dreams. But at that moment there came a strange cry from up the
sweeping curve of the shore--so strange a cry that the Child sat up
instantly very straight, and demanded, with a gasp, "What's that?"

Uncle Andy did not answer for a moment. Perhaps it was because he was
so busy lighting his pipe, or perhaps he hoped to hear the sound again
before committing himself--for so experienced a woodsman as he was had
good reason to know that most of the creatures of the wild have many
different cries, and sometimes seem to imitate each other in the
strangest fashion. He had not long to wait. The wild voice sounded
again and again, so insistently, so appealingly that the Child became
greatly excited over it. The sound was something between the bleat of
an extraordinary, harsh-voiced kid and the scream of a badly frightened
mirganser, but more penetrating and more strident than either.

"Oh, it's frightened, Uncle Andy!" exclaimed the Child. "What do you
think it is? What does it want? Let's go and see if we can't help it!"

The pipe was drawing all right now, because Uncle Andy had made up his
mind.

"It's nothing but a young fawn--a baby deer," he answered. "Evidently
it has got lost, and it's crying for its mother. With a voice like
that it ought to make her hear if she's anywhere alive--if a bear has
not jumped on her and broken her neck for her. Ah! there she comes,"
he added, as the agitated bellowing of a doe sounded from further back
in the woods. The two cries answered each other at intervals for a
couple of minutes, rapidly nearing. And then they were silent.

The Child heaved a sigh of relief.