Produced by Al Haines [Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: "The great dog shook his victim as a terrier shakes a rat." (Page 253.)] THE LEDGE ON BALD FACE By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS _ILLUSTRATED_ WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED LONDON AND MELBOURNE 1918 _Copyright in the United States of America_ _by Charles G. D. Roberts_ Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London POPULAR NATURE STORIES BY CHAS. G. D. ROBERTS PUBLISHED BY WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED THE HOUSE IN THE WATER KINGS IN EXILE THE SECRET TRAILS THE LEDGE ON BALD FACE CONTENTS I THE LEDGE ON BALD FACE II THE EAGLE III COCK-CROW IV THE MORNING OF THE SILVER FROST V JIM, THE BACKWOODS POLICE DOG PART I HOW WOOLLY BILLY CAME TO BRINE'S RIP " II THE BOOK AGENT AND THE BUCKSKIN BELT " III THE HOLE IN THE TREE " IV THE TRAIL OF THE BEAR " V THE FIRE AT BRINE'S RIP MILLS " VI THE MAN WITH THE DANCING BEAR ILLUSTRATIONS "The great dog shook his victim like a terrier shakes a rat" . . . _Frontispiece_ "He was thrown off his balance and shouldered clean over the brink" "Then he spread his wings wide and let go" "He flung his arms about Jim's shaggy neck and buried his face in the wet fur" "'You keep right back, boys,' commanded the Deputy in a voice of steel" "The door was flung open, and Black Dan with his hands held up, stalked forth into the moonlight" "He drew a long knife ... and slipped behind the canoe" "In the meantime, Jim, travelling at a speed that the fugitive could not hope to rival, had come to the right spot" I THE LEDGE ON BALD FACE The Ledge on Bald Face That one stark naked side of the mountain which gave it its name of Old Bald Face fronted full south. Scorched by sun and scourged by storm throughout the centuries, it was bleached to an ashen pallor that gleamed startlingly across the leagues of sombre, green-purple wilderness outspread below. From the base of the tremendous bald steep stretched off the interminable leagues of cedar swamp, only to be traversed in dry weather or in frost. All the region behind the mountain face was an impenetrable jumble of gorges, pinnacles, and chasms, with black woods clinging in crevice and ravine and struggling up desperately towards the light. In the time of spring and autumn floods, when the cedar swamps were impenetrable to all save mink, otter, and musk-rat, the only way from the western plateau to the group of lakes that formed the source of the Ottanoonsis, on the east, was by a high, nerve-testing trail across the wind-swept brow of Old Bald Face. The trail followed a curious ledge, sometimes wide enough to have accommodated an ox-wagon, at other times so narrow and so perilous that even the sure-eyed caribou went warily in traversing it.