hore. The one in the bow laid down his pole and reached
back for his rifle. But the man in the stern intervened.

"What's the good o' shootin' him?" said he. "He can't git at us here,
an' we ain't a-wantin' for grub. Let him be!"

"That's so!" said the other, picking up his pole again. "But ain't he
handsome? An' mad, eh? How do you suppose he come here, anyways?"

"Strayed!" grunted the man in the stern, bending to his pole as the
canoe met a heavier rush of the current.

As the two voyagers pursued their strenuous way up-stream, rock and
eddy and "rip" consuming all their attention, the furious bull kept
abreast of them along the shore, splashing in the shallows and
bellowing his challenge, till at length a deep insetting of the
current compelled him to mount the bank, along which he continued his
vain pursuit for several miles. At last a stretch of dense swamp
headed him off, and the canoe vanished from his sight.

He was now in unknown territory, miles away from his meadows. His rage
against the men had all died out, but some faint stirring of inherited
instincts impelled him to follow for companionship. Had they suddenly
reappeared, close at hand, doubtless his rage would have burst forth
anew. But when they were gone, he had to follow. A dim intuition told
him that where they were going dwelt some kind of relief for his
loneliness. He skirted the swamp, rejoined the river, and kept slowly
on his way up-stream, pasturing as he went. He had turned his back for
ever on the water-meadows and the life of which he could not be a
part, and was off on the quest for that unknown which he felt to be
his own.

After two days of leisurely journeying he passed through a belt of
burnt lands, and had his curiosity mildly excited by a blackened
chimney rising from a heap of ruins near the water. Through this burnt
land he travelled swiftly; and about dawn of the fourth day of his
quest he came out upon the pasture-lands skirting the rear of the
settlement.

Here he found a rude but strong snake fence, at which he sniffed with
wonder. Then, beyond the fence, a creature shaped something like
himself, but red and white in colour, got up from among the misty
hillocks and stared at him. But for the colour, he might have thought
it was the little red mother who had vanished two years before. _This_
was what he had come for. This was the object of his quest. Two or
three other cows, and some young steers, presently arose and fel