[Illustration:  Redruff saving Runtie.]

Before the chicks could fly they had a meeting with old Cuddy; though it was June, he was out with his gun.  Up the third ravine he went, and Tike, his dog, ranging ahead, came so dangerously near the Brownie brood that Redruff ran to meet him, and by the old but never-failing trick led him on a foolish chase away back down the valley of the Don.

But Cuddy, as it chanced, came right along, straight for the brood, and Brownie, giving the signal to the children, ‘Krrr, krrr’ (Hide, hide), ran to lead the man away just as her mate had led the dog.  Full of a mother’s devoted love, and skilled in the learning of the woods she ran in silence till quite near, then sprang with a roar of wings right in his face, and tumbling on the leaves she shammed a lameness that for a moment deceived the poacher.  But when she dragged one wing and whined about his feet, then slowly crawled away, he knew just what it meant—­that it was all a trick to lead him from her brood, and he struck at her a savage blow; but little Brownie was quick, she avoided the blow and limped behind a sapling, there to beat herself upon the leaves again in sore distress, and seem so lame that Cuddy made another try to strike her down with a stick.  But she moved in time to balk him, and bravely, steadfast still to lead him from her helpless little ones, she flung herself before him and beat her gentle breast upon the ground, and moaned as though begging for mercy.  And Cuddy, failing again to strike her, raised his gun, and firing charge enough to kill a bear, he blew poor brave, devoted Brownie into quivering, bloody rags.

This gunner brute knew the young must be hiding near, so looked about to find them.  But no one moved or peeped.  He saw not one, but as he tramped about with heedless, hateful feet, he crossed and crossed again their hiding-ground, and more than one of the silent little sufferers he trampled to death, and neither knew nor cared.

Redruff had taken the yellow brute away off down-stream, and now returned to where he left his mate.  The murderer had gone, taking her remains, to be thrown to the dog.  Redruff sought about and found the bloody spot with feathers, Brownie’s feathers, scattered around, and now he knew the meaning of that shot.

Who can tell what his horror and his mourning were?  The outward signs were few, some minutes dumbly gazing at the place with downcast, draggled look, and then a change at the thought of their helpless brood.  Back to the hiding-place he went, and called the well-known ’Kreet, kreet.’  Did every grave give up its little inmate at the magic word?  No, barely more than half; six little balls of down unveiled their lustrous eyes, and, rising, ran to meet him, but four feathered little bodies had found their graves indeed.  Redruff called again and again, till he was sure that all who could respond had come, then led them from that dreadful place, far, far away up-stream, where barbed-wire fences and bramble thickets were found to offer a less grateful, but more reliable, shelter.