bout his tin plate. For a few moments Falkner watched it,
fearing to move. Then he cautiously began to approach the table. "Hello
there, old chap," he said, trying to make his voice soft and
ingratiating. "Pretty late for breakfast, ain't you?"

At his approach the mouse humped itself into a motionless ball and
watched him. To Falkner's delight it did not run away when he reached
the table and sat down. He laughed softly.

"You ain't afraid, are you?" he asked. "We're goin' to be chums, ain't
we? Yessir, we're goin' to be chums!"

For a full minute the mouse and the man looked steadily at each other.
Then the mouse moved deliberately to a crumb of bannock and began
nibbling at its breakfast.

For ten days there was only an occasional lull in the storm that came
from out of the North. Before those ten days were half over, Jim and
the mouse understood each other. The little mouse itself solved the
problem of their nearer acquaintance by running up Falkner's leg one
morning while he was at breakfast, and coolly investigating him from
the strings of his moccasin to the collar of his blue shirt. After that
it showed no fear of him, and a few days later would nestle in the
hollow of his big hand and nibble fearlessly at the bannock which
Falkner would offer it. Then Jim took to carrying it about with him in
his coat pocket. That seemed to suit the mouse immensely, and when Jim
went to bed nights, or it grew too warm for him in the cabin, he would
hang the coat over his bunk, with the mouse still in it, so that it was
not long before the little creature made up its mind to take full
possession of the pocket. It intimated as much to Falkner on the tenth
and last day of the storm, when it began very business-like operations
of building a nest of paper and rabbits' fur in the coat pocket. Jim's
heart gave a big and sudden jump of delight when he saw the work going
on.

"Bless my soul, I wonder if it's a girl mouse an' we're goin' to have
BABIES!" he gasped.

After that he did not wear the coat, through fear of disturbing the
nest. The two became more and more friendly, until finally the mouse
would sit on Jim's shoulder at meal time, and nibble at bannock. What
little trouble the mouse caused only added to Falkner's love for it.

"He's a human little cuss," he told himself one day, as he watched the
mouse busy at work caching away scraps of food, which it carried
through a crack in the sapling floor. "He's that human I've