The Ranger, remembering this pet his grandfather used to tell about, decided to take the ring-tail cat home to the children. And my, how pleased they were! At first they had to keep her in a cage, or she would have run away. And when they placed food before her, she would cower to the furthest corner as if terrified.
After a couple of days of this, the Ranger told his boy that if he really meant to tame her, he would have to make her eat from his hand. After that, though she had a pan of drinking water in her cage, she got no food till she was willing to eat it out of his hand.
For several days she refused to touch what he offered her. Then the tempting odor of a piece of wild goose liver held between the boy’s fingers proved too much for her and she came up and ate it while he held it. A few days more and they could let her out of her cage.
Ring-tail, as he named her, soon became the pet of the household,—to Clickety-Clack’s disgust, for the owl liked attention too. She would play like any other kitten, and she ate all kinds of table scraps, figs and prunes being her especial fondness.
She was no end graceful, was Ring-tail, with her long, plumy tail and her pointed face. And she responded to all the old kitten tricks, from chasing her tail to wrestling with one’s hand, tooth and claw. She craved affection, too, like any house cat.
There was just one trouble. They could not trust her in the same room with the canary.
Fuzzy-Wuzz had never bothered the bird, for though he could climb, he was too clumsy to reach into the cage as it hung there above the window box. But with Ring-tail it was different.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BABY CANARY
A WAY back last spring, before the Ranger found the little bear, the canaries had started a nest of five pretty eggs, and there the mother bird had sat, keeping them warm, while her mate sang to her.