ness in attacking human beings, and its terrible strength. In some
respects it is even more to be feared than that monarch of the North
American wilderness the grizzly bear, for the former, belonging to the
cat family, is a famous tree-climber, which the latter is not.

These thoughts, together with all the stories he had ever read of
mountain-lions, flashed through the lad's mind in the few minutes that
elapsed between the first and third of those terrible cries. Before it
could utter another the fearful beast would be upon him, and with tense
muscles he braced himself for the coming conflict. He would not have a
chance for more than one shot. If it failed him, all would be lost.

The sound of the third wailing cry had hardly died away when, with a
gasp half of relief that the suspense was ended, half of dread, Phil
caught a momentary glimpse of a brown furry object moving through the
trees. It would next appear from behind yonder clump of bushes. The
rifle was slowly lifted, a deliberate sight was taken along its shining
barrel, and then, as the furry object appeared at the precise point
where it was expected, the forest echoed with its ringing shot. But the
bullet had not been allowed to fulfil its fatal mission. One blessed
instant had been granted, even as the trigger was pressed, in which to
give the barrel a slight upward jerk, and deflect the leaden messenger
from its deadly course.

The rifle fell from Phil's nerveless hand, as weak and faint he leaned
against a friendly tree trunk. As he stood there, staring with still
unbelieving eyes, a little fur-clad child, not more than four years old,
walking on the tiniest of snow-shoes, came close to him, smiled
trustfully up in his face, and, holding out a small mittened hand, said:

[Illustration: "COME, MAN. COME WIF NEL-TE. MAMMA SAY COME."]

"Come, man. Come wif Nel-te. Mamma say come."

If Phil had been nearly paralyzed with horror to discover, as his eye
glanced along the levelled rifle-barrel, that he was aiming at a human
being, he was almost equally staggered at hearing the fur-clad atom who
called himself Nel-te, address him in English. How could it be? Who was
he? How came he there, alone in that vast wilderness of trackless
forest, ice, and snow? Where had the child spent the night just passed,
that had been so filled with terrors to him? How had he lived through
it? Where was his mother?

All these questions and more he asked the child, as he sat on