stracted mother, now suddenly overjoyed, rushed to join the group. "My
darling! my darling!" she sobbed, but little Harry was not as when he
left them. He hung back, he hid his face in the coat of his captor, he
scratched and snarled like a beast, he displayed his claws and
threatened fight, till strong arms gathered him up and placed him on his
mother's knees in the old, familiar room with the pictures, and the
clock ticking as of old, and the smell of frying bacon, his sister's
voice, and his father's form, and, above all, his mother's arms about
him, her magic touch on his brow, and her voice, "My darling! my
darling! Oh! Harry, don't you know your mother? My boy! my boy!" And the
struggling little wild thing in her arms grew quiet, his animal anger
died away, his raucous hissing gave place to a short panting, and that
to a low sobbing that ended in a flood of tears and a passionate "Mamma,
mamma, mamma!" as the veil of a different life was rolled away, and he
clung to his mother's bosom.

[Illustration]

But even as she cooed to him, and stroked his brow and won him back
again, there was a strange sound, a snarling hiss at the open door. All
turned to see a great Badger standing there with its front feet on the
threshold. Father and cousin exclaimed, "Look at that Badger!" and
reached for the ready gun, but the boy screamed again. He wriggled from
his mother's arms and rushing to the door, cried, "My Badgie! my
Badgie!" He flung his arms about the savage thing's neck, and it
answered with a low purring sound as it licked its lost companion's
face. The men were for killing the Badger, but it was the mother's
keener insight that saved it, as one might save a noble dog that had
rescued a child from the water.

It was some days before the child would let the father come near. "I
hate that man; he passed me every day and would not look at me," was the
only explanation. Doubtless the first part was true, for the Badger den
was but two miles from the house and the father rode past many times in
his radiating search, but the tow-topped head had escaped his eye.

It was long and only by slow degrees that the mother got the story that
is written here, and parts of it were far from clear. It might all have
been dismissed as a dream or a delirium but for the fact that the boy
had been absent two weeks; he was well and strong now, excepting that
his lips were blackened and cracked with the muddy water, the Badger had
followe