own-black, rusty fur and red skin; at
the unmistakable flat-footed trail of Gulo, the wolverine, leading away
to the frowning, threatening blackness of the woods. He could
understand it all, that wolf. Indeed, it was written there quite
plainly for such as could read. He read, and he passed on. He did not
follow Gulo's bloody trail. No--oh, dear, no! Probably, quite
probably, he had met Gulo the Indomitable before, and--was not that
enough?

II

BLACKIE AND CO.

Blackie flung himself into the fight like a fiery fiend cut from coal.
He did not know what the riot was about--and cared less. He only knew
that the neutrality of his kingdom was broken. Some one was fighting
over his borders; and when fighting once begins, you never know where
it may end! (This is an axiom.) Therefore he set himself to stop it
at once, lest worse should befall.

He found two thrushes apparently in the worst stage of d.t.'s. One was
on his back; the other was on the other's chest. Both were in a
laurel-bush, half-way up, and apparently they kept there, and did not
fall, through a special dispensation of Providence. Both fought like
ten devils, _and both sang_. That was the stupefying part, the song.
It was choked, one owns; it was inarticulate, half-strangled with rage,
but still it _was_ song.

A cock-chaffinch and a hen-chaffinch were perched on two twigs higher
up, and were peering down at the grappling maniacs. Also two blue
titmice had just arrived to see what was up, and a sparrow and one
great tit were hurrying to the spot--all on Blackie's "beat," on
Blackie's very own hunting-ground. Apparently a trouble of that kind
concerned everybody, or everybody thought it did.

Blackie arrived upon the back of the upper and, presumably, winning
thrush with a bang that removed that worthy to the ground quite
quickly, and in a heap. The second thrush fetched up on a lower
branch, and by the time the first had ceased to see stars he had
apparently regained his sanity. He beheld Blackie above him, and fled.
Perhaps he had met Blackie, professionally, before, I don't know. He
fled, anyway, and Blackie helped him to flee faster than he bargained
for.

By the time Blackie had got back, the first thrush was sitting on a
branch in a dazed and silly condition, like a fowl that has been waked
up in the night. Blackie presented him with a dig gratis from his
orange dagger, and he nearly fell in fluttering to another branch