"Meg of the Hills! Meg of the Hills!" So called the bear in a loud voice; very loud, indeed, yet in the tone of the voice was something which Sprigg had not before observed there, so deep and mellow and musical was it. In answer to the summons, forth into the luminous circle, from some mysterious depth of the cavern, soon came gliding a bearess, who seemed in every way a match for the bear, excepting that she was of a smoother, gentler type. "Meg of the Hills, have all come home, From mountain climb and forest roam, From river mist and ocean foam, From moon-rise white and sun-set red, From elk-stag lair and bison bed, From panther ambush still and dread, All, all returned?" To which the bearess answered: "Yes all returned to Manitou den, Save those who walk by night with men. To bring the deeds in darkness done, To the dread light of the tell-tale sun." Then suddenly assuming a tone of voice as different from the former as fiddle from violin, and with a particular eye to our hero, where he still kept his seat on his charger's back, or rather was kept there by the unlocked arms of Manitou-Echo, the bearess added: "And you did find the little runaway, sure enough, Nick?" "Aye, that did I, and a stiff-necked, strong-backed, hard-muzzled cub of a human thing do I find him, too! Tough! Tough!" "Then all the accounts we have heard of him are but too true," sadly observed the bearess, whom the bear called "Meg." "But too true!" echoed the bear, whom the bearess called "Nick." Meg. "Is it really a fact, then, that his thoughts by day and his dreams by night are so taken up with red moccasins that he is in a fair way to make a monkey of himself?" Nick. "Really a fact." Meg. "A fact, too, that he had no thanks in his heart for the beautiful moccasins, which his kindest of fathers gave him one night last week?" Nick. "A fact, too!" Meg. "A fact, also, that his thoughts are so wrapped up in the moccasins that he has none left for his prayers?" Nick. "A fact, also!" Meg. "And, likewise, a fact that he sneaked off, like a spit-thief dog, when his best of mothers had told him and told him, times and times, that he ought not, and he should not?" Nick. "Like--wise--a--fact!" slowly pulling the words, as if he could hardly find it in his heart to testify to behavior so shabby. Meg. "But, Nick," and she looked earnestly at her lord, as if hoping that for this one time, at least, he would vary his affirmative echoes just a little, "that slip of the tongue on the fence, which Manitou-Echo reported to us--surely, now, you can't say 'yes' to that?" But Nick said neither "no" nor "yes." He answered never a word! All mum, he hung his head, and but for the hair on his face he would have been seen to blush up to the very eyes.