Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

“ I almost laughed aloud at the friendly sociability of this creature whom I was waiting to kill. He had such a saucy and casual air of saying "I thought it would be pleasant to bring my lunch and have it with you," that I felt it a breach of hospitality to shoot him down. My hand loosened the revolver, and I took stock of the points of this vivid bit of life: short shining body, alert even in stillness ”

“ He went off into restrained fits of laughter, and the guides about the camp-fire shook softly, their faces shining with child-like merriment. In a moment Godin was decorous again. "But that makes nothing. However, it may well be that the squirrel of M'sieur is perhaps more than a mere squirrel. Nobody knows—I am glad that M'sieur did not fire. It is not 'chanceux' to kill a beast so intelligent that is red. He will without doubt bring luck now to our camp." ”

“ A guide was finally found in possession of half a crippled lead-pencil, and birch-bark did the rest. But the squirrel had dug up one adequate to the whole trip from under the log floor.
"He's a good spirit," the cub remarked sentimentally. "Every morning he scratches up anything I want. It's just like a fairy story."
It was a fact that Bob's lost cuff-button had gleamed from the edge of the hole the morning before. But there is seldom a silver lining without a cloud, and I answered briefly with a sniff, and Bob laughed. My feelings about the squirrel differed from his. ”

“ To Bob it was no test at all, for he regarded it as "fun." His brand of the "purple light of youth" seems to work like a photographic red-lantern, excluding entirely all rays that show discomfort. I know of only one or two things in the world which the boy does not enjoy in one degree or another, and that the tent should leak appealed to him as a simple adventure of a sportsmanlike sort. ”

“ And meantime the said song, with an infinite suddenness which might well be the despair of a Winchester cartridge, whisked himself off. The swiftness of his going made me jump, and the jump dispelled my soliloquies. I reproved myself for sentimentality, for weakness of will, and full-cocked my revolver carefully with a determination to carry out my plans and not wander into side issues. Next time the animal appeared I would shoot him. ”

“ At fifteen the human animal seems able to sleep serenely while an unresting small beast puts in at his ear nine conscientious hours of scampering, gnawing, and scratching; but my years nearly doubled Bob's, and my nerves had been strained a bit too far, and I could not sleep at all. The boy and I were in an old club camp, waiting while our own was building a mile away up the lake. ”

“ In accordance with it I sent the cub off on an exploring expedition with his guide, saw that the rest of the men were at work for the morning, and, taking a chair and a book outside the open door of the club camp, I waited, in the bright sunshine that was laughing now at the tempest of the night, a loaded revolver at my right hand, for M. l'Écureuil—the squirrel. ”

“ And as I poured half a pint of maple syrup on a hot, puffy flapjack I little thought how my tiny foe was to justify Godin's prophecy.
The next day after lunch, while the cub was off in a boat with Zoetique to 'cherche' fire-wood, I sat about camp doing nothing in particular, but meditating more or less on the crimes of a mink which had persistently stolen our fish. His last misdemeanor was the ruin of a four-pound trout which I had taken on the fly, and which I had pictured as the pièce de résistance of a meal, boiled with cream sauce as Vézina knew well how to do it. ”

“ A sudden movement, a word from us, always frightened him either quite away or into the wonderful frozen stillness of a wild creature, every strong little muscle tense, quick breath arrested, velvet-brown eyes fixed and staring. ”

“ I was staring at a gap in the darkening hills, and pondering Zoetique's theory that at the head of the stream which ran through it must lie a lake, where no one had ever been and where should be good country for game. ”

“ And while filling his plate with a liberal hand, M'sieur Bob showered, liberally also, French conversation upon us. It is correct to talk to the butler at table in the woods, and the cub told Godin, the circle of guides at the fire listening earnestly, the story of the squirrel, adding the theory that he was without doubt a fairy.
Godin's laughing blue eyes grew serious. "It is that which arrives at times," he said, and nodded impressively. "There are beasts which bring of good luck, one knows. ”

“ An invitation to fish never finds me slow in responding. I hurriedly put the cork into the bottle of developer, and threw the covering plate over the bit of poisoned sugar, not troubling myself that I pushed it partly over the edge of the table in my carelessness. Then I rushed outside, took down my rod with careful haste, and was at the dock in half a dozen jumps.
Bob was right about the fishing ”