hawnees or Delawares prowling around
the forts."

"They have not made any open attack for some time now," suggested Israel
Boone.

Henry shook his head as he said: "That means they only wait. Pretty soon
you see. They feel for white men like wolf feel for bear."

"And that is about the same love that a dog has for a cat," suggested
Peleg with a laugh.

"That is it," acknowledged Henry soberly. "I never know why bear and
wolf no like each other. They kill many other things, but when wolf
find trail of bear he call to all his friends and they begin to chase
Mr. Bear. One day I saw a pack of wolves chasing big bear."

"Was the bear running from them?" inquired Israel.

"Yes, he run much fast. By and by he come to place where he can go no
more, then he stand up with his back to tree, and the way he cuff those
wolves first one side, then on other, make me laugh."

"Yes," said Peleg, "I have seen the same thing myself. It is like the
feeling that Sam Oliver says the otter has for the beaver."

"Or the mink for the ermine," suggested Israel.

"Both mink and ermine bad as they can be," said Henry, shaking his head.
"They kill all things not so strong as they."

"Yes," suggested Peleg, "I think the mink and ermine are about the worst
animals alive. The mink is three or four times as big as the ermine is
and has a good deal more strength----"

"But the ermine so quick," interrupted Henry. "He so quick," he
repeated, "and he most bloodthirsty little animal in the forest. When he
begin to fight he always fight on until either he is killed or mink is
killed."

"Sam Oliver was telling me the last time he was in the settlement," said
Peleg, "that last winter he was trailing a fox that was chasing a
rabbit, and when Sam came to his trap-line he heard, away off to one
side, a mink scream. He says you can hear a mink scream almost a quarter
of a mile away. He was trapping minks and he thought he had one caught,
so he turned and started for his trap. When he got there he saw, so he
said, the biggest fight he ever saw in the woods. A mink was caught in
his trap and an ermine was fighting him.

"Pretty quick he saw that instead of there being only one there were two
of the ermine. They kept walking around the mink in a circle and kept
going faster and faster until by and by one of them, quick as lightning,
right in front of the mink, jumped for him, and almost at the same time
the other ermine jumped in, too, and tried to ge