all the Shamattawa country. Big as cherries, black as ink, and swelling
almost to the bursting point with luscious juice, they hung in clusters
so thick that Neewa could gather them by the mouthful. Nothing in all
the wilderness is quite so good as one of these dead-ripe black
currants, and this coulee wherein they grew so richly Neewa had
preempted as his own personal property. Miki, too, had learned to eat
the currants; so to the coulee they went this afternoon, for such
currants as these one can eat even when one is already full. Besides,
the coulee was fruitful for Miki in other ways. There were many young
partridges and rabbits in it--"fool hens" of tender flesh and delicious
flavour which he caught quite easily, and any number of gophers and
squirrels.

To-day they had scarcely taken their first mouthful of the big juicy
currants when an unmistakable sound came to them. Unmistakable because
each recognized instantly what it meant. It was the tearing down of
currant bushes twenty or thirty yards higher up the coulee. Some robber
had invaded their treasure-house, and instantly Miki bared his fangs
while Neewa wrinkled up his nose in an ominous snarl. Soft-footed they
advanced toward the sound until they came to the edge of a small open
space which was as flat as a table. In the centre of this space was a
clump of currant bushes not more than a yard in girth, and black with
fruit; and squatted on his haunches there, gathering the laden bushes
in his arms, was a young black bear about four sizes larger than Neewa.

In that moment of consternation and rage Neewa did not take size into
consideration. He was much in the frame of mind of a man returning home
to discover his domicile, and all it contained, in full possession of
another. At the same time here was his ambition easily to be
achieved--his ambition to lick the daylight out of a member of his own
kind. Miki seemed to sense this fact. Under ordinary conditions he
would have led in the fray, and before Neewa had fairly got started,
would have been at the impudent interloper's throat. But now something
held him back, and it was Neewa who first shot out--like a black
bolt--landing squarely in the ribs of his unsuspecting enemy.

(Old Makoki, the Cree runner, had he seen that attack, would instantly
have found a name for the other bear--"Petoot-a-wapis-kum," which
means, literally: "Kicked-off-his-Feet." Perhaps he would have called
him "Pete" for short. For the Cr