Latest / Mowgli - Stories from the Jungle Books / Chinook the Cinnamon Cub - Allen Chaffee

Transcript

Chinook the Cinnamon Cub - Allen Chaffee · Mowgli - Stories from the Jungle Books

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter one of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This is a
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Recording by Larry Wilson, Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Schaffey.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: A boy and a Bear. The golden dawn of a
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: June day in the Oregon Woods streamed in slant bars
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: between the tall trunks of the yellow pines and into
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the rocky gulch where mother brown Bear had her den
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: dewdrops cleaned like diamonds on every flower and fern and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: spider web that bordered the cascading creek. Missus Tremouse peered
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: with bright, beady eyes as a small roguish face peaked
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: from the cave mouth. Then out into the warming sunshine,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: burst two of the most ply poly little brown bears
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that she had ever seen. For a few minutes, they
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: wrestled like two boys, standing up on their short hind
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: legs to pummel one another, or galloping about in a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: game of tag. Their small flat feet made prints in
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the soft earth for all the world, like the prints
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of a human child's foot, and their black eyes twinkled
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: with fun. It was Chinook and his sister Snooky, their
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: soft fur gleaming cinnamon brown in the sunshine. Then the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: huge form of mother brown Bear came lumbering through the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: cave mouth, and with a soft rumble deep down on
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: her chest, she bade them follow her. She made her
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: way lumbering down over the crags and fallen logs to
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: a stump where she might breakfast on a great cluster
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: of yellow mushrooms. The cubs had their milk in the cave,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: but they always wanted to sample everything their mother ate,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and they went scrambling after her as fast as their
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: short legs and fat sides would let them. The canyon
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: in which they had been born that spring was a
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: wild mass of tumbled rocks and mossy boulders, where years
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: before for a landslide or an earthquake might have tossed them.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Just below their cave lay a tangle of fallen tree trunks,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: piled crisscross and overgrown with a jungle of mammoth ferns
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: that throve in that moist soil. Just now, these logs
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: were encrusted with the brilliant hued mushrooms that Mother brown
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Bear loved later there would be blueberries, and wild blackberries
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: were now pale blossoms shone in the sunlight. In the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: stream to which their cascading streamlet led were trout, And
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: in the great river beyond were salmon, who came from
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the sea to lay their eggs in the gravel. On
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the mountain sides about them, where the wind swept junipers
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: twisted like gnomes. Above the rocky ledges lived burrow mice
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and wood rats, who would furnish good sport when the
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: berries failed. It was a splendid bit of wilderness on
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: which mother brown Bear had staked out her claim, and
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the cubs were eager to be taken exploring. They had
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: nearly reached a point where the huge fallen trunks proped
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: breast high to a man. On their broken branches threw
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: long black shadows along the ground in which the cubs
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: could hide in case of danger. When Weather brown Bear
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: sounded a note of warning deep down in her throat,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: someone was coming along the trail. With the fur bristling
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: along the back of her neck, she rose to her
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: hind legs and listened, wriggling her nose this way and
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that to detect what manner of creature it could be.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: He was certainly a noisy animal, for the fallen branches
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: cracked under his feet. That meant he was without fear.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: He must be large and ferocious. But the wind blew
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: in the wrong direction to carry the message to her nose.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Chinook also rose to his hind legs, ready to fight,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and he too peered this way and that, sniffing and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: cocking his ears in his effort to see what it was. Snooky,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: though she reared up in a pose that looked like fight,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: preferred to take her stand behind her her mother. And
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: while Chinnook genuinely hoped there would be a good scrap,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Snooky privately wished there wouldn't, for Snookie was the smaller cub,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and in her bouts with her brother, she always seemed
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: to get the worst of it. Woof, woo is it,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: asked mother brown Bear under her breath. Woof, echoed her
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: small son aggressively, and woof, said Snookie in a wee
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: small voice. Then along the trail came some one attired
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: in blue overalls and a wide straw hat, who walked
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: on his hind legs like a bear and carried a
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: fishy smelling rod over his shoulder. It was the ranger's
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: boy who meant to surprise his mother with a string
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: of trout for breakfast. Er warned mother brown Bear, don't
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: come any nearer, or I'll do something dreadful to you,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: for she was always afraid that harm would come to
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: her wee fuzzy children. The ranger was in charge of
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: these woods, and he, he and the man cub had
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: never harmed her, though, of course, she told herself she
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: was large enough to have fought off a whole family
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of rangers. But with her babies it was different. They
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: had come into the world soft and helpless, and it
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: would still be many moons before they could look out
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: for themselves. Yer, she warned the boy again, but he
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: had stopped in his tracks to stare at them. With Chinook,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: it was far different. He felt so fine and fit
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that he just itched for a fight with some one
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: beside Snookie, and he growled, come on deep down in
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: his very chest. Hello, there, exclaimed the boy softly from
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the far side of the windfall, his eyes laughing as
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: he saw the two loo little bears standing there, ready
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: for a fight. He knew better than to come any
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: nearer their mother, But he also knew there was no
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: need to run away so long as he kept his distance.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: You're a funny rascal, he told Chinook, A regular scrapper,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: aren't you. I wouldn't mind making friends with you some day,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And his voice was reassuring. Chinook understood the boy's tone
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and his quiet attitude better than the words. I'll fight
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you any time, growled Chinook, and he struck an even
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: saucier pose, his little black eyes twinkling ruggishly.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: End of chapter one, Chapter two of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by John Anderson Chinook the
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Cinnamon Cub by Allan Chaffey. The cubs will learn to
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: swim an better go on, warned mother brown Bear. And
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: at that the ranger's boy thought best to march down
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the trail. But some day, he promised himself he was
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: going to see more of that bear cub. As for Chinook,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: he was consumed with a great curiosity to know more
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: of the man cub who walked on his hind legs
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: all the way. What an interesting world it was that
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: lay all about him. First there had been the sour
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: tasting ants and buttery grubs that his mother was always
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: finding under the fallen logs and boulders. Then there was Douglas,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: the red brown squirrel he could never catch, but who
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: was always running right across his trail till it seemed
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: the easiest thing in the world to nab him. Only
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: that some way Douglas always managed to leap beyond reach,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: just in the nick of time. Douglas claimed that the
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: woods belonged to him, and that the bears were trespassing
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: on his domain. And from the safety of some limb
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: too small for a bear cup, he would hurl jews
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: in insulting challenges at chinook. That's because he's afraid of us,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: mother brown bear told her son, Douglas is bluffing. He
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: knows that bears are fond of her squirrel for supper.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: For a while, after the boy had passed out of sight,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: the cubs were allowed to practice walking on the fallen logs.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: When they fell off, they were so fat and so round,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: and the moist ground so soft that it did not
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: hurt them. Besides the moment they felt themselves slipping, they
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: could put out their claws and cling to the rough
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: bark by and bye. The boy returned all the way
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: he had come, But by this time Mother brown Bear
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: had led the cubs far up the gulch to where
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: a spot of sunshine invited a cat nap. Even as
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: she dozed, she kept one eye half open and one
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: ear cocked for the slightest sound beyond the calling of
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: nestling birds and the barking and scrambling of Noisy Douglas
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: and his family, and the tinkling of the weak cascades
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: that led to the river. The cubs rolled and tumbled
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: over her, or coasted off her huge back, boxed and
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: wrestled and played hide and seek, or came up to
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: pat her huge furry face with little love pats. It
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: was a warm day, and when she had her nap
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: and the cubs their milk and a nap of their own,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and the sun threw her shadow directly beneath her, she
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: decided that it would be a good time to teach
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: them to swim. For woods babies were likely any time
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: to fall into the water, and if there were any
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: possible way of getting into trouble, Chinook, especially with shore
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: to find it. Come, she bade them with an affectionate,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: soft rumble deep in her throat, and she led the
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: way down to the little river and on to where
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: it spread out shallowly over gravelly banks, and the sun
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: took some of the chill out of the water. Mother
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: brown Bear waded in slowly. Chinook tried first one forepaw,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: then the other in this strange new element that was
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: not air, though one could see straight through it, to
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the pebbly ground beneath. Snookie backed off, whimpering, come on,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: commanded Mother brown Bear. Follow me. Chinook, less fearful than
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: his sister, but still weary because of the coldness and
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: the strange wetness of it, followed for a few steps,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: then ran splashing back to shore, where he stood, shaking
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: first one foot then another with a shower of sparkling drops. Snookie,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: come here, ordered Mother brown Bear. But snooky and he whimpered, Chinook,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: show your sister that you are not afraid. She coaxed,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: and Chinook, with a show of bravado, waded in, but
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: the instant the water was deep enough to start lifting
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: him off his feet. He turned in a panic and
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: again dashed madly back to solid ground. Snookie called Mother
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: brown Bear, wading back to shore, climb on my back. This,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: the smaller cup willingly did. She liked to ride on
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: mother's back, hanging on to the long fur with her
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: hand like paws. Come Chinook and Mother brown Bear waded
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: back into the river, with both youngsters gleefully taking a ride.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: As she went in deeper, Snookie looked back at the
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: receding shore line and clung faster to her mother's fur.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Still deeper went their chariot till at last it reached
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: deep water. Now swim, commanded their mother, and with a
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: suddenness that unseated them, she made a dive and shook
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: them from her back, then turned and paddled to shore
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: without once heeding Snooky's strangling squeal for help. The cups
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: naturally struggled wildly to find a footing, and as they
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: poured and clawed about, their legs worked in the same
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: ways when they ran, which was just the way they
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: ought to have worked. Then they discovered that by spreading
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: their legs even wider and scooping at the water with
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: their paws, they could do better. Still. Their vigorous paddling
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: not only served to keep their noises above water. But Chinook,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: less frightened than his twin, turned his eyes to where
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: his mother stood waiting on the river bank and struck
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: out towards her with all his might. Snooky, seeing his
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: whee stub of a tail near her jaws, grabbed hold
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: and let him tow her. And soon they had their
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: feet once more on the gravelly shore, puffing and panting
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: and dripping chili drops. The cubs would have rested, but
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the mother brown Bear set off on a gallop into
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the woods. Wait for me, squealed Snooky. Wait, panted Chinook,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: and the cubs galloped after her. Why was mother so
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: unkind today? End of chapter.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Two Chapter three of Chinok The Cinnamon Cub. This is
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: For more information or tovolunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Chinook be Cinnamon Cub by Alan Sheffee, Chapter three, The
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: California Lion. Mother brown Bear had a reason for running
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: away and making the cubs follow, for by the time
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: she was willing to stop, the shivering bodies were all
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: in a glow of warmth, and what with a few
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: good shakings of her wet fur and a little help
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: from their mother's rough tongue and the sunny June breeze,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: they were soon dry and fluffy and ready for anything.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: The next day, Mother brown Bear again took them swimming,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: and they found they liked it. The day after, she
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: decided to go fishing, for the streams were full of trout,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: and she loved trout even better than the roots and
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: mushrooms that she could find near her home. This time
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: she towed the cubs across the river. Chinook took her
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: stub of a tail in his teeth to help him
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: as he swam, and Snookie took his tail. When they
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: had reached the riffles, where the fishing was good, Mother
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: brown Bear simply stood there like a floating log, with
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: one barbed paw held under water, ready to spear any
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: fish that swam too near. With her sharp claws, she
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: could impale the slippery fellows and toss them to shore,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: where the cubs sat watching. They still drank milk, but
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: with their sharp little teeth they sampled everything their mother
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: ate to see what it was like. They were having
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: great fun this afternoon in the clear water, they could
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: see the shining bodies of the finny ones darting along
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: and taking Mother brown Bear for just a big brown log.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: Then she would send a fish flapping to shore, and
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: the cubs would try to catch the slippery fellow. The
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: three bears had started late that day and was getting
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: on towards sunset. The high peaks to the westward had
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: already cut off the ruddy globe of light and left
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: deep shadows creeping upon them. When Mother brown Bear, crunching
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: her fish on the river bank, caught a strange message
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: on the wind that swept downstream, her nose began to wriggle.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: What is it? Questioned chinook softly through his nose. Hush
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: breathed Mother Bear, and the fur rose along her spine
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: as her nerves tense with anger. The cubs, feeling her mood,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: crept closer. The fur rising frightened along their tiny spines.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Away down the river bank, a moving gray brown shadow
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: stirred the salmon berry bushes and made a faint lapping
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: sound as it drank at a pool. As the night
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: wind blew to their inquiring nostrils, it telegraphed that here
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: was a huge foe. It told Mother brown Bear distinctly
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: that down there fishing was Cougar, the California Mountain lion,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: most dreaded of all her enemies. She might have stowed
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: him off in single combat, had he ever been so
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: rash as to attack a grown bear. But here were
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: the cubs, so little and helpless. The only reason Cougar
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: would ever have for coming near would be if he
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: wanted to bear cub for breakfast. Many moons ago, while
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: exploring a distant mountain range, she had seen him lying
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: in wait for rabbits, and when she located her den
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: in the gulch, she had supposed that he still lived
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: many miles from the spot. But here he was, as
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: she could see by peering from behind a boulder, crouching
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: on the shelving bank of the river, with one pod dangling,
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: barbed and ready to spear a fish. Perhaps it had
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: been a poor rabbit year and he had moved into
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: her territory. That would never do. From now on, she
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: must keep close watch of the cubs. Perhaps he need
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: never learn that she had these furry children to protect.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: If they went quietly now downstream, with the wind burrowing
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: from him to them, they might cross the river low down.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Then if he should cross their trail, he would lose
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: their scent at the point where they entered the water.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: But once let the giant cat learn of the den
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: by the cascades, and he would be watching it like
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: a cat and a mouse hole for the first moment
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: which she had to leave her children unprotected. Now, a bear,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: for all his weight, can pad along as softly as
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: any other mouser when he wants to, And at this
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: time at least the little family got safely home without discovery.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: But when the great tawny brown cat had caught his
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: supper and eaten it, he decided to see what might
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: be further downstream, and thus he happened upon the bare
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: scented footprints that the three had left behind them. Aha
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: sniffed cougar, who was longer than a man, is tall, juicy,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: tender young bear cubs. Just wait till I can catch one.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: What a feast it will be, And he licked his
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: whiskered lips in pleased anticipation. But when he came to
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: the point where the bears had crossed the river, he
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: lost their trail, and though he sniffed around for a
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: long time, he could not find what had become of them.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Cats hate getting wet, and he wouldn't have swam the
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: river except in a real emergency. Now it happened that
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: the ranger was after that very mountain lion, for Cougar
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: had been killing elk and deer, and these were Uncle
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Sam's woods, where deer are protected except for a little
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: while each fall. But when Cougar had moved from his
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: old den on the other side of the mountain, the
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: ranger had lost track of him. One day, though, the
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: ranger's boy, on his way over the pass with a
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: pack horse to the logging camp where they brought flour
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: and coffee, heard something that sounded almost like a man
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: sawing wood. It was way off up the mountain side.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: The boy listened, and if his mother hadn't expected him
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: back by supper time, he would have climbed the slope
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: to see who it could be. If he had done so,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: he wouldn't have caught so much as a glimpse of
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: the purring lion, who would have run at the first
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: whiff of a human being. But if the boy had
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: had his father's pocket telescope with him, he would have
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: seen stretched out flat on a shelving rock ledge, which
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: his fur almost matched. The slender, panther like animal as
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: heavy as a grown man, with his small head nodding
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: drowsily in the sunshine because he had been up all
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: night exploring and in his dreams. Cougar licked his lips,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: for he was dreaming of nosing out the den where
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: mother Brown Bear had her cubs. End of chapter three.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Recording by Astronoy Chapter four of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: visit LibriVox Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffee, Chapter four,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: The Home in the Squirrel's Nest. Douglas, the squirrel, whose
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: fur just matched the red brown tree trunks, was as
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: saucy as as Eastern cousins, the red squirrels. He had
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: been named after a famous explorer, just as Chinok was
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: named for the Indians who lived in that part of Oregon.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: It used to seem to the little bear as if
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: the squirrel took delight in teasing him, while so surely
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: as Chinok tried to slip away and hide from his mother.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Douglas was sure to spy out his hiding place from
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: some branch overhead and chatter and scream about it for
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: all the woods to hear. Then, with a catch me
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: if you can sort of challenge, he would go whisking
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: almost under the cub's nose in a way. Chinok would
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: go racing after him, for he, as well as Douglas
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: could climb trees as easily as a cat, his sharp
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: claws clung to the bark even better than mother brown bear's,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: But always the squirrel was too quick for him. Then,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: when the little bear would give it up and back
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: his way on to Douglas would come and perch on
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: a limb just out of reach and hurl saucy threats
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: at him, or race up and down and around the
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: tree trunk, his tail jerking with his wrath. These are
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: my woods, he was always asserting, My pine cones, my mushrooms,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: go away, at which point Chinuk would retort, I'll eat
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: you alive if you don't look out. Then Douglas would
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: seat himself away out on some slender branch where Chinuk
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: could not have reached him had he tried, and taking
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: a pine cone up in his hand like paws, he
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: would nibble it around and around and eat the delicious
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: kernels while the little bear's mouth watered for a taste,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: then throwed the empty cone down on his head. The
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: day after their fishing trip, Mother brown Bear decided that
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: if Cougar was anywhere about, they had better stay at home,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: where in an emergency she could order the cups into
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: the den and stand guard over them. Chinuk, having nothing
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: better to do, therefore, decided to catch Douglas if it
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: were possible for him to do so. Away Up in
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: the yellow pine. Above the den was a great mass
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: of sticks and moss and dried pine needles that looked
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: as if it might be Douglas's nest. In fact, he
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: had often seen the squirrel run into that very tree.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: He did not know that Douglas and his family had
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: just built a larger nest in a taller tree. For
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: a bear's little eyes are not so good as his
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: nose for telling what is going on about him. To day,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: sure enough, Douglas ran up the trunk of the yellow
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: pine with his cheeks stuffed full of mushrooms that he
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: meant to put away for a rainy day, Chanuck scrambled
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: after him, but Douglas, instead of going to the nest,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: only leapt to the limb of the neighboring spruce and
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: from it to a tree beyond. Chinock determined, so long
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: as he was up there to have a look at
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: the nest. Now it happened that mister Rufus treemouse had
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: moved into the nest that Douglas had abandoned. The little
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: red mouse peered with frightened eyes at the advancing cub, then,
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: with a soft hush to her babies, she cuddled them
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: up in a warm ball away inside the innermost chamber
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: of her new house, and waited, trembling to see what
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: the cub would do. Chinok, finding the nest apparently deserted,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: although alluring mousey odors clung to it, decided to curl
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: up in the crotch of a limb where he could
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: see if Douglas came back. And so comfortably was he
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: lodged in the hammocking crevice, and so drowsy did the
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: stillness of the noonday warmth make him feel that the
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: first thing Missus Rufus knew the little bear was fast
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: asleep right there as it were in her front yard.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: Dear me, she whispered to Father Treemouse when he came
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: home with a mouthful of soft lichen for the nursery walls.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Here is that bear cub right where he can see
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: us if we so much as peek from the door,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: And there is nothing to prevent his tearing the nest
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: to pieces and eating us all alive. I haven't forgotten
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: how to run, soothed Father Treemouse. Nor I but what
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: about the babies. We could only take two of them
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: with us. We'd have to leave two behind. That isn't
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: what I meant, exclaimed Father Treemouse. Don't worry. The minute
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: that monster wakes, I'll run out along that lower limb
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: in plain sight, and he'll be so eager to catch
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: me that he'll never look your way. All right, then
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: you keep watch. I feed the babies and get them
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: to sleep. If they keep squealing this way, they'll wake him. Sure,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: And the little red mouse began nursing her mouselets as
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: a cat does her kittens. She was thinking, what a
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: shame to have to move, Just as they had lined
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: walls and floors so daintily. The squirrel family had laid
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: a good farm foundation of sticks too large for a
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: mouse to handle, and the roof was as tight and
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: dry as new by the time they had plastered it.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: From their post. Away among the high interlacing branches, they
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: could run from one tree to the next and need
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: never go down to the ground at all if they
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: didn't want to, for they could find all the pine
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: twig bark, and on the tree next door all the
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: nice green spruce needles that they could eat. Father tree
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Mouse had been sleeping in a little shack of his
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: own out on the end of the branch ever since
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: the babies had come. From there, he could see all
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: that went on around them, and put his mate on
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: her guard by sounding a signal. Squeak jannok stirred in
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: his sleep, and a little mother trembled. Would father tree
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: mouse be able to do as he had planned when
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: that monstrous cup woke? End of chapter four recording by
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Astronomy Chapter five of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This is
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffee, Chapter five, Mister
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: and Missus treemouse. Now, as anyone understands who knows much
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: about meadow mice, they nest on the ground, and they
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: are the one kind of game a bear can always
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: count on when the roots and berries are all gone
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: and the trout streams frozen. Once upon a time, ever
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: and ever, so many thousands of years ago, there was
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: a mouse who was wiser than the rest. When bears
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: and bobcats pursued her, she took refuge in the treetops.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: One night, it seemed as if every creature in the
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: woods was after her, and when she had reached the
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: snug crotch of a high limb where she could hide
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: from them, she decided it was wiser to stay there
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: all night. The next morning, for breakfast, she sampled the
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: bark and to her surprise, found the flav for first rate.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: Then she began to ask herself why she need ever
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: come down at all. She trilled for her mate, for
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: she had a sweet, little bird like voice when she sang,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: and they discussed the situation. They had just been thinking
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: of building a nest where the babies would be safe
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: when they came, and they finally decided to build it
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: away up high in the tree. Those babies, after having
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: grown up in the tree top, saw no reason why
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: they should go back to the ground either, and they too,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: built homes in the tree tops so high that bears
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: and bobcats never thought of looking for them there where
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: before they had eaten grass and other things that they
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: could find on the ground. Now they nibbled bark and
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: spruce fans and the tender butt ends of the pine needles.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: That way, the whole tribe came to live in trees.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Their relatives who had stayed on the ground all got caught,
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: and there were only the families of those who had
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: become a boreal. Now their neighbors were birds and squirrels,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: and when they wanted to go exploring, they could run
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: out along one branch till it crossed the branch of
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: another tree. In time, Mother Nature changed their little furry
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: coats from the gray brown of the soil to the
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: red brown of the Oregon tree trunks, so that their
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: enemies could not see them when they crouched along the limbs.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: She changed their teeth to stronger ones that could gnaw
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: the bark more easily, and she gave them the kind
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: of eyes that could see in the dark, because when
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: the pretty little fellows went to feeding among the greenery,
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: their rufous coats showed up too plainly by daylight. Finally,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: their great mother found that they needed longer tails than
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: they had on the ground to help them keep their
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: balance when they had to leap from branch to branch.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: And after Mother Nature had done all that for them,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: they found that they were so safe that they could
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: build great, roomy nests in the very tree tops where
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: they could raise their children. Sometimes they found an abandoned
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: scroll's nest that made a first rate framework, and converted
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: it into a palace of many rooms. These they carpeted
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: beautifully with cedar fans and bits of dry mof some
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: lic and for the babies to creep around on. The
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: young bachelor mice were generally satisfied with one room cabins
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: away out on the tips of the lembs, where they
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: could come and go as they pleased. But as the
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: young people became more experienced in nest building, and as
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: they found that they needed larger quarters, they would often
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: build a whole colony of nests around some tree trunk,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: with the different apartments resting on different branches, but with
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: one main hallway that ran around the trunk, so that
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: they could visit back and forth without going out of doors.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: As the dust blew over these nests of sticks and
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: spruce fans, and the rain moistened the dust, and the
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: seeds of tiny plants blew on this rich soil, the
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: apartment house would come to look like a bit of
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: ground beneath, and on cold nights, the thick walls would
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: keep out the rain in the wind and make it
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: all as snug and homelike as anything you can imagine.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: That is how mister and missus Treemouse came to be
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: living so high above the ground and the branches of
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: this great pine tree. They really preferred spruce because the
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: bark has a better flavor, and two because most of
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: their fronts lived in the spruce trees. But when Douglas
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: the squirrel had abandoned this great roomy nest, it seemed
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: like too good a bargain to let go, and they
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: had promptly moved in. They were really awfully frightened when
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: they saw Chinuck come scrambling so near, for they had
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: heard him tell Douglas how he would eat him alive
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: if he ever caught him. The pretty red mother mouse
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: had just gotten her four babies asleep when Chinuck finished
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: his nap and, with a yawn in a stretch, began
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: looking about him to see where he was. Now was
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: the time for Father Treemouse to distract his attention. For
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: any moment, the cub might start investigating the nest. With
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: a high pitched little squeak. The brave might started to
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: run along the limb just below, but he scuttled so
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: fast that Chinuck decided it was no use trying to
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: catch him and just sat there, blinking sleepily in the sunshine.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: At that Father tree Mouse came back, and this time
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: he pretended to have a broken leg, which made him
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: limp along so slowly that even Chinuk might have caught him,
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: just barely out of reach of the little bear's barbed paw.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Father tree Mouse limped down the tree trunket out along
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: the limb. This time the cub ran after him so
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: fast that father Mouse's heart bumped with terror. But he
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: must get that bear clear out of their tree. And
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: at last he dropped to the ground and raced madly
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: across an open space to another tree with Chenuck close
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: at his heels. His ruse was working altogether too well
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: for the little bear all but clapped his paw on
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: him once he did get the tip of his long tail.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: But Father Treemouse remembered a knot hole he had seen
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: one day when out exploring, and straight for that knot
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: hole he darted, tumbling into it. Not an instant too soon.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: For a time, Chinuk watched the knot hole for him
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: to come out, But by and bye his mother called him,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: and when he came back, Father Treemouse had left and
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: gone back home. Do you know he told Mother Treemouse,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: we ought to find some nice big knot hole and
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: move into it before that bear comes back. And before
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: another night had passed, they had found one and moved
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: the babies. End of chapter five. Recording by Astronoly Chapter
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: six of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This is a librifox recording.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: information or to volunteer, please visit librifox dot org. Chinook
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffee, Chapter six Mazammah the
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Mysterious Sometimes in the black of night, the cubs would
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: be awakened by a weird, unearthly screech, But pure as
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: they might from the mouth of their den into the
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: shadowy woods, they could never see what manner of creature
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: it could be. When they asked Mother brown Bear, she
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: said it would be better for them to watch and
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: find out for themselves. Mother brown Bear wanted them to
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: learn to use their wits, for they were going to
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: need them in their life of hunting and being hunted.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Sometimes the cubs thought they saw two great round eyes
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: gleaming at them in the moonlight, high up in the
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: branches of a tree. Weird voice and gleaming eyes. That
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: was first impression of Mazima the Mysterious, whose hunting calls
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: startled every mouse till its trembling set the grass is
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: waving and showed Mazima where it was hiding. One night,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Mother brown Bear decided to take Snookie and Chinook on
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: a mousing expedition. Now, the mice which were her favorite
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: game were the stupid burrow mice, who lived in tunnels
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: underground and often destroy whole crops for the farmers. The
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: forest floor is threaded with these tunnels, whose entrances are
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: hidden beneath stumps and fallen logs, or come out beneath
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: overhanging rocks, and the moment danger threatens into one of
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: these tunnels, there will pop and run and run away
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: down underneath the sod. But a bear's sharp nose can
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: smell a mouse even when it is hiding underground, and
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: if he cannot catch it in the open, he can
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: sometimes dig it out, though he has to be pretty spry,
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: because while he's digging, at one point the mouse may
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: be running to some other branch of his tunnel. That night,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Mother brown Bear wasn't so anxious to catch mice herself
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: as she was to teach the cubs. But those snookie
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: and chinook raced joyously after every red backed burrow mouse
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: they saw, till they had chased them all into their
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: secret tunnels. They caught not one of the fleet footed fellows,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: and by and by the great round yellow moon peeped
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: into the pine woods. Suddenly a weird, unearthly cry shivered
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: through the air, and the cubs shrank, trembling against their mother.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: It was Mazuma, the mysterious watch. Now whispered Mother brown Bear.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: You'll soon find out what you've been afraid of. Then
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: across the opening between the tall tree trunks swept a
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: gray shape, as soundlessly as a shadow. It was nothing
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: but a bird, a round eyed barn owl, though with
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: a beak as sharp as a scimitar and great curved
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: claws like swords. A mouse came to the door of
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: his tunnel right beneath the huge gray bird, and, feeling
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: as if the great eyes were upon him, made a
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: dash for a better hiding place. But with one swift
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: dark the owl had set his beacon him and was
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: winging his silent way to the limb of a tree,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: where he held the mouse down with one talon while
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: he ate him alive. And at the despairing squeak of
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: his victim, every burrow mouse with an earshot told himself,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: thank goodness, I'm not in his skin. But because they
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: had very little brains, they started right out into the
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: open again to hunt their suppers. And the next thing
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: they knew, Mazma had caught another one of them. While
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: the three bears watched, he swooped again and again on
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: his silent wings that the mice he could see so
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: plainly with his great round eyes. So this thought Chinook
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: was what had frightened him. Only a bird. There is
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: nothing like looking a terror straight in the face. Just
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: as Mother brown Bear was ready to start for home,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: another terrifying sound pierced the stillness, and it was startlingly near.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: The sound came from behind them, and the breeze was
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: in the wrong direction to tell them what it was.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: It was the screeching catlike voice that betrayed its owner.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Is it cougar? Trembled Snooky. No, come and I'll show
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: you who it is. And Mother brown Bear began circling
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: till they could approach the newcomer. With the wind in
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: their faces. Chinook wriggled his nose, inquiringly. It's a cat,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: even if it isn't cougar, he decided, Yes, it's a cat,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: but no one we need be afraid of. It's Paddy Paws,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: the bobcat. He's a great mouser. Better watch him. You
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: can learn a lot from the way he goes about it.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Mother brown Bear told them softly, he might catch us too,
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: shivered Snooky, clutching at her mother with both arms. Not
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: now that you've grown as big as he is, is
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: he a good fighter? Mother asked Chinook. He can put
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: up one of the best fights of any animal of
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: his size if his life or his kittens are in danger.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: But he never courts trouble, and he will leave you
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: alone if you leave him alone. Huh, sniffed Chinuk. I'll
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: bet he isn't any better mouser than I'm going to be.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Don't boast, said Mother brown Bear. It would be better
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: to watch and see how he does it. Is he
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: a better mouser than Mozimma? Watch and see, was all
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Mother brown Bear would tell them. Once, when the ranger's
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: boy had caught a glimpse of Paddy Paws crouched along
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: the limb of a tree, he had at first taken
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: him from merely the largest and handsomest tiger cat he
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: had ever seen. Pussy Pussy, he had called, ingradingly, wondering
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: how a house cat came to be in the woods.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Sh had hissed, Patty Paws, leaping away to another tree.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: Then the boy had seen how his tail was bobbed
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: and his ears pointed, and how large his paws were,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: how wildly his yellow eyes gleamed. You're certainly not very friendly,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: thought the boy, But I suppose it's because you're afraid
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: you're trying to frighten me with all that hissing. At first,
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: the cubs could only see that something moved stealthily, body
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: held close to the ground through the shadows of the
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: tree trunks. Then as the big cat pounced on a mouse,
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: they could see that he was a handsome, tawny fellow
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: with spots on his sides. Then Mazima gave another screech.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: The bobcat answered with an angry yowl. Keep out of
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: my hunting grounds. He yelled at Mazama and began sniffing
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: about till he discovered a big mousehole crouched there, ready
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: to pounce the minute its tenant showed its face. His
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: attention was distracted by another mouse, who ran across the
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: open and with one leap he was upon it with
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: a pitiless, barbed paw. But Mazama had I had also
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: been after that mouse, and the same instant Patty caught
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: it by the tail. The great owl snapped his beak
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: in the mouse's neck, warned Patty, pause, that's my mouse,
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: Let go, and he slapped with his free paw at
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: the bird. Mozima gave a hoot of rage and slashed
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: at the bottlecat with one foot as he raised his
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: wings and sailed away, bearing the bone of contention in
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: his beak. The cat had a red scratch down one ear.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: That punishing claw had come very near his face. But
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: he also clutched a handful of owl feathers. How much better,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: pointed out Mother brown Bear, not to have scrapped over
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: one miserable mouse. Now they're both hurt, and there are
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: a million mice left to catch. Patty Pause ran away
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: into the shadows. Perhaps the massage with moisten paw, the
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: stinging scratch on his ear. He's feeling real scrappy tonight,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: laughed Chinook. But he sure is some mouser. End of
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: chapter six. Recording by Astronomy Chapter seven of Chinook the
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Cinnamon Cub. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: please visit LibriVox dot org. Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: Alan Chafe, Chapter seven, Lost in the Fog. August came
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: with its hot sun and the salt smelling white fog
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: from the ocean. Mother brown Bear decided to take the
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: cubs on a trip high among the cool mountain peaks.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: You know, Chinuk means snow eater, She told her son.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: We must see if the name fits. When the warm
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: west winds come in spring and melt the snow, the
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Indians call it the chinook. And when the first of
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: their tribe named himself he took a bite of snow.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: They even call these big salmon that come from the
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: sea to spawn the chinook salmon, because every spring they
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: swim so far up these icy streams. Snow would taste
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: good today, panted the little bear. But I thought it
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: only came in winter away up on the high peaks.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: His mother told him, there is snow all the year round,
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: but you are going to see even more exciting things
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: than summer snow. Before we had finished our trip, it
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: was strange starting out in the fog. Though the gray
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: mists shut off all the way before him, and Chinuk
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: could hardly see a tree trunk right ahead. He could
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: tell it was there by the message his wonderful little
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: nose gave him. He could tell even better in this
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: moist air than he had been able to in dry weather,
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: and he could tell the difference between a pine tree
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: and a spruce tree as easily, as the ranger's boy
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: could have told with his eyes shut whether they were
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: going to have onions or cabbage for dinner. The woods
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: were strangely still today. The birds had little heart to
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: sing when, for all they could see, some enemy might
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: be creeping up behind them, For birds have to depend
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: on their eyes more than their noses. Hubs patted along
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: after their mother, the scent of whose warm fur led
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: the way. Chinuk paused to sniff a delicious odor that
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: was new to him. Following his nose, he presently came
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: to a swampy place, where his feet sank into the
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: moist ground, and his face was brushed by tiger lilies. Now,
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: a lily means something very different to a bear from
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: what it does to a bee or a boy. It
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: was the onion like bulbs at their roots that interested
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: mother brown bears young hopeful. It was the lily he
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: had smelled and that had made his mouth water. In
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: another instant, without once calling to tell his mother what
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: had become of him, he started digging them up with
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: his claws and gobbling them down till his furry face
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: was streaked with mud and his sides were rounded. After
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: he had eaten all the lily bulbs he could possibly hold.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: He began to wonder if his mother and Snookie were
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: waiting for him. More likely they had not even missed him.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: Now his stomach, which was used to very little besides
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: the warm milk from which he had not yet been weaned,
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: began hurting dreadfully. The little bear whimpered, but he didn't
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: dare make much of a noise. After what his mother
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: had told him about Cougar, the California lion, and his
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: fondness for having bear cub for breakfast. On all sides,
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: Chanuk could see nothing but gray fog. My how his
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: stomach ached, and he was lost from the great wise mother,
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: who always knew how to make his troubles disappear. What
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: if Cougar were hiding there in the fog, ready to
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: pounce upon him? As paddy paws pounced on the mice, slowly,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: it came to him that there was no one to
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: come to the rescue unless he rescued himself, and he
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: set his wits to work. Why, of course, why hadn't
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: he thought before that all he had to do was
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: to follow his own trail back to where it crossed
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: the one his mother had left for him to follow.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: For a bear, like most four footed folk, his little
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: scent glands in his feet, and everywhere he goes he
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: leaves a trace of his own peculiar perfume on the ground.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: It isn't often strong enough for a boy to detect,
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: but a cat or a dog, or a bear or
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: a mouse can tell it easily. So around and around
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: went the little lost bear, retracing every step of the
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: way he had come through the mystic maze that was
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: the Lily swamp, till at last he came out on
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: the trail where mother brown Bear had left her big footprints.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: With a happy squeal, he raised ahead. His mother was
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: just coming back for him, but to his hurt surprise,
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: she only gave him a sound spank with her paw
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: and growled for him to come along quick. But when
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: he told told about the stomach ache, she stopped and
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: hunted around with her nose in the fog until she
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: found a certain little red mushroom eat that she told him,
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: and you'll soon feel better. Jana obediently bent off the
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: top of the toadstool, but instantly wished he hadn't, for
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: it had the most puckery, peppery taste, not at all
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: like those he had sampled before. He didn't want to
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: swallow such medicine, but she insisted. Then for a few
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: minutes he felt worse than ever. But as soon as
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: he got over feeling seasick, and the lily bulbs had
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: come up the way they had gone down, he began
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: to feel better. But it was meek little Bear who
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: promised never again to sample anything his mother had not
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: told him to eat. For a while, the cubs raced
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: merrily along while mother brown Bear kept up a lively clip,
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: But as they climbed more and more steeply over the
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: canyon walls, their feet felt heavier and their breath came shorter.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: After a while, they reached an altitude where the fog
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: did not follow, but lay like a cloud in the
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: canon beneath them. Up Here above the fog belt, the
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: sun was shining, birds were singing, and the world was
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: bright and green of fir trees and the pink and
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: blue of wild flowers that had a sweetish taste. Puffy
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: white clouds sailed slowly across the deep blue of the sky,
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: and the air was so cool and bracing that the
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: cubs forgot their fatigue and started playing tag. Then a
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: terrifying thing happened. The ground, which had always been so
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: firm beneath their feet, began to rock with a sideways
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: motion that made them fairly dizzy. One long quiver, and
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: the earth ceased quaking. But it was their first earthquake,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: and the cubs did not know what might happen next.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: Their mother explained it to them away, down deep underground.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: She told them it was not solid rock and earth,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: but steamed from the subterranean fires that sometimes spouted out
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: of the volcanic peaks. It was this steam that made
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: the ground rock out there on the Pacific coast. Once
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: within her memory, there had been a fountain that white topped,
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: one they could see so far ahead, that had spouted
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: red fire into the night. For it was a volcano,
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: and there had been an eruption. And even though that
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: had happened a hundred miles away, it had shaken the
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: ground so hard. There had been such a big earthquake
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: that the rocks had gone sliding down the mountain sides
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: like with a noise like thunder, And in some places
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: the earth had cracked right open forever. So many feet.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: Will that ever happen again, asked Snookie, her eyes round
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: with awe. What has happened once may always happen again?
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Was all Mother brown Bear could tell her. If we
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: do have a big earthquake, we must run out into
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: the open, because it may shake her din to pieces.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Little did she dream that the day might come when
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: the cubs would be glad to remember her advice. End
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: of chapter seven. Recording by Astronomy.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: Chapter eight of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This is a
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: Chanook the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffee, Chapter eight. Teamwork.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: As the three bears crossed the shallow head of the
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: river whose course they had been following up to the
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: mountain sides, from the grass almost under their feet, leapt what,
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: at first glimpse they took to be a mammoth mouse.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: Of course, they chased it. Soon they noticed that it
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: ran very differently from the mice they had known. Instead
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: of scuttling along in all fours with its long tail
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: streaming out behind, this one gave mammoth leaps, and its
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: tail was just a bunch of brown fur. Then they
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: noticed what long ears it had and what broad hind feet.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: It's a hare, signaled Mother Bear, a snowshoe rabbit. The
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: big brown hair raced so fast that it was soon
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: out of sight. Then, instead of staying safely away back,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: it came circling to stand on its hind legs, with
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: its long ears pointed forward to catch the sounds these
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: strange newcomers were making, and its paws folded on its
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: furry chest. The minute it caught sight of the pursuing cubs,
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: it leapt away again with such great bounds that the
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: bears again lost sight of it. You'd never catch it
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: that way in a million years, Mother brown Bear laughed,
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: her black eyes twinkling. As the cubs returned. Why not,
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: Chinnook demanded, Let's wait until it comes back and have
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: another try. I don't mind resting here a while, said
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: Mother brown Bear, seating herself with her back to a
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: rock and her legs straight out in front of her,
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: while the cubs sprawled out in the sunshine up here,
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: so high above their woods, where the wind was cool
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: and the sun felt good on their fur In chasing
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: a hare. Mother brown Bear told them you never want
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: to follow right along in its tracks because it can
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: generally outrun you. I thought you said it was a rabbit,
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: said Snooky. They called this one a snowshoe rabbit, her
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: mother explained, But it's really a hare, a snowshoe hare.
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: You see how broad its feet are in winter when
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: there is snow on the mountain sides, it's white for
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: keep it on the tops of the drifts, where an
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: animal with slender feet sinks. In creeping up on a hair,
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: you can sometimes pounce the way a bobcat pounces on
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: a mouse, but that is only possible when the wind's
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: in your face, blowing from the hair to you, and
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: it's curled up asleep and doesn't see you. If the
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: wind blows from you to the hair, it gets your
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: scent and takes warning. Then remember, you can't make the
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: teeniest weeniest sound, or it catches it with those great
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: funnel like ears. But where a thing is hard to
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: catch in a straight away race for it, that is
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: the time to try strategy. And where one pursuer cannot
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: catch a supper that runs so fast, it is sometimes
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: possible for partners to work it between them. I have
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: seen a family of bobcats bring down a snowshoe rabbit
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: by careful teamwork. Tell Us about it, beg the cups,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: who did not see the hair looking at them from
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: behind the stump to which it had circled in its
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: foolish curiosity to find out more about its enemies. It
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: was wriggling its nose this way and that, for the
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: wind was in its face, and for the moment it
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: was safe. It was a cold, moonlit night began Mother
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: brown Bear when Patty Pause and his mate went rabbit
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: hunting and took their five half grown kittens along. The
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: kittens were handsome, bright eyed little fellows, anxious to learn
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: how to do everything their parents did well. First, Patty
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: himself gave chase to a big brown hair, who went
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: hopping away so fast that the heavy cat was all
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: out of breath before he had come anywhere near his quarry.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: But Missus Patti Pase had stationed the kittens around every
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: here and there through the woods, and just as the
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: old cat had to give it up for the time,
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: she was right there ready to take its place. They
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: made a regular relay race out of it when missus
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: Patty Pause had chased the hair around in a circle
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: and got so winded that she had to stop. The
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: nearest kitten took up the race, and by the time
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: Paddy had his breath back and cut straight across the
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: circle to take the kitten's place. All this time, of course,
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: the hare was getting more and more worn out, but
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: it still kept leaping ahead so fast that it nearly
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: got away after all, Yes, sir, it took every one
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: of those seven cats to catch that hair. They certainly
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: worked hard for the quick lunch that they got out
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: of it, and they had to work harder still before
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: they had caught enough to satisfy those hungry kittens. But
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: teamwork finally did it. At that the hare, whose eyes
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: had been nearly popping out of his head with surprise,
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: leapt away as fast as he could go. Hey, Snooky
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: Schnook gave his sister a resounding slap. Let's try a
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: relay raise the next time we see a hare, all right,
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: but you needn't hit so hard, and Snookie landed him
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: a biff that sent him tumbling downhill in a wrestling match.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: Mother brown Bear yawned and stretched come children. She bathed them,
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: and as she rose to her feet, we have a
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: long way to go if we are to have supper
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: in rat town. At the word, the cubs went racing
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: after her, and a little further on, their eyes brightened
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: when they came to a footprint that looked almost like
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: a squirrel's, but which smelled distinctly mousey. It was the
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: track of a mountain pack rat. The cubs sniffed curiously.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: It was a part of their schooling to learn the
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: meaning of every odor. For the next year, when they
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: had to earn their own livings, they would have to
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: know where to find enough to eat, and then their
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: noses would be bigger help than eyes and ears put together.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: For a few minutes, they followed the trail of the
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: pack rat, which smelled stronger and stronger. Of a sudden,
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: the rat himself darted off to the right. Mother Bhaer
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: watched to see if the cubs could profit by what
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: she had just been telling them. Quickest thought Snooky was
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: after that rat. Quickest thought Schnook saved his breath and
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: watched to see where the race would lead, and when
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: the rat began circling further to the right, so that
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: the wind was in his face. Chinook made a dash
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: across the circle and took Snooky's place. Good work, thought
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: mother brown Bear, proud that her children were so quick
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: to learn. For a couple of minutes, Chanook raced with
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: all his might, but the rat ran faster. Then Snooky
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: came leaping downhill to take his place. As the rat
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: darted past her. And just as she lost her balance
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: and went tumbling head over her ears, her brother had
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: taken a short cut and was ready to take her place.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: And the next thing that old rat knew he was
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: flattened out under Chinook's paw. You see, Mother Bear told
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: them there is nothing like teamwork. The reason a bear
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: is so brainy is because he is always watching other
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: forest folk to see what he can learn from them.
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: And when cubs are too little to make their way alone,
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: they want to stand by each other. How mother does
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: love to preach, thought Chanook. But he I didn't dare
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: say so, And the time was coming when he was
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: glad to remember what she had told him. But if
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: his nose was any judge, they were nearing the rat
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: town she had promised to show them. End of chapter eight,
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: Chapter nine of Chinook The Cinnamon Cup. This is a
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: Recording by Dick Bourgeois Doyle Chinook the Cinnamon Cup by
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: Alan Chaffee, Chapter nine, Rattown. The village they were approaching
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: looked like a toy Indian encampment, with its tiny tepees
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: of sticks and trash. The inhabitants were not much larger
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: than burrow mice. Were these mountain pack riots, so called,
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: who scurried about packing gray armfuls of twigs and leaves
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: to make their homes secure. Some of the teepees were
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: built as high as Chinook's head when he stood on
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: his hind legs, and he could have crawled inside had
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: the doorways been large enough. How such tiny fellows could
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: build so high, he could not imagine till he saw
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: half a dozen rats setting one stick in place with
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: their squirrel like paws at the approach of the three bears.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: The sentinel mice, who had been sitting on their rooftops,
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: promptly stapped a warning signal, and every rat and rat
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: towns scampered terrified, into his tent. Hooray, Chinook, exulted, watch
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: me catch them. You'll not find it so easy as
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: you might think. As mother warned them, they have none
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: of them lost the use of their hind legs, And
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: indeed the three bears had a lively time of it
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: before mother brown Bear had satisfied her Keen Mountain appetite. Still,
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: it was a paradise for mousers. That same night, the
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: ranger's boy was having his own experience with Oregon pack rats.
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: The forest ranger, in his horseback trips through the mountains,
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: found it convenient to have a shelter shack in the
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: fir woods just beneath Lookout Peak. This time the boy
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: had gone with his father, who had to find out
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: how much timber up that way was ripe for cutting
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: for a lumber company wanted to buy some for the
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: first time that summer. They were to spend a couple
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: of nights at the cabin. To their surprise, they found
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: that a family of little pack rats had taken possession
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: in their absence. The blankets were chewed in pieces torn off,
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: presumably so that the rat babies would have a soft bed.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: The flower that the ranger had left in a bag
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: hung from the rafters so the porcupines couldn't reach. It
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: had been spilled through a hole that the rats had
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: chewed in one corner of the bag, For unlike the
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: prickly ones, the little rats had been able to run
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: down on the string as easily as so many circus acrobats.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: The lid had been lifted off the tee jar, and
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: the tea had been sampled, though with no great relish,
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: for most of it had been left untouched. Even as
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: the boy entered the dusky doorway, he spied three of
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: the most like gray rats, no larger than chipmunks, tugging
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: with their hand like paws at the lid of the
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: molasses can, which appeared to fit too tightly for them
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: to manage. The dusty paw marks up and down its
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: sides told that they must have tried it many times.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: At the boy's laugh, they ran, but they were bold
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: and were soon back again, working away in the shadows
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: that his candle lanterned through. That night, the boy, who
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: slept in a bunk of fur boughs opposite his father's,
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: was awakened by a great scuffling and scurrying over floor
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: and roof, and once by angry squeaks and squeals. Another time,
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: something warm and furry with toenails that tickled, ran across
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: his forehead. A third time, he was awakened by a
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: resounding thump. It was one of his heavy hiking boots,
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: which he had been advised to take to bed with
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: him for fear the rodents might have a relish for
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: smoke tanned moose hide smeared with neat's foot oil. They
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: had evidently tugged at the heavy boot until they had
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: hauled it over the edge of the bunk. The boy
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: watched them with one eye half open to see what
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: would happen next. With a huge sound of scraping over
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: the split log floor, the three little rats dragged the
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: boot to one corner of the cabin, and there tugged
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: and panted in their effort to drag it into their hole.
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: The boy, feeling assured that that was something they could
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: never do, and knowing that they could never lift it
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: to carry it away through the cabin window, and being
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: in that optimistically drowsy state where one doesn't care much
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: what happens anyway, allowed himself to fall asleep again. In
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: the morning, he found the appropriated boot filled to the
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: top with stores the little rats had sought to hide there.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: First there was his soap, which they had nibbled all
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: around the edges with their pointed teeth. Next came a
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: mixture of pine nuts, bits of the cold lunch the
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: ranger had brought in his saddle bags and thrown in
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: the cold fireplace, a button they had chewed from his sleeve,
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: and a much gnawed pencil, while the toe of the
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: boot was stuffed with half a dozen burrs, which they
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: evidently treasured, and with the fragments of the greasy paper
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: in which they had brought their breakfast bacon. As for
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: the bacon itself, that was nowhere to be seen, though
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: a greasy, paw marked trail led up the side of
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: the cabin wall and into a corner of the rafters.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: The tin in which they had stowed it for safe
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: keeping had been uncovered and thoroughly decorated with tell tale footprints.
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: The ranger and his boy doubled with laughter. Pack Rats
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: are a pest, pronounced the ranger when he found his
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: own boots still safe at the foot of his bunk,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: but nibbled all across the tops I'll take you up
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: to an abandoned mining camp someday where the pack rats
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: have taken possession of every cabin, with the doors and
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: windows boarded up so that bears and bobcats can't get in.
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: They live there, producing about four litters a year of
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: perhaps four to a litter, till there must be thousands
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: of them, where nothing larger than a weasel can get
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: at them to keep their numbers down. It's destroyed the
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: balance of nature. Someday I'd like to find the time
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: to clear them out, or there will soon be such
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: millions that they will come migrating around the settlements, destroying
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: crops and doing no end of damage. How are you
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: going to clean them out? Dad? Going to take the
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: pied piper along, laughed the boy. All I'll have to do,
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: I imagine, is to destroy the old log cabins, because
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: as soon as the hawks and owls, bears and bobcats,
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: foxes and coyotes, and all the animals whose natural food
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: they are can get at them, the balance will soon
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: be restored. As for the pied piper, I don't know
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: if these rats care for music, but thank goodness, they
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: aren't the common Norway disease spreading rat of our city
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: wharves trade rats campers call these little fellows because they
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: have a funny way of trading some of their trash
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: for some of the food they salvage. There. Just look
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: at that, and he reached for the butter tin, which
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: had also been raided. It was half full of bark.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: I suppose they think that kind of trade will square
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: it with us. Well, they may relish bark for breakfast
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: side the boy, But I'd as soon have bacon and
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: butter to go with these biscuits. Thank goodness, I put
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: the biscuit tin under a heavy weight last night. I
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: thought I had placed the bacon there too, You did, agreed,
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: the ranger not under a heavy enough weight. See they
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: lifted that hardwood stick right off. You wouldn't think they
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: had the strength to. But I suppose it's teamwork. The
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: breezen things howled the boy convulsed with mirth, for one
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: rat had just peeked over the edge of the table,
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: flinched a half biscuit from his very plate, and made
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: off with it, and now sat with a fragment he
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: had broken off eating it. As he sat up squirrel
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: wise holding the biscuit in his paws. They really seemed
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: more like squirrels and rats, thought the boy aloud. He
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: was noticing that instead of the coarse hair and naked
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: tails of the city rat, they had soft gray fur
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: and snowy undersides, with tails almost as thick as it
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: ground Squirrels. They aren't real rats, agreed his father, But mice,
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: in spite of the name. In some places they have
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: taken to nesting in the tree tops, and in some
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: places they burrow. They nest in the branches overhanging swampy places,
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: and burrow in sandy plateaus. But up here in the
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: higher altitudes they either live among the rocks or build
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: teepees of trash, Dad do. They store food for winter,
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: just like squirrels. And there's one thing they do that
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: is rabbit like. I've seen them drum and alarm on
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: the ground with their heels when they have to send
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: a warning signal a long distance. They sure are cunning
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: rascals altogether, too cute for me. I wouldn't mind an
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: occasional half pound of bacon, if only they wouldn't dig
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: up the pine seeds that I plant in my reforesting nurseries.
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: They are vegetarians mostly, aren't they? Yes? And down in
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: San Luis, Potosi, they sell them at the market stalls
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: to be cooked like rabbits. Look out, is that your
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: pocket knife? That fellow is dragging across your bunk? The
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: boy made a dash for his property. Can you beat it?
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: But up in Rattown they were giving Chinook a mary chase.
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: End of chapter nine, Chapter ten of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub.
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Dick Bourgeois Doyle. Chinook
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffee, Chapter ten a live snowball.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: The day after they visited rat Town, Mother Bear led
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: the cubs high above the surrounding mountain slopes, where a
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: sandy meadow stretched to the foot of snow clad lookout peak.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: This eleven thousand foot sky meadow was a riot of
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: wild flowers. Yellow mimulas and purple pussy paws carpeted the
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: ground beneath their feet, while snowy slopes blue in the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: cloud shadows towered the summit or swept in a long
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: slope to the spruce woods lying dark green beneath them.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: The air was as fresh as a drink from a
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: snow fed river. What amazed the cubs was the great
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: swarms of red and black butterflies danced above them. Snookie
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: and Chinook had a gay time trying to catch them.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: Where the purple and white honey loopin sat their nose wriggling,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: the butterflies danced in a cloud. Mother Bear was amazed
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: to see butterflies in this chill altitude, for though she
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: had been a great traveler, she had always before found
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: them down in the warm meadows where the bees gathered
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: the honey that she loved. She did not know that
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: these butterflies were migrating south for the winter, but they
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: had not come all this way to chase butterflies. What
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: Mother Bear liked best about the summer snow fields was
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: that here she often found whole swarms of frozen grasshoppers
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: to hunt for this delicacy. She now called the cubs
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: to the foot of the nearest snowbank while she dug
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: and sniffed and feasted. They lapped the strange white stuff
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: that felt so cold. Then Snookie fell down and rolled
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: head over heels, and to Chnook's surprise, the half melted
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: snow clung to her till she looked like a little
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: white bear instead of a cinnamon cub. The next thing
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: mother Bear knew the cubs were climbing the steep snowbanks
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: for the sake of coasting down. Sometimes they sat with
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: feet straight out in front of them, but oftener they
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: threw themselves down flat on their stomachs and did it
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: belly bumps, over and over and over. They tried it
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: while their mother searched for grasshoppers, till she really began
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: to worry for fear they might wear all their fur off.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: They never forgot the fun they had on their first
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: snow slide. Now, Schnook little dreamed that the ranger's boy
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: who had passed them one day, was right down there
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: in the fir woods, whose pointed spires he could see
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: from an overhanging ledge. Nor did the boy dream that
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: the roguish little bear was also off on a camping trip.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: Having found the snow harder on the northern slope and
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: easier to slide on, had started off with a sturdy
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: shove of his boylike hind feet, and had set himself,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: going so far and so fast that he couldn't stop.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: On the warm western slope, the snow bank soon came
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: to a stop, and there Snookie was content to coast
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: while her mother nosed about for frozen grasshoppers. But on
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: the northern side it sloped in an unbroken expanse of
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: hard white that glittered in the reddening sunlight, and never
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: stopped until it had reached in a long tongue down
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: the gulch into the fir woods. What's that? Exclaimed the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: rangers boy as he and his father peered at a
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: small black object darting over the snowfield, But it went
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: so fast that they couldn't make out what was coming.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: The snow up above, where the chill winds blew, was
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: crusted hard and firm, and the little bear for it
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: was he just skimmed along as if he were on ice.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: But down in the gulch, where the snow ran into
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: the fir woods, the top few inches had partly melted
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: till it was just sticky and clung to the feet
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: like plaster. As Chanook reached the level stretch and tried
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: to get to all fours, he only succeeded in turning
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: head over heels with the momentum of his long slide.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: The next thing he knew, the soft snow began sticking
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: to him inches deep, till by the time he had
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: stopped rolling and come to a standstill, the boy would
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: have taken him for a mammoth snowball if he hadn't
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: seen him coming. Dad, I want that cup, he shouted,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: stripping off his coat as he ran, but clinging to
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: the coiled lead rope he had on his arm. Leave
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: him alone, warned his father, who was leading the pack horse.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: But the boy had already thrown his coat over the
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: struggling snowball, and the ranger raced to his assistants. Five
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: minutes later, a man and a boy, both scratched and
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: but completely triumphant, had a small and frightened and very
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: angry little bear on one end of the lead rope,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: with the other end tied to a fir tree. Now
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: watch me make friends with him, the boy exulted, running
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: to the cabin for something to feed his unexpected guest.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: I'll watch, his father laughed, Starting after the pack horse,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: The boy searched the cabin hastily. There on the top
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: shelf stood a tightly lided tin pail of brown sugar
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: that the dampness had converted into one great lump. Chipping
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: off a pocketful of hard lumps, the boy returned to
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: where the little bear chafed and struggled at the end
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: of his leash. Had they not known just how to
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: tie the knot, he would have choked himself. He was
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: just beginning to gnaw on the rope when the boy
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: threw him a great hard lump of the sugar. Then
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: he went around the corner of the cabin and peeked
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: to see what would happen. Chanook, finding the woods as
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: silent as if he were the only living thing about,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: paused in his chewing to wriggle his nose at the
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: delicious smelling tidbit, and suddenly he realized that he was famished.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: What could it be, he asked himself. Not wild honey,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: but something almost as good. After all, he found himself unhurt,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: and if that boy came again, he thought he could
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: hold his own in a tussle. Gingerly, he reached forth
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: a snowy paw to draw the goody nearer. Then he
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: licked the brown lump with an inquiring pink tongue. Um,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: Never in all his short life had he tasted anything better.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: Bears have a great sweet tooth. He crunched it delightedly.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: Now began an experiment that the boy had performed with
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: other wild folk. Would the cub be too frightened to respond?
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: Stepping quietly into view, he held out a great handful
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: of the tempting lumps, and the little bear sniffed longingly.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: But at the same time he eyed the blue overalled
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: biped with a little suspicion. He remembered, however, that it
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: was the same boy who had passed them once before,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: and who had not harmed him. But then Mother Bear
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: had taught him to be wary of what he did
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: not understand. By and by, the boy threw him another
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: lump of sugar that was a language he did understand.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: Chunuk snapped it up, and his mouth watered for more.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: He could smell that the boy had more to give him. Softly, slowly,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: and ever so unalarmingly, the boy came a few steps nearer,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: holding out the sweets, the cub watching intently. It took
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: quite a while for the little bear had to focus
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: his mind so wholeheartedly on the feast before him, as
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: to forget those amazing moments when boy and ranger had
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: thrown their coats over his head and forepaws, and knotted
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: the rope around his neck. But after all, Shunk had
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: never in all his life received a hurt, and his
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: mother was not there to sound her suspicions, why not
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: consider the boy a friend. In the stillness of the
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: mountain twilight, the miracle was accomplished, and the furry woods
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: boy allowed the human boy to feed him. Then, from
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: behind a fallen log not two stones throw distant, the
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: boy saw the massive head and shoulders of mother Brown Bear.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: That might be a different story. His father saw her too,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: for from the high little cabin window he called quick
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: inside out He drew his revolver in case the alarmed
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: mother should think it necessary to demolish the cub's abductor.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: But the boy ran indoors, and then both watched from
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: the window. Ah, it's all right, Chinook, assured his mother,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: and she could tell from one sniff of his sugary
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: face that he had been faring well, for she was
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: still so nervous at having found him gone, and so
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: angry at the thought that he had been captured, that
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: after nuzzling him all over to make sure no bones
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: were broken, she only grunted a harsh common to hide
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: her fear, and led the way rapidly back into the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: woods where Snooky waited. But Chinook was brought up so
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: abruptly by his tether that his feet slid out from
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: under him. Could I cut him loose? Whispered the boy.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: No need, smiled his father, for even as they spoke,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: mother brown Bear came back to gnaw furiously at the rope,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: and in a moment, the little bear was free. Now
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: he'll wear a collar, laughed the boy. Don't you believe it?
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: His mother will have the rest of that rope off
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: in no time, the ranger reassured him. Isn't it a
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: shame we couldn't be friends that little bear and I.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: You could if this were a national park where bears
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: are never hunted. End of chapter ten.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 5: Chapter eleven of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This is a
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 5: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 5: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 5: Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffey the Indian trapper.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: While on Lookout Peak, the cubs were shown the elk
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: that cougar hunted, and once they found his huge catlike footprints,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: which made mother brown Bear take the cubs hustling back
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 5: to safer territory without pause for a rabbit hunting. On
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: their return trip, she took them circling southward along a
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: little traveled trail till After camping for several days through
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: the green gloom of a spruce wood, where tiny streams
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: tinkled unseen among the dense undergrowth, and wild berries, lily roots,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 5: and pine nuts spiced their diet, they came to a
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: stand of a mammoth sugar pines, with whose equally mammoth
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: cones the cubs played football. Here they came very near
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: pouncing on a prickly porcupine, for which their mother told
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: them they would have been sorry, for his barbed stiff
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 5: hair would have hurt their paws terribly. When it rained,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 5: they found an incense cedar beneath his as flat ferny
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: yellow green fronds they kept as dry as they would
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: have been in their rock den. It was all a
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: part of their education. For the more tree learning they acquired,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: the better they would be able to take care of
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 5: themselves and their families in the years to come. As
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: they got down to the lower levels, not far from
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: the seashore, Mother brown Bear showed them a grove of
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: giant redwoods Sequoia sempervierens, which, in that moist climate, were
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: always green. The cups felt as small as mice beside
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: the big trees up and down, whose awesome trunks they
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 5: climbed exploring. These trees had been seedlings when the world
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: was young four thousand years ago. They were almost prehistoric
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: monsters of the vegetable kingdom. The cups were disappointed to
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: find that the cones of these huge trees were the
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: tiniest of any they had ever seen. They found a
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: hole in a fallen log that would have made a
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: den for a dozen bears, rolled into one, and they
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 5: coaxed hard to be allowed to stay there, But Mother
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 5: brown Bear, sniffing inquiringly about, found that it belonged to
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: an another bear, who must have been, like themselves, off camping.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 5: It would not have allowed them to hunt in his territory.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: Then vacation time was over, and they were safely back
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 5: in their spruce woods with the grove of yellow pines
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: for neighbors, and thankful they were to see the old
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 5: familiar spots for a bear loves home. Despite his vacation rambling,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 5: the soft haze of Indian summer had turned to frosty
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 5: mornings when Douglas the red squirrel and all his tribe
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: chattered busily garnering the pine and spruce nuts for their
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: winter larder. Missus Treemouse had her children trained to look
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: out for themselves, and paddy paws, the bobcat and Mazama,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 5: the mysterious owl, had produced the numbers of the red
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 5: backed burrow mice who ran squeaking across the open Mother
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: Cinnamon Bear left the cubs more and more to their
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: own devices. One day, Chinook discovered a strange footprint. It
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 5: was not that of any four footed creature, nor was
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 5: it that of the ranger and his boy. It was
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 5: that of the Indian trapper who caught forest people for
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: their fur. He came every winter to set traps for
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: bears and bobcats, foxes, skunks, and other furry folk. And
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: once Chinook came upon one of the bob kittens, who
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: cried pitifully with her paw caught fast in a steely
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: smelling thing that had been hidden under the leaves and
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: baited with a fish, and it was the last time
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 5: he ever saw that kitten. After that, Chinook avoided the
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 5: neighborhood of that steel smell, But Snookie had yet to
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: become trap wise. Mother Brown Bear had been off on
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 5: a trip by herself, or she could have told the
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 5: cubs that the smell of steel and Indian moccasins was
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 5: a danger signal. But one day she came back just
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 5: as the two cubs had started off on a nutting expedition.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 5: The cold rains had set in, and they were all
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 5: beginning to feel sleepy, as bears do in the winter,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 5: even when it isn't cold enough to make hibernating necessary.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 5: It must have been that Snookie was thinking about how
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 5: nice it would be to find some snug hollow tree
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 5: and curl up with her toes inside and one paw
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: over her nose, and sleep for a week at a
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 5: time at any rate. Without once noticing where she was going,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: she stepped into a lynx trap. It caught her middle
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 5: toe and she gave a yell of pain. Now it
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: happened that Mother Bear was quite a distance back along
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 5: the trail, and the Indian trapper was not far ahead.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 5: For a time, Snookie tugged and struggled to get free,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 5: while Chinook sniffed about her worriedly, his fur bristling as
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 5: he detected the warning smell of steel. But though the
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: ribbon of the breeze soon began to tell him that
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 5: the trapper was coming, he would not leave her. He
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 5: could still fight on came the trapper. He carried a
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 5: belt axe, and when he saw the handsome brown bear
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: cub he thought what a fine little fur rug her
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 5: coat would make for his cabin floor. Swinging his belt axe,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 5: he was about to strike Snooky over the head, but
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: at that psychological moment, a small sized ball of fury
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: hurled itself at his legs. It was Chinook, and he
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 5: set his sharp white teeth into the Indian's leg and
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 5: clawed to such good af effect that the trapper turned
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 5: his attention wholly to the bear he hadn't caught. That
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: saved Snookie for the moment, and in just another instant,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 5: mother brown Bear came galloping to the scene of action
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 5: with such a growl of fury that the man forgot
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: his axe and leapt for a limb of the nearest tree.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 5: He made it just in time to draw himself out
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 5: of Mother brown Bear's reach, though Chinook had clung to
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 5: his leg till he found himself swinging in mid air. Then,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 5: while Snookie tugged agonizingly to get her toe free, Chinook
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 5: and Mother brown Bear kept watch on the trapper, the
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 5: latter standing furiously on her hind legs to try to
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 5: reach his feet, while Chinook growled awful threats. Finally, with
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: one good jerk and a cry of anguish, Snookie was
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 5: free of the trap, though she ran limping down the
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 5: trail with her toe still in the steel teeth. With
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 5: a final volley of threats, Mother brown Bear and her
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 5: son left the trapper feeling about as bad as the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 5: cub felt, with her bloody little foot that would forever
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: leave a four toed footprint if it hadn't been for you, Oh,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 5: Mother brown Bear told Chinook, your sister would have been
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 5: killed and eaten. Huh, sniffed her young hopeful. We cubs fight,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 5: but I guess we'd stand by each other when there's trouble.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: End of Chapter eleven. Recording by Valentina Viccelli, Chapter twelve
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 5: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 5: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Chinook
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffey in the Raven's Nest.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 5: That winter was a mild one, and though Mother Cinnamon
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 5: Bear slept most of it away in the den among
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 5: the rocks, she wouldn't let the cubs come with her. Ever,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 5: since she had gone off on that trip without them,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: she had left them more and more to their own devices,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 5: till now she told them plainly that they must find
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 5: themselves a place to hibernate. Snooky found another den just
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: big enough for herself, and lined it with pine needles
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 5: to make it soft and warm. Chinook preferred a hollow tree,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 5: from which hung great clusters of gray green mistletoe with
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 5: its wax white berries. Several times they had crossed the
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 5: trail of Cougar, the Mountain Lion, and he was glad
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 5: to find a hole into which he himself could barely squeeze,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: and high enough above ground that Cougar wouldn't be likely
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 5: to notice it. As he went by there he would
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 5: sleep for a while, say several weeks longer if it
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 5: turned too cold, then he would sally forth for a
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 5: few mice. But he found he hadn't much of an
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 5: appetite when he didn't exercise. It was not till April
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 5: that the cubs learned why mother brown Bear had thought
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 5: the old cave would be crowded. There were two new
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 5: little brown bears and a black one, and their mother
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 5: wouldn't let any one so rough as the yearling cubs
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 5: come near the helpless mites. For when the new baby
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 5: brothers and sister had been born, they had been no
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 5: larger than long legged cocker spaniel babies, and not half
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 5: so well clothed. Even when they were two months old,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: they were barely strong enough to follow their mother when
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: she went out for mushrooms. Huh, they are no good,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 5: decided Snookie and Chinook. We can have more fun by ourselves.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 5: They couldn't remember that they, too, just a twelve month ago,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 5: had been blind and helpless, and no end of nuisance.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 5: It was along in May that Snookie took a notion
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 5: to explore the cliff wall, high above the foaming waters
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: of the swollen river. Chinook preferred to stay down by
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 5: the river, spearing the salmon who came leaping over the
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 5: falls and swimming upstream against the rapids to lay their
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: eggs in the shallows, where the newly hatched fish would
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 5: be safer than they would have been in the ocean. Snookie,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: reaching the wind swept edge of the canyon wall, where
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: nothing but twisted mountain pines and junipers could keep their foothold,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 5: found the dwarf trees flattened out to leeward of the
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 5: wind that blew steadily from off the broad Pacific. The
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 5: little bear found that she could walk right on top
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 5: of the low flung branches, so closely were they matted
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 5: from years of clinging together for mutual protection. Some of
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 5: these sturdy, dwarfed and ancient trees grew so low and
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 5: so roof like that Snookie could barely stand upright under
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 5: the canopy they made. It was a wonderful place to play.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 5: A mammoth bird's nest had been tucked away in a
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: cranny of the rocks, right on the canyon rim, and
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 5: at first a great blackbird sat on it. By and
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 5: by Snooky saw the great blackbird was gone and that
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 5: a black speck winged its way down to the river.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 5: This seemed like a good time to inspect that nest.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 5: She found five delicious tasting eggs, and she had just
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 5: finished her meal and was trying to lick the egg
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 5: from her chin when the great bird came back. It
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 5: was missus Raven, and my, what threats and insults did
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 5: she screech at Snookie? At her cries, Mister Raven too
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 5: appeared and joined in the clamor. And all this time
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 5: their visitor was too surprised to think. Then the mother
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 5: bird was upon her, beating her with her wings. The
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: little bear hid her eyes, but her ears were still exposed,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: and she gave a squeal of protest, for they would
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 5: have driven her right over the canyon rim and Snooky
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 5: had no wings. Then the father Raven pecked a beakful
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 5: of fur right out of the middle of her back.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 5: Suddenly the little bear remembered the tunnels of dwarf pine
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 5: trees just above, and making a blind dash for them.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: With the birds still beating her, she crawled under the shelter,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 5: where the ravens could not follow. My but she was
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 5: a sore little bear. But here she was at any
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 5: rate safe, if not altogether sound, And she told herself
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 5: she knew something about ravens that Chinook hadn't learned. Besides,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 5: those eggs certainly were delicious, she comforted herself as she
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 5: curled up to sleep off her troubles. End of chapter twelve.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 5: Recording by Valentina Viccelli. Chapter thirteen of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 5: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 5: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 5: visit LibriVox dot org. Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffey.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 5: Chinook plays the clown. Chinook had fished till his sides
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 5: were rounded with his catch. Then he had curled up
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: in a ball in a tree top and taken a
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 5: nap while Snookie was having her adventure. When he awoke,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: he went for a swim in the sunny shallows, and
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 5: then he was hungry again, for Chinook was growing fast.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 5: Just as the lowering sun began sending slant bars through
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 5: the trees that fringed the canyon rim, he came to
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 5: where the canyon floor widened into a meadow sweet with honey.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: Loopin shoulder high. Bees hummed among the blossoms, and it
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 5: occurred to him that there might be a bee tree
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 5: somewhere near by. Sure enough, a tantalizing odor came to
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 5: him on the breeze. It is the work of but
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 5: a few minutes to follow his nose till he found
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 5: the tree where the bees were going in and out
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: in a black swarm. The owners objected hotly to his
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 5: discovery of their hidden stores, but they couldn't sting much
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 5: through his thick fur. They really could do little harm
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 5: except about his face, and with slaps of his fore paws,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 5: he kept the insects away from his eyes and nose
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 5: as he climbed the tree. Then a red hot fellow
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 5: left a sting in his sensitive nose, and several burned
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 5: his ears and lips. But he had had experience of
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 5: bee trees before, and he managed to keep his eyes protected. Then, oh,
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 5: joy of joys, he had his head in the hollow
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 5: where they kept their honey, and as he sampled it,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 5: he considered it more than worth the stings they had
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 5: given him. Face and fore paws quickly became plastered with
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 5: the sticky mass, And when he had made very sure
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 5: he could reach no more. He backed down the tree,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 5: leaving sticky pall marks all along the trunk. Now the
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 5: ground beneath was strewn with dried pine needles and fallen leaves,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 5: and when he walked the leaves stuck to his feet.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 5: Biting at them to see what was the matter, he
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 5: got his sticky face all plastered with twigs and leaves,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 5: and trying to wipe them off with his fore paws,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 5: he only made things worse until his eyes were too
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 5: covered with leaves, and he couldn't even see where he
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 5: was going. Stumbling blindly about and still slapping at the
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 5: bees who seemed to want to get eaten alive, he
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 5: fairly tripped over his clumsy feet, which are now twice
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 5: as wide as they ought to have been. He bumped
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 5: and tumbled about and wandered around and around, now pawing
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 5: at his eyes, but only making more leaves stick to
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 5: his lids, plastering them the tighter. It was a senseless
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 5: predicament to have gotten into. Then his ears pricked to
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 5: the sound of running water, and raged bees still scrambled
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 5: through his fur, looking for a vulnerable spot in which
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 5: to leave their stings. But Chinook was headed for that
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 5: sound of running water it would cool the feverish feeling
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 5: in his nose. Just as the little bear had begun
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 5: to wonder if he were not wandering around in some
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 5: bad dream, he stumbled off the bank and went splash
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 5: into a deep pool. Striking out as vigorously as if
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: he knew just where he were going. He began circling
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 5: around and around, for it was a tiny whirlpool he
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 5: had fallen into. It was lucky for him it wasn't
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 5: a large one. But the swift, churning water did its
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 5: work on him. It washed off the honey and the
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: clinging leaves. As soon as Chinook could open his eyes again,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 5: he floundered out of that pool, a cleansed and chastened
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 5: little bear. End of chapter thirteen. Recording by Valentina the Celli.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 5: Chapter fourteen of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This is a
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 5: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 5: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 5: Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffey. A mouse on wings?
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: What's that?
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 5: Whispered Snookie. As the cubs were starting out one evening
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 5: in the glow of the long June sunset to explore
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 5: a new part of the woods. A bird, of course,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 5: Chinook told her. As an orange winged creature that at
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 5: first looked as large as a crow swooped and darted
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 5: after the flying insects which were its prey. But as
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 5: the cubs came nearer, they could see that the body
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 5: that carried those wide wings was only the size of
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 5: a sparrow's. It's not a bird, said Snooky. It has
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 5: no feathers. It's a mouse, then, guessed Chinook. Did you
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 5: ever see a mouse fly? Asked his sister scornfully. Well,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 5: you see one, now, don't you. I don't know whether
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 5: I do or not, For by now the cubs could
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 5: see that the strange creature had perfectly naked wings that
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 5: looked as thin as maple leaves, and that its little
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 5: body was covered with fine fur. It was Niicterus the bat,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 5: and except that he had no particular tail, he did
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 5: look more than a little like a Though his face
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 5: and ears were round her. His forearms seemed to be
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 5: fast to the first half of his wings, and there
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 5: three of his fingers had grown so long that they
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 5: held out the rest of the wing like ribs of
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 5: an umbrella. His thumbs, which came just half way along
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 5: the upper edge of the wing, had great hooked claws
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 5: on them, and Snooky wondered what they could before. He
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 5: was altogether the queerest looking small person the cubs had
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 5: ever seen. As he swooped and circled after moths and
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 5: crickets and mosquitoes. Chinook made a leap to catch him
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 5: and have a closer look. But quick as was the
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 5: little bear, the bat was quicker. He squeaked viciously and
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 5: showed his teeth which grated together. Warningly, you little fiend,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 5: laughed Chinook, are you really threatening to bite us? I'll
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 5: certainly fight if I have to, The eerie mighte assured
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 5: them in a high pitched squeak that they understood as
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 5: plain as bear talk, and off he darted to the
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 5: limb of a tree where hung his mate head downward.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 5: The cub followed curiously. It looked as if missus red
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 5: bat had simply hung herself up by her thumbs with
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 5: her wings folded. That's one way of taking a nap,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 5: Chinook exclaimed. Let's try it, oh, look, cried Snooky. She's
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 5: got four baby bats and sure enough there were wee
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 5: mites having their supper and hanging from their mother's teats.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 5: They watched for a while. Just at dusk the mother
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 5: bat flew off to get her own supper, But though
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 5: they had been watching closely, the cubs could not see
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 5: what she had done with her babies. There seemed to
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 5: be no nest, and though they climbed the tree to
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 5: find out, there was not a sign of a baby
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 5: bat anywhere to be found. Then, when the cubs had
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 5: forgotten all about it in the fun of chasing crickets,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 5: she suddenly swooped so near that they could plainly see her.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 5: What was their amazement to find that she still carried
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 5: the four little bats clinging to her teats. They must
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 5: have been heavy youngsters too. But her wings were powerful,
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 5: being so large for such a small body, and her
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 5: devout ocean seemed to be equal to that of any
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 5: other mammal. That same June, the ranger and his boy
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 5: came one day upon a mother red bat hanging head downward,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 5: asleep with her little ones, with her thumbs hooked in
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 5: a low branch of a seedling yellow pine. But so
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 5: still she hung, and so like the tree trunk was
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 5: her orange tint that even in full sunlight, she might
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 5: have escaped observation, had the boy not been uncommonly accustomed
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 5: to using his eyes gently. He reached out a hand
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 5: and lifted one of the baby bats from where it
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 5: clung to its mother. It was too sleepy to protest.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 5: Its wee face looked as grotesque as that of a
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 5: gnome the size of his thumb. Dad, do you suppose
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 5: I could tame it, the boy asked the ranger. It
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 5: might die for need of its mother's milk, his father
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 5: told him, but I once tamed a half grown bat.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 5: They make gentle pets if you treat them right, but
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 5: if they consider it necessary to their safety, they can
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 5: bite ferociously. Most of our bats migrate south about September.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 5: I've heard sailors say that they sometimes fly hundreds of
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 5: miles to reach the islands of the tropics. These red
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 5: bats and their cousins, the big hoary bats, are clean enough.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 5: But when I was down in Mexico, I found a
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 5: species that had the most disagreeable musky odor. They used
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 5: to collect, literally by the hundreds, about old buildings and
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 5: in church belfries, and wherever they could find a dark
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 5: cranny to hyden, till they simply made it impossible for
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 5: people to come near. Those Mexican bats are the kind
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 5: that live in eves, in ruins, and in Halloween pictures.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 5: I dare say, as they fly only in the dark,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 5: I suppose they need their scent to help take the
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 5: place of sight. They go with the gilla monsters and rattlesnakes.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 5: What good are they anyway, wondered the boy. People used
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 5: to think them an unmitigated pest, those smelly Mexican bats.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 5: But they do eat mosquitoes. I suppose they do their
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 5: part down in the malarial districts in helping to exterminate
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 5: the malarial mosquitoes. They certainly do devour incredible numb of insects,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 5: so I suppose they have their place in the scheme
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 5: of things. Be that as it may. We do have
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 5: a bat, the big ear desert bat, that is known
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 5: to help the farmer, and that deserves to be protected
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 5: just as much as the insect eating birds, But people
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 5: generally kill them on site. These nice, clean red bats, too,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 5: help to keep the balance of nature. I have never
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 5: killed one in my life. The boy's eyes marveled as
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 5: he gently gave the wee bat to its sleeping mother.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 5: End of chapter fourteen. Recording by Valentina the Celli. Chapter
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 5: fifteen of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 5: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 5: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Chinook
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 5: the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffee. The smuggler had been
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 5: puzzled by strange footsteps he had found on the river bank.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 5: He had also been disturbed to learn that the lumbermen
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 5: just over the pass were getting liquor. The lumber boss
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 5: complained that in some mysterious way they were getting the
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 5: forbidden stuff. There had been several serious accidents in felling
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 5: the great trees because the men had been drinking. The
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 5: rangers suspected that there might be a smuggler about who
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 5: was bringing rum from some point along shore up the river,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 5: but he could find neither the man nor his cash.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 5: This summer, the ranger had his hands full, what with
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 5: the danger of forest fires and a dozen other things.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 5: The boy wished he might help. It fell to Chinook
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 5: to play the instrument of destiny. Sniffing around one day,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 5: he found a cave in the rocks above the river
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 5: bank from which issued the most enticing odor. It was
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 5: like nothing he had ever whiffed before. It smelled as
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 5: if it might be good, and he meant to find it.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 5: A few days later, the ranger's boy, looking for human
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 5: footprints along the river bank, suddenly stopped to peer, for there,
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 5: in an opening between the trees was the little bear
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 5: performing the most amazing antics. The strange part of it
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 5: was that the usually alert cub didn't even notice that
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 5: the boy was there. He had a brown jug in
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 5: his fore paws, and he first laid down flat on
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 5: his stomach and took a long drink. Then, after spilling
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 5: some of it on the ground, he sat back, leaning
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 5: against a stump with his legs straight out in front,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 5: as he tipped the jug with both paws. The boy
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 5: could scarcely keep from laughing aloud, but he kept tight
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 5: hold on himself, for he wanted to see more. When
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 5: the jug seemed to have been emptied, the little bear
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 5: attempted to arise and walk on his hind feet, but
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 5: to the boy, who had seen similar human antics, it
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 5: was plain that Chinook was intoxicated. He reeled from side
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 5: to side, barely able to keep his balance, and then
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 5: he fell flat on his back, still clinging to the jug,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 5: and lying there with all fours in the air, began
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 5: hoisting it about with his hind feet. He would have
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 5: made a good circus clown, thought the boy. For now
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 5: he was turning somersaults, and now he was on his
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 5: hind legs, circling around and around with a joyous dancing step,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 5: and must have made him seasick. Though we will draw
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 5: the veil, but it had given the boy an idea. Father,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 5: he announced that night, I'll bet I know where the
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 5: smuggler keeps his stuff, and he related what he had
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 5: seen that afternoon. Sure enough, they found a cave next
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 5: day into which the rum had been smuggled and lying
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 5: in wait. A few days later they caught the smuggler,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 5: but Chinook never knew why. On his return trip to
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 5: the cave of Tantalizing Odors, the jugs were all smashed
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 5: and their contents gone. Never mind, he thought, chasing a
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 5: pine cone, I'll bet I can find another bee tree.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 5: End of chapter fifteen. Recording by Valentina the Celli. Chapter
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 5: sixteen of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 5: All Libervo recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 5: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Chinook
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 5: the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Chaffey Douglas squirrel has company.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 5: For several weeks, the smell of wood smoke had come
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 5: from the south. It was that warning smoke that had
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 5: kept the ranger ready at a moment's notice from the
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 5: fire lookouts to summon a hundred helpers from the lumber
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 5: camp to cut a fire trench for in the drier
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 5: woods of California raged fearful forest fires. About that time,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 5: the cubs began to notice that their woods were being
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 5: visited by a number of furred and feathered folk who
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 5: did not belong there. Foxes slunk along the shadows as
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 5: if aware that they were an unknown territory. A prickly
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 5: porcupine family, a mother and four children, came lumbering, fearless
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 5: and unafraid in their protecting spines. A black and white
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 5: striped skunk and her five kittens came soon after, leaving
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 5: tiny bear like footprints, and when one of the young
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 5: foxes would have pounced on the little Liz kitten. The
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 5: kitten turned its back and raised its plumy tail and
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 5: stamped its feet angrily, and the mother fox signaled for
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 5: her son to run fast, or something terrible would happen.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 5: The skunks were also completely unafraid. Birds flew in increasing
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 5: numbers through the tree tops. A few deer came feeding
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 5: in a famished manner on the ferns and bracken, and
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 5: any number of brown little cotton tails came, gnawing hungrily
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 5: at every bit of green stuff they could reach without
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 5: being caught. Douglas the squirrel watched from his tree top
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 5: in amazement, for it was the squirrels who came in
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 5: greatest numbers, gray squirrels and red squirrels and little striped chipmunks.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 5: These fairly swarmed through the tree tops. While the smoke
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 5: yellowed the stifling air, and the sun glowed red all
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 5: day long. The woods in which they had had their
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 5: homes had burned, And while the wind, for the most
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 5: part came from the sea and blew the smoke eastward,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 5: the more experienced of the four footed folk knew that
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 5: the way to escape was neither to go with the
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 5: wind nor against it, but at right angles to the
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 5: march of the flames. Douglas, who had come to feel
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 5: that he owned the woods around Mother brown Bear's den,
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 5: swore and scolded and barked insults at the refugees, but
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 5: it didn't do him a particle of good. The best
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 5: he could do was to hold his own particular spruce
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 5: tree from their onslaught, the rich nut filled spruce cones,
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 5: and the great heavy yellow pine cones on which he
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 5: had feasted fat all summer, and all the huge stores
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 5: of these good things that he had hidden in every
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 5: hollow log and cranny of the rocks. All these riches
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 5: that would have lasted him for years if left undisturbed,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 5: were being appropriated by the starving hordes, whose own stores
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 5: had been burned. If the cubs hadn't been so fond
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 5: of nuts themselves that they really preferred them to squirrel meat,
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 5: they would have had a great time that summer. For
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 5: some of the younger squirrels were not a bit cautious.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 5: What are all you folks coming here for? Anyway, Douglas demanded,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 5: as an old gray squirrel came running along his favorite
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 5: limb for something to eat. Answered the old fellow, wearily
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 5: cutting off a spruce combe, and turning it rapidly in
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 5: his paws as he cut one scale after another to
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 5: lay bare the nut. Personally, I mean to keep on
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 5: till I find a certain grove of lodge pole pines
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 5: that I happen to know about. Why are they better
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 5: than these? Douglas demanded impudently. The nuts are no better, perhaps,
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 5: but there are sure to be more of them. I've
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 5: traveled many a weary miles since my youth, for my
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 5: family has been driven by fire or drought and poor
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 5: nut crops to one grove after another. But never yet
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 5: have I known a lodge pole not to be full
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 5: of nuts. For if one year's crop has failed, there
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 5: are still crops of past years clinging to the branches. No, sir,
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 5: I never knew a grove of lodge pole pines where
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 5: there weren't nuts in abundance. Well, then, why didn't you
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 5: move into one? Long ago? Douglas was still rude. Why
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 5: don't you move somewhere else yourself, asked the old squirrel patiently?
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 5: Because this is my tree, these are my woods, this
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 5: is my home, My family only and friends all live
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 5: right around here.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 3: What a question to ask?
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 5: Why should I move? Why should I go someplace else.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 5: He barked, his tail, jerking angrily at every phrase. Don't
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 5: you see the old squirrel? Chittered mildly that we love
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 5: our homes. Why every last one of us had our
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 5: own tree that no one else ever dreamed of intruding upon,
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 5: except to run through the branches when it didn't seem
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 5: safe on the ground. Of course, we never objected to
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 5: anyone running across our backyard if he had to. But
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 5: no one ever dreamed of touching our stores. Why we
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 5: knew every twig and notthole, and every place a nut
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 5: was hidden. I assure you we would never have left
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 5: our homes if we hadn't been driven to it. But
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 5: I can see your heart has never been softened by trouble.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 5: You have had a life too easy here. But Douglas
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 5: was not listening. He had started down to fight and
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 5: threaten and try to drive a family of half starved
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 5: refugees from some stores he had thought safely hidden along
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 5: the underside of a log. Missus Douglas, ashamed of her mate,
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 5: stayed close to her nest, though when she saw her
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 5: pantries being invaded. I do hope Douglas won't give them
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 5: a wrong impression about our family, she told herself. Just
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 5: then Chinook, the little brown bear came along. I'll eat
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 5: to you alive, he challenged Douglas, and started merrily after him.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 5: By the time Douglas had thrown his pursuer off the
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 5: track and returned to the scene, his stores had been
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 5: rated by dozens of immigrant squirrels. Now I'll have to
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 5: work hard, I'll fall, Douglas complained to anyone who might
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 5: listen to collect enough for winter, Why not, called the
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 5: old squirrel. It isn't the way of the woods to
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 5: corner more than you can eat. What right had you
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 5: to those nuts when others were starving. No one will
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 5: bother your cash if you keep it down to a
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 5: reasonable size. But beyond that, these woods are for all.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 5: If anything, it is you red squirrels who do the
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 5: stealing from us gray squirrels. What Douglas retorted wouldn't be
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 5: fine to print. My chirped a young gray squirrel who
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 5: had been down getting a quick lunch. He had been
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 5: following his more experienced fellow rect for miles. I had
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 5: the awfulest time crossing the open spaces. Did you ever
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 5: see so many hawks and owls in your life. That
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 5: is why I always went around the long way, where
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 5: I could leave from one tree to another, said the
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 5: old squirrel. We didn't cross half as many open spaces
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 5: as some of those young fellows who got caught. However,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 5: did you know where to go? Marveled the young squirrel. Oh,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 5: I always have an eye out for a possible emergency,
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 5: and every time I go on a vacation ramble, I
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 5: notice where there is good feeding, and then I try
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 5: to make a mental map of the region. You young
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 5: fellows are more agile, but you haven't had our experience
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 5: all the same. Every summer, when it gets to a
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 5: time when everything is ripe and I can live off
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 5: the country, I go forest cruising. And I don't do
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 5: it altogether for a good time either. That brown squirrel
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 5: with the orange underneath, he's a handsome fellow, ventured the
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 5: young gray squirrel, Douglas. The old squirrel sniffed in disgust.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 5: I much prefer that fellow. Nodding to wear a big
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 5: Oregon chipmunk sat on a stump and gave every passer
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 5: by a sociable. He had only a few black stripes
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 5: to adorn the brown of his coat. Why he's the
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 5: plainest chipmunk I ever saw, said the young gray squirrel,
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 5: not half as handsome as ours, All the same, I'll
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 5: wager he never has a grouch like the kind your
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 5: handsome Douglas has just been exhibiting. You certainly come to
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 5: know squirrel nature when a big calamity like this rubs
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 5: off our surface manners, you certainly do, Sir agreed the
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 5: young squirrel. Here comes Douglas back again to jaw us.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 5: I suppose if I weren't so rheumatic, i'd lick him
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 5: for his impudence. I'll lick him for you, volunteered the
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 5: young squirrel, and the last thing Chinook saw Douglas was
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 5: being chased ferociously through the tree tops. End of chapter sixteen.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 5: Recording by Valentina Viccelli. Chapter seventeen of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub.
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 5: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 5: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 5: visit LibriVox dot org. Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by Alan
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 5: Chaffee Wapite. That fall, when Snookie and Chinook went camping,
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 5: they first made their way back to look Out Peak
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 5: for a few days of coasting and chasing pack rats
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 5: and snowshoe rabbits. Then they took a ridge trail and
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 5: journeyed clear over into a mountain valley where grazed a
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 5: herd of elk. These Wapiti American cousins of the European
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 5: stag were the largest deer the cubs had ever seen,
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 5: and one of them had the most ferocious, great wide antlers.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 5: I'd hate to get that bull after me, said Snooky. Well,
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 5: you can tell his head end from a long way off,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 5: observed Chinook. By the antlers. You can tell when he's
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 5: too far away to see his horns, how by his
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 5: tail end. Don't you see that big light colored patch,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 5: referring to the rump spots they wore. That's right, reflected Snookie.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 5: Look at them trailing up through the woods. For as
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 5: the wind shifted and carried the herd, the scent of
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 5: the two bears the Wapiti had taken alarm. I expect
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 5: they can follow each other from a long way off,
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 5: reasoned Snookie. Their tail ends show up so plainly. Her
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 5: mother had taught her to look for the reason and everything.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 5: There's always a reason. Her brother agreed, woof, there's cougar
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 5: far away across the meadow, they could see the giant
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 5: cat creeping sinuously like a gray brown shadow against the
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 5: dark green of the spruce woods. Cougar had craftily come
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 5: up with the wind in his nostrils, and he could
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 5: smell the elk when they could not get his scent.
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 5: He'll never dare attack them, thought Snookie, who had been
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 5: chased and wounded by a mule deer. She had come
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 5: too near at the running season. He won't dare come
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 5: near the bull, said Chinook. But I'll bet he'd like
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 5: to catch a young cow. But though the two cubs
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 5: waited interested till after dark, Cougar still crouched in the
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 5: forest fringe. As night had fallen, nothing but the light
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 5: rump patches showed where the herd was gathering to go
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 5: to sleep. The cubs were mystified when every now and
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 5: then one of these light patches would completely disappear. When
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 5: in the dusk they could see no more than if
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 5: the great animals had been swallowed by the earth, then
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 5: suddenly there they would be again. I know, Chinook reasoned
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 5: it out. It must be when they turn around facing
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 5: this way that we can't see the rump spots. If
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 5: they had still been a little afraid of cougar yearling
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 5: cubs that they were, they would have crept nearer to
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 5: see what was going on over where. For aught, they
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 5: knew the lion still crouched ready for a spring. After
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 5: a while, they gave it up as an actual fact.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 5: Cougar two had given it up as the herd picked
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 5: the very center of the meadow in which to sleep,
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 5: and the antlered bulls still kept watch over his harem.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 5: That night, after the stars came out, the cubs made
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 5: their way to the head of a river they had
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 5: been following, and again aginst the quaking aspen that grew
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 5: in the moist ground. They stretched as high as they
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 5: could reach, and clawed the bark to show how tall
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 5: they were. Chinook was slightly larger than his sister, though
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 5: she fought so well that now she could always hold
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 5: her own in a scrap. Soon he decided he wouldn't
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 5: have her tagging him everywhere he went. She was always
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 5: so much more cautious, so much less ready to take
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 5: a chance. She took life too seriously. By another year
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 5: or so, he'd be staking out his own range, holding
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 5: it against all comers, and perhaps finding a mate. He
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 5: certainly was getting to be a big bear. He wasn't
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 5: even sure if he were really afraid of Cougar any more. Still,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 5: he'd be happier if only the great cat would go
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 5: away when he thought of his long winter sleeps. He
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 5: didn't like the idea of having such a neighbor to
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 5: come up on him when he wasn't looking. Cougar was
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 5: so quick an agile here in the boggy ground. About
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 5: the spring they caught a frog apiece, but they were
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 5: not really hungry, for all day they had been stuffing
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 5: great pawfuls of thin berries, elderberries, blackberries, dogwood seed, and
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 5: even spiny wild gooseberries, to say nothing of several kinds
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 5: of nuts and roots into their mouths. They had also
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 5: had good luck with their mousing. Their sides were getting
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 5: fatter and fatter. They would be well prepared for the
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 5: winter cold. After a brief nap, they started on to
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 5: another mountain side to see what that was like. In
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 5: these clear altitudes, the stars were so many more than
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 5: they had been in the moist lower slopes, and so
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 5: much more brilliant that they had no trouble whatever in
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 5: finding their way down through the head of a canyon,
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 5: then up again they climbed till by dawn they were
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 5: once more high above timberline, where broken slide rock led
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 5: to the snow banks of the peaks. They began hearing
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 5: a curious little noise half way between a bark and
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 5: a bleat. It was like no sound the cubs had
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 5: ever heard before, and it was the hardest thing in
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 5: the world to tell where it came from. Now the
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 5: nasal seemed to sound from under their very feet, and
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 5: they would begin digging gleefully. In another minute it would
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 5: sound from a way off to the right or left,
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 5: or at any rate, it seemed to the ruse was
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 5: a bit of a ventriloquism. To the cubs, it was
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 5: the most mysterious. When at last yellow dawn had streamed
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 5: warmingly from peak to distant peak, Chinook saw a small
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 5: brown ball of fur the size of a half grown
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 5: cotton tail, dart from the rock right before his eyes.
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 5: As he had looked off over the peaks, he must
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 5: have glanced straight at the creature, but it was hidden
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 5: in the rock slide before Chinook could get over his surprise.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 5: In a few minutes, it appeared on a rock higher up,
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 5: but went back into some tunnel before the cubs could
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 5: get into action. The ears were too round for those
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 5: of a bunny, though it had seemed to have no
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 5: tail at all, For it was a peka, a little
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 5: chief hare who makes hay for its winter stores, and
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 5: lives alone on the highest peaks, buried under feet of
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 5: snow the better half of the year. It would make
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 5: tender eating if only the cubs could catch it. Thereafter,
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 5: they spent several hours digging among the rocks, but always
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 5: just as they thought they surely had it cornered, the
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 5: peace would squeak from someplace else. Were there several pikas
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 5: or was it only one? They did not know, But
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 5: when they got too hungry, they gave it up to
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 5: hunt for something sure. End of chapter seventeen. Recording by
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 5: Valentina Vicelli.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 6: Chapter eighteen of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This is a
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 6: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 6: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 6: Recording by Connie carrasco Jasper. Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 6: Alan Shaffey, a cougar goes coasting on the rock slide.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 6: There had been not so much as a spear of
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 6: grass to eat, and the cubs trot hungrily back to timberline.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 6: That day they spent chasing snowshoe rabbits, and the chase
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 6: took them back to the alpine meadow where they had
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 6: watched the Wapaiti. There the cubs took a nap beneath
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 6: an upturned tree root. For now they loved to sleep
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 6: by day, so they could be out all night when
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 6: there was so much more going on in the woods
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 6: about them. A weird screech sounded from the dark depths
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 6: of the spruces. It was cougar. The cry came again.
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 6: The great cat must have been trying hard to startle
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 6: small game out of his safe hiding, for as the
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 6: cubs drew nearer, they could hear the death scream of
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 6: a hare. All night, Cougar hunted, while the cubs caught
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 6: mice and nibbled spruce nuts just to leeward of him.
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 6: At times, the lion crept to watch the Wapaiti, who
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 6: again slept in a circle in the very center of
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 6: the open space. But with the old bull on guard
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 6: with the sharp antlers, Cougar kept his distance. That night
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 6: brought the first snow of the season whirling over the
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 6: high country. The cubs noticed that the Wapaity grazed restlessly
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 6: that morning through the melting whiteness. By an by. They
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 6: began to gather into line with the old bull at
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 6: their head, and started off along a highway marked by
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 6: the hoofs and paws of countless travelers. The trail led
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 6: over the pass into a lower valley. The cubs followed curiously,
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 6: and as the Wapay got their scent, the hull herd
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 6: began to run. Now, Cougar, after having satisfied his appetite,
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 6: had taken a cross cut to one of his haunts
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 6: so as to keep his fur dry. It was a
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 6: favorite haunt because it directly overlooked all who came by
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 6: on the trail from the pass. Just below to the
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 6: north sloped a long snow bank left from the winter,
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 6: stretched out in the noonday warmth of his overhanging rock ledge,
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 6: where the September sun had quickly melted off the snow.
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 6: With nothing but a twisted juniper to cut off his view,
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 6: he snoozed with one eye half opened, and his pale
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 6: brown coat matched the rock so perfectly that it would
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 6: have taken a sharp eye to see him. Suddenly, his
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 6: ears pricked to a sound from the pass, and his
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 6: yellow eyes narrowed as through the snow covered notch appeared
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 6: the broad antlers and massive head and shoulders of the
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 6: approaching bull Wapiti. At the same time, the wind brought
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 6: him unmistakable evidence that the whole herd was following, and
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 6: he could hear the approaching clap of hoof beats. On
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 6: the run, Cougar's muscles tensed as he drew his legs
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 6: beneath him, ready for a spring. It was the chance
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 6: he had been longing for. He would wait till the
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 6: old bull was safely passed and most of the cows
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 6: were strung along the narrow trail between the bull and himself.
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 6: Then he would bring down his meat. The cubs lumbering
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 6: along well to the rear of the herd, which had
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 6: occasionally kicked a stone from the zigzag trail, arrived at
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 6: the pass just in time to see what happened. Cougar
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 6: flattened till his flat head seemed a part of the
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 6: flat rock itself, and even the alert old bull wouldn't
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 6: have noticed him had he looked at the overhanging ledge
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 6: waited till all the herd but one had trailed on
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 6: down the mountain side. As the last young Wapa tea
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 6: came along, Cooper leaped upon her back. The force of
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 6: his spring knocked her down, which was what he had intended.
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 6: But one thing he had not planned for. The new
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 6: soft snow covering the hard last winter's yield, made his
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 6: own feet slip out from under him, and still gripping
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 6: the wapity, he slid down down down the long snow bank, which,
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 6: as it grew steeper and steeper, finally sent him head
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 6: over heels. The great cat hissed and yowled. He, for one,
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 6: was not fond of coasting fully thirty feet below. He
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 6: came to a stop when he bumped into a tree trunk.
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 6: The last the Cub saw of cougar was the great cat,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 6: disgustedly biting the snowballs from between his toes. End of
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 6: chapter eighteen, Chapter nineteen of Chinook the Cinnamon Cub. This
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 6: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 6: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 6: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Connie Carroscoe. Jasper Chinook the
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 6: Cinnamon Cub by Alan Schaffey mountain beaver above the moist,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 6: ferny floor of a densely shaded mountain slope of almost
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 6: tropic richness. The cubs had noticed a squirrel barking and
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 6: an elder thicket. As they approached to find out what
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 6: he was barking at, their noses began telling them that
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 6: there was a whole colony of creatures they had never
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 6: smelt before. Soon they could see that the ground was
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 6: a network of their tiny trails, together with an occasional
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 6: footprint that had been left by the bobcat family. Not
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 6: of movement was made above ground, but their sharp ears
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 6: could detect scufflings and scrapings from underneath their feet. At
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 6: the end of a fallen log, Chinook found a d
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 6: lump of earth where a hole large enough for a
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 6: woodchuck gave off the same strange scent. Merrily, he started
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 6: digging well, he dug, and he dug, and he dug.
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 6: He was digging the roof from a branching tunnel, his
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 6: nose telling him at every turn which way his prey
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 6: was retreating, but still he dug, and he dug. Several
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 6: times he heard a tiny growling and a snapping of
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 6: angry teeth, but for half an hour he dug as
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 6: fast as he could without once catching up with a
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 6: fleeing rodent. But that only made the little bear the
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 6: more determined. Snooky too was digging, and he certainly didn't
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 6: mean to let her catch one before he did. The
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 6: tunnel dwellers smelled a bit like muskrats and a bit
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 6: like bunnies, but had they only known it, they were
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 6: mountain beaver, a species like nothing else at all, but
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 6: called beavers by the Indians because of their soft fur.
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 6: They looked more like woodchucks than anything else, But naturally,
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 6: all this digging had developed the most powerful shoulder muscles.
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 6: While that whole oozy slope was fairly honeycombed with branching tunnels,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 6: and though the two cubs dug till they were tired
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 6: and no end covered with mud, the creatures kept escaping
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 6: through their connecting runways. Somehow, it never occurred to the
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 6: little bears to lie in wait at their exit holes,
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 6: as a bobcat might have done. They were too impatient, then,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 6: two feet underground, Chinook came to a great round hole,
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 6: almost large enough for him to have curled up in himself.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 6: And here, indeed was a feast for the pair of them,
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 6: for though the anxious parents had long since carried all
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 6: the babies out of the nursery and dragged them to
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 6: safety by the backs of their necks. Opening off the
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 6: nursery chamber were several clean, mud plastered store rooms, filled
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 6: with fern roots, tender twigs, and juicy bits of bark.
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 6: Snooky remembered that she had seen several trees completely girdled
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 6: by gnawing teeth. This, then, was the reason why, after
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 6: they had fed their fill for a small sample of
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 6: such hearty fare went a long way with them, the
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 6: cubs gave up the chase and climbed into a tree
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 6: where they could take a nap. When they awoke, the
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 6: moon had risen down on the ground beneath, where before
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 6: had been no sign of any living thing. Now scampered
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 6: mountain beaver by the dozen. Some of them were sitting up,
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 6: squirrelike and eating with a root or stalk held in
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 6: their hand like paws. Others were carrying great bundles of
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 6: green stuff in their jaws and dropping it beside their doorways,
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 6: with stems all laid neatly side by side, as if
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 6: to dry it out before storing it Still, others were
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 6: rapidly rebuilding their depleted tunnels. But though the cubs promptly
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 6: came down and tried to have more fun again, they
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 6: had the same baffling experience. They caught not one mountain beaver.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 6: End of chapter nineteen, Chapter twenty of Chinook the Cinnamon Cup.
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 6: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 6: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 6: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Connie carrasco Jasper Chinook
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 6: the Cinnamon Cub by Alan Shaffey, The Big Quake. How
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 6: I wish Cougar would go somewhere else to make his home.
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 6: Chinook kept wishing as November's chill came on. This looks
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 6: like a hard winter. My fur has come in lots
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 6: thicker than last year, and the squirrels have all laid
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 6: in their winter stores earlier. I'll bet you anything.
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 7: Once we get to sleep, we won't want to wake
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 7: up till spring, and Cougar might get hungry before we woke.
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 7: Snooky caught his thought. I wonder how I wonder if
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 7: he really would have the courage to attack us now
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 7: that we're so big. He could sneak up on us
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 7: while we slept, and he'd just about have us at
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 7: his mercy. Her brother pointed out, I find I can't
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 7: possibly squeeze into that hole I slept in last year.
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 7: But if cougar doesn't mind bringing down wapaity, how do
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 7: we know he wouldn't tackle urling cub. For all that,
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 7: Snooky and Chinook soon found themselves getting so drowsy that
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 7: they just couldn't keep awake much longer. Cougar or no cougar,
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 7: one feels that way when one hibernates. They had found
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 7: themselves a rock den a piece near where their mother lived,
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 7: and already the snow had covered her doorway, and they
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 7: wouldn't have known she was there but for the steaming
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 7: breath that melted a yellowed hole in the white confound
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 7: that cougar growled, Chinook, why doesn't something dreadful happen to him?
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 7: He was startled out of his first delicious snooze a
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 7: few weeks later by feeling the rocks tremble, a low sound,
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 7: like distant thunder. Yet that was not thunder sound, und
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 7: it seemingly from deep underground. It's another earthquake, he told himself,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 7: as a second trembling set the smaller rocks to sliding
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 7: down the gulch. Instantly, some advice his mother had once
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 7: given him brought him wide awake with a snap. The
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 7: rock den was not safe. He must make for the open.
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 7: Snooky too, remembered, and the two cubs raced up the
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 7: gulch to an open space where the great trees were
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 7: still quivering. Is it all over? Whimpered Snookie, for she
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 7: still felt that dizzy, sidewise motion beneath her feet. It
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 7: was not all over, for this was a big quake,
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 7: such as only comes in years. A shake heavier than
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 7: before sent the rock slide of their gults shooting down
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 7: among the fallen logs. Larger rock slides thundered down the
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 7: mountain sides. Mother brown Bear and the little sister and
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 7: brothers of that summers raising went racing from their dens.
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 7: The youngsters too scared to know which way to turn,
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 7: for it was their first earthquake. One took to a
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 7: tall tree and clung there while it swayed. Once started
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 7: down along the rock slide, and when later they found him,
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 7: he lay there half buried, cut and bleeding, and glad
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 7: to pull through alive. One of the new cubs ran
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 7: out on the fallen logs and was half buried beneath
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 7: chips and branches as the whole structure shifted. Then she
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 7: struggled free and wisely climbed a sapling. Mother brown bear
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 7: herself ran out into the middle of another open space.
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 7: It all took place in a good deal less time
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 7: than it takes to tell it. Then came a jerk
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 7: that fairly took Chinook's feet from under him, and with
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 7: a louder subterranean growling, the big quake came dead. Trees
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 7: came crashing down, huge boulders pounted down the mountain sides
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 7: and shook the ground anew. And a slab of canyon
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 7: wall was jolted loose along a fault line and went
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 7: splashing into the roiling river. Then came hale in great
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 7: driving sheets, and it was over. The cubs ducked to
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 7: shelter as the icy pallets struck about their ears. There
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 7: was an overhanging rock ledge that had withstood the wild confusion.
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 7: When they peaked to see what had happened, they found
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 7: a great crack, as deep as a sapling pine, and
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 7: so wide they wouldn't have ventured to leap across where
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 7: before had been level earth. It was an altered landscape
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 7: in which they found themselves. Then a comic sight struck
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 7: their eyes. It was cougar, whose den must have been
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 7: shaken to pieces in all this tumult. The great cat
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 7: was racing along with his tail tuck trembling between his legs,
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 7: and his ears laid flat against the hail, while, to
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 7: judge from the way his body hugged the earth, he
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 7: was too terrified to stand. His nose was pointed down
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 7: canyon towards the coast, and at the rate he was speeding,
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 7: Chinook thought it would be safe to count on his
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 7: never coming back. As his own fright dissolved at the
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 7: feel of the earth once more firm beneath his feet,
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 7: Chinook's little black eyes began to twinkle. His wish had
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 7: come true. End of chapter twenty end of Chinook the
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 7: Cinnamon Cub by Alan Shaffe