upon her in a fume of amazed
indignation; but in some way she made him understand that the
porcupine was above all law, and not to be trifled with even by the
lords of the wilderness. Very sulkily he lay down again, and the
porcupine went on chiselling hemlock bark, serenely unconscious of the
anger in the inscrutable yellow eyes that watched him from the ram's
black face.

When the shadows grew long and luminous, toward evening, the ram,
following some unexplained instinct, again mounted the topmost point
of Ringwaak, and stood like a statue gazing over the vast,
warm-coloured solitude of his new domain. His yellow eyes were placid
with a great content. A little below him, the white lamb wobbling on
weak legs at her side, the ewe pastured confidently, secure in the
proved prowess of her protector. As the sun dropped below the far-off
western rim of the forest, it seemed as if one wide wave of lucent
rose-violet on a sudden flooded the world. Everything on Ringwaak--the
ram's white fleece, the gray, bleached stumps, the brown hillocks, the
green hollows and juniper clumps and poplar saplings--took on a
palpitating aerial stain. Here and there in the distance the coils of
the river gleamed clear gold; and overhead, in the hollow
amber-and-lilac arch of sky, the high-wandering night-hawks swooped
with the sweet twang of smitten strings.

Down at the foot of the northern slope of Ringwaak lay a dense cedar
swamp. Presently, out from the green fringe of the cedars, a bear
thrust his head and cast a crafty glance about the open. Seeing the
ram on the hilltop and the ewe with her lamb feeding near by, he sank
back noiselessly into the cover of the cedars, and stole around toward
the darkening eastern slope, where a succession of shrubby copses ran
nearly to the top of the hill.

The bear was rank, rusty-coated, old, and hungry; and he loved sheep.
He was an adept in stalking this sweet-fleshed, timorous quarry, and
breaking its neck with a well-directed blow as it dashed past him in a
panic. Emerging from the swamp, he crept up the hill, taking cunning
advantage of every bush, stump, and boulder. For all his awkward
looking bulk, he moved as lightly as a cat, making himself small, and
twisting and flattening and effacing himself; and never a twig was
allowed to snap, or a stone to clatter, under his broad, unerring
feet.

About this time it chanced that the backwoodsman, who had been out
nearly all day hunting for his