PAGE TWO
BAREE
I* Sort, of
\ \ Kazan
• SBSSSSB
{ ! <»
?* < *
!■ i i
j; By JANES OUTER CORWOOD ;
!>V - St !
(©, Doubleday, Page & Co.)
WNU Service
THE STORY
CHAPTER I.—Part wolf, pwt Som-~
whoa two m*dthfe old Bar#* bM kta
first meeting with an *Mmy, Papayu
chksew (young owl). Fighting hard,
the antagonists are suddenly plunged
Into a swollen creek.
CHAPTER ll. —Badly buffeted, and
half drowned, Baree is finally flung
on the bank, but the water has de
stroyed his sense of direction and ha
la lost, lonely and hungry. For many
daqrs his life is one of fear and dis
tress. He finally wanders Into the
trapping grounds of a halfbreed, Pier
rot X>u Quesae, and his daughter, Ne
peese the Willow. Taking for a
wqlf. He pedes shoots and wounds him,
hat he escapes.
CHAPTER lll.—The wolf blood la
Baree 'becomes apperaaost. He rapidly
learns Nature’s secrets, though he find*
Be comrades ana Is deepsratsly tonsly.
CHAPTER IV.—Following. Wakayoo,
the black hear, Baree subsists royally
on the caches of fish the big fellow
leaves. He comes again into Pierrot’s
tx%ppfng domain. Pierrot shoots TTa
• kayoo. Nepeese, Insisting Barse is
dog, not wolf, tries to capture him.
Baree is strongly drawn to the girl,
but cannot entirely overcome his dread
> .1;
CHAPTER V.—Baree makes friends
with a colony of beavers, losing much
of his sense of loneliness.
CHAPTER VI. Bush McTaggart,
factor at Lac Bain. Hudson's Bay com
pany’s post, man of evil life, has long
coveted Nepeese, even to the extent of
offering marriage, but makes no prog
ress with his suit. On his way to
Pierrot and Nepeese McTaggart takes
Baree in a trap, and in a struggle is
bitten. With the dog he comes to
Pierrot’s cabin.
CHAPTER Vll.—Nepeese claims Ba
re'e as hers, bathing the wounds In
flicted by McTaggart after the dog had
bitten him. The?, promising to give
him a definite answer to his lovemak
ing Nepeese lures McTaggart to the
edge of a deep pool and humiliates him
by plunging him Into the water, at the
game time taunting him for presum
ing to address her. Blood poisoning
developing from Baree's bite. McTag
gart and Pierrot hasten to Lac Bain
to secure medical treatment.
CHAPTER Vlll.—Nepeese has spent
three winters at a mission, where she
has learned to read and sew. On her
seventeenth birthday she fashions &
costume which properly sets forth her
really great beauty.
in melf Dig flni(l-ana-sncK strong
holds the beavers held a council of
war. They were distinctly puzzled.
There were four enemies which they
dreaded above all others: The otter,
who destroyed their dams in the win
ter time and brought death to them
from cold and by lowering the water
so they could not get to their food
supplies; the lynx, who preyed on them
all, young and old alike: and tho fox
and wolf, who would lie in ambush
for hours in order to pounce on the
very young, like Umisk and his play
mates. If Baree had been any one of
these four, wily Beaver-tooth and his
people would have known what to do.
But Baree was surely not an .otter, and
if he was a fox or a wolf or a lynx, hi*
actions \?ere very strange, to say the
least. Half a dozen times he had the
opportunity to pounce on his prey, If
he had been seeking prey. But at no
time had he shown the desire to harm
It may be that the heavers discussed
the matter fully among themselves. It
is possible that Umisk and his play
mates told their parents of their ad
venture and of how Baree made no
move to harm them when he could
quite easily have caught them. How
ever this may be, courageous old
Beaver-tooth took it upon himself to
Aend the suspense.
It was early in the afternoon that
tot the third or fourth time Baree
walked out on the dam. This dam was
fully two hundred feet in length, but ;
at no point did the water run over it, 1
the overflow finding its way through
narrow sluices. A week or two ago
Baree could have crossed to the oppo
site side of the pond on this dam, blit
now—at the far end—Beaver-tooth and
his engineers were adding a new sec
tion of dam, and in order to accom
plish their work more easily they had
flooded fully fifty yards of the low
ground on which they were working.
The dam held a fascination for Baree.
The top of it was high and dry, and
there were dozens of smoothly worn
little hollows in which the heavers
had taken their sun-baths. In one of
these hollows Baree stretched himself
out, with his eyes on the pond. Not a
ripple stirred its velvety smoothness.
Not a sound broke the drowsy stillness
of the afternoon. The beavers might
have been dead or asleep, for all the
stir they made. And yet they knew
that Baree was on the dam. Where
he lay the sun fell in a warm flood,
and It was so comfortable that after
a time he had difficulty in keeping hia
eyes open to watch the pond. Then
he fell asleep.
Just how Beaver-tooth sensed this
fact is a mystery. Five minutes later
he came up quietly, without a splash
or a sound, within fifty yards of Baree.
For a few moments he scarcely moved
in the water. Then he swam very
slowly parallel with the dam across
the pond. At the other side he drew
!*- f.-boro ;>rvi for another minute
jf.: ;■*» morionless as A stone, with hll
i yes on that part of the dam where
> Baree was lying.- Not another beaver j
i was moving, and it was very soon np- \
j parent that Beaver-tooth had but one j
• >bjeet in mind —getting a closer obser- j
| vation of Baree. When he entered the
> .vater again, he swam along close to
| the dam. Ten feet beyond Baree he ■
> began to climb out. He did this with
; great slowness and caution. At lust
• he reached the top of the ’dam.
• A few yards away Baree was al-,
[ most hidden in his hollow, only the
> top of his shiny blaek body appearing
J to Beaver-tooth’s scrutiny. To get a 1
• better look, the old beaver spread his
[ flat tail out beyond him and rose to a
• sitting posture on Ms hind quarters,
his two front paws tieM squirrel-like
’ over his breast. In this pose he was
, fully three feet tall. He probably
' weighed forty pounds, and in some
> ways he resembled one of those fat,
’ good-natured, silly-looking dogs that
go largely to stomach. But his brain
was working with amazing celerity.
• Suddenly he gave the hard mud of the
dam a single slap with his tail —and
Baree sat up. Instantly he saw Beaver
tooth, and stared. Beaver-tooth stared.
For a full half-minute neither moved
the thousandth part*of an Inch. Then
Baree stood up and wagged his tail.
That was enough. Dropping to his
forefeet, Beaver-tooth waddled leisure
ly to the edge of the dam and dived
over. He was neither cautious nor
in very great haste now. He made a
great commotion in the water and
swam boldly back and forth under
Baree. When he had done this several
times he cut straight up the pond to
the largest of the three houses and
disappeared. Five minutes after
Beaver-tooth’s exploit word was pass
ing quickly among the colony. The
stranger—Baree—was not a lynx. He
was not a fox. He was not a wolf.
Moreover, he was very young—and
harmless. Work could be resumed.
Play could be resumed. There was no
danger. Such was Beaver-tooth’s ver
dict. .
If some one had shouted these facts
in beaver language through a mega
phone the response could not have
been quicker. All at once it seemed to
Baree, who was still standing on the
edge of the dam, that the pond was
alive with beavers. He had never seen
so many at one time before. They
were popping up everywhere, and some
of them swain up within a dozen feet
of him and looked him over in a leis
urely and curious way. For perhaps
five minutes they seemed to have no
particular object in view. Then Beav
er-tooth himself struck straight for the
shore and climbed out. Others fol
lowed him. Half a dozen workers dis
appeared in the canals. As many more
waddled out among the alders and
willow’s. Eagerly Raree watched for
Umisk and his chums. At last he saw
them, swimming forth from one of the
smaller houses. They climbed out on
llieir playground—the smooth bar
above the shore of mud. Baree
wagged his tail so hard that his whole
body shook, and hurried along the
dam.
When he came out on the level strip
of shore, Umisk was there alone, nib
bling supper from a long? freshly cut
willow. The other little beavers had
gone into a thick clump of young al
ders.
This time Umisk did not run. Fie
looked up from his stick. Baree
squatted himself, wiggling in a most
friendly and ingratiating manner. For
a few seconds Umisk regarded him.
Then, very coolly, lie resumed his
supper.
*******
Just as in the life of every man
there is one big, controlling influence,
either for good or for bad, so in the
life of Baree the beaver pond was
largely an arbiter of destiny. Where
he might have gone If he had not dis
covered it, and what might have hap
pened to him, are matters of conjee
tore. But it held him. It began to
take the place of the old windfall, and
in the beavers themselves he found a
companionship which made up, in a
way, for the loss of the protection and
friendship of Kazan and Gray Wolf.
This companionship, if it could be
called that, went just so far and no
farther, With each day that passed
the older beavers became more accus
tomed to seeing Baree. At the end
of two weeks, if Baree had gone away,
: they would have missed him—hut not
| In the same way that Baree would
, have missed the heavers. It was a
matter* of good-natured toleration on
their part. With Baree it was differ
ent. He was still uskahis, as Nepeese
would have said; he still wanted moth
ering; he was still moved by the pup
pyish yearnings which he had not yet
had the time to outgrow; and when
night came—to speak that yearning
quite plainly—he had the desire to go
into the big beaver house with Umisk
and his chums, and sleep.
During the fortnight that followed
Beaver-tooth’s exploit on the dam Ba
ree ate his meals a mile up the creek,
where there were plenty of crawfish.
But the pond was home. Night always
found him there, and a large part of
his day. He slept at the end oi' the
dam, or on top of it on
clear nights, and the heavers accepted
him as a permanent guest. They
worked in his presence os if ho did
not exist.
He still could not induce Umisk and
the other young beavers to join him in
ptey, and after the first week or so he
gave up his efforts. In fact, their play
puzzled him almost as much as the
dam-building operations of the older
heavers. Umisk, for instance, was fond
of playing in the mud at the edge of
• the pond,.- He was like a very small
■hoy. Where his elders floated timbers
from three, inche? to a foot in diame
ter to the rbig dam, Umisk brought
f’nalt sticks • and twigs no i«t *g<*r
around than a lead pencil to Ms pUi"
ground, and built a make-believe dam
of his own.
Umisk would work an hour at a
time on this play-dam as industriously
! as his father and mother were working
on the big dam, and Baree would lie
flat on his belly a few feet away,
watching him and wondering mightily.
He could see some reason for nibbling
at sticks—he liked to sharpen his teeth
on sticks* himself; hut it puzzled him
to explain why Umisk so painstakingly
stripped the bark from the sticks and
swallowed it.
j Another method of play still further
discouraged Baree’s advances. A short
j distance from the spot where he had
; first seen Umisk there was a shelving
! bank that rose ten or twelve feet from
| the water, and this bank was used by
the young beavers as a slide. It was
worn smooth and hard. Uinfcsk would
climb up the bank at a point where It
was not so steep. At the top of the
slide he would put his tail out flat be
j hind him and give himself a csliove,
shooting down the toboggan and land
ing In the water with a big splash.
One afternoon, when the toboggan
was particularly wet and slippery
from recent use. Baree went up the
heaver-path to the top of the bank,
and began investigating. Nowhere
had he found the beaver-smell so
strong as on the slide. He began
. sniffing and incautiously went too far.
In an instant his feet shot out from
'^SS^SBr-
In an Instant His Feet Shot Out From
Under Him.
under him, and with n single wild
yelp he went shooting down the tobog
gan. For the second time in his life
he found himself struggling under
water, and when a minute or«two later
he dragged himself up through the
soft mud to the firmer footing of The
shore, he had at last a • cry well-de
fined opinion of beaver play.
It may be that Umisk saw him. It
may he that very "toon the story of
his adventure was known by ail the
inhabitants of Beaver Town. For
when Baree came upon Umisk eating
his supper of alder hark that evening,
Umisk stood his ground to the last
Inch, and for the first time they
smelled noses. At least Baree sniffed
audibly, and plucky little Umisk sa<
like a rolled-up sphinx. That was the
final cementing of their friendship—
on Baree’s part. He capered about
extravagantly for a few moments, tell
ing Umisk how much he liked him, ami
that they’d he great chums.- Umisk
didn’t talk. He didn’t make a move
until he resumed his supper. But he
was a companionable looking little fel
low, for all that, and Baree was haj>-
pier than he had been since the day
he left the old windfall.
That friendship, even though It out
wardly appeared to be quite one-sided,
was decidedly fortunate for Umisk.
When Baree was at the pond, he al
ways kept as near to Umisk as pos
sible, when he could find him. One
day he was lying In a patch of grass,
half asleep, while Umisk busied him
self in a clump of alder-shoots a few
yards away. It was the warning
crack of a beaver tail that fully
roused Baree; and then another and
another, like pistol-shots. He jumped
up. Everywhere beavers were scurry
ing for the pond,
Just then Umisk came out of ihe al
ders and hurried as fast as his short,
fat legs would carry him toward the
water. He had almost reached the
mud When a lightning flash of red
passed before Baree's eyes In the
afternoon sun, and in another instant
Napakasew —the he-sox —had fastened
his sharp fangs in Umisk’s throat.
Baree heard his little friend’s agonized
cry; he heard the frenzied flap-flap
flap of many tails —and his blood
pounded suddenly with the thrill of
excitement and rage.
As swiftly as the red fox himself,
Baree darted to the rescue. He was
as big and as heavy as the fox, and
when he struck Napakasew, it was
with a ferocious snarl that Pierrot
might have heard on the farther side
of the pond, and his teeth sank like
knives into the shoulder of Umisk’s
assailant. The fox was of a breed of
forest highwaymen which kills from j
behind. He was not a fighter when it
came fang-to-fang, unless cornered—
and so fierce and sudden was Baree’s
assault that Napakasew took to flight
almost as quickly as he had begun his
attack on Umisk.
Baree did not follow him, but went
to Umisk, who lay half in the mud,
whimpering and snuffling in a curious ’
sort of way. Gently Baree nosed him, '
and after a moment or two Umiak got i
tip on his webbed feet, while fully 1
twenty or thirty beavers were inakir.;
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_ Fortunate youth
THE educational opportunities for the boys and girls of
the South are keeping pace with the leadership of the
South in the economic progress of the Nation. This is seen
in the following facts:
In the last twelve years more
than $125,000,000 has been spent
for the construction of new school
buildings in the states of the South
served by the Southern.
In 1900 there were less than
73,000 school teachers in the
states of the South served by the
Southern, and the appropriation
for education amounted to only 90
cents per person living in these
states. In 1922 the appropriation
was $6.85 per person, and the
number of trained teachers had
increased to 139,309.
Ini 900 only 64.8 per cent of thechil
dren of school age in these states
•
The Southern Railway System has contributed to the
prosperity of die South, as a tax-payer, as a large em
pleyer of men and women—and as die transportation
_ agency which carries Southern commerce to and from
world markets, regularly, dependably and economically.
OOUTKUERK
RjiILWJY{ (j^^SYSTEMjI
Southern semens?™*/ the South
attended school, while the average
for the nation as a whole was
72.4 per cent. But in 1922, the
latest year for which complete
figures are available, 81.4 per cent
of the children in the states of
the South served by the South
ern attended school, while the
average for the nation as a whole
was 81.2 per cent.
The growth in the educational
facilities of the South, as well as
the number of children that caa
take advantage of them, is one of
the fortunate and direct results of
the prosperity that has come to
the South.
Thursday. May ».