shyness, so in a very
few minutes they were sprawling over each other in great content.

In this baby comradeship the stranger's mother, returning to her
household duties, found them. She was smaller and younger than our
Pup's dam, but with the same kindly eyes and the same salty-dripping
coat. So, when her own baby fell to nursing, the Pup insisted
confidently on sharing the entertainment. The young mother protested,
and drew herself away uneasily, with little threatening grunts; but
the Pup, refusing to believe she was in earnest, pressed his point so
pertinaciously that at length he got his way. When, half an hour
later, the other mother returned to her charge, well filled with fish
and well disposed toward all the world, she showed no discontent at
the situation. She belonged to the tribe of the "Harbor Seals," and,
unlike her pugnacious cousins, the big "Hoods," she was always
inclined towards peace and a good understanding. There was probably
nothing that could have brought the flame of wrath into her confiding
eyes, except an attack upon her young, on whose behalf she would have
faced the sea-serpent himself. Without a moment's question, she joined
the group; and henceforth the cave was the seat of a convenient
partnership in mothers.

It was perhaps a week or two later, when the islands were visited by a
wonderful spell of sun and calm. It was what would have been called,
farther south, Indian summer. All along the ledges, just above the
mark of the diminished surf, the seals lay basking in the glow. The
gulls and mews clamored rapturously, and squabbled with gay zest over
the choicer prizes of their fishing. It appeared to be generally known
that the bears, displeased at the warmth, had withdrawn farther north.
The sea took on strange hues of opal and lilac and thrice-diluted
sapphire. Even the high black cliffs across the charmed water veiled
their harshness in a skyey haze. It was a time for delicious
indolence, for the slackening of vigilance, for the forgetfulness of
peril. And it was just at this very time that it came the young
seal's way to get his first lesson in fear.

He was lying beside his mother, about a dozen feet out from the mouth
of the cave. A few steps away basked his little cave-mate--alone for
the moment, because its mother had flung herself vehemently down the
slope to capture a wounded fish which had just been washed ashore. As
she reached the water's edge, a wide shadow floated acros