thing I knew she came headlong, mouth
open, fairly screaming at me; and I turned and jumped clean into the
Gray Water. Oh, Scott, it was humiliating to have to swim to the point
with all my clothes on, scramble into the canoe, and shove off because a
very angry wild creature drove me out of my own woods!"

"Well, dear, you won't ever interfere with a sow and pigs again, will
you?" said Kathleen so earnestly that everybody laughed.

"What's the rifle for?" inquired Scott. "You don't intend to hunt for
her, do you?"

"Of course not. I'm not vindictive or cruel. But old Miller said, when I
came past the lodge, dripping wet, that the boar are increasing too fast
and that you ought to keep them down either by shooting or by trapping
them, and sending them to other people for stocking purposes. The
Pink 'uns want some; why don't you?"

"I don't want to shoot or trap them," said Scott obstinately.

"Miller says they pulled down deer last winter and tore them to shreds.
Everything in the forest is afraid of them; they drive the deer from the
feeding-grounds, and I don't believe a lynx or even any of the bear that
climb over the fence would dare attack them."

Kathleen said: "You really ought to ask some men up here to shoot,
Scott. I don't wish to be chased about by a boar."

"They never bother people," he protested. "What are you going to do with
that rifle, Geraldine?"

"My nerve has gone," she confessed, laughing; "I prefer to have it with
me when I take walks. It's really safer," she added seriously to
Kathleen. "Miller says that a buck deer can be ugly, too."

"Oh, Lord!" said her brother, laughing; "it's only because you're the
prettiest thing ever, in that hunting dress! Don't tell me; and kindly
be careful where you point that rifle."

"As if I needed instructions!" retorted his sister. "I wish I could see
a boar--a big one with a particularly frightful temper and tusks to
match."

"I'll bet you that you can't kill a boar," he said in good-humoured
disdain.

"I don't see any to kill."

"Well, I bet you can't find one. And if you do, I bet you don't kill
him."

"How long," asked Geraldine dangerously, "does that bet hold good?"

"All winter, if you like. It's the prettiest single jewel you can pick
out against a new saddle-horse. I need a gay one; I'm getting out of
condition. And all our horses are as interesting as chevaux de bois when
the mechanism is freshly oiled and the organ plays the 'Ride of