
+would shovel at the ground with his broad flat bill and pretend to drop
+a worm or bug in front of the coop, with the result that half of the
+lady hen’s brood would be at his heels ready to follow where he led. His
+charges were always well fed, for Clarence was an excellent provider,
+but the wear and tear on the feelings of the mothers must have been
+terrific.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was inevitable that sooner or later the gray gander should discover
+O’Henry and make him one of his family. We found Clarence in the yard
+one morning, a dozen odd-sized chickens at his webbed heels. There were
+two Minorca chicks that belonged to Sironda, half a dozen white Leghorn
+children, a tiny cockerel with budding wings and tail who was Liberty’s
+son, and a lanky young Plymouth Rock rooster, all run to legs.
+
+We were minded to see what Clarence would think of our pet, and we let
+O’Henry out of his pen. The gray gander waddled over toward the tiny
+brown bird, his feathered tail wiggling from side to side, and made some
+hospitable noises in his throat. Then he pulled up a tuft of grass and
+dropped it before the Quail Baby by way of getting acquainted. The
+chicks set upon it noisily, while O’Henry watched them, his little head
+upraised, his tiny black eyes fixed on Clarence’s friendly bulk.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We had no idea of letting him go gipsying with Clarence, for he had
+become a well-loved playmate, and we could not be sure of his safety
+when away from us. Brother stooped to pick him up, but with a long-drawn
+hiss Clarence was upon him in a fury of flapping wings and snapping
+bill. He did not suffer his charges to be molested while in his care;
+that was clear.
+
+So we allowed O’Henry to go jaunting with Clarence and his feathered
+crew. Daily the gray gander would come into the yard with his motley
+family in tow, and having gathered up O’Henry, they would be off through
+the meadow, up into the orchard, not to return until the setting of the
+sun. They would come straggling back in sleepy Indian file, the gray
+gander at the head of the line, the chicks cheeping fretfully and glad
+to nestle under the feathers of their distracted mothers. We would watch
+for O’Henry and whistle the call he knew. He would come to us with his
+quick, darting run and we would take him into the house for the night.
+His crop was always crammed disgracefully, and his eyes were heavy with
+sleep.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Sometimes O’Henry heard the call of the wild, and we wondered when he
+would obey it. He had grown from a baby bird to a beautiful brown
+gentleman quail, with white stripes running from his throat down over
+his breast like a vest. He had a tiny topknot that lifted in moments of
+excitement, and a clear “Bobwhite” whistle that Brother and I imitated,
+much to his annoyance.
+
+We would hide from him behind the rose-bush and whistle. He would come
+running, his head stretched out in front of him, and on seeing us would
+hunch his head in between his shoulders and blink at us reproachfully.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When summer passed and autumn came to the cove, O’Henry was the only one
+of Clarence’s family who still remained with the gray gander. The chicks
+and ducklings had gradually grown to adulthood and forgotten the kindly
+gander who had fathered them. But O’Henry still joined Clarence in his
+daily excursions to the orchard or the meadow.
+
+Then one day, late in the fall, O’Henry went back to the woods. We
+grieved for him, because we loved him and because he had chosen the
+hardest time of the year in which to return to wild life he knew only by
+instinct. We went along the Hill Trail whistling “Oh, _Hen-ry_!” But if
+he heard the call he disregarded it. He never came to us.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Clarence was inconsolable. Day after day he would waddle into the
+back-yard where O’Henry’s empty pen still stood, walk around it, peer
+through the wire mesh, and make seductive noises of invitation. Brother
+and I tried to explain to him that our baby quail had grown up and had
+gone back to his kindred of the woods, but Clarence only hissed at us
+and regarded us balefully. I think he suspected us of having made away
+with his little comrade.
+
+One day the snow came, early for the Sound country, and Brother and I,
+climbing the trail to the top of the hill, saw the familiar three-line
+imprints of the quail track. We thought of O’Henry, our lost friend; we
+hoped he was warm and that his crop was full of food.
+
+Then one morning we heard the familiar “quit quit” of the quail very
+near at hand. The sound came from an empty hen-house, and when we
+approached it silently and peered through a crack, what should we see
+there but a bevy of twenty quail—and O’Henry in their midst! He had not
+forgotten us after all! He had brought his friends and relatives back to
+the place of his childhood, where he was sure of a welcome for them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Our hands filled with cracked wheat and mixed grain, we came to the door
+of the shed, softly whistling, “Oh, _Hen_-ry!” He came, as in former
+days, running to us with his head stuck out in front of him, and with a
+soft whir of wings was upon my shoulder, pecking contentedly at the
+wheat I offered him, and wiping his bill on my cheek.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+All through the weeks of snow and cold we fed O’Henry’s clan, and they
+learned that we were not to be feared. They surrounded us like chickens
+whenever we came into the shed, for O’Henry’s trust in us had inspired
+their confidence. Not only did they become accustomed to us, but to
+Clarence as well. For the lonely gray gander caught sight of O’Henry one
+morning, and waddled over to him, wiggling his excuse of a tail,
+shoveling the ground with his flat, yellow bill, and expressing his
+delight in husky quacks. The other quail at first took alarm, and there
+was much whirring of wings and scurrying of tiny feet. But the gray
+gander soon proved to them that his intentions were of the best. He
+merely wished to provide for them. So all those weeks when we fed our
+“boarders,” as we called them, Clarence stayed in the shed with the
+quail family, grubbing busily at the bare ground, finding little, but
+making up for the scarcity of food in kindly endeavor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When the snow melted, O’Henry’s tribe went back to the woods—and with
+them went Clarence. One day we saw O’Henry and his brown cousins
+scurrying up the hill, darting under ferns and bushes, calling to each
+other happily—and in their wake was Clarence, the fatherly gander,
+flattered into thinking that he was leading the way.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was a quaint sight, and we did not try to bring him back because we
+thought he would return at sunset. But he did not. He disappeared into
+the woods with the quail family, and we never saw him again. Long
+afterward, hunters told us of seeing a gray gander with a flock of
+quail—and they had forborne to shoot.
+
+So we lost two friends at once, but we tried to believe that they were
+happy together. How Clarence accustomed himself to the ways of the wild,
+I do not know. But I do believe that somewhere the gray gander still
+lives with O’Henry, and I can think of no better protector for the quail
+baby and his family.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              _Part Eight_
+                          THE TALE OF TIMOTHY
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _Timothy clung to the bottle habit._
+]
+
+                              _Part Eight_
+                        TIMOTHY, THE DIRTY BEAR
+
+
+Perhaps it is unjust to the memory of our friend Timothy that we should
+think of him as “the Dirty Bear.” I wouldn’t prejudice you against him
+for the world. “Dirty” has such a reprehensible sound. But Timothy was
+dirty in a perfectly legitimate way. He had a primitive soul that found
+delight in grubbing in rotten stumps for maggots and in burrowing into
+the soft earth for Indian potato roots. You can see that under such
+circumstances he could not keep his face and paws scrupulously clean,
+any more than a child can who makes mud pies. He hated water—but then,
+so did we, unless we could take our baths in the Bay—and he had an
+almost fanatical fear of soap. Brother, who was then reading “A
+Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” thought Timothy might have
+been a reincarnation of some eccentric hermit who had vowed never to
+wash himself for the rest of his life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We knew Timothy long before he knew us. We did not know him by name, but
+we knew where he lived, and we had what you might call a speaking
+acquaintance with his mother. It happened thus:
+
+One day, in our explorations along the creek bed at the end of the Hill
+Trail, we came suddenly upon a hole in the bank. It was almost covered
+by long, overhanging ferns, and had not a puff of wind stirred the
+fronds just as we were passing, we should never have known about the
+hole at all. It was on the opposite side of the creek, but we found a
+place where a fallen log bridged the little stream, and the next moment
+we were standing on the opposite side at the foot of the embankment,
+pushing the ferns aside and peering into the depths of a black and
+wonderfully inviting hole.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Had we thought to look, we might have seen in the sandy slope that led
+up to the hidden entrance the imprints of a foot almost human in shape,
+although not nearly so large. Footprints that turned in toward each
+other—and we should have known. But our minds were filled with the
+fascinating possibilities of the miniature cave we had discovered.
+Perhaps it was a pirate den; perhaps gnomes lived there; or perhaps we
+were on the track of buried treasure.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+On hands and knees I led the way into the inky blackness with Brother
+close behind me. The daylight behind was blotted out. For several yards
+the passageway went straight ahead, then it turned suddenly to the
+right; and I, turning with it, stopped so abruptly that Brother coming
+behind bumped into me. A curious, powerful odor enveloped us, as of
+darkness made odorous by furry bodies and warm by living things. Then
+from ahead of me not more than two yards away flashed the savage gleam
+of two blue-green eyes.
+
+There was a menacing growl which set our spines to tingling, and at the
+same instant came the sound of whines and a movement as of baby things
+disturbed in their sleep. I was conscious of a sickish, fainting
+feeling, for I realized suddenly that we were in the house of a mother
+bear.
+
+Brother needed no urging to make his exit. He was backing out on hands
+and knees far more quickly than he had come in, and I was prodding him
+along, followed by those menacing, hair-raising growls.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Why the lady bear did not attack us is more than I can tell. The brown
+bears of the northwestern woods are harmless and even friendly little
+persons, but the mother when protecting her young is more ferocious than
+a wildcat or a mountain lion. Perhaps Mrs. Timothy knew that our visit
+was unintentional and that we meditated no harm toward her or her
+children. At any rate we gained the entrance of the cave untouched and
+unharmed, but we were breathing heavily and our knees were wobbling
+sadly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Perhaps you think we should have stayed away from the house of the lady
+bear; but we did not. We were interested, you see, in knowing how much
+of a family she had, and we never went along the creek bed without
+leaving some offering in the shape of food at the mouth of the hole.
+
+Sometimes it was an apple or a leaf of lettuce, and if nothing else
+availed, we broke off licorice root or fern and placed it there for her.
+It was our method of apologizing for our intrusion and of expressing our
+interest in the family.
+
+One day we saw the mother bear with her children, and that is how we
+came to name Timothy. She was at the mouth of the cave, half asleep in
+the warm sunshine, and four cubs were rolling over each other like
+gridiron heroes in a football scrimmage. They were squealing like young
+pigs, and from time to time she remonstrated against their noise by a
+sleepy grunt. Then, as we watched, the bear cub at the bottom of the
+furry pile squeezed out and stood on his hind legs. His face was covered
+with brown, sandy loam, and his squinty black eyes peered out as through
+a mask. I knew a boy who lived at the head of the Bay whose face always
+looked so. His name was Timothy, and that was why on the spot we so
+christened the bear baby.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Our next meeting with Timothy was in the nature of a near-tragedy. We
+were hunting for trilliums in Trillium Gulch, a hidden valley to which
+we ourselves had cut a path from the Hill Trail. The white, lily-like
+flowers starred the hillside there in the spring, and it was our fond
+belief that no one came there but ourselves. Hunters and trappers go
+everywhere, however, violating even such a woodland paradise as ours. As
+we went down the narrow trail, pushing aside the light branches of the
+alders and the firtrees, we heard a plaintive, whining cry almost human
+in its poignancy. We stopped for an instant, listening, wondering. Then
+we slipped softly down the path, thrust aside the interlacing ferns, and
+found ourselves beside the little stream which ran like a silver ribbon
+through Trillium Gulch. The sounds came from the left, and following
+their lead we rounded a boulder in the trail and came upon a sight which
+filled us with gasping indignation. A little brown bear with a fleck of
+white on his furry throat was tugging frantically and futilely at the
+jaws of a steel trap which held his two front paws in a cruel, biting
+grip. There was blood upon the jagged clamps, and the face which the
+little fellow turned to us was piteous in its baby misery, a little
+brown face covered with loam. It was Timothy, the Dirty Bear.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I do not like even now to think of the half-hour which followed. So
+strong was the steel trap that the combined efforts of Brother and
+myself could only pry the cruel jaws apart the fraction of an inch. We
+were hampered, too, in our work of mercy by poor little Timothy, who,
+not realizing that we were trying to help him, shrieked and bit at us
+and scratched with his hind feet. Our hands were soon covered with
+blood, and there was a long, jagged line of red on Brother’s face where
+the baby bear had clawed him. But we did not pause in our efforts.
+Finally, by the aid of a stout stick, we managed to open the jaws of the
+vicious trap, and the poor little fellow, his front paws cruelly torn
+and bleeding, whimpering like a baby, sat down on his haunches and began
+to lick his wounded paws, stopping at intervals to hold them out in
+front of him like a child whose finger is hurt and wants it made well by
+a kiss.
+
+Strangely enough, he was not afraid of us now, and when I took him in my
+arms his plaintive whimpering gradually ceased, and he licked at his
+paws solicitously.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+No doubt we should have taken Timothy back to his mother and trusted to
+nature to heal his grievous hurts. But nature would take too long, and
+in the meantime he would suffer cruelly. He was such a little bear, you
+know, and had not yet achieved the stoicism which makes the older woods
+creatures almost indifferent to pain. So even at the cost of causing his
+mother a great deal of worry at his prolonged absence, we took him down
+the hill with us to the log cabin to receive first aid treatment for his
+wounds.
+
+That is how Timothy, the Dirty Bear, became a friend of ours. Fate in
+the form of a hunter prevented us from taking him back to his home in
+the creek bank. The poor lady bear was shot the next day. One of her
+cubs was captured and the other two children escaped to the woods to
+live as best they could. So Timothy belonged to us, and he was the
+merriest of playmates.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When we rescued him from the trap he was a very tiny bear, being no
+larger than Tinker, our black and tan rat terrier. He slept in a
+clothes-basket on the back porch, sometimes having for a bedfellow
+Three-Spot, the mottled black and white cat. Three-Spot at first had
+been greatly alarmed by Timothy’s rough and sportive overtures of
+friendship. But when she found that by boxing his ears she could correct
+his manners and set him to yelping with fright, she took to imposing
+upon his good nature by making him serve at night for a mattress. In the
+morning we would find the two of them curled up together, Timothy
+snoring gently and Three-Spot digging her paws into his soft, thick fur
+with a purr that was a monotone of content.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Brother and I did not know whether Timothy’s mother had weaned him from
+a milk diet, but we felt that we would be safeguarding his digestion if
+we brought him up on liquid food for a time at least, so we rowed into
+town especially to purchase a bottle with a strong rubber nipple
+attached. The druggist asked if there was a baby at our house, and we
+told him yes—what kind of baby, we did not state.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Whether or not we were following the same system of dietetics that Mrs.
+Bear would have employed in bringing up her child, Timothy really did
+thrive on his liquid menu. Even after he outgrew the necessity for milk,
+he clung to the bottle habit and would sample the contents of any bottle
+he found. We used to bring him ginger ale from town and soda pop of all
+flavors. If nothing else was handy, we filled a battered old canteen
+with sweetened water, and he would tilt back on his hind legs, hold the
+canteen perpendicularly aloft, close his eyes, and drink it slowly,
+making funny little rumbling noises deep in his throat which, Brother
+maintained, were imitations of Three-Spot’s purring. Once he got hold of
+a bottle of kerosene and had closed his eyes in anticipatory ecstasy
+before the taste of the first terrible mouthful reached his throat. I
+shall never forget the look of pained disillusion on Timothy’s face. He
+threw the bottle from him, coughed and sputtered, gagged once or twice
+as if deathly sick, and then waddled off to the spring, walking
+pigeon-toed, and with uncomprehending anguish in the very tilt of his
+furry hind quarters. That should have cured him of his liking for
+promiscuous bottles, but it did not—as you shall see.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We worried a little at first as to what else we should give him besides
+milk, but we need not have concerned ourselves. Timothy’s appetite was
+without limits, and he could eat anything—bread, meat scraps, griddle
+cakes, or cold potatoes. On top of the civilized food we fed him he
+hunted on his own account for certain roots he liked, clawed the bark
+from fallen logs to get the white grubs underneath, and buried his head
+at the foot of hollow stumps where the red ants had made their hills.
+After an hour or two of such foraging, he would return to us, his face
+and paws besmeared with loam and covered with cobwebs, his furry coat
+rusty with sand and tagged by twigs and strands of blackberry vine. He
+would blink at us questioningly, a trifle shamefacedly, running his
+small red tongue along the sides of his mouth, and we would shake our
+heads and say mournfully, “Oh, Timothy, you dirty, dirty bear!”
+
+After such excursions we always gave him a bath in the big washtub, and
+though he knew there was no escaping it, he always squealed and
+struggled while we lathered him and only ceased his whining when we had
+rinsed him and put him in the sun to dry, giving him the canteen filled
+with sugared water to keep him quiet.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He was the merriest playfellow we ever had. He went with us
+everywhere—up the Hill Trail, into the orchard, and out on the bay when
+we sailed our little boat and played that we were pirates. Timothy never
+objected to anything except a bath. We dressed him in outlandish
+costumes, sometimes with a red bandanna tied around his head, a shawl
+looped about his fat and furry body, and a wooden knife stuck in his
+belt. He was always ready to wrestle with us, to climb hills with us, or
+to be a pillow for our heads as Brother and I lay through the long,
+drowsy, summer afternoons and read fairy-tales aloud to each other, or
+described the shapes we saw in the clouds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When the late fall came, Timothy remembered he was a bear long enough to
+have a desire to go to bed for the winter, but what chance had a tired
+bear for a seasonal sleep when living in the same house with Tinker,
+Three-Spot, Brother, and myself? We would drag him from his
+clothes-basket while he whimpered with half-closed eyes, and Tinker
+would badger him into wakefulness and a game of tag. Then the four of us
+would go through the orchard up to the Hill Trail, pushing each other
+into the drifts of dead leaves and playing hide and seek around the
+stumps and logs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Of course Timothy could not stay with us always; that was too much to
+expect. He belonged to the woods, and sooner or later he must obey their
+call. He had belonged to us for almost a year, and it was only right
+that the out-of-doors should at last claim her child. But when the call
+of the wild did come, we were sorry in spite of ourselves, and when
+Timothy’s absences came more and more frequently and the intervals of
+time he spent with us lessened, we missed him sorely. We knew that soon
+our playmate would be with us no more, that he would go back to the
+forest whence he came, and take up the serious business of finding a
+wife and of locating a tree or a hole in which to spend the next winter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The manner of his departure was dramatic, even as was his advent into
+our lives. We were up on the Hill Trail, Brother and I, and we had, as
+we supposed, left Timothy on the back porch sleeping in his
+clothes-basket, for which he was now much too big, but to which he had
+become attached through habit. On the open trail with its
+sound-deadening mat of hard, brown earth we did not hear the soft,
+padding feet that followed us and were not aware that our friend was
+near at hand until we met a hunter, brown-faced and with a gun in hand,
+near the bend in the path that we called “U-Chu-Ka’s Corner,” in memory
+of our little rabbit friend.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The man had a red band around his hat, I remember, and a canteen was
+slung at his side. He had put it to his lips to drink when he caught
+sight of us, and suddenly his eyes widened, and the hand that held the
+canteen became rigid.
+
+“Run, you kids!” he gasped out, “there’s a bear behind you!”
+
+We turned to confront Timothy, who was standing pigeon-toed in the
+middle of the trail, his face covered with loam from a rotten stump
+where he had been digging for ants, his eyes blinking at us sleepily and
+a trifle reproachfully for having gone off without him. But before we
+could explain to the hunter that the bear behind us was a friend of
+ours, the man had raised his gun and leveled it at our playfellow. I
+screamed aloud and Brother, heedless of the danger flung himself in
+front of the rifle.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Now Timothy knew nothing of guns, but he had long and satisfactory
+acquaintance with bottles and canteens. He had seen the man drink. There
+was something contained therein that he, Timothy, would like. The man
+would not mind sharing it—I’m sure he reasoned thus to himself—and in
+that instant when the gun was pointed straight at him, he rose on his
+hind feet, his furry arms outstretched, and started toward the hunter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The man with the gun forgot to pull the trigger; he forgot everything
+except that a dark brown body with gleaming black eyes was advancing
+upon him. He gave a little squeal of terror, and the rifle dropped from
+his hands. He turned and fled down the trail with Timothy galloping on
+all fours close at his heels. In spite of our breathless calls he would
+not return to us, and though we ran and called and laughed at the same
+time, he soon outdistanced us. When last we saw the hunter he was
+disappearing over the crest of a little hillock in the trail with the
+canteen bobbing behind him, and the hat with the red band made a dot of
+scarlet against the underbrush where it had fallen.
+
+We heard afterward that the man had not stopped running until he reached
+the little town. Timothy by that time was nowhere in sight, having given
+up the pursuit of the canteen in disgust.
+
+But we never saw him again. Perhaps returning home he met a comely lady
+bear and they decided to set up housekeeping together. Perhaps she even
+won his heart by telling him that she knew where there was a nice bottle
+full of sweetened water.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Long afterward we found one day by the creek bed a ginger ale bottle
+dropped there by some picknickers. It was empty, and on the gravel near
+by we saw footprints almost human in shape, only smaller and toeing in
+toward each other.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We knew somehow that Timothy had been there. It was almost as if he had
+known we would pass that way, and had left the bottle and his footprints
+where we would see them to tell us that we were not forgotten, nor were
+the things we had taught him.
+
+
+
+
+                              _Part Nine_
+                            THE BANDIT BIRD
+
+
+
+
+                              _Part Nine_
+                                 _The_
+                              BANDIT BIRD
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+I hope the fact that Hector was a chicken hawk will not prejudice you
+against him unduly. There are brigands, you know, who have gentlemanly
+instincts, and I am sure that if Hector had been a bandit chief, he
+would have spared women and children and given part of his plunderings
+to charity. After all, he was not to blame for being a hawk or for
+having a natural liking for live poultry. There was at times a mournful
+dignity about him, as if he resented the unfair workings of a fate which
+had made him a robber bird, a trespasser on the lives of other
+creatures, and at enmity with every living thing.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _Sometimes the bandit birds swooped down_
+]
+
+He was a beautiful hawk with gray-brown plumage, wing tips that turned
+slightly upward when he flew, and a fierce and royal beak curved like a
+scimitar. His eyes were very black, very bright, and very knowing. Most
+of the time they were superbly disdainful. But Brother and I have seen
+them when they actually seemed to smile.
+
+It was Brother who named him, for the alliterative privilege, I suspect,
+of calling him “Hector, the Horrible Hawk.” But that was only in fun.
+For he was not horrible at all when we got to know him. Lazarus thinks
+otherwise, very probably. But then his experience with Hector was a
+trying one, and to this day—if he still lives—he carries the marks of
+his eventful meeting with our friend, the robber chief.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Lazarus was a pet chicken, son of Sironda, the black minorca hen. We
+gave him his curious name because he had a talent for venturing very
+near death’s door, and the fact that we always saved him lent
+appropriateness to his name. Once when very young, no more than five
+days out of his shell, he was all but scalped by a rival mother hen, and
+when we answered his frantic baby peeps for help his head was bleeding
+profusely, and his eyes were closed as if in death. We sprinkled water
+on his tiny bill and salved his lacerated head. And he, having a strong
+constitution, came back from the tomb, as it were, and lived a long and
+eventful life. In order to care for him better, we kept him in the
+back-yard, tucking him at night into a small box under flannel
+coverings. He thrived and grew from chickhood very sturdily, and the
+only ill effect that remained from his early mishap was that he was
+quite bald. No feathers ever came on the spot where the lady hen had
+scalped him, and we could have distinguished him from every cockerel of
+his size and color in the world by that little bare place on the top of
+his head.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Now, when Lazarus lost his first baby down and was in that shorn and
+untidy condition which always precedes the growth of real feathers, he
+suddenly became lonesome for the other members of the poultry yard. He
+would run the length of the wire fence, poking his head through the
+small meshes, and more than once he nearly strangled to death by getting
+it caught. We always rescued him just in time to save his life. So
+finally we allowed him to go into the barnyard with the rest of his
+kindred. It was then that Lazarus had the big adventure of his already
+crowded career. His meeting with Hector lifted him to dizzy heights—and
+I am not speaking figuratively. It really did. At that, it wasn’t so
+much a meeting as an abduction. At least Hector intended it to be such.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We were constantly on guard to keep hawks away from the ranch. They
+waged merciless warfare on our chickens, pigeons, and guinea-pigs, and
+there was always a loaded, double-barreled shotgun behind the kitchen
+door ready for action in case of an air raid. When we heard the
+frightened flapping of the pigeons as they flew in aimless circles
+around the cabin and barn, we knew a hawk was somewhere overhead,
+hovering with curved-up wings and cruel, bright eyes, seeking his prey,
+choosing it calmly, waiting patiently the proper moment to swoop down
+upon it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The chickens, too, always told us when such danger was near. Prince, the
+great white Plymouth Rock rooster, would set up a long-drawn cry of
+warning, and the hens would burst into frenzied cackling. The whole
+poultry yard would cock its head on one side to get a better view of the
+air robber, then would scoot to cover of the barn or hen-houses, every
+neck ruff distended. Sometimes it was a false alarm. A crow would be
+flying peaceably on his business, or a sea-gull would have swerved
+inland a bit. Prince took no chances. It was his duty to guard the
+poultry yard, and he believed firmly in the policy of safety first.
+
+But many times the warning was one of real danger. A hawk would indeed
+be circling slowly above the barnyard, his bright eyes fixed
+calculatingly on the scurrying fowls below. Then one of the grown-ups
+would snatch the double-barreled shotgun from behind the kitchen door
+and fire at the winged plunderer. The shot, though it did not usually
+kill, always frightened the air robber away, and we would watch him fly
+lazily, almost contemptuously, off toward the hill and the thick woods,
+his powerful wings moving steadily and easily.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Sometimes, though, the bandit birds came and swooped down on their
+prey—a small chick or a baby guinea-pig—before we could prevent it. And
+often a bloody bunch of feathers near the rookery would testify to the
+murderous skill of a hawk and the sad fate of a hapless pigeon.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was on a day when the grown-ups had gone to town. The Old Fisherman
+was mending his nets down on the float in front of the cabin. It was a
+lazy summer day, and Brother and I were sitting on the porch steps
+reading—the steps that were made of roughly-hewn logs.
+
+All at once we heard the familiar danger signal of Prince, the white
+rooster, and then the hens began to cackle in a very panic of fear. We
+dropped our books, but before we could even start for the back-yard, we
+heard another sound which seemed so impossible and so out of place that
+we listened paralyzed with astonishment. It was the shrill and frenzied
+peeping of a half-grown chicken in terrible distress—_and the sound came
+from above us_!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next instant, as we stood staring, hardly crediting what our eyes
+told us, we saw a large chicken hawk fly slowly past the cabin, no
+higher than the roof of the porch. He flew so slowly and at such a short
+distance from the earth because he was weighted down with a live and
+struggling young cockerel, which he held grimly in his sharp talons!
+There was a shout that came from our throats simultaneously,
+“_Lazarus!_”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+For the struggling, shrilly-peeping victim was no other than our
+bald-headed friend whom we had saved from death half a dozen times
+before. His bare, gangling legs hung limply beneath him; his neck jerked
+spasmodically with his frantic appeals for help. His wings, with their
+absurd tufts of feathers, stuck out at right angles from his body, for
+the hawk’s talons were buried in the flesh beneath them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At the time, you may be sure, we did not wait to make any remarks on all
+these observations. With one thought Brother and I plunged through the
+front door, back into the kitchen, and bumped into each other in our
+eagerness to get the gun. It was Brother who seized it first, and
+through the two rooms we dashed again and out into the front yard. The
+hawk was flying slowly and with evident difficulty—for Lazarus was a
+healthy, heavy youngster—across the open space that lay between the yard
+of the cabin and the old brickyard shed which adjoined it.
+
+Brother, bent back almost double by the weight of the heavy weapon,
+pressed it against his shoulder, took careful aim, and fired. I
+screamed, for there were three falls. Brother tumbled backward from the
+kick of the shotgun. Lazarus hurtled to earth in a sprawl of legs and
+wings and lay there, uttering feeble, choking sounds. The hawk rocketed
+down, a flutter of gray-brown feathers; there was blood upon the grass
+where he dropped.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Old Fisherman, hearing the commotion, came running up the float, the
+wooden shuttle with which he mended nets still grasped tightly in his
+hand.
+
+Brother scrambled to his feet, blinking dazedly at the result of his
+marksmanship. Our first thought was that Lazarus was killed at last. But
+he was apparently only severely shaken by his fall, for presently he
+walked off a little dizzily, his tender skin bleeding where the hawk’s
+talons had sunk in.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The hawk was our next consideration. Now that we had wounded him—I say
+“we,” because I felt that the responsibility was half mine—we were sorry
+for his plight. He was thrashing about helplessly on the grass, one wing
+dragging at his side. He was trying desperately to fly, but could not so
+much as lift himself above the ground. His fierce, dark eyes blazed at
+us, and his powerful, curved beak snapped menacingly when we approached
+him. But at last his strength failed him, the bleeding wing spread
+itself out in a fan, and he sank over on one side, his talons jerking
+spasmodically. As we came nearer he regarded us with eyes that were
+unafraid. They even seemed dull with apathy, as if he knew that the end
+had come and that he, like the robber aristocrat that he was, must
+accept it philosophically.
+
+The Old Fisherman was for ending his life then and there. But Brother
+and I could not bear to have him killed, for he was at our mercy, hurt
+and helpless. For the first time in our lives we had deliberately
+wounded something that lived and had feelings even as we. The knowledge
+that we had fired upon him to save our friend’s life was not sufficient
+excuse for us to allow the Old Fisherman to kill him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So together we caught him, tied his fierce beak so he could not snap at
+us, bound his powerful legs so that his talons should not tear our
+hands, then the Old Fisherman, grumblingly, but gently, bathed and
+salved the injured wing. In time it would be as good as new, he told us,
+but he didn’t know what our folks would say to our saving the life of a
+“pesterin’, low-lived hawk.”
+
+As he anticipated, the grown-ups were not at all pleased when they
+returned from town and found Hector—he had been named by that time—tied
+by one leg to a stake in the back-yard, his right wing sadly out of
+focus and smeared with a clot of blood. But it was not in their kindly
+hearts to kill in cold blood, so they let the hawk live.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+For the first few days that Hector was in our midst he did little except
+to tug at the chain which bound him to the stake, slowly and
+automatically, like a man taking morning exercises with rubber ropes. He
+hated us and repulsed our attentions fiercely and scornfully. He refused
+to eat the tempting bits of raw meat that we spread before him; he
+sulked all day with his curved beak hidden in the ruffled feathers of
+his breast. He was indeed like a robber chieftain in captivity. We were
+patient, however, for we knew that according to Hector’s viewpoint we
+had injured him without reason. He had been in search of his dinner—a
+perfectly legitimate occupation for any one—and as he was carrying it
+off we had not only robbed him of it, but wounded him grievously. You
+can see that he had a great deal of logic on his side.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But little by little his haughty antagonism melted before our daily
+overtures. He no longer snapped at us when we came near, and began to
+take an active interest in the food we brought him. There came a day
+when he allowed me to put my hand on the soft, smooth feathers of his
+head and back, and when I gently massaged his wounded wing with vaseline
+he opened his beak as if to bite my hand but closed it without doing me
+harm.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then, wonder of wonders, Hector began to like us. When he saw us coming
+into the back-yard he would set up a sort of dancing, jumping up and
+down stiff-legged, spreading out his dark wings, and straining at the
+chain. His beak would snap open and shut, and his bright, black eyes
+seemed actually to have a smile in them. He would allow me to salve his
+injury with only the faintest suggestion of nervousness in his half-open
+beak, and on the day when we unchained his leg from the stake he sat on
+my hand with all the dignity of an emperor receiving his court after a
+long illness.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+From that time on we gave Hector his liberty for a few hours each day.
+And always, before releasing him, we would take the precaution to feed
+him well. We did not intend to have any fatalities among the poultry if
+we could help it. But even with a full stomach, he worried the barnyard
+into a daily spasm of fear. For as he regained the use of his wing, he
+would fly slowly, majestically, over the poultry pens, turning his head
+from side to side as hawks do when they are picking their prey and
+calculating the time for the swoop to earth. Brother and I believed
+firmly that Hector had no intention of snatching up a chick or a pigeon,
+that his daily flight was merely by way of exercise and for the dramatic
+satisfaction it gave him to see the feathered crew below him so
+disturbed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At any rate, he never once attempted to harm any of our live stock.
+Perhaps it was because we fed him so well, but Brother and I preferred
+to think it was because he was a gentleman, and that he would not betray
+our confidence when we trusted him to do the right thing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This daily flight of Hector’s was most annoying to the grown-ups,
+however. In the first place, the hens were not laying so well as they
+had. They were frightened out of all nesting desire by Hector’s calm
+aërial promenades, and were in a continual state of nervous excitement.
+Then, too, when Prince gave the danger signal and all the hens ran for
+cover with their chicks, the grown-ups would dash out of the house each
+time ready to fire upon a strange marauder, only to be confronted with
+Hector making peaceable spirals above the hen-houses. He would come to
+us when we whistled shrilly, and would sit quietly on my wrist to nibble
+at a piece of cooky as if he had never had a carnivorous thought in his
+life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I should like to tell you that he and Lazarus became friends after the
+hawk had become partially domesticated, but such was never the case.
+Lazarus used to come stalking into the back-yard, his legs much too long
+for the rest of him, and a tiny, serrated, red comb sticking up from the
+bald spot on his head. His body was still almost bare, though a generous
+tuft of feathers on his tail showed where he might in time expect some
+real plumage. He still carried the scars of his aërial adventure under
+his wings. He would approach Hector cautiously, craning his neck in and
+out with a curious rubberized effect, and would stop at a safe distance,
+turning his head on one side, giving Hector a timorous inspection from
+the broadside of one amber eye. And Hector would return the look
+scornfully, his curved beak giving him a morose, sneering expression.
+His whole attitude seemed to say, “Never mind, I’ll get you next time!”
+
+As Hector grew stronger and could fly better, the grown-ups gave the
+ultimatum that we must dispose of him in some way. It was too dangerous,
+they said, to have a chicken hawk around the ranch. In vain we argued
+that Hector was a gentleman, that he would not bother any of our
+poultry. But to our sorrow, they said that he should be taken to the
+city and presented to the zoölogical gardens there.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Brother and I told Hector what was going to happen to him, and that it
+was not in our power to prevent his going, and it seemed to us that he
+was very thoughtful afterward. We shall always believe that what
+happened was the direct result of the grown-ups’ decision to send him
+into captivity, although, you understand, we could not blame them. They
+had been more than kind to our somewhat dangerous guest.
+
+The next day when we released our robber chieftain from his stake, he
+flew up over the cabin roof, circled once around it, then flew northward
+along the beach and was soon out of sight. When night came Hector did
+not return. And though Brother and I stood in the yard whistling until
+we were breathless, there was no sudden swoop of a gray-brown bird from
+the air, no Hector to curve sharp talons gently around my wrist.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next morning, when we went for milk at the neighboring ranch, we
+knew why our friend had not come back to us. On the fence outside the
+barn, hung limply over the pickets just as he had fallen, was a draggled
+bunch of gray-brown feathers that had once been our beautiful Hector,
+the Robber Chief. The wide wings were powerless now, the body was
+riddled with fine shot, the once proud head with its curved beak drooped
+pitifully. The fierce dark eyes were closed. Never again would Hector
+perform his dance of joy at our coming, never again would he stare
+appraisingly at Lazarus, or frighten the hens and pigeons with his lazy
+circles above their heads.
+
+The rancher told us he had shot the hawk the day before. And he could
+not understand why we wept over the blood-stained bunch of feathers. He
+did not know that Hector was a friend of ours—and a gentleman.
+
+Brother and I always thought that Hector deliberately courted death
+rather than spend his life in yearning captivity. And I, for one, am
+glad he did. For no one else would have understood him and loved him as
+we did.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _Her nostrils dilated at the hated human scent._
+]
+
+                               _Part Ten_
+                         MY FRIEND THE PRINCESS
+
+
+This is not my story, except incidentally. It is the story of a Bengal
+tigress named Princess, with a coat of dull gold striped with ebony. A
+restless, sullen tigress, padding the length of her narrow cage, with
+amber eyes staring out at some vision beyond the iron bars, with tawny
+lips half drawn back from white, pointed fangs. A tigress with something
+high and noble in her steady pacing, her air of absolute detachment from
+everything around her. When I met her I was no longer a child living
+near Puget Sound, but had quite grown up and moved to California, and to
+city life far from my woodland friends of earlier and sweeter years.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Princess lives in a motion-picture studio’s menagerie now, but there was
+a time when she knew the hot, marshy smell of the Bengal jungles, when
+she crouched, tense in every muscle, to spring upon a fat bullock, when
+she padded through narrow jungle trails to drink at the hidden pool
+which only the forest creatures knew.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+She was caught in a tiger pit, they told me, when little more than a
+cub. She had been purchased first by a circus, and then by the
+motion-picture company which owns her now. They told me she was fierce
+and utterly without affection. And indeed she looked so, pacing back and
+forth in her iron-barred cage, her breath coming in a hissing snarl as
+she noted our presence, her amber eyes widening ever so little as she
+caught our scent.
+
+Still I could not think Princess was so terrible. I could not find it in
+my heart to be afraid of her. I pitied her. There was something
+unbearably pathetic in her constant pacing. It seemed to me that I could
+actually feel the longing of her caged heart to be out in the open
+again, to lope down jungle trails, to lie stretched out on rocks warm
+with Indian sunshine. There was no enmity in the look she turned on us,
+only indifference, and—was it pleading?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was my first visit to the studio. And I carried away with me that
+picture of Princess in her cramped cage, pacing, pausing, sniffing at
+the air heavy with human scent, her amber eyes seeing something afar
+off, something we could not understand—
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then I discovered that the keeper of the menagerie was an old friend of
+mine. “Pudgy” he was nicknamed. He was short and rotund, and trained
+animals with kindness instead of whips. I had known him in the Puget
+Sound country when Brother and I were children. A woodsman he had been
+then, and with a tiny little cabin near Green Point. We had visited him
+often, for he shared our love for the things of the open. He had had a
+tame deer whose name was Nellie, and he had nursed back to health a
+bobcat that he had rescued from a trap in the High Sierras. It was not
+strange that with his love of animals Pudgy should finally come into a
+position as keeper of a motion-picture menagerie. Many years had passed
+since we had seen each other, but when we met by chance—I was of the
+press—we renewed old acquaintance, and found pleasure in talking of
+Puget Sound and of the woods creatures we had loved.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Through him I came to know personally the animals in the menagerie. I
+was introduced to the Russian wolves, to the lions, to the bears, and to
+Princess the tigress. I think he liked her best of all the wild things
+there, and I am sure I did. There was something about her cheated
+strength, her restrained power, that made my heart go out to her. I
+never failed to visit her when I went to the studio, and I liked to
+think that she knew me and recognized me as a friend.
+
+It was several weeks after Pudgy and I renewed our old friendship that
+they told me at the studio that Princess, the glorious Bengal tigress,
+was to be killed. She had grown unmanageable for picture work, they
+said, too sullen and too treacherous. The picture in hand called for a
+tiger hunt. She was to be sacrificed for the sake of reality and shot
+down. Her pelt, they added, would be worth a great deal of money.
+
+But I could not think of Princess in terms of a pelt that was worth
+money. I felt as if a human being had been sentenced to death. Because
+she could not find it in her royal heart to cringe beneath the trainer’s
+lash, she was to die; because she was queenly, and unafraid, she no
+longer had the right to live.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I have seen the tortures wild animals go through in making pictures. How
+they are prodded with pointed sticks, made to jump into water from great
+heights, and forced to run through blazing brush. I have seen lions and
+tigers struck cruelly on their sensitive noses to make them register
+rage. All these things had Princess suffered from trainers and
+directors. I did not blame her for rebelling.
+
+I came upon Pudgy as he sat on a bench near Princess’s cage, his chin in
+his hand, and he was staring at her while she paced restlessly back and
+forth with hissing intakes of breath.
+
+“They are going to kill her,” he said slowly, “just because they can’t
+break her spirit.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I sat beside him, and together we watched Princess. Pudgy told me how he
+had tried to ease the fear and hatred of humans in the heart of the
+jungle tigress by being especially nice to her. How, when she had hurt
+herself jumping from a springboard into a lake with sharp rocks in it,
+he had gone into the cage and bathed the swollen paw, and how she had
+licked his hand with her huge, grating tongue. Once she had had a
+swelling on her throat; he was the only one whom she suffered to
+minister to it. And again, when she had sickened with fever, he had
+stayed in her cage a night and a day, moistening her tongue with water
+and watching until her eyes lost their glazed stare and became normal
+once more.
+
+“And they’re going to kill her,” he repeated slowly, “just because she
+can’t understand the treatment they’ve given her—because she’s not
+afraid of their whips any more.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+His voice almost broke. And my heart went out to him and to the tawny
+wild thing in the barred cage. If he could only make the Powers
+understand, I told him. If only he could make them realize that Princess
+was not wantonly ferocious, only tortured into savagery by unkind
+treatment. He shook his head. The Powers, he said, understood nothing
+that did not have a dollar mark attached.
+
+So the day was set when Princess was to die. It was to be in the
+out-of-door arena, an oval piece of ground enclosed in upright bars and
+strong steel wire. At the back was a miniature thicket of bamboo, ferns,
+and marsh grass. At the front was the camera cage, strongly barred to
+prevent danger from the wild animals being photographed in action.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+My visit to the menagerie that day was accidental. I did not know that
+the tigress was to be killed. I had only been told that an interesting
+picture was being made in the arena. So I pushed my way through the
+double line of carpenters, actors, and onlookers, to the very bars of
+the huge out-of-door cage. The camera man was already in his barred
+enclosure, and inside the arena the director, a slim-waisted man with a
+black mustache, was outlining the action of the scene to the hero of the
+picture, who, attired in a hunting costume, dabbed at his face with a
+yellow powder-puff.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“The tiger comes bounding out of the jungle,” the director was saying,
+“and you shoot from behind that log. Never mind if you don’t get her the
+first shot. I’ll have my gun on her, and I’ll finish her off. There’s no
+danger.”
+
+My heart stopped and then thumped painfully. I had stumbled unknowingly
+on the scene of Princess’s execution. I felt sickened. I could not bear
+to stay and see her shot at—wounded first by an ill-aimed rifle, then
+fired upon until she dropped, an inert mass of tawny gold and black—
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I turned away, tried to press through the crowd. But there were too many
+people. Every one from the studio had ceased work to come and see the
+spectacular death of Princess, the Bengal tigress.
+
+I was dimly aware that men were rolling a cage on wheels up to the side
+entrance of the arena. From between the bars I caught a glint of
+sunlight on a body of savage beauty. I saw, too, the white, drawn face
+of Pudgy, standing by the side of the cage.
+
+Some one opened the side gate of the arena. The director and the actor
+were still talking. The director was showing graphically how the other
+should come out of the jungle, should listen for the tigress’s coming,
+should drop behind the log and fire—
+
+[Illustration]
+
+What happened then I can scarcely remember. It was all so sudden, so
+breath-taking. A confusion of signals had been the cause, they told me
+afterward. The man at the cage thought the opening of the arena gate was
+the signal to release Princess—and he had opened the door of her cage!
+
+There was a shout that died away in a gasp of many breaths, a silence
+that was like a great commotion—for Princess, the royal Bengal tigress,
+crashed through the flimsy greenery of the mimic jungle and like a tawny
+statue stopped short, her head raised, her amber eyes wide.
+
+It was a nightmare, that terrible instant. No one moved. The director’s
+face went pasty white, the actor’s red-lined mouth had fallen open.
+There in that oval cage the two puny men faced the magnificent creature
+of the wilds, faced the animal they had planned to kill—and they were
+helpless.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Only the briefest moment did the tableau last. For Princess’s nostrils
+dilated with the hated human scent, her eyes narrowed to slits, her nose
+wrinkled back, and she snarled. The director was speaking jerkily
+without moving—saying that no one must scream—telling some one to bring
+the gun—
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At the sound of his voice the tigress dropped to a crouch. Her tail
+lashed her sides. I could not take my eyes from the arena. My throat was
+dry. I was vaguely conscious that a man had pushed past me. It was
+Pudgy, the menagerie keeper.
+
+For a scant second a lower crouch—a long-drawn snarl—then a voice spoke,
+quietly, sharply.
+
+“_Princess!_”
+
+At the sound of the keeper’s voice, the tigress lifted her head ever so
+little, and her amber, black-rimmed eyes turned toward him.
+
+“Princess!” he said again. “Keep back—steady, old girl!”
+
+He had unfastened the front gate of the arena and opened it. He was
+unarmed; he carried not so much as a whip. Yet he went toward her
+quietly, talking in a gentle monotone, and she snarled at him as he
+came. But he walked quickly, confidently. He placed himself between the
+two men and the crouching tigress. Then he planted his feet far apart
+and smiled down at her.
+
+“Maybe you’re mad at these folks, but you wouldn’t be mad at me—your old
+pal,” he said softly.
+
+There was a moment of sickening suspense. Then the snarl died on
+Princess’s lips, her tail ceased its frenzied lashing, and she rose from
+her crouching position.
+
+“The danger is over,” Pudgy said quietly to the men behind him. “Just
+move out toward the door. Take your time. Don’t run.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then he spoke to the tigress again:
+
+“Into your cage, old girl, right out through the same door you came
+in—Out you go—It’s all right, lady—Don’t be frightened—You know your old
+pal wouldn’t do anything to hurt you—”
+
+He was stepping forward toward her, urging her gently but firmly back
+through the side gate of the enclosure. She snarled as she went, and
+stopped once to roar full-throated defiance. But the mild little man
+talked to her always, caressing her with his voice, comforting her with
+the assurance that she was not to be hurt. The tawny body slipped
+through the door into the wagon cage—the door clanged after her—it was
+over.
+
+Pudgy came out of the arena at the gate where he had entered. His face
+was calm, his hands untrembling. I pushed past the people in front of me
+and in a moment was beside him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“Tell them, oh, tell them now!” I whispered. And Pudgy, because he, too,
+loved the things of the wild, understood me.
+
+“Do you think it would do any good?” he questioned under his breath, and
+I nodded, being almost past speech.
+
+Together we sought the director of the picture. He was one of the
+Powers. His word would mean much.
+
+He was still white-lipped and breathless, but he attempted a wan smile
+as he shook Pudgy’s hand.
+
+“Well, she almost got us,” he spoke with forced cheerfulness. “If it
+hadn’t been for you—” He shuddered in spite of himself. “If there’s
+anything I can do, old-man, to show my gratitude—”
+
+Pudgy’s eyes turned toward the wagon cage where Princess had commenced
+her endless pacing. She was still snarling softly, as if dreaming of the
+vengeance on man which had almost been hers.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“Maybe you don’t know it,” he said slowly, “but the real reason Princess
+obeyed me was because she knows me and likes me. She knows I like her,
+too, and she wouldn’t do anything to make me feel bad. And if you really
+mean what you say—about doing something—why, let Princess live.
+She—she’s a friend of mine.”
+
+There was a short silence. The director was staring at him curiously.
+
+“That tiger—that bloodthirsty beast—a _friend_ of yours?” he said
+incredulously.
+
+“Yes,” answered Pudgy simply. “She’s just that, and I don’t want her
+killed.”
+
+The director turned away, walked a few short steps, and halted. “All
+right,” he said briefly, “if that’s the way of it—I’ll see what I can
+do.”
+
+As I said before, this is not my story. I wish it were. I should love to
+have the friendship of that wonderful tigress as Pudgy has it. But at
+least I always make it a point, when at the studio, to pay a brief visit
+to Princess, the Royal Bengal. She paces unceasingly and stares at
+something beyond the bars which humans may not see. But because Pudgy
+has let me come inside the railing, and has told Princess that I helped,
+a very little bit, in obtaining her reprieve from the death sentence, I
+like to think that her amber eyes as they rest on me are not fierce, but
+kindly, and that she knows that I love her and wish her well.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                             _Part Eleven_
+                        ETHEL OF THE WILD HEART
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _For I saw her, not a savage, bloodthirsty beast, but a wild thing of
+    the deep woods, ruled by pain instead of kindliness._
+]
+
+
+
+
+                             _Part Eleven_
+                                 ETHEL
+                                _of the_
+                               WILD HEART
+
+
+This is the story of a lioness in a cage at a great moving-picture
+studio—a lean, tawny lioness with slanting, amber eyes and flexible
+muscles that undulated under the loose skin like ripples of water under
+a blanket of kelp.
+
+They said, the people of the studio, that Ethel was savage, that she had
+clawed a trainer and injured an actor for life, that she hated women and
+would not tolerate the touch of a human hand. And they thought me a
+little mad when I wanted to go into the cage where she and four other
+lions were taking their exercise.
+
+But I was of the press, so I was permitted to enter the cage with the
+trainer, to go through the doubled-barred iron doors, and to stand very
+quietly while the keeper of the lions, with a long whip, lashed the
+snarling animals to their pedestals.
+
+Of them all, Ethel was the most savage. Her eyes blazed with a wicked
+light that burned green behind the amber; her tail lashed furiously when
+the trainer flicked her with his whip; and afraid as she undoubtedly
+was, the courage of her spirit showed itself in her stubborn crouch and
+the vicious striking of her powerful paws whenever the lash came near
+her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+She fascinated me. The other lions were cowed, it seemed, by long
+experience with the stinging whip. They took their places protesting and
+snarling, but with alacrity none the less. Ethel would not obey. In
+defiance of the stern commands of the trainer and the leather thong
+which flicked remorselessly about her eyes and nose, she would leap from
+one side of the cage to the other, crouch for an instant, then spring
+again, shaking the bars in her frenzied attempts to escape the
+persecuting lash, while the other lions watched her from their pedestals
+uneasily, with guttural intakes of breath and occasional snarls.
+
+Do you wonder what I felt when Ethel careened about the cage, stubborn,
+disobedient, mad with rage as well as with a terror born of pain? At
+first I felt fear, a fear as unreasoning as that of the lioness. For in
+one of her crazed leaps she brushed against me, so that I was pushed
+sharply against the iron bars of the cage.
+
+“Do you want to go out?” the trainer was asking me, and I shook my head,
+for I could not speak.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then suddenly the fear left me. The thread of ice which had seemed to
+run from the top of my head to the very soles of my feet melted away as
+though in a warm sunshine. For Ethel, crouching in snarling defiance,
+had suddenly raised her head. For an instant we measured each other, eye
+to eye. And in that moment I remembered another wild thing—this one
+uncaged—and I remembered myself a little girl alone on the Hill Trail,
+facing the amber eyes of one of Ethel’s distant kin. I want to tell you
+what I remembered, so that you will know why the ice thread was melted
+and why things happened in that barred cage that the trainer said had
+never happened before.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was while we still lived in the little cabin on the Bay, and I was
+yet a child. Brother had gone away to school, and I was lonely, so more
+than ever I sought the woods and the companionship of the woods
+creatures there.
+
+It was a sultry day in August when the juncoes were flying in panicky
+flocks, and when a haze of smoke was in the air that told of forest
+fires not so far away. All the night before the sky in the west had been
+reddened with a dull glow that gradually grew brighter, and though we
+had no fear for ourselves since a cleared space lay between the wooded
+hills and the cabin we were sorry for the wild things of the woods who
+would be forced to flee from the red monster that devoured their homes
+so relentlessly.
+
+The air that day was oppressive, for the smoke hung low, and if we
+listened carefully, we could hear the distant crackling of tall pines
+with gum-smeared trunks on fire, and the occasional crash of a giant
+fir, tortured too long by licking flames.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I sought the Hill Trail, listening, as I climbed, to the ominous crackle
+of burning trees, much nearer than I would have wished. And perhaps it
+was because of that intentness that I came, without realizing it, face
+to face with a wildcat, the largest I have ever seen, stretched across
+the trail, only a few feet in front of me.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+For the first time in my life I knew the fear of which men and books
+tell you. Many had been the stories told by hunters who passed the
+cabin, of the ferocity of mountain lions and wildcats, although none of
+them had ever been seen in the woods around us, because civilization was
+too near. These beasts, said the hunters, kept to the higher hills and
+the deeper wooded forests, where game abounded and men seldom came. So
+when I saw the tawny animal so close that one light spring would have
+carried the powerful body upon me, my first impulse was to run—blindly,
+madly—to run until I could run no more, or until the fierce claws of the
+great cat should bear me to the ground—
+
+The wildcat had not moved except to lift its head ever so slightly and
+to draw back its jowls in a hissing snarl that displayed cruel, white
+fangs. The amber eyes watched me without flickering, yet in them I saw
+distrust, startled anger, and ever so little of a desire to spring—to
+kill—
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In that one instant I had many thoughts—dizzy, rambling thoughts, that
+chased themselves across my mind like dried leaves blown by a wind. I
+noticed the straight, white whiskers on either side of the wildcat’s
+nostrils; I heard the distant fall of a tree; I saw a grasshopper leap
+from a blade of grass that was bending under his weight; I heard the
+scuttle of leaves somewhere in the woods and knew that a bevy of quail
+was there. But I could not move. I stood still in the grip of that numb
+terror.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+What would have happened I can not say. Suddenly the fear left me—for I
+_knew_! I knew that the tawny animal before me was a wild thing of the
+woods even as were the other wild things I loved. I knew that fear of
+fire had driven him from his familiar haunts far up in the mountains,
+that he sought these woods for protection, not for killing, and I knew
+that I, having been in those woods longer than he, was hostess there,
+and that it was my place to make him welcome, to extend to him the
+friendly greetings that I would have tendered to any of my woods
+friends. The fear was gone, utterly. I wanted to put my hand on his
+sleek head, to stroke his glossy back, to put my cheek against the
+russet satin of his thick coat.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But I made no move. I spoke to him, as I would have spoken to any other
+of my woods friends, telling him that he was welcome, that the woods
+were his as well as mine, and that I hoped the fire would spare his
+relatives who were dear to him.
+
+As I spoke, the amber eyes opened wider, the snarl died away, and
+suddenly he yawned, voluminously, with a snap of his jaws and a careless
+licking motion of his red tongue. Then his eyes closed indifferently,
+and I knew he had understood me. I knew that between us was no thought
+of fear or hate. I walked past him up the trail, so close that I might
+have touched him, and he did not move. Only the amber eyes met mine
+squarely, and it was as if the wild thing from the deeper woods had said
+with words,
+
+                     “We are friends—go in peace.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When I had gone up the trail a way, I stopped at the bend in the path
+and looked back. The wildcat was in the same position, but he was
+watching me still with eyes unblinking and unafraid.
+
+So that is why, some years later, when Ethel raised her head and met my
+eyes, the icy fear slipped away. For I saw her, not a savage,
+bloodthirsty beast, but a wild thing of the deep woods, girded round
+with iron bars and stinging whips, a wild thing ruled by pain instead of
+kindliness, and there surged into my heart a great love and pity for
+her. I wanted to take the whip from the man, to break it into bits, to
+tell her that she was free to go back to her mountain fastnesses.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So, disregarding the cry of warning from the trainer and the gasps from
+those who stood outside the cage, I walked slowly toward the crouching
+lioness, saying to her the things I would have said had I met her in the
+woods, telling her that I, too, belonged to the out-of-doors, that I,
+too, was a captive, that between us there was a bond. Slowly the
+snarling lips relaxed, the glint of green went out of her slanting eyes,
+and she no longer crouched. I knelt beside her on the floor of the cage,
+while the lions above on their pedestals watched with curious, sullen
+eyes, and the trainer’s voice died away in a series of gulps. Gently I
+put out my hand and touched her rough, tawny head. She flinched and
+snarled, but I did not draw my hand away, and the next instant I felt
+her tense muscles relax, and she was quiet under the steady stroking of
+my hand.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The trainer spoke to me in an agonized whisper, telling me to come away
+quickly, and as I rose from my kneeling position, Ethel rose, too.
+Padding over to the pedestal which was hers, she mounted to it with a
+spring and sat there quietly, her eyes never leaving me or missing a
+motion I made.
+
+When we left the cage, Ethel padded close to my side, and the trainer
+said in jest that I might take her for a pet.
+
+If I only could have! My heart was aching for her as I left, for I, too,
+am sometimes rebellious at the ways of civilization and of a world that
+does not know or care about the things of life that have nothing to do
+with money. I, too, am lonely for the freshness of leaves wet with dew,
+the feeling of moss underfoot, the glint of sunlight through laced
+branches. I think I know a little of the longing that is hers as she
+paces back and forth in her narrow cage, for hers is not a savage
+heart—only a wild heart; and I know that love can speak to it and soothe
+its hurt.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ ● HTML alt text was used for images that didn’t have captions.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77766 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77766 ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='titlepage'>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 class='c001'><span class='small'><i>The</i></span><br> WILD HEART</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div><i>By</i></div>
+    <div><i><span class='xlarge'>Emma-Lindsay Squier</span></i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i_title.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><span class='small'>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY</span></div>
+    <div>GENE STRATTON-PORTER</div>
+    <div class='c003'><i>Illustrations and Decorations by</i></div>
+    <div>PAUL BRANSOM</div>
+    <div class='c003'><span class='large'>Cosmopolitan Book Corporation</span></div>
+    <div>NEW YORK        MCMXXII</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div><span class='small'><i>Copyright, 1922, by Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, New York. All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian</i></span></div>
+    <div class='c002'><span class='small'><i>First printing</i>&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; &#8196;<i>March, 1922</i></span></div>
+    <div><span class='small'><i>Second printing</i>&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; <i>April, 1922</i></span></div>
+    <div class='c002'><span class='small'><i>Printed in the United States of America</i></span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>DEDICATED TO</div>
+    <div class='c003'><span class='large'><i>BASIL KING</i></span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c005'>WITH DEEPEST GRATITUDE FOR THE INSPIRATION
+AND ENCOURAGEMENT THROUGH WHICH
+THE WILD HEART STORIES FOUND WRITTEN
+EXPRESSION, AND FOR THE TITLE OF THE
+SERIES WHICH THUS CAME INTO BEING.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'>THE ILLUSTRATIONS <i>and</i> CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c007'></th>
+    <th class='c008'>&#160;</th>
+    <th class='c009'>PAGE</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>Skygak discovered that catching mice was Three-Spot’s chief vocation</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>SKYGAK</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_12'>12</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007' colspan='2'>He circled slowly above our heads</td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_32'>32</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>U-Chu-Ka never failed to answer our call</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>U-CHU-KA</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_34'>34</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>For the dogs had lost the lighter scent</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>SANCTUARY</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_47'>47</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>He questioningly sniffed the breeze</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>THE FAERY NIGHT</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_66'>66</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>Cannon came charging in a whirlwind of feathers</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>THE FRIENDSHIP THAT FAILED</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_82'>82</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>His constant barking set the grown-ups against him</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>STOP THIEF</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_101'>101</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>If Clarence had been a man, he would have endowed orphanages</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>O’HENRY</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_124'>124</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>Timothy clung to the bottle habit</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>TIMOTHY, THE DIRTY BEAR</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_145'>145</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>Sometimes the bandit birds swooped down</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>THE BANDIT BIRD</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_168'>168</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>Her nostrils dilated at the hated human scent</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>MY FRIEND THE PRINCESS</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_189'>189</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c007'>A wild thing of the deep woods, ruled by pain instead of kindliness</td>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>ETHEL</span></td>
+    <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_208'>208</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'>AN INTRODUCTION<br> <i>Which might better be entitled</i>:</span><br> Some Youngsters Find the Wrong Parents</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div><i>By</i></div>
+    <div class='c003'>Gene Stratton-Porter</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_001.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+Since “The Wild Heart”
+is throbbing with the same
+blood that pulses in the
+heart of every human being
+who goes to the fields
+and woods and fraternizes with the
+creatures that home there, since the
+feet that carry a wild heart on its journey
+are following the same path that a
+few peculiar feet have made, what they
+have found and what the heart has
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>learned is the same thing that similar
+feet have been finding and hearts have
+been learning since the beginning of
+time.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_002.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The author of this book pronounces
+it “very simple, having no literary style
+or value.” Perhaps this estimate indicates
+modesty on her part, but it is not
+the truth concerning the book. Thoreau
+once wrote: “It takes two to speak the
+truth—one to speak and the other to
+hear.” Those of us who have made our
+own path through the wilds know the
+truth when we hear it. The first law
+that can be laid down concerning any
+work worthy to be put into the hands
+of the public is the old law that every
+writer should write concerning matters
+of his own personal observation. Whenever
+any writer follows this old rule,
+working with sincerity of heart, with
+inborn insight concerning his chosen
+subject, following the promptings of a
+simple human heart, and using a certain
+facility in the choice of words,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>which is a gift of God primarily, that
+author must evolve good work. Laying
+down these specifications as law which
+governs every masterpiece that ever has
+been produced, it will be observed that
+“The Wild Heart” follows them as
+naturally as water flows to the sea, possibly
+as unconsciously.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_003.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>To anyone who knows the fields and
+woods the book carries the conviction
+of truth. Those who do not know nature
+will not believe many of these
+statements, because they have not
+learned that when one goes into the
+haunts of the wild calmly, fearlessly,
+absolutely in tune with Nature, one is
+perfectly safe. The people who go to
+fraternize with the free creatures, to
+learn the secrets of Nature, to protect,
+to love, to fellowship with the wild,
+wear an invincible armor.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Enos Mills will tell you that he
+tramps the Rocky Mountains for weeks
+at a time absolutely without a weapon.
+Arthur Heming will tell you that he
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>travels Canada from side to side, north
+and south, passing all kinds of wild
+creatures at all seasons and under any
+conditions, and nothing touches him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I can tell you that my face has been
+within two feet of a coiled rattlesnake
+ready to strike, but it did not strike.
+Two minutes later a man antagonistic
+to the wild passed the same location
+and immediately the snake disclosed
+itself and was ready to fight.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Very recently some children playing
+at the edge of the desert found a scorpion.
+They coaxed it onto a piece of
+bark and were carrying it around playing
+with it. So long as they felt no fear
+of the creature, it was quiescent in their
+hands. The instant they carried it
+among grown people who recognized
+it and were afraid, the trouble began.
+When the wild thing entered the atmosphere
+of fear and was surrounded
+by the taint of that acid which is exhaled
+from the body of any human being
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>experiencing fear, that instant it
+was on guard and ready to strike.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Any human being carrying in his
+breast a wild heart knows instinctively
+how to fraternize with the wild. Anyone
+carrying a heart of fear and antagonism
+will have a troubled journey
+through forest or desert. The writer
+of this book proves that she carries a
+wild heart in her breast. Her records
+are unquestionably true. They are precisely
+the same things that happen to
+anyone having a heart in tune with Nature.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_005.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>So the book passes, first, because it
+speaks the truth. It needs only that
+these records should be read to gain an
+idea of the degree of insight possessed
+by the writer. The nice comprehension
+of what the wild is thinking and feeling,
+the keen perception of the “why”
+of things, pass the book on the grounds
+of insight. The simple unassuming
+manner in which the record is kept
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>proves it the emanation of a human
+heart without guile, effervescing love,
+not only for the beauties of field and
+forest, but for the living creatures that
+home there.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_006.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is modest of the writer to say that
+her book has “no literary style or
+value,” but the book proves the reverse.
+Throughout will be found the value of
+truth, the exquisite style of utter simplicity,
+the best plain common word
+chosen to tell the plain common story;
+and it is a very difficult thing always to
+find the right words with which to tell
+any story. There are only about twenty
+thousand words in the English language.
+When you compare this number
+with the number of objects existing
+in the world, the number of ideas that
+have sprung and will spring in the
+human brain, it easily can be appreciated
+that it is sometimes difficult to find
+the right word by which to express
+one’s meaning clearly and simply; for
+there always is one word which, better
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>than any other, will portray a situation
+or describe an object.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Any author who is actuated by sincerity
+will always choose the plain simple
+word which expresses his meaning
+plainly and simply. The one thing that
+sets apart the work of any writer is the
+ability to express himself in plain simple
+language that common people can
+understand and appreciate. It was on
+this subject that Martin Luther once
+said: “Hebrew, Latin, and Greek I
+spare until we learned ones come together,
+and then we make it so curled
+and finical that God Himself wondereth
+at us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That is precisely the reason why
+nine-tenths of the Nature books written
+in this country have been failures. They
+are “so curled and finical” that only the
+“learned ones” can understand what
+they are all about.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_007.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>To me it is an atrocity to tag a bird,
+a butterfly, or a flower with several
+inches of Latin or Greek per each.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>Every living creature should have a
+common, simple, descriptive name that
+a common human being who wants to
+know what it is can learn and remember.
+I do truly believe “that God
+Himself wondereth at us” if He takes
+the time to look at many of the books
+to be found in our libraries concerning
+the most exquisite and beautiful of His
+creatures.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_008.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>I believe that any normal man or
+woman would be intensely interested
+in the organism of a moth, the delicate
+parts so beautifully evolved to serve
+their purpose; but what common person
+could wade through a large volume
+crammed from end to end with such
+terms as <i>patagia</i>, <i>jugum</i>, <i>discocellulars</i>,
+<i>phagocytes</i>? It is such works on Nature
+that have kept the Nature lovers
+of many generations out of the fields
+and woods. They had not the education,
+the time, nor the inclination to be
+sufficiently “curled and finical” to be
+specific. They could take no one specimen
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>and learn it, because they could not
+identify it. In a book such as “The
+Wild Heart” there is no word that a
+ten-year-old child can not comprehend;
+while there is a wonderful
+beauty and facility in the choice of
+words, in the sincerity of expression,
+and the sympathetic insight.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I certainly wish that a copy of this
+book may go into every home in the
+world, for two reasons: the first, that
+men and women may learn how anyone
+with a sympathetic heart devoid of fear
+may fraternize with the wild; and for
+the other very excellent reason that it
+may do something toward teaching parents
+that all children are not alike and
+can not possibly be run through the
+same groove.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_009.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Here and there in a family there is
+born a child with a wild heart. It is
+nothing less than a tragedy when such
+a child is cursed with the wrong parents.
+God gives to only a few of His
+children a wild heart, a musical ear,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>facile fingers. The man or woman who
+keeps a child born with the love of the
+woods in its heart from contact with
+Nature, who destroys the trust that God
+placed in its heart, and instils fear bred
+by man, does a dreadful thing, a thing
+that must end in disaster. Nature does
+not reveal her secrets to everyone.
+Creatures of the wild will not be brothers
+with any save a very few specially
+endowed human beings.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_010.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Today my heart sickens at the
+thought of what would have happened
+to me if, when I told my Mother I had
+been talking with the fairies and what
+they said and did, she had whipped me
+for not speaking the truth; if, when I
+came from the woods with my apron
+torn and soiled, full of dirty specimens,
+my heart overflowing with the wonders
+of my discoveries, I had been beaten
+and forbidden to go again. If we are
+to have truly great art, literature, or
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>science in the future, many, perhaps
+most, of those who are to do the work
+will be born into this world in simple
+common homes like the Indiana homes
+in which the author of “The Wild
+Heart” and I were born. What we as
+a nation produce in wonder-work along
+any creative line in the future is going
+to depend upon the ability of parents
+of this generation to recognize and to
+foster unusual gifts in their children
+when they first detect them. The
+mother who whips a child because it
+happens to have been born with a wild
+heart does a thing so wickedly cruel
+that there are no words in which to describe
+the situation adequately. If this
+book will serve the one purpose of making
+fathers and mothers of the coming
+generation sympathetic and kindly to
+the little wild hearts that they bring
+into the world, it will perform a very
+great work indeed.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_011.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part One</i><br> <i>The Story of</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>Skygak</span><br> <span class='small'>AN OLD-MAN SEA-GULL</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c002 figleft id004'>
+<img src='images/i_012.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+<div  class='figright id004'>
+<img src='images/i_013.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c012'>
+    <div><i>Skygak discovered that catching mice was Three-Spot’s chief vocation, and he made her life a burden.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_012.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+Skygak was an old-man
+sea-gull. He had circled
+and screamed over the
+waters of Puget Sound
+for many a season, and it
+is doubtful if there is anything in
+aërial lore that he did not know. He
+was an expert at fishing, and could
+swoop down on an unsuspecting smelt
+from a dizzy height and have the shiny
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>fish down his gullet without so much
+as touching his webbed feet to the
+water’s surface. He could snatch up a
+sidling red crab before it could seek
+the shelter of a rock, and drop it
+neatly and accurately on a stone, to dart
+down upon the mangled remains before
+the juicy meal could be purloined by
+any of his kindred.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He knew when storms were coming,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>and sometimes, when the skies were
+clearest and the sun warmest, he would
+spiral up to a great height and scream
+in long, quavering cadences that grew
+louder as the rain and wind approached.
+Then the Siwash clam-diggers
+on the beach would gather up their
+bags and shovels and bid their women
+see to brushwood, for they knew the cry
+of the sea-gull when the Storm-God
+rides. They respected the gray gull’s
+warning.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_014.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We were children on the shores of
+Puget Sound, Brother and I. From our
+little log cabin, with its porch roof
+slanting low like an old-fashioned pokebonnet,
+we would watch the sea-gulls
+circle in the sky or bob lazily on the
+blue waters of the bay like so many
+feathered corks.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We knew Skygak among the other
+gulls, for one wing was white, the other
+gray. So when we saw him, we named
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>him by a queer, fanciful name that
+seemed to fit a bird of air and water.
+And because the boat landing in front
+of the cabin furnished a resting place
+for webbed feet on sunshiny days,
+Skygak made it his headquarters, and
+we came to look for him and to be fond
+of him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>When we sailed in the tiny twelve-foot
+boat with its home-made leg-o’-mutton
+sail or paddled in the dugout
+canoe made for us by a Siwash Indian
+chief, we looked for Skygak in every
+flock of sea-gulls that passed us, and it
+was our superstition, made on the spur
+of the moment, as children’s fancies
+are, that if he flew over us we would
+have good luck, and that a wish made
+on the instant would come true.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_015.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>But we never dreamed that Skygak
+of the air lanes would one day be an
+intimate friend of ours, for we had
+been told by sailor and Indian alike—and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>who knows more of seafaring
+birds than they?—that sea-gulls could
+not be tamed. The Siwash chief who
+had given us our dugout canoe knew
+the habits of the winged scavengers
+and loved them. Perhaps the primitive
+heart of him, held in leash by the
+white man’s civilization, was tuned to
+the wild, untamed heart of the gulls,
+for they flocked around his beach
+shanty unafraid, and ate the scraps
+of clams he flung to them; but he
+had never touched one of the gray
+brethren.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_016a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And so it happened, on a day of
+mists and clouds, that Skygak came
+into our lives as something more than
+a gray-and-white winged bird whose
+passage above our boat would make a
+wish come true.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_016b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was a day typical of autumn in the
+Sound country. Gray rain pattered
+ceaselessly into gray waters that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>stretched away to meet a leaden horizon,
+and low-hanging clouds swirled
+restlessly with every gust of wind.
+But the smell of wet pines was in the
+air; the grass was green and glistening
+with iridescent beads. It was a day
+when the out-of-doors called the hardy
+one to don overshoes, raincoat, and
+sou’wester hat and fare forth to breathe
+the wet fragrance of woods and field,
+to feel the soft rain on uplifted face,
+and to listen for the storm cry of the
+gulls circling against the sky.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_017.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother and I, clad against the rain,
+stood in wonder at the shore end of the
+float. For there on the far end was
+Skygak, a miserable, dripping figure
+hunched dejectedly on the wet planking.
+His once sleek wings hung
+limply at his sides, his feathers were
+draggled and unkempt, his head was
+hanging miserably as if the light but
+steady drizzle were torment to him.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>
+<img src='images/i_018.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Above him soared and circled his
+kindred of the sky, wondering, no
+doubt, what was wrong, for now and
+again one of them would turn in a
+half-circle, spinning on the tip of
+one great wing, and scream sharply,
+as if in invitation to Skygak to join
+the airy tribe. And the old-man sea-gull
+would turn one eye up to the
+birds above him and give vent to a
+plaintive, longing cry. His draggled
+wings would flap in the rain as if sheer
+force of will must bear him upward,
+then relax hopelessly as if the effort
+made him more miserable.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We watched and speculated, Brother
+and I, for never had we seen a gull in
+such a plight. We saw that he was
+denied the water, too, for he would
+stalk, with the wobbly, swinging motion
+of a web-foot tribe, to the edge
+of the float, crane his neck as if about
+to launch himself upon the rain-beaten
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>waves, and then retreat to the middle
+of the wharf once more. A gull who
+could neither fly nor swim! What had
+happened?</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We took the problem to the Siwash
+chief a mile up the beach, mending a
+fish-net in his warm and smoky shanty.
+He listened impassively, yet with interest.
+And he returned with us to
+the float to diagnose the gull’s ailment.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_019.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>When he saw Skygak, he grunted
+briefly but sympathetically. The bird
+had been caught in the swell behind a
+large boat—a battle-ship, probably—when
+it was discharging oil, he told us.
+It was not an uncommon thing, he said.
+The gull’s feathers were soaked with
+the heavy oil, and until it had evaporated,
+or until new feathers should
+grow, Skygak would be helpless both
+in the air and in the sea, and since he
+could not provide food for himself he
+would starve to death.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>So spoke the Siwash chief, but his
+philosophy was not ours. We told each
+other that Skygak should not die, and
+we called to the wet, miserable gull
+that we would take care of him, but he
+did not even raise his head.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>What should we feed him? We had
+neither clams nor fish, and we were
+afraid to go too near him, lest he mistake
+our friendly intentions and take
+to the water in self-defense, to be
+weighted down by his oil-soaked
+feathers.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>With the permission of our always
+sympathetic mother we salvaged cookies
+from the jar behind the kitchen
+stove. We took cold griddle cakes, too,
+and scraps of meat and bread. And
+with these dainties we set about the task
+of winning the gray gull’s confidence
+and of saving him from the misfortune
+which had overtaken him.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_020.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Carefully and very quietly we went
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>down the float, as near as we could
+approach without Skygak’s taking
+alarm. When he showed signs of restlessness,
+we advanced no further, but
+put a chunk of meat upon the planks
+and withdrew to watch and wait.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The gull, at first indifferent to
+everything but his unexplainable
+plight, gradually felt hunger’s urge,
+and his long neck craned toward our
+offering of food. Slowly he waddled
+toward it, a grotesque gray bundle of
+draggled feathers, and with one vigorous
+gulp the meat disappeared.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then we tossed him a chunk of
+bread softened with water, and this
+time Skygak did not hesitate. The
+first morsel had aroused an appetite
+which for the time being supplanted
+misery. He stalked forward and
+swallowed the food, turning on us the
+broadside of one black eye, as if asking
+for more.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_021.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>Nor did we refuse him. We tossed
+him, piece by piece, the food we had
+brought with us, and returned to the
+pantry for more. Always we placed
+the bread or meat a little nearer the
+shore and the cabin, and Skygak followed
+the morsels anxiously, greedily,
+satisfying a hunger which must have
+been of long and painful duration.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Early dusk was upon us when we
+finally succeeded in tolling the gray
+gull through the front yard into the
+chicken run, and into an unused
+brooder house which offered a shelter
+against the rainy night.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The lamps were lighted in the little
+log cabin when we completed our self-appointed
+task of making Skygak
+comfortable, and our only regret was
+that we could not give our friend a
+blanket. We feared he would not understand.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_022.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>That was the beginning of a threesided
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>friendship. The first few days
+of Skygak’s convalescence were spent
+in huddled misery, and he moved only
+when Brother or I came into the
+brooder house with food and water.
+Then the rain ceased, Indian summer
+came smilingly upon the Sound country,
+and when the sun shone warmly,
+Skygak decided that life was not all a
+haze of gloom, and he set about vigorously
+to restore himself to a normal
+condition. Hour after hour he pulled
+and massaged his feathers until some
+of the heavy oil was loosened. The
+sunshine helped to dry his draggled
+plumage, new feathers commenced to
+grow, and little by little Skygak became
+his old cocky self.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_023.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>His affection for Brother and me
+was as apparent as was his dislike for
+all other members of the human race.
+The grown-ups he would not trust, and
+passers-by annoyed and alarmed him.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>But he would follow us about wherever
+we went, stalking along behind us
+with grotesque dignity, and when invited,
+would fly up on my shoulder or
+on Brother’s to receive bits of food
+from our fingers and to snap playfully
+at us with his great, powerful bill when
+we pretended to box with him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The liberty of the ranch was his, but
+his favorite spot was a corner of the
+front porch where he would sit for
+hours in solemn contemplation of the
+bay in front. People who went by on
+the trail looked in wonder at the gray
+gull apparently very much at home in
+a little log cabin.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_024.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Soon he learned to eat with the
+chickens, and when the bran mash was
+spread for them in a long, wooden
+trough, Skygak would be there before
+the bucket was emptied. Then, as the
+hens came flocking around, the gull
+would spread his magnificent wings,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>open his huge beak to its widest
+extent, and scream shrilly and fiercely,
+laying about him with his yellow beak
+like a warrior swinging a deadly
+sword. The startled poultry, unused to
+this changeling of the sea and sky,
+would scurry away with distressed and
+frightened cackles, and Skygak would
+eat his fill at the trough, pausing occasionally
+to administer punishment to
+any daring cockerel who ventured too
+near. Many a bunch of feathers have
+I seen hanging from his bill, like a
+scalplock hung from the belt of an
+Indian brave, mute witness to a battle
+of brief but bloody duration.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_025.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Our animals soon learned that this
+wandering guest was to be respected.
+Tinker, the rat terrier, learned to his
+cost that Skygak was not a hen to be
+chased from the front porch, if he
+chose to stay there.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Between our cat, Three-Spot, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>the gull, a bitter feud developed,
+which had for its beginning such a
+small thing as a mouse. One had been
+killed in a trap, and Brother tendered
+it to Skygak as an experiment. The
+delicacy was new, but wholly acceptable,
+and with one ecstatic snap of his
+beak Skygak swallowed it, and afterward,
+as Brother averred, fairly licked
+his chops. Three-Spot sulked and
+gloomed because of the slight, but her
+cup of woe was not full.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_026.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>For in some mysterious manner,
+Skygak discovered that catching mice
+was Three-Spot’s chief vocation, and
+he made her life a burden. One morning
+we heard an outraged yowl from
+the cat and an answering scream from
+Skygak. On the back porch we found
+the two, Three-Spot crouched over a
+dead mouse, eyes gleaming dangerously,
+tail switching from side to side,
+and every hair erect. The bird was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>advancing cautiously, but relentlessly,
+wings outspread, beak wide open,
+screaming and snapping at every step.
+Three-Spot did not lack courage, but
+her experience had not included juggernaut
+gulls, and when the terrifying
+yellow beak was hard upon her, she
+fled, spitting venomously, and Skygak,
+like a disreputable robber chief, swallowed
+her hard-earned prize in one
+mouthful.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>From that time, when he was not
+following Brother and me, or dozing
+on the front porch, or bullying the
+hens, he was trailing Three-Spot about,
+a relentless gray shadow, and if the
+luckless cat succeeded in keeping for
+herself one mouse that she caught, it
+was when Skygak was asleep in the
+brooder house.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_027.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Slowly but surely the old-man sea-gull
+recovered from his affliction.
+Some of the oil-soaked feathers
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>dropped out, and new ones took their
+place, and he risked short flights from
+time to time, cautiously at first, as if
+not sure of his powers, and then with
+increasing confidence. He ventured
+out into the water with perfect ease,
+and we knew it would be but a short
+time before he had completely regained
+his health.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_028.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>When first he flew we were afraid
+we had lost him, but he returned at
+night-time, hungry and eager to be
+taken up on my shoulder. After that,
+when he flew, it was to come back to
+us as naturally as if we, and not the
+sea-gulls, were his kindred.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But there came a day when a feeling
+of restlessness was in the air. Brother
+and I, attuned to the moods of the
+woods and of out-of-door things, felt
+it keenly, and we were not surprised
+when we saw overhead the V formation
+of the wild geese flying southward.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>Then the sea-gulls commenced to
+scream in short, sharp cadences, and a
+flock of the gray-and-white birds flew
+overhead, rising higher and higher as
+is the habit of the gray ones when the
+migrating call comes.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Skygak heard the call—that we
+could not doubt—for he was restless
+and would stretch himself on tiptoe,
+flapping his wings, turning his head up
+to the sky where a gray cloud of birds
+were flying. Then he would scream—short,
+broken cries as if torn by indecision.
+He loved us, we knew, but he
+was of the air lanes; the gray gulls
+were his kindred. Sooner or later he
+must go with them.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_029.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>His flights grew longer, and once we
+did not see him for three days. Even
+when he was with us, he was ill at ease.
+The wild heart of him was longing for
+the untrammeled freedom of the winds
+and the sea, and gaunt cliffs untouched
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>by foot of man. He forgot to box with
+us; he no longer bullied the poultry
+yard; he even neglected to watch for
+Three-Spot’s trophies of the hunt.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_030.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And then he went away. A week
+passed, and we mourned him bitterly.
+It was not so much his going—we knew
+we must expect that—but we had
+wanted to tell him good-by when he
+left, to wave our hands to him and
+wish him Godspeed, to watch him until
+he was only a speck in the sky. The
+Siwash chief said Skygak would never
+come back—but he did, once more.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was on a day of crystal clearness,
+when the clouds were like tiny white
+boats in the sky. We stood in the yard,
+hand in hand, watching the wild geese
+pass overhead and the flocks of sea-gulls
+flying high above them. From
+the west came a gray cloud of the seabirds,
+with one gull flying far in the
+lead. And as we watched, the leader
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>left the flock of winging gulls and, like
+a falling star, swooped down upon us,
+spiraling lower and lower. We held
+our breath as we watched, for somehow,
+we knew, we knew—</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A flash of one white wing showed
+clearly. I tried to speak, but no words
+came. Closer and closer came the bird,
+Skygak, our old-man sea-gull, and
+when he was no higher than the roof of
+the house, he circled slowly above our
+heads. Then he screamed twice—long,
+plaintive cries that we knew
+meant farewell.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_031.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We were crying, but we waved our
+hands to him and called, “Good-by,
+good-by!” And slowly he rose once
+more, the white of one white wing
+melting into gray. Higher and higher
+he winged, to take his place at the head
+of the flock.... He was just a speck
+against the sky, and still we called our
+farewells to him in words choked with
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>tears—the specks
+vanished into
+cloudy distance—Skygak
+had gone
+forever.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i_032.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>He circled slowly above our heads</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>But it was not
+without a thought
+of us. We shall always
+believe that he
+halted the winged caravan
+to tell us good-by—and
+the Siwash chief believes it,
+too.</p>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span></div>
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div><span class='large'><i>Introducing</i></span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>U-Chu-Ka</span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>THE JUMPER</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Two</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>U-Chu-Ka</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_034.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+Upon the Hill Trail, which
+Brother and I called ours
+because we loved it so, you
+may yet see a little clearing
+made in the midst of
+red huckleberry bushes, Oregon grape,
+and dark green salal shrubs. As long
+as we lived in the little cabin by the bay,
+we never allowed underbrush to creep
+into this spot on the Hill Trail, for it
+was sacred to the memory of U-Chu-Ka,
+the only monument we could give
+him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>U-Chu-Ka was a tiny rabbit—a
+“jack-rabbit,” I suppose natural historians
+would have called him. But
+we gave him the name that in the
+Chinook language means “the jumper,”
+and we never called him
+anything else.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_034.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span></div>
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div><span class='c014'><i>Part Two</i></span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>U-Chu-Ka</span></div>
+    <div><span class='c014'>THE JUMPER</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='c002 figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i_035.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>He never failed to<br>  answer our call</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>I remember the day we first saw him—a
+wee baby rabbit he was, escaped
+somehow from his mother’s vigilance,
+and so much interested in the big world
+outside the burrow where he had spent
+his short life that he hardly knew
+whether to be afraid of us or merely
+curious. In such a case he no doubt
+remembered his mother’s warning, for
+he “froze.” By this I mean that he
+remained rigid, the tan of his fur
+blending with the mottled greenery
+and the brown tones of the forest undergrowth.
+But Brother and I could
+“freeze” too, having learned the art
+from the woods creatures whom we
+knew and loved. So we stood perfectly
+still, and then it was a case of seeing
+who could hold out the longer.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was U-Chu-Ka who finally capitulated
+in the battle of freezing. His
+curiosity became greater than his fear,
+and he sat up on his haunches, his tiny
+forefeet held primly over his stomach,
+his ears—much too long for him—tilted
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>questioningly in our direction,
+and his black dot of a nose twitching
+ceaselessly.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We were, I am sure, the first human
+beings U-Chu-Ka had seen, and although
+behind him were countless
+rabbit traditions as to what fearful
+creatures humans were, U-Chu-Ka,
+being so young, was possessed of optimism
+and confidence. Brother and I
+were so happy when the little fellow
+with his soft brown eyes decided that
+we were friends to be trusted! Oh, if
+we had only realized that there were
+other people not so friendly to little
+brown rabbits, whom U-Chu-Ka might
+have the misfortune to meet!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But we never thought of that. Our
+one realization was that here was a
+new woods friend, and we set ourselves
+to the task of winning his heart.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_037.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was not hard. Indeed, when I
+think of it now, it seems so pitifully
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>easy. And I wonder, if every one knew
+just how easy it was, if men would
+carry sticks that shoot flame and death
+into the domain of the woods creatures—if
+they would not carry apples instead.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was an apple that first won
+U-Chu-Ka’s heart. Brother had one,
+of course, and we nibbled bites off and
+placed the juicy morsels on the trail in
+front of us. Then, walking quietly
+backward, we waited at a safe distance
+for the wind to carry the delectable
+apple fragrance to U-Chu-Ka’s wiggling
+nose.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_038.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Nor was it long before one satiny
+ear—so fragile that it was almost
+transparent—drooped and then rose
+again. The twitching nose worked
+harder; U-Chu-Ka sat up straighter
+than ever; and then, with funny little
+hops, he came toward us, hesitating
+occasionally, once pausing to sit up on
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>his haunches as if asking himself if
+he were doing the right thing in approaching
+thus boldly.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_039.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Finally he came to the bits of apple
+and promptly forgot his fear in his delight
+at the unknown dainty. By the
+time he had eaten the few morsels we
+had spread out for him, we had others
+ready, this time only at arm’s length.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Later we proffered bits of the fruit
+in our hands, held very steadily so that
+no jerking should alarm the little
+brown rabbit. At first he was undecided
+whether to accept the morsels so
+close to the big human creatures, but
+something, I am sure, told him that
+there was no harm in us. In the end
+he hopped over to my outstretched
+hand and nibbled daintily at the apple,
+while I held my arm so still it ached.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>What Mother Rabbit would have
+said of the way we stuffed U-Chu-Ka,
+that day, I do not know, but I am sure
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>she would not have approved. We fed
+him until his small stomach was round
+as a ball. When the apple diet seemed
+to pall, we gathered tender blades of
+grass, and very soon the little brown
+one would not take alarm at our movements,
+but would watch us with solemn
+baby dignity, sitting up on his haunches
+or squatting in a round ball, his tiny
+ears laid over his back—a sure sign
+that he was no longer nervous.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>How we hated to leave him that
+day! We didn’t take him down the
+hill and make him a home by the log
+cabin, for we had no wish to frighten
+him, and as for foraging for himself
+in the woods, we were sure U-Chu-Ka
+knew how to go about it. So we left
+him at the bend of the trail where we
+had first seen him. We called it
+U-Chu-Ka’s corner, and we left the
+core of the apple for him to nibble on
+after we had gone.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_040.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>
+<img src='images/i_041.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The next afternoon about the same
+time—for the woods creatures are apt
+to do certain things at certain hours—we
+came up the Hill Trail, whistling,
+and were almost at U-Chu-Ka’s corner
+before it occurred to us that the sound
+might frighten him away if he were
+still in that neighborhood. But curiosity
+is a rabbit’s strongest trait, and
+suddenly there he was, hopping out of
+the underbrush into the little clearing
+as if in response to our call—indeed as
+if he had been waiting.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We had brought offerings of lettuce
+and cabbage leaves, and this time it
+was not half so long before U-Chu-Ka
+would eat from our hands and permit
+us to fondle his velvet softness.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We came every day after that, always
+whistling, with choicest tidbits
+for our little friend. He would
+come into his “corner” hopping out
+from the greenery like a tiny puffball,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>sit up very primly, ears tilted, his nose
+wiggling, until he was sure it was his
+friends. Then down the trail toward
+us he would bound, with such long
+hops that his hind feet seemed to go
+above his head. Oh, U-Chu-Ka, little
+brown one, if we only had not taught
+you to have confidence in humans—to
+come unafraid when we whistled!</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_042.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>As the summer went by, U-Chu-Ka
+grew and grew. From a baby rabbit
+he became a half-grown rabbit, and we
+realized that before long he would be
+a very large rabbit indeed. But he
+never failed to answer our call, and
+through the long summer afternoons
+we would play upon the hill, the three
+of us. We played house, U-Chu-Ka
+submitting without protest to being
+dressed in a doll’s frock, with a tiny
+hat tying back his ears. He was our
+child, and we rocked him to sleep, sent
+him to school, disciplined him at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>times, and pretended that he talked to
+us. If I could only give you a picture
+of U-Chu-Ka, half-grown now, in a
+blue gingham doll dress, his brown
+paws stuck through the short sleeves,
+his white knob of a tail flashing impudently
+from behind when he hopped
+about, and his soft brown eyes grotesquely
+large under the white hat tied
+under his chin!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And then, one day—it is a day I do
+not like to think of—we decided that
+U-Chu-Ka should have a birthday
+party. So we took cookies, apples, and
+lettuce sandwiches up the hill. It was
+hot, with scarcely a breeze, and sounds
+carried distinctly. From far away we
+heard a whistled tune, and we knew
+that some infrequent passer-by was on
+the Hill Trail. The sound grew louder
+as we climbed, and then—a single shot
+that sent echoes vibrating against the
+startled hills.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_043.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>A gunshot! It was not such an infrequent
+sound through the woods that
+skirted the Bay, but our hearts suddenly
+contracted as if a hand had
+clutched them.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We said not a word to each other,
+but broke into a jogging trot that
+brought us hot and panting to the top
+of the hill. From there it was but a
+hundred yards or so to U-Chu-Ka’s
+corner, and we ran doggedly, with a
+great fear tearing at our hearts.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Oh, that moment! U-Chu-Ka’s corner
+was empty—but perhaps he would
+come if we whistled! We tried to
+form our dry lips for the sound, but
+none came. For we saw simultaneously,
+in the little clearing, a bright
+red patch on the low-hanging ferns—a
+little tuft of brown fur and a bit of
+white down.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_044.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The hunter had come and gone.
+U-Chu-Ka could not have known that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>the long stick pointed at him was filled
+with flame and death. We could picture
+the scene so well—the man, swinging
+carelessly down along the trail
+whistling, the gun over his shoulder—a
+sudden halt as a little brown rabbit
+hopped out from the underbrush into
+the small clearing and raised himself
+inquisitively on his haunches—a flash—a
+bundle of limp fur, blood-stained—a
+little brown pelt dangling pathetically
+down from a leather belt. Perhaps
+the man whistled again as he
+went down the trail. He could not
+know that two children, back by the
+little clearing, were sobbing their
+hearts out with their faces buried in
+the cool, green moss, because of a playmate
+who would come no more.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_045.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We tamed no more rabbits, Brother
+and I. We felt that we had been the
+cause of our friend’s death, and the
+least we could do was to refrain from
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>putting confidence into other woods
+creatures, to be shattered by humans
+who did not know or care about the
+wild heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And so we planted twin-flower
+vines in the little clearing, and edged
+it with yellow Johnny-jump-up plants.
+It was our futile way of saying to
+U-Chu-Ka how sorry we were—how
+we loved him and how we missed him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And today on the Hill Trail you
+may see U-Chu-Ka’s corner, grown
+over a bit now, because no one chops
+away the underbrush. But still the
+twin-flowers and the Johnny-jump-up’s
+bloom there in memory of
+U-Chu-Ka, the little brown friend
+who lives on in our hearts and our
+loving memory.</p>
+
+<div class='c013 figcenter id001'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>
+<img src='images/i_047.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>For the dogs had lost the lighter scent</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Three</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>Sanctuary</span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_047.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+No doubt it was a silly name
+to give a deer—“Leonard”—but
+Brother and I named
+him on the spur of the moment,
+and, probably because
+we did not know the Indian
+word for “fawn,” we resorted to the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>prosaic title to which our woods friend
+learned to respond.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Our acquaintance with Leonard
+began in such a dramatic way and with
+such suddenness that we had no time
+to think about a suitable name—although
+we did remember to name him
+even in the first chaotic moment of
+meeting. It was a habit that came to
+us as naturally as breathing.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_048.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was during those days of licensed
+killing known as “the deer season.”
+All day long, from across the bay, a
+mile in width, came the long-drawn-out
+baying of hounds and an occasional
+shot. On our side of the bay, too, high
+up in the wooded hills, we could hear
+the hounds at chase, and our hearts
+were heavy, being weighted with fear
+for the hunted things of the woods.
+We wondered if the hunters would find
+the salt-lick which we had stumbled
+upon in our wanderings and where we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>had spent many breathless hours
+watching for the slim-limbed does and
+the antlered bucks to come and take
+refreshment.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We stood outside the little log
+cabin, our faces raised to the hills, our
+hands clasped tightly together, listening
+shiveringly to the hunting cry of
+the dogs. They were in full chase, we
+knew, after some luckless deer. We
+felt so helpless, yet so eager to help
+protect our friends of the wilds. I
+wonder if our unexpressed prayer did
+not have something to do with what
+happened.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The baying of the hounds alternated
+with the crash of the underbrush where
+they were running, men coming close
+behind. The dogs were skirting the
+top of a hill. All at once their baying
+became a series of whimpering barks.
+They were for the moment
+off the scent.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_049.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>And then, down the hill, with such
+flying leaps that he scarcely touched
+the earth, came a little deer, a fawn,
+heading straight for the cabin. Was
+he mad with fear that he sought the
+home of humans? Or did he know by
+that unexplainable power which animals
+have that we were friends, that
+we would protect his life with ours—did
+he, I wonder? For he cleared the
+four-foot fence with a bound and
+trotted up to us, then stood trembling,
+his soft eyes glazed with fright, white
+foam at the corners of his mouth.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>This is not a fiction story; I am telling
+it as it happened.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The little fawn thrust his hot, dry
+nose against my hand, and when
+Brother and I, recovering from our
+petrified amazement, put our arms
+around his velvety neck, he did not
+shrink away, but pressed against us as
+if mutely begging protection.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_050.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>If you have never had a wild creature
+throw itself upon your mercy, if
+you have never known the feeling of a
+soft, brown deer body pressed against
+yours in pleading and in confidence,
+you can not realize the wild thrill of
+ecstasy that went through us.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“His name is Leonard!” I found
+breath to say, my face against the velvety
+neck of the little deer.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But Brother, being a man in embryo,
+was thinking of sterner things. The
+hounds, he reminded me, would
+shortly find the scent of the deer. If
+they came baying down the hill, the
+fawn would take fright and dart away
+before we could stop him.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_051.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was not a pleasant picture, but
+what were we to do? The short, whining
+barks of the dogs had already
+changed to the long, triumphant cadence
+of the hound in full cry. They
+would come down the hill, the hunters
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>would claim Leonard as their game,
+they would—</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_052.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Meat!” whispered Brother tensely,
+and cryptic as it may sound to the
+reader I understood perfectly. I wondered
+that I had not thought of it myself.
+Brother outlined a plan of action
+in a few brief words while the baby
+deer, with knees wobbling sadly,
+turned terror-haunted eyes up the hill,
+his delicate nostrils quivering, yet
+made no move to leave us.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It took my best efforts to lead the
+little fawn into the shelter of the
+brooder house. The scent was foreign
+to anything he had known before, and
+the darkness terrified him anew. He
+could not have known that safety lay
+within that strange place, but he did
+know—of that I am sure—that he
+could trust himself with me, for he
+came, hesitatingly, urged always by
+my voice and my hands gently caressing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>him. He went with me, even
+through the door, into the semi-darkness
+of the frame brooder house, and
+though when I swung the door shut
+he nervously leaped away from my
+side, it was to return an instant later,
+as if begging my pardon for his involuntary
+action.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother, in the meantime, had
+dashed into the kitchen and emerged
+as quickly with a juicy steak—it was
+to have been cooked for dinner that
+night—which he hacked into chunks
+with his jackknife as he raced up the
+hill.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>With my eyes against a crack I could
+see him panting upward to the point
+where Leonard had emerged from the
+underbrush of the woods.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_053.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And scarcely had he arrived when
+a lean hound, with lolling tongue and
+nose to the ground, burst from the
+shrubbery, uttering a long-drawn-out
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>bay. The little deer beside me shook
+in every limb, and I was trembling,
+too, as if it were I, not Leonard, whom
+the dogs were trailing. We crouched
+there in the darkness, the wild thing of
+the woods and the child who loved the
+wild things of the woods, and in those
+tense moments I felt the heart of the
+baby deer pounding against my body.
+Can you wonder why now, when I see
+the body of a deer killed in the hunt,
+I can not congratulate the hunter on
+his prowess? I know how the deer at
+bay stood still and trembled! I know
+how his soft, brown eyes grew wide
+with helpless terror. I know how his
+heart pounded suffocatingly. And I
+can not be glad for the hunter; I am
+only sorry that he does not understand.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_054.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And up on the hill Brother was acting
+his part in the drama. When the
+first lean hound swung into sight, he
+deftly tossed a chunk of red, juicy
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>meat in his pathway. The dog ignored
+the first piece, so intent was he on the
+fresh scent of the deer. But another
+chunk aimed just ahead of him was a
+temptation not to be withstood, and he
+gobbled it up, pausing a second in his
+chase. Another dog followed him out
+of the underbrush, finding the first
+piece of meat Brother had thrown.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It did not take long for the two
+hounds to finish off the entire steak so
+obligingly tossed to them by the small
+boy almost hidden in a clump of tall
+ferns. And when it was gone, Leonard
+was safe, for the dogs, with the smell of
+fresh meat in their nostrils, had lost the
+lighter scent of the little deer’s flying
+hoofs, and they sniffed shamefacedly
+and with befuddled yappings, until the
+hunters came cursing down the hill and
+crashing into the open, to berate the
+dogs soundly for having lost the game—as
+they supposed—in the woods.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_055.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>They could not know that the little
+boy in the clump of ferns, looking on
+so innocently, was responsible for the
+hounds’ failure, nor that their game
+was at that instant held tightly in the
+arms of a little girl who was shaking
+with excitement as well as with fear,
+lest something happen to betray the
+refugee’s hiding-place.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But nothing did. The men stamped
+back into the woods, taking the hounds
+with them, and that day at least we
+heard no more baying on the hill.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_056.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And Leonard—we were afraid to
+let him go back to the woods until the
+deer season had passed or until he was
+of a size better able to care for himself.
+The grown-ups helped us, and we contrived
+a pen with wire netting over the
+top and sides as well, with the brooder
+house as shelter for nights. And here
+we kept Leonard a willing prisoner,
+while the hounds bayed on the hills
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>and shots echoed across the water.
+How we wished, when we heard
+them, that we could make a place of
+refuge for every hunted thing in the
+world to come to and be cared for.
+But Leonard at least was safe, and he
+seemed to know it, too. Though he
+trembled whenever he heard the long
+hunting cry of the dogs, he did not
+take refuge even in the brooder house.
+He knew, I think, that he was in
+sanctuary.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_057.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>As the days went on, we released our
+little deer from his pen, first with a
+collar and a rope, and then with
+nothing to hold him. He followed
+us like a dog, trotting beside us with
+dainty, mincing steps, sometimes leaping
+ahead of us, turning to look back
+at us, his large ears at an angle, his
+slim young body silhouetted against
+the green of the woods.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He soon learned his name and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>would come bounding out to us
+when we called. We fed him things
+his ancestors probably never tasted—cookies,
+apples, lettuce leaves, and
+candy, in addition to the grass and
+tender leaves we brought him before
+we allowed him to accompany us.
+But best of all the dainties we gave
+him was the chewing gum that Brother
+in a playful moment tendered him.
+Leonard accepted it daintily, as was
+his wont, and chewed it, as Brother
+and I remarked, with an actual expression
+of surprise coming into his
+brown eyes. He chewed and chewed.
+Perhaps he thought it a new variety
+of cud. At any rate, he gave it his
+hearty indorsement, and after that he
+would nose in Brother’s pockets to find
+the stick of gum that was always there
+for him.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_058.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>So Leonard became one of our
+happy family, and though we knew
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>that sometime in the distant future we
+should have on our hands the problem
+of what to do with an antlered buck
+who had forgotten the ways of the
+woods and accepted those of civilization,
+we did not feel sorry about it,
+being content to dwell in the happy
+present, while Leonard seemed content
+as well.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But one night I woke to find Brother’s
+hand tugging at mine. He was
+whispering to me that something was
+outside Leonard’s pen—perhaps it was
+a bear or a wildcat trying to get at him.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_059.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Foolish children we may have been,
+but we were not cowardly. It never
+occurred to us to rouse the grown-ups.
+Leonard was our friend and our responsibility.
+From my window the
+two of us crept out on the roof, white
+nightgowned figures, shaking with cold
+and excitement. From the roof we
+dropped easily to the railing of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>picket fence at the back of the cabin
+and from there to the ground.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Like two little white wraiths we
+crept along in the shadow of the fence
+until we could see the outlines of the
+brooder house and the pen which enclosed
+it. There was a moon, but it
+was thickly hidden by clouds. All we
+could distinguish was a dark form
+against the wire netting, a shape that
+moved restlessly, now away from the
+pen, now back to it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As our eyes became accustomed to
+the darkness, we saw that Leonard was
+in the pen outside the brooder house,
+and we questioned each other silently.
+Surely no deer would come thus to
+meet an enemy animal that wanted to
+destroy.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_060.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And then, as if in answer to our
+question, the clouds parted and a pale
+moon turned the darkness into half-shadowed
+light. With the sudden effulgence
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>came the weird gleam of
+four eyes turned in our direction—for
+our scent had carried to sensitive
+nostrils. Brother and I, for an instant,
+caught each other’s hands and gasped.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_061.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then two of the luminous lights
+vanished, as the slim animal outside
+the pen sprang away in great bounds
+that carried her into the shadows beyond
+our ken—but not before we had
+recognized the slim, fleeing form for
+a doe. We knew it was Leonard’s
+mother, who had found her baby.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We climbed back into our window
+as silently as we had left it. Brother
+in his cot, and I in mine, stared up into
+the darkness, trying to tell ourselves
+that ours was the right to keep the fawn
+we had befriended, yet knowing that
+the mother heart was calling for the
+little brown deer whom we loved so
+well. And we knew that in the
+end we must relinquish our claim—Leonard,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>after all, belonged to the
+woods, and the mother heart of the
+woods was calling.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Because we loved him so, we tried
+to pretend, the next day, that the
+deer we had seen was not Leonard’s
+mother—that it was merely a friend
+from the woods who had come down
+by moonlight to pay a nocturnal call.
+In our hearts, though, we knew better.
+Leonard all the day was restless; he
+pricked his ears continually as if
+waiting for a voice from the forest.
+We could scarcely coax him out of his
+distrait mood, even with a double
+ration of the chewing gum he loved so
+well.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_062.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The next night sleep was impossible.
+Though we heard nothing, we knew,
+somehow, that outside Leonard’s pen
+was a slim brown body pressed close
+against the wire netting. We rose, at
+last, and crept out over the roof and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>down to the ground. The doe was
+there, as we had foreseen. At our approach
+she bounded away with only
+the faintest rustle of leaves and snapping
+of twigs to mark her progress.
+But knowing that she would not go far—that
+she would come back to her
+baby—Brother and I went quickly
+forward and opened the door of the
+pen.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Leonard came to us and thrust his
+nose against my hand. We knelt on
+the ground, putting our arms around
+him, pressing our faces against his soft,
+brown neck, telling him with tears behind
+our whispered words that he
+must go with his mother, that the
+danger season was passed, and that he
+was free to go back to his kindred.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_063.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We stole away, but Leonard followed
+us, as if asking where we went
+and why he was not to go with us.
+For the first time we pushed him away
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>from us, though you can not know
+what it meant to us to do it. He stood
+still then, as if wondering, perhaps a
+little hurt, and we, not daring to look
+back, ran for the fence, clambered
+upon it, and gained the roof.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Once there, we could not resist
+watching a bit, and it was not long
+before the two luminous eyes gleamed
+from the underbrush. Then we saw a
+shapely, dark body come slowly into
+the open, and Leonard, with light,
+springing bounds, had rushed to meet
+his mother. For an instant we saw
+again the glowing orbs of two pairs of
+eyes. Then the lights vanished; two
+dark bodies moved side by side into
+the blackness of the woods; we heard
+the light crackle of underbrush; and
+then silence.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Silently we crept into our beds, and
+long afterward I heard Brother’s
+choking whisper coming through the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>darkness—my own face was buried in
+the pillow:</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“I know—Leonard’s going to miss—his—gum—”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We cried ourselves to sleep that
+night, thinking of an empty pen and of
+a little brown friend gone from us forever.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_065.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id001'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>
+<img src='images/i_066.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>He questioningly sniffed the breeze.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Four</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>The Faery Night</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_067.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+There came a night in
+June when the moon
+rose a great, yellow ball
+of light over the fir
+trees that crowned the
+hill. It was a night for adventure, for
+magic and mystery. And I, wide
+awake on the camp cot in the front
+yard of the cabin, listened to the faint
+lapping of the water upon the beach
+not a single stone’s-throw away, and to
+the wordless song of the pine trees as
+the night wind swept drowsy fingers
+across their branches—harps that woke
+to melody only when the daylight had
+gone and the stars stole out to listen to
+their song. The puffy maple tree
+which guarded the little log cabin was
+murmuring softly to itself, its leaves
+nodding to each other as if confiding
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>some wonderful secret, and the giant
+fir tree on the other side of the porch
+stood erect and motionless as if it were
+a sentinel and thus disdained to gossip.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>From far out in the bay came faint
+splashes which told of salmon leaping,
+and now and then the distant cry of a
+night bird, so faint as to be only the
+shadow of a sound. In the air was the
+smell of grass freshly wet with dew,
+of pine trees drenched and glistening,
+of wild syringa on the hillside, and,
+more pronounced, the scent of the tiny
+Mother of God roses that clambered
+over the cabin in a white and fragrant
+wreath.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The stars were bright as the tears of
+angels, from which the Chinook Indians
+say they were made, and the
+moon in their midst flooded hill and
+bay with a silvery light made more intense
+by the blackness of the forest.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_068.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Somehow there was a hint of expectancy
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>in the air, as if the summer had
+looked forward to this one night and
+was a-thrill with the joy of its coming.
+I could not sleep, for I was attuned to
+the things of the out-of-doors, and I,
+too, was a-thrill with the expectation of
+something—I knew not what.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I watched Altair rise over the
+“Happy Family” pines with his two
+attendant stars that are like the outspread
+wings of an eagle, and I kissed
+my hand to him in greeting.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A star fell, leaving a trailing line of
+light in its wake, and suddenly I felt
+a little sad, for a Siwash Indian chief
+had told us that when a star fell, it was
+a flower tossed by the hand of a good
+spirit from Paradise to ease the pain
+of a soul passing out into the Great
+Darkness.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_069.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then Amarillo, the big yellow cat,
+padded across the grass with little
+throaty mewings of greeting, and I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>felt the light thud of his body as he
+leaped on the bed and settled himself
+at my feet. He, too, was restless, for
+he would raise and lower his tawny
+head and would sometimes turn his
+golden eyes upon me as if seeking an
+explanation for the thrill that was in
+the night.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_070.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>So I was not surprised when I heard
+a faint, familiar scraping which told
+me that Brother had climbed from his
+bedroom window and was sliding
+down the roof to the fence.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Since we had only one camp cot,
+Brother and I must needs take turns
+sleeping out of doors. And although
+this night was mine, I knew that he,
+too, had felt its magic and could not
+abide the stuffy darkness of the cabin
+when the world outside was bathed in
+moonlight. He came tiptoeing around
+the corner of the house very quietly so
+as not to waken the grown-ups, and
+Amarillo purred loudly as he saw him
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>come, and dug his claws into the
+bedclothes with contented, prickling
+sounds.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother was fully dressed, and he
+put his lips close to my ear as he whispered:
+“Do you know what kind of
+a night this is?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“No,” I answered breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“A fairy night!” he breathed with
+awe. “The old fisherman told me that
+on moonlight nights the fairies dance
+in the moss ring on the Hill Trail.
+Come quick, let’s go!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I needed no second bidding. Even
+as he spoke, I was drawing over my
+head the knee-length dress I had worn
+during the day, and was feeling for my
+moccasins tucked away from the dew
+under the rubber covering of the bed.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_071.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Hand in hand we slipped out of the
+yard and up the trail, moving as
+silently as wraiths. Amarillo followed
+to the edge of the woods and then
+slipped away on business of his own.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>Up the hill we hurried, up the narrow
+trail patched with moonlight and
+shadows. The wet branches of the
+pines brushed across our faces; our
+bare legs were swished by fern fronds
+as we passed. Sometimes a twig
+crackled underfoot, and now and then
+we heard a slight rustling in the underbrush
+where a little animal was
+moving.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We passed by the spring which gurgled
+dreamily into the pool shadowed
+by ferns and alders. A mother deer
+and her baby were drinking there, and
+although they turned their great eyes
+upon us, luminous in the moonlight
+that sifted through the branches, they
+did not start or run as we stole by.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_072.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The top of the hill was gained at
+last, and the Hill Trail which we
+called ours. Well we knew the fairy
+ring, a circle of moss in a clearing,
+ringed around with pink twin-flowers
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>and wild strawberry vines, a fitting
+place for elfin feet to dance on a moonlight
+night. And as we neared the
+clearing flooded by the bright moonlight,
+we trembled with ecstasy and
+anticipation. That the fairies did
+dance there we never doubted, but
+would they reveal themselves to the
+eyes of mortals, even such friendly
+mortals as ourselves?</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Crouched behind a cedar log and
+screened by salal bushes, we watched
+and waited, our eyes glued to the moss
+ring in the patch of moon silver—but
+no fairies came.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_073.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Just the same it <i>was</i> a fairy night, as
+you shall see. For presently a little
+brown bear came out into the clearing,
+making considerably more noise than
+his size warranted, sat up on his
+haunches, and sniffed the breeze questioningly.
+He nibbled daintily at the
+leaves of a red huckleberry bush, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>having finished his nocturnal repast,
+walked pigeon-toed over to a cedar
+tree, scratched his back against it,
+making rumbling noises of content,
+and finally raised himself to his full
+height—which was not so high after
+all—and marked how tall he was on
+the shaggy bark of the tree by scratching
+it deeply with his claws. Then he
+waddled away in his bow-legged fashion,
+and we heard the faint crashing of
+the underbrush as he passed through.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_074.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>There came a wakeful brown rabbit,
+who hopped into the very center of the
+fairy ring, wiggled his ears and nose,
+and then began to make an elaborate
+toilet—in honor, we thought, of the
+elfin ball. He washed his paws with
+care and gave each tapering ear a
+thorough massage. Last, he twisted
+like a contortionist to assure himself
+that his white knob of a tail was in perfect
+order, and finally being satisfied
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>with his inspection, he loped
+leisurely away without so much as
+the crackle of a twig.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_075.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The next two visitors to the moonlit
+clearing were two baby skunks striped
+with brown and white and with graceful
+tufts of white for tails. Strangely
+enough, Brother and I were not afraid
+of what might happen should they suddenly
+be aware of our presence and become
+frightened, for it seemed to us
+that we too belonged to the fairy night
+and that nothing could happen to mar
+the perfect beauty of it. The little
+animals played like kittens, dashing out
+at each other from the shadows and
+rolling about in mock ferocity, but
+presently they, too, stole away, silently,
+as wood creatures move, and we were
+left alone with the moonlit night and
+the empty fairy ring.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then from the direction of the trail
+came a cry of pain—like a human cry.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>The spell of the night was shattered,
+and we gripped each other’s hands and
+thought of flight. But again came the
+sound, a whimpering cry like a child
+in distress, and the fear which had
+clutched at our hearts vanished as suddenly,
+for we knew it must be an animal—some
+woods friend sorely hurt.
+So without further pause we left the
+shelter of the log and hurried across
+the clearing to the trail. The sound
+came from beyond the “Happy Family”
+pines, and we hastened toward it.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_076.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>In the lumber clearing just off the
+trail we found what we had half expected—a
+young fox caught in a steel
+trap by his front paws, and he was
+whimpering with the pain of it. The
+dark eyes which he turned toward us
+showed a frenzied, greenish light, and
+as we came nearer, he yelped sharply,
+tugging frantically at the sharp teeth
+which never relaxed their grip.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>The pity in our hearts made us forgetful
+of his fear, but as we started
+toward him, he wrenched backward,
+dragging the heavy trap to the full
+length of the chain, his small, gray-brown
+body a-quiver with terror and
+pain. So then we waited, approaching
+very quietly and slowly. Finally his
+struggles ceased from sheer fatigue,
+and the eyes which he turned upon us
+were dull and lifeless. Brother tried
+to hold me back, but I would not have
+it so, and coming very close to the little
+fox, I put my hand on his soft, furry
+head. He did not bite or even cringe.
+Perhaps his pain was so great that he
+could suffer no more and so could not
+be afraid, or perhaps it was because he
+sensed that my touch was a friendly
+one and that help was near at hand.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_077.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>
+<img src='images/i_078.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Together Brother and I pried the
+steel jaws apart, and the little fox, set
+free, limped away for a few feet and
+then fell exhausted. So I picked him
+up, and walking quietly so as not to
+hurt or alarm him, we sought again the
+forest pool, mottled now with deep
+shadows and pale lights. The mother
+deer and her baby had gone, and in
+the cool, gurgling water of the little
+stream we bathed the wounded feet of
+our friend and named him “Reginald.”
+We made sure that the paws were not
+broken, only lacerated by the sharp
+teeth of the trap, and when he began
+to stir and move his head in quick
+jerks from side to side, we set him
+down on the cool moss. After a little
+while he commenced to lick the hurt
+paws, very gently at first and then
+with increasing confidence, and he did
+not go away at once. He feared us no
+more than he would have feared a
+brother and sister fox. So for an hour,
+until the moonlight gleams became
+fainter and the shadows deeper, the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>three of us lingered by the forest pool.
+Brother and I pretended that Reginald
+talked to us and that he could understand
+what we said to him. And when
+finally he finished licking his paws and
+slipped away into the darkness, we
+regained once more the moonlit Hill
+Trail and started for home.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But there was one thing we must do,
+and we turned back to “Reginald’s
+clearing,” as we called it. In the
+waning light we found the trap which
+had so cruelly hurt our little friend,
+and we unwound the chain from the
+tree. Into the blackness of the underbrush
+we flung it and laughed defiantly
+as we heard it crash in the thicket.
+Then, as if some avenging power were
+hard on our heels, we fled down the
+trail out of the wood and stole into the
+yard without even the creaking of a
+gate to betray us.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_079.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Thrilled to the very core of my
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>being, I huddled into bed. And Amarillo,
+who had long since returned,
+arched his back and yawned widely as
+if to imply that such a nocturnal excursion
+was not respectable.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother started to tiptoe around to
+the fence and thus gain the roof and
+his bedroom, but I stopped him with
+a sharp hiss, and he tiptoed back to me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“What shall we say if some hunter
+asks us about the trap?” I breathed
+into his ear, and he doubled up and
+laughed noiselessly.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_080.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>“We will tell him that anything can
+happen on a fairy night,” he whispered
+back and stole away to the fence, while
+I watched the moon settle behind the
+distant blue hills, and with the ensuing
+darkness came the breath of the morning
+breeze. The fairy night was over.</p>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span></div>
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div><span class='large'><i>Part Five</i></span>| <span class='sc'>The Friendship That Failed</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='c013 figcenter id001'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>
+<img src='images/i_082.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Five</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>The Friendship That Failed</span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_082.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+On the shores of Puget
+Sound, where the woods
+come down to the shore
+to fraternize with the
+little white-capped waves
+of the bay, lived Henry, the heron.
+How old he was before Brother and I
+came to know him, we could not tell.
+But an old-man bird he must have
+been surely, for his was a knowledge
+of fishing that comes from long experience.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Every day we would watch him
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>from our little log cabin—watch him
+sail majestically toward the float, pause
+directly above, and flap down upon it,
+using his lanky legs as balancing
+weights. He would stand there for
+many moments, turning his head
+slightly from side to side as if revolving
+in his mind whether he had done
+the wise thing in coming, and what his
+next move ought to be.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_083.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>Cannon came charging in a whirlwind of feathers.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Such a deliberate bird Henry
+seemed, but this apparent deliberation
+was only one of the tricks of his trade.
+I am sure that had I been a fish, I
+would have believed there was nothing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>to fear from the immobile bunch of
+gray feathers balanced on two skinny
+stilt legs, and I would have swum merrily
+under the very tip of his beak.
+But Henry’s sharp, black eyes missed
+nothing, as the hapless fish found to
+their cost when they ventured too near
+the surface. With one lightning swoop
+the great bill cleaved the water, and
+the next instant a shiny fish was wriggling
+in his beak.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_084.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Sometimes he did his fishing while
+standing in the water up to his knees—or
+where his knees would be if herons
+had such things. With his head drawn
+in between his feathered shoulders and
+his long beak sticking out at right
+angles like a lance at rest, he seemed to
+be taking a siesta, and only the occasional
+plunge of his long bill into the
+water, and the accompanying twinkle
+of a small silver fish as it flapped in
+amazement before it slid down into his
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>gullet, proved that he was awake—and
+hungry.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We gave Henry his name when he
+was but an acquaintance of ours. We
+never really hoped to have him for a
+friend, but we liked him, and we felt
+that he liked us, too. So when he did
+his fishing on our float or knee-deep in
+the water of the little cove before the
+cabin, we threw scraps of bread to him,
+which he accepted gravely and always
+dipped in the salt water before swallowing.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We used to hear his strange, mournful
+cry late at night as he flew northward
+past the cove on his way to the
+pine tree where he lived, and we
+always pretended he was giving us a
+greeting before he turned in for the
+night.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_085.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We found out, too, where he made
+his home. We had often seen him land
+on a bony, fallen tree half a mile up the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>beach, which jutted straight out into
+the water and which we called “the
+Pointing Finger.” Once, in our explorations
+along the beach trail, we
+saw Henry standing on the gray shaft
+of the dead tree, and as we watched, he
+stooped slightly, then flapped upward
+and flew into a tall pine tree almost in
+front of us. When we stood under it,
+we could distinguish the outlines of a
+nest high up in the branches. Perhaps
+at that time there was a Mrs. Henry
+and maybe some young Henrys—I do
+not know. But certain it was that when
+he became a friend of ours by reason
+of a happening which might have
+ended in tragedy for him, he seemed to
+be without family cares or responsibilities.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_086.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>During the season when the salmon
+were running, the Old Fisherman, who
+was at once our mentor and playfellow,
+spread his nets from the shore-line
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>straight out into the bay for a hundred
+yards, leaving them there the night
+through to catch the large silver
+salmon on their way to the creeks to
+spawn. One of these nights he had laid
+his net near the Pointing Finger, and
+Brother and I, going with him in his
+creaky, flat-bottomed boat to see the
+result of the haul, heard ahead of us a
+great splashing, and saw dimly outlined
+in the midst of the cork floats a
+dark body that flapped and struggled.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We whispered excitedly that perhaps
+a seal had become entangled in
+the net, but the Old Fisherman thought
+it only a salmon, or perhaps a dogfish
+whose pointed snout had been caught
+in the meshes of the cords.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_087.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>But it was neither seal nor salmon,
+for on rowing close to the net we saw
+by the light of the Old Fisherman’s
+lantern a huge, gray bird with flapping
+wings and slashing beak. It was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>Henry, the heron, who had alighted on
+one of the cork floaters, perhaps thinking
+it safe footing, and had thus become
+hopelessly snared in the net.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_088.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>What was even worse, he had hurt
+himself cruelly in his struggles, for one
+long leg was dangling helplessly, and
+one of his wide gray wings hung limp
+at his side. When the Old Fisherman,
+with gruff words but tender hands, released
+him from the cords which bound
+him, he could not fly, but flapped helplessly
+upon the water. And so it was
+that we lifted him into the boat and
+tied a gunnysack around him so that he
+should not injure himself further, for
+he did not understand that our intentions
+were kindly and snapped at us
+fiercely with his huge beak.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The Old Fisherman, who had lived
+with the Indians and who had acquired
+their curative gifts, took Henry,
+the heron, in charge when we reached
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>the little cabin in the cove, first muzzling
+him by tying a stout cord about
+his beak. Then he set the broken wing
+and put the leg in splints. The grown-ups
+suggested putting Henry in the
+hen-house for the night, but Brother
+and I would not have it so, and with
+their help we constructed a pen behind
+the kitchen stove where he could be
+warm and comfortable. We left him
+moving his head jerkily from side to
+side, blinking his beady eyes now and
+then and snapping his bill as if in troubled
+retrospect.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But during the next week Henry, the
+heron, came to know that we were his
+friends and that he had nothing to fear
+from us. He allowed us to stroke him
+and would accept morsels of food
+from our fingers, even taking care not
+to nip us with his powerful beak.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_089.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>When he had finally ceased to fear
+us, we gave him the liberty of the back-yard,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>and he would stalk about stiffly
+like a peg-legged veteran of the wars.
+But most of the time he would stand
+with his head drawn in between his
+shoulders, the picture of dejection, and
+Brother and I knew he was longing for
+the freedom of the air and the water
+which had been his. He was longing
+for the cool lapping of little waves
+against his legs, for the silver gleam
+of fish in the blue depths; and he
+wanted to fly once more—to circle over
+the bay, to flap down upon the Pointing
+Finger. Perhaps he was even lonesome
+for the nest in the pine tree. At
+any rate we were sorry for his sadness
+and set about to remedy it as best we
+could. We fished indefatigably from
+the float, and the Old Fisherman
+brought us smelts and silver perch
+from his nets.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_090.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then, to make our guest feel more
+at home, we would put our catch in a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>washtub filled with water, and
+Henry would fish for them choosing
+his prey with calculating eye and
+gobbling it up with one great peck.
+It was the best we could do for him,
+and we felt that he appreciated that,
+too, for he obligingly hunted down
+every fish in the tub, and then would
+turn his grave head toward us, giving
+us the broadside effect of one shiny
+eye, whether in thanks or in petition
+for more we could not determine.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_091.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>But it was really due to Cannon, our
+bantam rooster, that Henry’s convalescence
+was not entirely unendurable.
+Cannon was the eldest son of Liberty, a
+small bantam hen who had brought
+forth her brood on the fourth of July—hence
+her name and his. He was the
+undisputed king of the poultry yard,
+for a strain of game cock in his blood
+had made him fearless of everything
+and an unspeakable bully. There was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>no hen or cock of twice his size who
+dared come near his end of the feed
+trough, and even Prince, the mammoth
+White Rock rooster, stood in awe of
+him. Perhaps he was merely amused
+at the airs Cannon gave himself, and
+so let the tiny cock have his way, but
+at any rate his record of combat was
+unsullied by a single defeat.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_092.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>I have seen many a strange friendship
+between animals and between
+birds, too, but never one so curious
+as that of Henry, the heron, and Cannon,
+the bantam rooster. For friends
+they were, and real friends, too. They
+became acquainted when Cannon, flying
+into the back-yard one day, spied
+the stiff-legged Henry and immediately
+decided to do battle with him.
+He ruffled up his neck feathers,
+whirled round and round with one
+wing dusting the ground, and advancing
+on Henry, dared him to come on
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>and fight. At first Brother and I
+thought to rescue Cannon from what
+we believed would be his sure death.
+But we were wrong; for Henry regarded
+the little brown cock contemplatively,
+snapped his bill in warning,
+then blinked and turned away as if
+overcome with boredom. But Cannon
+was not used to being ignored. If his
+enemies would not fight, they must at
+least give way before him. So his neck
+ruff distended more and more, his tiny
+comb glowed an angry red, and in his
+best game-cock fashion he hopped up
+and down stiffly, trying to strike at the
+heron’s broad, feathered breast above
+him.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_093.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Henry eyed him curiously, almost
+saturninely, and at last with a sort of
+wearied annoyance gave one sweep of
+his broad bill, and Cannon was sent
+tumbling in a scurry of brown feathers
+and outraged squawks. But he was a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>warrior; back he came in a series of
+frenzied leaps, and once more Henry’s
+massive bill swept him lightly but conclusively
+aside.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_094.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Time after time, to the number of
+twelve, Cannon came charging in a
+whirlwind of feathers, trying to slash
+the feathered breast of his passive
+enemy, always to be met by the calm
+but decisive buffet of Henry’s beak.
+At last it was a wearied little bantam
+cock who stopped pantingly and turned
+his back upon the gray heron, owning
+himself defeated.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Perhaps it was respect for Henry’s
+superior prowess which actuated Cannon,
+and perhaps the merry little bantam’s
+pluck appealed to the grave
+fisher bird, for they became almost at
+once inseparable friends. Cannon deserted
+his feathered acquaintances and
+spent his time in the back-yard with
+Henry. When finally the invalid was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>well enough to hobble down on the
+float, Cannon went with him and would
+stand beside him while Henry, the
+heron, swooped joyfully upon minnows
+and silver smelt and gobbled them
+down with a zest he had never displayed
+when fishing in the washtub.
+Such became the intimacy of the tall
+Henry and the diminutive Cannon that
+Henry would even share his catch
+with Cannon, dropping down upon the
+float a small, wriggling fish for Cannon’s
+delectation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We noticed that at first the bantam
+rooster eyed askance the flapping tidbits
+offered by his friend. He was not
+accustomed to such lively food, but
+little by little he learned to peck and
+devour the fish with the same relish
+that Henry showed for them. He became
+a feathered parasite, depending
+almost entirely upon the heron for his
+meals.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_095.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>It was such a pleasant friendship—comradeship
+between man and man
+always is—and it was broken up, I am
+sorry to say, in the usual way—by a
+woman.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As Henry grew stronger, his leg and
+wing knit rapidly. And on the day
+when the Old Fisherman removed the
+bandages and pronounced the patient
+out of danger, we feared our heron
+friend would leave us. But he did not.
+He had become accustomed to the
+float, to the cabin, to the yard, and to
+Brother and me. Above all, there was
+Cannon, the bantam rooster. So he
+stayed with us, flapping up into the firtree
+in the front yard at night to roost,
+and fishing from the float or the beach
+in the daytime. It was an idyllic state
+of affairs which might have lasted indefinitely
+had it not been for Sironda,
+the Black Minorca hen.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_096.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Si” we sometimes called her for
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>short, and we had known her from the
+day of her birth. Even before that;
+for Brother and I had set the very egg
+in the incubator from which she was
+hatched. She was a trim little hen
+with shiny black feathers, a red comb
+that fell coquettishly over one eye, and
+a “singing voice” that made her the
+prima donna among the poultry. She
+was in every respect fitted to make an
+impressionable cockerel forget the ties
+of friendship, and Brother and I have
+always believed that she mapped out a
+campaign to that end after seeing how
+well Cannon fared by trailing at
+Henry’s heels.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>She took to wandering down upon
+the float, singing softly to herself and
+ostensibly on the lookout for bugs, but,
+as we noticed, keeping an eye upon
+Cannon and his fisher friend and always
+drawing nearer and nearer to the
+pair.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_097.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>Finally she grew so bold as to come
+up to Cannon’s side, and when Henry,
+the heron, next dropped a shining
+smelt upon the float, the bantam, innately
+chivalrous, voiced a high-pitched
+invitation to Sironda to partake
+of the dainty.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Cannon, watching her, was content
+to have her devour the juicy morsel,
+but not so was Henry. He would fish
+willingly for Cannon, but not for his
+lady friends, and with one hair-raising
+scream he opened his huge bill, spread
+his wings and lunged for Sironda, who
+dropped the remnants of the fish and
+fled down the float, half running, half
+flying, and uttering hysterical cackles.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_098.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Cannon watched her precipitous retreat
+with a surprised and worried
+countenance; then he turned upon
+Henry. And though Brother and I
+could not hear what was said, I am
+sure that there were fierce words between
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>them, for Henry had to knock
+Cannon down three times in rapid succession
+before the irate bantam turned
+heel and followed Sironda up the float
+and into the yard.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The rift in the lute had come, and it
+grew wider. For Sironda became
+bolder in her advances, and Cannon,
+flattered by her feminine wiles, laid his
+fish—of Henry’s catching—at her feet.
+It was a triangle situation which could
+end only in one way. For at the end of
+each one-sided fight Cannon would
+stalk away with outraged dignity in
+every ruffled feather, and Henry
+would gaze after him sadly and would
+thereafter peck at the swarms of silver
+smelt solemnly and without zest.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_099.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And so he left us. One day he tried
+his massive wings and sailed upward
+and outward into the blue sky, circled
+in midair as if trying his strength, and
+then flapped quietly away toward the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>Pointing Finger, and as he flew, he
+uttered a mournful cry that trailed behind
+him like a wisp of smoke.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And Cannon, the thankless one, did
+not even know that he had gone. He
+was scratching worms for Sironda.
+But I really think it broke Henry’s
+heart, for he never came to our float
+again. And I am positive that he
+became a woman-hater and remained a
+bachelor the rest of his life.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_100.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c013 figcenter id001'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>
+<img src='images/i_101.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>His constant barking set the grown-ups against him.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Six</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>Stop Thief</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_101.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+In the days when the roving
+fisher boats chugged
+into the little cove to set
+their nets for salmon or
+silver smelt, we spent most
+of our time on the bay. We knew
+every broad-beamed gray launch that
+rounded Green Point, a mile away,
+and we knew most of the fishermen
+who owned them. We would wait
+until the coughing engine was silent
+and the anchor was cast; then we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>would hoist the sail of our tiny, round-bottomed
+skiff and, using an oar for a
+rudder, skim out across the ruffled surface
+of the bay to pay a visit to the
+swarthy-visaged men with heavy, grizzled
+beards and rough, red hands.
+They always made us welcome in their
+strange and guttural tongues, for we
+took them apples from the orchard,
+and sometimes a glass of jelly or a loaf
+of home-made bread. And in exchange
+they gave us curious souvenirs
+of their travels—dried starfish of monstrous
+size, lovely, iridescent shells,
+and reed baskets bartered from the
+Siwash Indians.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_102.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The boat we knew best was called
+<i>Rosenzweig</i>, which, the Austrian owners
+said, meant “Rose-branch.” These
+two fishermen, dark, powerful men,
+anchored just beyond our float in the
+smelt and salmon seasons, and we were
+fond of them. They let us help them
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>haul in the nets, and more than once
+Brother and I have stood in huge hip
+boots many sizes too large, tugging
+at wet ropes heavy with seaweed,
+excitedly pulling at the drag net and
+watching for the first glint of splashing
+silver in the brown meshes which
+would tell us that the net was nearly to
+the beach and filled with fish.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_103.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We were always sorry to see the
+<i>Rosenzweig</i> leave us, and it was always
+a day of rejoicing when we
+sighted the little gray boat chugging
+around the Point, its bow and stern
+piled high with seine and drag nets.
+The two fishermen brought us a gift
+each time—we expected it. Sometimes
+it would be a bunch of letters with
+Austrian stamps attached—Brother
+and I were confirmed philatelists;
+sometimes it was a sugar-cured salmon,
+and once they brought us a carved
+canoe paddle which they had purchased
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>of a Nittenat chief, far up the
+straits toward Alaska.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But the day of days was when, coming
+alongside their gray boat just as
+the anchor splashed, we were greeted
+by Andrin, the elder brother, who
+grinned delightedly and signified in
+his broken English that he had something
+wonderful for us.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We clambered over the gunwale of
+the <i>Rosenzweig</i>, with its littered deck
+and its heavy, perpetual smell of fish,
+seaweed, and tar calking, and Karl, the
+younger fisherman, made us shut our
+eyes while he carried something up
+from the hold and put it on the deck,
+something that thrashed about wetly
+and barked in a high-pitched baby
+voice much like a puppy’s.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_104.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We opened our eyes and stared in
+amazement. For there, before us on
+the deck, was a baby seal! He was
+wet and shiny brown, with great,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>bright eyes that peered at us curiously,
+but without fear, and delicate nostrils
+with neat, gentlemanly whiskers protruding
+from each side. With his tiny
+fore-flappers he propelled himself
+along the deck, barking constantly.
+Andrin threw him a piece of dried fish,
+which he caught in the air and devoured
+instantly.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“We bring you nice present,” said
+Karl, showing his white teeth in a
+smile, and he indicated the baby seal,
+who reared himself up as high as he
+could on his front flappers and barked
+vociferously.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That we were delighted goes without
+saying. We had seen many seals
+from a distance, but never had we
+thought to have one for a friend.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_105.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Often one would pop out of the
+water in the wake of our boat as we
+rowed to town, his wet, sleek head
+blackly silhouetted against the blue
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>water. And if we whistled or called,
+he would follow us indefinitely, for
+seals have more than their share of
+curiosity. They are interested in
+strange sounds and in bright colors.
+Once, when Brother was wearing a
+red sweater, a seal followed our boat
+for nearly a mile.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_106.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We had often known when they
+were near us in the Bay even without
+seeing them. For when we saw a salmon
+jumping many times, in a series of
+frenzied leaps, we knew it was not
+through sport, but because he was pursued
+by a seal who would surely seize
+him the minute his strength gave out.
+We had seen salmon nets spread in the
+water with only a row of fish heads remaining
+in the meshes. Robber seals
+had neatly bitten off the rest of the
+body. Once, while Brother and I were
+swimming far out from the float, a
+smooth, heavy body brushed against
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>mine, and I screamed with fear. But
+an instant later a brown, wet head
+arose not twenty yards away, and two
+bright eyes were turned on me inquiringly
+as if to ask why I had been
+frightened.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>You see, we were well acquainted
+with the seal family at long distance,
+but never before had we been so close
+to one of the brown brethren.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I took a piece of fish from Karl’s
+hand and stooped toward the baby seal,
+who turned his head from side to side,
+sniffed once or twice, and then dragged
+himself along the deck to me, taking
+the friendship offering gingerly from
+my outstretched fingers. A little later
+he found a warm, sunny place on a pile
+of nets and turned over on his back,
+scratching himself negligently with
+one of his fore-flappers.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_107.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Karl said he would not take it amiss
+if we scratched him under the chin,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>and indeed he did not. He stretched
+his head back and closed his eyes, while
+we gently stroked the glossy fur,
+which, as it dried, became gray rather
+than brown in color.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_108.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The fishermen told us that the baby
+seal had attended a net-robbing expedition
+with his mother. Both the lady
+seal and her baby had become entangled
+in the nets. The mother had
+fought and had finally escaped. But
+the baby they had loosed from the
+heavy meshes, and had taken him,
+barking and protesting, on board the
+<i>Rosenzweig</i>, where they had kept him
+in the hold, first as a prisoner and then
+as a pet, to bring to Brother and me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I know they were sorry to part with
+Alfred, as we christened the little seal,
+but they needed the hold of their small
+boat for their catches of fish. They
+could not afford to turn it permanently
+into a bath-tub for a water-baby who
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>could not live long away from the element
+to which he was accustomed. So
+when the <i>Rosenzweig</i> chugged away a
+few days later, Alfred was left to our
+care, with a hundred instructions as to
+how to regulate his diet and behavior.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The grown-ups were none too
+pleased at our latest pet, and it was a
+tribute to Alfred’s winning ways that
+he finally established himself as firmly
+in their affection as in ours. For there
+was no doubting his intelligence,
+handicapped as it was by his unwieldy
+body that seemed half fish and half
+animal.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_109.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>He learned to respond to his name
+sooner than most dogs, and he displayed
+his love for us in a manner
+which was unmistakable. At first we
+were afraid to let him go into the bay
+for fear he would swim away and leave
+us. We did not know how large seals
+had to be before they could earn their
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>living in the water, but we chose to
+think—selfishly perhaps—that Alfred
+was too small to make his way in a submarine
+contest of wits against older
+and more experienced of his kindred.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_110.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We need not have worried, however,
+for the baby seal adopted us in the same
+spirit that we had adopted him. He
+evidently had no thought of leaving
+us. The float in front of the cabin was
+his headquarters, and from it he would
+slide off into the water, rolling and
+splashing like a young dolphin, to return
+when he was tired or when we
+called him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I can see him now, his small, sleek
+head, with its great brown eyes, sticking
+up out of the water, at our call pointing
+for the float like a periscope; lifting
+himself by his wet fore-flappers
+with their short, clicking nails and
+dragging himself toward us, leaving in
+his wake a trail of salt water.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>It was his constant barking which at
+first had set the grown-ups against him,
+so we made him refrain from it. He
+learned that when we said, with finger
+upraised reprovingly, “Alfred, less
+noise!” he must be quiet, or there
+would be no piece of dried fish for
+him, no bottle of milk, and no gum-drops.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_111.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It might not have been necessary to
+bring Alfred up on the bottle, especially
+as the fishermen of the <i>Rosenzweig</i>
+had been feeding him dried fish
+ever since they had caught him, but
+our experience with other baby animals
+had convinced us that milk was
+a pleasant if not absolutely essential
+form of food. So we trained Alfred
+to drink from a bottle with a rubber
+nipple, and he loved it. He broke the
+first two, banging them down on the
+float, so Brother and I devised
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>a padded bag for it. From this
+Alfred daily took his milk, blinking
+his great, shining eyes at us and
+pausing occasionally to bark. We
+came to know it for his sign of approval.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_112.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The gum-drops were given to him
+experimentally. Brother maintained
+that the Esquimaux lived on them, and
+that Alfred, being a relative of northern
+fur-bearing seals, would doubtless
+thrive on the same diet. His reasoning
+may have been faulty in theory, but in
+practise it was amazingly successful.
+Many a time did Brother and I row
+the three miles to town for the special
+purpose of purchasing gum-drops for
+Alfred. He seemed to know instinctively
+when we had the candy with us,
+for when, in returning, we reached the
+Pointing Finger, half-way between
+Green Point and the cove, we could
+make out a black speck on the float
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>ahead of us, a speck that wriggled and
+flopped and finally slid down into the
+water. Then we would see a round
+dot against the blue little waves of the
+bay, a dot that resolved itself into a
+sleek, brown head, and there would be
+Alfred, swimming toward the boat,
+lifting himself as high out of the water
+as he could, his eyes fixed upon us
+beamingly. We always made him
+wait until we reached the float and
+moored the boat, then we would toss
+him the candy a piece at a time, making
+him catch it in midair.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_113.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>As Alfred grew older and larger, we
+trained him to do some of the things we
+had seen his kindred do in the circuses.
+And how eager he was to learn!
+He put Brother and me to shame, for
+we hated lessons. He loved them. We
+taught him to balance an indoor baseball
+on the tip of his brown nose, and
+when he saw us coming down the float
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>with his ball in our hands, he would
+set up a hilarious barking and wriggle
+over to us, his head moving up and
+down in an ecstasy of anticipation.
+There was no barking, though, when
+he went through his tricks. If Alfred
+had been a man, his power of concentration
+would have made him a millionaire.
+He would sit, moment after
+moment, posing the ball on his nose,
+flexing his body from side to side to
+keep the balance, his bright, intelligent
+eyes fixed steadily on the leathern
+sphere.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_114.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We taught him to “play dead,” to
+dive from a high springboard, and to
+fetch us a stick that we threw into the
+water.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Some people say there is nothing in
+heredity. I am sure there is. I do not
+pretend to be an expert on the question,
+but I can account in no other way for
+Alfred’s deflection from the path of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>respectability. It was certainly not because
+of lack of nourishment that he
+took to robbing seine nets of salmon.
+I am rather inclined to think it was his
+mother’s waywardness which was cropping
+out in him. At any rate, he took
+to making nocturnal excursions, and in
+the morning we would find him on the
+float, stretched out listlessly, his stomach
+actually distended by too much
+food, and he would eye with disdain
+the padded bottle of milk and the
+pieces of griddle cake we had brought
+for his breakfast.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_115.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Still we did not suspect that our
+friend had become a net robber until
+the Old Fisherman descended on us
+one morning with wrath in his eye.
+He told us of having made the rounds
+of his salmon nets the night before to
+find the bodies neatly snipped from
+half a dozen king salmon. He had
+even caught the fish burglar in the act
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>of amputating a Chinook salmon’s silver
+body from its head, and the seal
+had stared at him in the lantern light
+and had barked at him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That it was Alfred, he was sure.
+Brother and I demurred that one seal
+was much like another. But no, said
+the Old Fisherman; this was a small
+seal, a seal unafraid of people, an impudent,
+half-grown seal—Alfred!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“And he chose the best fish o’ the
+lot,” he fumed. “If he’d taken a dog-salmon,
+now—but no, he has to pick
+out the kings, the steel-heads and the
+Chinooks!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We faced Alfred and charged him
+with suspicion of robbery. It seemed
+to us that he avoided our questioning
+eyes. He flapped over to his ball at the
+side of the float and occupied himself
+in trying to hoist it on his nose. It was
+perfectly clear to us that his conscience
+was clouded with guilt.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_116a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_116b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>
+<img src='images/i_117.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>What to do? We loved Alfred
+dearly, but we loved the Old Fisherman,
+too, and his living depended upon
+the hauls of fish he made. A scanty
+living it was at best, and we could not
+bear the thought of being even indirectly
+the cause of poverty descending
+upon him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We built a wire cage in which we
+confined Alfred the next night, much
+against his will. And the Old Fisherman
+reported in the morning that no
+salmon had been stolen. But the following
+night heredity and appetite
+proved stronger than the wire netting
+we had devised, and Alfred robbed the
+seine net, near the Pointing Finger, of
+three large steel-heads.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The question of turning Alfred loose
+was a difficult one. We had never restrained
+him in any way, and our float
+and the beach beside it were the only
+homes he knew. The Old Fisherman
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>spoke of killing, but that was against
+the law, since the seals of Puget Sound
+are considered in the same class with
+sea-gulls and other scavengers. Besides,
+Brother and I would never have
+permitted such a thing. Alfred was
+our friend. Somewhat of a reprobate,
+it is true, but after all, he had as much
+right to the salmon in the Bay as had
+the Old Fisherman. It was not his
+fault that he could not understand the
+man-made ethics by which human beings
+assumed control over the water
+and its inhabitants.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_118.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then the next morning, as if in
+response to prayer, the <i>Rosenzweig</i>
+came chugging around Green Point.
+Hardly had its anchor splashed when
+Brother and I were easing our boat
+alongside and clambering up to the
+smelly deck.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We told Karl and Andrin, all in a
+breath, how Alfred, the seal baby, had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>grown up to be a salmon thief, just
+like his mother. We told how sorry
+we were for the Old Fisherman, and
+how we could not seem to explain to
+Alfred about controlling his appetite.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_119.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Karl and Andrin took counsel with
+each other. We hung hopefully upon
+the strange foreign sentences that we
+could not understand. Then Karl
+grinned broadly. They were going to
+buy a new boat, he said, a bigger boat.
+They could fix a sort of a tank for
+Alfred, wherein he could submerge
+himself in water. There would be no
+question of fish; he would have his fill
+of them. They had missed him, Karl
+said. He had been “such a smart
+babee!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>So Alfred left us as he had come to
+us—on board the <i>Rosenzweig</i>. He
+nuzzled against my hand like a dog as
+I gave him a gum-drop, and his shining
+eyes were fixed on me with so much
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>affection in them that I had to blink
+hard to keep from crying. He had
+forgotten Karl and Andrin. His
+heart was plainly in our keeping.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But the parting had to be. It was
+with sorrowful faces that we watched
+the <i>Rosenzweig</i> weigh anchor and
+commence to chug out into the current.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother and I stood on the float, trying
+to pretend to each other that we
+weren’t down-hearted, when suddenly
+I spied between the boards Alfred’s
+ball.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Oh,” I cried, “he must have that to
+remember us by.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We piled into the little white boat
+and, pulling on the oars with all our
+might, set out in pursuit of the gray
+fishing launch. Our cries finally
+reached Karl and Andrin, for the engine
+stopped, and in a few minutes we
+came alongside.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_120.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Alfred’s ball!” we explained
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>breathlessly. “He’d be lonesome
+without it.”</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_121a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And at the sound of our voices, we
+heard a high-pitched barking from the
+hold. It was Alfred, who was calling
+to us as best he knew how, begging us
+not to leave him, asking us to please
+take him home with us—</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We did not wait for the fishermen’s
+thanks. We were on the verge of tears.
+So the engine started again its steady
+drumming, the propeller churned the
+water into green and white whirlpools,
+and the <i>Rosenzweig</i> made out towards
+the Straits, while our little boat rocked
+gently in her wake.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_121b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And then, as we sat there, a sleek
+brown head appeared out of the water
+not a dozen yards from the stern—a
+shiny seal head with brilliant, intelligent
+eyes. It was not Alfred, of course,
+but for an instant we thought it might
+be. For the space of a few breaths the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>eyes watched us intently, then the head
+disappeared from sight.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“I’ll bet it was Alfred’s mother,”
+said Brother solemnly, “wanting to
+know what we’d done with her child.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Well,” said I, “what has happened
+is her own fault. If only she hadn’t
+made a robber of him!”</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_122.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span></div>
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div><span class='large'><i>Part Seven</i></span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>O’Henry, the Quail Baby</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='c002 figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_123.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c013 figleft id004'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>
+<img src='images/i_124.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+<div  class='figright id004'>
+<img src='images/i_125.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>If Clarence had been a man, he would have endowed orphanages.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Seven</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>O’Henry</span><br> <i>The</i><br> <span class='sc'>Quail Baby</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_124.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+It was upon the Hill
+Trail that Brother and I
+came to know O’Henry,
+the Quail Baby. You
+would have liked our Hill
+Trail. It ran from the old logging
+chute, just at the top of the hill
+above the cabin, straight through
+woods of pine and fir until it ended at
+Bright Creek, two miles distant, a turbulent
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>little stream full of rapids and
+miniature waterfalls, where the lady
+salmon fought their way up through
+the fresh water to deposit their eggs.
+The Hill Trail was bordered by ferns
+and salal bushes, with delicate, overhanging
+red huckleberry bushes and
+rows of young alders who whispered
+to each other all day like children in
+church. On either side of the brown
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>ribbon that was the trail a carpet of
+grass and green moss stretched back
+into the deep woods, and tapestries of
+twin-flower vines and wild blackberry
+bushes hung from stump and fallen
+tree. The sunlight slanted down
+through the tall pines and touched the
+trail with tapering fingers of light as
+if it loved it. Even in the hottest summer
+there was always a little breeze
+that stirred the alders into sleepy gossip
+and set the pine trees humming
+gently to themselves. There was the
+scent of pine-needles, of fallen leaves,
+of wet moss.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_126.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We loved the Hill Trail best on the
+drowsy days of summer, when the
+shadows of the trees were long and
+cool, and the gentle splash of the tiny
+waterfall deep in the woods came like
+distant music. It was on such a day
+that we lay in the cool, deep moss near
+the Fairy Ring and stared through interlacing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>branches at the blue patchwork
+sky. We heard the tap-tap of a
+woodpecker not far away, the drowsy
+hum of a bee, and the shrill twittering
+of a flock of juncoes who were flying
+overhead. Then from afar came a call
+that we knew and loved, the deep
+woods call of the quail, with its three
+clear notes which said, as we imagined,
+“Oh, <i>Hen</i>-ry! Oh, <i>Hen</i>-ry!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The Chinook Indians say that long
+ago a lady quail was unfaithful to her
+mate, but afterward repented. Her
+husband never forgave her, however,
+and would not come back to her, so
+now she goes through the forest calling
+plaintively to him, “Oh, <i>Hen</i>-ry!”</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_127.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>As we listened, the quail call came
+nearer, then a faint, almost imperceptible
+scurry of leaves that told us that
+a bevy of the little brown birds was
+close at hand. Indeed, closer at hand
+than we thought, for at that instant a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>mother quail tripped out from the underbrush
+and at sight of us stopped
+short with an imperative danger note,
+sounded, as we suspected, in warning
+to the children who were following
+her. We had not moved, but the
+mother heart was filled with terror.
+There was a whir of wings, and she
+rose in the air for a short distance,
+then fell, crashing heavily into a clump
+of fern.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“She’s hurt,” said Brother in a low
+tone, and quietly yet quickly we rose to
+our feet, our one thought to aid the little
+brown lady in her distress. But as
+we came near her—so near that my
+outstretched hand almost touched her—she
+fluttered away out through the
+clearing and down the trail, one wing
+dragging piteously.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_128.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Of course you must know it was only
+a trick. Brother and I should have
+known it, for we had heard of it many
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>times. But such was the excellent acting
+of the brown mother bird, with her
+trailing wing, her helpless fluttering,
+and pitiful little cries, that we never
+questioned her sincerity. Half a dozen
+times we almost touched her, and each
+time she eluded us and fluttered a few
+feet ahead. Then suddenly with triumphant
+whir of strong wings she rose
+in a graceful arc and disappeared in
+the thickness of the forest shadows.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We stood and laughed—a little ruefully,
+for we prided ourselves upon our
+woodcraft. Then I touched Brother’s
+arm as a thought came to me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Her children are back by the Fairy
+Ring,” I told him. “Let us hide there
+and see if she will return to them.”</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_129.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>So down the trail we sped, across
+the little clearing, and stooped behind
+a thick screen of salal bushes. Nor
+had we long to wait, for presently
+there was a soft flutter of wings, a scuttle
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>of leaves, and out from the underbrush,
+at almost the very spot where we
+had first seen her, came the mother
+quail uttering a soft, piping call which
+meant “Danger is past; all’s well!”</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_130a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>As if by magic, a dozen tiny brown
+bodies scurried out from under leaves,
+baby birds the size of bantam chicks.
+They eddied around and behind her
+like little leaves in the wind, and she
+spoke to them in soft, maternal notes,
+telling them perhaps of the two fierce
+humans from whom she had saved
+them by exposing herself to capture.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_130b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>But quails can not count, it seems.
+For when the little brown mother
+tripped daintily away into the deep
+greenery of the fern brake with her
+brood at her heels, we heard a tiny,
+piping cry so small as to be only a dot
+of sound. Following it, we came upon
+the place where Mrs. Quail’s children
+had hidden themselves, and there we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>found a baby quail whose tiny legs had
+been caught in a twin-flower vine, and
+who was trying to wrench himself free
+with all his little might. It was but
+the work of an instant to release the
+little dark brown puffball, and as I
+held him in my hands he peeped
+shrilly and mournfully.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_131.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We could not bear the thought of
+leaving him there in the woods on the
+chance that his mother would hear him
+and come to him. Perhaps our doubt
+of her was unjust, but at any rate I
+carried him down the Hill Trail,
+through the orchard, and to the little
+log cabin. Cupped warmly in my
+hands, he went to sleep, and when he
+woke up, he forgot that he had been
+frightened, for he was a very tiny
+quail, and his life had been so brief
+that he had not had time to learn the
+great fear which all too soon becomes
+a part of every woods creature’s life.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>
+<img src='images/i_132a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>That night we put him in a little box
+with warm flannel covers over him,
+which we hoped would take the place
+of his mother’s feathers, and the next
+morning we thought to give him into
+the keeping of some philanthropic hen
+to rear with her own children.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_132b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>O’Henry, the Quail Baby, did not
+know that he was not a chicken; but
+the hens knew the difference, and there
+was not one lady among them, I am
+sorry to say, who would stretch her
+maternal spirit to include him in her
+family. We tried him on Sironda, the
+black Minorca hen, who had obligingly
+hatched out and mothered everything,
+from Barred Plymouth Rock
+chicks to white Pekin ducklings, and
+who had even reared a family of lanky
+young turkeys. But although Sironda
+was fussily attentive to her own brood
+of three-day-old chicks, she clucked
+sharply when we shoved O’Henry in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>under her spreading wings, and tried
+to scalp him with a vigorous peck.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Nor would Liberty, the bantam hen,
+accept him as a foster child. She
+squawked as if he were some vicious
+animal, and only prompt attention on
+our part saved him from a terrible
+death.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>So we brought up O’Henry by hand
+and built for him a wire pen where he
+could spend his days. We dared not
+let him loose in the poultry yard, for
+it seemed that every hen, matron and
+maiden lady alike, resented the presence
+of the little woods stranger and
+would have rejoiced in scalping him.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_133.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother and I lightened O’Henry’s
+captivity as much as we could. We
+taught him to come to us when we
+whistled his family call, and we would
+carry him about on our shoulders, balancing
+there like a tight-rope performer.
+We took him with us when
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>we rowed in our little boat on the bay,
+and he would perch on the bow, keeping
+himself upright with fluttering
+wings and tail, cocking his tiny head on
+one side when the sea-gulls flew over,
+and uttering at times a faint and
+thoughtful note.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>However, it was really due to
+Clarence, the gray gander, that
+O’Henry’s life became a happy one at
+the cove. Clarence was full of years
+and dignity, and a born philanthropist.
+If he had been a man, he would have
+endowed orphanages and given newsboy
+dinners. As it was, he had a passion
+for fathering the young things of
+the poultry yard, much to the dismay
+of the various mothers.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_134.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>There was never a queerer sight
+than Clarence, the huge gander, going
+the rounds of the hen-coops of a morning,
+making coaxing noises to lure the
+young chicks out from under their
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>mothers’ wings. The mother hens
+were imprisoned to prevent their
+scratching in the garden, and Clarence
+would shovel at the ground with his
+broad flat bill and pretend to drop a
+worm or bug in front of the coop, with
+the result that half of the lady hen’s
+brood would be at his heels ready to
+follow where he led. His charges
+were always well fed, for Clarence was
+an excellent provider, but the wear and
+tear on the feelings of the mothers
+must have been terrific.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_135.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was inevitable that sooner or later
+the gray gander should discover
+O’Henry and make him one of his
+family. We found Clarence in the
+yard one morning, a dozen odd-sized
+chickens at his webbed heels. There
+were two Minorca chicks that belonged
+to Sironda, half a dozen white
+Leghorn children, a tiny cockerel with
+budding wings and tail who was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>Liberty’s son, and a lanky young
+Plymouth Rock rooster, all run to legs.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We were minded to see what Clarence
+would think of our pet, and we let
+O’Henry out of his pen. The gray
+gander waddled over toward the tiny
+brown bird, his feathered tail wiggling
+from side to side, and made some
+hospitable noises in his throat. Then
+he pulled up a tuft of grass and
+dropped it before the Quail Baby by
+way of getting acquainted. The chicks
+set upon it noisily, while O’Henry
+watched them, his little head upraised,
+his tiny black eyes fixed on Clarence’s
+friendly bulk.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_136.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We had no idea of letting him go
+gipsying with Clarence, for he had become
+a well-loved playmate, and we
+could not be sure of his safety when
+away from us. Brother stooped to
+pick him up, but with a long-drawn
+hiss Clarence was upon him in a fury
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>of flapping wings and snapping bill.
+He did not suffer his charges to be molested
+while in his care; that was clear.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>So we allowed O’Henry to go jaunting
+with Clarence and his feathered
+crew. Daily the gray gander would
+come into the yard with his motley
+family in tow, and having gathered up
+O’Henry, they would be off through
+the meadow, up into the orchard, not
+to return until the setting of the sun.
+They would come straggling back in
+sleepy Indian file, the gray gander at
+the head of the line, the chicks cheeping
+fretfully and glad to nestle under
+the feathers of their distracted mothers.
+We would watch for O’Henry
+and whistle the call he knew. He
+would come to us with his quick, darting
+run and we would take him into the
+house for the night. His crop was
+always crammed disgracefully, and his
+eyes were heavy with sleep.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_137.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>
+<img src='images/i_138a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Sometimes O’Henry heard the call
+of the wild, and we wondered when he
+would obey it. He had grown from a
+baby bird to a beautiful brown gentleman
+quail, with white stripes running
+from his throat down over his breast
+like a vest. He had a tiny topknot that
+lifted in moments of excitement, and a
+clear “Bobwhite” whistle that Brother
+and I imitated, much to his annoyance.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We would hide from him behind the
+rose-bush and whistle. He would
+come running, his head stretched out
+in front of him, and on seeing us would
+hunch his head in between his shoulders
+and blink at us reproachfully.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_138b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>When summer passed and autumn
+came to the cove, O’Henry was the
+only one of Clarence’s family who still
+remained with the gray gander. The
+chicks and ducklings had gradually
+grown to adulthood and forgotten the
+kindly gander who had fathered them.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>But O’Henry still joined Clarence in
+his daily excursions to the orchard or
+the meadow.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then one day, late in the fall,
+O’Henry went back to the woods. We
+grieved for him, because we loved him
+and because he had chosen the hardest
+time of the year in which to return to
+wild life he knew only by instinct. We
+went along the Hill Trail whistling
+“Oh, <i>Hen-ry</i>!” But if he heard the
+call he disregarded it. He never came
+to us.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_139.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Clarence was inconsolable. Day
+after day he would waddle into the
+back-yard where O’Henry’s empty pen
+still stood, walk around it, peer
+through the wire mesh, and make seductive
+noises of invitation. Brother
+and I tried to explain to him that our
+baby quail had grown up and had gone
+back to his kindred of the woods,
+but Clarence only hissed at us
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>and regarded us balefully. I think he
+suspected us of having made away with
+his little comrade.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One day the snow came, early for the
+Sound country, and Brother and I,
+climbing the trail to the top of the hill,
+saw the familiar three-line imprints of
+the quail track. We thought of
+O’Henry, our lost friend; we hoped he
+was warm and that his crop was full
+of food.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then one morning we heard the familiar
+“quit quit” of the quail very
+near at hand. The sound came from
+an empty hen-house, and when we
+approached it silently and peered
+through a crack, what should we see
+there but a bevy of twenty quail—and
+O’Henry in their midst! He had not
+forgotten us after all! He had brought
+his friends and relatives back to the
+place of his childhood, where he was
+sure of a welcome for them.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_140.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>Our hands filled with cracked wheat
+and mixed grain, we came to the door
+of the shed, softly whistling, “Oh,
+<i>Hen</i>-ry!” He came, as in former days,
+running to us with his head stuck out
+in front of him, and with a soft whir
+of wings was upon my shoulder, pecking
+contentedly at the wheat I offered
+him, and wiping his bill on my cheek.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_141.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>All through the weeks of snow and
+cold we fed O’Henry’s clan, and they
+learned that we were not to be feared.
+They surrounded us like chickens
+whenever we came into the shed, for
+O’Henry’s trust in us had inspired
+their confidence. Not only did they
+become accustomed to us, but to Clarence
+as well. For the lonely gray
+gander caught sight of O’Henry one
+morning, and waddled over to him,
+wiggling his excuse of a tail, shoveling
+the ground with his flat, yellow
+bill, and expressing his delight in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>husky quacks. The other quail at first
+took alarm, and there was much whirring
+of wings and scurrying of tiny
+feet. But the gray gander soon proved
+to them that his intentions were of the
+best. He merely wished to provide
+for them. So all those weeks when we
+fed our “boarders,” as we called them,
+Clarence stayed in the shed with the
+quail family, grubbing busily at the
+bare ground, finding little, but making
+up for the scarcity of food in kindly
+endeavor.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_142a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>When the snow melted, O’Henry’s
+tribe went back to the woods—and with
+them went Clarence. One day we saw
+O’Henry and his brown cousins scurrying
+up the hill, darting under ferns and
+bushes, calling to each other happily—and
+in their wake was Clarence, the
+fatherly gander, flattered into thinking
+that he was leading the way.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_142b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was a quaint sight, and we did not
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>try to bring him back because we
+thought he would return at sunset.
+But he did not. He disappeared into
+the woods with the quail family, and
+we never saw him again. Long afterward,
+hunters told us of seeing a gray
+gander with a flock of quail—and they
+had forborne to shoot.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>So we lost two friends at once, but
+we tried to believe that they were
+happy together. How Clarence accustomed
+himself to the ways of the wild,
+I do not know. But I do believe that
+somewhere the gray gander still lives
+with O’Henry, and I can think of no
+better protector for the quail baby and
+his family.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_143.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span></div>
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div><span class='large'><i>Part Eight</i></span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>The Tale of Timothy</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='c002 figleft id004'>
+<img src='images/i_144.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c013 figright id004'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>
+<img src='images/i_145.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>Timothy clung to the bottle habit.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Eight</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>Timothy, the Dirty Bear</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_145.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+Perhaps it is unjust to
+the memory of our friend
+Timothy that we should
+think of him as “the Dirty
+Bear.” I wouldn’t prejudice
+you against him for the world.
+“Dirty” has such a reprehensible
+sound. But Timothy was dirty in a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>perfectly legitimate way. He had a
+primitive soul that found delight in
+grubbing in rotten stumps for maggots
+and in burrowing into the soft
+earth for Indian potato roots. You
+can see that under such circumstances
+he could not keep his face and paws
+scrupulously clean, any more than a
+child can who makes mud pies. He
+hated water—but then, so did we, unless
+we could take our baths in the Bay—and
+he had an almost fanatical fear
+of soap. Brother, who was then reading
+“A Connecticut Yankee in King
+Arthur’s Court,” thought Timothy
+might have been a reincarnation of
+some eccentric hermit who had vowed
+never to wash himself for the rest of
+his life.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_146.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We knew Timothy long before he
+knew us. We did not know him by
+name, but we knew where he lived,
+and we had what you might call
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>a speaking acquaintance with his
+mother. It happened thus:</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One day, in our explorations along
+the creek bed at the end of the Hill
+Trail, we came suddenly upon a hole
+in the bank. It was almost covered by
+long, overhanging ferns, and had not
+a puff of wind stirred the fronds just
+as we were passing, we should never
+have known about the hole at all. It
+was on the opposite side of the creek,
+but we found a place where a fallen
+log bridged the little stream, and the
+next moment we were standing on the
+opposite side at the foot of the embankment,
+pushing the ferns aside and
+peering into the depths of a black and
+wonderfully inviting hole.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_147.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Had we thought to look, we might
+have seen in the sandy slope that led
+up to the hidden entrance the imprints
+of a foot almost human in shape, although
+not nearly so large. Footprints
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>that turned in toward each other—and
+we should have known. But our minds
+were filled with the fascinating possibilities
+of the miniature cave we had
+discovered. Perhaps it was a pirate
+den; perhaps gnomes lived there; or
+perhaps we were on the track of buried
+treasure.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_148.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>On hands and knees I led the way
+into the inky blackness with Brother
+close behind me. The daylight behind
+was blotted out. For several yards the
+passageway went straight ahead, then
+it turned suddenly to the right; and I,
+turning with it, stopped so abruptly
+that Brother coming behind bumped
+into me. A curious, powerful odor enveloped
+us, as of darkness made odorous
+by furry bodies and warm by living
+things. Then from ahead of me not
+more than two yards away flashed the
+savage gleam of two blue-green eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There was a menacing growl which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>set our spines to tingling, and at the
+same instant came the sound of whines
+and a movement as of baby things disturbed
+in their sleep. I was conscious
+of a sickish, fainting feeling, for I realized
+suddenly that we were in the house
+of a mother bear.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother needed no urging to make
+his exit. He was backing out on hands
+and knees far more quickly than he had
+come in, and I was prodding him
+along, followed by those menacing,
+hair-raising growls.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_149.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Why the lady bear did not attack
+us is more than I can tell. The brown
+bears of the northwestern woods are
+harmless and even friendly little persons,
+but the mother when protecting
+her young is more ferocious than a
+wildcat or a mountain lion. Perhaps
+Mrs. Timothy knew that our visit was
+unintentional and that we meditated
+no harm toward her or her children.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>At any rate we gained the entrance of
+the cave untouched and unharmed,
+but we were breathing heavily and
+our knees were wobbling sadly.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_150.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Perhaps you think we should have
+stayed away from the house of the lady
+bear; but we did not. We were interested,
+you see, in knowing how much
+of a family she had, and we never went
+along the creek bed without leaving
+some offering in the shape of food at
+the mouth of the hole.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Sometimes it was an apple or a leaf
+of lettuce, and if nothing else availed,
+we broke off licorice root or fern and
+placed it there for her. It was our
+method of apologizing for our intrusion
+and of expressing our interest in
+the family.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One day we saw the mother bear
+with her children, and that is how we
+came to name Timothy. She was at the
+mouth of the cave, half asleep in the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>warm sunshine, and four cubs were
+rolling over each other like gridiron
+heroes in a football scrimmage. They
+were squealing like young pigs, and
+from time to time she remonstrated
+against their noise by a sleepy grunt.
+Then, as we watched, the bear cub at
+the bottom of the furry pile squeezed
+out and stood on his hind legs. His face
+was covered with brown, sandy loam,
+and his squinty black eyes peered out
+as through a mask. I knew a boy who
+lived at the head of the Bay whose face
+always looked so. His name was Timothy,
+and that was why on the spot we
+so christened the bear baby.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_151.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>
+<img src='images/i_152.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Our next meeting with Timothy was
+in the nature of a near-tragedy. We
+were hunting for trilliums in Trillium
+Gulch, a hidden valley to which we
+ourselves had cut a path from the Hill
+Trail. The white, lily-like flowers
+starred the hillside there in the spring,
+and it was our fond belief that no
+one came there but ourselves. Hunters
+and trappers go everywhere, however,
+violating even such a woodland paradise
+as ours. As we went down the
+narrow trail, pushing aside the light
+branches of the alders and the firtrees,
+we heard a plaintive, whining
+cry almost human in its poignancy. We
+stopped for an instant, listening, wondering.
+Then we slipped softly down
+the path, thrust aside the interlacing
+ferns, and found ourselves beside the
+little stream which ran like a silver
+ribbon through Trillium Gulch. The
+sounds came from the left, and following
+their lead we rounded a boulder
+in the trail and came upon a sight
+which filled us with gasping indignation.
+A little brown bear with a fleck
+of white on his furry throat was tugging
+frantically and futilely at the jaws
+of a steel trap which held his two front
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>paws in a cruel, biting grip. There
+was blood upon the jagged clamps, and
+the face which the little fellow turned
+to us was piteous in its baby misery,
+a little brown face covered with loam.
+It was Timothy, the Dirty Bear.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_153.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>I do not like even now to think of
+the half-hour which followed. So
+strong was the steel trap that the combined
+efforts of Brother and myself
+could only pry the cruel jaws apart the
+fraction of an inch. We were hampered,
+too, in our work of mercy by poor
+little Timothy, who, not realizing that
+we were trying to help him, shrieked
+and bit at us and scratched with his
+hind feet. Our hands were soon covered
+with blood, and there was a long,
+jagged line of red on Brother’s face
+where the baby bear had clawed him.
+But we did not pause in our efforts.
+Finally, by the aid of a stout stick, we
+managed to open the jaws of the vicious
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>trap, and the poor little fellow, his
+front paws cruelly torn and bleeding,
+whimpering like a baby, sat down
+on his haunches and began to lick
+his wounded paws, stopping at intervals
+to hold them out in front of him
+like a child whose finger is hurt and
+wants it made well by a kiss.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Strangely enough, he was not afraid
+of us now, and when I took him in my
+arms his plaintive whimpering gradually
+ceased, and he licked at his paws
+solicitously.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_154.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>No doubt we should have taken Timothy
+back to his mother and trusted to
+nature to heal his grievous hurts. But
+nature would take too long, and in the
+meantime he would suffer cruelly. He
+was such a little bear, you know, and
+had not yet achieved the stoicism which
+makes the older woods creatures almost
+indifferent to pain. So even at the
+cost of causing his mother a great
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>deal of worry at his prolonged absence,
+we took him down the hill with
+us to the log cabin to receive first aid
+treatment for his wounds.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That is how Timothy, the Dirty
+Bear, became a friend of ours. Fate
+in the form of a hunter prevented us
+from taking him back to his home in
+the creek bank. The poor lady bear
+was shot the next day. One of her cubs
+was captured and the other two children
+escaped to the woods to live as
+best they could. So Timothy belonged
+to us, and he was the merriest of playmates.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_155.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>When we rescued him from the trap
+he was a very tiny bear, being no larger
+than Tinker, our black and tan rat terrier.
+He slept in a clothes-basket on
+the back porch, sometimes having for
+a bedfellow Three-Spot, the mottled
+black and white cat. Three-Spot at
+first had been greatly alarmed by Timothy’s
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>rough and sportive overtures of
+friendship. But when she found that
+by boxing his ears she could correct his
+manners and set him to yelping with
+fright, she took to imposing upon his
+good nature by making him serve at
+night for a mattress. In the morning
+we would find the two of them curled
+up together, Timothy snoring gently
+and Three-Spot digging her paws into
+his soft, thick fur with a purr that was
+a monotone of content.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_156a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_156b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother and I did not know whether
+Timothy’s mother had weaned him
+from a milk diet, but we felt that we
+would be safeguarding his digestion if
+we brought him up on liquid food for a
+time at least, so we rowed into town
+especially to purchase a bottle with a
+strong rubber nipple attached. The
+druggist asked if there was a baby at
+our house, and we told him yes—what
+kind of baby, we did not state.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>
+<img src='images/i_157.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Whether or not we were following
+the same system of dietetics that Mrs.
+Bear would have employed in bringing
+up her child, Timothy really did thrive
+on his liquid menu. Even after he outgrew
+the necessity for milk, he clung to
+the bottle habit and would sample the
+contents of any bottle he found. We used
+to bring him ginger ale from town and
+soda pop of all flavors. If nothing else
+was handy, we filled a battered old
+canteen with sweetened water, and he
+would tilt back on his hind legs, hold
+the canteen perpendicularly aloft, close
+his eyes, and drink it slowly, making
+funny little rumbling noises deep in his
+throat which, Brother maintained, were
+imitations of Three-Spot’s purring.
+Once he got hold of a bottle of kerosene
+and had closed his eyes in anticipatory
+ecstasy before the taste of the first
+terrible mouthful reached his throat.
+I shall never forget the look of pained
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>disillusion on Timothy’s face. He
+threw the bottle from him, coughed and
+sputtered, gagged once or twice as if
+deathly sick, and then waddled off to
+the spring, walking pigeon-toed, and
+with uncomprehending anguish in the
+very tilt of his furry hind quarters.
+That should have cured him of his liking
+for promiscuous bottles, but it did
+not—as you shall see.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_158a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_158b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We worried a little at first as to what
+else we should give him besides milk,
+but we need not have concerned ourselves.
+Timothy’s appetite was without
+limits, and he could eat anything—bread,
+meat scraps, griddle cakes, or
+cold potatoes. On top of the civilized
+food we fed him he hunted on his own
+account for certain roots he liked,
+clawed the bark from fallen logs to get
+the white grubs underneath, and buried
+his head at the foot of hollow stumps
+where the red ants had made their hills.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>After an hour or two of such foraging,
+he would return to us, his face and
+paws besmeared with loam and covered
+with cobwebs, his furry coat rusty
+with sand and tagged by twigs and
+strands of blackberry vine. He would
+blink at us questioningly, a trifle
+shamefacedly, running his small red
+tongue along the sides of his mouth,
+and we would shake our heads and
+say mournfully, “Oh, Timothy, you
+dirty, dirty bear!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>After such excursions we always gave
+him a bath in the big washtub, and
+though he knew there was no escaping
+it, he always squealed and struggled
+while we lathered him and only ceased
+his whining when we had rinsed him
+and put him in the sun to dry, giving
+him the canteen filled with sugared
+water to keep him quiet.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_159.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>He was the merriest playfellow we
+ever had. He went with us everywhere—up
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>the Hill Trail, into the
+orchard, and out on the bay when we
+sailed our little boat and played that
+we were pirates. Timothy never objected
+to anything except a bath. We
+dressed him in outlandish costumes,
+sometimes with a red bandanna tied
+around his head, a shawl looped about
+his fat and furry body, and a wooden
+knife stuck in his belt. He was always
+ready to wrestle with us, to climb hills
+with us, or to be a pillow for our heads
+as Brother and I lay through the long,
+drowsy, summer afternoons and read
+fairy-tales aloud to each other, or described
+the shapes we saw in the clouds.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_160a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_160b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>When the late fall came, Timothy
+remembered he was a bear long enough
+to have a desire to go to bed for the
+winter, but what chance had a tired
+bear for a seasonal sleep when living
+in the same house with Tinker, Three-Spot,
+Brother, and myself? We
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>would drag him from his clothes-basket
+while he whimpered with half-closed
+eyes, and Tinker would badger
+him into wakefulness and a game of
+tag. Then the four of us would go
+through the orchard up to the Hill
+Trail, pushing each other into the
+drifts of dead leaves and playing hide
+and seek around the stumps and logs.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_161.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Of course Timothy could not stay
+with us always; that was too much to
+expect. He belonged to the woods, and
+sooner or later he must obey their call.
+He had belonged to us for almost a
+year, and it was only right that the out-of-doors
+should at last claim her child.
+But when the call of the wild did come,
+we were sorry in spite of ourselves, and
+when Timothy’s absences came more
+and more frequently and the intervals
+of time he spent with us lessened, we
+missed him sorely. We knew that soon
+our playmate would be with us no
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>more, that he would go back to the
+forest whence he came, and take up the
+serious business of finding a wife and
+of locating a tree or a hole in which
+to spend the next winter.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_162a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The manner of his departure was
+dramatic, even as was his advent into
+our lives. We were up on the Hill
+Trail, Brother and I, and we had, as
+we supposed, left Timothy on the back
+porch sleeping in his clothes-basket,
+for which he was now much too big,
+but to which he had become attached
+through habit. On the open trail with
+its sound-deadening mat of hard, brown
+earth we did not hear the soft, padding
+feet that followed us and were not
+aware that our friend was near at hand
+until we met a hunter, brown-faced
+and with a gun in hand, near the bend
+in the path that we called “U-Chu-Ka’s
+Corner,” in memory of our little rabbit
+friend.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_162b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>The man had a red band around his
+hat, I remember, and a canteen was
+slung at his side. He had put it to his
+lips to drink when he caught sight of
+us, and suddenly his eyes widened, and
+the hand that held the canteen became
+rigid.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Run, you kids!” he gasped out,
+“there’s a bear behind you!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We turned to confront Timothy, who
+was standing pigeon-toed in the middle
+of the trail, his face covered with loam
+from a rotten stump where he had been
+digging for ants, his eyes blinking at
+us sleepily and a trifle reproachfully
+for having gone off without him. But
+before we could explain to the hunter
+that the bear behind us was a friend of
+ours, the man had raised his gun and
+leveled it at our playfellow. I
+screamed aloud and Brother, heedless
+of the danger flung himself in front of
+the rifle.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_163.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>Now Timothy knew nothing of guns,
+but he had long and satisfactory acquaintance
+with bottles and canteens.
+He had seen the man drink. There was
+something contained therein that he,
+Timothy, would like. The man would
+not mind sharing it—I’m sure he reasoned
+thus to himself—and in that instant
+when the gun was pointed straight
+at him, he rose on his hind feet, his
+furry arms outstretched, and started
+toward the hunter.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_164.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The man with the gun forgot to pull
+the trigger; he forgot everything except
+that a dark brown body with gleaming
+black eyes was advancing upon him.
+He gave a little squeal of terror, and
+the rifle dropped from his hands. He
+turned and fled down the trail with
+Timothy galloping on all fours close
+at his heels. In spite of our breathless
+calls he would not return to us, and
+though we ran and called and laughed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>at the same time, he soon outdistanced
+us. When last we saw the hunter he
+was disappearing over the crest of a
+little hillock in the trail with the canteen
+bobbing behind him, and the hat
+with the red band made a dot of scarlet
+against the underbrush where it had
+fallen.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We heard afterward that the man
+had not stopped running until he
+reached the little town. Timothy by
+that time was nowhere in sight, having
+given up the pursuit of the canteen in
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But we never saw him again. Perhaps
+returning home he met a comely
+lady bear and they decided to set up
+housekeeping together. Perhaps she
+even won his heart by telling him that
+she knew where there was a nice bottle
+full of sweetened water.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_165.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Long afterward we found one day
+by the creek bed a ginger ale bottle
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>dropped there by some picknickers.
+It was empty, and on the gravel near
+by we saw footprints almost human in
+shape, only smaller and toeing in
+toward each other.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_166.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We knew somehow that Timothy had
+been there. It was almost as if he had
+known we would pass that way, and
+had left the bottle and his footprints
+where we would see them to tell us that
+we were not forgotten, nor were the
+things we had taught him.</p>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span></div>
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div><span class='large'><i>Part Nine</i></span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>The Bandit Bird</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Nine</i></span><br> <i>The</i><br> <span class='sc'>Bandit Bird</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c002 figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_168.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_168.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+I hope the fact that Hector
+was a chicken hawk
+will not prejudice you
+against him unduly. There
+are brigands, you know,
+who have gentlemanly instincts, and I
+am sure that if Hector had been a
+bandit chief, he would have spared
+women and children and given part of
+his plunderings to charity. After all,
+he was not to blame for being a hawk
+or for having a natural liking for live
+poultry. There was at times a mournful
+dignity about him, as if he resented
+the unfair workings of a fate which
+had made him a robber bird, a trespasser
+on the lives of other creatures,
+and at enmity with every living thing.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id001'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>
+<img src='images/i_169.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>Sometimes the bandit birds swooped down</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>He was a beautiful hawk with gray-brown
+plumage, wing tips that turned
+slightly upward when he flew, and a
+fierce and royal beak curved like a
+scimitar. His eyes were very black,
+very bright, and very knowing. Most
+of the time they were superbly disdainful.
+But Brother and I have seen
+them when they actually seemed to
+smile.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was Brother who named him, for
+the alliterative privilege, I suspect, of
+calling him “Hector, the Horrible
+Hawk.” But that was only in fun. For
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>he was not horrible at all when we got
+to know him. Lazarus thinks otherwise,
+very probably. But then his experience
+with Hector was a trying one,
+and to this day—if he still lives—he
+carries the marks of his eventful meeting
+with our friend, the robber chief.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_170.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Lazarus was a pet chicken, son of
+Sironda, the black minorca hen. We
+gave him his curious name because he
+had a talent for venturing very near
+death’s door, and the fact that we always
+saved him lent appropriateness
+to his name. Once when very young,
+no more than five days out of his shell,
+he was all but scalped by a rival mother
+hen, and when we answered his frantic
+baby peeps for help his head was bleeding
+profusely, and his eyes were closed
+as if in death. We sprinkled water on
+his tiny bill and salved his lacerated
+head. And he, having a strong constitution,
+came back from the tomb, as it
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>were, and lived a long and eventful life.
+In order to care for him better, we kept
+him in the back-yard, tucking him at
+night into a small box under flannel
+coverings. He thrived and grew from
+chickhood very sturdily, and the only
+ill effect that remained from his early
+mishap was that he was quite bald. No
+feathers ever came on the spot where
+the lady hen had scalped him, and we
+could have distinguished him from
+every cockerel of his size and color in
+the world by that little bare place on
+the top of his head.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_171.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Now, when Lazarus lost his first
+baby down and was in that shorn and
+untidy condition which always precedes
+the growth of real feathers, he
+suddenly became lonesome for the other
+members of the poultry yard. He
+would run the length of the wire fence,
+poking his head through the small
+meshes, and more than once he nearly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>strangled to death by getting it caught.
+We always rescued him just in time to
+save his life. So finally we allowed
+him to go into the barnyard with the
+rest of his kindred. It was then that
+Lazarus had the big adventure of his
+already crowded career. His meeting
+with Hector lifted him to dizzy heights—and
+I am not speaking figuratively.
+It really did. At that, it wasn’t so much
+a meeting as an abduction. At least
+Hector intended it to be such.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_172.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We were constantly on guard to keep
+hawks away from the ranch. They
+waged merciless warfare on our chickens,
+pigeons, and guinea-pigs, and there
+was always a loaded, double-barreled
+shotgun behind the kitchen door ready
+for action in case of an air raid. When
+we heard the frightened flapping of the
+pigeons as they flew in aimless circles
+around the cabin and barn, we knew a
+hawk was somewhere overhead, hovering
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>with curved-up wings and cruel,
+bright eyes, seeking his prey, choosing
+it calmly, waiting patiently the
+proper moment to swoop down upon
+it.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_173.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The chickens, too, always told us
+when such danger was near. Prince,
+the great white Plymouth Rock rooster,
+would set up a long-drawn cry of
+warning, and the hens would burst into
+frenzied cackling. The whole poultry
+yard would cock its head on one side
+to get a better view of the air robber,
+then would scoot to cover of the barn
+or hen-houses, every neck ruff distended.
+Sometimes it was a false
+alarm. A crow would be flying peaceably
+on his business, or a sea-gull would
+have swerved inland a bit. Prince took
+no chances. It was his duty to guard
+the poultry yard, and he believed firmly
+in the policy of safety first.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But many times the warning was one
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>of real danger. A hawk would indeed
+be circling slowly above the barnyard,
+his bright eyes fixed calculatingly on
+the scurrying fowls below. Then one
+of the grown-ups would snatch the
+double-barreled shotgun from behind
+the kitchen door and fire at the winged
+plunderer. The shot, though it did not
+usually kill, always frightened the air
+robber away, and we would watch him
+fly lazily, almost contemptuously, off
+toward the hill and the thick woods,
+his powerful wings moving steadily
+and easily.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_174a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Sometimes, though, the bandit birds
+came and swooped down on their prey—a
+small chick or a baby guinea-pig—before
+we could prevent it. And often
+a bloody bunch of feathers near the
+rookery would testify to the murderous
+skill of a hawk and the sad fate of a
+hapless pigeon.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_174b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was on a day when the grown-ups
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>had gone to town. The Old Fisherman
+was mending his nets down on the float
+in front of the cabin. It was a lazy
+summer day, and Brother and I were
+sitting on the porch steps reading—the
+steps that were made of roughly-hewn
+logs.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>All at once we heard the familiar
+danger signal of Prince, the white
+rooster, and then the hens began to
+cackle in a very panic of fear. We
+dropped our books, but before we could
+even start for the back-yard, we heard
+another sound which seemed so impossible
+and so out of place that we listened
+paralyzed with astonishment. It was
+the shrill and frenzied peeping of a
+half-grown chicken in terrible distress—<i>and
+the sound came from above us</i>!</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_175.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The next instant, as we stood staring,
+hardly crediting what our eyes
+told us, we saw a large chicken hawk
+fly slowly past the cabin, no higher
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>than the roof of the porch. He flew
+so slowly and at such a short distance
+from the earth because he was weighted
+down with a live and struggling young
+cockerel, which he held grimly in his
+sharp talons! There was a shout that
+came from our throats simultaneously,
+“<i>Lazarus!</i>”</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_176a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>For the struggling, shrilly-peeping
+victim was no other than our bald-headed
+friend whom we had saved
+from death half a dozen times before.
+His bare, gangling legs hung limply
+beneath him; his neck jerked spasmodically
+with his frantic appeals for help.
+His wings, with their absurd tufts of
+feathers, stuck out at right angles from
+his body, for the hawk’s talons were
+buried in the flesh beneath them.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_176b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>At the time, you may be sure, we did
+not wait to make any remarks on all
+these observations. With one thought
+Brother and I plunged through the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>front door, back into the kitchen, and
+bumped into each other in our eagerness
+to get the gun. It was Brother
+who seized it first, and through the two
+rooms we dashed again and out into the
+front yard. The hawk was flying slowly
+and with evident difficulty—for
+Lazarus was a healthy, heavy youngster—across
+the open space that lay
+between the yard of the cabin and the
+old brickyard shed which adjoined it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother, bent back almost double by
+the weight of the heavy weapon,
+pressed it against his shoulder, took
+careful aim, and fired. I screamed,
+for there were three falls. Brother
+tumbled backward from the kick of
+the shotgun. Lazarus hurtled to earth
+in a sprawl of legs and wings and lay
+there, uttering feeble, choking sounds.
+The hawk rocketed down, a flutter of
+gray-brown feathers; there was blood
+upon the grass where he dropped.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_177.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>The Old Fisherman, hearing the
+commotion, came running up the float,
+the wooden shuttle with which he
+mended nets still grasped tightly in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother scrambled to his feet, blinking
+dazedly at the result of his marksmanship.
+Our first thought was that
+Lazarus was killed at last. But he
+was apparently only severely shaken
+by his fall, for presently he walked off
+a little dizzily, his tender skin bleeding
+where the hawk’s talons had sunk in.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_178.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The hawk was our next consideration.
+Now that we had wounded him—I
+say “we,” because I felt that the
+responsibility was half mine—we were
+sorry for his plight. He was thrashing
+about helplessly on the grass, one
+wing dragging at his side. He was
+trying desperately to fly, but could not
+so much as lift himself above the
+ground. His fierce, dark eyes blazed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>at us, and his powerful, curved beak
+snapped menacingly when we approached
+him. But at last his strength
+failed him, the bleeding wing spread
+itself out in a fan, and he sank over on
+one side, his talons jerking spasmodically.
+As we came nearer he regarded
+us with eyes that were unafraid. They
+even seemed dull with apathy, as if he
+knew that the end had come and that
+he, like the robber aristocrat that he
+was, must accept it philosophically.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The Old Fisherman was for ending
+his life then and there. But Brother
+and I could not bear to have him killed,
+for he was at our mercy, hurt and helpless.
+For the first time in our lives we
+had deliberately wounded something
+that lived and had feelings even as we.
+The knowledge that we had fired upon
+him to save our friend’s life was not
+sufficient excuse for us to allow
+the Old Fisherman to kill him.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_179.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>So together we caught him, tied his
+fierce beak so he could not snap at us,
+bound his powerful legs so that his
+talons should not tear our hands, then
+the Old Fisherman, grumblingly, but
+gently, bathed and salved the injured
+wing. In time it would be as good as
+new, he told us, but he didn’t know
+what our folks would say to our saving
+the life of a “pesterin’, low-lived hawk.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As he anticipated, the grown-ups
+were not at all pleased when they returned
+from town and found Hector—he
+had been named by that time—tied
+by one leg to a stake in the back-yard,
+his right wing sadly out of focus and
+smeared with a clot of blood. But it
+was not in their kindly hearts to kill in
+cold blood, so they let the hawk live.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_180.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>For the first few days that Hector
+was in our midst he did little except to
+tug at the chain which bound him to the
+stake, slowly and automatically, like a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>man taking morning exercises with
+rubber ropes. He hated us and repulsed
+our attentions fiercely and scornfully.
+He refused to eat the tempting
+bits of raw meat that we spread before
+him; he sulked all day with his curved
+beak hidden in the ruffled feathers of
+his breast. He was indeed like a robber
+chieftain in captivity. We were
+patient, however, for we knew that according
+to Hector’s viewpoint we had
+injured him without reason. He had
+been in search of his dinner—a perfectly
+legitimate occupation for any one—and
+as he was carrying it off we had not
+only robbed him of it, but wounded him
+grievously. You can see that he had a
+great deal of logic on his side.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_181.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>But little by little his haughty antagonism
+melted before our daily overtures.
+He no longer snapped at us
+when we came near, and began to take
+an active interest in the food we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>brought him. There came a day
+when he allowed me to put my hand on
+the soft, smooth feathers of his head
+and back, and when I gently massaged
+his wounded wing with vaseline he
+opened his beak as if to bite my hand
+but closed it without doing me harm.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_182a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then, wonder of wonders, Hector
+began to like us. When he saw us
+coming into the back-yard he would set
+up a sort of dancing, jumping up and
+down stiff-legged, spreading out his
+dark wings, and straining at the chain.
+His beak would snap open and shut,
+and his bright, black eyes seemed actually
+to have a smile in them. He
+would allow me to salve his injury
+with only the faintest suggestion of nervousness
+in his half-open beak, and
+on the day when we unchained his leg
+from the stake he sat on my hand with
+all the dignity of an emperor receiving
+his court after a long illness.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_182b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>From that time on we gave Hector
+his liberty for a few hours each day.
+And always, before releasing him, we
+would take the precaution to feed him
+well. We did not intend to have any
+fatalities among the poultry if we could
+help it. But even with a full stomach,
+he worried the barnyard into a daily
+spasm of fear. For as he regained the
+use of his wing, he would fly slowly,
+majestically, over the poultry pens,
+turning his head from side to side as
+hawks do when they are picking their
+prey and calculating the time for the
+swoop to earth. Brother and I believed
+firmly that Hector had no intention
+of snatching up a chick or a pigeon,
+that his daily flight was merely by way
+of exercise and for the dramatic satisfaction
+it gave him to see the feathered
+crew below him so disturbed.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_183.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>At any rate, he never once attempted
+to harm any of our live stock. Perhaps
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>it was because we fed him so well,
+but Brother and I preferred to think
+it was because he was a gentleman, and
+that he would not betray our confidence
+when we trusted him to do the right
+thing.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_184.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>This daily flight of Hector’s was
+most annoying to the grown-ups, however.
+In the first place, the hens were
+not laying so well as they had. They
+were frightened out of all nesting desire
+by Hector’s calm aërial promenades,
+and were in a continual state of
+nervous excitement. Then, too, when
+Prince gave the danger signal and all
+the hens ran for cover with their chicks,
+the grown-ups would dash out of the
+house each time ready to fire upon a
+strange marauder, only to be confronted
+with Hector making peaceable spirals
+above the hen-houses. He would come
+to us when we whistled shrilly, and
+would sit quietly on my wrist to nibble
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>at a piece of cooky as if he had never
+had a carnivorous thought in his life.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_185.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>I should like to tell you that he and
+Lazarus became friends after the hawk
+had become partially domesticated, but
+such was never the case. Lazarus used
+to come stalking into the back-yard, his
+legs much too long for the rest of him,
+and a tiny, serrated, red comb sticking
+up from the bald spot on his head.
+His body was still almost bare, though
+a generous tuft of feathers on his tail
+showed where he might in time expect
+some real plumage. He still carried
+the scars of his aërial adventure under
+his wings. He would approach Hector
+cautiously, craning his neck in and
+out with a curious rubberized effect,
+and would stop at a safe distance, turning
+his head on one side, giving Hector
+a timorous inspection from the broadside
+of one amber eye. And
+Hector would return the look
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>scornfully, his curved beak giving him
+a morose, sneering expression. His
+whole attitude seemed to say, “Never
+mind, I’ll get you next time!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As Hector grew stronger and could
+fly better, the grown-ups gave the ultimatum
+that we must dispose of him in
+some way. It was too dangerous, they
+said, to have a chicken hawk around the
+ranch. In vain we argued that Hector
+was a gentleman, that he would not
+bother any of our poultry. But to our
+sorrow, they said that he should be
+taken to the city and presented to the
+zoölogical gardens there.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_186.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother and I told Hector what was
+going to happen to him, and that it
+was not in our power to prevent his
+going, and it seemed to us that he was
+very thoughtful afterward. We shall
+always believe that what happened
+was the direct result of the grown-ups’
+decision to send him into captivity,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>although, you understand, we could
+not blame them. They had been more
+than kind to our somewhat dangerous
+guest.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The next day when we released our
+robber chieftain from his stake, he flew
+up over the cabin roof, circled once
+around it, then flew northward along
+the beach and was soon out of sight.
+When night came Hector did not return.
+And though Brother and I stood
+in the yard whistling until we were
+breathless, there was no sudden swoop
+of a gray-brown bird from the air, no
+Hector to curve sharp talons gently
+around my wrist.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_187.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The next morning, when we went for
+milk at the neighboring ranch, we knew
+why our friend had not come back to us.
+On the fence outside the barn, hung
+limply over the pickets just as he had
+fallen, was a draggled bunch of gray-brown
+feathers that had once been our
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>beautiful Hector, the Robber Chief.
+The wide wings were powerless now,
+the body was riddled with fine shot, the
+once proud head with its curved beak
+drooped pitifully. The fierce dark eyes
+were closed. Never again would Hector
+perform his dance of joy at our coming,
+never again would he stare appraisingly
+at Lazarus, or frighten the
+hens and pigeons with his lazy circles
+above their heads.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The rancher told us he had shot the
+hawk the day before. And he could
+not understand why we wept over the
+blood-stained bunch of feathers. He
+did not know that Hector was a friend
+of ours—and a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Brother and I always thought that
+Hector deliberately courted death
+rather than spend his life in yearning
+captivity. And I, for one, am glad he
+did. For no one else would have understood
+him and loved him as we did.</p>
+
+<div class='c013 figcenter id001'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>
+<img src='images/i_189.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>Her nostrils dilated at the hated human scent.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Ten</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>My Friend the Princess</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_189.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+This is not my story, except
+incidentally. It is the story
+of a Bengal tigress named
+Princess, with a coat of
+dull gold striped with
+ebony. A restless, sullen tigress, padding
+the length of her narrow cage,
+with amber eyes staring out at some
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>vision beyond the iron bars, with tawny
+lips half drawn back from white,
+pointed fangs. A tigress with something
+high and noble in her steady pacing,
+her air of absolute detachment
+from everything around her. When I
+met her I was no longer a child living
+near Puget Sound, but had quite grown
+up and moved to California, and to city
+life far from my woodland friends of
+earlier and sweeter years.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_190a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Princess lives in a motion-picture
+studio’s menagerie now, but there was
+a time when she knew the hot, marshy
+smell of the Bengal jungles, when she
+crouched, tense in every muscle, to
+spring upon a fat bullock, when she
+padded through narrow jungle trails to
+drink at the hidden pool which only the
+forest creatures knew.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_190b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>She was caught in a tiger pit, they
+told me, when little more than a cub.
+She had been purchased first by a circus,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>and then by the motion-picture
+company which owns her now. They
+told me she was fierce and utterly without
+affection. And indeed she looked
+so, pacing back and forth in her iron-barred
+cage, her breath coming in a
+hissing snarl as she noted our presence,
+her amber eyes widening ever so little
+as she caught our scent.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Still I could not think Princess was
+so terrible. I could not find it in my
+heart to be afraid of her. I pitied her.
+There was something unbearably pathetic
+in her constant pacing. It seemed
+to me that I could actually feel the
+longing of her caged heart to be out in
+the open again, to lope down jungle
+trails, to lie stretched out on rocks
+warm with Indian sunshine. There
+was no enmity in the look she turned
+on us, only indifference, and—was it
+pleading?</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_191.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was my first visit to the studio.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>And I carried away with me that picture
+of Princess in her cramped cage,
+pacing, pausing, sniffing at the air
+heavy with human scent, her amber
+eyes seeing something afar off, something
+we could not understand—</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_192.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then I discovered that the keeper of
+the menagerie was an old friend of
+mine. “Pudgy” he was nicknamed.
+He was short and rotund, and trained
+animals with kindness instead of whips.
+I had known him in the Puget Sound
+country when Brother and I were children.
+A woodsman he had been then,
+and with a tiny little cabin near Green
+Point. We had visited him often, for
+he shared our love for the things of the
+open. He had had a tame deer whose
+name was Nellie, and he had nursed
+back to health a bobcat that he had
+rescued from a trap in the High
+Sierras. It was not strange
+that with his love of animals
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>Pudgy should finally come into a position
+as keeper of a motion-picture
+menagerie. Many years had passed
+since we had seen each other, but when
+we met by chance—I was of the press—we
+renewed old acquaintance, and
+found pleasure in talking of Puget
+Sound and of the woods creatures we
+had loved.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_193.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Through him I came to know personally
+the animals in the menagerie.
+I was introduced to the Russian wolves,
+to the lions, to the bears, and to Princess
+the tigress. I think he liked her best of
+all the wild things there, and I am sure
+I did. There was something about her
+cheated strength, her restrained power,
+that made my heart go out to her. I
+never failed to visit her when I went to
+the studio, and I liked to think that she
+knew me and recognized me as a friend.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was several weeks after Pudgy
+and I renewed our old friendship that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>they told me at the studio that Princess,
+the glorious Bengal tigress, was to be
+killed. She had grown unmanageable
+for picture work, they said, too sullen
+and too treacherous. The picture in
+hand called for a tiger hunt. She was
+to be sacrificed for the sake of reality
+and shot down. Her pelt, they added,
+would be worth a great deal of money.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But I could not think of Princess in
+terms of a pelt that was worth money.
+I felt as if a human being had been sentenced
+to death. Because she could not
+find it in her royal heart to cringe
+beneath the trainer’s lash, she was to
+die; because she was queenly, and unafraid,
+she no longer had the right to
+live.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_194.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>I have seen the tortures wild animals
+go through in making pictures. How
+they are prodded with pointed sticks,
+made to jump into water from great
+heights, and forced to run through
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>blazing brush. I have seen lions and
+tigers struck cruelly on their sensitive
+noses to make them register rage. All
+these things had Princess suffered from
+trainers and directors. I did not blame
+her for rebelling.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I came upon Pudgy as he sat on a
+bench near Princess’s cage, his chin in
+his hand, and he was staring at her
+while she paced restlessly back and
+forth with hissing intakes of breath.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“They are going to kill her,” he said
+slowly, “just because they can’t break
+her spirit.”</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_195.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>I sat beside him, and together we
+watched Princess. Pudgy told me how
+he had tried to ease the fear and hatred
+of humans in the heart of the jungle
+tigress by being especially nice to her.
+How, when she had hurt herself jumping
+from a springboard into a lake
+with sharp rocks in it, he had gone
+into the cage and bathed the swollen
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>paw, and how she had licked his hand
+with her huge, grating tongue. Once
+she had had a swelling on her throat;
+he was the only one whom she suffered
+to minister to it. And again, when
+she had sickened with fever, he had
+stayed in her cage a night and a day,
+moistening her tongue with water and
+watching until her eyes lost their glazed
+stare and became normal once more.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“And they’re going to kill her,” he
+repeated slowly, “just because she can’t
+understand the treatment they’ve given
+her—because she’s not afraid of their
+whips any more.”</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_196.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>His voice almost broke. And my
+heart went out to him and to the tawny
+wild thing in the barred cage. If he
+could only make the Powers understand,
+I told him. If only he could
+make them realize that Princess was
+not wantonly ferocious, only tortured
+into savagery by unkind treatment.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>He shook his head. The Powers, he
+said, understood nothing that did not
+have a dollar mark attached.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>So the day was set when Princess was
+to die. It was to be in the out-of-door
+arena, an oval piece of ground enclosed
+in upright bars and strong steel wire.
+At the back was a miniature thicket of
+bamboo, ferns, and marsh grass. At
+the front was the camera cage, strongly
+barred to prevent danger from the
+wild animals being photographed in action.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_197.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>My visit to the menagerie that day
+was accidental. I did not know that
+the tigress was to be killed. I had only
+been told that an interesting picture
+was being made in the arena. So I
+pushed my way through the double
+line of carpenters, actors, and onlookers,
+to the very bars of the huge
+out-of-door cage. The camera man
+was already in his barred enclosure,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>and inside the arena the director,
+a slim-waisted man with a black mustache,
+was outlining the action of the
+scene to the hero of the picture, who,
+attired in a hunting costume, dabbed at
+his face with a yellow powder-puff.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_198a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>“The tiger comes bounding out of
+the jungle,” the director was saying,
+“and you shoot from behind that log.
+Never mind if you don’t get her the
+first shot. I’ll have my gun on her, and
+I’ll finish her off. There’s no danger.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My heart stopped and then thumped
+painfully. I had stumbled unknowingly
+on the scene of Princess’s execution.
+I felt sickened. I could not bear
+to stay and see her shot at—wounded
+first by an ill-aimed rifle, then fired
+upon until she dropped, an inert mass
+of tawny gold and black—</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_198b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>I turned away, tried to press through
+the crowd. But there were too many
+people. Every one from the studio had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>ceased work to come and see the spectacular
+death of Princess, the Bengal
+tigress.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I was dimly aware that men were
+rolling a cage on wheels up to the side
+entrance of the arena. From between
+the bars I caught a glint of sunlight on
+a body of savage beauty. I saw, too, the
+white, drawn face of Pudgy, standing
+by the side of the cage.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Some one opened the side gate of the
+arena. The director and the actor were
+still talking. The director was showing
+graphically how the other should come
+out of the jungle, should listen for the
+tigress’s coming, should drop behind
+the log and fire—</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_199.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>What happened then I can scarcely
+remember. It was all so sudden, so
+breath-taking. A confusion of signals
+had been the cause, they told me afterward.
+The man at the cage thought
+the opening of the arena gate was the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>signal to release Princess—and he had
+opened the door of her cage!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There was a shout that died away
+in a gasp of many breaths, a silence that
+was like a great commotion—for Princess,
+the royal Bengal tigress, crashed
+through the flimsy greenery of the
+mimic jungle and like a tawny statue
+stopped short, her head raised, her amber
+eyes wide.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was a nightmare, that terrible instant.
+No one moved. The director’s
+face went pasty white, the actor’s red-lined
+mouth had fallen open. There
+in that oval cage the two puny men
+faced the magnificent creature of the
+wilds, faced the animal they had
+planned to kill—and they were helpless.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_200.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Only the briefest moment did the
+tableau last. For Princess’s nostrils dilated
+with the hated human scent, her
+eyes narrowed to slits, her nose
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>wrinkled back, and she snarled. The
+director was speaking jerkily without
+moving—saying that no one must
+scream—telling some one to bring the
+gun—</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_201.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>At the sound of his voice the tigress
+dropped to a crouch. Her tail lashed
+her sides. I could not take my eyes
+from the arena. My throat was dry. I
+was vaguely conscious that a man had
+pushed past me. It was Pudgy, the
+menagerie keeper.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>For a scant second a lower crouch—a
+long-drawn snarl—then a voice spoke,
+quietly, sharply.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“<i>Princess!</i>”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At the sound of the keeper’s voice,
+the tigress lifted her head ever so little,
+and her amber, black-rimmed eyes
+turned toward him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Princess!” he said again. “Keep
+back—steady, old girl!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He had unfastened the front gate
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>of the arena and opened it. He was unarmed;
+he carried not so much as a
+whip. Yet he went toward her quietly,
+talking in a gentle monotone, and she
+snarled at him as he came. But he
+walked quickly, confidently. He placed
+himself between the two men and the
+crouching tigress. Then he planted
+his feet far apart and smiled down at
+her.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Maybe you’re mad at these folks,
+but you wouldn’t be mad at me—your
+old pal,” he said softly.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There was a moment of sickening
+suspense. Then the snarl died on Princess’s
+lips, her tail ceased its frenzied
+lashing, and she rose from her crouching
+position.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“The danger is over,” Pudgy said
+quietly to the men behind him. “Just
+move out toward the door. Take your
+time. Don’t run.”</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_202.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then he spoke to the tigress again:</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>“Into your cage, old girl, right out
+through the same door you came in—Out
+you go—It’s all right, lady—Don’t
+be frightened—You know your old pal
+wouldn’t do anything to hurt you—”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He was stepping forward toward
+her, urging her gently but firmly back
+through the side gate of the enclosure.
+She snarled as she went, and stopped
+once to roar full-throated defiance.
+But the mild little man talked to her
+always, caressing her with his voice,
+comforting her with the assurance
+that she was not to be hurt. The tawny
+body slipped through the door into the
+wagon cage—the door clanged after
+her—it was over.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Pudgy came out of the arena at the
+gate where he had entered. His face
+was calm, his hands untrembling. I
+pushed past the people in front of me
+and in a moment was beside him.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_203.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Tell them, oh, tell them now!” I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>whispered. And Pudgy, because he,
+too, loved the things of the wild, understood
+me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Do you think it would do any
+good?” he questioned under his breath,
+and I nodded, being almost past speech.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Together we sought the director of
+the picture. He was one of the Powers.
+His word would mean much.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He was still white-lipped and
+breathless, but he attempted a wan
+smile as he shook Pudgy’s hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Well, she almost got us,” he spoke
+with forced cheerfulness. “If it hadn’t
+been for you—” He shuddered in spite
+of himself. “If there’s anything I can
+do, old-man, to show my gratitude—”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Pudgy’s eyes turned toward the
+wagon cage where Princess had commenced
+her endless pacing. She was
+still snarling softly, as if dreaming of
+the vengeance on man which had almost
+been hers.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_204.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>
+<img src='images/i_205.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Maybe you don’t know it,” he
+said slowly, “but the real reason
+Princess obeyed me was because she
+knows me and likes me. She knows I
+like her, too, and she wouldn’t do anything
+to make me feel bad. And if you
+really mean what you say—about doing
+something—why, let Princess live. She—she’s
+a friend of mine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There was a short silence. The director
+was staring at him curiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“That tiger—that bloodthirsty beast—a
+<i>friend</i> of yours?” he said incredulously.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Yes,” answered Pudgy simply.
+“She’s just that, and I don’t want her
+killed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The director turned away, walked a
+few short steps, and halted. “All
+right,” he said briefly, “if that’s the
+way of it—I’ll see what I can do.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As I said before, this is not my story.
+I wish it were. I should love to have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>the friendship of that wonderful tigress
+as Pudgy has it. But at least I always
+make it a point, when at the studio, to
+pay a brief visit to Princess, the Royal
+Bengal. She paces unceasingly and
+stares at something beyond the bars
+which humans may not see. But because
+Pudgy has let me come inside the
+railing, and has told Princess that I
+helped, a very little bit, in obtaining
+her reprieve from the death sentence,
+I like to think that her amber eyes as
+they rest on me are not fierce, but kindly,
+and that she knows that I love her
+and wish her well.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_206.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span></div>
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div><span class='large'><i>Part Eleven</i></span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Ethel of the Wild Heart</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='c002 figcenter id001'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>
+<img src='images/i_208.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic005'>
+<p><i>For I saw her, not a savage, bloodthirsty beast, but a wild thing of the deep woods, ruled by pain instead of kindliness.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'><span class='large'><i>Part Eleven</i></span><br> <span class='sc'>Ethel</span><br> <i>of the</i><br> <span class='sc'>Wild Heart</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='c010'>
+  <img class='drop-capi' src='images/di_209.jpg' width='100' alt=''>
+</div><p class='drop-capi_8'>
+This is the story of a lioness
+in a cage at a great moving-picture
+studio—a lean,
+tawny lioness with slanting,
+amber eyes and flexible
+muscles that undulated under the
+loose skin like ripples of water under
+a blanket of kelp.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>They said, the people of the studio,
+that Ethel was savage, that she had
+clawed a trainer and injured an actor
+for life, that she hated women and
+would not tolerate the touch of a human
+hand. And they thought me a little
+mad when I wanted to go into the cage
+where she and four other lions were
+taking their exercise.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>But I was of the press, so I was permitted
+to enter the cage with the trainer,
+to go through the doubled-barred
+iron doors, and to stand very quietly
+while the keeper of the lions, with a
+long whip, lashed the snarling animals
+to their pedestals.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Of them all, Ethel was the most savage.
+Her eyes blazed with a wicked
+light that burned green behind the amber;
+her tail lashed furiously when the
+trainer flicked her with his whip; and
+afraid as she undoubtedly was, the
+courage of her spirit showed itself in
+her stubborn crouch and the vicious
+striking of her powerful paws whenever
+the lash came near her.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_210.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>She fascinated me. The other lions
+were cowed, it seemed, by long experience
+with the stinging whip. They took
+their places protesting and snarling, but
+with alacrity none the less. Ethel
+would not obey. In defiance of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>stern commands of the trainer and the
+leather thong which flicked remorselessly
+about her eyes and nose, she
+would leap from one side of the cage to
+the other, crouch for an instant, then
+spring again, shaking the bars in her
+frenzied attempts to escape the persecuting
+lash, while the other lions
+watched her from their pedestals uneasily,
+with guttural intakes of breath
+and occasional snarls.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Do you wonder what I felt when
+Ethel careened about the cage, stubborn,
+disobedient, mad with rage as
+well as with a terror born of pain? At
+first I felt fear, a fear as unreasoning
+as that of the lioness. For in one of her
+crazed leaps she brushed against me,
+so that I was pushed sharply against
+the iron bars of the cage.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Do you want to go out?” the trainer
+was asking me, and I shook my head,
+for I could not speak.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_211.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>
+<img src='images/i_212a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then suddenly the fear left me. The
+thread of ice which had seemed to run
+from the top of my head to the very
+soles of my feet melted away as though
+in a warm sunshine. For Ethel,
+crouching in snarling defiance, had
+suddenly raised her head. For an instant
+we measured each other, eye to
+eye. And in that moment I remembered
+another wild thing—this one uncaged—and
+I remembered myself a
+little girl alone on the Hill Trail,
+facing the amber eyes of one of Ethel’s
+distant kin. I want to tell you what I
+remembered, so that you will know
+why the ice thread was melted and why
+things happened in that barred cage
+that the trainer said had never happened
+before.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_212b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was while we still lived in the little
+cabin on the Bay, and I was yet a child.
+Brother had gone away to school, and I
+was lonely, so more than ever I sought
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>the woods and the companionship of
+the woods creatures there.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was a sultry day in August when
+the juncoes were flying in panicky
+flocks, and when a haze of smoke was
+in the air that told of forest fires not so
+far away. All the night before the sky
+in the west had been reddened with a
+dull glow that gradually grew brighter,
+and though we had no fear for ourselves
+since a cleared space lay between
+the wooded hills and the cabin we were
+sorry for the wild things of the woods
+who would be forced to flee from the
+red monster that devoured their homes
+so relentlessly.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The air that day was oppressive, for
+the smoke hung low, and if we listened
+carefully, we could hear the distant
+crackling of tall pines with gum-smeared
+trunks on fire, and the occasional
+crash of a giant fir, tortured too
+long by licking flames.</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_213.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>I sought the Hill Trail, listening, as
+I climbed, to the ominous crackle of
+burning trees, much nearer than I
+would have wished. And perhaps it
+was because of that intentness that I
+came, without realizing it, face to face
+with a wildcat, the largest I have ever
+seen, stretched across the trail, only a
+few feet in front of me.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_214.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>For the first time in my life I knew
+the fear of which men and books tell
+you. Many had been the stories told by
+hunters who passed the cabin, of the
+ferocity of mountain lions and wildcats,
+although none of them had ever been
+seen in the woods around us, because
+civilization was too near. These beasts,
+said the hunters, kept to the higher
+hills and the deeper wooded forests,
+where game abounded and men seldom
+came. So when I saw the tawny animal
+so close that one light spring would
+have carried the powerful body upon
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>me, my first impulse was to run—blindly,
+madly—to run until I could
+run no more, or until the fierce claws
+of the great cat should bear me to the
+ground—</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The wildcat had not moved except to
+lift its head ever so slightly and to draw
+back its jowls in a hissing snarl that
+displayed cruel, white fangs. The amber
+eyes watched me without flickering,
+yet in them I saw distrust, startled anger,
+and ever so little of a desire to
+spring—to kill—</p>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_215.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>In that one instant I had many
+thoughts—dizzy, rambling thoughts,
+that chased themselves across my mind
+like dried leaves blown by a wind. I
+noticed the straight, white whiskers on
+either side of the wildcat’s nostrils; I
+heard the distant fall of a tree; I saw
+a grasshopper leap from a blade of
+grass that was bending under his
+weight; I heard the scuttle of leaves
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>somewhere in the woods and knew that
+a bevy of quail was there. But I could
+not move. I stood still in the grip of
+that numb terror.</p>
+
+<div  class='figleft id002'>
+<img src='images/i_216a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>What would have happened I can
+not say. Suddenly the fear left me—for
+I <i>knew</i>! I knew that the tawny
+animal before me was a wild thing of
+the woods even as were the other wild
+things I loved. I knew that fear of fire
+had driven him from his familiar
+haunts far up in the mountains, that he
+sought these woods for protection, not
+for killing, and I knew that I, having
+been in those woods longer than he, was
+hostess there, and that it was my place
+to make him welcome, to extend to him
+the friendly greetings that I would have
+tendered to any of my woods friends.
+The fear was gone, utterly. I wanted
+to put my hand on his sleek head, to
+stroke his glossy back, to put my cheek
+against the russet satin of his thick coat.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_216b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>But I made no move. I spoke to him,
+as I would have spoken to any other of
+my woods friends, telling him that he
+was welcome, that the woods were his
+as well as mine, and that I hoped the
+fire would spare his relatives who were
+dear to him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As I spoke, the amber eyes opened
+wider, the snarl died away, and suddenly
+he yawned, voluminously, with a
+snap of his jaws and a careless licking
+motion of his red tongue. Then his
+eyes closed indifferently, and I knew
+he had understood me. I knew that
+between us was no thought of fear or
+hate. I walked past him up the trail,
+so close that I might have touched him,
+and he did not move. Only the amber
+eyes met mine squarely, and it was as
+if the wild thing from the deeper
+woods had said with words,</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div>“We are friends—go in peace.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figright id002'>
+<img src='images/i_217.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>When I had gone up the trail a way,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>I stopped at the bend in the path and
+looked back. The wildcat was in the
+same position, but he was watching me
+still with eyes unblinking and unafraid.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>So that is why, some years later, when
+Ethel raised her head and met my eyes,
+the icy fear slipped away. For I saw
+her, not a savage, bloodthirsty beast,
+but a wild thing of the deep woods,
+girded round with iron bars and stinging
+whips, a wild thing ruled by pain
+instead of kindliness, and there surged
+into my heart a great love and pity
+for her. I wanted to take the whip
+from the man, to break it into bits, to
+tell her that she was free to go back to
+her mountain fastnesses.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_218.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>So, disregarding the cry of warning
+from the trainer and the gasps from
+those who stood outside the cage, I
+walked slowly toward the crouching
+lioness, saying to her the things I
+would have said had I met her in the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>woods, telling her that I, too, belonged
+to the out-of-doors, that I, too, was a
+captive, that between us there was a
+bond. Slowly the snarling lips relaxed,
+the glint of green went out of
+her slanting eyes, and she no longer
+crouched. I knelt beside her on the
+floor of the cage, while the lions above
+on their pedestals watched with curious,
+sullen eyes, and the trainer’s voice
+died away in a series of gulps. Gently
+I put out my hand and touched her
+rough, tawny head. She flinched and
+snarled, but I did not draw my hand
+away, and the next instant I felt her
+tense muscles relax, and she was quiet
+under the steady stroking of my hand.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_219.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The trainer spoke to me in an agonized
+whisper, telling me to come
+away quickly, and as I rose from my
+kneeling position, Ethel rose, too.
+Padding over to the pedestal which
+was hers, she mounted to it with a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>spring and sat there quietly, her eyes
+never leaving me or missing a motion
+I made.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>When we left the cage, Ethel padded
+close to my side, and the trainer said in
+jest that I might take her for a pet.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>If I only could have! My heart
+was aching for her as I left, for I, too,
+am sometimes rebellious at the ways of
+civilization and of a world that does
+not know or care about the things of
+life that have nothing to do with
+money. I, too, am lonely for the freshness
+of leaves wet with dew, the feeling
+of moss underfoot, the glint of sunlight
+through laced branches. I think
+I know a little of the longing that is
+hers as she paces back and forth in her
+narrow cage, for hers is not a savage
+heart—only a wild heart; and I know
+that love can speak to it and soothe its
+hurt.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_220.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c003'>
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+ <ul class='ul_1 c002'>
+    <li>Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+    </li>
+  </ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77766 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2026-01-02 22:34:32 GMT -->
+</html>
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diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77766
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77766)