296 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA 



tain solitudes. I never knew him to be chased 

 even by hawks. 



An acquaintance of mine, a sort of foot-hill 

 mountaineer, had a pet cat, a great, dozy, over 

 grown creature, about as broad-shouldered as a lynx. 

 During the winter, while the snow lay deep, the 

 mountaineer sat in his lonely cabin among the 

 pines smoking his pipe and wearing the dull time 

 away. Tom was his sole companion, sharing his 

 bed, and sitting beside him on a stool with much 

 the same drowsy expression of eye as his master. 

 The good-natured bachelor was content with .his 

 hard fare of soda-bread and bacon, but Tom, the 

 only creature in the world acknowledging depen 

 dence on him, must needs be provided with fresh 

 meat. Accordingly he bestirred himself to contrive 

 squirrel-traps, and waded the snowy woods with 

 his gun, making sad havoc among the few winter 

 birds, sparing neither robin, sparrow, nor tiny nut 

 hatch, and the pleasure of seeing Tom eat and 

 grow fat was his great reward. 



One cold afternoon, while hunting along the 

 river-bank, he noticed a plain-feathered little bird 

 skipping about in the shallows, and immediately 

 raised his gun. But just then the confiding song 

 ster began to sing, and after listening to his sum 

 mery melody the charmed hunter turned away, 

 saying, " Bless your little heart, I can't shoot you, 

 not even for Torn." 



Even so far north as icy Alaska, I have found 

 my glad singer. When I was exploring the gla 

 ciers between Mount Fairweather and the Stikeen 

 River, one cold day in November, after trying 



