hough the darkness under the great trees was impenetrable, it gave an impression of transparency which invited the eyes to strain and peer, as if vision might be expected to reward an adequate effort. It was that liquid darkness which means not mist, but the utter absence of light on a clear air; and it was filled with elusive yet almost illuminating forest scents. To the keen nostrils of the man who was silently mounting the trail, it seemed as if these wild aromas almost enabled him to veritably see the trees which towered all about him, so clearly did they differentiate to him their several species as he passed,—the hemlock, in particular, and the birch, the black poplar, and the aromatic balsam-fir. But his eyes, though trained to the open, could in truth detect nothing whatever, except now and then a darting gleam which might come from a wet leaf, or from the gaze of a watching wood-mouse, or merely from the stirrings of the blood within his own brain.
The man was on his way up from the lake, by an old trail long ago familiar to his feet, to make camp for the night in a deserted lumber shanty about a quarter of a mile back from the water. Over the dimly glimmering, windless water, under a cloudless sky, he had groped his way in his canoe to the old landing. Turning the canoe over his supplies for protection in case of rain, he had set out for the lumber shanty with only a blanket and a couple of hardtack. His rifle he had indifferently left in the canoe, but in his right hand he carried a paddle, to steady his steps and help him feel his way through the dark.
Once the grayness of the open shore had faded behind him, the man found himself walking stealthily, like the stealthiest of the wild kindred themselves. The trail being well-worn, though long deserted by man, his feet kept it without difficulty; but he held the paddle out before him lest he should stumble over a windfall. Presently he took note of the fact that the trail was marvellously smooth for one that had been so long deserted, and with a little creeping of the skin, which was not in any sense fear but rather an acknowledgment of mystery, he realized that it was other than human feet which were keeping the lonely path in use. What kind were they, he wondered,—the great, noiseless pads of bear, or lynx, or panther, the hard hoofs of moose or deer, or the airy, swift feet of hare and mink and marten? As he wondered, moving more and more furtively as the spirit of the unseen wild pervaded and possessed him, his nostrils discerned across the savours of the trees and the mould a sudden musky scent; and he knew that one of the frequenters of the trail was a red fox, who had just gone by.
Impressed by a sense that he was not so utterly alone as he had imagined himself to be, the man now obeyed one of the wary impulses of the wood-folk. He stepped aside from the trail, feeling his way, and leaned his back against a huge birch-tree. The ragged, ancient, sweet-smelling bark felt familiar and friendly to his touch. Here he stood, sniffing the still air with discrimination, testing with initiated ears every faint forest breathing. The infinitesimal and incessant stir of growth and change and readjustment was vaguely audible to his fine sense, making a rhythmic background against which the slightest unusual sound, even to the squeak of a wood-mouse, or the falling of a worm-bitten leaf, would have fairly startled the dark. Once he heard a twig snap, far in the depths on the other side of the trail, and he knew that some one of the wild kindred had moved carelessly. But on the trail nothing went by.
Had there been ever so small a glimmer of light, to enable his eyes to play their part in this forest game, the man could have watched for an hour as moveless as the tree on which he leaned. But in that strange, absolute dark the strain soon grew almost intolerable. The game certainly ceased to be amusing after an uneventful fifteen minutes had passed. He was just about to give up, to step forth into the trail and resume his journey to the cabin, when he caught a strange sound, which made him stiffen back at once into watchful rigidity.
The sound was a great breath. In its suddenness and its vagueness the listener was unable to distinguish whether it came from a dozen yards down the trail, or a couple of dozen inches from his elbow. His nose, however, assured him that he had not the latter alternative to face; so he waited, his right hand upon the knife in his belt. He could hear his heart beating.
For several minutes nothing more was heard. Then through the high leafage overhead splashed a few big drops of rain, with the hushing sound of a shower not heavy enough to break through. The next moment a flash of white lightning lit up the forest aisles,—and in that moment the man saw a huge black bear standing in the trail, not ten feet distant. In that moment the eyes of the man and the eyes of the beast met each other fairly. Then the blackness fell once more; and a thin peal of midsummer thunder rolled over the unseen tree-tops.
When all was silence again the man felt uncomfortable, and regretted the rifle which he had left under the canoe. That the bear would attack him, unprovoked, he knew to be improbable; but he also knew enough about bears to know that it is never well to argue too confidently as to what they will do. The more he waited and listened, the more he felt sure that the bear was also waiting and listening, in an uncertainty not much unlike his own. He decided that it was for him to take the initiative. Clapping his hands smartly, he threw back his head, and burst into a peal of laughter.
The loud, incongruous sound shocked the silences. It almost horrified the man himself, so unexpected, so unnatural, so inexplicable did it seem even to his own ears. When it ceased, he knew that it had accomplished its purpose. He heard rustling and snapping noises swiftly diminishing in the distance, and knew that the bear was retreating in a panic. At this he laughed again, not loudly, but to himself, and stepped out into the trail.
But the man was not yet done with the effects of his loud challenge to the solemnities of the dark. Hardly had he taken three steps along the trail when a little in front of him—perhaps, as he guessed, some five and twenty paces—there arose a slashing and crashing noise of struggle. Branches cracked and rustled and snapped, heavy feet pounded the earth, and a confusion of gasping grunts suggested a blind menagerie in mortal combat. The man, fairly startled, groped his way back to the tree, and waited behind it, knife in hand. In fact he had a strong inclination to climb into the branches; but this impulse he angrily restrained.
For a whole minute the daunting uproar continued, neither approaching nor receding, and at length the man's curiosity, ever insatiable where the mysteries of the wild were concerned, got the better of his prudence. He lit a match and peered from behind his shelter. The little, sudden blaze spread a sharp light, but whatever was making the uproar went on as before, quite heedless of the singular phenomenon. When the match died out it left the man no wiser. Then with hurried hands he stripped some birch bark, and rolled himself a serviceable torch. When this blazed up with its smoky flame, he held it well off to one side and a little behind him, and made his way warily to the scene of the disturbance.
A turn in the trail, and the mystery stood revealed. With a cry of indignation the man darted forward, no longer cautious. What he saw before him was a great, gaunt moose-cow reared upon her hind legs, caught under the jaws by a villainous moose-snare. With her head high among the branches, she lurched and kicked in a brave struggle for life, while every effort but drew tighter the murdering noose. A few feet away stood her lanky calf, trembling, and staring stupidly at the light.
The man lost not a moment. Dropping his bundle and paddle, but carefully guarding the torch, he climbed the tree above the victim, lay out on a branch, reached down, and dexterously severed the noose with his knife. What matter if, with his haste and her struggles, he at the same time cut a slash in the beast's stout hide? The blood-letting was a sorely needed medicine to her choked veins. She fell in a heap, and for a minute or two lay gasping loudly. Then she staggered to her feet, and stood swaying, while she nosed the calf with her long muzzle to assure herself that it had not been hurt in the cataclysm which had overtaken her.
The man watched her until his torch was almost gone, then climbed down the tree (which was not a birch) to get himself another. Noticing him now for the first time, the moose pulled herself together with a mighty effort, and thrust the calf behind her. Could this be the enemy who had so nearly vanquished her? For a moment the man thought she was going to charge upon him, and he held himself in readiness to go up the tree again. But the poor shaken beast thought better of it. Pain, rage, fear, amazement, doubt,—all these the man fancied he could see in her staring, bloodshot eyes. He stood quite still, pitying her, and cursing the brutal poachers who had set the snare. Then, just before the torch gave its last flicker, the great animal turned and led her calf off through the woods, looking back nervously as she went.
When the light was out, and silence had come again upon the forest, the man resumed his journey. He travelled noisily, whistling and stamping as he went, as a warning to all wild creatures that a man was in their woods, and that they must give room to a master. He carried with him now, besides his blanket and his paddle, a generous roll of birch bark, with which to illuminate the lumber shanty before going in. It had occurred to him that possibly some lynx or wildcat might have taken up its dwelling therein; and if so, he was no longer in the mood to meet it at close quarters in the dark.
ar out over the pale, smooth surface of the river a crow flew, flapping heavily. From time to time he uttered an angry and frightened squawk. Over, under, and all around him, now darting at his eyes, now dropping upon him like a little, arrow-pointed thunderbolt, now slapping a derisive wing across his formidable beak, flashed a small, dark bird whose silvery white belly now and then caught the sun.
The crow's accustomed alert self-possession was quite shattered. He had forgotten his own powers of attack. He seemed to fear for his eyes,—and among all the wild kindred there is no fear more horrifying than that. When he ducked, and swerved, and tried to dodge, he did it awkwardly, as if his presence of mind was all gone.
His assailant, less than a third of his weight, was a king-bird, whose nest, in the crotch of an elm on the intervale meadow, the crow had been so ill-advised as to investigate. The crow was comparatively inexperienced, or he would have known enough to keep away from the nests of the king-birds. But there it was, in plain sight; and he loved eggs or tender nestlings. Before he had had time to find out which it was that the nest contained, both the parent birds had fallen upon him with a swift ferocity which speedily took away his appetite for food or fight. Their beaks were sturdy and burning sharp. Their short, powerful wings gave them a flight so swift and darting that, for all his superior strength, he felt himself at their mercy. His one thought was to save his eyes and escape.
Both birds chased him till he was well out over the river. Then the female returned to her nest, leaving her mate to complete the intruder's chastisement. Had the crow been an old and cunning bird, he would have sought the extreme heights of air, where the king-bird is disinclined to follow; but lacking this crow-wisdom, he kept on at the level of the tallest tree-tops, and was forced to take his punishment. He was, in reality, more sore and terrified than actually injured. That darting, threatening beak of his pursuer never actually struck his eyes. But for this, it is probable, he had only the indulgence of the king-bird to thank. When at last the chastiser, tired of his task, turned and flew back up the river toward the nest in the elm-crotch, the ruffled crow took refuge out of sight, in the top of the densest hemlock, where he rolled his eyes and preened his plumage silently for an hour before daring again the vicissitudes of the wilderness world.
The nest to which the triumphant king-bird hurried back was audaciously perched in plain view of every prowler. The crotch of the elm-tree which it occupied was about twelve feet from the ground. The intervale, or water-meadow, by the side of the river, held but a few widely scattered trees,—trees of open growth, such as elm, balsam-poplar, and water-ash. It was free from all underbrush. There was nothing, therefore, to shield the nest from even the most careless eyes; and with an insolence of fearlessness matched only by that of the osprey, it was made the more conspicuous by having great tufts of white wool from a neighbouring sheep-pasture woven into its bulky, irregular frame. So irregular and haphazard, indeed, did it appear, that it might almost have been mistaken for a bunch of rubbish left in the tree from the time of freshet. But if the two king-birds relied on this resemblance as a concealment, they presumed as so clever a bird is not likely to do upon the blindness or stupidity of the wild kindred. The wild kindred are seldom blind, and very seldom stupid, because those members of the fellowship who are possessed of such defects sooner or later go to feed their fellows. Hence it was that most of the folk of the riverside, furred or feathered, knew well enough what the big whitish-gray bunch of rubbish in the elm-crotch was.
There were five eggs at the bottom of the smooth, warm cup, which formed the heart of the nest. They were a little smaller than a robin's egg, and of a soft creamy white, blotched irregularly with dull purplish maroon of varying tone. So jealous of these mottled marvels were the king-birds that not even the most harmless of visitors were allowed to look upon them. If so much as a thrush, or a pewee, or a mild-mannered white throat, presumed to alight on the very remotest branch of that elm, it was brusquely driven away.
One morning early, the male king-bird was sitting very erect, as was his custom, on the naked tip of a long, slender, dead branch some ten feet above the nest The morning chill was yet in the air, so it was a little early for the flies which formed his food to be stirring. But he was hungry, and on the alert for the first of them to appear. Only the tense feathers of his crest, raised to show the flame-orange spot which was his kingly crown, betrayed his eagerness; for he was a self-contained bird. The sun was just beginning to show the red topmost edge of his rim through the jagged line of firs across the river, and the long, level streaks of aerial rose, creeping under the branches, filled all the shadowed places of the wilderness with mysterious light. The eastward sides of the tree-trunks and naked branches glimmered pink; and dew-wet leaves, here and there, shone like pale jewels of pink, amber, and violet. The mirror-like surface of the river was blurred with twisting spirals of mist, silvery and opalescent, through which the dim-seen figure of a duck in straight flight shot like a missile.
As the king-bird sat erect on his branch, watching with bright eyes the miracle of the morning, an over-adventurous dragon-fly arose from a weed-top below him and flew into the rosy light. The bird darted straight and true, zigzagged sharply as the victim tried to dodge, caught the lean prize in his beak, and carried it very gallantly to his mate upon the nest. Then he fluttered back to his post on the branch.
As the sun got up over the hill, and the warmth dried their wings, the intervale began to hum softly with dancing flies and hurrying beetles, and the king-bird was continually on the move, twittering with soft monotony (his sole attempt at song), between each successful sally. At length the female rose from her eggs, stood on the edge of the nest, and gave an impatient call. Her mate flew down to take her place, and the two perched side by side, making a low chirping sound in their throats.
Just at this moment a small black snake, warmed into activity and hunger by the first rays of the sun, glided to the tree and began to climb. Bird's-nesting was the black snake's favourite employment; but it had not stopped to consider that the nest in this particular tree was a king-bird's. It climbed swiftly and noiselessly, and the preoccupied birds did not get glimpse of it till it was within two feet of the nest.
There was no time for consultation in the face of this peril. Like lightning the two darted down upon the enemy, buffeting its head with swift wing-strokes. The first assault all but swept it from the tree, and it shrank back upon itself with flattened head and angry hiss. Then it struck fiercely, again and again, at its bewildering assailants. But swift as were its movements, those of the king-birds were swifter, and its fangs never hit upon so much as one harassing feather. Suddenly, in its fury, it struck out too far, weakening for a moment its hold upon the crevices of the bark; and in that moment, both birds striking it together, its squirming folds were hurled to the ground. Thoroughly cowed, it slipped under cover and made off, only a wavering line among the grasses betraying its path. The king-birds, with excited and defiant twittering, followed for a little its hidden retreat, and then returned elated to the nest.
Among the kindred of the wild as well as among those of roof and hearth, events are apt to go in company. For day after day things will revolve in set fashion. Then chance takes sudden interest in a particular spot or a certain individual, and there, for a time, is established a centre for events. This day of the black snake was an eventful day for the little kings of the intervale. They had hardly more than recovered from their excitement over the snake when a red squirrel, his banner of a tail flaunting superbly behind him, came bounding over the grass to their tree. His intentions may have been strictly honourable. But a red squirrel's intentions are liable to change in the face of opportunity. As he ran up the tree, and paused curiously at the nested crotch, a feathered thunderbolt struck him on the side of the head. It knocked him clean out of the tree; and he turned a complete somersault in the air before he could get his balance and spread his legs so as to alight properly. When he reached the ground he fled in dismay, and was soon heard chattering vindictively among the branches of a far-off poplar.
It was a little before noon when came the great event of this eventful day. The male king-bird was on the edge of the nest, feeding a fat moth to his mate. As he straightened up and glanced around he saw a large marsh-hawk winnowing low across the river. As it reached the shore it swooped into the reed-fringe, but rose again without a capture. For a few minutes it quartered the open grass near the bank, hunting for mice. The two king-birds watched it with anxious, angry eyes. Suddenly it sailed straight toward the tree; and the king-birds shot into the air, ready for battle.
It was not the precious nest, however, nor the owners of the nest, on which the fierce eyes of the marsh-hawk had fallen. When he was within twenty paces of the nest he dropped into the grass. There was a moment of thrashing wings, then he rose again, and beat back toward the river with a young muskrat in his talons.
Considering the size and savagery of the hawk, any small bird but the little king would have been well content with his riddance. Not so the king-birds. With shrill chirpings they sped to the rescue. Their wings cuffed the marauder's head in a fashion that confused him. Their wedge-like beaks menaced his eyes and brought blood through the short feathers on the top of his head. He could make no defence or counter-attack against opponents so small and so agile of wing. At length a sharp jab split the lower lid of one eye,—and this added fear to his embarrassment. He dropped the muskrat, which fell into the river and swam off little the worse for the experience.
Relieved of his burden, the hawk made all speed to escape. At the farther shore the female king-bird desisted from the pursuit, and hurried back to her nest. But the avenging wrath of the male was not so easily pacified. Finding the tormentor still at his head, the hawk remembered the security of the upper air, and began to mount in sharp spirals. The king-bird pursued till, seen from the earth, he seemed no bigger than a bee dancing over the hawk's back. Then he disappeared altogether; and the hawk, but for his nervous, harassed flight, might have seemed to be alone in that clear altitude. At last his wings were seen to steady themselves into the tranquil, majestic soaring of his kind. Presently, far below the soaring wings, appeared a tiny dark shape, zigzagging swiftly downward; and soon the king-bird, hastening across the river, alighted once more on his branch and began to preen himself composedly.
t was early winter and early morning, and the first of the light lay sharp on the new snow. The sun was just lifting over a far and low horizon. Long, level rays, streaking the snow with straight, attenuated stains of pinkish gold and sharp lines of smoky-blue shadow, pierced the edges of the tall fir forests of Touladi. Though every tint—of the blackish-green firs, of the black-brown trunks, of the violet and yellow and gray birch saplings, of the many-hued snow spaces—was unspeakably tender and delicate, the atmosphere was of a transparency and brilliancy almost vitreous. One felt as if the whole scene might shatter and vanish at the shock of any sudden sound. Then a sound came—but it was not sudden; and the mystic landscape did not dissolve. It was a sound of heavy, measured, muffled footfalls crushing the crisp snow. There was a bending and swishing of bare branches, a rattling as of twigs upon horn or ivory—and a huge bull moose strode into view. With his splendid antlers laid far back he lifted his great, dilating nostrils, stared down the long, white lanelike open toward the rising sun, and sniffed the air inquiringly. Then he turned to browse on the aromatic twigs of the birch saplings.
The great moose was a lord of his kind. His long, thick, glistening hair was almost black over the upper portions of his body, changing abruptly to a tawny ochre on the belly, and the inner and lower parts of the legs. The maned and hump-like ridge of his mighty fore-shoulders stood a good six feet three from the ground; and the spread of his polished, palmated antlers, so massive as to look a burden for even so colossal a head and neck as his, was well beyond five feet. The ridge of his back sloped down to hind-quarters disproportionately small, finished off with a little, meagrely tufted tail that on any beast less regal in mien and stature would have looked ridiculous. The majesty of a bull moose, however, is too secure to be marred by the incongruous pettiness of his tail. From the lower part of his neck, where the great muscles ran into the spacious, corded chest, hung a curious tuft of long and very coarse black hair, called among woodsmen the "bell." As he turned to his browsing, his black form stood out sharply against the background of the firs. Far down the silent, glittering slope, a good mile distant, a tall, gray figure on snow-shoes appeared for a second in the open, caught sight of the pasturing moose, and vanished hurriedly into the birch thickets.
Having cropped a few mouthfuls here and there from branches within easy reach, the great bull set himself to make a more systematic breakfast. Selecting a tall young birch with a bushy top, he leaned his chest against it until he bore it to the ground. Then, straddling it and working his way along toward the top, he held it firmly while he browsed at ease upon the juiciest and most savoury of the tips.
For some minutes he had been thus pleasantly occupied, when suddenly an obscure apprehension stirred in his brain. He stopped feeding, lifted his head, and stood motionless. Only his big ears moved, turning their wary interrogations toward every point of the compass, and his big nostrils suspiciously testing every current of air. Neither nose nor ears, the most alert of his sentinels, gave any report of danger. He looked about, saw nothing unusual, and fell again to feeding.
Among the wild kindreds, as far as man can judge, there are occasional intuitions that seem to work beyond the scope of the senses. It is not ordinarily so, else would all hunting, on the part of man or of the hunting beasts, be idle. But once in a while, as if by some unwilling telepathic communication from hunter to hunted, or else by an obscure and only half-delivered message from the powers that preside over the wild kindreds, a warning of peril is conveyed to a pasturing creature while yet the peril is far off and unrevealed. The great moose found his appetite all gone. He backed off the sapling and let its top spring up again toward the empty blue. He looked back nervously over his trail, sniffed the air, waved his ears inquiringly. The more he found nothing to warrant his uneasiness, the more his uneasiness grew. It was as if Death, following far off but relentlessly, had sent a grim menace along the windings of the trail. Something like a panic came into the dilating eyes of the big bull. He turned toward the fir forest, at a walk which presently broke into a shambling, rapid trot; and presently he disappeared among the sombre and shadowy colonnades.
In the strange gloom of the forest, a transparent gloom confused by thin glints and threads of penetrating, pinkish light, the formless alarm of the moose began to subside. In a few minutes his wild run diminished into a rapid walk. He would not go back to his feeding, however. He had been seized with a shuddering distrust of the young birch thickets on the slope. Over beyond the next ridge there were some bushy swales which he remembered as good pasturage—where, indeed, he had a mind to "yard up" for the winter, when the snow should get too deep for wide ranging. Once more quickening his pace, he circled back almost to the fringe of the forest, making toward a little stretch of frozen marsh, which was one of his frequented runways between ridge and ridge. That nameless fear in the birch thickets still haunted him, however, and he moved with marvellous quietness. Not once did his vast antlers and his rushing bulk disturb the dry undergrowth, or bring the brittle, dead branches crashing down behind him. The only sound that followed him was that of the shallow snow yielding crisply under his feet, and a light clicking, as the tips of his deep-cleft, loose-spreading hoofs came together at the recovery of each stride. This clicking, one of the most telltale of wilderness sounds to the woodsman's ear, grew more sharp and insistent as the moose increased his speed, till presently it became a sort of castanet accompaniment to his long, hurried stride. A porcupine, busy girdling a hemlock, ruffled and rattled his dry quills at the sound, and peered down with little, disapproving eyes as the big, black form fled by below him.
The snowy surface of the marsh was stained with ghosts of colour—aerial, elusive tinges of saffron and violet—as the moose came out upon it. As he swung down its lonely length, his gigantic shadow, lopsided and blue, danced along threateningly, its head lost in the bushes fringing the open. When he came to the end of the marsh, where the wooded slope of the next ridge began, he half paused, reaching his long muzzle irresolutely toward the tempting twigs of a young willow thicket; but before he could gather one mouthful, that nameless fear came over him again, that obscure forewarning of doom, and he sprang forward toward the cover of the firs. As he sprang, there was a movement and a flash far down a wooded alley—a sharp, ringing crack—and something invisible struck him in the body. He had been struck before, by falling branches, or by stones bounding down a bluff, but this missile seemed very different and very small. Small as it was, however, the blow staggered him for an instant; then he shuddered, and a surge of heat passed through his nerves. But a second later he recovered himself fully, and bounded into the woods, just in time to escape a second bullet, as a second shot rang out in vain behind him.
Straight up the wooded steep he ran, startled, but less actually terrified now, in fleeing from a definite peril, then when trembling before a formless menace. This peril was one that he felt he could cope with. He knew his own strength and speed. Now that he had the start of them, these slow-moving, relentless man-creatures, with the sticks that spoke fire, could never overtake him. With confident vigour he breasted the incline, his mighty muscles working as never before under the black hair of shoulder and flank. But he did not know that every splendid stride was measured by a scarlet sign on the snow.
For a few minutes the moose rushed on through the morning woods, up and up between the tall trunks of the firs, half-forgetting his alarm in the triumph of his speed. Then it began to seem to him that the slope of the hill had grown steeper than of old; gradually, and half-unconsciously, he changed his course, and ran parallel with the ridge; and with this change the scarlet signs upon his trail grew scanter. But in a few minutes more he began to feel that the snow was deeper than it had been—deeper, and more clinging. It weighted his hoofs and fetlocks as it had never done before, and his pace slackened. He began to be troubled by the thick foam welling into his nostrils and obstructing his breath. As he blew it forth impatiently it made red flecks and spatters on the snow. He had no pain, no realization that anything had gone wrong with him. But his eyes took on suddenly a harassed, anxious look, and he felt himself growing tired. He must rest a little before continuing his flight.
The idea of resting while his enemies were still so near and hot upon the trail, would, at any other time, have been rejected as absurd; but now the brain of the black moose was growing a little confused. Often before this he had run till he felt tired, and then lain down to rest. He had never felt tired till he knew that he had run a great distance. Now, from his dimming intelligence the sense of time had slipped away. He had been running, and he felt tired. Therefore, he must have run a long distance, and his slow enemies must have been left far behind. He could safely rest. His old craft, however, did not quite fail him at this point. Before yielding to the impulse which urged him to lie down, he doubled and ran back, parallel to his trail and some fifty paces from it, for a distance of perhaps two hundred yards. Staggering at every other stride, and fretfully blowing the stained froth from his nostrils, he crouched behind a thicket of hemlock seedlings, and watched the track by which his foes must come.
For a little while he kept his watch alertly, antlers laid back, ears attentive, eyes wide and bright. Then, so slowly that he did not seem aware of it himself, his massive head drooped forward till his muzzle lay outstretched upon the snow. So far back from the gate of the senses drew the life within him, that when three gray-coated figures on snow-shoes went silently past on his old trail, he never saw them. His eyes were filled with a blur of snow, and shadows, and unsteady trunks, and confusing little gleams of light.
Of the three hunters following on the trail of the great black moose, one was more impetuous than the others. It was his first moose that he was trailing; and it was his bullet that was speaking through those scarlet signs on the snow. He kept far ahead of his comrades, elated and fiercely glad, every nerve strung with expectation. Behind each bush, each thicket, he looked for the opportunity to make the final, effective shot that should end the great chase. Not unlearned in woodcraft, he knew what it meant when he reached the loop in the trail. He understood that the moose had gone back to watch for his pursuers. What he did not know or suspect was, that the watcher's eyes had grown too dim to see. He took it for granted that the wise beast had marked their passing, and fled off in another direction as soon as they got by. Instead, however, of redoubling his caution, he plunged ahead with a burst of fresh enthusiasm. He was very properly sure his bullet had done good work, since it had so soon compelled the enduring animal to rest.
A puff of wandering air, by chance, drifted down from the running man to the thicket, behind which the black bull lay, sunk in his torpor. The dreaded man-scent—the scent of death to the wilderness folk—was blown to the bull's nostrils. Filled though they were with that red froth, their fine sense caught the warning. The eyes might fail in their duty, the ears flag and betray their trust; but the nostrils, skilled and schooled, were faithful to the last. Their imperative message pierced to the fainting brain, and life resumed its duties. Once more the dull eyes awoke to brightness. The great, black form lunged up and crashed forward into the open, towering, formidable, and shaking ominous antlers.
Taken by surprise, and too close to shoot in time, the rash hunter sprang aside to make for a tree. He had heard much of the charge of a wounded moose. As he turned, the toe of one snow-shoe caught on a branchy stub, just below the surface of the snow. The snow-shoe turned side on, and tripped him, and he fell headlong right in the path of the charging beast.
As he fell, he heard a shout from his comrades, hurrying up far behind him; but the thought that flashed through him was that they could not be in time. Falling on his face, he expected the next instant to feel the bull's great rending hoofs descend upon his back and stamp his life out.
But the blow never fell. The moose had seen his foe coming, and charged to meet him, his strength and valour flashing up for an instant as the final emergency confronted him. But ere he could reach that prostrate shape in the snow, he forgot what he was doing, and stopped short. With legs a little apart he braced himself, and stood rigid. His noble head was held high, as if he scorned the enemies who had dogged him to his last refuge. But in reality he no longer saw them. The breath came hard through his rattling nostrils, and his eyes, very wide open, were dark with a fear which he could not understand. The life within him strove desperately to maintain its hold upon that free and lordly habitation. The second hunter, now, was just lifting his rifle,—but before he could sight and fire, the chase was ended. That erect, magnificent figure, towering over the fallen man, collapsed all at once. It fell together into a mere heap of hide and antlers. The light in the eyes went out, as a spark that is trodden, and the laboured breathing stopped in mid-breath. The fallen hunter sprang up, rushed forward with a shout, and drew his knife across the outstretched throat.
he fantastic old sycamore, standing alone on the hill, thrust out its one gaunt limb across the face of the moon. It was late April, and the buds not yet swollen to bursting. On the middle of the limb, blackly silhouetted against the golden disk, crouched a raccoon, who sniffed the spring air and scanned the moon-washed spaces. From the marshy spots at the foot of the hill, over toward the full-fed, softly rushing brook, came the high piping of the frogs, a voice of poignant, indeterminate desire.
Having reconnoitred the night to her satisfaction, the raccoon returned to a deep hole in the sycamore, and hastily touched with her pointed nose each in turn of her five, blind, furry little ones. Very little they were, half-cub, half-kitten in appearance, with their long noses, long tails, and bear-like feet. They huddled luxuriously together in the warm, dry darkness of the den, and gave little squeals in response to their mother's touch. In her absence they had been voiceless, almost moveless, lest voice or motion should betray them to an enemy.
Having satisfied herself as to the comfort of the furry children, the old raccoon nimbly descended the tree, ran lightly down the hill, and made for the nearest pool, where the frogs were piping. She was a sturdy figure, yet lithe and graceful, about the bulk of the largest cat, and with a tail almost the length of her body. Her legs, however, were much shorter and more powerful than those of a cat; and when, for a moment of wary observation, she stood still, her feet came down flatly, like those of a bear, though in running she went on her toes, light as the seed of the milkweed. Her head was much like a bear's in shape, with the nose very long and pointed; and a bar of black across the middle of her face, gave a startling intensity to her dark, keen, half-malicious eyes. Her fur, very long and thick, was of a cloudy brown; and the black rings on her gray tail stood out sharply in the moonlight. Both in expression and in movement, she showed that strange mixture of gaiety, ferocity, mischievousness, and confident sagacity, which makes the raccoon unlike in character to all the other wild kindreds.
Though she was on important affairs intent, and carrying the cares of the family, she was not too absorbed to feel the glad impulse of the spring; and for sheer exuberance of life, she would go bounding over a stick or a stone as if it were a tree or a boulder. Though life was a serious matter, she was prepared to get out of it all the fun there was to be had.
But when she neared the noisy pools she went stealthily enough. Nevertheless, for all her caution, the pipings ceased in that section of the pool when she was within two or three feet of the waterside; and, in the little space of sudden silence, she knew that every small piper was staring at her with fixed, protruding eyes. On she went, straight out to the end of a half-submerged log, and there crouched flat, moveless as the log itself. She knew that if she only kept still long enough, she would come to be regarded by the pool-dwellers as nothing more than a portion of the log. Meanwhile the high chorus from the adjoining pools swelled ever louder and shriller, as the small musicians voiced the joy of spring.
For perhaps ten minutes the space about the waiting raccoon on the log appeared lifeless. Then one little black spot, which had seemed like a lump of mud against a dead grass-stalk, moved; then another, and another, and another—all over the pool. Pale throats began to throb rhythmically; and the pipings once more pulsed forth buoyant and strong. The frogs had utterly forgotten the intruder, and their bulging eyes were no longer fixed on the log. Nevertheless, as it chanced, there was not a single piper within reach of the watcher's paw.
The raccoon's eyes gleamed with intenser fire, but she never stirred. She knew that the price of a meal, to most of the wood-folk, was patience as untiring as a stone. Only her full, dark eyes, set in their bar of black, moved watchfully, searching the pallid spaces all about the log.
A moment more and her patience was rewarded. A big frog from the neighbour pool, unaware that there had been any intrusion here, came swimming up, on some errand of private urgency, and made directly for the log. The next instant, before he had any inkling of the imminence of doom, the raccoon's forepaw shot out like a flash. It was a wide-spread, flexible paw, like a little, black, lean hand, strong and delicate, the fingers tipped with formidable claws. It caught the swimming frog under the belly, swept him from the water, and threw him far up on to the shore. With a pounce, the raccoon was upon him; and a snap of her strong teeth ended his struggles.
The raccoon was very hungry, but, unlike others of the hunting tribes, she did not fall instantly to her meal. The mauled victim was covered with bits of dried stubble and leaf and earth, which clung to its sticky skin and were most distasteful to her fastidious appetite. Picking it up in her jaws, she carried it back to the pool. There, holding it in her claws, she proceeded to wash it thoroughly, sousing it up and down till there was not a vestige of soilure to be found upon it. When quite satisfied that no washing could make it cleaner, she fell to and made her meal with relish.
But what was one frog to a raccoon with a family, a mother whose breast must supply five hungry little mouths? She ran over to the brook, and followed down its bank to a spot where it widened out and a strong eddy made up against the hither shore, washing a slope of gravel. Here, in the shallows, she heard a feeble flopping, and knew that a sick or disabled fish was making its last fight with fate. It was a large chub, which had evidently been hooked by some heedless trout-fisher farther up-stream, torn from the hook in anger because it was not a trout, and thrown back into the water, to survive or die as the water-fates should will. It turned on one side, revealing its white belly and torn gills; then, feeling itself washed ashore by the eddy, it gave one more feeble flop in the effort to regain the safe deeps. At this moment the raccoon, pouncing with a light splash into the shallows, seized it, and with a nip through the backbone ended its misery.
Having eaten the fish, and daintily cleaned her fur, the raccoon ascended the bank, with the purpose of returning to her lair in the old sycamore. She stopped abruptly, however, as a new sound, very different from that of the frog chorus, fell upon her heedful ear. It was an excited, yelping whine; and presently she caught sight of a long-legged, plumy-tailed dog, rushing wildly hither and thither, nose to earth, quartering the ground for fresh trails.
The raccoon knew the dog, from a distance, for the young, unbroken, brown Irish setter which had lately come to the neighbour farm. His qualities and capabilities, however, were, as yet, unknown to her. Though she knew herself more than a match for the average dog, and particularly for the small black and white mongrel which, up to a month ago, had been the only dog on the farm, she did not know just how dangerous the Irish setter might be. Therefore, though the light of battle flamed into her eyes, she considered her responsibilities, and looked around for a tree.
There was no tree near, so she turned, crouched close to the ground, and attempted to steal off unperceived. But as she turned the dog caught sight of her. At the same instant he also caught her scent. It was a new scent to him, a most interesting scent; and he rushed upon her, with streaming tail and a peal of joyously savage yelpings. The raccoon backed up against a granite rock, and stood at bay, her long, white teeth bared, her eyes fierce, fearless, and watchful.
The Irish setter was a wild, undisciplined pup, harebrained and headlong after the manner of his breed. Of raccoons and their capabilities he had had no experience. This small, crouching animal, under the rock in the moonlight, seemed to promise an easy victory. He sprang upon her, open-mouthed, and snapped confidently at her neck.
All his big jaws got were a few hairs; for on the instant the raccoon had dodged. Her keen claws raked the side of his face, and her fine, punishing fangs tore a gash in his neck, dangerously near his throat. With a yelp of pain and terror he tore himself free of those deadly teeth and bounded out of reach. And the raccoon, silently triumphant, backed up again into her posture of defence against the rock.
But the Irish setter, in that half-minute, had learned a great deal about raccoons. He now refused to come within four or five feet of his small antagonist. He leaped up and down, snapping and barking, but had no more stomach for the actual encounter. His noisy threatenings, however, which did violence to the silver magic of the night, soon brought no answer; and the black and white mongrel, barking in great excitement, rushed up to take a hand in the affray.
At the sight of the quietly desperate raccoon he stopped short. But his hesitation was from discretion, not from cowardice. He knew that the raccoon could master him. He took some sort of swift counsel, therefore, with the blustering setter; and then, having apparently received assurance of support, sprang boldly on the enemy.
There was a sharp tussle, a confusion of snapping, snarling, clawing, growling, and squealing; while the Irish setter, having reconsidered his promise to take a hand, contented himself with barking brave encouragement from a safe distance. At last the black and white mongrel, finding that he was getting badly worsted and receiving no support, tried to draw away; and the raccoon, fearing to be dragged from her post of vantage against the rock, at once let him go. Both combatants were breathless and bleeding, and they eyed each other with the watchfulness born of respect.
The little mongrel now seemed to hold a second and more elaborate conference with the Irish setter. Possibly he conveyed his opinion of the latter's character, for the proud-plumed tail drooped disconsolately, and the loud-mouthed threatenings ceased. Just what new courage the sagacious mongrel might have succeeded in infusing into the volatile heart of his ally, just what plan of concerted action might have been evolved, to the ruin of the heroic little fighter under the rock, will never be known; for at this moment a second and larger raccoon came running swiftly and silently up the bank.
It was the mother 'coon's mate, who had heard the noise of combat where he was foraging by himself, far down the brook. At sight of this most timely reinforcement, the beleaguered raccoon made a sortie. Recognizing the weak point in the assailing forces, she darted straight upon the hesitating setter, and snapped at his leg.
This was quite too much for his jarred nerves, and with a howl, as if he already felt those white teeth crunching to the bone, the setter turned and fled. The black and white mongrel, highly disgusted, but realizing the hopelessness of the situation, turned and fled after him in silence. Then the triumphant raccoons touched noses in brief congratulation, and presently moved off to their hunting as if nothing had happened. The wild kindred, as a rule, maintain a poise which the most extravagant adventures this side of death seldom deeply disturb.
Up to this time, through the hungry weeks of late winter and the first thaws, the raccoons in the old sycamore had resisted the temptation of the farmer's hen-roosts. They knew that the wilderness hunting, though the most difficult, was safe, while any serious depredations at the farm would be sure to bring retaliation from that most crafty and dangerous creature, man. Now, however, after the fight with the dogs, a mixture of audacity with the desire for revenge got the better of them; and that same night, very late, when the moon was casting long, sharp shadows from the very rim of the horizon, they hurried through the belt of forest, which separated their sycamore from the cleared fields, and stole into the rear of the barn-yard.
The farm was an outpost, so to speak, of the settlements, on the debatable ground between the forces of the forest and the forces of civilization, and therefore much exposed to attack. As the raccoons crept along behind the wood-shed they smelt traces of a sickly pungent odour, and knew that other marauders had been on the ground not very long before. This made them bolder in their enterprise, for they knew that such depredations as they might commit would be laid to the account of the skunks, and therefore not likely to draw down vengeance upon the den in the sycamore. They killed a sitting hen upon her nest, feasted luxuriously upon her eggs and as much of herself as they could hold, and went away highly elated. For three successive nights they repeated their raid upon the fowl-house, each night smelling the pungent, choking scent more strongly, but never catching a glimpse of the rival marauder. On the fourth night, as they crossed the hillocky stump-lot behind the barns, the scent became overpowering, and they found the body of the skunk, where fate had overtaken him, lying beside the path. They stopped, considered, and turned back to their wildwood foraging; and through all that spring they went no more to the farmyard, lest they should call down a similar doom upon themselves.
As spring ripened and turned to summer over the land, food grew abundant in the neighbourhood of the sycamore, and there was no temptation to trespass on man's preserves. There were grouse nests to rifle, there were squirrels, hare, wood-mice, chipmunks, to exercise all the craft and skill of the raccoons. Also there were the occasional unwary trout, chub, or suckers, to be scooped up upon the borders of the brook. And once, more in hate than in hunger, the old mother raccoon had the fierce joy of eradicating a nest of weasels, which she found in a pile of rocks. She had a savage antipathy to the weasel tribe, whose blood-lust menaces all the lesser wood-folk, and whose teeth delight to kill, after hunger is sated, for the mere relish of a taste of quivering brain or a spurt of warm blood. The raccoon carried more scars from the victory over the weasels than she had to remind her of the scuffle with the dogs. But she had the nerve that takes punishment without complaint, and the scars troubled her little.
When the five young raccoons came down from the sycamore and began to depend upon their own foraging, it soon became necessary to extend the range, as game grew shyer and more scarce. Even chub and suckers learn something in course of time; and as for wood-mice and chipmunks, under such incentive as an active family of raccoons can give them they attain to a truly heartless cunning in the art of making their enemies go hungry. Hanging together with an intense clannishness, the raccoon family would make expeditions of such length as to keep often for two or three days at a time away from the home in the sycamore.
At last, one night in late summer, when the stars seemed to hang low among the warm and thick-leaved trees, and warm scents steamed up wherever the dew was disturbed by furry feet, the raccoons wandered over to the edge of the corn-field. It chanced that the corn was just plumping to tender and juicy fulness. The old raccoons showed the youngsters what richness of sweetness lay hidden within the green wrappings of the ears; and forth-with the whole clan fell to feasting recklessly.
In regard to the ducks and chickens of the farm, the raccoons were shrewd enough to know that any extensive depredations upon them would call down the swift vengeance of the farmer-folk; but they could not realize that they were in mischief when they helped themselves to these juicy, growing things. The corn, though manifestly in some way involved with the works of man, seemed nevertheless to them a portion of nature's liberality. They ran riot, therefore, through the tall, well-ordered ranks of green, without malice or misgiving; and in their gaiety they were extravagant. They would snatch a mouthful out of one sweet ear, then out of another, spoiling ten for one that they consumed.
Night after night they came to the corn-field, and waxed fat on their plunder, till at last, when they had done the damage of a herd of oxen, one silvery night they were discovered. The young farmer, with his hired boy and the harebrained, Irish setter, chanced to come by through the woods, and to notice that the corn was moving although there was no wind. The raccoons were promptly hunted out; and one of the young ones, before they could gain the shadowy refuge of the trees, was killed with sticks,—the setter contributing much noise, but keeping at a very safe distance. When the affray was over, and the young farmer, going through the field, found out what damage had been done, he was eloquent with picturesque backwoods blasphemies, and vowed the extermination of the whole 'coon clan. With the aid of the setter, who now, for the first time, was able to prove the worth of his breeding, he tracked the escaping marauders through the woods, and at last, after a long hunt, located their lair in the old sycamore-tree on the hill. At this his wrath gave way to the hunter's elation. His eyes sparkled.