pleasant, moonlit berry-bushes. Here he was fondled and nosed and
licked and nursed by the delighted mother, till his bruised little
body forgot its hurts and his shaken little heart its fears. His
cautious brother, too, came up with a wise look and sniffed at him
patronizingly; but went away again with his nose in the air, as if to
say that here was much fuss being made over a very small matter.

THE GLUTTON OF THE GREAT SNOW

I

NORTHWARD interminably, and beneath a whitish, desolate sky, stretched
the white, empty leagues of snow, unbroken by rock or tree or hill, to
the straight, menacing horizon. Green-black, and splotched with snow
that clung here and there upon their branches, along the southward
limits of the barren crowded down the serried ranks of the ancient fir
forest. Endlessly baffled, but endlessly unconquered, the hosts of the
firs thrust out their grim spire-topped vanguards, at intervals, into
the hostile vacancy of the barren. Between these dark vanguards, long,
silent aisles of whiteness led back and gently upward into the heart
of the forest.

Out across one of these pale corridors of silence came moving very
deliberately a dark, squat shape with blunt muzzle close to the snow.
Its keen, fierce eyes and keener nostrils were scrutinizing the white
surface for the scent or trail of some other forest wanderer.
Conscious of power, in spite of its comparatively small stature--much
less than that of wolf or lynx, or even of the fox--it made no effort
to conceal its movements, disguise its track or keep watch for
possible enemies. Stronger than any other beast of thrice its size, as
cunning as the wisest of the foxes, and of a dogged, savage temper
well known to all the kindred of the wild, it seemed to feel secure
from ill-considered interference.

Less than three feet in length, but of peculiarly massive build, this
dark, ominous-looking animal walked flat-footed, like a bear, and with
a surly heaviness worthy of a bear's stature. Its fur, coarse and
long, was of a sooty gray-brown, streaked coarsely down each flank
with a broad yellowish splash meeting over the hind quarters. Its
powerful, heavy-clawed feet were black. Its short muzzle and massive
jaw, and its broad face up to just above the eyes, where the fur came
down thickly, were black also. The eyes themselves, peering out
beneath overhanging brows, gleamed with a mixture of sullen
intelligence and implacable savagery. In its slow,