72 Redruff 



came to slip behind the great trunk away from 

 both. Then he safely rose and flew to the 

 lonely glen by Taylor's Hill. 



One by one the deadly cruel gun had strick- 

 en his near ones down, till now, once more, he 

 was a^one. The Snow Moon slowly passed 

 with many a narrow escape, and Redruff, now 

 known to be the only survivor of his kind, was 

 relentlessly pursued, and grew wilder every 

 day. 



It seemed, at length, a waste of time to fol- 

 low him with a gun, so when the snow was 

 deepest, and food scarcest, Cuddy hatched a 

 new plot. Right across the feeding-ground, 

 almost the only good one now in the Stormy 

 Moon, he set a row of snares. A cottontail 

 rabbit, an old friend, cut several of these with 

 his sharp teeth, but some remained, and Red- 

 ruff, watching a far-off speck that might turn 

 out a hawk, trod right in one of them, and in an 

 instant was jerked into the air to dangle by one 

 foot. 



Hav< the wild things no moral or legal 

 rights? What right has man to inflict such 

 long and fearful agony on a fellow-creature, 

 simply because that creature does not speak 

 his language? All that day, with growing, 

 racking pains, poor Redruff hung and beat his 



