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he crossed over the hill on his way east, except an exceedingly pinched feeling from the ends of his jaws to the tips of his toes. Here and there he dug up a succulent root where the earth smelt good to him, and once when at a certain tree he growled, and getting on his hind legs, scratched and clawed at it as far up the trunk as possible. But these interruptions were of short duration only, for pressing hunger was plastering to his backbone what Mr. DeGraw was pleased to call his "guzzle," and something was needed to detach it at once. Suddenly, as he neared the crest of the last hill between him and the lake, the breeze carried up to him the unmistakably fresh scent of dog, and what he greatly feared more, although he knew not the reason, of Man. He stood there hesitatingly on the summit, lifted his muzzle high in the air and sniffed uneasily. A faint recollection of dog and man still remained in his heavy brain from the far-seeming days of his "cubhood;" when his mother had not come home and he had followed her trail the day afterwards, to find only a carcass which sickened and horrified him, and a queer smell, such as now filled his nostrils and polluted the air all around. From that far-away time he had fled at the odor of man or dog without ever having seen either, excepting once; when, pursued by a great, shaggy beast, a Man had been struck down by a flying blow, and left on the gray earth for dead. Never since then had he seen them, and never had he been seen. But now, it was too late; he made out figures below just as they cleared a swamp brush, and looked up to him, and. a simultaneous cry arose from both man and dog, and came faintly to his ears.

Though the slaver drained from his jaws with hunger, and his bones ached with it, and though anger burned deep in his breast, his instinctive fear could not be overcome, and he turned to flee.

He turned to flee, but not for his den. No, indeed; he was too wise and far too old and wary a beast for that. He started on a northwesterly line straight for a dense tamarack swamp. He could even now hear the frenzied baying of old Hop gradually getting louder and louder. Hop had been sired by a full-blooded bloodhound, and had a mother with more bull

dog strain in her than anything else, and he had that sticking quality that never gives up. He was a thorough fighting dog but one with sagacity, and well he knew how to worry a bear into a cave or tree, or how to nip his flanks or stub tail and delay him until his master could come up and end the struggle, if he had to stick fated Bruin now. fated Bruin now. All his eager blood was chasing itself in wild, tingling surges through his quivering, shooting body, while his deep, full-toned baying boomed forth like a minster bell. It came pealing over the hill Bruin. had but just left, as Bruin gained the swamp. It reverberated through the tall, heaven-reaching hemlocks and branch-kissed pines, and it was echoed by every leaf of the space-filling maples and birches. It filled all the woods and it filled Bruin's ears, and it set his heart beating the faster with fear, and set his lean jaws frothing. It was no amble now that he made; it was a straight-away beat through the toughest, most impenetrable thickets to the lone spot where he had awakened to life, in the very heart of the swamp. Here he would have a rock to back him and a fighting chance, and that was all that he craved, for Bruin was no coward.

But the lighter weight of the hound and the ease with which he followed in the way that Bruin had to tear out, was fast telling. The poor animal first slowed down to a trot and then to a walk. By this time Hop was nearly in on the scene. When he arrived, he did not wait for Bruin to turn and begin hostilities; his gleaming teeth. sank their long depth viciously into the unprotected flank and tore back, then he jumped aside to avoid the powerful swing that just slipped his remaining ear. But he had tasted deep of the blood, and the murder lust was on him.

III.

As the thicket became denser, the fight waxed hotter and faster. At times, Hop would rush in and snap with wolf-like quickness at the thick fur covering the ribs of his antagonist, and then he would jump back again with a mouth filled with bloody fur, his eyes flashing, all his teeth visible and gleaming, and the muscles of his strong back and legs swelling and hast

ening in little knots and bunches to do his will. Bruin, meantime, would strike out powerfully, but uselessly, rarely touching that ubiquitous, flying knot of lightning agility that so fiercely attacked him. attacked him. When Hop seized him by the flanks a thick red film gathered to his eyes, and he blindly turned and rushed back, striking out right and left, grazing the dog, perhaps, but doing no more. Then as Hop would begin to bay, Bruin had to go on, for instinct still governed him. He heard the pursuers in the distance, and his terror was as yet not to be overcome. Again and again he tried to ward off the electric charges that the insatiable dog made on him, and each time but one he failed. Bruin was nearing his destination then, but that was the beginning of the end. Getting over-confident, Hop seized the maddened Beast's left ear, and with one tearing, crashing blow, the bear had ripped his back open from the middle to the top of the skull, and had sent him whirling, gasping, high into the air to land in a bush. He started towards Hop to settle him then, but the noise of approaching men distracted his attention.

So they were coming! Very well, let them. He could meet them half way. Rising to his full height, Bruin stood braced against a tree, and awaited for what he had heretofore feared as death. There was something grand and inspiring in the sight of that huge brute standing there to oppose with might the skill and brains of man. But it should have had more of pity than anything else, for what chance had he with all his strength if man once saw him well?

"

The hate of centuries was in his soul, penned up though it might be, and the scent of his dead mother's blood was in his nostrils crying for revenge. With a roar that shook the trees of the forest he made direct for the oncoming men. Hop, crippled and bleeding to his death, whined and moaned in the side bushes, and Bruin, too proud and too engrossed with what he heard coming to him, rushed past and did not attack his prostrate foe.

But he had made a mistake in passing the old dog. The fire in Hop's dying eyes still burned too strongly with hatred to trust him. Here was his inveterate enemy getting away! Staggering, reeling, he fol

lowed the giant bear, raising his voice as he did so in one last call, a challenge to the death. Then, as Bruin turned, he fell upon him. He sank his glistening fangs far into the thick throat, and, torn from side to side, hugged, crushed, ripped and disemboweled, he locked them there, never to be unlocked until dissolved into dust. Bruin clawed and tore; then swayed and then slowly sank down in a heap and laid quiet. There had not been one howl, one whimper in this raging contest. Only the fact that the earth was torn and blood-smeared and that grim death reigned already for one of the combatants, would show what had happened.

Meanwhile "Zeke" had worked his way to the scene. A giant bear on the ground, with shreds of dog mingled with fur lying around the spot was what first met his gaze. Apparently Bruin was dead, but as Zeke advanced he rose up to take his last stand. Though wobbling from side to side from loss of blood; though films had closed over his eyes and he struck trees as he moved, the sense of smell guided him toward the man until, mercifully cut down, he fell under the hail of shot everywhere entering his body. Sinking slowly, his head waved first to one side then to the other, and finally in a lump the great creature that had fought so nobly for his life fell to the ground. He had met his death at last, and by the same dog and man who had taken his mother's life.

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spoke. "Yes, yes, Joe. But Hop-but how about old Hop!"

Zeke walked up to the carcass and made as if to stroke the head of what had been his faithful companion in all his old-time hunts and pleasures.

"Good-bye, Hop. You died fighting, old boy. You died game and you lived game. That hide is a good one, but it's yours, Hop. You got it, and you shall keep it. I guess I'll have to go now,

old

fellow. But here's a cover for you," and taking out his hunting-hatchet he cut many long boughs and tenderly, almost reverently, covered over the bodies of both conqueror and conquered. Then he removed his hat and slowly started homeward with his friend.

ALONE ON THE TRAIL

BY RUTH EVERETT BECK

T

HE DOORS of the old stone mission creaked with the autumn blast and sent a cold, homesick shiver through my frame. A few drops of rain fell on the small square window panes, and the remaining leaves of the vine which clung to the sash telegraphed me to put away the children's papers, leave the crayon-and-dust laden. atmosphere, don raincoat and rubbers, and go outside. So I ran up the old walnut stairway, put on my rain-proof garments, and was about to start down again when I caught sight of Tun-in-gi-na, who was taking leave of the matron in her deliberate manner. I had long wished to see her, for she and I were old friends. Extending her hand from the blanket, she saluted me with dignity.

'Will you come to my room?" I asked, for she always paid me a call when she visited the boarding school.

"Since you are prepared to walk, let us walk together," she suggested. So we found ourselves going down the steps from the mission to the road which leads up to the trail along the river bank where strange Indian symbols were then plainly seen. and may still be faintly traced to-day. Here we sat down, looking long at the turbulent, murky waters of the Missouri as they hurried southward.

I was troubled by the oldest question, that confronts woman, and my agitated thoughts must have perveded the ether between us, for Tun-in-gi-na at last broke the silence: "Thou art in trouble!"

"Tun-in-gi-na," I said, as I impulsively took her thin, shapely hand, "tell me you who have known the wild life of the Indians, untrammeled as it was in the past by our conventions-tell me: are love marriages always the happiest?"

A far-away look came into her eyes-a look such as comes only into the eyes of an Indian who lives in the new era, yet

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Her tone was imperative like the call to hearken to some unwonted noise. She drew her blanket close around her, fixed her gaze apparently upon the waters, and sat for many minutes in silence. Finally she commenced speaking in a thin, monotonous voice as if trying to reach back into the spirit world to recall her mother who had told her the story.

"My mother was Me-tun-in. Happy was she, for on summer nights when the cool breeze sprang up after the hot, dry winds of the day, she and my father, Village Maker, would spread a deer-skin outside the tepee and lie hand in hand looking up at the great heaven filled with the many, many fires placed in that far-off land by loving hands to light the spirits who have passed on to their new homes. And after a few moons I came, and both Village Maker and Me-tun-in loved and attended me, for I was of the flesh of both. And each day my mother would say to my father, 'Village Maker, she is a part of us. Because she is like thee, I love her. Should the Great Spirit, the Wa-kon-da, call thee to the spirit world first, I would have some part of thee left in her to console me.' And my father would hold her in his arms and look into her eyes and say: 'She is like thee and I am happy, but wert thou to go." And then my mother would laugh like waters in a pleasant streamlet and pinch his arm and say: 'Ah, my husband, thou art all a brave!' We were very happy.

"But one day there came to our win

ter lodge a young girl. She was very beautiful, but a look of fear and pain spread over her face as she approached and saw that my father was in the lodge. 'Will Village Maker tell if I speak my heart to thee? she cried, falling into my mother's

arms.

"My father drew himself up with dignity. Know thou,' he said, 'that I know the ponies for thee have been given to thy people by my father, the Wa-zhinga-sabba. If thou hast no ill to speak of him, be it so. I keep silent-or, better still, I will hunt the ta-kthe, the deer, that thou mayest have free speech with Me-tun-in.' And taking his arrows, he went from the lodge in the low timber lands beside the river, up the snow-clad bluffs, through icechoked trails, to the woods above the mission.

"Now, the winter lodge was with the others of our band down in one of the sheltered woody nooks which abound among the bluffs along the Big Muddy. Then we had no houses, no stoves-nothing which belongs to the pale ones. The earth or skin lodges were kept tightly closed against the blast and the gray smoke-spirits crept up through the smoke holes and hung low over the bare trees, mourning for their friends who belonged with the red leaves of the Indian summer days now gone.

"Nun-za-in-za threw back her robe as my father left. Her black hair hung in two long braids, trimmed with the beaded deerskin, according to the custom of our people, the Mahas.

"My mother had her arms about Nunza-in-za. 'Sister, why art thine eyes filled with the anguish of the dying doe?' she asked. But the princess gave no reply to my mother for a long time. They loved each other, and between friends silence is sometimes good.

"Suddenly Nun-za-in-za roused herself, and with a moan fell on the floor of the lodge, sobbing.

Me-tun-in! Me-tun-in! thou knowest that Mi-ka-a-tunga, my father, has accepted the ponies of the chief?’

"My mother tried to calm her, to tell her it must be good to be the favored wife of so great a one as the much-feared Wazhinga-sabba, the great Black Bird-the war chief of the Mahas, the Up-stream

folk. He had magic and mystery. He could see visions and foretell the death of any man of his tribe, so great his power. His very hate could kill. Let one but plot against him, that one was the first to die. Would it be wise to scorn his favor? She spoke again of the honor of being the wife of so great a chief.

"But Nun-za-in-za only sobbed the louder, crying that Me-tun-in was no longer the grandmother (friend) of her heart, for she so loved Village Maker she could see naught but good even in his father, the chief.

"Hast thou a grievance against him, or fearest thou the other wives will not be kind?' asked my mother, for it is better that a man choose the sisters of one family as wives, for their customs are as one.'

"Once more Nun-za-in-za was silent and sullen, and then my mother knew; and the shadow of fear and dread entered the lodge and settled beside her, for she recalled then that an unknown lover had once sounded the love call on the Indian flute from a neighboring hill as the women went at dawn for the water.

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'Who-who has looked on thee withthe look!' demanded my little mother, and she told me she trembled, for the ghost of dread and fear gripped her heart. Well she knew the strength of the love of a woman, and well she knew, too, that none could antagonize the Wa-zhinga-sabba and not tread the path to the land of the ghosts and shadows.

"So the name of the youth fell not from the lips of Nun-za-in-za, for no pain. must come to him through her love.

"Long she looked into the dying embers of the lodge fire, and at last my father returned with the slain deer, the ta-kthe. He threw it at the feet of Me-tun-in. Nunza-in-za saw the look in their faces as they silently welcomed each the sight of the other, and my father tossed me high near the smoke-hole as he took my leathern cradle from my mother's back, that she might be the better enabled to prepare the flesh of the deer for food.

"Then Nun-za-in-za sprang to her feet, and drawing her deerskin mantle about her shoulders, cried, 'A-ga-geth, Me-tunin, and A-ga-geth, Village Maker, for the last time, for to-night I sleep in the lodge of thy father, the great Wa-zhinga-sabba!"

Her voice became shrill and menacing and her bosom heaved as she went on. And doubtless in a year I shall give that look to him as he returns to me with his kill and tosses my zhinga-zhinga to the smokehole in glee! Doubtless!' she added in scorn, as her voice rose like the shrieking gale in a winter storm. The chief of whom even the braves are afraid and in whose presence women and little children are silent! Ah, thy happiness shows what mine is to be!'

"And she loosened the thong that held the opening to the lodge, and her swiftly silent moccasins fled over the snow, while the hearts of Me-tun-in and Village Maker mourned.

"And that night she was the wife of the great Wa-zhinga-sabba, and Mika-a-tunga and his family were glad and rejoiced, for great was the honor; but the handsome brave, the strong, the high-minded youth, Wa-sa-apa, stalked silently in the cold blast that crept about the medicine lodge, the mun-thin-ti; and he dreamed a dream and the vision said: "The love of two young hearts is strong. It is the strength of the buffalo. It is the life of the turtle heart. It is the Wa-kon-da. Let not the love of the maiden overcome thee, for it is not good to take the wife of another.'

"Then the bloody knife was found outside, all hot and dripping, though in the cold blast; and Wa-sa-apa knew that to let the look pass but once boded naught but death.

"Then for months the dull, slow weaving of the blanket of despair went on for Nun-za-in-za; and Wa-sa-apa had almost killed the feeling that arose within him, for he thought that happiness might have come to her because many and beautiful were the gifts the chief showered upon his wife. The best food was hers, the choicest portions of buffalo tongue and deer meathers was the favored spot in the lodges.

"Now came the time when the winter lodges were left behind and the camp was moved through the deep, wet trails that led up the steep sides of the bluff yonder. On that day when the camp was changed happened a thing which showed the tribe how useless it was to try to combat the magic of the chief. In front were the Sacred Pack, the Sacred Pole and the Sacred Tent, in charge of the appointed ones of

the Hun-ga Band, for it was then thought sacrilege and death for others but to touch any of these things. Old Wa-ka-ma-thin had charge of the Sacred Tent. The poor, over-laden ponies, thin from a long, illfed winter, at one steep, slippery point in the trail refused to go on. The Wa-zhingasabba could brook no resistance from man or beast, so Wa-ka-ma-thin was ordered to beat his loved pony, his Min-ne-washka.

"Now, Min-ne-wash-ka had borne Waka-ma-thin through danger, through death laden Sioux trails and through the long, buffalo chases; and she had lain her head upon his shoulder with a moan like the crooning of a woman who loves a stricken man-for that was when the wife of Waka-ma-thin had passed to the land of the ghosts and shadows. So he begged for his pony: 'Oh, Chief, let not this order be; for before the Great Spirit, the Wakon-da, I have said that never shall lash be put upon my faithful Min-ne-wash-ka.'

But the face of the Wa-zhinga-sabba was as a great cloud that looms over the Big Muddy when the wild goose and the brant take their flight northward, when all is damp and cool among the rushes and even along the hill tops where the flowers are struggling to smile on the spot where the Wa-kon-da wishes the camp to be. Though the storm broke not, because the Min-ne-wash-ka yielded at last to the gentle persuasions of her master, and moved the burdens, yet the heart within Wa-kama-thin was heavy and the ghost of fear rode beside him, for none had crossed the will of the great Wa-zhinga-sabba and lived.

"And because all loved the gentle Waka-ma-thin and because he was asked to take soup in the tepee of the chief that night after the camp was pitched in the usual half-circle, a silence fell among the men and a whimpering among the women, and the dogs howled mournfully. Untasted was the stew of the tender duck prepared in the cooking pots that night.

"On the next day they buried Wa-kama-thin with the usual ceremonies of our people, but with unusual awe, for no mark of death was seen on his body, no arrow wound, no sickness. For of a sudden the chief had thrown back the flap of his tepee and had called to his herald: 'Let it be

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