ge, 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 _tonk-tonking_ of the bell, not the
challenge of his redoubtable mother, that had put the fierce-eyed
prowler to flight.

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 tracks
carry much significance, and they had no thought for the perils that
begirt them. Once, indeed, even the two panthers came, and turned upon
them pale, bright, evil eyes. But they did not come very near. The cow
shook her horns at them defiantly; and the calf shook his broadening,
curly forehead at them; and wild were the clamours of the vigilant
bell. The hearts of the hunting beasts turned to water at these
incomprehensible voices. In their chagrin they shifted their range
farther east; and for several years they came no more to the
water-meadows of the Quah-Davic.

Late in the following summer, when the fireweed was beginning to
crimson the open spaces on the hillside, fate came to the
water-meadow