THE POT-HUNTER 



533 



the "lay of the land." I saw him suddenly inquiry. When Big Pole readied my side 



pull the cape of his wamus over his face and he pulled a handkerchief from around my 



reasoned that he also had been attacked by neck and put it over my mouth, making 



these invisible insects. To my surprise, the signs which I did not comprehend. At last 



big fellow seemed very much alarmed, and he put his muffled mouth to my ear and 



every time I shouted to him it greatly excited shouted through the cape of his wamus: 



the mountaineer. As he was hurrying to me "Shut your meat -trap or you're food for 



as rapidly as possible I desisted from further the coyotes. It is the White Death!" 



{To be continued.) 



THE POT-HUNTER 



BY F. M. KELLY 



PRING, most subtle 

 assistant of the won- 

 drous magician Nature, 

 was weaving her magic 

 in the wild places. For 

 some days, the fibres of 

 leaf-bearing trees had 

 been softening with the 

 fresh flow of life-sap; 

 and one April evening, 

 their branches, tipped 

 with divers colored 

 buds, nodded for joy of 

 the season to the purr- 

 ing welcome of the soft twilight air, even as a 

 lithe-limbed doe passed silently beneath and 

 sought the shelter of a thick fir covert. 

 Next morning, what a transition. Pale 

 green leaflets appeared on the branches and 

 spilled their scented fragrance through all 

 the aisles of the forest; while in the deepest 

 recess of the fir covert, beside its proud 

 mother, with wide, wondering eyes, its 

 tawny sides covered with dull gray blotches, 

 a fawn bleated weakly. 



Days passed. The leaves had taken their 

 summer shapes and colors, and from the 

 matted tangle of dead plants beneath the 

 spreading branches countless ferns had un- 

 curled their shapely fronds to the kiss of 

 Spring's fair sister. Long ere that time, 

 the doe had left the cover of- the fir grove, 

 the weak-legged fawn trotting awkwardly 

 by her side. Not for them the leisure of 



tame things, for the mother of the wilds never 

 fails to do her duty by her offspring. The 

 hills and valleys the mother knew were tra- 

 versed, so that the young fawn, beautifully 

 spotted, came to know the lands o'er which 

 it must range, came to know the succulent 

 leaves and grasses, came to know where the 

 drinking-pools lay like liquid jewels in 

 green, mossy settings; came to know where, 

 when the storms raged and made the forests 

 unsafe, the best lurking-places were. Under 

 the mother's influence, its three chief senses 

 were developed to the limit of wild things. 

 Great and greater became the distances it 

 could see and mark the movements of dan- 

 gerous things; far and farther away Could 

 it catch the faintest sound; and keenest 

 sense of all, its nostrils learned to detect, 

 especially when the air was heavy or the 

 wind was favorable, the odorous presence of 

 the great soft-footed panther, whose mission 

 is ever to destroy. 



Autumn, then, with her palette and 

 colors, must needs try her hand at the pic- 

 ture, the picture that Spring and Summer 

 had labored so lovingly upon. Reds and 

 golds were used lavishly on the fluttering 

 foliage, while rich browns usurped the 

 greens of fern and shrub. Brown, too, 

 became the color of the wild things. Then 

 strange sounds and scents came to the fawn 

 in the hills, sounds and scents the doe had 

 known before, and soon a restlessness be- 

 came evident among all that dwell in the 



