had stood awaiting, jauntily and ignorantly,
his doom.

She was a proud woman when the bird came plunging to the ground, and of
that particular fowl he remarked, subsequently, when they were eating
it, that its flavor was a little superior to anything in the way of
game he had ever tasted, and he was more than half in earnest.

And the nights were poems and the days were full of life, and the brown
cheeks of the woman became browner still, and she was referred to more
frequently than even in the ante-wedded days as merely of the tribe of
Chippewas.

In one respect, too, she excelled in deserving that same title, for
your Chippewa, of either sex, takes to the water like a duck, as
becomes a tribe of the lake regions. He took her to the lake and
taught her not to fear it, and they frolicked in its waves together,
and she learned to swim as well as he, and to dive as smoothly as a
loon or otter, and was a water nymph such as the creatures of the wood
had never seen. He was very vain of her art acquired so swiftly,
though in conversation he gave vast credit to her teacher. And in the
catching of the black bass there came eventually to the nine-ounce
split bamboo in her little hands as many trophies as to his heavier
lancewood. One day, after she had become at home in the water, and had
better luck than he, and was lofty in her demeanor, he upset the boat
in deep water, and her majesty was compelled to swim about it with him
and assist at one end while he was at the other, in righting it. So
mean of spirit was he.

All other things, though, were but the veriest trifle compared with the
adventure which came at last. He had made her wise in woodcraft, and
she could tell at the lake's margin or along the creek's bed the tracks
of the 'coon, like the prints of a baby's foot, the mink's twin pads,
or the sharp imprint of the hoofs of the deer. One day another track
was noted near the camp, a track resembling that of a small man,
shoeless, and Harlson informed her that a bear had been about.

She asked if the black bear of Michigan were dangerous, and he said the
black bear of Michigan ate only very bad people, or very small ones.

One afternoon they were some distance from the camp. They had been
shooting with fair success, and, returning, had seated themselves in
idle mood upon one end of a great fallen trunk, upon which they had
just crossed the gully, at the bottom of which a little creek tumbled
toward the lake