s and outraged determination with
which she acted. She snatched the baby away, with the precision of a
brisk woodpecker after an escaping worm; and she hugged it until it
howled for mercy--and she hushed it--and she crooned endearment--and she
kissed the baby with such fervour and persistency that she saved its
puckered face a washing. And then she turned--in a rage of
indignation--in a storm of scorn--in a whirlwind of execration--upon
poor little Pattie Batch. But Pattie Batch was gone. Discreet little
Pattie Batch didn't need to be _told_! Her little feet were already
pattering over the trail to Swamp's End; and she was crying as she ran.

* * * * *

But Pattie Batch's wish for a baby went back to the very beginnings of
things. Ask Gingerbread Jenkins. Gingerbread Jenkins knows. It was
Gingerbread Jenkins who had found her, long ago--Pattie was little more
than a baby herself, then--on the Bottle River Trail; and to Gingerbread
Jenkins' astonishment the child was lugging a gun into the woods.

"Where _you_ goin'?" says Gingerbread Jenkins.

"Gunnin'."

"Gunnin', eh? What for?"

"Jutht gunnin'."

"But what you gunnin' _for_?"

"None o' your bithneth," says saucy little Pattie Batch.

"It _is_ my business," Gingerbread Jenkins declared; "an' if you don't
tell me what you're gunnin' for I'll have you home in a jiffy."

"Well," says Pattie, "I'm--gunnin'."

"What for?"

"Storks," says Pattie.

"Goin' t' _kill_ 'em?" Gingerbread inquired.

"No," says Pattie.

"What's your gun for?"

"I'm goin' t' wing a couple," says Pattie, "an' tame 'em."

That was Pattie Batch.

[Illustration]

_A GIFT NEGLECTED_

Well, well! there was only one baby at Swamp's End; and that baby Pattie
Batch had adopted. In her mind, of course: _quite_ on the sly. Nobody
could adopt Pale Peter's bartender's baby in any other way. And here was
Christmas come again! Day gone beyond the last waving pines in a cold
flush of red and gold: Christmas Eve here at last. Pattie Batch's soft
arms were still wanting; there were a thousand kisses waiting on her
tender lips for giving; her voice was all attuned to crooning sweetest
lullabys; but her heart was empty--save for a child of mist and wishes.
It was dark, now; but though the wind was still rollicking down there
was no snow blowing, and the shy stars were winking wide-eyed upon the
busy world and all the myriad mysteries it exhibited out-of-d