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mastering sleep of boyhood if I were left alone. Soon we were on our way by the starlight. Leaving the high road as soon as we were clear of the village, our way led us through gates and bars to a remote farm-house, near which we left the wagon, and walked on through the fields and black-grass marshes until we reached the beach, whose sand-dunes lay between the great enclosed pond and the sea. An odd place for a boy at such an hour, but it gave him sights he can never forget.

No sign of day had come. East and west ran the beach. Moving eastward until we reached a favorable point, we seated ourselves in the sand to wait, still

facing the morning. On our left and onward lay the broad pond, beyond it the low-lying land silhouetted against the faintly luminous sky, and mingled below with its own reflections, these again shading off into the ripplings that broke the surface which returned the light from above. Away in the dark reflex a narrow ribbon, darker still. From it came a confused rustle, and presently the call of an old black duck or blue-bill drake, and a solemn "honk" told that the ribbon was not a shadow. Under the starlight the beach-sand glimmered gray against the darker beach hummocks. To the right lay the ocean, dark with a great dark

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ness which is not blackness-rather the potentiality of all color broken only by the whitening gleam of the breakers which came with the rhythm of the breathing of a very heavy sleeper.

Minute by minute the light increases. A louder sound, as of a commotion, comes from the raft of ducks. Out of the shadow comes a dark spot moving with wonderful speed. It passes seaward, a black duck out of range. The eye following it sees that the ocean hue is less

dark, it is purple. Into the purple come every moment more and more hints of rose and along the horizon spreads the gleam of dawn. More and more frequently come birds from the raft now evident in the far shallows. Each in its flight carries the eye back again to that southeastern sky, rosier and more golden every instant. The sea has taken on prismatic power; green and blue

by one who had known the whole of it. Faithful he surely was, even to those who ill repaid his loyalty.

The duck clean killed.-Page 39.

touches are mingled with the rose and yellow. The glory in the sky will no longer take denial; the eye cannot wander from the solemn orb as it rises above the sea. The great miracle of daybreak is done.

After I was twelve I rarely saw these brooks, and soon the old seaside village ceased to be my home. I visited it only at long intervals. Whenever I did go, of course I saw David. As I became a man I realized that his goodness to me was but an expression of his chief characteristics, kindness and loyalty. Faithful to those he serves," was the summing up of his life

In my grown years I had little chance to go afield with him. He had come to live in the old sea-side village. My holidays were in the heat of summer when the trout were in hiding and the flights had not begun. Twice only did we fish together and but once for trout. That was an important day. David had a new rod to show which my brother had sent him from a New York shop, and we had with us a boy of another generation, and it seemed incumbent upon us to induct him into the mystery. The summer-shrunken stream gave us no trout, but from the shelter of the kitchen of the farm - house on the hill, we watched the thunder-shower drive over the headlands and the water.

Finally came a visit when the twinkle of David's eye

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and the grasp of his hand did not greet me. I could do no more than mark his resting-place. Climbing to it from the road the hillside burying-ground seems lonely under the gray sky. Turn about. Below lie the road he used to follow, the fields and meadows through which he used to wander, the houses which welcomed him. Here are "the streams he loved, the streams that knew his hand,” and there are the marshes and the moors which echoed to his gun. From the blue expanse beyond the south wind brings the rote of the ocean.

man.

By Ernest Seton-Thompson

ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR

PART II

EE was a young, warmhearted, impulsive cattleFor a day or two he hung about the shanty. The loss of his three friends was a sad blow: he had no heart for more mountaineering. But a few days later, a spell of bracing weather helped his spirits, and he agreed, when Scotty suggested a hunt. They reached the upper level when Scotty, who had from time to time been scanning the hills with his glass, suddenly exclaimed:

"Hell! If thar ain't the old Gunder Ram; thought he was smashed in Skinkler's Gulch," and he sat down in amazement. Lee took the glass and he recognized the wonderful Ram by his superb horns; the color rushed to the young man's face. Now was his chance for glory and revenge at once! "Poor old Bran, good Rollo, and Ida !"

But few animals have cunning enough to meet the combined drive and ambush. Scotty knew the lay of the land as well as the habits of the Ram.

"He ain't agoin' to run down the wind and he ain't agoin' to quit the rocks. That means he'll pass up by the Gunder Peak, if he moves at all, an' he must take one side or the other. He won't go the west side if I show meself once that ar way. So you take the east, I'll give you two hours to get placed. I've a notion he'll cross that spur by that ledge."

Lee set out for his post, Scotty waited two hours, then moved on to a high ridge and clear against the sky he waved his arms and walked up and down a few times. The Ram was not in sight, but Scotty knew he would see.

Then the old mountaineer circled back by hidden ways to the south and began to walk and cut over the ridges toward the place where the Ram had been. He did not expect to see old Krag, but he did ex

pect the Ram to see him. Lee was at his post and, after a brief spell, he sighted the great Ram himself bounding lightly down a ridge a mile away, and close behind him were three Ewes. They disappeared down a pine-clad hollow, and when they reappeared on the next ridge they were running as though in great alarm, their ears laid back and from the hollow behind came, not as Lee expected, the “crack" of Scotty's rifle, or the sound of his yell, but the hunting chorus of Timber Wolves. Among the rocks the Sheep could easily escape, but among the timber or on the level such as now lay ahead, the advantage was with the Wolves and a minute later these swept up in sight, five shaggy furry monsters. The level open was crossed at whirling speed. The Sheep, racing for their lives, soon lengthened out into a procession in order of speed. Far ahead the great Ram, behind him, with ten-yard gaps between each, the three Ewes, and forty yards behind the last the five grim Wolves-closing, gaining at every leap. The benchland narrowed eastward to pass a rocky shoulder. Long years and countless perils had taught the Sheep that in the rocks was safety, and that way led the Ram. But in the tangled upland birch the last of the Ewes was losing ground, she gasped a short " baah," as thrown by a curling root she lost a few more precious yards. The Wolves were almost within leaping distance when Krag reached the shoulder ledge. But a shoulder above means a ravine below. In a moment, at that call of distress, Krag wheeled on the narrow ledge and faced the foe. He stood to one side and the three Ewes leapt past him and on to safety. Then on came the Wolves with a howl of triumph. Many a Sheep had they pulled down and now they knew they soon would feast. Without a pause they closed, but in such a narrow pass it was one at a time. The

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leader sprang, but those death-dealing fangs closed only on a solid mass of horn and back of that was a force that crushed his head against himself and dashed him at his friend behind with such a fearful vim that both were hurled over the cliff to perish on the rocks. On came the rest, the Ram had no time to back up for a charge, but a sweep of that great head was enough, the points, forefronting now, as they did when he was a Lamb, speared and hurled the next Wolf and the next, and then Krag found a chance to back up and gather his force. None but a mad Wolf could have failed to take warning, but on he came and Krag, in savage glory of the fight, let loose that living thunderbolt-himself—and met the last of the furry monsters with a shock that crushed him flat against the rock, then picked him up on his horns as he might a rag and hurled him farthest yet, and standing on the edge he watched him whirl and gasp till swallowed in the chasm.

The great Ram raised his splendid head, blew a long blast from his nostrils like a war-horse and gazed a moment to see if more were coming, then turned and lightly bounded after the Ewes he had so ably guarded.

From his hiding-place young Lee took in the whole scene with eager, blazing eyes. Only fifty yards away from him it had passed.

He was an easy mark, fifty yards standing—he was a splendid mark, all far beyond old Scotty's wildest talk; but Lee had seen a deed that day that stirred his blood. He felt no wish to end that life, but sat with brightened eyes and said, with fervor: "You grand old warrior! I do not care if you did kill my dogs. You did it fair. I'll never harm you. For me you may go in safety."

But the Ram never knew; and Scotty never understood.

II

THERE was once a wretch who, despairing of other claims to notice, thought to achieve a name by destroying the most beautiful building on earth. This is the mind of the head-hunting sportsman. The nobler the thing that he destroys, the greater the deed, the greater his pleasure, VOL. XXX.-5

and the greater he considers his claim to fame.

During the years that followed more than one hunter saw the great Ram, and feasted his covetous eyes on his unparalleled horns. His fame even reached the cities. Dealers in the wonderful offered fabulous prices for the head that bore them -set blood money on the life that grew them, and many came to try their luck, and failed. Then Scotty, always needy, was fired by a yet larger money offer, and setting out with his partner they found the Ram, with his harem about him. But in three days of hard following they never got a second glimpse, and the partner "reckoned thar was easier money to git" and returned home.

But back of Scotty's sinister gray eyes was the fibre of dogged persistency that has made his race the masters of the world. He returned with Mitchell to the shanty, but only to prepare for a long and obstinate hunt. His rifle, his blanket, his pipe, with matches, tobacco, a pot, a bundle of jerked venison and three or four pounds of chocolate, were all he carried. He returned alone next day to the place where he had left the track of the Ram and followed it fast in the snow; winding about in and out and obscured by those of his band, but always distinguishable by its size. Once or twice Scotty came on the spots where the band had been lying down and from time to time he scanned the distance with his glass. But he saw nothing of them. At night he camped on their trail, next day he took it up again; after following for hours, he came on the place where evidently the Ram had stopped to watch him afar, and so knew of his pursuer. Thenceforth the trail of the band for a long time was a single line as they headed for distant pastures.

Scotty followed doggedly behind, all day he followed, and at night, in a little hollow, crouched like a wild beast in his lair, with this difference only, he had a fire and he smoked a pipe in very human fashion. In the morning he went on as before—once or twice in the far distance he saw the band of sheep travelling steadily southward. Next day passed and the Sheep were driven to the south end of the Yak-i-ni-kak range, just north of Whitefish Lake.

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