nt; but he had no idea what sort of danger to expect, or
whether it was danger or merely the need of hunting care that his
mate had in mind. He knew all about it some two seconds later,
however.

The starveling trees, with the mean, wiry scrub that grew between
them, had served as cover for two lusty males of Warrigal's tribe--
cousins of hers they were, as a matter of fact, though she had
never known the kinship--both of whom had waked that day to the
fact that Warrigal was eminently desirable as a mate. Now, in one
instant, they both flew at Finn, one from either side of the trail
on which he trotted with Warrigal. Warrigal herself slid forward, a
swiftly-moving shadow, her brush to the earth, her hind-quarters
seeming to melt into nothingness, as the jaws of her cousins
flashed behind her on either side of Finn's throat. Then, when
there were a dozen paces between herself and her new mate, she
wheeled and stopped, sitting erect on her haunches, a well-behaved
and deeply interested spectator.

Finn suffered for his ignorance of what to expect, as in the wild
all folk must suffer for ignorance. It is only in our part of the
world that a series of protecting barriers has been erected between
the individual and the natural penalties attaching to ignorance and
wrong-doing. Some of these barriers are doubtless sources of
justifiable pride, but in the wild the confirmed loafer, for
example, the vicious and idle parasite, is an unknown institution.
The same practically holds good even of humans, when they live
close to Nature in a stern climate, as, for instance, on the
Canadian prairie; but never in great cities, or other places from
which Nature is largely shut out.

The penalty Finn paid was this, that he was cut to the bone upon
his right and his left shoulders by the flashing teeth of his
mate's stalwart young cousins. They had both aimed for the more
deadly mark, the throat, but were not accustomed to foes
of Finn's great height, and had not gauged his stature correctly as
he trotted down the trail. Their own shoulder-bones were a good
foot nearer the earth than Finn's, and his neck towered above the
point their jaws reached when they sprang. Wolf-like, they leaped
aside after the first blow, making no attempt to hold on to their
prey. And now, before the keenly watchful eyes of Warrigal, there
began the finest fight of her experience. Regarding her mate's good
looks she had more than satisfied herself; here was h