THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
Neighbors Unknown
BY
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
AUTHOR OF “KINGS IN EXILE,” “THE BACKWOODSMEN,” “THE HOUSE IN THE WATER,” ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1909 and 1910,
By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY,
and
By THE ASSOCIATED SUNDAY MAGAZINES, INCORPORATED.
Copyright, 1911,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1911.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To
PATRICIA
CONTENTS
- PAGE
- On the Roof of the World 1
- Black Swamp 15
- The Isle of Birds 33
- The Antlers of the Caribou 51
- The Sentry of the Sedge-Flats 67
- A Tree-top Aeronaut 85
- The Theft 103
- The Tunnel Runners 127
- A Torpedo in Feathers 151
- How a Cat played Robinson Crusoe 173
- Little Bull of the Barrens 193
- The Tiger of the Sea 211
- Gray Lynx’s Last Hunting 235
- Mothers of the North 253
ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
It seemed to be the very roof of the world,all naked to the outer cold, this flat vastof solitude, dimly outspread beneath the Arcticnight. A line of little hills, mere knobs andhummocks, insignificant under the bitter starlight,served to emphasize the immeasurable andshelterless flatness of the surrounding expanse.Somewhere beneath the unfeatured levels the seaended and the land began, but over all lay themonotony of ridged ice and icy, wind-scourgedsnow. The wind, which for weeks without apause had torn screaming across the nakedness,had now dropped into calm; and with the calmthere seemed to come in the unspeakable cold ofspace.
Suddenly a sharp noise, beg