fore
hurrying to them.

"One summer morning I found her at the kitchen door waiting to be let
out. I opened the door and watched her go tripping down the steps.
When she started across the yard I cautioned her to 'be a little lady,
and don't get too far away.' Rex was away that morning, and soon one
of the girls went out to call her. Repeated calls brought no answer.
We all started searching. We wondered if the cat had caught her, or if
she had been lured away by the winning calls of her kind. Beneath a
cherry tree near the kitchen door, just as Rex came home, we found
her, bloody and dead. Rex, after pushing her body tenderly about with
his nose, as if trying to help her to rise, looked up and appealed
piteously to us. We buried her beneath the rosebush near which she
and Rex had played."

Kinnikinick

The kinnikinick is a plant pioneer. Often it is the first plant to
make a settlement or establish a colony on a barren or burned-over
area. It is hardy, and is able to make a start and thrive in places so
inhospitable as to afford most plants not the slightest foothold. In
such places the kinnikinick's activities make changes which alter
conditions so beneficially that in a little while plants less hardy
come to join the first settler. The pioneer work done by the
kinnikinick on a barren and rocky realm has often resulted in the
establishment of a flourishing forest there.

The kinnikinick, or _Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi_, as the botanists name
it, may be called a ground-loving vine. Though always attractive, it
is in winter that it is at its best. Then its bright green leaves
and red berries shine among the snow-flowers in a quiet way that is
strikingly beautiful.

Since it is beautiful as well as useful, I had long admired this
ever-cheerful, ever-spreading vine before I appreciated the good
though humble work it is constantly doing. I had often stopped to
greet it,--the only green thing upon a rock ledge or a sandy
stretch,--had walked over it in forest avenues beneath tall and
stately pines, and had slept comfortably upon its spicy, elastic
rugs, liking it from the first. But on one of my winter tramps I
fell in love with this beautiful evergreen.

The day was a cold one, and the high, gusty wind was tossing and
playing with the last snow-fall. I had been snowshoeing through the
forest, and had come out upon an unsheltered ridge that was a part
of a barren area which repeated fires had changed from a fo