"Waw - waw-waw!" yelled the great boastful Mato once more, but this time it was the tone of weakness and defeat. It was the cry of "Murder! murder! Help! help!"

get the usage of her people in a fight his assailant would not let go her vanwith his. She quickly jumped aside tage hold. when she found that she could not hold her position and there was danger of Mato slashing her side with either paw. She purposely threw herself upon her back, which position must have been pleasing to Mato, for he rushed upon her with all the confidence in the world, being ignorant of the trick.

It was not long before the old bear was forced to growl and howl unmercifully. He found that he could neither get in his best fight for himself nor get away from such a deadly and wily foe. He had hoped to chew her up in two winks, but this was a fatal mistake. She had sprung from the ground under him and hugged him tight by burying the immense claws of her fore paws in his hump, while her hind claws tore his loins and entrails. Thus he was left only his teeth to fight with; but even this was impossible, for she had pulled herself up close to his neck.

At last Igmutanka sprang aside, apparently to see how near dead the thief might be. She was all the time lashing her long, snaky tail in slow, dignified indignation.

"Waw-waw, yaw-waw!" moaned and groaned the grizzly, as he dragged himself away from the scene of the encounter. His wounds were deadly and ugly. He lay down in sight of the spot, as he could not go any farther. He moaned and groaned more and more faintly; then he was silent. The great fighter and victor in many battles is dead!

Five paces from the remains of the cached deer the victor, lying in the shade of an immense pine, rested and licked her blood-soaked hair. When Mato discovered his error he several ugly gashes, struggled desperately to get away, but necessarily mortal.

She had received but none of them Again she applied

her soil and pitch - pine remedy and stopped the hemorrhage. Having done this, she realized that she was still very hungry; but Igmu could not under any circumstances eat of the meat left and polluted by the thief. It was the custom of her people and she could not break it.

So Igmu went across from Blacktail to the nearest point upon Bear-runs-in-theLodge, her former home, hoping to find some game on the way. As she followed the ravine leading from the creek of her fight, she came upon a doe with her fawn. She crouched down and crawled up close to them, then jumped upon the fawn. The luscious meat-she had all she wanted!

The day was now well advanced, and the harassed mother was growing impatient to reach the babe which she had left in one of the abandoned homes of Mrs. Bobtail Beaver. The trip over the divide between Blacktail and Bear-runs was quickly made. Fear, loneliness, and anxiety preyed upon her mind, and her body was weakened by loss of blood and severe exertion. She dwelt continually on her two babes, so far apart, and her dread lest the wild men should get one or both of them.

and missed her baby, there would have been trouble in the family. But, as the event proved, the cousin had really done a good deed.

It was sad but unavoidable that Igmu should pass near her old home in returning for the other kitten. When she crawled along the rocky ledge in full view of the den, she wanted to stop. Yet she could not re-enter the home from which she had been forced to flee. It was not the custom of her people to do so. It is only the home that they vacate by chance that they may re-enter and even reoccupy-but never the home which they were forced to leave. There are evil spirits there.

Hurt and wearied, yet with courage unshaken, the poor savage mother glided along the stream. She saw Mrs. Bobtail and her old man cutting wood dangerously far from the water, but she could not stop and warn them, because she had borrowed one of their deserted houses without their permission.

"Mur-r-r-r!" What is this she hears? It is the voice of the wild man's coyotes! It comes from the direction of the kitten's hiding-place. Off she went, only pausing once or twice to listen; but it became more and more clear that there was yelling of the wild men as well.

She now ran along the high ledges, concealing herself behind trees and rocks, until she came to a point from which she could see the trouble. Quickly and stealthily she climbed a large pine. Behold, the little Igmu was up a small willow-tree! Three Indians were trying to shake him down, and their dogs were hilarious over the fun.

If Igmu had only known it, but one kitten was left to her at that moment. She had not left the cave on Cedar creek more than a few minutes when her own cousin, whom she had never seen and who lived near the Eagle's Nest upon the same creek, came out for a hunt. She intercepted her track and followed it. When she got to the den it was clear to Nakpaksa (Torn Ear) that this was not a regular home, so she had a right to enter and investigate. She found to her surprise a little Igmutanka baby in there, and he cried when he saw her and seemed to be hungry. He was the age of her own baby which she had left not long before, and she was not sure but that he was her own and that he had been stolen. He had evidently not been there Just then they shook the tree vigorouslong, and there was no one near to claim ly, while the poor little Igmu, clinging him. So she took him home with her. to the bough, yelled out pitifully, "WawThere she found her own kitten safe and waw-waw!" Mother-love and madness glad to have a playmate, and Nakpaksa now raged in her bosom. She could not decided, untroubled by any pangs of con- be quiet any longer. One or two long science, to keep him and bring him up as springs brought her to the tree. The her own. black coyotes and the wild men were surIt is clear that had Igmu returned prised. They fled for their lives.

Her eyes flamed once more with wrath and rebellion against injustice. neither man nor beast respect her rights? It was horrible! Down she came, and with swift and cautious step came within a very few paces of the tree before man or dog suspected her approach.

C

Champlain

EARLY AMERICAN PIONEERS.-I.

BY HENRY LOOMIS NELSON

but the exuberant race has produced others whose excitement has been qualified by their loyalty to conservatism. His father was an officer of the marine, and so likewise was an uncle, whose rank and talents were soon to be of great service to the youth.

HAMPLAIN, of all the Europeans Francis the First. He was a Provençal; who came to America on voyages of discovery or of adventure, was the first thorough explorer. He is known as the Father of New France, and this means that he was the first to establish a settlement in the part of the NorthAmerican continent that is now known as Canada. Others followed him, who established more liberal, more progressive, more intelligent and successful settlements, but Champlain was the first of the Europeans who trod this continent to plant a colony with the intention that its people and their descendants should become the inhabitants of the new country. That his colony did not flourish was due partly to his own limitations, and partly to the French government's incapacity to colonize,—in the face, at least, of English opposition. It is doubtful if any French colony could have existed against this opposition; it is certain that Champlain was not the man to overcome the hard political conditions which faced him, and to become the founder of a French empire in virgin woods which invited the race to rise above its traditions and to seize upon the fresh and rich opportunities of a new continent. The man was neither born nor bred to it, and the race could not comprehend the significance of the promise.

Champlain was born amid the civil and religious strifes of France in the sixteenth century. Somewhere about 1567 he came into the world, at Brouage, which is in the province of Saintonge. The town was the busy centre of the salt industry, and, besides, was a strongly fortified place where much fighting went on between the partisans of Henry of Navarre and of Charles, Cardinal of Bourbon. He came of the dutiful and loyal race of men who officered the French navy, which had been greatly built up not so many years before by

His time and his country bred not only strife, but visions, mysteries, superstitions, and all went, partly at least, to the fanning of angry passions. The existence of sorcery was recognized, and a statute of Henry VIII. had solemnly provided punishment for those who dealt in magic arts. Somewhat later, the ignorant and the malicious prevailed upon the pious and upon the courts in Massachusetts, in consequence of which honest men and women were hanged as witches. The air was full of voices like those which summoned Jeanne d'Arc to the redemption of France. These voices, with the dreams and portents which stirred the imaginations of the men of the sixteenth century, were interpreted according to the desires of the immediate subjects, or in harmony with the purposes and inclinations of others. Sometimes the subject of the spiritual visitation read the auguries for himself; then the conclusions were likely to be honest, although they might be foolish. Sometimes outside soothsayers were consulted, and then it was as likely as not discovered that the supernatural visitors foresaw what the interpreter wished would come about. It was the age not only of the mystic, of the dreamer, of the ardent imagination, of the devoted zealot, of the militant soldier of Catholicism or of Puritanism, but naturally also the age of the charlatan and the pretender; the age of the captain who willingly spent his life in the forests for the "glory of God and the honor of his king"; and the age of the missionary who suffered the tortures of the ingenious and cruel Iroquois in the