The snow banked about the roots of the tree and showing the marks of her numbed fingers, the crevices stuffed with moss, the bed of dried leaves and the bedding which she had stripped from her own person to cover her child, were proofs and tokens of the love which would have created comfort in the midst of desolation and given even that miserable nook in winter's dreary domain the semblance of a home. In the heart of that frozen waste, far from human fellowship, with hunger gnawing at her vitals and the frost curdling the genial current in her veins, still burned brightly in that poor lonely heart the pure and deathless flame of maternal love. CHAPTER XIV. ENCOUNTERS WITH WILD BEASTS--COURAGE AND DARING The inhabitants of the frontier from the earliest times have had to face the fiercest and most ravenous wild beasts which prowl in the forests of this continent; and the local histories of the various sections and single settlements on our border-land abound in thrilling accounts of combats between those pests of the forest and individual men and women. Wolves, like the poor, were always with the frontiersmen. Bears, both black and brown, were familiar visitors. The cougar, American lion, catamount, or "_painter_" (panther), as it is variously styled, was a denizen of every forest from Maine to Georgia, and from the St. Croix River to the Columbia. Wild cats, and even deer, when brought to bay, proved themselves dangerous combatants. Last, but not the least terrible in the catalogue, comes the grizzly bear, the monarch of the rocky waste that lies between the headwaters of the Platte and the Missouri rivers, and the sierras of the Pacific slope. The stories of _rencontres_ and combats between pioneer women and these savage rangers of the woods, are numerous and thrilling. Sometimes they seem almost improbable, especially to such as have only known Woman as she appears to the dwellers of our eastern cities, and in homes where luxury and ease have softened the sex. A story like the following, for example, as told by one of our most veracious travelers, may be listened to with at least some degree of incredulity by gentlemen and ladies of the lounge and easy chair. A woman living on the Saskatchewan accompanied her husband on a hunting expedition into the forest. He had been very successful, and having killed one more deer than they could well carry home, he went to the house of a neighboring settler to dispose of it, leaving his wife to take care of the rest until his return. She sat carelessly upon the log with his hunting knife in her hand, when she heard the breaking of branches near her, and turning round, beheld a great bear only a few paces from her. It was too late to retreat, and, seeing that the animal was very hungry and determined to come to close quarters, she rose, and placed her back against a small tree, holding her knife close to her breast, and in a straight line with the bear.