The Ledge on Bald Face

k-C

ad that upon his bold and confident spirit. The ramshackle, overladen freight train, labouring up the too-steep gradient, had broken in two, thanks to a defective coupler, near the top of the incline a mile and a half away. The rear cars-heavy box-cars-had, of course, run back, gathering a terrific momentum as they went. The rear brakeman, his brakes failing to hold, had discreetly jumped before the speed became too great. At the foot of the incline a sharp curve had proved too much for the runaways to negotiate. With a screech of tortured metal they had jumped the track and gone crashing down the high embankment. One car, landing on a granite boulder, had split apart like a cleft melon. The light crate in which our game-cock, a pedigree bird, was being carri

y water tank. The woods-mostly spruce in that region, with patches of birch and poplar-had been gone over by the lumbermen some five years before, and still showed the ravages of the insatiable axe. Their narrow "tote-roads," now

im to some flock of his own kind, over whom he would, as a matter of course, promptly establish his domination. That there would be other cocks there, already in charge, only add

moment on motionless wing to scrutinize the strange apparition. But he was hungry, and he considered himself more than a match for anything in feathers except the eagle

im, with wings half lifted, neck feathers raised in defiant ruff, and one eye cocked upwards warily. He was so surprised, in fact, that at a distance of some dozen or fifteen feet he wavered and paused

a catapult. He passed straight over his terrible assailant's back. In passing he struck downwards with his spurs, which were nearly three inches long, straight, and tapere

heeling like a flash to meet a second attack. The hawk, recovering with splendid nerve from the amazing shock of his overthrow, braced himself upright on h

uffed straight out, beak lowered and presented like a rapier point. Seeing that his opponent made no demonstration, but simply waited, watching him with eyes as hard and bright and dauntless as his own, he tried

had no knowledge of the cock's duelling code. He

The cock saw his advantage instantly. He dashed in like a feathered and flaming thunderbolt, leaping upwards and striking downwards with his destroying heels. The hawk was hurled over backwards, with one spur through his throat, the other through his lungs. As he fell he dragged his conqueror down with him, and one convulsive but blindly-clutching talon ripped a

turned, without deigning to glance at his slain foe, and stalked off, stepping daintily, up the old w

of his flock, stood him in good stead, and made up for his lack of wilderness lore. It was with an intense interest and curiosity, rather than with any apprehension, that his bold eyes questioned everything on either side of his path through the dark spruce woods. Sometimes he would stop to peck the bright vermilion bunches of the pigeon-berry, which here and there starred the hillocks beside the road. But no matter how in

be devoured alone, he stood over it and began to call kt-kt-kt, kt-kt-kt, kt-kt-kt, in his most alluring tones, hoping that some coy young hen would come stealing out of the underbrush in response to his gallant invitation. There was no such

fraid, but he knew himself no match for a thoroughly ferocious dog of that size. This one, it was clear

fail feathers. The cock alighted on a branch overhead, some seven or eight feet from the ground, whipped around, stretched his neck downwards, and eyed his assailant with a glassy stare. "Kr-rr-rr-eee?" he murmured softly, as if in sarcastic interrogation. The fox, exasper

tling novelty, gave no sign of having heard it. The cock crowed again, with the same lack of result. He kept on crowing until the fox was out of sight. Then he returned coolly to his scratching. When he had satisfied his appetite for fat white grubs, he flew up again to his safe perch and fell to preening his feath

up and down the trunk of a half-dead tree, and listened with tense interest to their loud rat-tat-tattings. He watched the shy wood-mice come out from their snug holes under the tree-roots, and play about with timorous gaiety and light rustlings among the dead leaves. He scrutinized with appraising care a big brown rabbit which came bounding in a leisurely fashion down the tote-road and sat up on its hindquarters

eyes that glowed like fire, came into view, following hard upon the rabbit's trail. It was nothing like half the rabbit's size, but the interested watcher on the branch overhead understood at once the rabbit's terror. He had never seen a weasel before, but

eeping along the course of the tote-road. But after he had covered perhaps a half-mile in this laborious fashion, he gave it up and hopped down again into the road. Here he went now with new caut

ad of leaping along, it crawled with a certain heavy deliberation. Its colour was a dingy, greyish black-and-white, and its short black head was crowned with what looked like a he

straight on end all over its head and body, and the quills were two or three inches in length. At this amazing spectacle the cock involuntarily backed away several paces. The stranger came straight on, however, without hastening his deliberate steps one jot. The cock waited, maintaining his attitude of challenge, till not more than three or four feet separated him from the incomprehensible apparition. Then he sprang light

associated in his mind with an admiring, devoted flock of hens, and rivals to be ignominiously routed, and harmless necessary human

dden weeds grew among the rotting chips up to and across the threshold. The roof-a rough affair of poles and bark-sagged in the middle, just ready to fall in at the sm

h a broken leg and a joint of rust-eaten stove-pipe. Along two of the walls ran a double tier of bunks, in which the lumbermen had formerly slept. The cock stalked all around the place, prying in every corner and murmuring softly to himself. At last he flew up to the highest bunk, perched upon the edge of it, flapped his wings, and crowed repeatedly,

emotions as surprise or curiosity, and expecting an easy conquest. The cock saw it coming, and knew well the danger. But he was now on his own ground, responsible for the protection of an imaginary flock. He faced the peril unwavering. Fortunately for him, the weasel had no idea whatever of a fighting-cock's method of warfare. When the cock evaded the deadly rush by leaping straight at it and over it, instead of dodging aside or turning tail, the weasel was nonplussed for just a fraction of a second, and stood snarling. In that instant of hesitation the cock'

tured to challenge the new lordship of the clearing. For a week the cock ruled his solitude unquestioned, very lonely, but sleeplessly alert, and ever hoping that followers of

The woodsman was surprised at the sight of what he called a "reel barn-yard rooster" away off here in the wilds, but he was too tired and hungry to consider the question carefully. His first thought was that there would be a pleasant addition

up, taken by surprise, and sheepis

are! I guess you're all right. Guess I deserved that, for thinkin' of wringin' the neck o' sech a hands

plainly begging for more. The biscuit was a delightful change after an unvarying diet of grubs and grass. Thereafter he followed his visit

resuming his place at the other side of the fire. By the time the man was done, dusk had fallen; and the cock, chuckling contentedly in his throat, tip-toed into the cabin, flew up to the top bunk, and settled

turned in to sleep in one of the lower bunks, opposite to where the cock was roosting. He had heaped an a

There was no wind when he went to bed, but soon afterwards a wind arose, blowing steadily toward the cabin. It blew the darkened embers to a

*

Long tongues of flame were licking about the doorway. He crowed valiantly, to greet this splendid, blazing dawn. He crowed

up his blanket and his pack. In the next he had plunged out through the flaming doorway, and thrown down his armf

e crow of the cock, shrilling dauntlessly abov

the polite equivalent of his untrammelled backwoods expletive. "That

ept for frizzled eyelashes and an unceremonious trimming of hair and beard. The cock, highly insulted, was flapping and pecking savagely, but the man soon

an' to think I had the notion, for a minnit, o' makin' a meal offen ye! I'll give ye a good home,