"Pap!" he cried, in a loud but tearful voice, "where you goin' to?"

A great wave of light seemed to break across the landscape, as the two
men turned and saw the little golden head shining, dishevelled, over the
edge of the tub. The Captain caught his breath with a sort of sob, and
rushed to snatch the little one in his arms; while the grandfather fell
on his knees in the road, and his trembling lips moved silently.

Strayed.

In the Cabineau Camp, of unlucky reputation, there was a young ox of
splendid build, but of a wild and restless nature.

He was one of a yoke, of part Devon blood, large, dark-red, all muscle
and nerve, and with wide magnificent horns. His yoke-fellow was a docile
steady worker, the pride of his owner's heart; but he himself seemed
never to have been more than half broken in. The woods appeared to draw
him by some spell. He wanted to get back to the pastures where he had
roamed untrammelled of old with his fellow-steers. The remembrance was
in his heart of the dewy mornings when the herd used to feed together on
the sweet grassy hillocks, and of the clover-smelling heats of June when
they would gather hock-deep in the pools under the green willow-shadows.
He hated the yoke, he hated the winter; and he imagined that in the wild
pastures he remembered it would be for ever summer. If only he could get
back to those pastures!

One day there came the longed-for opportunity; and he seized it. He was
standing unyoked beside his mate, and none of the teamsters were near.
His head went up in the air, and with a snort of triumph he dashed away
through the forest.

For a little while there was a vain pursuit. At last the lumbermen gave
it up. "Let him be!" said his owner, "an' I rayther guess he'll turn up
agin when he gits peckish. He kaint browse on spruce buds an'
lung-wort."

Plunging on with long gallop through the snow he was soon miles from
camp. Growing weary he slackened his pace. He came down to a walk. As
the lonely red of the winter sunset began to stream through the openings
of the forest, flushing the snows of the tiny glades and swales, he grew
hungry, and began to swallow unsatisfying mouthfuls of the long moss
which roughened the tree-trunks. Ere the moon got up he had filled
himself with this fodder, and then he lay down in a little thicket for
the night.

But some miles back from his retreat a bear had chanced upon his
foot-prints. A strayed steer! That would be an eas