She called the Cat, set it upon the grizzly’s back, and made them gallop around an imaginary ring in spite of the grizzly’s loud yowls of pain. While the fun was in full blast, Snoof appeared, aflame with hatred and jealousy, and charged straight at Miranda.
My tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth and I tasted blood, but Miranda, with great calmness, raised her croquet mallet, and waited,—the merest fraction of a second. At the proper instant, she brought it down with a sounding whack upon the end of Snoof’s nose—her single vulnerable spot. The great Bear fell to earth, stunned.
I quickly finished the execution with my pocket knife. The grizzly, frightened, tore madly off into the woods, forgetting his rheumatism, and leaving us alone with the dead.
It was not pleasant, even though the end of a wild animal is always a tragedy. The only way to make a story of this kind untragic is to quit before you get through.
An astounding change was taking place in Miranda. She leaned over the corpse, her eyes dilated and her small body tense. Her breast was heaving and she shook like an aspen. I would have picked her up and carried her to her mother, but I was fascinated by her face, and moreover, I wanted to see what would happen. The true Scientist must ever sacrifice his emotions to his reason.
Gradually, the entire expression of her face altered. The eerie, wild look had vanished completely, and in its place was a very normal fright. “Tum!” she shrieked. “Baby ’fraid!”
I took up the Little Sister of the Woods and ran into the hotel, rejoicing in my heart that the child was cured. That evening, I proposed marriage to Mrs. Kirsten, who was overjoyed at her child’s sudden recovery, but my hopes were felled to earth as suddenly as Snoof had been that very afternoon.
“The bigamy laws are very strict,” she sighed, meditatively. “Do you not find them so?”
“What,” I gasped, “is your husband alive?”
“Yes,” she returned, “if he hasn’t drunk himself to death since we came here. If Miranda had only been able to charm Snakes,” she continued, “we could have lived very happily with her Pa.”