In the seventh year of Kirstie’s exile, something occurred which gave the Settlement gossip a fresh impulse, and added a colour of awe to the mystery which surrounded the clearing.

The winter changed to a very open one, so that long before spring Kroof awoke in her lair under the pine root. There was not enough snow to keep her warm and asleep. But the ground was frozen, food was scarce, and she soon became hungry. Miranda observed her growing leanness, and tried the experiment of bringing her a mess of boiled beans from the cabin pot. To the hungry bear the beans were a revelation. She realized that Miranda’s mother was in some way connected with the experience, and her long reserve melted away in the warmth of her responsive palate. The next day, about noon, as Kirstie and Miranda were sitting down to their meal, Kroof appeared at the cabin door and sniffed longingly at the threshold.

“What’s that sniffing at the door?” wondered Kirstie, with some uneasiness in her grave voice. But Miranda had flown at once to the window to look out.

“Why, mother, it’s Kroof!” she cried, clapping her hands with delight, and before her mother could say a word, she had thrown the door wide open. In shambled the bear forthwith, blinking her shrewd little eyes. She seated herself on her haunches, near the table, and gazed with intent curiosity at the fire. At this moment a dry stick snapped and crackled sharply, whereupon she backed off to a safer distance, but still kept her eyes upon the strange phenomenon.

Both Kirstie and Miranda had been watching her with breathless interest, to see how she would comport herself, but now Miranda broke silence.

“Oh! you dear old Kroof, we’re so glad you’ve come at last to see us!” she cried, rushing over and flinging both arms around the animal’s neck. Kirstie’s face looked a doubtful indorsement of the welcome. Kroof paid no attention to Miranda’s caresses beyond a hasty lick at her ear, and continued to study the fascinating flames. This quietness of demeanour reassured Kirstie, whose hospitality thereupon asserted itself.

“Give the poor thing some buckwheat cakes, Miranda,” she said. “I’m sure she’s come because she’s hungry.”

Miranda preferred to think the visit was due to no such interested motives; but she at once took up a plate of cakes which she had drenched in molasses for the requirements of her own taste. She set the plate on the edge of the table nearest to her visitor, and gently pulled the bear’s snout down toward it. No second invitation was needed. The fire was forgotten. The enchanting smell of buckwheat cakes and molasses was a new one to Kroof’s nostrils, but the taste for it was there, full grown and waiting. Out went her narrow red tongue. The cakes disappeared rather more rapidly than was consistent with good manners: the molasses was deftly licked up, and with a grin of rapture she looked about for more. Just in front of Kirstie stood a heaping dish of the dainties hot from the griddle. With an eager but tentative paw Kroof reached out for them. This was certainly not manners. Kirstie removed the dish beyond her reach, while Miranda firmly pushed the trespassing paw from the table.

“No, Kroof, you shan’t have any more at all, unless you are good!” she admonished, with hortatory finger uplifted.

There are few animals so quick to take a hint as the bear, and Kroof’s wits had grown peculiarly alert during her long intimacy with Miranda. She submitted with instant meekness, and waited, with tongue hanging out, while Miranda prepared her a huge bowl of bread and molasses. When she had eaten this, she investigated everything about the cabin, and finally went to sleep on a mat in the corner of the inner room. Before sundown she got up and wandered off to her lair, being still drowsy with winter sleep.

After this the old bear came daily at noon to the cabin, dined with Kirstie and Miranda, and dozed away the afternoon on her mat in the chosen corner. Kirstie came to regard her as a member of the household. To the cattle and the poultry she paid no attention whatever. In a few days the oxen ceased to lower their horns as she passed; and the cock, Saunders’s equally haughty successor, refrained from the shrill expletives of warning with which he had been wont to herald her approach.

One afternoon, before spring had fairly set in, there came two unwelcome visitors to the cabin. In a lumber-camp some fifteen miles away, on a branch of the Quah-Davic, there had been trouble. Two of the “hands,” surly and mutinous all winter, had at last, by some special brutality, enraged the “boss” and their mates beyond all pardon. Hooted and beaten from the camp, they had started through the woods by the shortest road to the Settlement. Their hearts were black with pent-up fury. About three o’clock in the afternoon, they happened upon the clearing, and demanded something to eat.

Though sullen, and with a kind of menace in their air, their words were civil enough at first, and Kirstie busied herself to supply what seemed to her their just demands. The laws of hospitality are very binding in the backwoods. Miranda, meanwhile, not liking the looks of the strangers, kept silently aloof and scrutinized them.

When Kirstie had set before them a good meal,—hot tea, and hot boiled beans, and eggs, and white bread and butter,—they were disappointed because she gave them no pork, and they were not slow to demand it.

“I’ve got none,” said Kirstie; “we don’t eat pork here. You ought to get along well enough on what’s good enough for Miranda and me.”

For a backwoods house to be without pork, the indispensable, the universal, the lumberman’s staff of life, was something unheard of. They both thought she was keeping back the pork out of meanness.

“You lie!” exclaimed one, a lean, short, swarthy ruffian. The other got up and took a step toward the woman, where she stood, dauntlessly eying them. His scrubby red beard bristled, his massive shoulders hunched themselves ominously toward his big ears.

“You git that pork, and be quick about it!” he commanded, with the addition of such phrases of emphasis as the lumberman uses, but does not use in the presence of women.

“Beast!” exclaimed Kirstie, eyes and cheeks flaming. “Get out of this house.” And she glanced about for a weapon. But in a second the ruffian had seized her. Though stronger than most men, she was no match for him—a noted bully and a cunning master of the tricks of the ring. She was thrown in a second. Miranda, with a scream of rage, snatched up a table knife and darted to her mother’s aid; but the shorter ruffian, now delighted with the game, shouted: “Settle the old woman, Bill. I’ll see to the gal!” and made a grab for Miranda.

It had all happened so suddenly that Kirstie was, for a moment, stunned. Then, realizing the full horror of the situation, a strength as of madness came upon her. She set her teeth into the wrist of her assailant with such fury that he yelled and for a second loosed his hold. In that second, tearing herself half free, she clutched his throat with her long and powerful fingers. It was only an instant’s respite, but it was enough to divert the other scoundrel’s attention from Miranda. With a huge laugh he turned to free his mate from that throttling grip.

His purpose was never fulfilled. Kroof, just at this instant, thrust her nose from the door of the inner room, half awake, and wondering at the disturbance. Her huge bulk was like a nightmare. The swarthy wretch stood for an instant spellbound in amazement. With a savage growl, Kroof launched herself at him, and he, darting around the table, wrenched the door open and fled.