full day's tramp back from the settlement, on the edge of a water-meadow beside the lonely Quah-Davic, stood the old woodsman's cabin. Beside it he had built a snug log-barn, stored with hay from the wild meadow. The hay he had made that August, being smitten with a desire for some touch of the civilization to which as a whole he could not reconcile himself. Then, with a still enthusiasm, he had built his barn, chinking its crevices scrupulously with moss and mud. He had resolved to have a cow. The dream that gave new zest to all his waking hours was the fashioning of a little farm in this sunny, sheltered space about his cabin. He had grown somewhat weary of living by trap and snare and gun, hunting down the wild creatures whom he had come to regard, through lapse of the long, solitary years by the Quah-Davic, as in some sense comrade and kin to him. It was late autumn, and the asters fading out When the long-horned little cow had been salted and foddered in the new barn, and when her liquid eyes had taken in the surroundings of the sunny little meadow and cabin by the lonely Quah-Davic, she was well enough content, and the mellow tunk-a-tonk, tank tonk of her bell was sounded never out of ear-shot from the cabin. The meadow and the nearest fringes of the woods were range enough for her. Of the perils that might lurk in the further depths she had a wary apprehension. And the old woodsman, busy grubbing out a narrow cellar under his cabin, was happy in his purchase. The tunk-a-tonk of the mellow bell was sweetest music in his ears as he worked. Now it chanced that that autumn was one of A little anxious, he studied the signs minutely, and concluded that, the wind being light, the fires were too far distant to endanger the Quah-Davic region. Thereupon he decided to make a hurried trip to the settlement for a sack of middlings and other supplies, planning to return by night, making the round trip within the twenty-four hours in order that the little red cow should not miss more than one milking. On the afternoon of the woodsman's going, however, the wind freshened into a gale, and the fires which had been eating leisurely way through the forest were blown into sudden fury. That same evening a hurricane of flame swept down upon the The red cow, meanwhile, being shrewd and alert, had escaped the conflagration. She had taken alarm early, having seen a fire in the woods once before and conceived an appreciation of its powers. Instead of flying straight before it, and being inevitably overtaken, she ran at once to the river and galloped madly down the shallow margin. Before the flames were actually upon her, she was beyond the zone of their fury. But she felt the withering blast of them, and their appalling roar was in her ears. With starting eyes and wide, palpitating nostrils, she ran on and on, and stopped only when she sank exhausted in a rude cove. There she lay with The next day she wandered some miles farther down the Quah-Davic, till she came to a neighbourhood where the water-meadows were strung thickly along the stream and where the pasturage, though now dry and untasty, was abundant. Back from the water-meadows was a region of low hills covered with a second growth of young birches and poplars. Among the hills were ravines thick with hemlock and spruce. Here she established herself, and at night, either because she missed the narrow quarters of her stable, or because some wild instinct within her led her to adapt herself quickly to the ways of the wild kindred, she would make her lair in the deepest and most sheltered of the ravines, where a peculiarly dense hemlock veiled the front of an overhanging rock. This retreat was almost as snug as her old stable; and, lying down with her long horns toward the opening, she felt comparatively secure. As a matter of fact, though all these woods of the Quah-Davic were populous with the furtive folk, the little red cow saw few signs of life. She was surrounded, wherever she moved, by a wide ring of resentful solitude. The inexplicable tunk-a-tonk, tunk, tonk of her deep-throated bell was disquieting Till the snow fell deep, covering the dry grass on the meadows, the little cow throve well enough. But when the northern winter had fairly settled in, and the great white stillness lay like sleep upon the ancient wood, and the fir-trees, with their cloaking of snow, were so many spires and domes and pinnacles of glittering marble under the icy sunlight, then the wanderer would have starved if she had not chanced to be both resourceful and indomitable. From her lair under the hemlock, which was sheltered from all winds, her deeply trodden trail led both to the meadows and the birchen hill-slopes. She could paw her way down to the deep-buried grasses; but it took so much digging to uncover a few poor and unsatisfying mouthfuls that she could never have kept herself alive in this fashion. Being adaptable, however, she soon accustomed herself to Into this unfriendly world, when the painted trilliums and the purple wake-robins were dotting every half-exposed glade, was born a sturdy bull-calf. His sire was a handsome black half-breed Durham which had been brought into the settlement the previous summer for the improvement of the scrubby backwoods stock. The calf was jet-black in colour. As he grew, he soon began to show hints of his sire's broad forehead and massive fore-quarters. He had his mother's large, half-wild, discriminating eyes; and his legs, soon throwing off the straddling awkwardness of calfhood, developed his mother's almost deer-like activity. The summer passed uneventfully for the pair of aliens in the wilderness. With abundant pasturage on the Quah-Davic water-meadows, they had no occasion to wander into the perils of the deep wood; and the little red cow had none of that prevision of Once only, late in the autumn, did he get a glimpse of the old Quah-Davic panther. He and his mother were lying in the sun by the meadow's edge, comfortably chewing the cud, when the long, tawny beast, following their trail with more curiosity than hunger, came upon them suddenly, and stopped short about twenty paces distant. The little red cow, recognizing the most dangerous of all her possible enemies, had sprung to her feet with a bellow and lowered her defiant horns. Thereupon, the panther had slunk off with a whipped look and a drooping tail; and the little black bull conceived a poor opinion of panthers. But it was the sudden It was much the same with the bears, who were numerous about the Quah-Davic. They regarded the noisy bell with hatred and invincible suspicion. But for that, they would probably have put the red cow's horns to the test, and in all likelihood the career of the lonely alien would have come to an end ere the snow fell. As it was, however, the black bull-calf never saw a bear in any attitude save that of sulkily slinking away from his mother's neighbourhood; and therefore, in that first summer of his life, he conceived a very dangerous contempt for bears. As for the lynxes,—those soundless-footed, gray shadows of the wild,—neither he nor his mother ever saw them, so fearful were they of the voice of the bell. But their screeches and harsh caterwaulings often filled his heart with wonder. Fear he had as yet had no occasion to learn; and therefore he had little real part in the ever-watchful life of the wilderness. The next winter was a hard one for all the beasts of the Quah-Davic; and, ere it went by, the lair under the hemlocks was surrounded by many lynx tracks. But to neither red cow nor black calf did Late in the following summer, when the fireweed was beginning to crimson the open spaces on the hillside, fate came to the water-meadows in a form which the bell was powerless to avert. An Indian, paddling down the Quah-Davic to the sea, caught sight of the red cow drinking by the waterside. He knew there was no settlement within leagues. He knew the cow was a stray, and therefore no man's property. He knew he wanted fresh meat, to say nothing of cowhide for moccasins and thongs. Up went his big smooth-bore muzzle-loader. There was a deafening, clattering report, unlike the smart detonation of a rifle. The little red cow fell on her knees, with a cough and a wild When he came back, hours later, the Indian had vanished, and, with that strident bellow of his, from which the calf-bleat was not yet quite gone, he trotted down the bank to look for his mother. But the smell of fresh blood, and the red spectacle which he saw on the pebbles of the river-beach, struck a new and madder terror into his heart. With stiffly uplifted tail and staring eyes, he dashed away again into the woods. From that day he never again went near that particular meadow; neither, though for days he called to her in his loneliness, did he search any more for the mother who had so suddenly disappeared out of his life. Standing on the edge of a bluff, in the fading sunset, he would thrust his head and neck out straight and bellow his sonorous appeal. Then he would stop and listen long for an answer. And as he called, evening after evening in vain, a deeper, surer tone came into his voice, a more self-reliant, Again came autumn to the Quah-Davic, with the pale blue smoke of asters along the meadow-ledges, the pale gold glimmer of birches on the slopes, and the wax-vermilion bunches of the rowan-berries reflected in each brown pool. By this time the black bull was of the stature of a well-grown two-year-old, massive in the shoulder, lean and fine in limb and flank, with a cushion of dense, close, inky curls between his horns. The horns themselves—very short, thick, keen-pointed spikes of horns—were not set forward, but stood out absolutely straight on either side of his broad black head. Young though he was, he was an ominous figure to all the furtive eyes that watched him, as he stood and bellowed from his bluff in the fading sunset. About this time it was that the young bull began to find the solitude more populous. Since the voice of the bronze bell was hushed, the wild creatures were no longer held aloof. Hitherto the red squirrels and the indifferent, arrogant porcupines were the only animals he had noticed. But now he saw an occasional slim and snaky mink at its fishing; or a red fox stealing down upon the duck asleep in the lily patch; or a weasel craftily trailing one of The bull's next important acquaintance was the lynx. He was lying under a scarlet maple, chewing his cud, and lazily watching a rabbit scratching its ears some dozen paces distant. Suddenly a soundless gray shadow shot from a thicket and dropped upon the rabbit. There was a squeak, a feeble scuffle; and then a big lynx, setting the claws of one paw into the prey, turned with a snarl and eyed venomously the still, dark form under the maple. This seemed like a challenge. With a mixture of curiosity and indignation, the young bull got up, grunted, pawed the earth once or twice by way of ceremony, and emerged to the encounter. But the A few days later, as the bull again lay under the scarlet maple and looked out contemplatively over his yellow autumn world, a large bear lumbered past, taking his own well-beaten trail to the waterside. The bull lurched to his feet, and stood on guard, for this was a formidable-looking stranger. But the bear, fed fat with autumn berries, was at peace with all the world. He gave the black bull a shrewd glance out of his little cunning eyes, and paid no further attention; and the bull, seeing no incentive to a quarrel, snorted doubtfully and lay down again. After this he saw several more bears, but, being well fed and lazy, they made no effort to molest him. Then, one unfortunate day, as he came up dripping from his favourite pool, he met one face to face. The bear was surprised, and halted. He half-settled back upon his haunches, as if to turn aside and yield the path. Then he thought better of it and held his ground, being at the moment good-natured enough, but careful of his dignity, as a bear is apt to be. The young bull, however, was enraged at this obstinate intrusion upon his trail. He was The bear, poising himself upon three legs, gracefully and lightly avoided the attack, and at the same instant delivered a terrific buffet upon the young bull's neck. The blow struck low, where the muscles were corded and massive, or the neck would have been broken. As it was, the bull went staggering to his knees at one side of the trail, the blood spurting from his wounds. In that moment he realized that he was not yet a match for a full-grown bear. Smarting with pain and wrath, he rushed on up the trail, and hid himself in the old lair under the hemlock. When again, some days later, he met another bear, he made haste to yield the right of way. In the wild, as in the world, to be once beaten is to invite the fist of fate. While the young bull's wounds were still red and raw, there came a big-antlered, high-shouldered bull-moose to the bluff overlooking the Quah-Davic. The moose was surprised at sight of the short-legged, black animal on the bluff. But it was rutting season, and his surprise soon gave way to indignation. The black bull, whose careless eyes had not yet noticed the The next winter set in early and severe, driving the drowsy bears into their winter quarters and their long, snow-comforted sleep before they had time to get hungry and dangerous. The lynxes, no longer mystified by the voice of the bell, came prowling about the lair beneath the hemlock, but the sullen front and angry, lonely eyes of the black bull held them in awe. Not even in the worst of the cold, when they had taken to hunting together in a loosely organized pack, did they dare to trouble the bull. When spring came, it found him a big, burly three-year-old, his temper beginning to sour with an unhappiness which he did not understand; and by the time the bears came hungry from their winter sleep he was quite too formidable to be meddled with. Stung by humiliating memories, he attacked with fury every bear he saw; and they soon learned to give him a wide berth. As the summer wore along, his loneliness grew more bitter and distracting. He would spend sometimes a full hour upon the bluff, when the yellow day was fading into dusk, bellowing his calls across the stillness, and waiting for he knew not what reply. He was now a huge and daunting figure. The black bull's heart swelled with wrath and longing. With a roar he charged down from the bluff; and the moose, diverted from his wooing, turned to meet the assault. But he was no match for this dreadful black bulk that descended upon him with the resistlessness of doom. He went down at the first crash, a pathetic sprawl of long limbs and long, ineffective, beautiful antlers; and barely escaping with his life, he fled away into the thickets. Then, satisfied with his victory, the black bull lifted his head and turned to the watching cow. The cow, after the manner of her kind appreciating a conqueror, awaited somewhat doubtfully After this experience the black bull's loneliness grew almost intolerable, and his temper so bad that he would go raging up and down the woods in search of bears to chase. The winter cooled him down somewhat, and in the spring his temper was not so raw. But he was now troubled with a spirit of wandering, and kept ranging the woods in every direction, only returning to the young green of the water-meadow once or twice a day. One afternoon, however, there came a change. He was browsing irritably near the bank when he heard voices that made him look up sharply. A canoe was passing up-stream, poled by two men. It passed slowly, surging against the current. As he looked at the men, a dreadful memory stirred within him. He recalled the loud report which had driven him mad with fear on that day when the The men in the canoe were astonished, and hastily pushed over toward the other shore. The one in the bow laid down his pole and reached back for his rifle. But the man in the stern intervened. "What's the good o' shootin' him?" said he. "He can't git at us here, an' we ain't a-wantin' for grub. Let him be!" "That's so!" said the other, picking up his pole again. "But ain't he handsome? An' mad, eh? How do you suppose he come here, anyways?" "Strayed!" grunted the man in the stern, bending to his pole as the canoe met a heavier rush of the current. As the two voyagers pursued their strenuous way up-stream, rock and eddy and "rip" consuming all their attention, the furious bull kept abreast of them along the shore, splashing in the shallows and bellowing his challenge, till at length a deep insetting of the current compelled him to mount the bank, along which he continued his vain pursuit for several He was now in unknown territory, miles away from his meadows. His rage against the men had all died out, but some faint stirring of inherited instincts impelled him to follow for companionship. Had they suddenly reappeared, close at hand, doubtless his rage would have burst forth anew. But when they were gone, he had to follow. A dim intuition told him that where they were going dwelt some kind of relief for his loneliness. He skirted the swamp, rejoined the river, and kept slowly on his way up-stream, pasturing as he went. He had turned his back for ever on the water-meadows and the life of which he could not be a part, and was off on the quest for that unknown which he felt to be his own. After two days of leisurely journeying he passed through a belt of burnt lands, and had his curiosity mildly excited by a blackened chimney rising from a heap of ruins near the water. Through this burnt land he travelled swiftly; and about dawn of the fourth day of his quest he came out upon the pasture-lands skirting the rear of the settlement. Here he found a rude but strong snake fence, at which he sniffed with wonder. Then, beyond the The two canoemen, meanwhile, on their arrival at the settlement, had told of their encounter with the wild black bull. As they described the adventure to a little circle gathered in the back room of the grocery, the old woodsman whose cabin had been burned in the great fires was one of their most interested listeners. "A LORDLY BLACK BEAST IN COMMAND OF THE HERD." "I'll bet he's mine! I'll bet he's out of the little red cow I bought just afore the fire!" he exclaimed When, therefore, a couple of mornings later, the old woodsman, on going to the pasture to fetch in his cows for the milking, found a lordly black beast in command of the herd, he understood at once. Fortunately for him, he understood so well that he took certain precautions, instead of walking straight into the middle of the pasture as usual to get the cows. With judgment born of intuitive understanding, he let down the pasture bars unnoticed, then went over near the stable door and called. At the familiar summons the cows lifted their heads, and came filing lazily toward the open bars, which lay a little to one side of the direct way to the house. But the black bull was of another mind. He saw the man; and straight his eyes saw red. He pawed the earth, roared angrily, gave one uncertain glance at the cows sauntering away from him, and then charged straight for the unknown foe. The works of man might, indeed, have some strange inherited attraction for him; but man, the individual, he hated with destructive hate. The woodsman noticed that the bull was not heading for the bars. "The fence'll stop him!" he said to himself, confidently. But not so. The wild bull had no conception of the sanctity and authority of fences. The stout rails went down before him like corn-stalks. The old woodsman shook his head deprecatingly, stepped into the stable, and latched the door. The bull, much puzzled at the unaccountable disappearance of his foe, stopped for a moment, snorting, then dashed around the barn to see if the enemy were hiding on the other side. Twice he circled it, his rage increasing instead of diminishing; and then he caught sight of the man's face eyeing him calmly through the little square stable window. He stopped again to paw the earth, bellowing his heavy challenge; and the old woodsman wondered what to do. He wanted the splendid black bull for his little herd, but he was beginning to have serious misgivings. Moreover, he wanted to get into the house. He threw open the stable door; and as the bull dashed in he scrambled through a manger, swung himself into the loft, dropped from the hay window, and darted for the house at top speed. He had had an idea of shutting the stable door, and imprisoning his unmanageable visitor; but the bull was too quick for him. He "Can't do nothin' with that, I'm afeared!" he muttered. Just then the bull stopped his ravings, turned his head, and stared away up the road. There came a clamour of gay young voices; and the old woodsman, following the beast's eyes, saw a little group of children approaching on their way to school. Among them he noticed a girl in a bright scarlet waist. This the bull noted also. He forgot his enemy in the house. He grunted savagely, gave his tail a vicious twist, and trotted down the lane toward the road. The old woodsman saw that the time had come for prompt action. He snatched up his loaded rifle from the corner where it stood always ready, ran out upon the steps, and shouted at the bull. The great black animal stopped and looked around, mumbling deep in his throat. He wheeled half-about to return to the old enemy. Then he paused irresolutely and eyed the gay bevy of children. Which foe should he obliterate first? While he hesitated, the rifle rang out, and the The old woodsman strode down the lane, and stood over the great black form. His shrewd gray eyes were filled with regret and sympathetic comprehension. "Spiled!" said he. "Clean spiled all 'round! The woods, they wa'n't no place fer you, so ye had to quit 'em. But they spiled you fer the habitations o' man. It's a born stranger and an alien you was, an' there wa'n't no place fer ye neither here nor there!" The Silver Frost |