58 Redruff 



should hei stay with him grow daily less till it 

 was down to minutes, and one day at last she 

 never came at all. Nor the next, nor the next, 

 and Redruff, wild, careered on lightning wing 

 and drummed on the old log, then away up- 

 stream on another log, and skimmed the hill to 

 another ravine to drum and drum. But on the 

 fourth day, when he came and loudly called 

 her, as of old, at their earliest tryst, he heard a 

 sound in the bushes, as at first, and there was 

 his missing Brownie bride with ten little peep- 

 ing partridges following after. 



Redruff skimmed to her side, terribly fright- 

 ening the bright-eyed downlings, and was just 

 a little dashed to find the brood with claims 

 far stronger than his own. But he soon ac- 

 cepted the change, and thenceforth joined him- 

 self to the brood, caring for them as his father 

 never had for him. 



VI 



Good fathers are rare in the grouse world. 

 The mother-grouse builds her nest and hatch- 

 es out her young without help. She even 

 hides the place of the nest from the father and 

 meets him only at the drum-log and the feed- 

 ing-ground, or perhaps the dusting -place, 

 which is the club-house of the grouse kind. 



