The 
 
 WILD HEART 
 
 By Emma -Lindsay Squier 
 
 Introduction by 
 GEN 7 E STRATTON'PORTER
 
 7 
 
 OF CALtf. trtWARY. LOS
 
 The 
 
 WILD 
 HEART 
 
 Emma-Lindsay Squier 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 GENE STRATTON-PORTER 
 
 Illustrations and Decorations by 
 PAUL BRANSOM 
 
 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, 1022 
 
 Second printing April, 1022 
 
 Printed in the United Slates 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. 
 
 21336R3
 
 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 
 feathers 
 
 THE FRIENDSHIP THAT 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 1 68 
 
 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 
 
 INCE "The Wild Heart" 
 is throbbing with the same 
 blood that pulses in the 
 heart of every human be- 
 ing who goes to the fields 
 and fraternizes with the 
 home there, since the 
 
 and woods 
 creatures that 
 feet that carry a wild heart on its jour- 
 ney are following the same path that a 
 few peculiar feet have made, what they 
 have found and what the heart has
 
 INTRO- 
 DUCTION 
 
 2 
 
 learned is the same thing that similar 
 feet have been finding and hearts have 
 been learning since the beginning of 
 time. 
 
 The author of this book pronounces 
 it "very simple, having no literary style 
 or value." Perhaps this estimate indi- 
 cates 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. When- 
 ever 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 cer- 
 tain 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, pos- 
 sibly as unconsciously. 
 
 To anyone who knows the fields and 
 woods the book carries the conviction 
 of truth. Those who do not know na- 
 ture 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
 
 INTRO- 
 DUCTION 
 
 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 scor- 
 pion. They coaxed it onto a piece of 
 bark and were carrying it around play- 
 ing 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 at- 
 mosphere of fear and was surrounded 
 by the taint of that acid which is ex- 
 haled from the body of any human be-
 
 INTRO- 
 DUCTION 
 5 
 
 ing 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. Any- 
 one carrying a heart of fear and antag- 
 onism 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 pre- 
 cisely the same things that happen to 
 anyone having a heart in tune with Na- 
 ture. 
 
 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 feel- 
 ing, 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. 
 
 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 sim- 
 plicity, 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 lan- 
 guage. When you compare this num- 
 ber 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 appreci- 
 ated 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
 
 INTRO- 
 DUCTION 
 7 
 
 than any other, will portray a situation 
 or describe an object. 
 
 Any author who is actuated by sin- 
 cerity will always choose the plain sim- 
 ple 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 sim- 
 ple 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 to- 
 gether, and then we make it so curled 
 and finical that God Himself wonder- 
 eth 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. 
 
 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 remem- 
 ber. 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. 
 
 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 per- 
 son could wade through a large volume 
 crammed from end to end with such 
 terms as patagia, ]ugum, disco cellular s, 
 phagocytes? It is such works on Na- 
 ture that have kept the Nature lovers 
 of many generations out of the fields 
 and woods. They had not the educa- 
 tion, the time, nor the inclination to be 
 sufficiently "curled and finical" to be 
 specific. They could take no one speci-
 
 INTRO- 
 DUCTION 
 9 
 
 men 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 compre- 
 hend; 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 par- 
 ents that all children are not alike and 
 can not possibly be run through the 
 same groove. 
 
 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 par- 
 ents. God gives to only a few of His 
 children a wild heart, a musical ear,
 
 INTRO- 
 DUCTION 
 10 
 
 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 broth- 
 ers with any save a very few specially 
 endowed human beings. 
 
 To-day 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
 
 INTRO- 
 DUCTION 
 II 
 
 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 de- 
 scribe the situation adequately. If this 
 book will serve the one purpose of mak- 
 ing 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.
 
 The Story of 
 
 Part One 
 
 SKYGAK 
 
 AN OLD MAN SEA-GULL 
 
 KYGAK 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 
 aerial 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 
 
 12
 
 Part One 
 
 Skygak discovered that catch- 
 ing mice was Three-Spot's 
 chief vocation, and he made 
 her life a burden. 
 
 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, 
 13
 
 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 ap- 
 proached. Then the Siwash clam-dig- 
 gers 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. 
 
 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 poke- 
 bonnet, 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
 
 SKYGAK 
 15 
 
 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. 
 
 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 primi- 
 tive 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 It was a day typical of autumn in the 
 Sound country. Gray rain pattered 
 ceaselessly into gray waters that
 
 SKYGAK 
 17 
 
 stretched away to meet a leaden hori- 
 zon, 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. 
 
 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 plank- 
 ing. 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.
 
 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 mo- 
 tion 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 in- 
 terest. And he returned with us to 
 the float to diagnose the gull's ailment. 
 
 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 evapo- 
 rated, 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 mis- 
 take 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 cook- 
 ies 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. 
 
 Carefully and very quietly we went
 
 SKYGAK 
 21 
 
 down the float, as near as we could 
 approach without Skygak's taking 
 alarm. When he showed signs of rest- 
 lessness, 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 vigor- 
 ous 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 ask- 
 ing for more.
 
 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 fol- 
 lowed 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 un- 
 derstand. 
 
 That was the beginning of a three-
 
 SKYGAK 
 23 
 
 sided 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 coun- 
 try, and when the sun shone warmly, 
 Skygak decided that life was not all a 
 haze of gloom, and he set about vigor- 
 ously 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 be- 
 came his old cocky self. 
 
 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 wher- 
 ever we went, stalking along behind us 
 with grotesque dignity, and when in- 
 vited, 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. 
 
 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 occa- 
 sionally 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. 
 
 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
 
 SKYGAK 
 26 
 
 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 accept- 
 able, and with one ecstatic snap of his 
 beak Skygak swallowed it, and after- 
 ward, as Brother averred, fairly licked 
 his chops. Three-Spot sulked and 
 gloomed because of the slight, but her 
 cup of woe was not full. 
 
 For in some mysterious manner, 
 Skygak discovered that catching mice 
 was Three-Spot's chief vocation, and 
 he made her life a burden. One morn- 
 ing 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 danger- 
 ously, 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 jug- 
 gernaut gulls, and when the terrifying 
 yellow beak was hard upon her, she 
 fled, spitting venomously, and Skygak, 
 like a disreputable robber chief, swal- 
 lowed 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. 
 
 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 re- 
 gained his health. 
 
 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 forma- 
 tion of the wild geese flying southward.
 
 SKYGAK 
 
 29 
 
 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 inde- 
 cision. 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 un- 
 til 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 sea- 
 birds, with one gull flying far in the 
 lead. And as we watched, the leader
 
 SKYGAK 
 31 
 
 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 some- 
 how, 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. 
 
 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
 
 He circled slowly 
 above our heads 
 
 tears the specks 
 vanished into 
 cloudy distance 
 Skygak had gone 
 forever. 
 
 But it was not 
 without a thought 
 of us. We shall al- 
 ways believe that he 
 halted the winged cara- 
 van to tell us good-by 
 and the Siwash chief be 
 lieves it, too.
 
 Introducing 
 
 U-CHU-KA 
 
 THE JUMPER
 
 Part Two 
 
 U-CHU-KA 
 
 PON the Hill Trail, which 
 Brother and I called ours 
 because we loved it so, you 
 may yet see a little clear- 
 ing 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 his- 
 torians would have called him. But 
 we gave him the name that in the 
 Chinook language means "the jump- 
 er," and we never called him 
 anything else.
 
 Part T<WQ 
 
 U-CHU-KA 
 
 THE JUMPER 
 
 He never failed to 
 answer our call
 
 U-CHU-KA 
 36 
 
 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 un- 
 dergrowth. 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 ca- 
 pitulated 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
 
 U-CHU-KA 1 
 
 37 
 
 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 al- 
 though behind him were countless 
 rabbit traditions as to what fearful 
 creatures humans were, U-Chu-Ka, 
 being so young, was possessed of opti- 
 mism 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. 
 
 It was not hard. Indeed, when I 
 think of it now, it seems so pitifully
 
 U-CHU-KA 
 38 
 
 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 in- 
 stead. 
 
 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 wig- 
 gling nose. 
 
 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 ap- 
 proaching thus boldly. 
 
 Finally he came to the bits of apple 
 and promptly forgot his fear in his de- 
 light 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 unde- 
 cided 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
 
 U-CHU-KA 
 40 
 
 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 move- 
 ments, 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 
 dayl 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.
 
 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 curi- 
 osity 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, al- 
 ways whistling, with choicest tidbits 
 for our little friend. He would 
 come into his "corner" hopping out 
 from the greenery like a tiny puff-ball,
 
 U-CHU-KA 
 42 
 
 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 1 
 
 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
 
 U-CHU-KA 
 43 
 
 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 impu- 
 dently from behind when he hopped 
 about, and his soft brown eyes gro- 
 tesquely 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.
 
 U-CHU-KA 
 44 
 
 A gunshot! It was not such an in- 
 frequent sound through the woods that 
 skirted the Bay, but our hearts sud- 
 denly 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 cor- 
 ner was empty but perhaps he would 
 come if we whittled! We tried to 
 form our dry lips for the sound, but 
 none came. For we saw simultane- 
 ously, 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. 
 
 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 pic- 
 ture the scene so well the man, swing- 
 ing 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 pathet- 
 ically down from a leather belt. Per- 
 haps 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 play- 
 mate who would come no more. 
 
 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.
 
 Part Three 
 
 SANCTUARY 
 
 O doubt it was a silly name 
 to give a deer "Leonard" 
 but Brother and I named 
 him on the spur of the mo- 
 ment, and, probably be- 
 cause we did not know the Indian 
 word for "fawn," we resorted to the 
 
 47 
 
 \
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 48 
 
 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 al- 
 though 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. 
 
 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
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 49 
 
 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, listen- 
 ing 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.
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 50 
 
 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 ani- 
 mals 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 tell- 
 ing 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.
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 SI 
 
 If you have never had a wild crea- 
 ture 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 vel- 
 vety 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. 
 
 It was not a pleasant picture, but 
 what were we to do? The short, whin- 
 ing barks of the dogs had already 
 changed to the long, triumphant ca- 
 dence of the hound in full cry. They 
 would come down the hill, the hunters
 
 would claim Leonard as their game, 
 they would 
 
 "Meat!" whispered Brother tensely, 
 and cryptic as it may sound to the 
 reader I understood perfectly. I won- 
 dered that I had not thought of it my- 
 self. 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 caress-
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 53 
 
 ing him. He went with me, even 
 through the door, into the semi-dark- 
 ness 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 invol- 
 untary 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. 
 
 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
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 54 
 
 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. 
 
 And up on the hill Brother was act- 
 ing his part in the drama. When the 
 first lean hound swung into sight, he 
 
 deftly tossed a chunk of red, juicy
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 
 55 
 
 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.
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 56 
 
 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. 
 
 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 con- 
 trived 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. 
 
 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 leap- 
 ing 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
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 58 
 
 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 ex- 
 pression 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. 
 
 So Leonard became one of our 
 happy family, and though we knew
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 59 
 
 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 civiliza- 
 tion, 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 Broth- 
 er'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. 
 
 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 re- 
 sponsibility. 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
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 60 
 
 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 en- 
 closed 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. 
 
 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 ef-
 
 fulgence 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. 
 
 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 be- 
 yond 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
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 62 
 
 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. 
 
 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
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 63 
 
 down to the ground. The doe was 
 there, as we had foreseen. At our ap- 
 proach she bounded away with only 
 the faintest rustle of leaves and snap- 
 ping 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 be- 
 hind 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. 
 
 We stole away, but Leonard fol- 
 lowed 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 for- 
 ever. 
 
 SANC- 
 TUARY 
 
 65
 
 questionlngly sniffed the breeze.
 
 Part Four 
 
 THE FAERY NIGHT 
 
 HERE 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 
 
 67
 
 FAERY 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 68 
 
 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 In- 
 dians say they were made, and the 
 moon in their midst flooded hill and 
 bay with a silvery light made more in- 
 tense by the blackness of the forest. 
 
 Somehow there was a hint of expec-
 
 FAERY 
 NIGHT 
 
 tancy 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 out- 
 spread 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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
 
 FAERY 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 71 
 
 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 whis- 
 pered : "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. 
 
 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.
 
 FAERY 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 72 
 
 Up the hill we hurried, up the nar- 
 row 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 under- 
 brush where a little animal was 
 moving. 
 
 We passed by the spring which gur- 
 gled 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. 
 
 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
 
 FAERY 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 73 
 
 and wild strawberry vines, a fitting 
 place for elfin feet to dance on a moon- 
 light night. And as we neared the 
 clearing flooded by the bright moon- 
 light, 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. 
 
 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 ques- 
 tioningly. He nibbled daintily at the 
 leaves of a red huckleberry bush, and
 
 FAERY 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 74 
 
 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 scratch- 
 ing it deeply with his claws. Then he 
 waddled away in his bow-legged fash- 
 ion, and we heard the faint crashing of 
 the underbrush as he passed through. 
 
 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 per- 
 fect order, and finally being satis-
 
 fied with his inspection, he loped 
 leisurely away without so much as 
 the crackle of a twig. 
 
 The next two visitors to the moonlit 
 clearing were two baby skunks striped 
 with brown and white and with grace- 
 ful tufts of white for tails. Strangely 
 enough, Brother and I were not afraid 
 of what might happen should they sud- 
 denly be aware of our presence and be- 
 come 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 sud- 
 denly, for we knew it must be an ani- 
 mal 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 Fam- 
 ily" pines, and we hastened toward it. 
 In the lumber clearing just off the 
 trail we found what we had half ex- 
 pected 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,
 
 FAERY 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 77 
 
 The pity in our hearts made us for- 
 getful 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. 
 
 Together Brother and I pried the 
 steel jaws apart, and the little fox, set 
 free, limped away for a few feet and
 
 FAERY 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 78 
 
 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
 
 FAERY 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 79 
 
 three of us lingered by the forest pool. 
 Brother and I pretended that Reginald 
 talked to us and that he could under- 
 stand 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 under- 
 brush 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. 
 
 Thrilled to the very core of my
 
 FAERY 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 80 
 
 being, I huddled into bed. And Ama- 
 rillo, who had long since returned, 
 arched his back and yawned widely as 
 if to imply that such a nocturnal ex- 
 cursion 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. 
 
 "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 morn- 
 ing breeze. The fairy night was over.
 
 Part Five
 
 THE 
 
 FRIENDSHIP 
 THAT FAILED 
 
 N 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 ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Every day we would watch him 
 82
 
 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 revolv^ 
 ing in his mind whether he had done 
 the wise thing in coming, and what his 
 next move ought to be. 
 
 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 
 
 Ctnnon came charging 
 in a whirlwind of 
 feathers.
 
 HENRY 
 84 
 
 to fear from the immobile bunch of 
 gray feathers balanced on two skinny 
 stilt legs, and I would have swum mer- 
 rily 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 wrig- 
 gling in his beak. 
 
 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 occa- 
 sional 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
 
 HENRY 
 
 85 
 
 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 swal- 
 lowing. 
 
 We used to hear his strange, mourn- 
 ful cry late at night as he flew north- 
 ward 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. 
 
 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 ex- 
 plorations 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 responsi- 
 bilities. 
 
 During the season when the salmon 
 were running, the Old Fisherman, who 
 was at once our mentor and playfel- 
 low, 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 out- 
 lined in the midst of the cork floats a 
 dark body that flapped and struggled. 
 
 We whispered excitedly that per- 
 haps 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. 
 
 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 think- 
 ing it safe footing, and had thus be- 
 come hopelessly snared in the net. 
 
 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, re- 
 leased him from the cords which bound 
 him, he could not fly, but flapped help- 
 lessly 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 inten- 
 tions were kindly and snapped at us 
 fiercely with his huge beak. 
 
 The Old Fisherman, who had lived 
 with the Indians and who had ac- 
 quired their curative gifts, took Henry, 
 the heron, in charge when we reached
 
 the little cabin in the cove, first muz- 
 zling 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 trou- 
 bled 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. 
 
 When he had finally ceased to fear 
 us, we gave him the liberty of the back-
 
 HENRY 
 90 
 
 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 Point- 
 ing Finger. Perhaps he was even lone- 
 some 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. 
 
 Then, to make our guest feel more 
 at home, we would put our catch in a
 
 wash-tub filled with water, and 
 Henry would fish for them choos- 
 ing his prey with calculating eye an 
 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, giv- 
 ing us the broadside effect of one shiny 
 eye, whether in thanks or in petition 
 for more we could not determine. 
 
 But it was really due to Cannon, our 
 bantam rooster, that Henry's convales- 
 cence 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
 
 HENRY 
 
 92 
 
 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. 
 
 I have seen many a strange friend- 
 ship between animals and between 
 birds, too, but never one so curious 
 as that of Henry, the heron, and Can- 
 non, the bantam rooster. For friends 
 they were, and real friends, too. They 
 became acquainted when Cannon, fly- 
 ing into the back-yard one day, spied 
 the stiff-legged Henry and immedi- 
 ately decided to do battle with him. 
 He ruffled up his neck feathers, 
 whirled round and round with one 
 wing dusting the ground, and advanc- 
 ing on Henry, dared him to come on
 
 HENRY 
 93 
 
 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 re- 
 garded the little brown cock contem- 
 platively, 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. 
 
 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 con- 
 clusively aside. 
 
 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 Can- 
 non, and perhaps the merry little ban- 
 tam's pluck appealed to the grave 
 fisher bird, for they became almost at 
 once inseparable friends. Cannon de- 
 serted his feathered acquaintances and 
 spent his time in the back-yard with 
 Henry. When finally the invalid was
 
 HENRY 
 95 
 
 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 dis- 
 played 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 Can- 
 non's delectation. 
 
 We noticed that at first the bantam 
 rooster eyed askance the flapping tid- 
 pits 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 be- 
 came a feathered parasite, depending 
 almost entirely upon the heron for his 
 meals.
 
 HENRY 
 96 
 
 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 fir- 
 tree 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 in- 
 definitely had it not been for Sironda, 
 the Black Minorca hen. 
 
 "Si" we sometimes called her for
 
 HENRY 
 
 97 
 
 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 al- 
 ways drawing nearer and nearer to the 
 pair.
 
 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, in- 
 nately chivalrous, voiced a high- 
 pitched invitation to Sironda to par- 
 take 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. 
 
 Cannon watched her precipitous re- 
 treat 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 be-
 
 HENRY 
 99 
 
 twcen them, for Henry had to knock 
 Cannon down three times in rapid suc- 
 cession 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. 
 
 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 be- 
 hind 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.
 
 Part Six 
 
 His constant barking 
 set the grown-ups 
 against him. 
 
 STOP THIEF 
 
 N the days when the rov- 
 ing 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 
 
 101
 
 STOP 
 
 THIEF 
 
 102 
 
 would hoist the sail of our tiny, round- 
 bottomed skiff and, using an oar for a 
 rudder, skim out across the ruffled sur- 
 face of the bay to pay a visit to the 
 swarthy-visaged men with heavy, griz- 
 zled 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 ex- 
 change they gave us curious souvenirs 
 of their travels dried starfish of mon- 
 strous size, lovely, iridescent shells, 
 and reed baskets bartered from the 
 Siwash Indians. 
 
 The boat we knew best was called 
 Rojtnzvpcig, which, the Austrian own- 
 ers 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, tug- 
 ging 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. 
 
 We were always sorry to see the 
 Rosenzweig leave us, and it was al- 
 ways 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 pur-
 
 STOP 
 
 THIEF 
 
 IO4 
 
 chased of a Nittenat chief, far up the 
 straits toward Alaska. 
 
 But the day of days was when, com- 
 ing 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 some- 
 thing wonderful for us. 
 
 We clambered over the gunwale of 
 the Rosenziveig, 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. 
 
 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,
 
 STOP 
 THIEF 
 
 105 
 
 bright eyes that peered at us curiously, 
 but without fear, and delicate nostrils 
 with neat, gentlemanly whiskers pro- 
 truding 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 de- 
 voured 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 with- 
 out saying. We had seen many seals 
 from a distance, but never had we 
 thought to have one for a friend. 
 
 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. 
 
 We had often known when they 
 were near us in the Bay even without 
 seeing them. For when we saw a sal- 
 mon jumping many times, in a series of 
 frenzied leaps, we knew it was not 
 through sport, but because he was pur- 
 sued 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 re- 
 maining 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
 
 STOP 
 
 THIEF 
 
 107 
 
 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 inquir- 
 ingly 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 The fishermen told us that the baby 
 seal had attended a net-robbing expe- 
 dition with his mother. Both the lady 
 seal and her baby had become entan- 
 gled 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 
 Rosenziveig, 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
 
 STOP 
 THIEF 
 
 109 
 
 could not live long away from the ele- 
 ment 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. 
 
 He learned to respond to his name 
 sooner than most dogs, and he dis- 
 played 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 sub- 
 marine contest of wits against older 
 and more experienced of his kindred. 
 
 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 re- 
 turn 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 point- 
 ing for the float like a periscope; lift- 
 ing 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.
 
 STOP 
 
 THIEF 
 
 III 
 
 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. 
 
 It might not have been necessary to 
 bring Alfred up on the bottle, espe- 
 cially as the fishermen of the Rosen- 
 ziveig had been feeding him dried fish 
 ever since they had caught him, but 
 our experience with other baby ani- 
 mals 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
 
 STOP 
 
 THIEF 
 
 112 
 
 a padded bag for it. From this 
 Alfred daily took his milk, blink- 
 ing his great, shining eyes at us and 
 pausing occasionally to bark. We 
 came to know it for his sign of ap- 
 proval. 
 
 The gum-drops were given to him 
 experimentally. Brother maintained 
 that the Esquimaux lived on them, and 
 that Alfred, being a relative of north- 
 ern 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 instinc- 
 tively 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
 
 STOP 
 THIEF 
 
 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, mak- 
 ing him catch it in mid-air. 
 
 As Alfred grew older and larger, we 
 trained him to do some of the things we 
 had seen his kindred do in the cir- 
 cuses. And how eager he was to learn 1 
 He put Brother and me to shame, for 
 we hated lessons. He loved them. We 
 taught him to balance an indoor base- 
 ball 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 concen- 
 tration would have made him a mil- 
 lionaire. 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. 
 
 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
 
 STOP 
 THIEF 
 
 "5 
 
 respectability. It was certainly not be- 
 cause 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 crop- 
 ping 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 stom- 
 ach 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. 
 
 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
 
 STOP 
 THIEF 
 
 of amputating a Chinook salmon's sil- 
 ver 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 im- 
 pudent, 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.
 
 What to do? We loved Alfred 
 dearly, but we loved the Old Fisher- 
 man, 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 indi- 
 rectly 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 Fisher- 
 man reported in the morning that no 
 salmon had been stolen. But the fol- 
 lowing 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 re- 
 strained 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. Be- 
 sides, 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 be- 
 ings assumed control over the water 
 and its inhabitants. 
 
 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
 
 STOP 
 
 THIEF 
 
 119 
 
 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. 
 
 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 
 babeel" 
 
 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 shin- 
 ing eyes were fixed on me with so much
 
 STOP 
 
 THIEF 
 
 120 
 
 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, try- 
 ing 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 en- 
 gine stopped, and in a few minutes we 
 came alongside. 
 
 "Alfred's balll" we explained
 
 breathlessly. "He'd be lonesome 
 without it." 
 
 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 Rosenziveig made out towards 
 the Straits, while our little boat rocked 
 gently in her wake. 
 
 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, intelli- 
 gent eyes. It was not Alfred, of course, 
 but for an instant we thought it might 
 be. For the space of a few breaths the
 
 STOP 
 
 THIEF 
 
 122 
 
 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!"
 
 Part Seven 
 
 O'HENRY, THE QUAIL 
 BABY
 
 Part Seven 
 
 O'HENRY 
 
 The 
 
 QUAIL 
 BABY 
 
 // Clarence had been a man, he 
 
 T 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 tur- 
 124
 
 Part Seven 
 
 O'HENRY 
 
 The 
 
 QUAIL 
 BABY 
 
 would have endowed orphanages. 
 
 bulent 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, over- 
 hanging 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 
 
 "5
 
 O'HENRY 
 126 
 
 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 sum- 
 mer there was always a little breeze 
 that stirred the alders into sleepy gos- 
 sip and set the pine-trees humming 
 gently to themselves. There was the 
 scent of pine-needles, of fallen leaves, 
 of wet moss. 
 
 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 in-
 
 O HENRY 
 127 
 
 terlacing branches at the blue patch- 
 work 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 imag- 
 ined, "Oh, Hen-ryl Oh, Hen-ryl" 
 
 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-ryl" 
 
 As we listened, the quail call came 
 nearer, then a faint, almost impercep- 
 tible 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
 
 OHENRY 
 128 
 
 mother quail tripped out from the un- 
 derbrush 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 lit- 
 tle 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. 
 
 Of course you must know it was only 
 a trick. Brother and I should have 
 known it, for we had heard of it many
 
 O HENRY 
 129 
 
 times. But such was the excellent act- 
 ing 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 tri- 
 umphant 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 rue- 
 fully, 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." 
 
 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 scut-
 
 tie of leaves, and out from the under- 
 brush, 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!" 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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.
 
 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. 
 
 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 oblig- 
 ingly hatched out and mothered every- 
 thing, 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
 
 O HENRY 
 133 
 
 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 pres- 
 ence of the little woods stranger and 
 would have rejoiced in scalping him. 
 
 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, bal- 
 ancing there like a tight-rope per- 
 former. We took him with us when
 
 O HENRY 
 134 
 
 we rowed in our little boat on the bay, 
 and he would perch on the bow, keep- 
 ing 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 news- 
 boy dinners. As it was, he had a pas- 
 sion for fathering the young things of 
 the poultry yard, much to the dismay 
 of the various mothers. 
 
 There was never a queerer sight 
 than Clarence, the huge gander, going 
 the rounds of the hen-coops of a morn- 
 ing, making coaxing noises to lure the 
 young chicks out from under their
 
 OHENRY 
 135 
 
 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. 
 
 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 be- 
 longed to Sironda, half a dozen white 
 Leghorn children, a tiny cockerel with 
 budding wings and tail who was
 
 OHENRY 
 136 
 
 Liberty's son, and a lanky young 
 Plymouth Rock rooster, all run to legs. 
 
 We were minded to see what Clar- 
 ence 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. 
 
 We had no idea of letting him go 
 gipsying with Clarence, for he had be- 
 come 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
 
 O HENRY 
 137 
 
 of flapping wings and snapping bill. 
 He did not suffer his charges to be mo- 
 lested while in his care; that was clear. 
 So we allowed O'Henry to go jaunt- 
 ing 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 cheep- 
 ing fretfully and glad to nestle under 
 the feathers of their distracted moth- 
 ers. We would watch for O'Henry 
 and whistle the call he knew. He 
 would come to us with his quick, dart- 
 ing 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.
 
 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 gentle- 
 man 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 shoul- 
 ders and blink at us reproachfully. 
 
 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.
 
 O HENRY 
 139 
 
 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. 
 
 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 se- 
 ductive 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
 
 O HENRY 
 I4O 
 
 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 fa- 
 miliar "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.
 
 O HENRY 
 141 
 
 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, peck- 
 ing contentedly at the wheat I offered 
 him, and wiping his bill on my cheek. 
 
 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 Clar- 
 ence 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, shovel- 
 ing 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 whir- 
 ring 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. 
 
 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 scurry- 
 ing 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. 
 
 It was a quaint sight, and we did not
 
 O HENRY 
 143 
 
 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 after- 
 ward, 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 accus- 
 tomed 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.
 
 Part Eight 
 
 THE TALE OF TIMOTHY
 
 Part Eight 
 
 Timothy clung to 
 the bottle habit. 
 
 TIMOTHY, 
 THE DIRTY BEAR 
 
 ERHAPS it is unjust to 
 the memory of our friend 
 Timothy that we should 
 think of him as "the Dirty 
 Bear." I wouldn't preju- 
 dice you against him for the world. 
 "Dirty" has such a reprehensible 
 sound. But Timothy was dirty in a 
 H5
 
 perfectly legitimate way. He had a 
 primitive soul that found delight in 
 grubbing in rotten stumps for mag- 
 gots 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, un- 
 less we could take our baths in the Bay 
 and he had an almost fanatical fear 
 of soap. Brother, who was then read- 
 ing "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. 
 
 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
 
 TIMOTHY 
 
 147 
 
 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 em- 
 bankment, pushing the ferns aside and 
 peering into the depths of a black and 
 wonderfully inviting hole. 
 
 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, al- 
 though not nearly so large. Footprints
 
 that turned in toward each other and 
 we should have known. But our minds 
 were filled with the fascinating possi- 
 bilities 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. 
 
 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 en- 
 veloped us, as of darkness made odor- 
 ous 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
 
 TIMOTHY 
 149 
 
 set our spines to tingling, and at the 
 same instant came the sound of whines 
 and a movement as of baby things dis- 
 turbed in their sleep. I was conscious 
 of a sickish, fainting feeling, for I real- 
 ized 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. 
 
 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 per- 
 sons, 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. 
 
 Perhaps you think we should have 
 stayed away from the house of the lady 
 bear; but we did not. We were in- 
 terested, 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 intru- 
 sion 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 Tim- 
 othy, and that was why on the spot we 
 so christened the bear baby. 
 
 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,
 
 TIMOTHY 
 152 
 
 and it was our fond belief that no 
 one came there but ourselves. Hunters 
 and trappers go everywhere, however, 
 violating even such a woodland para- 
 dise as ours. As we went down the 
 narrow trail, pushing aside the light 
 branches of the alders and the fir- 
 trees, we heard a plaintive, whining 
 cry almost human in its poignancy. We 
 stopped for an instant, listening, won- 
 dering. 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 follow- 
 ing their lead we rounded a boulder 
 in the trail and came upon a sight 
 which filled us with gasping indigna- 
 tion. A little brown bear with a fleck 
 of white on his furry throat was tug- 
 ging frantically and futilely at the jaws 
 of a steel trap which held his two front
 
 TIMOTHY 
 153 
 
 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. 
 
 I do not like even now to think of 
 the half-hour which followed. So 
 strong was the steel trap that the com- 
 bined efforts of Brother and myself 
 could only pry the cruel jaws apart the 
 fraction of an inch. We were hamper- 
 ed, 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 cov- 
 ered 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
 
 TIMOTHY 
 154 
 
 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 inter- 
 vals 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 grad- 
 ually ceased, and he licked at his paws 
 solicitously. 
 
 No doubt we should have taken Tim- 
 othy 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
 
 TIMOTHY 
 155 
 
 deal of worry at his prolonged ab- 
 sence, 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 chil- 
 dren escaped to the woods to live as 
 best they could. So Timothy belonged 
 to us, and he was the merriest of play- 
 mates. 
 
 When we rescued him from the trap 
 he was a very tiny bear, being no larger 
 than Tinker, our black and tan rat ter- 
 rier. 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 Tim-
 
 othy'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. 
 
 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.
 
 TIMOTHY 
 
 157 
 
 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 out- 
 grew 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 kero- 
 sene and had closed his eyes in anticipa- 
 tory esctasy 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 lik- 
 ing for promiscuous bottles, but it did 
 not as you shall see. 
 
 We worried a little at first as to what 
 else we should give him besides milk, 
 but we need not have concerned our- 
 selves. Timothy's appetite was with- 
 out 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.
 
 TIMOTHY 
 159 
 
 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. 
 
 He was the merriest playfellow we 
 ever had. He went with us every-
 
 where 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 ob- 
 jected 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 de- 
 scribed the shapes we saw in the clouds. 
 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-bas- 
 ket 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. 
 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. 
 
 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.
 
 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.
 
 TIMOTHY 
 164 
 
 Now Timothy knew nothing of guns, 
 but he had long and satisfactory ac- 
 quaintance 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 rea- 
 soned thus to himself and in that in- 
 stant when the gun was pointed straight 
 at him, he rose on his hind feet, his 
 furry arms outstretched, and started 
 toward the hunter. 
 
 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 can- 
 teen 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. Per- 
 haps 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 Nin 
 
 The 
 
 BANDIT BIRD 
 
 HOPE the fact that Hec- 
 tor 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 mourn- 
 ful dignity about him, as if he resented 
 the unfair workings of a fate which 
 had made him a robber bird, a tres- 
 passer on the lives of other creatures, 
 and at enmity with every living thing. 
 
 168
 
 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 dis- 
 dainful. 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 
 
 169
 
 HECTOR 
 170 
 
 he was not horrible at all when we got 
 to know him. Lazarus thinks other- 
 wise, very probably. But then his ex- 
 perience with Hector was a trying one, 
 and to this day if he still lives he 
 carries the marks of his eventful meet- 
 ing with our friend, the robber chief. 
 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 al- 
 ways 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 bleed- 
 ing 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 consti- 
 tution, came back from the tomb, as it
 
 HECTOR 
 171 
 
 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. 
 
 Now, when Lazarus lost his first 
 baby down and was in that shorn and 
 untidy condition which always pre- 
 cedes 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
 
 HECTOR 
 172 
 
 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. 
 
 We were constantly on guard to keep 
 hawks away from the ranch. They 
 waged merciless warfare on our chick- 
 ens, 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, hover-
 
 ing with curved-up wings and cruel, 
 bright eyes, seeking his prey, choos- 
 ing it calmly, waiting patiently the 
 proper moment to swoop down upon 
 it. 
 
 The chickens, too, always told us 
 when such danger was near. Prince, 
 the great white Plymouth Rock roost- 
 er, 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 dis- 
 tended. Sometimes it was a false 
 alarm. A crow would be flying peace- 
 ably 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 firm- 
 ly 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 tha 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 It was on a day when the grown-ups
 
 HECTOR 
 175 
 
 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 impos- 
 sible 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! 
 
 The next instant, as we stood star- 
 ing, 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!" 
 
 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 spasmod- 
 ically 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. 
 
 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
 
 HECTOR 
 177 
 
 front door, back into the kitchen, and 
 bumped into each other in our eager- 
 ness 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 slow- 
 ly and with evident difficulty for 
 Lazarus was a healthy, heavy young- 
 ster ajcross 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.
 
 HECTOR 
 178 
 
 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, blink- 
 ing dazedly at the result of his marks- 
 manship. 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. 
 
 The hawk was our next considera- 
 tion. 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 thrash- 
 ing 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 ap- 
 proached 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 spasmodic- 
 ally. 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 help- 
 less. 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.
 
 HECTOR 
 1 80 
 
 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 re- 
 turned 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. 
 
 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
 
 HECTOR 
 
 181 
 
 man taking morning exercises with 
 rubber ropes. He hated us and re- 
 pulsed our attentions fiercely and scorn- 
 fully. 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 rob- 
 ber chieftain in captivity. We were 
 patient, however, for we knew that ac- 
 cording to Hector's viewpoint we had 
 injured him without reason. He had 
 been in search of his dinner a perfect- 
 ly 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. 
 
 But little by little his haughty antag- 
 onism melted before our daily over- 
 tures. 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 1 with vaseline he 
 opened his beak as if to bite my hand 
 but closed it without doing me harm. 
 
 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 ac- 
 tually to have a smile in them. He 
 would allow me to salve his injury 
 with only the faintest suggestion of ner- 
 vousness 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.
 
 HECTOR 
 183 
 
 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 barn-yard 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 be- 
 lieved firmly that Hector had no inten- 
 tion of snatching up a chick or a pigeon, 
 that his daily flight was merely by way 
 of exercise and for the dramatic satis- 
 faction it gave him to see the feathered 
 crew below him so disturbed. 
 
 At any rate, he never once attempted 
 to harm any of our live stock. Per-
 
 haps 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. 
 
 This daily flight of Hector's was 
 most annoying to the grown-ups, how- 
 ever. In the first place, the hens were 
 not laying so well as they had. They 
 were frightened out of all nesting de- 
 sire by Hector's calm aerial prome- 
 nades, 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
 
 HECTOR 
 185 
 
 at a piece of cooky as if he had never 
 had a carnivorous thought in his life. 
 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 aerial adventure under 
 his wings. He would approach Hec- 
 tor cautiously, craning his neck in and 
 out with a curious rubberized effect, 
 and would stop at a safe distance, turn- 
 ing his head on one side, giving Hector 
 a timorous inspection from the broad- 
 side of one amber eye. And 
 Hector ^f^ 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 ulti- 
 matum 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 
 zoological gardens there. 
 
 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,
 
 HECTOR 
 187 
 
 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 re- 
 turn. 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. 
 
 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 Hec- 
 tor perform his dance of joy at our com- 
 ing, never again would he stare ap- 
 praisingly 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 un- 
 derstood him and loved him as we did.
 
 Part Ten 
 
 Her nostrils dilated at the hated 
 human scent. 
 
 MY FRIEND THE PRINCESS 
 
 HIS 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, pad- 
 ding the length of her narrow cage, 
 with amber eyes staring out at some 
 189
 
 vision beyond the iron bars, with tawny 
 lips half drawn back from white, 
 pointed fangs. A tigress with some- 
 thing high and noble in her steady pac- 
 ing, 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 She was caught in a tiger pit, they 
 told me, when little more than a cub. 
 She had been purchased first by a cir-
 
 PRINCESS 
 191 
 
 cus, and then by the motion-picture 
 company which owns her now. They 
 told me she was fierce and utterly with- 
 out 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 pa- 
 thetic 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? 
 
 It was my first visit to the studio.
 
 PRINCESS 
 192 
 
 And I carried away with me that pic- 
 ture of Princess in her cramped cage, 
 pacing, pausing, sniffing at the air 
 heavy with human scent, her amber 
 eyes seeing something afar off, some- 
 thing we could not understand 
 
 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 chil- 
 dren. 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 po- 
 sition 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. 
 
 Through him I came to know per- 
 sonally 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
 
 PRINCESS 
 
 194 
 
 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 sen- 
 tenced 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 un- 
 afraid, she no longer had the right to 
 live. 
 
 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." 
 
 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 jump- 
 ing from a springboard into a lake 
 with sharp rocks in it, he had gone 
 into the cage and bathed the swollen
 
 PRINCESS 
 196 
 
 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." 
 
 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 under- 
 stand, 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, strong- 
 ly barred to prevent danger from the 
 wild animals being photographed in ac- 
 tion. 
 
 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 on- 
 lookers, to the very bars of the huge 
 out-of-door cage. The camera man 
 was already in his barred enclos-
 
 ure, and inside the arena the director, 
 a slim-waisted man with a black mus- 
 tache, 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. 
 
 "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 unknow- 
 ingly on the scene of Princess's execu- 
 tion. 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 
 
 I turned away, tried to press through 
 the crowd. But there were too many 
 people. Every one from the studio had
 
 PRINCESS 
 199 
 
 ceased work to come and see the spec- 
 tacular 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 
 
 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 after- 
 ward. 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 Prin- 
 cess, the royal Bengal tigress, crashed 
 through the flimsy greenery of the 
 mimic jungle and like a tawny statue 
 stopped short, her head raised, her am- 
 ber eyes wide. 
 
 It was a nightmare, that terrible in- 
 stant. 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 help- 
 less. 
 
 Only the briefest moment did the 
 tableau last. For Princess's nostrils di- 
 lated with the hated human scent, her 
 eyes narrowed to slits, her nose
 
 wrinkled back, and she snarled. The 
 director was speaking jerkily with- 
 out moving saying that no one must 
 scream telling some one to bring the 
 gun- 
 
 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. 
 
 "Princessf 
 
 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 1" he said again. "Keep 
 back steady, old girl 1" 
 
 He had unfastened the front gate
 
 PRINCESS 
 2O2 
 
 of the arena and opened it. He was un- 
 armed; 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 Prin- 
 cess's lips, her tail ceased its frenzied 
 lashing, and she rose from her crouch- 
 ing 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." 
 
 Then he spoke to the tigress again :
 
 PRINCESS 
 203 
 
 "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. 
 
 "Tell them, oh, tell them nowl" I
 
 PRINCESS 
 204 
 
 whispered. And Pudgy, because he, 
 too, loved the things of the wild, under- 
 stood 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 com- 
 menced her endless pacing. She was 
 still snarling softly, as if dreaming of 
 the vengeance on man which had al- 
 most been hers.
 
 "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 any- 
 thing 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 di- 
 rector was staring at him curiously. 
 
 "That tiger that bloodthirsty beast 
 a friend of yours?" he said incredu- 
 lously. 
 
 "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
 
 PRINCESS 
 206 
 
 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 be- 
 cause 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 kind- 
 ly, and that she knows that I love her 
 and wish her well.
 
 Part Eleven 
 
 ETHEL OF THE WILD 
 HEART
 
 Part Eleven 
 
 For I saw her, not a savage, blood- 
 thirsty beast, but a wild thing of the 
 deep woods, ruled by pain instead of 
 kindliness.
 
 Part Eleven 
 
 ETHEL 
 
 WILD HEART 
 
 HIS is the story of a lioness 
 in a cage at a great mov- 
 ing-picture studio a lean, 
 tawny lioness with slant- 
 ing, amber eyes and flex- 
 ible 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. 
 
 309
 
 ETHEL 
 2IO 
 
 But I was of the press, so I was per- 
 mitted to enter the cage with the train- 
 er, 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 sav- 
 age. Her eyes blazed with a wicked 
 light that burned green behind the am- 
 ber; 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 when- 
 ever the lash came near her. 
 
 She fascinated me. The other lions 
 were cowed, it seemed, by long experi- 
 ence 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 remorse- 
 lessly 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 per- 
 secuting lash, while the other lions 
 watched her from their pedestals un- 
 easily, with guttural intakes of breath 
 and occasional snarls. 
 
 Do you wonder what I felt when 
 Ethel careened about the cage, stub- 
 born, 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.
 
 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 in- 
 stant we measured each other, eye to 
 eye. And in that moment I remem- 
 bered another wild thing this one un- 
 caged 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 hap- 
 pened before. 
 
 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
 
 ETHEL 
 213 
 
 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 our- 
 selves 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 occas- 
 ional crash of a giant fir, tortured to 
 long by licking flames.
 
 ETHEL 
 214 
 
 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. 
 
 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 am- 
 ber eyes watched me without flickering, 
 yet in them I saw distrust, startled an- 
 ger, and ever so little of a desire to 
 spring to kill 
 
 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. 
 
 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.
 
 ETHEL 
 217 
 
 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 sud- 
 denly 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." 
 
 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 sting- 
 ing 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. 
 
 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
 
 ETHEL 
 219 
 
 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 re- 
 laxed, 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 curi- 
 ous, 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. 
 The trainer spoke to me in an ago- 
 nized 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 fresh- 
 ness of leaves wet with dew, the feel- 
 ing of moss underfoot, the glint of sun- 
 light 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.
 
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