CHAPTER III
THE YOUNG SCREECH OWL
ALL that week the wee brown cub rode on the pack the burro carried.
Every few hours the Ranger stopped to give him a panful of warm milk, and at night, when the mountain air turned chill, he snuggled the little bear under the blankets, though he never took him off the leash.
Finally one day they came to a neat log cabin beside a singing creek, where the pines and cedars made spots of shade on the forest floor. The next thing Fuzzy knew, he was inside the cabin, and two delighted man cubs, a boy and a girl, were dancing around him. This was so alarming that he crept inside the Ranger’s coat, crying, “Mu-uh! Mu-uh!” in a frightened whimper.
The man cubs were told to keep very, verystill and watch. Then Fuzzy was set on the floor before his pan of milk, and after a few minutes, when nothing seemed to hurt him, he drank it thirstily.
After that he went on an exploring expedition. He looked exactly like the brown plush Teddy bear, only larger, for Fuzzy was nearly as large as the cat. The children watched with shining eyes as he poked into every corner of the room, now climbing half way up the screen door, now standing on his fat hind legs under a chair, with his fore paws on the rungs.
“Muh! Muh! M-m-mu-uh!” he wailed every now and again. But no great furry mother came, and at last he decided there was nothing in that den to harm him, not even the children.
Soon what fun they had! The children’s mother said he could have bread in his milk, and the children even used to give him bits of the gingerbread that they saved in their pockets. It didn’t take long for the fuzzy mite to learn where that gingerbread came from! He would climb all over them, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, till he foundwhere it was hidden, then claw till he had found the way into the pocket. These days, he cared more for eating than anything else.
Had Fuzzy been the only pet at the Ranger’s cabin, all might have gone smoothly. But he had one rival in the children’s affections,—and life was not to be all peace and play for the newcomer.
One rainy day that spring, when the wind had blown a limb off the old pine by the corral, leaving the screech owl’s nest exposed to gaze, a wee, soft-feathered fledgling had fallen to the ground and lay there, nearly lifeless from his fall.
The Ranger’s son, a curly-pate of nine, had found this downy bird, and had taken him home to warm and feed him. Thus the owl had become a member of the family circle. Clickety-Clack they named him, from his habit of clicking his bill when angry.
Given full freedom of the cabin, he generally perched by day just over the chamber door, on a pair of antlers that hung there for a hat rack.
But when the dusk began to fall Clickety-Clackwould come floating down to the mantel shelf, soundless as a shadow on his soft-feathered gray wings. There he would claw at the toys and bits of sewing, the pipe and match box, everything he found there. He was a solemn-looking bird, with his great round eyes, but he liked to play, for all that. His great delight was to be given a sheet of paper to claw into bits.
He was used to much attention, was Clickety-Clack, riding around on the children’s shoulders and receiving the dainties offered him with a clawed foot that solemnly conveyed the morsel to his mouth.
For a time Fuzzy-Wuzz paid little attention to Clickety-Clack, as the owl generally slept all day and the cub all night. But one evening he made a sad, sad mistake, did the little bear. As the owl floated down to the hearth rug, Fuzzy made a playful pounce for him. He caught the owl between his fore paws. But as he opened his jaws to take a nip at the feathered back, he got an awful surprise.