rters with them in the snowed-up tepee. But Goshmeelee was
extremely occupied--that is, she was extremely busy with being fast
asleep, and she wasn't going to wake up for anybody till it was time to
be Spring.

And so the winter passed, and Dusty Star followed Kiopo's example in
learning to be lean. Very lean and scraggy they both were when the snow
melted and the geese took a thought to go North. But the scragginess did
not injure their health, and as the grass grew, and the hunting
improved, the meat began to come once more upon their bones.

And so the moon of roses came once more, followed by the Thunder Moon,
and the Moon-when-the-leaves-turn-yellow; and there was not a sign of a
Yellow Dog, or of any other enemy to trouble their peace. And Winter
came again; as before. And when the spring came for the second time, it
seemed almost as if Carboona had always been their home. And nothing
seemed to change except that Baltook and Boola got a new litter of cubs
each year, and that after Goshmeelee had licked one or two babies into
cleanliness one season, it was the same tongue, but a new Baby, the
next! As for Mr. Goshmeelee, he was so very shy and retiring that it was
only once in a blue moon that you ever saw him at all. And as Goshmeelee
didn't bother to mention him, Dusty Star didn't like to press her with
questions, and pretended he wasn't there.

But the one real change was just the one about which Dusty Star knew the
least and did not fuss himself about at all. For the winter and the
summer, and the heat and the cold, and the meat coming on his bones, and
going off again, and the great life he lived with Kiopo beyond Human
ken, were slowly but surely working upon him.

_He was growing up!_

CHAPTER XX

THE TERROR OF THE CARBOONA

In the inmost heart of the Carboona, among a wilderness of boulders, old
pine stumps, and dense thickets of juniper and thorn there was a spot to
which all wise Carboona dwellers gave a wide berth. Apart from its
bareness and lack of pasture, the place bore an ill name. Its evil
reputation came from very ancient times. It was shunned equally by
catamount, fox, bear, wolf and moose. And the lesser creatures, which
haunted the neighbouring thickets, kept well within their shelter and
rarely ventured out. Even the Cariboo, with the travelling restlessness
strong within them, turned aside after much uneasy pawing of the ground,
and suspicious blasts of breath, and fetched a s