Part 29 (1/2)
But louder, shriller, , arose the childish voice, and the settler paused again, irresolute, and with deepening indignation In his fancy he saw the stea hi his steps, and then stu of the wood road He was foot-sore as well as hungry, and he cursed the vagabond squatter with serious e was a terror which would not let hiht of his own little one left in such a position, and straightway his heart rasped his gun, and made speed back for the cabin
”Who knows,” he said to hister without a bite to eat in the whole miserable shanty? Or ar's half scared to death
_Sounds_ as if he was scared;” and at this thought the settler quickened his pace
As the hungry panthers drew near the cabin, and the cries of the lonely child grew clearer, they hastened their steps, and their eyes opened to a wider circle, flahtless superstition to say the beasts were cruel They were sier passion of the chase They were not ferocious with any anticipation of battle, for they knew the voice was the voice of a child, and so in the voice told them the child was solitary Theirs was no hideous or unnatural rage, as it is the custoth, the cunning, the deadly swiftness given them to that end, the food convenient for the that for which nature had so exquisitely designed them, depended not only their own, but the lives of their blind and helpless young, nohi in the cave on the slope of the h a wet alder thicket, bounded lightly over the ragged brush fence, and paused to reconnoitre on the edge of the clearing, in the full glare of the ed from the darkness of the wood road on the opposite side of the clearing He saw the two great beasts, heads down and snouts thrust forward, gliding toward the open cabin door
For a few ain in pitiful appeal, a very ecstasy of loneliness and terror There was a note in the cry that shook the settler's soul He had a vision of his own boy, at hoht of peril And here was this little one left to the wild beasts! ”Thank God!
Thank God I came!” murmured the settler, as he dropped on one knee to take a surer aim There was a loud report (not like the sharp crack of a rifle), and the fe furiously and striking with her fore-paws
The male walked around her in fierce and anxious amazement Presently, as the s for a second shot With a high screech of fury, the lithe brute sprang upon his ene to knoas hit Ere the e the beast was upon his in his shoulder Without a word, the ers desperately into the brute's throat, wrenched hi to rise, when the panther's body collapsed upon hi aside The bullet had done its work just in ti fro profusely froled shoulder, the settler stepped up to the cabin door and peered in He heard sobs in the darkness
”Don't be scared, sonny,” he said, in a reassuring voice ”I' with ht to don't”
Out of the dark corner caht, in a voice which made the settler's heart stand still ”_Daddy_, Daddy,” it said, ”I _knew_ you'd coure launched itself into the settler's ar The man sat down on the threshold and strained the child to his breast He re the far-off cries, and great beads of sweat broke out upon his forehead
Notthe fresh trail of a bear which had killed his sheep The trail led hi the slope of a deep ravine, from whose bottom came the brawl of a swollen and obstructed streareat white rock The cave was plainly a wild beast's lair, and he entered circumspectly There were bones scattered about, and on soe in the deepest corner of the den, he found the dead bodies of two srandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, ”_Thou must_,”
The youth replies, ”_I can_”
EMERSON
A SONG OF THE SEA
The Sea! the Sea! the open Sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a ions 'round; It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; Or like a cradled creature lies
I'm on the Sea! I'm on the Sea!
I am where I would ever be; With the blue above, and the blue below, And silence wheresoe'er I go; If a storm should come and awake the deep, What matter? _I_ shall ride and sleep
I love (oh! _how_ I love) to ride On the fierce, foa tide, When every mad wave drowns the oeth the world below, And why the south-west blasts do blow
I never was on the dull, tareat Sea more and more, And backwards flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest; And a mother she _was_ and _is_ to me; For I was born on the open Sea
The waves hite, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild As welcomed to life the Ocean-child!