208
The Nest of the Mallard 221
Mrs. Gammit and the Porcupines 230
The Battle in the Mist 262
Melindy and the Spring Bear 271

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Red McWha's big form shot past." _Frontispiece_

"One of these monstrous shapes neglected to
vanish." 18

"'It's--Mandy Ann!'" 66

"Where anything from a baby's rattle to a bag of
fertilizer could be purchased." 99

"He was roused by a sudden shot." 185

"He realized that he was caught by the foot." 201

The Vagrants of the Barren

With thick smoke in his throat and the roar of flame in his ears, Pete
Noel awoke, shaking as if in the grip of a nightmare. He sat straight
up in his bunk. Instantly he felt his face scorching. The whole cabin
was ablaze. Leaping from his bunk, and dragging the blankets with him,
he sprang to the door, tore it open, and rushed out into the snow.

But being a woodsman, and alert in every sense like the creatures
of the wild themselves, his wits were awake almost before his body
was, and his instincts were even quicker than his wits. The
desolation and the savage cold of the wilderness had admonished him
even in that terrifying moment. As he leaped out in desperate
flight, he had snatched with him not only the blankets, but his
rifle and cartridge-belt from where they stood by the head of the
bunk, and also his larrigans and great blanket coat from where they
lay by its foot. He had been sleeping, according to custom, almost
fully clothed.

Outside in the snow he stood, blinking through scorched and smarting
lids at the destruction of his shack. For a second or two he stared
down at the things he clutched in his arms, and wondered how he had
come to think of them in time. Then, realizing with a pang that he
needed something more than clothes and a rifle, he flung them down on
the snow and made a dash for the cabin, in the hope of rescuing a hunk
of bacon or a loaf of his substantial woodsman's bread. But before he
could reach the door a licking flame shot out and hurled him back,
half blinded. Grabbing up a double handful of snow, he bu