fragments of egg-shell. His expression of
disappointment was so ludicrous that in spite of themselves the men in
the canoe exploded with laughter.

As the harsh, incongruous sound startled the white stillnesses, in the
lifting of an eyelid the little conqueror vanished. One of the
canoeists stepped ashore, picked up the body of the slain mink, and
threw it into the canoe. As the two resumed their paddles and slipped
away into the mist, they knew that from some hiding-place on the bank
two bright, indignant eyes were peering after them in wonder.

Melindy and the Spring Bear

Soft, wet and tender, with a faint green filming the sodden pasture
field, and a rose-pink veil covering the maples, and blue-grey catkins
tinting the dark alders, spring had come to the lonely little clearing
in the backwoods. From the swampy meadow along the brook's edge,
across the road from the cabin and the straw-littered barn-yard, came
toward evening that music which is the distinctive note of the
northern spring--the thrilling, mellow, inexpressibly wistful fluting
of the frogs.

The sun was just withdrawing his uppermost rim behind the far-off
black horizon line of fir-tops. The cabin door stood wide open to
admit the sweet air and the sweet sound. Just inside the door sat old
Mrs. Griffis, rocking heavily, while the woollen sock which she was
knitting lay forgotten in her lap. She was a strong-featured, muscular
woman, still full of vigour, whom rheumatism had met and halted in the
busy path of life. Her keen and restless eyes were following eagerly
every movement of a slender, light-haired girl in a blue cotton waist
and grey homespun skirt, who was busy at the other side of the yard,
getting her little flock of sheep penned up for the night for fear of
wild prowlers.

Presently the girl slammed the pen door, jammed the hardwood peg into
the staple, ran her fingers nervously through the pale fluff of her
hair, and came hurrying across the yard to the door with a smile on
her delicate young face.

"_There_, Granny!" she exclaimed, with the air of one who has just got
a number of troublesome little duties accomplished, "I guess no
lynxes, or nothing, 'll get the sheep to-night, anyways. Now, I must
go an' hunt up old 'Spotty' afore it gets too dark. I don't see what's
made her wander off to-day. She always sticks around the barn close as
a burr!"

The old woman smiled, knowing that the survival of a wild instinct in
the c