ig enough for me, it is big enough for you.
If I have got into your range, there's no occasion for you to fuss.
The Bears are a wise folk. They have a strong medicine.
When they are among the trees, they are in the middle of their
medicine.
My folk live a long way back east, where the sun comes up out of
the prairies.
They have a medicine which they make among the Lodges.
It is a strong medicine, and many birds and beasts have given it
their power.
Our medicine-men make it in the moon when the Thunder-bird claps his
wings in Heaven.
You cannot harm me, even if you wished it.
My medicine is stronger than your medicine of the Bears."

Dusty Star paused. All the time he had been making his "medicine,"
Goshmeelee, except for turning her head from one side to another in her
droll way, had never moved. It is true that she did not understand a
single word of what Dusty Star had said. In spite of that she was
impressed. Somehow, or other, the power of the "medicine" had spelled
itself out of the words and trickled into her head. She knew that this
creature that owned the strange medicine was something she must not
hurt. She also knew that he would not hurt _her_. But the babies! In her
fierce mother-love, they mattered more than herself. On their account
she was not quite satisfied.

How Dusty Star became aware that Goshmeelee had cubs, is one of the many
mysteries. The forest is a place of hidden secrets. Yet sometimes the
secrets get carried, like thistledown, on fine currents, and are passed
from brain to brain. So, gradually, a light dawned on Dusty Star; and he
_knew_. And in the same secret way, Goshmeelee knew that he knew, and
also was aware that she need have no fear. As her mind was at rest, she
allowed her body to be also. And in order to be completely at her ease,
she sat down where she was widest, and looked at her new acquaintance
with a humorous expression in her little gleaming eyes.

"It is a good place for them." Dusty Star remarked, after he had looked
at Goshmeelee silently for some time.

By "Them" he referred, of course, to the cubs.

Goshmeelee simply blinked. But the blink was as good as if she had said:

"I, Goshmeelee, am a person of much wisdom. If I choose a place, I know
what I am about. My children have everything which they require."

Naturally Dusty Star wasn't going to argue as to whether Goshmeelee was
a suitable parent fo