Chapter III (1)

The long backwoods winter was now drawing near its end, and the snow in the open spaces was getting so soft at midday as to slump heavily and hinder the work of the teams. Every one was working with feverish haste to get the logs all out to the "landings," on the river banks before the hauling should go to pieces. At night the tired lumbermen would tumble into their bunks as soon as supper was over, too greedy of sleep to think of songs or yarns. And Rosy-Lilly began to feel a little aggrieved at the inadequate attention which she was now receiving from all but Jimmy Brackett and the ever-faithful Johnson. She began to forgive McWha, and once more to try her baby wiles upon him. But McWha was as coldly unconscious as a stone.

One day, however, Fate concluded to range herself on Rosy-Lilly's side. A dead branch, hurled through the air by the impact of a falling tree, struck Red McWha on the head, and he was carried home to the cabin unconscious, bleeding from a long gash in his scalp. The Boss, something of a surgeon in his rough and ready way, as bosses need to be, washed the wound and sewed it up. Then he handed over his own bunk to the wounded man, declaring optimistically that McWha would come round all right, his breed being hard to kill.

It was hours later when McWha began to recover consciousness, and just then, as it happened, there was no one near him but Rosy-Lilly. Smitten with pity, the child was standing beside the bunk, murmuring: "Poor! poor! I so sorry!" and slowly shaking her head and lightly patting the big, limp hand where it lay outside the blanket.

McWha half opened his eyes, and their faint glance fell on the top of Rosy-Lilly's head as she bent over his hand. With a wry smile he shut them again, but to his surprise, he felt rather gratified. Then Jimmy Brackett came in and whisked the child away. "'S if he thought I'd bite 'er!" mused McWha, somewhat inconsistently.

For a long time he lay wondering confusedly. At last he opened his eyes wide, felt his bandaged head, and called for a drink of water in a voice which he vainly strove to make sound natural. To his surprise he was answered by Rosy-Lilly, so promptly that it was as if she had been listening for his voice. She came carrying the tin of water in both little hands, and, lifting it very carefully, she tried to hold it to his lips. Neither she nor McWha was quite successful in this, however. While they were fumbling over it, Jimmy Brackett hurried in, followed by the Boss, and Rosy-Lilly's nursing was superseded. The Boss had to hold him up so that he could drink; and when he had feverishly gulped about a quart, he lay back on his pillow with a huge sigh, declaring weakly that he was all right.

"Ye got off mighty easy, Red," said the Boss, cheerfully, "considerin' the heft o' the knot 'at hit ye. But you McWhas was always hard to kill."

McWha's hand was drooping loosely over the edge of the bunk. He felt the child's tiny fingers brushing it again softly and tenderly. Then he felt her lips upon it, and the sensation was so novel that he quite forgot to reply to the Boss's pleasantry.

That night McWha was so much better that when he insisted on being removed to his own bunk on the plea that he "didn't feel at home in a cupboard like," the Boss consented. Next day he wanted to go back to work, but the Boss was derisively inexorable, and for two days McWha was kept a prisoner.

During this time Jimmy Brackett, with severe and detailed admonition, kept Rosy-Lilly from again obtruding upon the patient's leisure; and McWha had nothing to do but smoke and whittle. He whittled diligently, but let no one see what he was making. Then, borrowing a small tin cup from the cook, he fussed over the stove with some dark, smelly decoction of tobacco-juice and ink. Rosy-Lilly was consumed with curiosity, especially when she saw him apparently digging beads off an Indian tobacco-pouch which he always carried. But she did not go near enough to get enlightened as to his mysterious occupation.

On the following day McWha went to work again, but not till after breakfast, when the others had long departed. Rosy-Lilly, with one hand twisted in her little apron, was standing in the doorway as he passed out. She glanced up at him with the most coaxing smile in her whole armoury of allurements. McWha would not look at her, and his face was as sullenly harsh as ever; but as he passed he slipped something into her hand. To her speechless delight, it proved to be a little dark-brown wooden doll, daintily carved, and with two white beads, with black centres, cunningly set into its face for eyes.

Rosy-Lilly hugged the treasure to her breast. Her first proud impulse was to run to Jimmy Brackett with it. But a subtler instinct withheld her. The gift had been bestowed in such a surreptitious way that she felt it to be somehow a kind of secret. She carried it away and hid it in her bunk, where she would go and look at it from time to time throughout the day. That night she brought it forth, but with several other treasures, so that it quite escaped comment. She said nothing about it to McWha, but she played with it when he could not help seeing it. And thereafter her "nigger-baby" was always in her arms.

This compliment, however, was apparently all lost on McWha, who had again grown unconscious of her existence. And Rosy-Lilly, on her part, no longer strove to win his attention. She was content either with the victory she had won, or with the secret understanding which, perforce, now existed between them. And things went on smoothly in the camp, with every one now too occupied to do more than mind his own business.

It chanced this year that the spring thaws were early and unusually swift, warm rains alternating with hot, searching sunshine which withered and devoured the snow. The ice went out with a rush in the rapidly rising Ottanoonsis; and from every brookside "landing" the logs came down in black, tumbling swarms. Just below Conroy's Camp the river wallowed round a narrow bend, tangled with slate ledges. It was a nasty place enough at low water, but in freshet a roaring terror to all the river-men. When the logs were running in any numbers, the bend had to be watched with vigilance lest a jam should form, and the waters be dammed back, and the lumber get "hung up" all over the swamps of the upper reaches.

And here, now, in spite of the frantic efforts of Dave Logan and his crew, the logs suddenly began to jam. Pitching downward as if propelled by a pile-driver, certain great timbers drove their ends between the upstanding strata of the slate, and held against the torrent till others came and wedged them securely. The jam began between two ledges in midstream, where no one could get near it. In a few minutes the interlocked mass stretched from bank to bank, with the torrent spurting and spouting through it in furious milk-white jets. Log after log was chopped free by the axemen along the shore, but the mass remained unshaken. Meanwhile the logs were gathering swiftly behind, ramming down and solidifying the whole structure, and damming back the flood till its heavy thunder diminished to the querulous rattling of a mill-race. In a short time the river was packed solid from shore to shore for several hundred yards above the brow of the jam; and above that again the waters were rising at a rate which threatened in a few hours to flood the valley and sweep away the camp itself.

At this stage of affairs the Boss, axe in hand, picked his way across the monstrous tangle of the face of the jam between the great white jets, till he gained the centre of the structure. Here his practised eye, with the aid of a perilous axe-stroke here and there,--strokes which might possibly bring the whole looming mass down upon him in a moment,--presently located the timbers which held the structure firm, "the key-logs," as the men call them. These he marked with his axe. Then, returning to the shore, he called for two volunteers to dare the task of cutting these key-logs away.

Such a task is the most perilous that a lumberman, in all his daring career, can be called upon to perform. So perilous is it that it is always left to volunteers. Dave Logan had some brilliant feats of jam-breaking to his credit, from the days before he was made a Boss; and now, when he called for volunteers, every unmarried man in camp responded, with the exception, of course, of Walley Johnson, whose limited vision unfitted him for such a venture. The Boss chose Bird Pigeon and Andy White, because they were not only "smart" axemen, but also adepts in the river-men's games of "running logs."

With a jaunty air the two young men spat on their hands, gripped their axes, and sprang out along the base of the jam. Every eye in camp was fixed upon them with a fearful interest as they plied their heavy blades. It was heroic, of a magnificence of valour seldom equalled on any field, the work of these two, chopping coolly out there in the daunting tumult, under that colossal front of death. Their duty was nothing less than to bring the toppling brow of the jam down upon them, yet cheat Fate at the last instant, if possible, by leaping to shore before the chaos quite overwhelmed them.

Suddenly, while the two key-logs were not yet half cut through, the trained eye of the Boss detected a settling near the top of the jam. His yell of warning tore through the clamour of the waters. At the instant came a vast grumbling, like underground thunder, not loud apparently, yet dulling all other sounds. The two choppers sprang wildly for shore, as the whole face of the jam seemed to crumble in a breath.

At this moment a scream of terror was heard--and every heart stopped. Some thirty yards or so upstream, and a dozen, perhaps, from shore, stood Rosy-Lilly, on a log. While none were observing her she had gleefully clambered out over the solid mass, looking for spruce-gums. But now, when the logs moved, she was so terror-stricken that she could not even try to get ashore. She just fell down upon her log, and clung to it, screaming.

A groan of horror went up. The awful grinding of the break-up was already under way. To every trained eye it was evident that there was no human possibility of reaching the child, much less of saving her. To attempt it would be such a madness as to jump into the hopper of a mill. The crowd surged to the edge--and sprang back as the nearest logs bounded up at them. Except Walley Johnson. He leaped wildly out upon the nearest logs, fell headforemost, and was dragged back, fighting furiously, by a dozen inexorable hands.

Just as Johnson went down, there arose a great bellowing cry of rage and anguish; then Red McWha's big form shot past, leaping far out upon the logs. Over the sickening upheaval he bounded this way and that, with miraculous sure-footedness. He reached the pitching log whereon Rosy-Lilly still clung. He clutched her by the frock. He tucked her under one arm like a rag-baby. Then he turned, balancing himself for an instant, and came leaping back towards shore.

A great shout of wonder and joy went up--to be hushed in a second as a log reared high in McWha's path and hurled him backwards. Right down into the whirl of the dreadful grist he sank. But with a strength that seemed more than human he recovered himself, climbed forth dripping, and came on again with those great, unerring leaps. This time there was no shout. The men waited with dry throats. They saw that his ruddy face had gone white as chalk. Within two feet of shore a log toward which he had jumped was jerked aside just before he reached it, and, turning in the air as he fell, so as to save the child, he came down across it on his side with stunning violence. As he fell the Boss and Brackett and two of the others sprang out to meet him. They reached him somehow, and covered with bruises which they did not feel, succeeded in dragging him, with his precious burden, up from the grinding hell to safety. When his feet touched solid ground he sank unconscious, but with his arm so securely gripped about the child that they had difficulty in loosing his hold.

Rosy-Lilly, when they picked her up, was quivering with terror, but unharmed. When she saw McWha stretched out upon the bank motionless, with his eyes shut and his white lips half open, she fought savagely to be put down. She ran and flung herself down beside her rescuer, caught his big white face between her tiny hands, and fell to kissing him. Presently McWha opened his eyes, and with a mighty effort rose upon one elbow. A look of embarrassment passed over his face as he glanced at the men standing about him. Then he looked down at Rosy-Lilly, grinned with a shamefaced tenderness, and pulled her gently towards him.

"I'm right--glad--ye--" he began with painful effort. But before he could complete the sentence his eyes changed, and he fell back with a clicking gasp.

Jimmy Brackett, heedless of her wailing protests, snatched up Rosy-Lilly, and carried her back to the camp.

Melindy and the Lynxes

The deep, slow-gathering snows of mid-February had buried away every stump in the pasture lot and muffled from sight all the zigzag fences of the little lonely clearing. The Settlement road was simply smoothed out of existence. The log cabin, with its low roof and one chimney, seemed half sunken in the snow which piled itself over the lower panes of its three tiny windows.

The log barn, and the lean-to, which served as wood-shed and wagon-house, showed little more than the black edges of their snow-covered roofs over the glittering and gently billowing white expanse.

In the middle of the yard the little well-house, shaped like the top of a "grandfather's clock," carried a thick, white, crusted cap, and was encircled with a streaky, irregular mass of ice, which had gradually accumulated almost up to the brim of the watering-trough. From the cabin door to the door of the barn, and over most of the yard space, but particularly in front of the sunward-facing lean-to, the snow was trodden down and littered with chips and straw.

Here in the mocking sunshine huddled four white sheep, while half a dozen hens and a red Shanghai cock scratched in the litter beside them. The low door of the barn was tightly closed to protect the cow and horse from the bitter cold--which the sheep, with their great fleeces, did not seem to mind.

Inside the cabin, where an old-fashioned, high-ovened kitchen stove, heated to the point where a dull red glow began to show itself in spots, kept the close air at summer temperature, a slim girl with fluffy, light hair and pale complexion stood by the table, vigorously mixing a batter of buckwheat flour for pancakes. Her slender young arms were streaked with flour, as was her forehead also, from her frequent efforts to brush her hair out of her eyes by quick upward dashes of her forearm.

On the other side of the stove, so close to it that her rugged face was reddened by the heat, sat a massive old woman in a heavy rocking-chair, knitting. She knitted impetuously, impatiently, as if resenting the employment of her vigorous old fingers upon so mild a task.

Through a clear space in one pane of the window beside her--a space where the heat within had triumphed over the frost without--she cast restless, keen eyes out across the yard to the place where the road, the one link between the cabin and the settlement, lay smothered from sight.

"It's one week to-day, Melindy," she announced in a voice of accusing indignation, "since there's been a team got through; and it's going to be another before they'll get the road broke out!"

"Like as not, Granny," responded the girl, beating the batter with an impatience that belied the cheerfulness of her tone. "But what does it matter, anyway? We're all right here for a month!"

As she spoke, however, her eyes, too, gazed out wistfully over the buried road. She was wearying for the sound of bells and for a drive into the Settlement.

Meanwhile, from the edge of the woods on the other side of the cabin, hidden from the keen eyes within by the roofs of the barn and the shed, came two great, grey, catlike beasts, creeping belly to the snow.

Their broad, soft-padded paws were like snow shoes, bearing them up on the wind-packed surface. Their tufted ears stood straight up, alert for any unwonted sound. Their absurd stub tails, not four inches long, and looking as if they had been bitten off, twitched with eagerness. Their big round eyes, of a pale greenish yellow, and with the pupils narrowed to upright, threadlike black slits by the blinding glare, glanced warily from side to side with every step they took.

The lynxes had the keenest dislike to crossing the open pasture in this broad daylight, but they had been driven by hunger to the point where the customs and cautions of their wary kind are recklessly thrown aside. Hunger had driven the pair to hunt together, in the hope of together pulling down game too powerful for one to master alone. Hunger had overcome their savage aversion to the neighbourhood of man, and brought them out in the dark of night to prowl about the barn and sniff longingly the warm smell of the sheep, steaming through the cracks of the clumsy door.

Watching from under the snow-draped branches, they had observed that only in the daytime were the sheep let out from their safe shelter behind the clumsy door. And now, forgetting everything but the fierce pangs that urged them, the two savage beasts came straight down the rolling slope of the pasture towards the barn.

A few minutes later there came from the yard a wild screeching and cackling of the hens, followed by a trampling rush and agonized bleating. The old woman half rose from her chair, but sank back instantly, her face creased with a spasm of pain, for she was crippled by rheumatism. The girl dropped her big wooden spoon on the floor and rushed to the window that looked out upon the yard. Her pale face went paler with horror, then flushed with wrath and pity; and a fierce light flashed into her wide blue eyes.

"It's lynxes!" she cried, snatching up the wooden spoon and darting for the door. "And they've got one of the sheep! Oh, oh, they're tearing it!"

"Melindy!" shouted the old woman, in a voice of strident command--such a compelling voice that the girl stopped short in spite of herself. "Drop that fool spoon and get the gun!"

The girl dropped the spoon as if it had burned her fingers, and looked irresolutely at the big duck-gun hanging on the log wall. "I can't fire it!" she exclaimed, shaking her head. "I'd be scared to death of it!"

But even as the words left her mouth, there came another outburst of trampling and frantic clamour from the yard. She snatched up the little, long-handled axe which leaned beside the door-post, threw the door wide open, and with a pitying cry of "Oh! oh!" flew forth to the rescue of her beloved sheep.

"Did you ever see the like of that?" muttered the old woman, her harsh face working with excitement and high approbation. "Scairt to death of a gun--and goes out to fight lynxes all by herself!"

And with painful effort she began hitching herself and the big chair across the floor, seeking a position where she could both reach the gun and command a view through the wide-open door.

When Melindy, her heart aflame with pity for the helpless ewes, rushed out into the yard, she saw one woolly victim down, kicking silently on the bloodstained snow, while a big lynx, crouched upon its body, turned upon her a pair of pale eyes that blazed with fury at the interruption to his feast.

The other sheep were foundered helplessly in the deep snow back of the well--except one. This one, which had evidently been headed off from the flock, and driven round to the near side of the watering-trough before its savage enemy overtook it, was not half a dozen paces from the cabin door. It was just stumbling forward upon its nose, with a despairing _baa-a-a!_ while the second and larger lynx, clinging upon its back, clutched hungrily for its throat through the thick, protecting wool.

On ordinary occasions the girl was as timid as her small, pale face and gentle blue eyes made her look. At this crisis, however, a sort of fury of compassion swept all fear from her heart.

Like the swoop of some strange bird, her skirts streaming behind her, she flung herself upon the great cat, and aimed a lightning blow at his head with her axe. In her frail grip the axe turned, so that the brute caught the flat of it instead of the edge.

Half-stunned, he lost his hold and fell with a startled _pfiff_ on the snow, while his victim, bleeding, but not mortally hurt, ran bleating towards the rest of the flock, where they floundered, stupidly helpless, in three feet of soft snow.

The next moment the baffled lynx recovered himself, and faced the girl with so menacing a snarl that she hesitated to follow up her advantage, but paused, holding the axe in readiness to repel attack.

For a few seconds they faced each other so, the girl and the beast. Then the pale, beast eyes shifted under the steady, dominating gaze of the blue human ones; and at last, with a spitting growl, which ended in a hoarse screech of rage, the big cat bounded aside and whisked behind the well-house. The next moment it was again among the sheep, where they huddled incapable of a struggle.

Again the girl sprang to the rescue; and now, because of that one flash of fear which had deprived her of her first advantage, her avenging wrath was fiercer and more resolute than before. This time, as she darted upon the enemy, she gave an involuntary cry of rage, piercing and unnatural. At this unexpected sound the lynx, desperate though he was with rage and hunger, lost his courage.

Seeing the girl towering almost over him, he doubled back with a mighty leap, just avoiding the vengeful sweep of the axe, and darted back to the front of the shed, where his mate was now ravenously feasting on her easy prey.

Although the first victim was now past all suffering, being no more a motive for heroism than so much mutton, the girl's blood was too hot with triumphant indignation to let her think of such an unimportant point as that. She was victor. She had outfaced and routed the foe. She had saved one victim. She would avenge the other.

With the high audacity of those who have overcome fear, she now, with a hysterical cry of menace, ran at the two lynxes, to drive them from their prey.

The situation which she now confronted, however, was altogether changed from what had gone before. The two lynxes were together, strong in that alliance which they had formed for purpose of battle. They were fairly mad with famine--or, indeed, they would never have ventured on the perilous domains of man.

Moreover, they were in possession of what they held to be their lawful prey--a position in defence of which all the hunting tribes of the wild will fight against almost any odds. As they saw their strange adversary approaching, the hair stood straight up along their backs, their little tails puffed to bottle brushes, their ears lay flat back on their heads, and they screeched defiance in harsh unison. Then, as if by one impulse, they turned from their prey and crept stealthily towards her.

They did not like that steady light in her blue eyes, but they felt by some instinct that she was young and unstable of nerve. At this unexpected move on their part the girl stopped short, suddenly undecided whether to fight or flee.

At once the lynxes stopped also, and crouched flat, tensely watching, their claws dug deep into the hard-trodden snow so as to give them purchase for an instant, powerful spring in any direction.

In the meantime, however, the crippled old woman within doors had not been idle. Great of spirit, and still mighty of sinew for all her ailment, she had managed to work the weight of the heavy chair and her own solid bulk all the way across the cabin floor. Being straight in front of the door, she had seen almost all that happened; and her brave old berserk heart was bursting with pride in the courage of this frail child, whom she had hitherto regarded with a kind of affectionate scorn.

The Griffises of Nackawick and Little River had always been sizable men, men of sinew and bulk, and women tall and ruddy; and this small, blue-eyed girl had seemed to her, in a way, to wrong the stock. But she was quick to understand that the stature of the spirit is what counts most of all.

Now, in this moment of breathless suspense, when she saw Melindy and the two great beasts thus holding each other eye to eye in a life and death struggle of wills, her heart was convulsed with a wild fear. In the spasm of it she succeeded in lifting herself almost erect, and so gained possession of the big duck-gun, which her son Jake, now away in the lumber woods, always kept loaded and ready for use. As she cocked it and settled back into her chair, she called in a piercing voice--

"Don't stir one step, Melindy! I'm going to shoot!"

The girl never stirred a muscle, although she turned pale with terror of the loud noise which was about to shock her ears. The two lynxes, however, turned their heads, and fixed the pale glare of their eyes upon the figure seated in the doorway.

The next moment came a spurt of red flame, a belch of smoke, a tremendous report that seemed as if it must have shattered every pane of glass in the cabin windows. The bigger of the two lynxes turned straight over backward and lay without a quiver, smashed by the heavy charge of buckshot with which Jake had loaded the gun. The other, grazed by a scattering pellet, sprang into the air with a screech, then turned and ran for her life across the snow, stretching out like a terrified cat.

With a proud smile the old woman stood the smoking gun against the wall and straightened her cap. For perhaps half a minute Melindy stood rigid, staring at the dead lynx. Then, dropping her axe, she fled to the cabin, flung herself down with her face in her grandmother's lap, and broke into a storm of sobs.

The old woman gazed down upon her with some surprise, and stroked the fair, fluffy head lovingly as she murmured: "There, there! There's nothing to take on about! Though you be such a little mite of a towhead, you've got the grit, you've got the grit, Melindy Griffis. It's proud of you I am, and it's proud your father'll be when I tell him about it."

Then, as the girl's weeping continued, and her slender shoulders continued to twist with her sobs, the rugged old face that bent above her grew tenderly solicitous.

"There, there!" she murmured again. "'Tain't good for you to take on so, deary. Hadn't you better finish beating up the pancakes before the batter spiles?"

Thus potently adjured, although she knew as well as her grandmother that there was no immediate danger of the batter spoiling, the girl got up, dashed the back of her hand across her eyes with a little laugh, closed the door, got out another spoon from the table drawer, and cheerfully resumed her interrupted task of mixing pancakes. And the sheep, having slowly extricated themselves from the deep snow behind the well-house, huddled together, with heads down, in the middle of the yard, fearfully eyeing the limp body which lay before the shed.

Mrs. Gammit's Pig

"I've come to borry yer gun!" said Mrs. Gammit, appearing suddenly, a self-reliant figure, at the open door of the barn where Joe Barron sat mending his harness. She wore a short cotton homespun petticoat and a dingy waist; while a limp pink cotton sunbonnet, pushed far back from her perspiring forehead, released unmanageable tufts of her stiff, iron-grey hair.

"What be _you_ awantin' of a gun, Mrs. Gammit?" inquired the backwoodsman, looking up without surprise. He had not seen Mrs. Gammit, to be sure, for three months; but he had known all the time that she was there, on the other side of the ridge, one of his nearest neighbours, and not more than seven or eight miles away as the crow flies.

"It's the bears!" she explained. "They do be gittin' jest a leetle mite _too_ sassy, down to my place. There ain't no livin' with 'em. They come rootin' round in the garden, nights. An' they've et up the white top-knot hen, with the whole settin' of eggs, that was to hev' hatched out next Monday. An' they've took the duck. An' last night they come after the pig."

"They didn't git _him_, did they?" inquired Joe Barron sympathetically.

"No, siree!" responded Mrs. Gammit with decision. "An' they ain't agoin' to! They scairt him though, snuffin' round outside the pen, trying to find the way in.--I've hearn tell they was powerful fond of pork.--He set up sich a squealin' it woke me; an' I yelled at 'em out of the winder. I seen one big black chap lopin' off behind the barn. I hadn't nothin' but the broom fer a weapon, so he got away from me. I'll git him to-night, though, I reckon, if I kin have the loan of your gun."

"Sartain," assented the woodsman, laying down the breech-strap he was mending. "Did you ever fire a gun?" he inquired suddenly, as he was starting across the yard to fetch the weapon from his cabin.

"I can't rightly say I hev'," answered Mrs. Gammit, with a slight note of scorn in her voice. "But from the kind of men I've seen as _kin_, I reckon it ain't no great trick to larn."

Joe Barron laughed, and went for the weapon. He had plenty of confidence in his visitor's ability to look out for herself, and felt reasonably sure that the bears would be sorry for having presumed upon her unprotected state. When he returned with the gun--an old, muzzle-loading duck-gun, with a huge bore--she accepted it with careless ease and held it as if it were a broom. But when he offered her the powder-horn and a little bag of buckshot, she hesitated.

"What be _them_ for?" she inquired.

Joe Barren looked serious.

"Mrs. Gammit," said he, "I know you kin do most anything a man kin do--an' do it better, maybe! A woman like you don't have to apologize for nothin'. But you was not _brung up_ in the woods, an' you can't expect to know all about a gun jest by _heftin'_ it. Folks that's been brung up in town, like you, have to be _told_ how to handle a gun. This here gun ain't _loaded_. And them 'ere's the powder an' buckshot to load her with. An' here's caps," he added, producing a small, brown tin box of percussion caps from his trousers pocket.

Mrs. Gammit felt abashed at her ignorance, but gratified, at the same time, by the reproach of metropolitanism. This implication of town-bred incompetency was most flattering to the seven frame houses and one corner store of Burd Settlement, whence she hailed.

"I reckon you'd better show me how to load the thing, Mr. Barron," she agreed quite humbly. And her keen grey eyes took in every detail, as the woodsman rammed home the powder hard, wadded down the charge of buckshot lightly, and pointed out where she must put the percussion cap when she should be ready to call upon the weapon for its services.

"Then," said he in conclusion, as he lifted the gun to his shoulder and squinted along the barrel, "of course you know all the rest. Jest shet one eye, an' git the bead on him fair, an' let him have it--a leetle back of the fore-shoulder, fer choice! An' _that_ b'ar ain't agoin' to worry about no more pork, nor garden sass. An' recollect, Mrs. Gammit, at this time of year, when he's fat on blueberries, he'll make right prime pork himself, ef he ain't _too_ old and rank."

As Mrs. Gammit strode homeward through the hot, silent woods with the gun--still carrying it as if it were a broom--she had no misgivings as to her fitness to confront and master the most redoubtable of all the forest kindreds. She believed in herself--and not only her native Burd Settlement, but the backwoods generally held that she had cause to. A busy woman always, she had somehow never found time to indulge in the luxury of a husband; but the honorary title of "Mrs." had early been conferred upon her, in recognition of her abundant and confident personality and her all-round capacity for taking care of herself. To have called her "Miss" would have been an insult to the fitness of things. When, at the age of sixty, she inherited from an only, and strictly bachelor, brother a little farm in the heart of the wilderness, some forty miles in from the Settlement, no one doubted her ability to fill the rôle of backwoodsman and pioneer. It was vaguely felt that if the backwoods and Mrs. Gammit should fail to agree on any important point, so much the worse for the backwoods.

And indeed, for nearly two years and a half everything had gone swimmingly. The solitude had never troubled Mrs. Gammit, to whom her own company was always congenial--and, as she felt, the only company that one could depend upon. Then she had her two young steers, well broken to the yoke; the spotted cow, with one horn turned up and the other down; the grey and yellow cat, with whom she lived on terms of mutual tolerance; a turkey-cock and two turkey hens, of whom she expected much; an assortment of fowls, brown, black, white, red, and speckled; one fat duck, which had so far been nothing but a disappointment to her; and the white pig, which was her pride. No wonder she was never lonely, with all these good acquaintances to talk to. Moreover, the forces of the wild, seeming to recognize that she was a woman who would have her way, had from the first easily deferred to her. The capricious and incomprehensible early frosts of the forest region had spared her precious garden patch; cut-worm and caterpillar had gone by the other way; the pip had overlooked her early chickens; and as for the customary onslaughts of wildcat, weasel, fox, and skunk, she had met them all with such triumphant success that she began to mistake her mere good luck for the quintessence of woodcraft. In fact, nothing had happened to challenge her infallibility, nothing whatever, until she found that the bears were beginning to concern themselves about her.

To be sure, there was only one bear mixed up in the matter; but he chanced to be so diligent, interested, and resourceful, that it was no wonder he had got himself multiplied many times over in Mrs. Gammit's indignant imagination. When she told Joe Barron "that the bears was gittin' so sassy there wasn't no livin' with 'em," she had little notion that what she referred to was just one, solitary, rusty, somewhat moth-eaten animal, crafty with experience and years. This bear, as it chanced, had had advantages in the way of education not often shared by his fellow-roamers of the wilderness. He had passed several seasons in captivity in one of the settlements far south of the Quah-Davic Valley. Afterwards, he had served an unpleasant term in a flea-ridden travelling menagerie, from which a railway smash-up had given him release at the moderate cost of the loss of one eye. During his captivity he had acquired a profound respect for men, as creatures who had a tendency to beat him over the nose and hurt him terribly if he failed to do as they wished, and who held in eye and voice the uncomprehended but irresistible authority of fate. For women, however, he had learned to entertain a casual scorn. They screamed when he growled, and ran away if he stretched out a paw at them. When, therefore, he had found himself once more in the vast responsible freedom of the forest, and reviving with some difficulty the half-forgotten art of shifting for himself, he had given a wide berth to the hunters' shacks and the cabins of lumbermen and pioneers. But when, on the other hand, he had come upon Mrs. Gammit's clearing, and realized, after long and cautious investigations, that its presiding genius was nothing more formidable than one of those petticoated creatures who trembled at his growl, he had licked his chops with pleasant anticipation. Here, at last, was his opportunity,--the flesh-pots of servitude, with freedom.

Nevertheless, the old bear was prudent. He would not presume too quickly, or too far, upon the harmlessness of a petticoat, and--as he had observed from a dense blackberry thicket on the other side of the fence, while she was at work hoeing her potatoes--there was an air about Mrs. Gammit which seemed to give her petticoats the lie. He had watched her for some time before he could quite satisfy himself that she was a mere woman. Then he had tried some nocturnal experiments on the garden, sampling the young squashes which were Mrs. Gammit's peculiar pride, and finding them so good that he had thought surely something would happen. Nothing did happen, however, because Mrs. Gammit slept heavily; and her indignation in the morning he had not been privileged to view.

After this he had grown bolder--though always under cover of night. He had sampled everything in the garden--the abundance of his foot-prints convincing Mrs. Gammit that there was also an abundance of bears. From the garden, at length, he had ventured to the yard and the barn. In a half-barrel, in a corner of the shed, he had stumbled upon the ill-fated white top-knot hen, faithfully brooding her eggs. Undeterred by her heroic scolding, and by the trifling annoyance of her feathers sticking in his teeth, he had made a very pleasant meal of her. And still he had heard nothing from Mrs. Gammit, who, for all her indignation, could not depart from her custom of sound sleeping. If he had taken the trouble to return in the morning, he might have perceived that the good lady was far from pleased, and that there was likely to be something doing before long if he continued to take such liberties with her. And then, as we have seen, he had found the duck--but _her_ loss Mrs. Gammit had taken calmly enough, declaring it to be nothing more than a good riddance to bad rubbish.

It was not until the return of moonlight nights that the bear had discovered the white pig, and thus come face to face, at last, with a thoroughly aroused Mrs. Gammit. True to his kind, he did like pork; but absorbed in the easier adventures of the garden and the shed, he had not at first noted the rich possibilities of the pig-pen, which occupied one corner of the barn, under the loft. Suspicious of traps, he would not, at first, enter the narrow opening of the stable door, the wide main doors being shut. He had preferred rather to sniff around outside at the corner of the barn, under the ragged birch-tree in which the big turkey-cock had his perch. The wakeful and wary old bird, peering down upon him with suspicion, had uttered a sharp _qwit, qwit_, by way of warning to whom it might concern; while the white pig, puzzled and worried, had sat up in the dark interior of the pen and stared out at him in silence through the cracks between the boards. At last, growing impatient, the bear had caught the edge of a board with his claws, and tried to tear it off. Nothing had come except some big splinters; but the effort, and the terrifying sound that accompanied it, had proved too much for the self-control of the white pig. An ear-splitting succession of squeals had issued from the dark interior of the pen, and the bear had backed off in amazement.

Before he could recover himself and renew his assault, the window of the cabin had gone up with a skittering slam. The white pig's appeal for help had penetrated Mrs. Gammit's solid slumbers, and she had understood the situation. "Scat! you brute!" she had yelled frantically, thrusting head and shoulders so far out through the window that she almost lost her balance in the effort to shake both fists at once.

The bear, not understanding the terms of her invective, had sat up on his haunches and turned his one eye mildly upon the bristling tufts of grey hair which formed a sort of halo around Mrs. Gammit's virginal nightcap. Then Mrs. Gammit, realizing that the time for action was come, had rushed downstairs to the kitchen, seized the first weapon she could lay hands upon--which chanced to be the broom--flung open the kitchen door, and dashed across the yard, screaming with indignation.

It was certainly an unusual figure that she made in the radiant moonlight, her sturdy, naked legs revolving energetically beneath her sparse nightgown, and the broom whirling vehemently around her head. For a moment the bear had contemplated her with wonder. Then his nerves had failed him. Doubtless, this was a woman--but not quite like the ordinary kind. It was better, perhaps, to be careful. With a reluctant grunt he had turned and fled, indifferent to his dignity. And he had thought best not to stop until he found himself quite beyond the range of Mrs. Gammit's disconcerting accents, which rang harsh triumph across the solemn, silvered stillness of the forest.

It was, of course, this imminent peril to the pig which had roused Mrs. Gammit to action and sent her on that long tramp over the ridges to borrow Joe Barron's gun. In spite of her easy victory in this particular instance, she had appreciated the inches of that bear, and realized that in case of any further unpleasantnesses with him a broom might not prove to be the most efficient of weapons. With the gun, however, and her distinct remembrance of Joe Barron's directions for its use, she felt equal to the routing of any number of bears--provided, of course, they would not all come on together. As the idea flashed across her mind that there might be a pack of bears to face, she felt uneasy for a second, and even thought of bringing the pig into the house for the night, and conducting her campaign from the bedroom window. Then she remembered she had never heard of bears hunting in packs, and her little apprehension vanished. In fact, she now grew quite eager for night to bring the fray.

It was a favourite saw of Mrs. Gammit's that "a watched pot takes long to bile"; and her experience that night exemplified it. With the kitchen door ajar, she sat a little back from the window. Herself hidden, she had a clear view across the bright yard. Very slowly the round moon climbed the pallid summer sky, changing the patterns of the shadows as she rose. But the bear came not. Mrs. Gammit began to think, even to fear, that her impetuosity of the night before had frightened him away. At last her reveries grew confused. She sat up very straight, and blinked very hard, to make sure that she was quite awake. Just as she had got herself most perfectly reassured on this point, her head sank gently forward upon the window-sill, and she slept deeply, with her cheek against the cold, brown barrel of the gun.

Yes, the bear had hesitated long that night. And he came late. The moon had swung past her zenith, and was pointing her black shadows across the yard in quite another direction when he came. By this time he had recovered confidence and made up his mind that Mrs. Gammit _was_ only a woman. After sniffing once more at the cracks to assure himself that the pig was still there, he went around to the stable door and crept cautiously in.

As his clumsy black shape appeared in the bright opening, the pig saw it. It filled his heart with a quite justifiable horror, which found instant poignant expression. Within those four walls the noise was so startlingly loud that, in spite of himself, the bear drew back--not intending to retreat, indeed, but only to consider. As it chanced, however, seeing out of only one eye, he backed upon the handle of a hay rake which was leaning against the wall. The rake very properly resented this. It fell upon him and clutched at his fur like a live thing. Startled quite out of his self-possession, he retreated hurriedly into the moonlight, for further consideration of these unexpected phenomena. And as he did so, across the yard the kitchen door was flung open, and Mrs. Gammit, with the gun, rushed forth.

The bear had intended to retire behind the barn for a few moments, the better to weigh the situation. But at the sight of Mrs. Gammit's fluttering petticoat he began to feel annoyed. It seemed to him that he was being thwarted unnecessarily. At the corner of the barn, just under the jutting limb of the birch-tree, he stopped, turned, and sat up on his haunches with a growl. The old turkey-cock, stretching his lean neck, glared down upon him with a terse _qwit! qwit!_ of disapproval.

When the bear stopped, in that resolute and threatening attitude, Mrs. Gammit instinctively stopped too. Not, as she would have explained had there been any one to explain to, that she was "one mite scairt," but that she wanted to try Joe Barren's gun. Raising the gun to her shoulder, she shut one eye, looked carefully at the point of the barrel with the other, and pulled the trigger. Nothing whatever happened. Lowering the weapon from her shoulder she eyed it severely, and perceived that she had forgotten to cock it. At this a shade of embarrassment passed over her face, and she glanced sharply at the bear to see if he had noticed her mistake. Apparently, he had not. He was still sitting there, regarding her unpleasantly with his one small eye.

"Ye needn't think ye're agoin to git off, jest because I made a leetle mistake like that!" muttered Mrs. Gammit, shutting her teeth with a snap, and cocking the gun as she raised it once more to her shoulder.

Now, as it chanced, Joe Barren had neglected to tell her which eye to shut, so, not unnaturally, Mrs. Gammit shut the one nearest to the gun--nearest to the cap which was about to go off. She also neglected to consider the hind-sight. It was enough for her that the muzzle of the gun seemed to cover the bear. Under these conditions she got a very good line on her target, but her elevation was somewhat at fault. She pulled the trigger.

This time it was all right. There was a terrific, roaring explosion, and she staggered backwards under the savage kick of the recoil. Recovering herself instantly, and proud of the great noise she had made, she peered through the smoke, expecting to see the bear topple over upon his nose, extinguished. Instead of that, however, she observed a convulsive flopping of wings in the birch-tree above the bear's head. Then, with one reproachful "gobble" which rang loud in Mrs. Gammit's ears, the old turkey-cock fell heavily to the ground. He would have fallen straight upon the bear, but that the latter, his nerves completely upset by so much disturbance, was making off at fine speed through the bushes.

The elation on Mrs. Gammit's face gave way to consternation. Then she reddened to the ears with wrath, dashed the offending gun to the ground, and stamped on it. She had done her part, that she knew, but the wretched weapon had played her false. Well, she had never thought much of guns, anyway. Henceforth she would depend on herself.

The unfortunate turkey-cock now lay quite still. Mrs. Gammit crossed the yard and bent over the sprawling body in deep regret. She had had a certain affection for the noisy and self-sufficient old bird, who had been "company" for her as he strutted "gobbling" about the yard with stiff-trailed wings while his hens were away brooding their chicks. "Too bad!" she muttered over him, by way of requiem; "too bad ye had to go an' git in the road o' that blame gun!" Then, suddenly bethinking herself that a fowl was more easily plucked while yet warm, she carried the limp corpse, head downward, across the yard, fetched a basket from the kitchen, sat down on the doorstep in the moonlight, and began sadly stripping the victim of his feathers. He was a fine, heavy bird. As she surveyed his ample proportions Mrs. Gammit murmured thoughtfully: "I reckon as how I'm goin' to feel kinder sick o' turkey afore I git this all et up!"

On the following day Mrs. Gammit carefully polished the gun with a duster, removing all trace of the indignities she had put upon it, and stood it away behind the dresser. She had resolved to conduct the rest of the campaign against the bears in her own way and with her own weapons. The way and the weapons she now proceeded to think out with utmost care.

Being a true woman and a true housewife, it was perhaps inevitable that she should think first, and, after due consideration given to everything else, including pitchforks and cayenne pepper, that she should think last and finally, of the unlimited potentialities of boiling water. To have it actually boiling, at the critical moment, would of course be impracticable; but with a grim smile she concluded that she could manage to have it hot enough for her purpose. She had observed that this bear which was after the pig had learned the way into the pen. She felt sure that, having found from experience that loud noises did not produce bodily injuries, he would again come seeking the pig, and this time with more confidence than ever.

On this point, thanks to her ignorance of bears in general, she was right. Most bears would have been discouraged. But this bear in particular had learned that when men started out to be disagreeable to bears, they succeeded only too well. He had realized clearly that Mrs. Gammit had intended to be disagreeable to him. There was no mistaking her intentions. But she had not succeeded. Ergo, she was not, as he had almost feared, a man, but really and truly a woman. He came back the next night fully determined that no squeals, or brooms, or flying petticoats, or explosions, should divert him from his purpose and his pork. He came early; but not, as it chanced, too early for Mrs. Gammit, who seemed somehow to have divined his plans and so taken time by the forelock.

The pen of the white pig, as we have already noted, was in a corner of the barn, and under one end of the loft. Immediately above the point where the bear would have to climb over, in order to get into the pen, Mrs. Gammit removed several of the loose boards which formed the flooring of the loft. Beside this opening, at an early hour, she had ensconced herself in secure ambuscade, with three pails of the hottest possible hot water close beside her. The pails were well swathed in blankets, quilts, and hay, to keep up the temperature of their contents. And she had also a pitchfork "layin' handy," wherewith to push the enemy down in case he should resent her attack and climb up to expostulate.