"She meant to, I think. The next thing I knew she came headlong, mouth open, fairly screaming at me; and I turned and jumped clean into the Gray Water. Oh, Scott, it was humiliating to have to swim to the point with all my clothes on, scramble into the canoe, and shove off because a very angry wild creature drove me out of my own woods!"
"Well, dear, you won't ever interfere with a sow and pigs again, will you?" said Kathleen so earnestly that everybody laughed.
"What's the rifle for?" inquired Scott. "You don't intend to hunt for her, do you?"
"Of course not. I'm not vindictive or cruel. But old Miller said, when I came past the lodge, dripping wet, that the boar are increasing too fast and that you ought to keep them down either by shooting or by trapping them, and sending them to other people for stocking purposes. The Pink 'uns want some; why don't you?"
"I don't want to shoot or trap them," said Scott obstinately.
"Miller says they pulled down deer last winter and tore them to shreds. Everything in the forest is afraid of them; they drive the deer from the feeding-grounds, and I don't believe a lynx or even any of the bear that climb over the fence would dare attack them."
Kathleen said: "You really ought to ask some men up here to shoot, Scott. I don't wish to be chased about by a boar."
"They never bother people," he protested. "What are you going to do with that rifle, Geraldine?"
"My nerve has gone," she confessed, laughing; "I prefer to have it with me when I take walks. It's really safer," she added seriously to Kathleen. "Miller says that a buck deer can be ugly, too."
"Oh, Lord!" said her brother, laughing; "it's only because you're the prettiest thing ever, in that hunting dress! Don't tell me; and kindly be careful where you point that rifle."