Just then Miranda's small voice chimed in.
"Oh, Davey," she cried, catching gleefully at the boy's leg, "look at the nice, great big dog!" And her little brown finger pointed to a cluster of stumps, of all shapes and sizes, far over on the limits of the clearing. Her wide, brown eyes danced elvishly. The others followed her gaze, all staring intently; but they saw no excuse for her excitement.
"It might be a b'ar she sees," said Old Dave; "but I can't spot it."
"They're plenty hereabouts, I suppose," said Kirstie, rather indifferently, letting her eyes wander to other portions of her domain.
"Ain't no bear there," asserted Young Dave, with all the confidence of his years. "It's a stump!"
"Nice big dog! I want it, mother," piped Miranda, suddenly darting away. But her mother's firm hand fell upon her shoulder.
"There's no big dog out here, child," she said quietly. And Old Dave, after puckering his keen eyes and knitting his shaggy brows in vain, exclaimed:--
"Oh, quit yer foolin', Mirandy, ye little witch. 'Tain't nothin' but stumps, I tell ye."
It was the child's eyes, however, that had the keener vision, the subtler knowledge; and, though now she let herself seem to be persuaded, and obediently carried her armful of fireweed into the cabin, she knew it was no stump she had been looking at. And as for Kroof, the she-bear, though she had indeed sat moveless as a stump among the stumps, she knew that the child had detected her. She saw that Miranda had the eyes that see everything and cannot be deceived.
For two days the man and the boy stayed at the clearing to help Kirstie get settled. The fields rang pleasantly with the _tank, tank, a-tonk, tank_ of the cow-bells, as the cattle fed over the new pasturage. The edges of the clearing resounded with axe strokes, and busy voices echoed on the autumn air. There was much rough fencing to be built,--zig-zag arrangements of brush and saplings,--in order that Kirstie's "critters" might be shut in till the sense of home should so grow upon them as to keep them from straying.
The two days done, Old Dave and Young Dave shouldered their axes and went away. Kirstie forthwith straightened her fine shoulders to the Atlas load of solitude which had threatened at first to overwhelm her; and she and Miranda settled down to a strangely silent routine. This was broken, however, at first, by weekly visits from Old Dave, who came to bring hay, and roots, and other provisions against the winter, together with large "hanks" of coarse homespun yarn, to occupy Kirstie's fingers during the long winter evenings.