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 The Watchers of the Trails

 A Book of Animal Life

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[Illustration: "A HUGE BLACK BEAR STANDING IN THE TRAIL. "(_See page 177_)]

 THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAIL A BOOK OF ANIMAL LIFE _by_

 CHARLES G D ROBERTS

 _Author of_

 "_The Kindred of the Wild_, " "_The Heart of the Ancient Wood_, " "_Barbara Ladd_, " "_The Forge in the Forest_, " "_Poems_, " _etc. _

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 _With many Illustrations by_

 _CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL_

 A. WESSELS COMPANY MDCCCCVI NEW YORK

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 _Copyright, 1904, by_ The S. S. McClure Co. 

 _Copyright, 1904, by_ Perry Mason Company

 _Copyright, 1903, 1904, by_ Robert Howard Russell

 _Copyright, 1903, by_ The Metropolitan Magazine Company

 _Copyright, 1903, by_ The Success Company

 _Copyright, 1902, 1903, by_ The Outing Publishing Company

 _Copyright, 1902, by_ Frank Leslie Publishing House

 _Copyright, 1904, by_ L. C. Page & Company (INCORPORATED) _All rights reserved_

 Published, June, 1904

 _Colonial Press_ Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass. , U. S. A. 

 To My Fellow of the Wild Ernest Thompson Seton

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Prefatory Note

In the preface to a former volume[1] I have endeavoured to trace thedevelopment of the modern animal story and have indicated whatappeared to me to be its tendency and scope. It seems unnecessary toadd anything here but a few words of more personal application. 

[Footnote 1: "The Kindred of the Wild. "]

The stories of which this volume is made up are avowedly fiction. Theyare, at the same time, true, in that the material of which they aremoulded consists of facts, --facts as precise as painstakingobservation and anxious regard for truth can make them. Certain of thestories, of course, are true literally. Literal truth may be attainedby stories which treat of a single incident, or of action sorestricted as to lie within the scope of a single observation. When, on the other hand, a story follows the career of a wild creature ofthe wood or air or water through wide intervals of time and space, itis obvious that the truth of that story must be of a different kind. The complete picture which such a story presents is built up fromobservation necessarily detached and scattered; so that the utmost itcan achieve as a whole is consistency with truth. If a writer has, bytemperament, any sympathetic understanding of the wild kindreds; ifhe has any intimate knowledge of their habits, with any sensitivenessto the infinite variation of their personalities; and if he haschanced to live much among them during the impressionable periodsof his life, and so become saturated in their atmosphere and theirenvironment;--then he may hope to make his most elaborate piece ofanimal biography not less true to nature than his transcript of anisolated fact. The present writer, having spent most of his boyhood onthe fringes of the forest, with few interests save those which theforest afforded, may claim to have had the intimacies of thewilderness as it were thrust upon him. The earliest enthusiasms whichhe can recollect are connected with some of the furred or featheredkindred; and the first thrills strong enough to leave a lasting markon his memory are those with which he used to follow--furtive, apprehensive, expectant, breathlessly watchful--the lure of an unknowntrail. 

There is one more point which may seem to claim a word. A verydistinguished author--to whom all contemporary writers on nature areindebted, and from whom it is only with the utmost diffidence that Iventure to dissent at all--has gently called me to account on thecharge of ascribing to my animals human motives and the mentalprocesses of man. The fact is, however, that this fault is one which Ihave been at particular pains to guard against. The psychologicalprocesses of the animals are so simple, so obvious, in comparison withthose of man, their actions flow so directly from their springs ofimpulse, that it is, as a rule, an easy matter to infer the motiveswhich are at any one moment impelling them. In my desire to avoidalike the melodramatic, the visionary, and the sentimental, I havestudied to keep well within the limits of safe inference. Where I mayhave seemed to state too confidently the motives underlying thespecial action of this or that animal, it will usually be found thatthe action itself is very fully presented; and it will, I think, befurther found that the motive which I have here assumed affords themost reasonable, if not the only reasonable, explanation of thataction. 

C. G. D. R. 

New York, _April, 1904_. 

Contents of the Book

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 PAGE

 Prefatory Note vii

 The Freedom of the Black-faced Ram 3

 The Master of Golden Pool 25

 The Return to the Trails 45

 The Little Wolf of the Pool 65

 The Little Wolf of the Air 73

 The Alien of the Wild 83

 The Silver Frost 111

 By the Winter Tide 121

 The Rivals of Ringwaak 131

 The Decoy 155

 The Laugh in the Dark 173

 The Kings of the Intervale 185

 The Kill 197

 The Little People of the Sycamore 211

 Horns and Antlers 237

 In the Deep of the Grass 247

 When the Moon Is over the Corn 257

 The Truce 267

 The Keeper of the Water-Gate 291

 When the Moose Cow Calls 311

 The Passing of the Black Whelps 323

 The Homeward Trail 351

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The Watchers of the Trails

The Freedom of the Black-faced Ram

On the top of Ringwaak Hill the black-faced ram stood motionless, looking off with mild, yellow eyes across the wooded level, across thescattered farmsteads of the settlement, and across the bright, retreating spirals of the distant river, to that streak of scarletlight on the horizon which indicated the beginning of sunrise. A fewpaces below him, half-hidden by a gray stump, a green juniper bush, and a mossy brown hillock, lay a white ewe with a lamb at her side. The ewe's jaws moved leisurely, as she chewed her cud and gazed upwith comfortable confidence at the sturdy figure of the ramsilhouetted against the brightening sky. 

This sunrise was the breaking of the black-faced ram's first day inthe wilderness. Never before had he stood on an open hilltop andwatched the light spread magically over a wide, wild landscape. Up tothe morning of the previous day, his three years of life had beenpassed in protected, green-hedged valley pastures, amid tilled fieldsand well-stocked barns, beside a lilied water. This rugged, lonely, wide-visioned world into which fortune had so unexpectedly projectedhim filled him with wonder. Yet he felt strangely at ease therein. Thehedged pastures had never quite suited him; but here, at length, inthe great spaces, he felt at home. The fact was that, alike incharacter and in outward appearance, he was a reversion to far-offancestors. He was the product of a freak of heredity. 

In the fat-soiled valley-lands, some fifteen miles back of RingwaakHill, the farmers had a heavy, long-wooled, hornless strain of sheep, mainly of the Leicester breed, which had been crossed, years back, byan imported Scotch ram of one of the horned, courageous, upland, black-faced varieties. The effect of this hardy cross had apparentlyall been bred out, save for an added stamina in the resulting stock, which was uniformly white and hornless. When, therefore, a lamb wasborn with a black face and blackish-gray legs, it was cherished as acuriosity; and when, in time, it developed a splendid pair of horns, it became the handsomest ram in all the valley, and a source of greatpride to its owner. But when black-faced lambs began to grow common inthe hornless and immaculate flocks, the feelings of the valley folkschanged, and word went around that the strain of the white-faced mustbe kept pure. Then it was decreed that the great horned ram should nolonger sire the flocks, but be hurried to the doom of his kind and goto the shambles. 

Just at this time, however, a young farmer from the backwoodssettlement over behind Ringwaak chanced to visit the valley. The sheepof his settlement were not only hornless, but small and light-wooledas well, and the splendid, horned ram took his fancy. Here was achance to improve his breed. He bought the ram for what he was worthto the butcher, and proudly led him away, over the hills and throughthe great woods, toward the settlement on the other side of Ringwaak. 

The backwoodsman knew right well that a flock of sheep may be driven, but that a single sheep must be led; so he held his new possessionsecurely by a piece of stout rope about ten feet long. For an hour ortwo the ram followed with an exemplary docility quite foreign to hisindependent spirit. He was subdued by the novelty of hissurroundings, --the hillocky, sloping pastures, and the shadowysolemnity of the forest. Moreover, he perceived, in his dim way, akind of mastery in this heavy-booted, homespun-clad, tobacco-chewing, grave-eyed man from the backwoods, and for a long time he felt none ofhis usual pugnacity. But by and by the craving for freedom began tostir in his breast, and the blood of his hill-roving ancestorsthrilled toward the wild pastures. The glances which, from time totime, he cast upon the backwoodsman at the other end of the ropebecame wary, calculating, and hostile. This stalwart form, stridingbefore him, was the one barrier between himself and freedom. Freedomwas a thing of which he knew, indeed, nothing, --a thing which, to mostof his kind, would have seemed terrifying rather than alluring. But tohim, with that inherited wildness stirring in his blood, it seemed thething to be craved before all else. 

Presently they came to a little cold spring, bubbling up beside theroad and tinkling over the steep bank. The road at this point ranalong a hillside, and the slope below the road was clothed withblueberry and other dense shrubs. The backwoodsman was hot andthirsty. Flinging aside his battered hat, he dropped down on his handsand knees beside the spring and touched his lips to the water. 

In this position, still holding the rope in a firm grasp, he had hisback to the ram. Moreover, he no longer looked either formidable orcommanding. The ram saw his chance. A curious change came over hismild, yellow eyes. They remained yellow, indeed, but became cold, sinister, and almost cruel in their expression. 

The backwoodsman, as he drank, held a tight grip on the rope. The ramsettled back slightly, till the rope was almost taut. Then he launchedhimself forward. His movement was straight and swift, as if he hadbeen propelled by a gigantic spring. His massive, broad-hornedforehead struck the stooping man with terrific force. 

With a grunt of pain and amazement, the man shot sprawling over thebank, and landed, half-stunned, in a clump of blueberry bushes. Dazedand furious, he picked himself up, passed a heavy hand across hisscratched, smarting face, and turned to see the ram disappearing amongthe thickets above the road. His disappointment so overcame his wraththat he forgot to exercise his vigorous backwoods vocabulary, andresumed his homeward way with his head full of plans for therecapture of his prize. 

The ram, meanwhile, trailing the length of rope behind him, wasgalloping madly through the woods. He was intoxicated with hisfreedom. These rough, wild, lonely places seemed to him his home. Withall his love for the wilderness, the instinct which had led him to itwas altogether faulty and incomplete. It supplied him with none of theneedful forest lore. He had no idea of caution. He had no inkling offear. He had no conception of the enemies that might lurk in thicketor hollow. He went crashing ahead as if the green world belonged tohim, and cared not who might hear the brave sound of his going. Nowand then he stepped on the rope, and stumbled; but that was a smallmatter. 

Through dark strips of forest, over rocky, tangled spaces, acrossslopes of burnt barren, his progress was always upward, until, havingtraversed several swampy vales and shadowy ravines, toward evening hecame out upon the empty summit of Ringwaak. On the topmost hillock hetook his stand proudly, his massive head and broad, curled horns insplendid relief against the amber sky. 

As he stood, surveying his new realm, a low bleat came to him from asheltered hollow close by, and, looking down, he saw a small white ewewith a new-born lamb nursing under her flank. Here was his new realmpeopled at once. Here were followers of his own kind. He steppedbriskly down from his hillock and graciously accepted the homage ofthe ewe, who snuggled up against him as if afraid at the lonelinessand the coming on of night. All night he slept beside the mother andher young, in the sheltered hollow, and kept no watch because hefeared no foe. But the ewe kept watch, knowing well what perils mightsteal upon them in the dark. 

As it chanced, however, no midnight prowler visited the summit ofRingwaak Hill, and the first of dawn found the great ram again at hispost of observation. It is possible that he had another motive besideshis interest in his new, wonderful world. He may have expected thewoodsman to follow and attempt his recapture, and resolved not to betaken unawares. Whatever his motive, he kept his post till the sun washigh above the horizon, and the dew-wet woods gleamed as if sown withjewels. Then he came down and began to feed with the ewe, cropping theshort, thin grass with quick bites and finding it far more sweet thanthe heavy growths of his old pasture. 

Late in the morning, when pasturing was over for the time, the ram andthe little ewe lay down in the shade of a steep rock, comfortablychewing their cud, while the lamb slept at its mother's side. The ram, deeply contented, did not observe two gray-brown, stealthy formscreeping along the slope, from bush to rock, and from stump tohillock. But the ewe, ever on the watch, presently caught sight ofthem, and sprang to her feet with a snort of terror. She knew wellenough what a lynx was. Yet for all her terror she had no thought offlight. Her lamb was too young to flee, and she would stay by it inface of any fate. 

The ram got up more slowly, turned his head, and eyed the stealthystrangers with grave curiosity. Curiosity, however, changed intohostility as he saw by the ewe's perturbation that the strangers werefoes; and a sinister glitter came into the great gold eyes which shoneso brilliantly from his black face. 

[Illustration: "THROUGH DARK STRIPS OF FOREST. "]

Seeing themselves discovered, the two lynxes threw aside their cunningand rushed ravenously upon what they counted easy prey. They knewsomething of the timorous hearts of sheep, and had littleexpectation of resistance. But being, first of all, hungry rather thanangry, they preferred what seemed easiest to get. It was upon the lamband the ewe that they sprang, ignoring the ram contemptuously. 

One thing which they had not reckoned with, however, was the temper ofthe ewe. Before one fierce claw could reach her lamb, she had buttedthe assailant so fiercely in the flank that he forgot his purpose andturned with a snarl of rage to rend her. Meanwhile the other lynx, springing for her neck, had experienced the unexpected. He had beenmet by the lightning charge of the ram, fair in the ribs, and hurledsprawling into a brittle, pointed tangle of dead limbs sticking upfrom the trunk of a fallen tree. 

Having delivered this most effective blow, the ram stepped back a paceor two, mincing on his slender feet, and prepared to repeat it. Thelynx was struggling frantically among the branches, which stuck intohim and tore his fine fur. Just in time to escape the second assaulthe got free, --but free not for fight but for flight. One tremendous, wildly contorted leap landed him on the other side of the dead tree;and, thoroughly cowed, he scurried away down the hillside. 

The ram at once turned his attention to the ewe and her antagonist. But the second lynx, who had not found his task so simple as he hadexpected it to be, had no stomach left for one more difficult. The ewewas bleeding about the head, and would, of course, if she had beenleft to fight it out, have been worsted in a very short time. But theenemy had felt the weight of her blows upon his ribs, and had learnedhis lesson. For just a fraction of a second he turned, and defied theram with a screeching snarl. But when that horned, black, batteringhead pitched forward at him he bounded aside like a furry gray balland clambered to the top of the rock. Here he crouched for somemoments, snarling viciously, his tufted ears set back against hisneck, and his stump of a tail twitching with rage, while the ramminced to and fro beneath him, stamping defiance with his daintyhoofs. All at once the big cat doubled upon itself, slipped down theother side of the rock, and went gliding away through the stumps andhillocks like a gray shadow; and the ram, perhaps to conceal hiselation, fell to grazing as if nothing out of the ordinary hadhappened. The ewe, on the other hand, seeing the danger so well past, took no thought of her torn face, but set herself to comfort andreassure the trembling lamb. 

After this, through the slow, bright hours while the sun swung hotlyover Ringwaak, the ram and his little family were undisturbed. Aneagle, wheeling, wheeling, wheeling in the depths of the blue, lookeddown and noted the lamb. But he had no thought of attacking so wellguarded a prey. The eagle had a wider outlook than others of the wildkindred, and he knew from of old many matters which the lynxes ofRingwaak had never learned till that day. 

There were other visitors that came and glanced at the little familyduring the quiet content of their cud-chewing. A weasel ran restlesslyover a hillock and peered down upon them with hard, bright eyes. Thebig ram, with his black face and huge, curling horns, was a novelphenomenon, and the weasel disappeared behind the hillock, only toappear again much nearer, around a clump of weeds. His curiosity wasmingled with malicious contempt, till the ram chanced to rise andshake his head. Then the weasel saw the rope that wriggled from theram's neck. Was it some new and terrible kind of snake? The weaselrespected snakes when they were large and active; so he forgot hiscuriosity and slipped away from the dangerous neighbourhood. 

The alarm of the weasel, however, was nothing to that of thewood-mice. While the ram was lying down they came out of their secretholes and played about securely, seeming to realize that the biganimal's presence was a safeguard to them. But when he moved, and theysaw the rope trail sinuously behind him through the scanty grass, theywere almost paralyzed with panic. Such a snake as that would requireall the wood-mice on Ringwaak to assuage his appetite. They fairlyfell backward into their burrows, where they crouched quivering in thedarkest recesses, not daring to show their noses again for hours. 

Neither weasel nor wood-mice, nor the chickadees which came to eye himsaucily, seemed to the big ram worth a moment's attention. But when aporcupine, his quills rattling and bristling till he looked as bigaround as a half-bushel basket, strolled aimlessly by, the ram wasinterested and rose to his feet. The little, deep-set eyes of theporcupine passed over him with supremest indifference, and their ownerbegan to gnaw at the bark of a hemlock sapling which grew at one sideof the rock. To this gnawing he devoted his whole attention, with aneagerness that would have led one to think he was hungry, --as, indeed, he was, not having had a full meal for nearly half an hour. Theporcupine, of all nature's children, is the best provided for, havingthe food he loves lying about him at all seasons. Yet he is for evereating, as if famine were in ambush for him just over the nexthillock. 

Seeing the high indifference of this small, bristling stranger, theram stepped up and was just about to sniff at him inquiringly. Had hedone so, the result would have been disastrous. He would have got aslap in the face from the porcupine's active and armed tail; and hisface would have straightway been transformed into a sort of anguishedpincushion, stuck full of piercing, finely barbed quills. He wouldhave paid dear for his ignorance of woodcraft, --perhaps with the lossof an eye, or even with starvation from a quill working through intohis gullet. But fortunately for him the ewe understood thepeculiarities of porcupines. Just in time she noted his danger, andrudely butted him aside. He turned upon her in a fume of amazedindignation; but in some way she made him understand that theporcupine was above all law, and not to be trifled with even by thelords of the wilderness. Very sulkily he lay down again, and theporcupine went on chiselling hemlock bark, serenely unconscious of theanger in the inscrutable yellow eyes that watched him from the ram'sblack face. 

When the shadows grew long and luminous, toward evening, the ram, following some unexplained instinct, again mounted the topmost pointof Ringwaak, and stood like a statue gazing over the vast, warm-coloured solitude of his new domain. His yellow eyes were placidwith a great content. A little below him, the white lamb wobbling onweak legs at her side, the ewe pastured confidently, secure in theproved prowess of her protector. As the sun dropped below the far-offwestern rim of the forest, it seemed as if one wide wave of lucentrose-violet on a sudden flooded the world. Everything on Ringwaak--theram's white fleece, the gray, bleached stumps, the brown hillocks, thegreen hollows and juniper clumps and poplar saplings--took on apalpitating aerial stain. Here and there in the distance the coils ofthe river gleamed clear gold; and overhead, in the hollowamber-and-lilac arch of sky, the high-wandering night-hawks swoopedwith the sweet twang of smitten strings. 

Down at the foot of the northern slope of Ringwaak lay a dense cedarswamp. Presently, out from the green fringe of the cedars, a bearthrust his head and cast a crafty glance about the open. Seeing theram on the hilltop and the ewe with her lamb feeding near by, he sankback noiselessly into the cover of the cedars, and stole around towardthe darkening eastern slope, where a succession of shrubby copses rannearly to the top of the hill. 

The bear was rank, rusty-coated, old, and hungry; and he loved sheep. He was an adept in stalking this sweet-fleshed, timorous quarry, andbreaking its neck with a well-directed blow as it dashed past him in apanic. Emerging from the swamp, he crept up the hill, taking cunningadvantage of every bush, stump, and boulder. For all his awkwardlooking bulk, he moved as lightly as a cat, making himself small, andtwisting and flattening and effacing himself; and never a twig wasallowed to snap, or a stone to clatter, under his broad, unerringfeet. 

About this time it chanced that the backwoodsman, who had been outnearly all day hunting for his lost prize, approached the edge of theforest at the other side of Ringwaak, --and saw the figure of the ramagainst the sky. Then, seeing also the ewe with the lamb beside her, he knew that the game was his. 

Below the top of the hill there was not a scrap of cover for adistance of perhaps twenty paces. The bear crept to the very lastbush, the ram being occupied with the world at a distance, and the ewebusy at her pasturing. Behind the bush--a thick, spreadingjuniper--the bear crouched motionless for some seconds, his little redeyes aglow, and his jaws beginning to slaver with eagerness. Thenselecting the unconscious ewe, because he knew she was not likely todesert the lamb, he rushed upon his intended victim. 

The ewe, as it chanced, was about thirty-five or forty feet distantfrom the enemy, as he lunged out, black and appalling, from behind thejuniper. At the same time the ram was not more than twenty ortwenty-five feet distant, straight above the lamb, in a direction atright angles to the path of the bear. The ewe looked up with astartled bleat, wheeled, sprang nimbly before the lamb, and faced herdoom dauntlessly, with lowered head. 

[Illustration: "HE CREPT UP THE HILL. "]

The ram's mild gaze changed in a flash to one of cold, yellow savageryat the sight of the great black beast invading his kingdom. Down wenthis conquering head. For just a fraction of a second his sturdy bodysagged back, as if he were about to sit down. This, so to speak, wasthe bending of the bow. Then he launched himself straight down theslope, all his strength, his weight, and the force of gravitycombining to drive home that mighty stroke. 

The bear had never, in all his experience with sheep, encountered onewhose resistance was worth taking into account. The defiance of theewe was less than nothing to him. But as he saw, from the corner ofhis eye, the huge bulk plunging down upon him, he hesitated, and halfturned, with great paw upraised for a finishing blow. 

He turned not quite in time, however, and his defence was not quitestrenuous enough for the emergency. He struck like lightning, as abear always can, but just before the stroke could find its mark theram's armed forehead crashed into his ribs. The blow, catching him asit did, was irresistible. His claws tore off a patch of wool and skin, and ploughed red furrows across the ram's shoulder, --but the nextinstant he was sprawling, his breath jarred from his lungs, against astump some ten feet down the slope. 

As the bear struggled to his feet, furious but half-daunted withamazement, the ram danced backward a pace or two on his nimble feet, as if showing off, and then delivered his second charge. Thebewildered bear was again caught unready, irresolute as to whether heshould fight or flee; and again he was knocked headlong, a yard or twofurther down the slope. His was not the dauntless spirit that most ofhis kindred would have shown in such a case, and he would willinglyhave made his escape at once if he had seen his way quite clear to doso. But at this moment, while he hesitated, he heard a man's voiceshouting loudly, and saw the tall backwoodsman running toward him upthe hill. This sight turned his alarm into a blind panic. His feetseemed to acquire wings as he tore madly away among the thickets. Whenhe was hidden by the leafage, his path could still be followed by thecrashing of dry branches and the clattering of loosened stones. 

The woodsman had seen the whole incident, and was wild with enthusiasmover the prowess of his prize. Bears had been the most dreaded scourgeof the settlement sheep-farmers, but now, as he proudly said tohimself, he had a ram that could "lick a b'ar silly!" He bore nogrudge on account of his discomfiture that morning beside the spring, but rather thought of it with appreciation as a further evidence ofhis favourite's cunning and prowess; and he foresaw, with a chuckle, that there were painful surprises in store for the bears of theRingwaak range. He had made a wise purchase indeed when he saved thatsplendid beast from the butcher. 

Hearing the man's voice, the ram had halted in dismay just when he wasabout to charge the bear a third time. He had no mind to go again intocaptivity. But, on the other hand, for all his lordliness of spirit, he felt that the man was his master. At first he lowered his headthreateningly, as if about to attack; but when the backwoodsmanshouted at him there was an authority in those tones which he couldnot withstand, and he sullenly drew aside. With a good-natured laugh, the man picked the lamb up in his arms, whereupon the mother steppedtimidly to his side, evidently having no fear. The man rubbed her nosekindly, and stroked her ears, and gave her something from his pocketwhich she ate greedily; and, as the ram looked on, the anger graduallyfaded out from his yellow eyes. At length the man turned and walkedslowly down the hill, carrying the lamb. The ewe followed, crowding asclose to him as she could, and stumbling as she went because her eyeswere fixed upon her little one. 

The ram hesitated. He looked at the hillside, the woods, and the skybeginning to grow chill with the onrush of twilight. Then he lookedat the retreating figures. Suddenly he saw his world growing empty anddesolate. With an anxious bleat he trotted after the ewe, and took hisdocile place a few feet behind the man's heels. The man glanced overhis shoulders, and a smile of pleasure softened his rugged face. In afew moments the little procession disappeared in the woods, movingtoward the settlement, and Ringwaak Hill was left solitary in thedusk, with the lonely notes of the night-hawks twanging over it. 

The Master of Golden Pool

One shore of the pool was a spacious sweeping curve of the sward, dotted with clumps of blue flag-flowers. From the green fringes ofthis shore the bottom sloped away softly over a sand so deep andglowing in its hue of orange-yellow as to give the pool the rich nameby which it was known for miles up and down the hurrying Clearwater. The other shore was a high, overhanging bank, from whose top drooped avaried leafage of birch, ash, poplar, and hemlock. Under this bank thewater was deep and dark, a translucent black with trembling streaksand glints of amber. Fifty yards up-stream a low fall roaredmusically; but before reaching the fresh tranquillity of the pool, thecurrent bore no signs of its disturbance save a few softly whirlingfoam clusters. Light airs, perfumed with birch and balsam and warmscents of the sun-steeped sward, drew over the pool from time to time, wrinkling and clouding its glassy surface. Birds flew over it, catching the small flies to whom its sheen was a ceaseless lure. Andhuge dragon-flies, with long, iridescent bodies and great jewelled, sinister eyes, danced and darted above it. 

The cool black depths under the bank retained their coolness throughthe fiercest heats of summer, because just here the brook was joinedby the waters of an icy spring stealing down through a crevice of therocks; and here in the deepest recess, exacting toll of all the variedlife that passed his domain, the master of Golden Pool made his home. 

For several years the great trout had held his post in the pool, defying every lure of the crafty fisherman. The Clearwater was aprotected stream, being leased to a rich fishing club; and the masterof the pool was therefore secure against the treacherous assaults ofnet or dynamite. Many times each season fishermen would come and pittheir skill against his cunning; but never a fly could tempt him, never a silvery, trolled minnow or whirling spoon deceive him to thefatal rush. At some new lure he would rise lazily once in awhile, revealing his bulk to the ambitious angler, --but never to take hold. Contemptuously he would flout the cheat with his broad flukes, and godown again with a grand swirl to his lair under the rock. 

It was only to the outside world--to the dragon-fly, and the bird, andthe chattering red squirrel in the overhanging hemlock--that the deepwater under the bank looked black. To the trout in his lair, lookingupward toward the sunlight, the whole pool had a golden glow. Hisfavourite position was a narrow place between two stones, where he laywith head up-stream and belly about two inches from the sandy bottom, gently fanning the water with his party-coloured fins, and opening andclosing his rosy gill-fringes as he breathed. In length he wassomething over twenty inches, with a thick, deep body tapering finelyto the powerful tail. Like all the trout of the Clearwater, he wassilver-bellied with a light pink flush, the yellow and brown markingson his sides light in tone, and his spots of the most high, intensevermilion. His great lower jaw was thrust forward in a way that gave akind of bulldog ferocity to his expression. 

The sky of the big trout's world was the flat surface of Golden Pool. From the unknown place beyond that sky there came to his eyes butmoving shadows, arrangements of light and dark. He could not see outand through into the air unobstructedly, as one looks forth from awindow into the world. Most of these moving shadows he understood verywell. When broad and vague, they did not, as a rule, greatly interesthim; but when they got small, and sharply black, he knew they might atany instant break through with a splash and become real, colouredthings, probably good to eat. A certain slim little shadow was alwaysof interest to him unless he was feeling gorged. Experience had taughthim that when it actually touched the shining surface above, and laythere sprawling helplessly with wet wings, it would prove to be a Mayfly, which he liked. Having no rivals to get ahead of him, there wasno need of haste. He would sail up with dignity, open his great jaws, and take in the tiny morsel. 

Sometimes the moving shadows were large and of a slower motion, andthese, if they chanced to break through, would prove to bebright-coloured moths or butterflies, or glittering beetles, or fatblack and yellow bumblebees, or lean black and yellow wasps. If he washungry, all these things were good for food, and his bony, many-toothed mouth cared nothing for stings. Sometimes when he was notat all hungry, but merely playful, he would rise with a rush atanything breaking the sheen of his roof, slap it with his tail, thenseize it between his hard lips and carry it down with him, only todrop it a moment later as a child might drop a toy. Once in awhile, either in hunger or in sport, he would rise swiftly at the claws orwing-tips of a dipping swallow; but he never managed to catch thenimble bird. Had he, by any chance, succeeded, he would probably havefound the feathers no obstacle to his enjoyment of the novel fare. 

At times it was not a shadow, but a splash, that would attract hisattention to the shining roof of his world. A grasshopper would fallin, and kick grotesquely till he rose to end its troubles. Or amisguided frog, pursued perhaps by some enemy on land, would dive inand swim by with long, webbed toes. At this sight the master of thepool would dart from his lair like a bolt from a catapult. Frogs weremuch to his taste. And once in a long time even a wood-mouse, hardpressed and panic-stricken, would leap in to swim across to the meadowshore. The first time this occurred the trout had risen slowly, andfollowed below the swimmer till assured that there was no perilconcealed in the tempting phenomenon. After that, however, he alwayswent at such prey with a ferocious rush, hurling himself half out ofwater in his eagerness. 

But it was not only to his translucent sky that the master of thepool looked for his meat. A large part of it came down upon thecurrent of the brook. Bugs, grubs, and worms, of land and water, somedead, others disabled or bewildered by their passage through thefalls, contributed to his feasting. Above all, there were the smallerfish who were so reckless or uninformed as to try to pass throughGolden Pool. They might be chub, or suckers, or red-fin; they mightbe--and more often were--kith and kin of his own. It was all the sameto the big trout, who knew as well as any gourmet that trout wereroyal fare. His wide jaws and capacious gullet were big enough toaccommodate a cousin a full third of his own size, if swallowedproperly, head first. His speed was so great that any smaller fishwhich he pursued was doomed, unless fortunate enough to be withininstant reach of shoal water. Of course, it must not be imagined thatthe great trout was able to keep his domain quite inviolate. When hewas full fed, or sulking, then the finny wanderers passed up and downfreely, --always, however, giving wide berth to the lair under thebank. In the bright shallows over against the other shore, thescurrying shoals of pin-fish played safely in the sun. Once in a longwhile a fish would pass, up or down, so big that the master of thepool was willing to let him go unchallenged. And sometimes a muskrat, swimming with powerful strokes of his hind legs, his tiny forepawsgathered childishly under his chin, would take his way over the poolto the meadow of the blue flag-flowers. The master of the pool wouldturn up a fierce eye, and watch the swimmer's progress breaking thegolden surface into long, parabolic ripples; but he was too wise tocourt a trial of the muskrat's long, chisel-like teeth. 

[Illustration: "THEY MIGHT BE--AND MORE OFTEN WERE--KITH AND KIN OFHIS OWN. "]

There were two occasions, never to be effaced from his sluggishmemory, on which the master of the pool had been temporarily routedfrom his mastership and driven in a panic from his domain. Of thesethe less important had seemed to him by far the more appalling. 

Once, on a summer noonday, when the pool was all of a quiver withgolden light, and he lay with slow-waving fins close to the coldestup-gushing of the spring which cooled his lair, the shining roof ofhis realm had been shattered and upheaved with a tremendous splash. Along, whitish body, many times his own length, had plunged in anddived almost to the bottom. This creature swam with wide-sprawlinglimbs, like a frog, beating the water, and leaping, and utteringstrange sounds; and the disturbance of its antics was a verycataclysm to the utmost corners of the pool. The trout had not stayedto investigate the horrifying phenomenon, but had darted madlydown-stream for half a mile, through fall and eddy, rapid and shallow, to pause at last, with throbbing sides and panting gills, in a littleblack pool behind a tree root. Not till hours after the man hadfinished his bath, and put on his clothes, and strode away whistlingup the shore, did the big trout venture back to his stronghold. Hefound it already occupied by a smaller trout, whom he fell upon anddevoured, to the assuaging of his appetite and the salving of hiswounded dignity. But for days he was tremulously watchful, and readyto dart away if any unusually large shadow passed over his amberceiling. He was expecting a return of the great, white, sprawlingvisitor. 

His second experience was one which he remembered with cunningwariness rather than with actual terror. Yet this had been a realperil, one of the gravest with which he could be confronted in theguarded precincts of Golden Pool. One day he saw a little lithe blackbody swimming rapidly at the surface, its head above the water. It wasabout ten feet away from his lair, and headed up-stream. The strangecreature swam with legs, like a muskrat, instead of with fins like afish, but it was longer and slenderer than a muskrat; and something inits sinister shape and motion, or else some stirring of an inheritedinstinct, filled the big trout with apprehension as he looked. Suddenly the stranger's head dipped under the surface, and thestranger's eyes sought him out, far down in his yellow gloom. Thatnarrow-nosed, triangular head with its pointed fangs, those bright, cruel, undeceivable eyes, smote the trout with instant alarm. Here wasan enemy to be avoided. The mink had dived at once, going through thewater with the swiftness and precision of a fish. Few trout could haveescaped. But the master of the pool, as we have seen, was no ordinarytrout. The promptness of his cunning had got him under way in time. The power of his broad and muscular tail shot him forth from his lairjust before the mink got there. And before the baffled enemy couldchange his direction, the trout was many feet away, heading up for thebroken water of the rapids. The mink followed vindictively, but in thefoamy stretch below the falls he lost all track of the fugitive. Angryand disappointed he scrambled ashore, and, finding a dead suckerbeside his runway, seized it savagely. As he did so, there was asmart click, and the jaws of a steel trap, snapping upon his throat, rid the wilderness of one of its most bloodthirsty and implacablemarauders. A half-hour later the master of the pool was back in hislair, waving his delicate, gay-coloured fins over the yellow sand, andlazily swallowing a large crayfish. One claw of the crayfish projectedbeyond his black jaw; and, being thus comfortably occupied, he turnedan indifferent eye upon the frightened swimming of a small green frog, which had just then fallen in and disturbed the sheen of his amberroof. 

Very early one morning, when all his world was of a silvery gray, andover the glassy pallor of his roof thin gleams of pink were mingledwith ghostly, swirling mist-shadows, a strange fly touched thesurface, directly above him. It had a slender, scarlet, curving body, with long hairs of yellow and black about its neck, and brown andwhite wings. It fell upon the water with the daintiest possiblesplash, just enough to catch his attention. Being utterly unlikeanything he had ever seen before, it aroused his interest, and heslanted slowly upward. A moment later a second fly touched the water, a light gray, mottled thing, with a yellow body, and pink and greenhairs fringing its neck. This, too, was strange to him. He rolled afoot higher, not with any immediate idea of trying them, but under hisusual vague impulse to investigate everything pertaining to his pool. Just then the mist-swirls lifted slightly, and the light grewstronger, and against the smooth surface he detected a fine, almostinvisible, thread leading from the head of each fly. With a derisiveflirt of his tail he sank back to the bottom of his lair. Right wellhe knew the significance of that fine thread. 

The strange flies skipped lightly over the surface of the pool, in amanner that to most trout would have seemed very alluring. They movedaway toward a phenomenon which he just now noticed for the first time, a pair of dark, pillar-like objects standing where the water was abouttwo feet deep, over toward the further shore. These dark objects moveda little, gently. Then the strange flies disappeared. A moment laterthey dropped again, and went through the same performance. This wasrepeated several times, the big trout watching with interest mingledwith contempt. There was no peril for him in such gauds. 

Presently the flies disappeared for good. A few minutes later twoothers came in their place, --one a tiny, white, moth-like thing, theother a big, bristling bunch of crimson hairs. The latter stirred, far back in his dull memory, an association of pain and fear, and hebacked deeper into his watery den. It was a red hackle; and in hisearly days, when he was about eight inches long and frequented thetail of a shallow, foamy rapid, he had had experience of its sharpallurements. The little moth he ignored, but he kept an eye on the redhackle as it trailed and danced hither and thither across the pool. Once, near the other side, he saw a misguided fingerling dart fromunder a stone in the shallow water and seize the gay morsel. Thefingerling rose, with a jerk, from the water, and was no more seen. Itvanished into the unknown air; and the master of the pool quailed ashe marked its fate. After this, the pair of dark, pillar-like objectsmoved away to the shore, no longer careful, but making a huge, splashing noise. No more strange flies appeared; and the gold light offull day stole down to the depths of the pool. Soon, flies which themaster well knew, with no fine threads attached to them, began tospeck the surface over him, and he fed, in his lazy way, withoutmisgiving. 

The big trout had good reason for his dread of the angler's lure. Hisexperience with the red hackle had given him the wisdom which hadenabled him to live through all the perils of a well-knowntrout-stream and grow to his present fame and stature. Behind that redhackle which hooked him in his youth had been a good rod, a craftyhead, and a skilful wrist. His hour had sounded then and there, butfor a fortunate flaw in the tackle. The leader had parted just at thedrop, and the terrified trout (he had taken the tail fly) had dartedaway frantically through the rapids with three feet of fine guttrailing from his jaw. For several weeks he trailed that hamperingthread, and carried that red hackle in the cartilage of his upper jaw;and he had time to get very familiar with them. He grew thin andslab-sided under the fret of it before he succeeded, by much nosing ingravel and sand, in wearing away the cartilage and rubbing his jawclear of the encumbrance. From that day forward he had scrutinized allunfamiliar baits or lures to see if they carried any threadlikeattachment. 

When any individual of the wild kindreds, furred, feathered, orfinned, achieves the distinction of baffling man's efforts to undohim, his doom may be considered sealed. There is no beast, bird, orfish so crafty or so powerful but some one man can worst him, and willtake the trouble to do it if the game seems to be worth while. Somelure would doubtless have been found, some scheme devised for thehiding of the line, whereby the big trout's cunning would have beenmade foolishness. Some swimming frog, some terrified, hurrying mouse, or some great night-moth flopping down upon the dim water of amoonless night, would have lulled his suspicions and concealed theinescapable barb; and the master of the pool would have gone to swellthe record of an ingenious conqueror. He would have been stuffed, andmounted, and hung upon the walls of the club-house, down at the mouthof the Clearwater. But it pleased the secret and inscrutable deitiesof the woods that the end of the lordly trout should come in anotherfashion. 

It is an unusual thing, an unfortunate and pitiful thing, when deathcomes to the wild kindred by the long-drawn, tragic way ofoverripeness. When the powers begin to fail, the powers which enabledthem to conquer, or to flee from, or to outwit their innumerablefoes, --then life becomes a miserable thing for them. But that is notfor long. Fate meets them in the forest trails or the flowingwater-paths; and they have grown too dull to see, too heavy to flee, too indifferent to contend. So they are spared the anguish of slow, uncomprehending decrepitude. 

But to the master of Golden Pool Fate came while he was yet masterunchallenged, and balked the hopes of many crafty fishermen. It camein a manner not unworthy of the great trout's dignity and fame, givinghim over to swell no adversary's triumph, betraying him to nocontemptible foe. 

One crisp autumn morning, when leaves were falling all over thesurface of the pool, and insects were few, and a fresh tang in thewater was making him active and hungry, the big trout was swimminghither and thither about his domain instead of lying lazily in hisdeep lair. He chanced to be over in the shallows near the grassyshore, when he saw, at the upper end of the pool, a long, dark bodyslip noiselessly into the water. It was not unlike the mink in form, but several times larger. It swam with a swift movement of itsforefeet, while its hind legs, stretched out behind with the tail, twisted powerfully, like a big sculling oar. Its method, indeed, combined the advantages of that of the quadruped and that of the fish. The trout saw at once that here was a foe to be dreaded, and he layquite still against a stone, trusting to escape the bright eyes of thestranger. 

But the stranger, as it happened, was hunting, and the stranger was anotter. The big trout was just such quarry as he sought, and his brighteyes, peering restlessly on every side, left no corner of the pooluninvestigated. They caught sight of the master's silver and vermilionsides, his softly waving, gay-coloured fins. 

With a dart like that of the swiftest of fish, the stranger shotacross the pool. The trout darted madly toward his lair. The otter wasclose upon him, missing him by a fin's breadth. Frantic now withterror, the trout shot up-stream toward the broken water. But theotter, driven not only by his forefeet but by that great combinedpropeller of his hind legs and tail, working like a screw, swamfaster. Just at the edge of the broken water he overtook his prey. Aset of long, white teeth went through the trout's backbone. There wasone convulsive twist, and the gay-coloured fins lay still, the silverand vermilion body hung limp from the captor's jaws. 

For many days thereafter, Golden Pool lay empty under its droppingcrimson and purple leaves, its slow sailing foam flakes. Then, by twosand threes, small trout strayed in, and found the new region a goodplace to inhabit. When, in the following spring, the fishermen cameback to the Clearwater, they reported the pool swarming with pan-fish, hardly big enough to make it worth while throwing a fly. Then wordwent up and down the Clearwater that the master of the pool was gone, and the glory of the pool, for that generation of fishermen, went withhim. 

[Illustration: "HE WOULD SIT BACK AND WHINE FOR HIS MOTHER. "]

The Return to the Trails

Down from the rocky den under the bald peak of Sugar Loaf, the oldblack bear led her cub. Turning her head every moment to see that hewas close at her heels, she encouraged him with soft, half-whining, half-grunting sounds, that would have been ridiculous in so huge abeast had they been addressed to anything less obviously a baby thanthis small, velvet-dark, wondering-eyed cub. 

Very carefully the old bear chose her path, and very slowly she moved. But for all her care, she had to stop every minute or two, andsometimes even turn back a few paces, for the cub was continuallydropping behind. His big, inquiring ears took in all the vague, smallnoises of the mountainside, puzzling over them. His sharp little nosewent poking in every direction, sniffing the strange new smells, tillhe would get bewildered, and forget which foot to put forward first. Then he would sit back and whine for his mother. 

It was the cub's first adventure, this journey down the world outsidehis den. Hitherto he had but played about his doorway. 

When the little fellow had somewhat recovered from his firstbewilderment, the old bear moved more rapidly, leading him toward aswampy, grassy pocket, where she thought there might be roots to dig. The way was steep, winding down between rocks and stunted trees andtangles of thick shrubbery, with here and there a black-green spur ofthe fir forests thrust up tentatively from the lower slopes. Now andagain it led across a naked shoulder of the mountain, revealing, fardown, a landscape of dark, wide stretching, bluish woods, withdesolate, glimmering lakes strung on a thread of winding river. Whenthese vast spaces of emptiness opened suddenly upon his baby eyes, thecub whimpered and drew closer to his mother. The swimming deeps of airdaunted him. 

Presently, as the two continued their slow journey, the mother bear'snostrils caught a new savour. She stopped, lifted her snout, andtested the wind discriminatingly. It was a smell she had encounteredonce before, coming from the door of a lumber camp. Well sheremembered the deliciousness of the lump of fat bacon which she hadsucceeded in purloining while the cook was out getting water. Herthin, red tongue licked her lips at that memory, and, withouthesitation, she turned up the side trail whence came the luring scent. The cub had to stir his little legs to keep pace with her, but he feltthat something interesting was in the wind, and did his best. 

A turn around a thick clump of juniper, and there was the source ofthe savour. It looked pleasantly familiar to the old bear, that lumpof fat bacon. It was stuck on the end of a pointed stick, just under asort of slanting roof of logs, which, in a way, reminded her of thelumbermen's cabin. The cabin had done her no harm, and she inferredthat the structure before her was equally harmless. Nevertheless, theman smell, not quite overpowered by the fragrance of the bacon, lurkedabout it; and all the works of man she viewed with suspicion. Shesnatched hastily at the prize, turning to jump away even as she didso. 

But the bacon seemed to be fastened to the stick. She gave it animpatient pull, --and it yielded suddenly. At that same instant, whileher eyes twinkled with elation, that roof of massive logs camecrashing down. 

It fell across her back. Weighted as it was with heavy stones, itcrushed the life out of her in a second. There was a coughing gasp, cut off abruptly; and the flattened form lay still, the wide-openmouth and protruding tongue jammed down among the mosses. At the crashthe cub had jumped back in terror. Then he sat up on his haunches andlooked on with anxious bewilderment. 

 * * * * *

When, early the following morning, the Indian who had set the deadfallcame, he found the cub near perishing with cold and fear and hunger. He knew that the little animal would be worth several bearskins, so hewarmed it, wrapped it in his jacket, and took it home to his cabin. Fed and sheltered, it turned to its captor as a rescuer, and acquireda perilous faith in the friendliness of man. In fact, it speedilylearned to follow the Indian about the cabin, and to fret for him inhis absence. 

That same autumn the Indian took the cub into Edmundston and sold himfor a price that well repaid his pains; and thence, within three orfour months, and by as many transfers, the little animal found his wayinto the possession of a travelling circus. Being good-natured andteachable, and inclined, through his first misunderstanding of thesituation which had robbed him of his mother, to regard mankind asuniversally beneficent, he was selected to become a trick bear. In thecourse of his training for this honour, he learned that his trainer, at least, was not wholly beneficent, and toward him he developed acordial bitterness, which grew with his years. But he learned hislessons, nevertheless, and became a star of the ring; and for themanager of the show, who always kept peanuts or gingerbread in pocketfor him, he conceived such a warmth of regard as he had hithertostrictly reserved for the Indian. 

Valued and well cared for, he grew to a magnificent stature, and up tothe middle of his fifth year he never knew what his life was missing. To be sure, it was exasperatingly monotonous, this being rolled aboutthe world in stuffy, swaying cage-cars, and dancing in the ring, andplaying foolish tricks with a red-and-white clown, and being stared atby hot, applauding, fluttering tiers of people, who looked exactly thesame at every place he came to. His memory of that first walk down themountain, at his great mother's heels, had been laid to sleep at theback of his curiously occupied brain. He had no understanding of thefierce restlessness, the vague longing, which from time to time, andespecially when the autumn frosts began to nip and tingle, would takepossession of him, moving him almost to hatred of even his specialfriends, the manager and the clown. 

One vaporous, golden afternoon in early autumn, the circus drew intothe little town of Edmundston, at the mouth of the Madawaska River. When the noise of the train stopped, the soft roar of the Little Fallsgrew audible, --a voice at which all the weary animals pricked theirears, they knew not, most of them, why. But when the cars and cageswere run out into the fields, where the tents were to be raised, theredrew down from spruce-clad hills a faint fragrance which thrilled thebear's nostrils, and stirred formless longings in his heart, and madehis ears deaf to the wild music of the falls. That fragrance, imperceptible to nostrils less sensitive than his, was the breath ofhis native wilderness, a message from the sombre solitudes of theSquatook. He did not know that the lonely peak of Sugar Loaf was butthirty or forty miles away. He knew only that something, in the airand in his blood, was calling him to his own. 

The bear--well-taught, well-mannered, well-content--was not regardedas even remembering freedom, let alone desiring it. His fetters, therefore, were at times little more than nominal, and he was neververy closely watched. Just on the edge of evening, when the dusk wascreeping up the valley and honey-scents from the fields mixed with thetang of the dark spruce forests, his opportunity came. His trainer hadunhitched the chain from his collar and stooped over it to examinesome defect in the clasp. 

At this instant that surge of impulse which, when it does come, shatters routine and habit to bits, seized the bear. Withoutpremeditation, he dealt the trainer a cuff that knocked him clean overa wagon-pole and broke his arm. Before any of the other attendantscould realize what had happened, the bear was beyond the circle ofwagons, and half-way across the buckwheat-fields. In ten minutes morehe was in the spicy glooms of the spruce-woods. 

His years of association with men had given the bear a greatconfidence in their resources. He was too crafty, therefore, toslacken his efforts just because he had gained the longed-for woods. He pressed on doggedly, at a shambling, loose-jointed, but veryeffective run, till it was full night and the stars came out sharplyin the patches of clear, dark sky above the tree-tops. In the friendlydark he halted to strip the sweet but insipid fruit of an Indianpear, which for a little assuaged his appetite. Then he rushedon, --perhaps aimlessly, as far as conscious purpose was concerned, but, in reality, by a sure instinct, making toward his ancestralsteeps of Sugar Loaf. 

All night he travelled; and in the steely chill of dawn he came outupon a spacious lake. The night had been windless, and now, in thefirst of the coming light, the water was smooth like blue-black oilunder innumerable writhing wisps and streamers of mist. A keen smell, raw but sweet, rose from the wet shores, the wet spruce and fir woods, and the fringe of a deep cedar swamp near by. The tired animal sniffedit with an uncomprehending delight. He did not recognize it, yet itmade him feel at home. It seemed a part of what he wanted. 

Being thirsty as well as hungry, he pushed through the bushes, --notnoiselessly, as a wild bear moves, but with crashing and tramplings, as if there were no need of secrecy in the wilds, --and lurched down tothe gravelly brink. Here, as luck would have it, he found a big, deadsucker lying half-awash, which made him a meal. Then, when sharpstreaks of orange along the eastern horizon were beginning to shed amystic colour over the lake, he drew back into the woods and curledhimself up for sleep behind the trunk of a big hemlock. 

When the sun was about an hour high he awoke, and made haste tocontinue his journey. Along the lake shore he went, to the outlet;then down the clear, rushing Squatook; and in the afternoon he cameout upon a smaller lake, over which stood sentinel a lofty, beetlingmountain. At the foot of the mountain, almost seeming to duplicate itin miniature, a steep island of rock rose sharply from the water. 

The bear halted on the shore, sniffed wistfully, and looked up at thelonely mountain. Dim memories, or emotions too dim to be classed asmemories, began to stir in the recesses of his brain. He hurriedaround the lake and began to climb the steeps. The lonely mountain wasold Sugar Loaf. The exile had come home. 

It was his feet, rather than his head, perhaps, that knew the way sowell. Upward he toiled, through swamps and fir woods, over blueberrybarrens and ranges of granite boulders, till, looking down, he saw theeagle flying far below him. He saw a vast, empty forest land, beadedwith shining lakes, --and a picture, long covered up in his brain, cameback to him. These were the great spaces that so long ago hadterrified the little cub creeping at his mother's heels. He knew nowwhere his den was, --just behind that whitish gray rock with thejuniper shrub over it. He ran eagerly to resume possession. 

It was now, for the first time, that he found the wilderness lessempty than he had imagined it. Another bear was in possession of theden, --and in no mood to be disturbed. 

He flung himself upon the intruder with a savage roar. The next momentthe two, clutched in a madly clawing embrace, went crashing through afringe of bushes and rolled together down a twenty-foot slope of baldrock. They landed in a crevice full of roots, with a violence thathalf-stunned them and threw them apart. As they picked themselves up, it was plain that the exile had had the best of the tussle. His richblack fur, to be sure, was somewhat torn and bloody, but he showed noother signs of battle; while his antagonist breathed heavily and heldone paw clear of the ground. 

[Illustration: "THE EAGLE FLYING FAR BELOW HIM. "]

The exile was quite fearless, and quite ready to fight for what hewanted, if necessary. But he was not conscious of any particularill-will toward his assailant. What he wanted was possession of thatden. Now, instead of taking advantage of his adversary's partlydisabled condition, he clambered with undignified haste up the steeprock and plunged into the cave. It was certainly much smaller than hehad imagined it, but it was, nevertheless, much to his taste. Heturned around in it two or three times, as if to adjust it to himself, then squatted on his haunches in the entrance and looked outcomplacently over the airy deeps. The dispossessed bear stood for afew minutes irresolute, his small eyes red with wrath. For a moment ortwo he hesitated, trying to work himself up to the attack. Thendiscretion came to his rescue. Grumbling deep in his throat, he turnedand limped away, to seek new quarters on the other side of themountain. 

Now began for the returned exile two or three months of just such alife as he had longed for. The keen and tonic winds that blew aroundthe peak of Sugar Loaf filled his veins with vigour. Through his lackof education in the lore of the wilderness, his diet was less variedthan it might have been; but this was the fat of the year, and hefared well enough. When the late berries and fruits were all gonethere were sweet tubers and starchy roots to be grubbed up along themeadow levels by the water. Instinct, and a spirit of investigation, soon taught him to find the beetles and grubs that lurked understones or in rotting logs, --and in the course of such a search he oneday discovered that ants were good to eat. But the small animals withwhich a wild bear is prone to vary his diet were all absent from hisbill of fare. Rabbits, woodchucks, chipmunks, wood-mice, they all keptout of his sight. His ignorance of the law of silence, the universallaw of the wild, deprived him of many toothsome morsels. As for themany kinds of fungus which grew upon the mountain, he knew not whichwere edible and which poisonous. After an experiment with onepleasant-smelling red-skinned specimen, which gave him excruciatingcramps, he left the whole race of fungi severely alone. 

For perhaps a month he had the solitudes to himself, except for thebig, scornful-looking eagle which always spent a portion of every daysitting on the top of a blasted pine about a hundred feet above theden. But, at length, one crisp morning, when he was down by thelakeside fishing, he found a mate. A young she-bear came out of thebushes, looked at him, then turned as if to run away, --but didn't. Theexile stopped fishing, and waited civilly to see if the newcomerwanted to fight. Evidently she had no such desire. 

The exile took a few steps up the beach, --which action seemed toterrify the newcomer almost into flight. Seeing this, he sat down onhis haunches amiably, and waited to see what she would do. What shedid, after much hesitation and delay and half-retreat, was to come upto his side and sniff trustfully but wonderingly at the greatiron-studded leather collar on his neck. After that the two soonreached an understanding; and for the next six weeks or so they spentmost of their time together. 

Under his mate's instruction, or else by force of her example, the bigbear made some progress in woodcraft, and gained some inklings of thelesson of silence. He learned, also, to distinguish between thewholesome and the poisonous fungi. He learned the sweets of abee-tree, and how a bear must go to work to attain them. Movingthrough the shadows more quietly, he now had glimpses of rabbits andchipmunks, and even caught sight of a wood-mouse whisking into hishole under a root. But before he had acquired the cunning to captureany of these shy kindreds, his mate wandered away, on her own affairsintent; and he found himself once more alone. Frosts by this time werebinding swale and pool. Ice was forming far out from the edges of thelake. The first snows had fallen and the great snows were threatening. And the little she-bear was getting ready to creep into a hole andcurl up for her winter's sleep. She no longer wanted company, --noteven the company of this splendid, black comrade, whose collar had sofilled her with admiration. 

When, at length, the winter of the north had fairly settled down uponthe Squatooks, the exile's ribs were well encased in fat. But thatfortunate condition was not to last long. When the giant winds, ladenwith snow and Arctic cold, thundered and shrieked about the peak ofSugar Loaf, and in the loud darkness strange shapes of drift rode downthe blast, he slept snugly enough in the narrow depths of his den. Butthe essential winter lore of his kind he had not learned. He had notlearned to sleep away the time of storm and famine. As for instinct, it failed him altogether in this emergency. During his five years oflife with the circus, he had had no chance to gratify his winterdrowsiness, and gradually the power to hibernate had passed away fromhim. The loss was irremediable. By this one deprivation his contactwith man had ruined him for the life of nature. 

When man has snatched away from Nature one of her wild children, Nature, merciless in her resentments, is apt to say, "Keep him! He isnone of mine!" And if the alien, his heart aching for his own, insists upon returning, Nature turns a face of stone against him. 

Unskilled in hunting as he was, and unable to sleep, the bear was soondriven to extremes. At rare intervals he succeeded in capturing arabbit. Once or twice, after a fierce frost had followed a wet sleetstorm, he had climbed trees and found dead birds frozen to theirperches. But most of the time he had nothing but starvation rations ofwood-ants and buds. In the course of a few weeks he was lean as aheron, and his collar hung loose in his fur. He was growing to hatethe icy and glittering desolation, --and, as he had once longed for anuntried freedom, now he longed for the companionship of men. 

He was now wandering far afield in his daily quest for food, sometimesnot returning for three or four days at a time. Once, on an excursionover into the Madawaska Valley, he came upon a deadfall temptinglybaited with pork. He rushed forward ravenously to snatch thebait, --but just in time that scent called up an ancient memory. Thehorror and the shock of that far-off day when such a trap had crushedhis mother's life out, came back upon him. It was not the scene, exactly, that came back, but rather the memory of an anguish. Obscureas it was, it had power to master his appetite and drive him toanother foraging-ground. Thenceforth he foraged no more in theMadawaska Valley. 

In such a desolate fashion the exile dragged through the frozen weeks, till February came in with deeper snows and fiercer frosts. At thistime hunger and loneliness drove him far over to the valley of theToledi; and here, one still and biting day, he came upon a humantrail. 

Delightedly he sniffed at the familiar scent, which to him, aspleasant memories of food and companionship welled up in his heart, represented nothing but kindliness. His little disagreements with histrainer were forgotten. He remembered only his unfailing friends, themanager and the clown. The trail was a broad and mixed one, --the trailof oxen, and of men with larriganed feet. It led toward a camp oflumbermen, near the river. Joyously and confidently the exile followedit. Soon he heard men's voices, and the familiar clank of chains. Thena biting breeze drew through the forest, --biting, but sweet to thebear's nostrils. It carried a savour of richness from the cook'ssteaming boilers. It was dinner-hour at the camp. 

For the second time in his life, the bear felt that he had come home. Captive, indeed, he had been among men, --but a captive always highlyvalued and heedfully cared for. He never for a moment doubted thatthese men-creatures, who had always wanted him, would want him now. They would chain him up, of course, --for fear he would change his mindand leave them again. But they would feed him, --all he could eat; andstare at him; and admire him. Then he would dance for them, and dofoolish things with a gun, and perhaps stand on his head. Whereuponthey would applaud, and laugh, and feed him with peanuts andgingerbread. His famished jaws dripped at the thought. 

Within the camp one of the hands, glancing from the window, saw himjust as he came in view. In an instant every man was looking out. Theboldness of the animal stirred up a great excitement. His terribleleanness was noticed. He was coming straight for the door, --evidentlysavage, insane with hunger! And such a big fellow, too!

Men seized their axes. The boss snatched down his big-bore Sniderrifle, slipped in a cartridge, and coolly threw open the cabin door. He was a tall, ruddy-faced, wide-mouthed man, much like the kindlymanager of the show. At sight of him, standing there in the door, thebear was overjoyed, and broke into a shuffling run. 

Seeing what seemed to them such reckless ferocity, the lumbermen criedout in amazement, and shouted hoarse warnings to the boss. But theboss was a man of nerve. Raising his rifle to the shoulder, he steppedright out clear of the door. He was a dead shot, and very proud of thefact. When the bear was within thirty paces of him, he fired. 

The massive bullet sped true; and the exile fell forward on his snoutwithout a gasp, shot through the brain. 

The men gathered about the body, praising the shot, praising theprize, praising the reckless audacity which had led the beast to rushupon his doom. Then in the long, loose fur that clothed his bones theyfound the heavy collar. At that they all wondered. The boss examinedit minutely, and stood pondering; and the frank pride upon his facegradually died into regret. 

"I swan, boys, " said he, presently, "if that ain't the b'ar that runaway from the circus las' fall! I heard tell he was reckoned alwayskind!"

The Little Wolf of the Pool

The bottom of the pool (it was too small to be called a pond) wasmuddy, with here and there a thicket of rushes or arrow-weed stems. Down upon the windless surface streamed the noon sun warmly. Under itslight the bottom was flecked with shadows of many patterns, --circular, heart-shaped, spear-shaped, netted, and barred. There were othershadows that were no more than ghosts of shadows, cast by faint, diaphanous films of scum which scarcely achieved to blur the cleardownpour of radiance, but were nevertheless perceived and appreciatedby many of the delicate larval creatures which made a large part ofthe life of the pool. 

For all its surface tranquillity and its shining summer peace, thepool was thronged with life. Beneath the surface, among the weeds andstalks, the gleams and shadows, there was little of tranquillity orpeace. Almost all the many-formed and strange-shaped inhabitants ofthe pool were hunting or being hunted, preying or being preyedupon, --from the goggle-eyed, green-throated bullfrog under the willowroot, down to the swarming animalculæ which it required a microscopeto see. Small crawling things everywhere dotted the mud or tried tohide under the sticks and stones. Curled fresh-water snails moved upand down the stems of the lilies. Shining little black water-bugsscurried swiftly in all directions. In sheltered places near thesurface, under the leaves, wriggled the slim gray larvæ of themosquitoes. And hither and thither, in flickering shoals, dartedmyriads of baby minnows, from half an inch to an inch and a half inlength. 

In a patch of vivid sunshine, about six inches from a tangle ofarrow-weed stems, a black tadpole lay basking. Light to him meant notonly growth, but life. Whenever, with the slow wheeling of the sun, the shadow of a lily leaf moved over him, he wriggled impatientlyaside, and settled down again on the brightest part of the mud. Mostof the time he seemed to be asleep; but in reality he was keeping thatincessant sharp lookout which, for the pool-dwellers, was the price ofsurvival. 

Swimming slowly up toward the other side of the arrow-weed stems, camea fantastic-looking creature, something more than an inch and a halfin length. It had a long, tapering, ringed and armoured body, endingin a spine; a thick, armoured thorax, with six legs attached; and alarge head, the back of which was almost covered by two big, dullystaring globes of eyes. The whole front of its head--part of the eyes, and all the face--was covered by a smooth, cleft, shieldlike mask, reaching well down under the breast, and giving the creature anexpression both mysterious and terrible. On its back, folded close andobviously useless, were rigidly encased attempts at wings. 

The little monster swam slowly by the motion of its long and stronglegs, thrusting out two short, hornlike antennæ over the top of itsmask. It seemed to be eyeing a snail-shell on a stem above, andwaiting for the snail's soft body to emerge from the citadel; when ona sudden, through the stems, it caught sight of the basking tadpole. Instantly it became motionless, and sank, like a waterlogged twig, tothe level of the mud. It crept around, effacing itself against thebrown and greenish roots, till it was just opposite the quarry. Then it sprang, propelling itself not only by its legs, but by theviolent ejection of a little stream of water from the powerfulbreathing-valves near its tail. 

The tadpole, as we have seen, was not asleep. With a convulsivewriggle of its tail it darted away in a panic. It was itself no meanswimmer, but it could not escape the darting terror that pursued. Whenthe masked form was almost within reach of its victim, the maskdropped down and shot straight out, working on a sort of elbow-shapedlever, and at the same time revealed at its extremity a pair ofpowerful mandibles. These mandibles snapped firm hold of the victim atthe base of its wriggling tail. The elbow-shaped lever drew back, tillthe squirming prize was held close against its captor's face. Thenwith swift jets from the turbine arrangement of its abdominal gills, the strange monster darted back to a retreat among the weed stems, where it could devour its prey in seclusion. 

Under those inexorable jaws the tadpole soon disappeared and for a fewminutes the monster rested, working its mandibles to and fro andrubbing them with its front legs before folding back that inscrutablemask over its savage face. Presently a plump minnow, more than an inchlong, with a black stripe along its bronze and silver sides, swam downclose by the arrow-weed stems. The big eyes of the monster nevermoved. But, suddenly, out shot the mask once more, revealing the faceof doom behind it; and those hooked mandibles fixed themselves in thebelly of the minnow. Inexorable as was the grip, it nevertheless forthe moment left unimpeded the swimming powers of the victim; and hewas a strong swimmer. With lashing tail and beating fins, he draggedhis captor out from among the weed stems. For a few seconds there wasa vehement struggle. Then the minnow was borne down upon the mud, outin the broad sheen where, a little before, the tadpole had beenbasking. Clutching ferociously with its six long legs, the conquerorcrawled over the prey and bit its backbone in two. 

Swift, strong, insatiably ravenous, immeasurably fierce, the larva ofthe dragon-fly (for such the little monster was) had fair title to becalled the wolf of the pool. Its appearance alone was enough to dauntall rivals. Even the great black carnivorous water-beetle, with allits strength and fighting equipment, was careful to give wide berth tothat dreadful, quick-darting mask. Had these little wolves been asnumerous as they were rapacious, there would soon have been left nolife at all in the pool but theirs and that of the frogs. Betweenthese there would have been a long and doubtful struggle, the frogshunting the larvæ among the weed stems, and the larvæ devouring thetadpoles on their basking-grounds. 

It chanced that the particular larva whose proceedings we have notedwas just on the eve of that change which should transport it to theworld of air. After eating the minnow it somehow failed to recover itsappetite, and remained, all the rest of the day and through the night, clinging to one of the weed stems. Next morning, when the sun was warmon the pool, it crawled slowly up, up, up, till it came out into a newelement, and the untried air fanned it dry. Its great round eyes, formerly dull and opaque, had now grown transparent, and were gleaminglike live jewels, an indescribable blend of emerald, sapphire, andamethyst. Presently its armour, now for the first time drying in thesun, split apart down the back, and a slender form, adorned with twopairs of crumpled, wet wings, struggled three-quarters of its lengthfrom the shell. For a short time it clung motionless, gatheringstrength. Then, bracing its legs firmly on the edges of the shell, itlifted its tail quite clear, and crawled up the weed a perfectdragon-fly, forgetful of that grim husk it was leaving behind. A fewminutes later, the good sun having dried its wings, it went dartingand hurtling over the pool, a gemlike, opalescent shining thing, reflected gloriously in the polished mirror beneath. 

The Little Wolf of the Air

The pool lay shimmering and basking in the flood of the June sun. Onthree sides, east, west, and north, the willows and birches gatheredclose about it, their light leafage hanging motionless in the clear, still heat. On the south side it lay open toward the thick-grassedmeadows, where bees and flies of innumerable species flickered lazilyover the pale crimson clover-blooms. From the clover-blooms and thevetch-blooms, the wheel-rayed daisies, and the tall umbels of the wildparsnip, strange perfumes kept distilling in the heat and pulsing inacross the pool on breaths of air too soft to ruffle its surface. 

Above this unruffled surface the air was full of dancing life. Gnatshung in little, whirling nebulæ; mosquitoes, wasplike flies, andwhirring, shard-winged beetles, passed and repassed each other inintricate lines of flight; and, here and there, lucently flashing onlong, transparent, veined wings, darted the dragon-flies in theirgemlike mail. Their movements were so swift, powerful, and light thatit was difficult, in spite of their size and radiant colour, to detectthe business that kept the dragon-flies so incessantly and tirelesslyin action. Sometimes two or three would hurtle out for a briefexpedition over the blossoming meadow. Often one would alight for amoment on a leaf or twig in the sun, and lie there gleaming, its twopairs of wings flatly outspread in a way that showed every delicateinterlacing of the nerves. Then it would rise again into the air witha bold, vehement spring; and when ever it began its flight, orwhenever it abruptly changed the direction of its flight, its wingswould make a dry, sharp, rustling sound. 

The business that so occupied these winged and flashing gems, thesedarting iridescences, was in truth the universal business of hunting. But there were few indeed among all the kindred of earth, air, andwater whose hunting was so savage and so ravenous as that of theseslender and spiritlike beings. With appetites insatiable, ferocityimplacable, strength and courage prodigious for their stature, to callthem the little wolves of the air is perhaps to wrong the raveninggray pack whose howlings strike terror down the corridors of thewinter forest. Mosquitoes and gnats they hunted every moment, devouring them in such countless numbers as to merit the gratitude ofevery creature that calls the mosquito its foe. But every summer fly, also, was acceptable prey to these indomitable hunters, everyvelvet-bodied moth, every painted butterfly. And even the envenomedwasp, whose weapon no insect can withstand, was not safe. If thedragon-fly could catch her engrossed in some small slaughter of herown, and, pouncing upon her from above, grip the back of her armedabdomen in his great grinding jaws, her sting could do nothing butdart out vainly like a dark, licking flame; and she would prove asgood a meal as the most unresisting bluebottle or horse-fly. 

Down to the pool, through the luxurious shadows of the birches, came aman, and stretched himself against a leaning trunk by the waterside. At his approach, all the business of life and death and mating in hisimmediate neighbourhood came to a halt, and most of the wingedkindred, except the mosquitoes, drew away from him. The mosquitoes, towhom he had become, so to speak, in a measure acclimatized, attackedhim with less enthusiasm than they would have displayed in the case ofa stranger, and failed to cause him serious annoyance. He fixedhimself in a position that was thoroughly comfortable, and then layquite still. 

The man's face was under the shadow of the birch-tree, but his bodylay out in the full sun, and the front of his soft white summer shirtmade a patch of sharp light against the surrounding tones of brown andgreen. When it had for a time remained quite still, the patch ofwhiteness attracted attention, and various insects alighted upon it toinvestigate. Presently the man noticed a very large steel-bluedragon-fly on rustling wings balancing in the air a few feet in frontof him. At this moment, from a branch overhead, a hungry shrike dasheddown. The dragon-fly saw the peril just in time; and, instead offleeing desperately across the pool, to be almost inevitably overtakenby the strong-winged bird, it dashed forward and perched for refuge ona fold of the dazzling white shirt. The foiled shrike, with an angryand astonished twitter, flew off to a tree across the pool. 

For perhaps a minute the great fly stood with moveless, wide-spreadwings, scintillating aerial hues as if its body was compacted of amillion microscopic prisms. The transparent tissue of its wings wasfilled with a finer and more elusive iridescence. The great rounded, globose, overlapping jaws, half as big as the creature's whole head, kept opening and shutting, as if to polish their edges. The other halfof its head was quite occupied by two bulging, brilliant spheres ofeyes, which seemed to hold in their transparent yet curiouslyimpenetrable depths a shifting light of emerald and violet. Theseinscrutable and enormous eyes--each one nearly as great incircumference as the creature's body--rolled themselves in a steadystare at the man's face, till he felt the skin of his cheeks creep attheir sinister beauty. It seemed to him as if a spirit hostile andevil had threatened him from beneath those shining eyes; and he wasamused to experience, for all his interest, a sense of half-reliefwhen the four beautiful wings hurtled crisply and the creature dartedaway. 

It would seem, however, that the fold of white shirt had found favourin those mysteriously gleaming eyes; for a minute or two later thesame fly returned to the same spot. The man recognized not only itsunusual size and its splendour of colour, but a broken notch on one ofits wing films, the mark of the tip of a bird's beak. This time thedragon-fly came not as a fugitive from fate, but as a triumphantdispenser of fate to others. It carried between its jaws the body ofa small green grasshopper, which it had already partly eaten. 

Fixing the enigmatic radiance of its eyes upon the man's face, thedragon-fly calmly continued its meal, using the second joints of itsfront pair of legs to help manipulate the rather awkward morsel. Itsgreat round jaws crushed their prey resistlessly, while the innermouth sucked up the juices so cleanly and instantaneously that therepast left no smallest stain upon the man's spotless shirt. When thefeast was over there remained nothing of the victim but a compact, perfectly rounded, glistening green ball, the size of a pea, made upof the well-chewed shell-like parts of the grasshopper's body. Itreminded the man of the round "castings" of fur or feathers which anowl ejects after its undiscriminating banquet. Having rolled thelittle green ball several times between its jaws, to make sure therewas no particle of nourishment left therein, the dragon-fly coollydropped it into a crease in the shirt-bosom, and rustled away. 

[Illustration: "A LARGE FROG RISE TO THE SURFACE JUST BELOW HER. "]

It chanced that this particular and conspicuous individual of thelittle wolves of the air was a female. A half-hour later, when the manhad almost grown tired of his watching, he again caught sight of thegreat fly. This time she alighted on a half-submerged log, one endof which lay on shore by the man's feet, while the other end wasafloat in deep water, where it could rise and fall with every changein the level of the pool. Quivering and gleaming with all her subtlefires, the dragon-fly stood motionless on the log for a few seconds. Then she backed down close to the water's edge, thrust her long, slender abdomen a good inch into the water, and curled it under her asif she were trying to sting the hidden surface of the log. In reality, as the man at once understood, she was busy laying eggs, --eggs thatshould presently develop into those masked and terrible larvæ of hers, the little wolves of the pool. She laid the eggs in a row under thelog, where there was no danger of the water receding from them. Shemoved along the log daintily, step by step, and her wings flutteredover the task. 

The man had taken out his watch as soon as he saw what she was about, in order that he might time the egg-laying process. But he was notdestined to discover what he wanted to know. The dragon-fly had beenat her business for perhaps two minutes, when the man saw a large frogrise to the surface just below her. He liked all dragon-flies, --andfor this one in particular he had developed a personal interest. Suddenly and violently he jumped to his feet, hoping to chase her awayfrom the approaching doom. But he was just too late. As he jumped, thebig frog sprang, and a long, darting, cleft tongue clutched the busyfly, dragging her down. The frog disappeared with his prize, --to cometo the surface again at the edge of a lily-pad, a few feet off, andblink his goggle-eyes in satisfaction. He had avenged (though aboutthat he cared as little as he knew) the lives of a thousand tadpoles. 

The Alien of the Wild

A full day's tramp back from the settlement, on the edge of awater-meadow beside the lonely Quah-Davic, stood the old woodsman'scabin. Beside it he had built a snug log-barn, stored with hay fromthe wild meadow. The hay he had made that August, being smitten with adesire for some touch of the civilization to which as a whole he couldnot reconcile himself. Then, with a still enthusiasm, he had built hisbarn, chinking its crevices scrupulously with moss and mud. He hadresolved to have a cow. The dream that gave new zest to all his wakinghours was the fashioning of a little farm in this sunny, shelteredspace about his cabin. He had grown somewhat weary of living by trapand snare and gun, hunting down the wild creatures whom he had come toregard, through lapse of the long, solitary years by the Quah-Davic, as in some sense comrade and kin to him. 

It was late autumn, and the asters fading out like smoke along theriver edges, when the barn was finished and the hay safe storedtherein. Then the old woodsman journeyed out to the settlement to buyhis cow. He found one exactly to his whimsical liking, --a small, darkred, long-horned scrub, with a look in her big, liquid eyes that madehim feel she would know how to take care of herself in the perilouswilds. He equipped her with the most sonorous and far-sounding bell hecould find in all the settlement. Then proudly he led her away to hernew domain in the wilderness. 

When the long-horned little cow had been salted and foddered in thenew barn, and when her liquid eyes had taken in the surroundings ofthe sunny little meadow and cabin by the lonely Quah-Davic, she waswell enough content, and the mellow _tunk-a-tonk, tank tonk_ of herbell was sounded never out of ear-shot from the cabin. The meadow andthe nearest fringes of the woods were range enough for her. Of theperils that might lurk in the further depths she had a waryapprehension. And the old woodsman, busy grubbing out a narrow cellarunder his cabin, was happy in his purchase. The _tunk-a-tonk_ of themellow bell was sweetest music in his ears as he worked. 

Now it chanced that that autumn was one of unusual drought. In thechannel of the Quah-Davic rocks appeared which the old woodsman hadnever seen before. The leaves fell early, before half their wontedgamut of colour was run through. They wore a livery of pallidtones--rusty-reds, cloudy light violets, grayish thin golds, etherealrussets--under a dry, pale sky. The only solid, substantial colouringwas that of the enduring hemlocks and the sombre, serried firs. Thenthere came a mistiness in the air, making the noonday sun red andunradiant And the woodsman knew that there were forest fires somewhereup the wind. 

A little anxious, he studied the signs minutely, and concluded that, the wind being light, the fires were too far distant to endanger theQuah-Davic region. Thereupon he decided to make a hurried trip to thesettlement for a sack of middlings and other supplies, planning toreturn by night, making the round trip within the twenty-four hours inorder that the little red cow should not miss more than one milking. 

On the afternoon of the woodsman's going, however, the wind freshenedinto a gale, and the fires which had been eating leisurely way throughthe forest were blown into sudden fury. That same evening a hurricaneof flame swept down upon the lonely cabin and the little wild meadow, cutting a mile-wide swath through the woods, jumping the Quah-Davic, and roaring on to the north. It was days before the woodsman could getback along the smoking, smouldering trail, through black, fallentrunks and dead roots which still held the persistent fire in theirhearts. Of cabin and barn, of course, there was nothing left at all, save the half-dug cellar and the half-crumbled chimney. Sick at heartand very lonely, he returned to the settlement, and took up his newabode on a half-reclaimed farm on the outskirts, just where the tilthand the wilderness held each other at bay. 

The red cow, meanwhile, being shrewd and alert, had escaped theconflagration. She had taken alarm early, having seen a fire in thewoods once before and conceived an appreciation of its powers. Insteadof flying straight before it, and being inevitably overtaken, she ranat once to the river and galloped madly down the shallow margin. Before the flames were actually upon her, she was beyond the zone oftheir fury. But she felt the withering blast of them, and theirappalling roar was in her ears. With starting eyes and wide, palpitating nostrils, she ran on and on, and stopped only when shesank exhausted in a rude cove. There she lay with panting sides andwatched far behind her the wide red arc of terror drawn across thesky. 

The next day she wandered some miles farther down the Quah-Davic, tillshe came to a neighbourhood where the water-meadows were strungthickly along the stream and where the pasturage, though now dry anduntasty, was abundant. Back from the water-meadows was a region of lowhills covered with a second growth of young birches and poplars. Amongthe hills were ravines thick with hemlock and spruce. Here sheestablished herself, and at night, either because she missed thenarrow quarters of her stable, or because some wild instinct withinher led her to adapt herself quickly to the ways of the wild kindred, she would make her lair in the deepest and most sheltered of theravines, where a peculiarly dense hemlock veiled the front of anoverhanging rock. This retreat was almost as snug as her old stable;and, lying down with her long horns toward the opening, she feltcomparatively secure. As a matter of fact, though all these woods ofthe Quah-Davic were populous with the furtive folk, the little red cowsaw few signs of life. She was surrounded, wherever she moved, by awide ring of resentful solitude. The inexplicable _tunk-a-tonk, tunk, tonk_ of her deep-throated bell was disquieting to all theforest kindred; and the least move of her head at night was enough tokeep the most interested prowler at a distance from the lair behindthe hemlock. There was not a bear, a wolf, or a panther on theQuah-Davic (there was but a single pair of panthers, indeed, within aradius of fifty miles!) that cared to investigate the fightingqualities of this keen-horned red creature with the inexplicablevoice. 

Till the snow fell deep, covering the dry grass on the meadows, thelittle cow throve well enough. But when the northern winter had fairlysettled in, and the great white stillness lay like sleep upon theancient wood, and the fir-trees, with their cloaking of snow, were somany spires and domes and pinnacles of glittering marble under the icysunlight, then the wanderer would have starved if she had not chancedto be both resourceful and indomitable. From her lair under thehemlock, which was sheltered from all winds, her deeply trodden trailled both to the meadows and the birchen hill-slopes. She could paw herway down to the deep-buried grasses; but it took so much digging touncover a few poor and unsatisfying mouthfuls that she could neverhave kept herself alive in this fashion. Being adaptable, however, shesoon accustomed herself to browsing on the slimmest of the birch andpoplar twigs, and so, having proved herself one of the fittest, shesurvived. When the late, reluctant spring brought the first green ofsprouting grasses to the meadows of the Quah-Davic, it found the redcow a mere bag of bones, indeed, but still alive, and still presentingan undaunted pair of horns to a still distrusted world. 

Into this unfriendly world, when the painted trilliums and the purplewake-robins were dotting every half-exposed glade, was born a sturdybull-calf. His sire was a handsome black half-breed Durham which hadbeen brought into the settlement the previous summer for theimprovement of the scrubby backwoods stock. The calf was jet-black incolour. As he grew, he soon began to show hints of his sire's broadforehead and massive fore-quarters. He had his mother's large, half-wild, discriminating eyes; and his legs, soon throwing off thestraddling awkwardness of calfhood, developed his mother's almostdeer-like activity. 

The summer passed uneventfully for the pair of aliens in thewilderness. With abundant pasturage on the Quah-Davic water-meadows, they had no occasion to wander into the perils of the deep wood; andthe little red cow had none of that prevision of wild mothers, whichleads them to instruct their young in the two great vital points ofwoodcraft, --the procuring of food and the avoiding of enemies. Sheherself knew little woodcraft save what she and the calf wereabsorbing together, unconsciously, day by day. For the time theyneeded none, their food being all about them, their enemies kept atbay by the ceaseless _tunk-a-tonk_ of the mellow bell. Thus it cameabout that to the black bull-calf the wilderness seemed almost emptyof life, save for the birds, the insects, the squirrels, and the fishleaping in the pool. To all these the bell was a matter ofindifference. 

Once only, late in the autumn, did he get a glimpse of the oldQuah-Davic panther. He and his mother were lying in the sun by themeadow's edge, comfortably chewing the cud, when the long, tawnybeast, following their trail with more curiosity than hunger, cameupon them suddenly, and stopped short about twenty paces distant. Thelittle red cow, recognizing the most dangerous of all her possibleenemies, had sprung to her feet with a bellow and lowered her defianthorns. Thereupon, the panther had slunk off with a whipped look and adrooping tail; and the little black bull conceived a poor opinion ofpanthers. But it was the sudden _tonk-tonking_ of the bell, not thechallenge of his redoubtable mother, that had put the fierce-eyedprowler to flight. 

It was much the same with the bears, who were numerous about theQuah-Davic. They regarded the noisy bell with hatred and invinciblesuspicion. But for that, they would probably have put the red cow'shorns to the test, and in all likelihood the career of the lonelyalien would have come to an end ere the snow fell. As it was, however, the black bull-calf never saw a bear in any attitude save that ofsulkily slinking away from his mother's neighbourhood; and therefore, in that first summer of his life, he conceived a very dangerouscontempt for bears. As for the lynxes, --those soundless-footed, grayshadows of the wild, --neither he nor his mother ever saw them, sofearful were they of the voice of the bell. But their screeches andharsh caterwaulings often filled his heart with wonder. Fear he had asyet had no occasion to learn; and therefore he had little real part inthe ever-watchful life of the wilderness. 

The next winter was a hard one for all the beasts of the Quah-Davic;and, ere it went by, the lair under the hemlocks was surrounded bymany lynx tracks. But to neither red cow nor black calf did trackscarry much significance, and they had no thought for the perils thatbegirt them. Once, indeed, even the two panthers came, and turned uponthem pale, bright, evil eyes. But they did not come very near. The cowshook her horns at them defiantly; and the calf shook his broadening, curly forehead at them; and wild were the clamours of the vigilantbell. The hearts of the hunting beasts turned to water at theseincomprehensible voices. In their chagrin they shifted their rangefarther east; and for several years they came no more to thewater-meadows of the Quah-Davic. 

Late in the following summer, when the fireweed was beginning tocrimson the open spaces on the hillside, fate came to thewater-meadows in a form which the bell was powerless to avert. AnIndian, paddling down the Quah-Davic to the sea, caught sight of thered cow drinking by the waterside. He knew there was no settlementwithin leagues. He knew the cow was a stray, and therefore no man'sproperty. He knew he wanted fresh meat, to say nothing of cowhide formoccasins and thongs. Up went his big smooth-bore muzzle-loader. Therewas a deafening, clattering report, unlike the smart detonation of arifle. The little red cow fell on her knees, with a cough and a wildclamour of the bell, then rolled over in the shallow, shimmeringwater. With a whoop of exultation, the Indian thrust ashore; and, ashe did so, the black yearling, taught terror at last by the report andby the human voice, broke from his covert in a willow thicket anddashed wildly into the woods. 

When he came back, hours later, the Indian had vanished, and, withthat strident bellow of his, from which the calf-bleat was not yetquite gone, he trotted down the bank to look for his mother. But thesmell of fresh blood, and the red spectacle which he saw on thepebbles of the river-beach, struck a new and madder terror into hisheart. With stiffly uplifted tail and staring eyes, he dashed awayagain into the woods. 

From that day he never again went near that particular meadow;neither, though for days he called to her in his loneliness, did hesearch any more for the mother who had so suddenly disappeared out ofhis life. Standing on the edge of a bluff, in the fading sunset, hewould thrust his head and neck out straight and bellow his sonorousappeal. Then he would stop and listen long for an answer. And as hecalled, evening after evening in vain, a deeper, surer tone came intohis voice, a more self-reliant, masterful look into the lonely butfearless eyes with which he surveyed the solitude. 

Again came autumn to the Quah-Davic, with the pale blue smoke ofasters along the meadow-ledges, the pale gold glimmer of birches onthe slopes, and the wax-vermilion bunches of the rowan-berriesreflected in each brown pool. By this time the black bull was of thestature of a well-grown two-year-old, massive in the shoulder, leanand fine in limb and flank, with a cushion of dense, close, inky curlsbetween his horns. The horns themselves--very short, thick, keen-pointed spikes of horns--were not set forward, but stood outabsolutely straight on either side of his broad black head. Youngthough he was, he was an ominous figure to all the furtive eyes thatwatched him, as he stood and bellowed from his bluff in the fadingsunset. 

[Illustration: "BUT THEY DID NOT COME VERY NEAR. "]

About this time it was that the young bull began to find the solitudemore populous. Since the voice of the bronze bell was hushed, the wildcreatures were no longer held aloof. Hitherto the red squirrels andthe indifferent, arrogant porcupines were the only animals he hadnoticed. But now he saw an occasional slim and snaky mink at itsfishing; or a red fox stealing down upon the duck asleep in the lilypatch; or a weasel craftily trailing one of the brown hares whichhad of a sudden grown so numerous. All these strange little beastsexcited his curiosity. At first he would sniff, and snort, andapproach to investigate, which would lead, of course, to an immediateand discouraging disappearance. Only the fox was too haughty todisappear. He would maintain a judicious distance, but otherwiseseemed to regard the inquisitive bull with utter unconcern. Thisunconcern, together with the musky smell of the bush-tailed redstranger, at last so aggravated the bull that he charged furiouslyagain and again. But the fox eluded him with mocking ease, till thebull at last sulkily ignored him. 

The bull's next important acquaintance was the lynx. He was lyingunder a scarlet maple, chewing his cud, and lazily watching a rabbitscratching its ears some dozen paces distant. Suddenly a soundlessgray shadow shot from a thicket and dropped upon the rabbit. There wasa squeak, a feeble scuffle; and then a big lynx, setting the claws ofone paw into the prey, turned with a snarl and eyed venomously thestill, dark form under the maple. This seemed like a challenge. With amixture of curiosity and indignation, the young bull got up, grunted, pawed the earth once or twice by way of ceremony, and emerged to theencounter. But the lynx had no stomach to meet the charge of thatsturdy front. He snatched up the rabbit in his jaws and bounded awayinto the underbrush. 

A few days later, as the bull again lay under the scarlet maple andlooked out contemplatively over his yellow autumn world, a large bearlumbered past, taking his own well-beaten trail to the waterside. Thebull lurched to his feet, and stood on guard, for this was aformidable-looking stranger. But the bear, fed fat with autumnberries, was at peace with all the world. He gave the black bull ashrewd glance out of his little cunning eyes, and paid no furtherattention; and the bull, seeing no incentive to a quarrel, snorteddoubtfully and lay down again. After this he saw several more bears, but, being well fed and lazy, they made no effort to molest him. Then, one unfortunate day, as he came up dripping from his favourite pool, he met one face to face. 

The bear was surprised, and halted. He half-settled back upon hishaunches, as if to turn aside and yield the path. Then he thoughtbetter of it and held his ground, being at the moment good-naturedenough, but careful of his dignity, as a bear is apt to be. The youngbull, however, was enraged at this obstinate intrusion upon his trail. He was unlucky enough to remember how often he had seen bears slinkoff to avoid his mother's charge. With an angry bellow, he lifted histail, lowered his head, and launched himself upon the intruder. 

The bear, poising himself upon three legs, gracefully and lightlyavoided the attack, and at the same instant delivered a terrificbuffet upon the young bull's neck. The blow struck low, where themuscles were corded and massive, or the neck would have been broken. As it was, the bull went staggering to his knees at one side of thetrail, the blood spurting from his wounds. In that moment he realizedthat he was not yet a match for a full-grown bear. Smarting with painand wrath, he rushed on up the trail, and hid himself in the old lairunder the hemlock. When again, some days later, he met another bear, he made haste to yield the right of way. 

In the wild, as in the world, to be once beaten is to invite the fistof fate. While the young bull's wounds were still red and raw, therecame a big-antlered, high-shouldered bull-moose to the bluffoverlooking the Quah-Davic. The moose was surprised at sight of theshort-legged, black animal on the bluff. But it was rutting season, and his surprise soon gave way to indignation. The black bull, whosecareless eyes had not yet noticed the visitor, began to bellow as washis evening wont. The moose responded with a hoarse, bleating roar, thrashed the bushes defiantly with his antlers, and shambled up to theattack. The bull, astonished and outraged, stood his ground boldly, and at the first charge got in a daunting blow between the enemy'santlers. But he was not yet strong enough or heavy enough to hold sotough an antagonist, and, after a very few minutes of fierce gruntingand pushing, he was thrust clear over the bank and sent rolling downinto the river. All next day he sulked, but when night came hereturned to the bluff, his eyes red with rage. He found the moosebefore him, but not alone. A tall, dingy-coloured, antlerless cow wasthere, fondling her mate's neck and ears with her long, flexiblemuzzle. This sight gave the young bull a new and uncomprehended fury, under the impulse of which he would have attacked an elephant. But themoose, thus interrupted in his wooing, was far more dangerous than hehad been the night before. Like a whirlwind of devastation he rushedto meet the intruder; and the young bull was hopelessly overmatched. Within five minutes he was gored, beaten down, pounded from the field, and driven bellowing through the bushes. For several weeks he hardlyshowed himself in the open meadows, but lurked all day in thethickets, nursing his wounds and his humiliation. 

The next winter set in early and severe, driving the drowsy bears intotheir winter quarters and their long, snow-comforted sleep before theyhad time to get hungry and dangerous. The lynxes, no longer mystifiedby the voice of the bell, came prowling about the lair beneath thehemlock, but the sullen front and angry, lonely eyes of the black bullheld them in awe. Not even in the worst of the cold, when they hadtaken to hunting together in a loosely organized pack, did they dareto trouble the bull. When spring came, it found him a big, burlythree-year-old, his temper beginning to sour with an unhappiness whichhe did not understand; and by the time the bears came hungry fromtheir winter sleep he was quite too formidable to be meddled with. Stung by humiliating memories, he attacked with fury every bear hesaw; and they soon learned to give him a wide berth. 

As the summer wore along, his loneliness grew more bitter anddistracting. He would spend sometimes a full hour upon the bluff, whenthe yellow day was fading into dusk, bellowing his calls across thestillness, and waiting for he knew not what reply. He was now a hugeand daunting figure. When, at last, came round again the full Octobermoon, and the spirit of mating went abroad on the crisp air, he grewmore restless than ever. Then, one night, on a clear white stretch ofsand some distance down the shore, he saw a cow-moose standing closeby the water. He was much interested, and half unconsciously began tomove in her direction. When she stretched out her long, ungainly headand uttered her harsh call, he answered with a soft, caressing bellow. But at almost the same instant her call was answered by another and avery different voice; and a tall bull-moose strode out arrogantly uponthe sand. 

The black bull's heart swelled with wrath and longing. With a roar hecharged down from the bluff; and the moose, diverted from his wooing, turned to meet the assault. But he was no match for this dreadfulblack bulk that descended upon him with the resistlessness of doom. Hewent down at the first crash, a pathetic sprawl of long limbs andlong, ineffective, beautiful antlers; and barely escaping with hislife, he fled away into the thickets. Then, satisfied with hisvictory, the black bull lifted his head and turned to the watchingcow. 

The cow, after the manner of her kind appreciating a conqueror, awaited somewhat doubtfully his approach. But when he was within afew feet of her, wonder and interest gave way to terror. His bulk, hisblackness, his square, mighty head, his big, blazing eyes, and short, thick muzzle filled her with repulsion and amazement. His voice, too, though unmistakably caressing and persuasive, was too daunting in itsstrangeness. With a wild snort, she turned and fled into the woodswith a speed that he could not hope to match. 

After this experience the black bull's loneliness grew almostintolerable, and his temper so bad that he would go raging up and downthe woods in search of bears to chase. The winter cooled him downsomewhat, and in the spring his temper was not so raw. But he was nowtroubled with a spirit of wandering, and kept ranging the woods inevery direction, only returning to the young green of the water-meadowonce or twice a day. 

One afternoon, however, there came a change. He was browsing irritablynear the bank when he heard voices that made him look up sharply. Acanoe was passing up-stream, poled by two men. It passed slowly, surging against the current. As he looked at the men, a dreadfulmemory stirred within him. He recalled the loud report which haddriven him mad with fear on that day when the red cow disappeared. Heremembered an appalling sight on the beach of that lower meadow whichhe had never visited since. His eyes went red. With a grunt of fury, he thundered down the bank and out knee-deep into the current. 

The men in the canoe were astonished, and hastily pushed over towardthe other shore. The one in the bow laid down his pole and reachedback for his rifle. But the man in the stern intervened. 

"What's the good o' shootin' him?" said he. "He can't git at us here, an' we ain't a-wantin' for grub. Let him be!"

"That's so!" said the other, picking up his pole again. "But ain't hehandsome? An' mad, eh? How do you suppose he come here, anyways?"

"Strayed!" grunted the man in the stern, bending to his pole as thecanoe met a heavier rush of the current. 

As the two voyagers pursued their strenuous way up-stream, rock andeddy and "rip" consuming all their attention, the furious bull keptabreast of them along the shore, splashing in the shallows andbellowing his challenge, till at length a deep insetting of thecurrent compelled him to mount the bank, along which he continued hisvain pursuit for several miles. At last a stretch of dense swampheaded him off, and the canoe vanished from his sight. 

He was now in unknown territory, miles away from his meadows. His rageagainst the men had all died out, but some faint stirring of inheritedinstincts impelled him to follow for companionship. Had they suddenlyreappeared, close at hand, doubtless his rage would have burst forthanew. But when they were gone, he had to follow. A dim intuition toldhim that where they were going dwelt some kind of relief for hisloneliness. He skirted the swamp, rejoined the river, and kept slowlyon his way up-stream, pasturing as he went. He had turned his back forever on the water-meadows and the life of which he could not be apart, and was off on the quest for that unknown which he felt to behis own. 

After two days of leisurely journeying he passed through a belt ofburnt lands, and had his curiosity mildly excited by a blackenedchimney rising from a heap of ruins near the water. Through this burntland he travelled swiftly; and about dawn of the fourth day of hisquest he came out upon the pasture-lands skirting the rear of thesettlement. 

Here he found a rude but strong snake fence, at which he sniffed withwonder. Then, beyond the fence, a creature shaped something likehimself, but red and white in colour, got up from among the mistyhillocks and stared at him. But for the colour, he might have thoughtit was the little red mother who had vanished two years before. _This_was what he had come for. This was the object of his quest. Two orthree other cows, and some young steers, presently arose and fell tofeeding. He lowed to them softly through the rails, and they eyed himwith amiable interest. With a burst of joy, he reared his bulk againstthe fence, bore it down, trotted in confidently, and took command ofthe little herd. There was no protesting. Cows and steers alikerecognized at once the right of this dominant black stranger to rule;and soon he fell to pasturing among them quietly, his heart healed atlast of its loneliness. 

The two canoemen, meanwhile, on their arrival at the settlement, hadtold of their encounter with the wild black bull. As they describedthe adventure to a little circle gathered in the back room of thegrocery, the old woodsman whose cabin had been burned in the greatfires was one of their most interested listeners. 

[Illustration: "A LORDLY BLACK BEAST IN COMMAND OF THE HERD. "]

"I'll bet he's mine! I'll bet he's out of the little red cow I boughtjust afore the fire!" he exclaimed at last. And his theory, dulyexpounded, met with general credence. 

When, therefore, a couple of mornings later, the old woodsman, ongoing to the pasture to fetch in his cows for the milking, found alordly black beast in command of the herd, he understood at once. Fortunately for him, he understood so well that he took certainprecautions, instead of walking straight into the middle of thepasture as usual to get the cows. With judgment born of intuitiveunderstanding, he let down the pasture bars unnoticed, then went overnear the stable door and called. At the familiar summons the cowslifted their heads, and came filing lazily toward the open bars, whichlay a little to one side of the direct way to the house. But the blackbull was of another mind. He saw the man; and straight his eyes sawred. He pawed the earth, roared angrily, gave one uncertain glance atthe cows sauntering away from him, and then charged straight for theunknown foe. The works of man might, indeed, have some strangeinherited attraction for him; but man, the individual, he hated withdestructive hate. 

The woodsman noticed that the bull was not heading for the bars. 

"The fence'll stop him!" he said to himself, confidently. 

But not so. The wild bull had no conception of the sanctity andauthority of fences. The stout rails went down before him likecorn-stalks. The old woodsman shook his head deprecatingly, steppedinto the stable, and latched the door. 

The bull, much puzzled at the unaccountable disappearance of his foe, stopped for a moment, snorting, then dashed around the barn to see ifthe enemy were hiding on the other side. Twice he circled it, his rageincreasing instead of diminishing; and then he caught sight of theman's face eyeing him calmly through the little square stable window. 

He stopped again to paw the earth, bellowing his heavy challenge; andthe old woodsman wondered what to do. He wanted the splendid blackbull for his little herd, but he was beginning to have seriousmisgivings. Moreover, he wanted to get into the house. He threw openthe stable door; and as the bull dashed in he scrambled through amanger, swung himself into the loft, dropped from the hay window, anddarted for the house at top speed. He had had an idea of shutting thestable door, and imprisoning his unmanageable visitor; but the bullwas too quick for him. He got the heavy kitchen door slammed to justin time. Thoughtfully he rubbed his grizzled chin as he glanced outand saw the black beast raging up and down before the window. 

"Can't do nothin' with that, I'm afeared!" he muttered. 

Just then the bull stopped his ravings, turned his head, and staredaway up the road. There came a clamour of gay young voices; and theold woodsman, following the beast's eyes, saw a little group ofchildren approaching on their way to school. Among them he noticed agirl in a bright scarlet waist. This the bull noted also. He forgothis enemy in the house. He grunted savagely, gave his tail a vicioustwist, and trotted down the lane toward the road. 

The old woodsman saw that the time had come for prompt action. Hesnatched up his loaded rifle from the corner where it stood alwaysready, ran out upon the steps, and shouted at the bull. The greatblack animal stopped and looked around, mumbling deep in his throat. He wheeled half-about to return to the old enemy. Then he pausedirresolutely and eyed the gay bevy of children. Which foe should heobliterate first?

While he hesitated, the rifle rang out, and the heavy bullet foundits mark just back of his fore-shoulder. He sank forward upon hisoutstretched muzzle and his knees, his tail stiffening straight up, and quivering. Then he rolled over on his side. 

The old woodsman strode down the lane, and stood over the great blackform. His shrewd gray eyes were filled with regret and sympatheticcomprehension. 

"Spiled!" said he. "Clean spiled all 'round! The woods, they wa'n't noplace fer you, so ye had to quit 'em. But they spiled you fer thehabitations o' man. It's a born stranger and an alien you was, an'there wa'n't no place fer ye neither here nor there!"

The Silver Frost

In the heart of an almost impenetrable thicket of young firs therabbit had crouched all night, sometimes sleeping the light sleep ofthe woodsfolk, sometimes listening to the swish of the winter rain onhis roof of branches. In spite of the storm, he had been warm and dryall night, only a big drop coming through from time to time to makehim shift his couch. Hearing the rain, he was vaguely puzzled becausehe felt so little of it; for he knew that even the densest of firthickets were not proof against a prolonged and steady rainfall. Hewas glad to profit, however, by a phenomenon which he could notcomprehend, so he lay close, and restrained his impatient appetite, and kept his white fur dry and warmly fluffy. Had the night been fine, he would have been leaping gaily hither and thither over the deep, midwinter snow, and browsing on the tender, aromatic shoots of theyoung birches which dotted the little woodland valley. 

Early in the night, soon after the rain began, the lower air hadturned cold, and every wet branch and twig had found itself on asudden encased with ice. Meanwhile, in the upper dark a warm andmoisture-laden current had kept drifting up from the southwest, andceaselessly spilling its burden on the hushed world. Had this finerain been less warm, or had the wrapping of cold air next to the earthbeen deeper, the drops would have frozen in their descent, and fallenas sleet; but as it was, they waited till they fell, and then frozeinstantly. Thus every limb, and branch, and twig, and every delicate, perennial frondage of fir and hemlock, gathered an ever-increasingadornment of clearest crystal. And thus it was that the rabbit in thefir thicket slept dry through the storm, the branches above him havingbeen transformed into a roof of ice. 

The rain had stopped a little before dawn, and just as the sunrisecolours began to spread down the valley, the rabbit came hopping outfrom his snug retreat. He stopped in surprise, sat up, and waved hislong ears to and fro, while his large, bulging eyes surveyed the worldin wonder. He was a young rabbit, born the spring before, and hisworld had changed in the night to something he had never dreamed of. He hopped back beneath the firs for a moment, and sniffed about toreassure himself, then came out and stared again. 

The valley was an open space in the woods, with wooded hills all aboutit except on the east, where it stretched away toward the fields andscattered farmsteads of the settlement. It had once been cleared, butyoung seedlings of birch and poplar and maple, with willows along thecourse of a hidden stream, had been suffered to partly reclaim it. Here and there a group of dark fir or hemlock stood out among theslenderer saplings. Now, all this valley was transmuted to crystal. The soft white surface of the snow was overlaid with a sheet oftransparent silver, flashing white light and cold but coloured fire. Every bush and tree was a miracle of frostwork, lavish, inexhaustible, infinitely varied, and of an unspeakable purity wherever it failed tocatch the young light. But that light, spreading pink and yellow androse from the growing radiance upon the eastern horizon, seemed topenetrate everywhere, reflected and re-reflected from innumerablefacets; and every ray seemed to come from the live heart of a jewel. Each icy tree and bush emitted thin threadlike flames, high and aerialin tone, but of a piercing intensity. It was as if the quiet valleyhad been flooded all at once with dust of emerald and opal, ofsapphire and amethyst and diamond. And as the light grew the miraclechanged slowly, one keen gleam dying out as another flashed into life. 

Having convinced himself that this dazzling and mysterious world wasreally the world he knew, the rabbit thought no more about it, butwent leaping gaily over the radiant crust (which was just strongenough to support him) toward some young birches, where he proposed tonibble a breakfast. As he went, suddenly a curious sound just underhis feet made him jump wildly aside. Trembling, but consumed withcuriosity, he stared down at the glassy surface. In a moment the soundwas repeated. It was a sharp, impatient tapping against the under sideof the crust. To the rabbit's ears the sound conveyed no threat, so hehopped nearer to investigate. What he saw beneath the clear shell ofice was a cock-partridge, his wings half-spread, his head thrown backin the struggle to break from his snowy grave. His curiositysatisfied, the rabbit bounded away again, and fell to nibbling theyoung birch-twigs. Of small concern to him was the doom of theimprisoned bird. 

At dusk of the preceding evening, when the cock-partridge went toroost, there had been no suggestion of rain, but a bitter air fromthe northwest searching through the woods. The wise old bird, findingcold comfort on his perch, had bethought him of a trick which many atime before had served his turn. In the open, where the snow was deep, he had rocketed down, head foremost, with such force that he wasfairly buried in the light, feathery mass. A little kicking, a littleawkward burrowing, and he had worked his way to a depth of perhaps twofeet. Turning about and lifting his wings gently, he had made himselfa snug nest, where neither wind nor cold could reach him, and wherethere was small likelihood that any night marauder would smell himout. Here in the fluffy stillness he got no word of the change of thewind, no hint of the soft rain sifting over him. When he woke andstarted to revisit the outer world, he found a wall of glass abovehim, which his sturdy beak could not break through. A fate thatovertakes many of his kindred had caught him unawares. 

While the partridge was resting after his struggles with theinexorable ice, through which he could look out dimly on the jewelledworld of freedom, a red fox appeared on the edge of the wood. Hiscrafty eyes fell on the rabbit, and crouching flat, he creptnoiselessly forward. But the crust, strong enough to support therabbit, was not strong enough to quite support the heavier animal. With light, crackling sound one foot broke through, and the rabbit, with a frightened glance at the most dreaded of all his foes, wentsailing away in long bounds. Soundless though his padded footfallswere, his flight was accompanied and heralded by a crisp rattling oficicles as the frozen twigs snapped at his passing. 

Laboriously the fox followed, breaking through at every other stride, but hungry and obstinate, and unwilling to acknowledge himselfbaffled. Halfway across the valley, however, he gave up. After pausinga moment to consider, he retraced his steps, having apparently hadsome scheme in mind when diverted by the sight of the rabbit. Thelatter, being young and properly harebrained, and aware of his presentadvantage, now came back by a great circle, and fell to browsing againon the birch-twigs. As he fed, however, he kept a sharp eye on theenemy. 

The fox, meanwhile, was growing more and more exasperated. He washappening upon every weak spot in the crust, and floundering at almostevery step. All at once, as the surface broke there came to hisnostrils the familiar smell of a partridge. It was a fresh scent. Thefox forgot his indignation. He poked his narrow snout into the snow, sniffed sharply, and began to dig with all his might. 

Now it chanced that the imprisoned bird, in his search for an exit, had worked away from the spot where he had slept. The fox was puzzled. That alluring scent was all about him, and most tantalizingly fresh. He understood this partridge trick, and had several times made hisknowledge supply him with a meal. But hitherto he had always found thepartridge asleep; and he had no idea what the bird would do in such acase as the present. He dug furiously in one direction, then fiercelyin another, but all in vain. Then he lifted his head, panting, hispointed ears and ruddy face grotesquely patched with snow. At thismoment a great puff of the white powder was flapped into his eyes, afeathery dark body jumped up from under his very nose, and the craftyold bird went whirring off triumphantly to the nearest tree. With histongue hanging out, the fox stared foolishly after him, then slunkaway into the woods. And the white rabbit, nibbling at hisbirch-twigs, was left in undisputed possession of the scintillatingrainbow world. 

By the Winter Tide

Behind the long, slow-winding barrier of the dyke the marshes ofTantramar lay secure, mile on mile of blue-white radiance under theunclouded moon. Outside the dyke it was different. Mile on mile oftumbled, mud-stained ice-cakes, strewn thickly over the Tantramarflats, waited motionless under the moon for the incoming tide. Twicein each day the far-wandering tide of Fundy would come in, to lift, and toss, and grind, and roll the ice-cakes, then return again to itsdeep channels; and with every tide certain of the floes would go forthto be lost in the open sea, while the rest would sink back to theirtumbled stillness on the mud. Just now the flood was coming in. Fromall along the outer fringes of the flats came a hoarse, desolate roar;and in the steady light the edges of the ice-field began to turn andflash, the strange motion creeping gradually inland toward thatimpassive bulwark of the dyke. Had it been daylight, the chaoticice-field would have shown small beauty, every wave-beaten floe beingsoiled and streaked with rust-coloured Tantramar mud. But under thetransfiguring touch of the moon the unsightly levels changed to plainsof infinite mystery--expanses of shattered, white granite, as it were, fretted and scrawled with blackness--reaches of loneliness older thantime. So well is the mask of eternity assumed by the mutable moonlightand the ephemeral ice. 

Nearer and nearer across the waste drew the movement that marked theincoming flood. Then from over the dyke-top floated a noiseless, winnowing, sinister shape which seemed the very embodiment of thedesolation. The great white owl of the north, driven down from hisArctic hunting-grounds by hunger, came questing over the raggedlevels. His long, soft-feathered wings moved lightly as a ghost, andalmost touched the ice-cakes now and then as his round, yellow eyes, savagely hard and brilliant, searched the dark crevices for prey. Withhis black beak, his black talons protruding from the mass of snowyfeathers which swathed his legs, and the dark bars on his plumage, onemight have fancied him a being just breathed into menacing andfurtive life by the sorcery of the scene. 

Suddenly, with a motion almost as swift as light, the great owlswooped and struck. Swift as he was, however, this time he struck justtoo late. A spot of dark on the edge of an ice-cake vanished. It was aforaging muskrat who had seen the approaching doom in time and slippedinto a deep and narrow crevice. Here, on the wet mud, he crouchedtrembling, while the baffled bird reached down for him with vainlyclutching claws. 

On either side of the two ice-cakes which had given the muskratrefuge, was a space of open mud which he knew it would be death tocross. Each time those deadly black talons clutched at him, heflattened himself to the ground in panic; but there were severalinches to spare between his throat and death. The owl glared down withfixed and flaming eyes, then gave up his useless efforts. But heshowed no inclination to go away. He knew that the muskrat could notstay for ever down in that muddy crevice. So he perched himself boltupright on the very edge, where he could keep secure watch upon hisintended victim, while at the same time his wide, round eyes mightdetect any movement of life among the surrounding ice-cakes. 

The great flood-tides of Fundy, when once they have brimmed the steepchannels and begun to invade the vast reaches of the flats, loselittle time. When the baffled owl, hungry and obstinate, perchedhimself on the edge of the ice-cake to wait for the muskrat to comeout, the roar of the incoming water and the line of tossing, gleamingfloes were half a mile away. In about four minutes the fringe oftumult was not three hundred yards distant, --and at the same time thevanguards of the flood, thin, frothy rivulets of chill water, weretrickling in through the crevice where the little prisoner crouched. As the water touched his feet, the muskrat took heart anew, anticipating a way of escape. As it deepened he stood upright, --andinstantly the white destruction cruelly watching struck again. Thistime the muskrat felt those deadly talons graze the long, loose fur ofhis back; and again he cowered down, inviting the flood to cover him. As much at home under water as on dry land, he counted on easy escapewhen the tide came in. 

It happens, however, that the little kindreds of the wild are usuallymore wise in the general than in the particular. The furry prisoner atthe bottom of the crevice knew about such regular phenomena as thetides. He knew, too, that presently there would be water enough forhim to dive and swim beneath it, where his dreadful adversary couldneither reach him nor detect him. What he did not take into accountwas the way the ice-cakes would grind and batter each other as soon asthe tide was deep enough to float them. Now, submerged till his furryback and spiky tail were just even with the surface, his little, darkeyes glanced up with mingled defiance and appeal at the savage, yellowglare of the wide orbs staring down upon him. If only the water wouldcome, he would be safe. For a moment his eyes turned longingly towardthe dyke, and he thought of the narrow, safe hole, the long, ascendingburrow, and the warm, soft-lined chamber which was his nest, far up inthe heart of the dyke, high above the reach of the highest tides andhidden from all enemies. But here in the hostile water, with a crueldeath hanging just above him, his valorous little heart ached withhomesickness for that nest in the heart of the dyke; and though thewater had no chill for his hardy blood, he shivered. 

Meanwhile, the long line of clamour was rushing steadily inland. Theroar suddenly crashed into thunder on the prisoner's ears and a rushof water swept him up. The white owl spread his wings and balancedhimself on tiptoe, as the ice-cake on which he was perching lurchedand rolled. Through all the clamour his ears, miraculously keen beyondthose of other birds, caught an agonized squeak from below. Thejostling ice had nipped the muskrat's hind quarters. 

Though desperately hurt, so desperately that his strong hind legs werealmost useless, the brave little animal was not swerved from hispurpose. Straight from his prison, no longer now a refuge, he divedand swam for home through the loud uproar. But the muskrat's smallforelegs are of little use in swimming, so much so that as a rule hecarries them folded under his chin while in the water. Now, therefore, he was at a piteous disadvantage. His progress was slow, as in anightmare, --such a nightmare as must often come to muskrats if theirsmall, careless brains know how to dream. And in spite of his franticefforts, he found that he could not hold himself down in the water. Hekept rising toward the surface every other second. 

Balancing had by this time grown too difficult for the great, whiteowl, and he had softly lifted himself on hovering wings. But not foran instant had he forgotten the object of his hunt. What were floodsand cataclysms to him in the face of his hunger? Swiftly his shiningeyes searched the foamy, swirling water. Then, some ten feet away, beside a pitching floe, a furry back appeared for an instant. In thatinstant he swooped. The back had vanished, --but unerringly his talonsstruck beneath the surface--struck and gripped their prey. The nextmoment the wide, white wings beat upward heavily, and the muskrat waslifted from the water. 

As he rose into the air, though near blind with the anguish of thatiron grip, the little victim writhed upward and bit furiously at hisenemy's leg. His jaws got nothing but a bunch of fluffy feathers, which came away and floated down the moonlight air. Then the life sankout of his brain, and he hung limply; and the broad wings bore himinland over the dyke-top--straight over the warm and hidden nest wherehe had longed to be. 

The Rivals of Ringwaak

I. 

A white flood, still and wonderful, the moonlight lay on the nakedrampikes and dense thickets of Ringwaak Hill. Beneath its magic thevery rocks, harsh bulks of granite, seemed almost afloat; and everybranch, spray and leaf, swam liquidly. The rampikes, towering trunksof pine, fire-blasted and time-bleached, lifted lonely spires ofsilver over the enchanted solitude. 

Apparently, there was neither sound nor motion over all Ringwaak, orover the wide wilderness spread out below its ken. But along thesecret trails, threading the thicket, and skirting the graniteboulders, life went on with an intensity all the deeper and morestringent for the seal of silence laid upon it. The small, fugitivekindreds moved noiselessly about their affairs, foraging, mating, sometimes even playing, but ever watchful, a sleepless vigilance theprice of each hour's breath; while even more furtive, but moreintermittent in their watchfulness, the hunting and blood-lovingkindreds followed the trails. 

Gliding swiftly from bush to rock, from rock to thicket, now for aninstant clear and terrible in a patch of moonlight, now ghost-gray andstill more terrible in the sharp-cut shadows, came a round-eyed, crouching shape. It was somewhere about the size of a large spaniel, but shorter in the body, and longer in the legs; and its hind legs, inparticular, though kept partly gathered beneath the body, in readinessfor a lightning spring, were so disproportionately long as to give ahigh, humped-up, rabbity look to the powerful hind quarters. Thiscombined suggestion of the rabbit and the tiger was peculiarlydaunting in its effect. The strange beast's head was round andcat-like, but with high, tufted ears, and a curious, back-brushedmuffle of whiskers under the throat. Its eyes, wide and pale, shonewith a cold ferocity and unconquerable wildness. Its legs, singularlylarge for the bulk of its body, and ending in broad, razor-clawed, furry pads of feet, would have seemed clumsy, but for the impressionof tense steel springs and limitless power which they gave in everymovement. In weight, this stealthy and terrifying figure would havegone perhaps forty pounds--but forty pounds of destroying energy andtireless swiftness. 

As he crept through a spruce thicket, his savage eyes turning fromside to side, the lynx came upon a strange trail, and stopped short, crouching. His stub of a tail twitched, his ears flattened backangrily, his long, white fangs bared themselves in a soundless snarl. A green flame seemed to flicker in his eyes, as he subjected everybush, every stone, every stump within his view to the most piercingscrutiny. Detecting no hostile presence, he bent his attention to thestrange trail, sniffing at it with minute consideration. 

The scent of the trail was that of a wildcat; but its size was toogreat for that of any wildcat this big lynx had ever known. Wildcatshe viewed with utter scorn. For three years he had ruled all RingwaakHill; and no wildcat, in those three years, had dared to hunt upon hisrange. But this newcomer, with the wildcat smell, seemed about as bigas three wildcats. The impression of its foot on a patch of moistmould was almost as large as that of the lynx himself--and the lynxwell knew that the wildcats were a small-footed tribe. Like most ofthe hunting beasts, he was well-schooled in the lore of the trails, and all the signs were to him a clear speech. From the depth anddefiniteness of that footprint, he felt that both weight and strengthhad stamped it. His long claws protruded from their hidden sheaths, ashe pondered the significance of this message from the unknown. Was thestranger a deliberate invader of his range, or a mere ignoranttrespasser? And would he fight, or would he run? The angry lynx wasdetermined to put these questions to the test with the least possibledelay. 

The trail was comparatively fresh, and the lynx began to follow it, forgetful of his hunger and of the hunt on which he had set out. Hemoved now more warily than ever, crouching flat, gliding smoothly as asnake, and hoping to score the first point against his rival bycatching him unawares. So noiselessly did he go, indeed, that aweasel, running hard upon the trail of a rabbit, actually brushedagainst him, to bound away in a paroxysm of fear and rush off inanother direction, wondering how he had escaped those lightning claws. In fact the lynx, intent only upon the hunting of his unknown foe, wasalmost as astonished as the weasel, and quite unprepared to seize thesudden opportunity for a meal. He eyed the vanishing weasel malignlyfor a moment, then resumed his stealthy advance. A white-footed mouse, sitting up daintily at the door of her burrow, fell over backwards, and nearly died of fright, as the ghost-gray shape of doom sped up andpassed. But the lynx had just then no mind for mice, and never sawher. 

The strange trail, for some hundreds of yards, kept carefully to thethickets and the shadows. In one place the marks of a scuffle, with aheap of speckled feathers and a pair of slim claws, showed that theintruder had captured and devoured an unwary partridge mothering herbrood. At this evidence of poaching on his preserves, the big lynx'sanger swelled hotly. He paused to sniff at the remnants, and thenstole on with added caution. The blood of the victim was not yet dry, or even clotted, on the leaves. 

A little further on, the trail touched the foot of a clean-stemmedyoung maple. Here the trespasser had paused to stretch himself, setting his claws deep into the bark. These claw-marks the lynxappeared to take as a challenge or a defiance. Rearing himself againstthe tree, he stretched himself to his utmost. But his highest scratchwas two inches below the mark of the stranger. This still furtherenraged him. Possibly, it might also have daunted him a little but forthe fact that his own claw-marks were both deeper and wider apartthan those of his rival. 

From the clawed tree, the trail now led to the very edge of the openand thence to the top of an overhanging rock, white and sharplychiseled in the moonlight. The lynx was just about to climb the rock, when there beneath it, in the revealing radiance, he saw a sight whichflattened him in his tracks. The torn carcass of a young doe lay a fewfeet from the base of the rock; and on top of the prey, glaring savagechallenge, crouched such a wildcat as the lynx had never even dreamedof. 

II. 

A few days before this night of the white full moon, a giganticwildcat living some fifteen miles from Ringwaak had decided to changehis hunting-grounds. His range, over which he had ruled for years, wasa dark, thick-wooded slope overlooking the brown pools and loud chutesof the Guimic stream. Here he had prospered hunting with continualsuccess, and enjoying life as only the few overlords among the wildkindreds can hope to enjoy it. He had nothing to fear, as long as heavoided quarrel with a bear or a bull moose. And a narrow escape whenyoung had taught him to shun trap and snare, and everything thatsavoured of the hated works of man. 

Now, the lumbermen had found their way to his shadowy domain. Loudaxe-strokes, the crash of falling trees, the hard clank of ox-chains, jarred the solemn stillness. But far more intolerable to the greatcat's ears was the noise of laughter and shouting, the masterfulinsolence of the human voice unabashed in the face of the solitude. The men had built a camp near each end of his range. No retreat wassafe from their incursions. And they had cut down the great pine-treewhose base shielded the entrance of his favourite lair. All throughthe winter the angry cat had spent the greater portion of his timeslinking aside from these boisterous invaders or glaring fierce hateupon them from his densest coverts. Thus occupied, he had too littletime for his hunting, and, moreover, the troubled game had become shy. His temper grew worse and worse as his ribs grew more and more obviousunder his brownish, speckled fur. Nevertheless, for all his swellingindignation, he had as yet no thought of forsaking his range. He keptexpecting that the men would go away. 

When spring came, and the Guimic roared white between its tortuousshores, some of the loud-mouthed men did go away. Nevertheless, thebig cat's rage waxed hotter than ever. Far worse than the men who wentwere three portable steam sawmills which came in their place. At threeseparate points these mills were set up--and straightway the long, intolerable shriek of the circulars was ripping the air. In spite ofhimself, the amazed cat screeched in unison when that sound firstsmote his ears. He slunk away and hid for hours in his remotest lair, wondering if it would follow him. When, in the course of weeks, hegrew so far accustomed to the fiendish sound that he could go abouthis hunting within half a mile of it, he found that the saws hadworked him an unspeakable injury. They had fouled his belovedfishing-pools with sawdust. 

[Illustration: "HIS ROUND FACE BENT CLOSE DOWN TO THE GLASSYSURFACE. "]

It was the big cat's favoured custom to spend hours at a time crouchedover one or another of these pools, waiting for a chance to catch atrout. Where an overhanging rock or a jutting root came out into deepwater, he would lie as motionless as the rock or log itself, his roundface bent close down to the glassy surface, his bright eyes intentlyfollowing the movements of the big, lazy trout in their safe deeps. Once in a long while, often enough to keep his interest keen, aMay-fly or a fat worm would drop close past his nose and lie kickingon top of the water. Up would sail a big trout, open-jawed to engulfthe morsel. At that instant the clutching paw of the watcher wouldstrike down and around more swiftly than eye could follow--and thenext instant the fish would be flopping violently among the underbrushup the bank, with leaves and twigs clinging to its fat, silvery, dappled sides. The sport was one which gave the big wildcatnever-failing delight; and, moreover, there was no other food in allthe wilderness quite so exquisite to his palate as a plump trout fromthe ice-cool waters of the Guimic. When, therefore, he found his poolscovered, all day long, with the whitey-yellow grains of sawdust, whichprevented the trout feeding at the surface or drove them in disgustfrom their wonted haunts, he realized that his range was ruined. Themen and the mills were the conquerors, and he must let himself bedriven from his well-beloved Guimic slopes. But first he would haverevenge. His caution somewhat undermined by his rage, he crept muchnearer to the main camp than he had hitherto dared to go, and hidhimself in a low tree to see what opportunity fate might fling tohim. 

Belonging to the camp was a brindle dog, a sturdy and noisy mongrelwhose barking was particularly obnoxious to the wildcat. Of a surlyyet restless temper, the mongrel was in reality by no means popular inthe camp, and would not have been tolerated there but for the factthat he belonged to the Boss. In the wildcat's eyes, however, as inthe eyes of all the wild kindreds, he seemed a treasured possession ofthe menkind, and an especially objectionable expression of all theirmost objectionable characteristics. Moreover, being four-footed andfurred, he was plainly more kin to the wild creatures than to man--andtherefore, to the wild creature, obviously a traitor and a renegade. There was not one of them but would have taken more satisfaction inavenging its wrongs upon the loud-mouthed mongrel than upon one of themongrel's masters; not one but would have counted that the sweetestand completest form of vengeance. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that the big cat quivered with eagerhate when he saw the dog come lazily out of the cook-house and wandertoward the spring--which lay just beyond the thick tree! His eyesblazed green, his fur rose slightly, and he set his claws into thebark to gain firm foothold. 

Confident and secure, the dog approached the tree. On the way hejumped savagely at a chipmunk, which dodged in time and whisked intoits hole. For a minute or two the dog pawed and scratched at the hole, trying to dig the little fugitive out. Then he gave up the vain task, and moved on toward the spring. 

The wildcat gave one quick glance on every side. There was not a manin sight. The cook was in the cook-house, rattling tins. Then the dogcame beneath the tree--and stopped to sniff at the wildcat's track. 

There was a sharp scratch in the tree above--and in the next instant abrown furry shape dropped upon him noiselessly, bearing him to theground. This thing was a mass of teeth and claws and terrific muscles. It gave one sharp screech as the dog's yelping howl arose, then madeno sound but a spitting growl as it bit and ripped. From the first thebrindled mongrel had no ghost of a chance; and the struggle was overin three minutes. As the cook, astonished by the sudden uproar, camerushing axe in hand from his shanty, the wildcat sprang away with asnarl and bounded into the cover of the nearest spruce bushes. He wasnone the worse save for a deep and bleeding gash down hisfore-shoulder, where his victim had gained a moment's grip. But thedog was so cruelly mauled that the woodsman could do nothing butcompassionately knock him on the head with the axe which he hadbrought to the rescue. 

Savage from the struggle, and elated from his vengeance, the wildcatwith no further hesitation turned his back upon his old haunts, crossed the Guimic by great leaps from rock to rock, and set southwardtoward the wooded slopes and valleys overlooked by the ragged crest ofRingwaak. 

The indignant exile, journeying so boldly to confront the peril ofwhich he had no suspicion or forewarning, belonged to a speciesconfined to the forests of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia or theneighbourhood of their boundaries. He was a giant cousin of the commonwildcat, and known to the few naturalists who had succeeded indifferentiating and classifying his species as _Lynx Gigas_. In weightand stature he was, if anything, more than the peer of his other andmore distant cousin, the savage Canada lynx. The cook of the camp, intelling his comrades about the fate of the dog, spoke of the greatwildcat as a "catamount, " to distinguish him from the common cat ofthe woods. These same woodsmen, had they seen the lynx who ruled onRingwaak Hill, would have called him a "lucerfee, " while anyMadawaska Frenchman in their company would have dubbed him _loupcervier_. Either catamount or lucerfee was respectfully regarded bythe woodsmen. 

For an hour the great cat journeyed on, wary and stealthy from habitrather than intention, as he was neither hunting for prey nor avoidingenemies. But when he found himself in strange woods--a gloomy cedarswamp, dotted with dry hardwood knolls like islands--with true catinstinct he delayed his journey to look about him and investigate. Prowling from side to side, and sniffing and peering, he presentlyfound something that he was not looking for. In a hollow beneath agranite boulder, behind the roots of two gnarled old cedars, he cameupon two glossy black bear cubs, fast asleep. The mother was nowherein sight, but the intruder shrank back with an abashed and guilty airand ran up the nearest tree. Thence he made his way from branch tobranch, and did not return to the ground till he had put three or fourhundred yards between him and the den. He had no mind to bringrelentless doom upon his trail. 

Not till he was well clear of the cedar swamp did the catamountremember that he was hungry. The idea of being suspected of aninterest in young bear's meat had taken away his appetite. Now, however, coming to a series of wild meadows, he lingered to huntmeadow-mice. Among the roots of the long grass the mice hadinnumerable hidden runways, through which they could travel withoutdanger from the hawks and owls. Crouching close to one of theserunways, the big cat would listen till a squeak or a faint scurryingnoise would reveal the passing of a mouse. Then a lightning pounce, with paws much wider apart than in his ordinary hunting, would tearaway the frail covering of the runway, and usually show the victimclutched beneath one paw or the other. This was much quicker as wellas craftier hunting than the more common wildcat method of lying inwait for an hour at the door of a runway. Three of these plumpmeadow-mice made the traveller a comfortable meal. Forgetting hiswrongs, he stretched himself in the full sun under the shelter of afallen tree, and slept soundly for an hour. Once only he awoke, whenhis ears caught the beat of a hawk's wings winnowing low over hisretreat. He opened wide, fiercely bright eyes, completely alert on theinstant; but seeing the source of the sound he was asleep againbefore the hawk had crossed the little meadow. 

His siesta over, the exile mounted the fallen tree, dug his claws deepinto the bark, stretched himself again and again, yawned prodigiously, and ended the exercise with a big, rasping miaow. At the sound therewas a sudden rustling in the bushes behind the windfall. Instantly thecatamount sprang, taking the risk of catching a porcupine or a skunk. But whatever it was that made the noise, it had vanished in time; andthe rash hunter returned to his perch with a shamefaced air. 

From this post of vantage on the edge of the meadows he could see thecrest of old Ringwaak dominating the forests to the south; and thesight, for some unknown reason, drew him. Among those bleak rampikesand rocks and dark coverts he might find a range to his liking. Heresumed his journey with a definiteness of purpose which kept him fromsquandering time on the chase. Only once he halted, and that was whenthe cries and flutterings of a pair of excited thrushes caught hisattention. He saw their nest in a low tree--and he saw a black snake, coiled in the branches, greedily swallowing the half-fledgednestlings. This was an opportunity which he could not afford to lose. He ran expertly up the tree, pounced upon the snake, and bit throughits back bone just behind the head. The strong, black coilsstraightened out limply. Carrying his prize between his jaws, thecatamount descended to the ground, growling and jerking savagely whenthe wriggling length got tangled among the branches. Quick tounderstand the services of their most unexpected ally, the desperatebirds returned to one surviving nestling, and their clamours ceased. Beneath the tree the exile hurriedly devoured a few mouthfuls of thethick meat of the back just behind the snake's head, then resumed hisjourney toward Ringwaak. 

It was close upon sunset when he reached the first fringes of thenorthward slope of the mountain. Here his reception was benign. On thebanks of a tiny brook, rosy-gold in the flooding afternoon light, hefound a bed of wild catnip. Here for a few minutes he rolled inecstasy, chewing and clawing at the aromatic leaves, all four paws inair, and hoarsely purring his delight. When, at last, he went on upthe slope, he carried with him through the gathering shadows thepungent, sweet aroma of the herb. In a fierce gaiety of spirit hewould now and then leap into the air to strike idly at some birdflitting high above his reach. Or he would jump and clutchkittenishly with both paws at a fluttering, overhanging leaf, orpounce upon an imaginary quiet mouse crouched among the leaves. 

About twilight, as he was nearing the summit of the hill, he cameacross a footprint which somewhat startled him out of hisintoxication. It was a footprint not unlike his own, but distinctlylarger. Being an old sign, there was no scent left to it--but its sizewas puzzling and disquieting. From this on he went warily, not knowingwhen he might be called upon to measure forces with some redoubtablepossessor of the range. When the moon rose, round and white andall-revealing, and threw sinister shadows from rampike and rock, hekept to the densest thickets and felt oppressed with strangeness. Butwhen he succeeded in surprising a hen partridge hovering over herbrood, with the blood warm in his mouth he began to feel at home. Thisfine range should be his, whoever might contest the sovereignty. Coming across a deer trail leading beneath an overhanging rock, heclimbed the rock and crouched in ambush, waiting to see what mightcome by. 

For an hour he crouched there, motionless as the eternal graniteitself, while the moon climbed and whitened, and the shadows of therampikes changed, and the breathless enchantment deepened overRingwaak. At long intervals there would be a faint rustling in somenear-by clump of juniper, or a squeak and a brief scuffle in thethickets; or, on wings as soundless as sleep, a great owl would passby, to drop sharply behind a rock, or sail away like a ghost among therampikes. But to none of these furtive happenings did the watcher onthe rock pay any heed. He was waiting for what might come upon thetrail. 

At last, it came. Stepping daintily on her small, fine hoofs, herlarge eyes glancing timorously in every direction, a little yearlingdoe emerged from the bushes and started to cross the patch ofbrilliant light. The strange, upright pupils of the catamount's eyesnarrowed and dilated at the sight, and his muscles quivered to suddentension. The young doe came beneath the rock. The cat sprang, unerring, irresistible; and the next moment she lay kicking helplesslybeneath him, his fangs buried in her velvet throat. 

[Illustration: "SOMETHING MADE HIM TURN HIS HEAD QUICKLY. "]

This was noble prey; and the giant cat, his misgivings all forgotten, drank till his long thirst was satiated. His jaws dripping, he liftedhis round, fierce face, and gazed out and away across the moonlitslopes below him toward his ancient range beyond the Guimic. While hegazed, triumphing, something made him turn his head quickly and eyethe spruce thicket behind him. 

III. 

It was at this moment that the old lynx, master of Ringwaak, comingsuddenly out into the moonlight, saw the grim apparition beneath therock, and flattened to the ground. 

Through long, momentous, pregnant seconds the two formidable andmatched antagonists scrutinized each other, the lynx close crouched, ready to launch himself like a thunderbolt, the catamount half risen, his back bowed, one paw of obstinate possession clutching the head ofhis prey. In the eyes of each, as they measured each other's powersand sought for an advantage, flamed hate, defiance, courage, andsavage question. 

Seen thus near together, catamount by lucerfee, they were obviouslyakin, yet markedly different. The cat was heavier in the body, outweighing his rival by perhaps not far from ten pounds, but withshorter and more gracefully shaped legs, and smaller feet. His headwas more arched, seeming to indicate a greater intelligence, and hisflaming eyes were set wider apart; but his mouth was smaller, hisfangs less long and punishing. His fur was of a browner, warmer huethan that of the lynx, whose gray had a half-invisible ghostliness inthe moonlight. The tails of both were ridiculously short, not sixinches in length, but that of the catamount was straight and stiff, while that of the lucerfee had a curious upward twist that somehowmocked the contortions of his huge and overlong hind legs. The eyes ofthe lynx, under his flatter forehead, were the more piercing, the lessblazing. Altogether the great wildcat was the more beautiful of thetwo beasts, the more intelligent, the more adaptable and resourceful. But the lynx, with his big, uncouth, hind quarters, and great legsgathered under him, and exaggerated paws, looked to be the moreformidable fighting machine. 

Thus, unstirring, they eyed each other. Then with a strident screechthat seemed to tear the spell of the night to tatters, the gray bodyof the lynx shot through the air. It landed, not upon the catamount, but squarely upon the carcass of the doe, where, a fraction of asecond before, the catamount had stood. The wary intruder had notwaited to endure the full shock of that charge, but lightly as a puffof down had leaped aside. The next instant he had pounced, with a yowlof defiance, straight for the lynx's neck. 

Lightning quick though he was, the lynx recovered in time to meet theattack with deadly counter-stroke of bared claws, parrying like askilled boxer. In this forearm work the catamount, lighter of paw andtalon, suffered the more; and being quick to perceive his adversary'sadvantage, he sought to force a close grapple. This the lynx at firstavoided, rending and punishing frightfully as he gave ground; whilethe solemn height of old Ringwaak was shocked by a clamour of spittingand raucous yowling that sent every sleepy bird fluttering in terrorfrom its nest. 

Suddenly, perceiving that the lynx was backing dangerously close tothe face of the rock, the great cat sprang, took a frightful, rippingbuffet across the face, broke down his foe's guard and bore him to theground by sheer weight. Here, in this close embrace, the hinder clawsof both came into play with hideous effect. The clamour died down to atense, desperate, gasping snarl; for now the verdict of life or deathwas a matter of moments. But in this fearful and final test, whenthere was no more room for fencing, no more time for strategy, themore powerful hind legs and longer, more eviscerating claws of thelynx had the decisive advantage. Though borne down, and apparentlygetting the worst of the fight, the master of Ringwaak was in realityripping his enemy to pieces from beneath. All at once the lattersprang away with a scream, stood for a second erect and rigid, thensank limp beside the torn carcass of the doe. 

The lynx, badly torn and bitten, but with no fatal injury, pouncedupon the unresisting body of the catamount and mauled it till wellassured of the completeness of his victory. Then, heedless of hiswounds, he mounted the carcass of the doe, lifted his head high, andscreeched his challenge across the night. No answer coming, he tore amouthful of the meat to emphasize possession, stepped down, and creptoff to nurse his hurts in some dark retreat; for not easy had been thetask of defending his lordship. When all was still once more onRingwaak, presently descended again the enchantment of the mysticlight. And under its transforming touch even the torn bodies lyingbefore the bright face of the rock lost their hideousness, becomingremote, and unsubstantial and visionary. 

The Decoy

High above the flat-spread earth, their strong wings driving them attremendous speed through the thin, cold air of dawn, the wild-gooseflock journeyed north. In the shape of an irregular V they journeyed, an old gander, wise and powerful, at the apex of the aerial array. Asthey flew, their long necks stretched straight out, the living airthrilled like a string beneath their wing-beats. From their throatscame a throbbing chorus, resonant, far-carrying, mysterious, --_honka, honka, honka, honk, honka, honk_. It seemed to be the proper utteranceof altitude and space. 

The flight was as true as if set by a compass; but the longer limb ofthe V would curve and swerve sinuously from time to time as the weakeror less experienced members of the flock wavered in their alignment. Flat, low-lying forests, and lonely meres, and rough, isolated farmssped past below the rushing voyagers, --then a black head-land, andthen a wide, shallow arm of the sea. For a few minutes the glimmer ofpale, crawling tides was everywhere beneath them, --then league onleague of gray-green, sedgy marsh, interlaced with little pools andlanes of bright water, and crisscrossed with ranks of bulrush. Theleader of the flock now stretched his dark head downward, slowing thebeat of his wings, and the disciplined array started on a long declinetoward earth. From its great height the flock covered nearly a mile ofadvance before coming within a hundred yards of the pale green levels;and all through the gradual descent the confusion of marsh, and pool, and winding creek, seemed to float up gently to meet the long-absentwanderers. At length, just over a shallow, spacious, grassy mere, andsome thirty feet above its surface, the leader decided to alight. Itwas an old and favoured feeding-ground, where the mud was full oftender shoots and tiny creatures of the ooze. The wings of the flock, as if on signal, turned out and upward, showing a flash of palercolour as they checked the still considerable speed of the flight. 

In that pause, just before the splash of alighting, from a thick coverof sedge across the pool came two sharp spurts of flame, one after theother, followed by two thunderous reports, so close together as toseem almost like one. Turning straight over, the leader fell upon thewater with a heavy splash; and immediately after him dropped hissecond in leadership, the strong young gander who flew next him on thelonger limb of the V. The flock, altogether demoralized, huddledtogether for a few seconds with loud cries; then rose and flapped offseaward. Before the hunter in the sedge could get fresh cartridgesinto his gun, the diminished flock was out of range, making desperatehaste to safer feeding-grounds. 

Of the two birds thus suddenly smitten by fate, the younger, shotthrough the heart, lay motionless where he had dropped, a sprawl ofblack and white, and ashen feathers tumbled by the little ripples ofthe pool. But the older bird was merely winged. Recovering himselfalmost instantly from the shock of the wound and the fall, he made onepathetically futile effort to rise again, then started swimming downthe pond, trailing his shattered wing behind him and straining hisgaze toward the departing flock. 

Immediately after the two shots, out from the shelter of the rusheshad sprung a large, curly-coated, brown retriever. With a yelp ofexcitement he had dashed into the water and dragged ashore the bodyof the dead bird. Now the hunter, standing up and stretching his legsas if cramped from a long lying-in-wait, started on a sharp run downthe wet shore of the pond, whistling the retriever after him. He hadnoted the splendid stature of the wounded bird, and wanted to capturehim alive. 

Not without cause had the great gander achieved the leadership of theflock, for he possessed not only strength but intelligence. When hesaw that his trailing wing so hampered his swimming that he wouldpresently be overtaken, he turned and darted into the sedges of theopposite shore, trusting to the difficulties of the swamp to protecthim. He did not know that the big brown retriever was almostamphibious, and more cunning than himself. 

The hunter stopped, and pointed to the spot of waving reeds where thebird had disappeared. 

"Fetch him, Pete!" he commanded, --"But gently, boy, ge-e-ently!" Andthe wise old dog understood, either from the words or from the tone inwhich they were uttered, that this was to be a bloodless capture. Barking joyously, he tore around the pond to the place where thegander had vanished, and dashed splashing into the reeds. A fewseconds later a tumult arose, the reeds were beaten down, and the dogreappeared, dragging his prize by the uninjured wing. 

The great bird, powerful and dauntless, made a gallant fight; but hewas hopelessly handicapped. His most formidable weapons were the bonyelbows of his strong, untiring wings; and of both these he was nowdeprived, one wing being shattered, and the other in the grip of theenemy's jaws. He struck and bit and worried with his hard bill; butthe dog, half-shutting his eyes, took the mauling grimly and draggedhis troublesome captive into the water. 

Here, however, he made a mistake. The great bird was a mighty swimmer, and indomitable; and in half a minute his captor was glad to drag himto land again. Then the hunter arrived on the scene; and the dog, gladly relinquishing so unmanageable a prisoner, sat back on hishaunches, with tongue hanging out, to see what his master would do. The dauntless gander bit furiously, and pounded with his one undamagedwing, and earned his adversary's unstinted commendation: but in aminute or two he found himself helpless, swathed like a cocoon in astout, woollen hunting-coat, and his head ignominiously bagged in oneof the sleeves. In this fashion, his heart bursting with fear andwrath, his broken wing one hot throb of anguish, he was carried underthe hunter's arm for what seemed to him a whole night long. Then hewas set free in a little open pen in a garden, beside agreen-shuttered, wide-eaved, white cottage on the uplands. 

The hunter was so kind to his captive, so assiduous in his care, thatthe wild bird presently grew almost indifferent to his approach, andceased to strike at him savagely with his free wing whenever heentered the pen. The other wing, well cleaned and salved, and bound incunning splints, healed rapidly, and caused no pain save when itsowner strove to flap it, --which he did, with long, desolate, appealingcries, whenever a wild-goose flock went honking musically across theevening or morning sky. 

At length, while the injured wing was still in bandage, the huntertook the bird in spite of all protest, tucked the long neck andtroublesome head under his arm, and attached to one leg a littleleather wrapping and a long, strong cord. Then he opened the pen. Thebig gander strode forth with more haste than quite comported with hisdignity. Straight down the slope he started, seeking the wide marsheswhere he expected to find his flock. Then suddenly he came to the endof his cord with a jerk, and fell forward on his breast and bill witha _honk_ of surprise. He was not free, after all, and two or threeviolent struggles convinced him of the fact. As soon as he realizedhimself still a prisoner, his keen, dark eyes turned a look ofreproach upon his jailer, who was holding the other end of the cordand watching him intently. Then he slackened on the tether, and fellto cropping the short grass of the lawn as if being tied by the legwas an ancient experience. It was a great thing, after all, to be outof the pen. 

"He'll do!" said the man to himself with satisfaction, as he fixed thetether to a young apple-tree. When he had gone into the house the birdstopped feeding, turned first one eye and then the other toward theempty sky, stretched his long, black neck and clean white throat, andsent out across the green spaces his appealing and lonelycry, --_honka, honka, honka, ho-onka_!

Very early the following morning, before the stars had begun to paleat the approach of dawn, the captive was once more wrapped upsecurely and taken on a blind journey. When he was uncovered, andanxiously stretched out his head, he found himself again on the edgeof that shallow pool in the marshes where fate had overtaken him. Thebrown retriever was sitting on his haunches close by, regarding himamicably. The man was fastening one end of the tether to a stake atthe water's edge, and from the east a grayness touched with chill pinkwas spreading over the sky. 

A moment later the surprised bird found himself standing among the wetsedge, close to the water. With a nervous glance at the dog, whom heshrank from with more dread than from the man, he launched himselfinto the water and swam straight out from shore. 

This time, surely, he was free. Next to the spacious solitudes of theair, this was his proper element. How exquisite to the thin webs ofhis feet felt the coolness of it, as he pushed against it with strongstrokes! How it curled away luxuriously from his gray, firm-featheredbreast! This was to live again, after the pain and humiliation of hiscaptivity! And yonder, far down the mere, and past those tall reedsstanding shadowy in the pallor, surely he would find the flock whichhad moved on without him! Then, all at once, it was as if somethinghad clutched him by the leg. With a startled cry and a splash hetipped forward, and his glad journey came to an end. He had reachedthe limit of his tether. 

Remembering his experience of the day before, he made no vainstruggle, but floated quietly for a minute or two, stricken with hisdisappointment. The man and the big brown dog had disappeared; butpresently his keen and sagacious eyes detected them both, lyingmotionless in a thicket of reeds. Having stared at them indignantlyfor a few moments, swimming slowly to and fro and transfixing themwith first one eye and then the other, he ducked his head and beganbiting savagely at the leathern wrapping on his leg. But theuselessness of this soon appearing to him, he gave it up, and soughtto ease his despair by diving and guttering with his bill among theroots of the oozy bottom. In this absorbing occupation he so farforgot his miseries that all at once he tried to lift himself on thewater, flap his wings, and sound his trumpet-call. One wing did give afrantic flap. The other surged fiercely against its bandages, sendinga throb of anguish through his frame, and the trumpet-call broke in asingle hoarse _honk_. After this he floated for a long time indejection, while the level rays of sunrise stole mysteriously acrossthe pale marshes. 

The hunter, tired of his long stillness in the sedge, was just aboutto stand up and stretch himself, when from far down the sky tosouthward came a hollow and confused clamour. The hunter heard it, andthe brown retriever heard it; and both crouched low behind theirshelter, as motionless as stones. The wild captive, floating at theend of his tether out on the pink-and-gold mirror of the pond, alsoheard it, and stretched his fine black head aloft, rigid withexpectancy. Nearer and nearer came the thrilling voices. Blacker andlarger against the sky grew the journeying V as it approached themarshes. The heart of the captive swelled with hope and longing. Nothis own flock, indeed, but his own kin, these free and tirelessvoyagers coming confidently to safe feeding-grounds! Forgettingeverything but his great loneliness, he raised himself as high as hecould upon the water, one wing partly outspread, and called, andcalled again, summoning the travellers to alight. 

Hearing this kindly summons, the flock dipped at once and cameslanting steeply toward earth. In their haste they broke rank, descending more abruptly than usual, their customary caution quitelaid aside when they saw one of their own kind waiting to receivethem. The joyous captive ducked and bowed his head in greeting. Inanother moment the whole flock would have settled clamorously abouthim, and he would have been happy, --but before that moment came therecame instead two bursts of flame and thunder from the covert of sedge. And instead of the descending flock, there fell beside the captive twoheavy, fluttering gray-and-black shapes, which beat the water feeblyand then lay still. 

As the betrayed and panic-stricken flock flapped away in confusion thecaptive tugged frantically at his tether, crying shrilly andstruggling to follow them. In his desperation he paid no heed whateveras the big, brown dog dashed out and triumphantly dragged the bodiesof the two victims to land. He was horrified by the terrible noise, and the killing; but his attention was chiefly engrossed by the factthat the flock had been frightened away, leaving him to hisloneliness. For several minutes he continued his cries, till the flockwas far out of sight. Then silence fell again on the marshes. 

A quarter of an hour later much the same thing happened again. Anotherflock, passing overhead, came clamouring fearlessly down in responseto the captive's calls, met the doom that blazed from the reed-covert, and left two of its members gasping on the surface of the pond. Thistime, however, the despair of the captive was less loud and lessprolonged. As leader, for two seasons, of his own flock, he hadnecessarily learned certain simple processes of deduction. Thesepitiful tragedies through which he had just passed were quitesufficient to convince him that this particular shallow pond, thoughso good a feeding-ground, was a fatal place for the voyaging geese tovisit. Further, in a dim way, his shocked and shuddering brain beganto realize that his own calling was the cause of the horrors. If hecalled, the flocks came fearlessly, content with his pledge that allwas well. Upon their coming, the fire, and dreadful thunders, andinexplicable death burst forth from the sedge; and then the greatbrown dog appeared to drag his prey to shore. The whole mischief, asit seemed to him, was the work of the dog; and it did not occur to himthat the man, who seemed fairly well-disposed and all-powerful, hadanything whatever to do with it. This idea gradually grew clear inthe captive's brain, as he swam, very slowly, to and fro upon thebrightening water. In a vague way his heart determined that he wouldlure no more of his kindred to their doom. And when, a little later, athird flock came trumpeting up the sky, the captive eyed theirapproach in despairing silence. 

As the beating wings drew near, stooping toward the silvery pools andpale green levels, the captive swam back and forward in wildexcitement, aching to give the call and ease his loneliness. Theflock, perceiving him, drew nearer; but in his excited movements andhis silence its leader discerned a peril. There was something sinisterand incomprehensible in this splendidly marked bird who refused tosummon them to his feeding-ground, and kept swimming wildly back andforth. Keeping well beyond gunshot, they circled around this smilingbut too mysterious water, to alight with great clamour and splashingin a little, sheltered mere some two or three hundred yards fartherinland. The hunter, crouching moveless and expectant in his ambush, muttered an exclamation of surprise, and wondered if it could bepossible that his incomparable decoy had reached an understanding ofthe treacherous game and refused to play it. 

"There's no smarter bird that flies than a wild gander!" he mused, watching the great bird curiously and with a certain sympathy. "We'llsee what happens when another flock comes by!"

Meanwhile the new arrivals, over in the unseen pond behind the rushes, were feeding and bathing with a happy clamour. They little dreamedthat a pot-hunting rustic from the village on the hills, flat on hisbelly in the oozy grass, was noiselessly worming his way toward them. Armed with an old, single-barrel duck gun, the height of his ambitionwas to get a safe and easy shot at the feeding birds. No delicatewing-shooting for him. What he wanted was the most he could get forhis powder and lead. Big and clumsy though he was, his progressthrough the grass was as stealthy as that of a mink. 

[Illustration: "HE LIFTED UP HIS VOICE IN A SUDDEN ABRUPT 'HONK, HONK!'"]

It chanced that the path of the pot-hunter took him close past thefurther shore of the pond where the captive was straining at histether and eating his heart out in determined silence. The homesick, desolate bird would swim around and around for a few minutes, as acaged panther circles his bounds, then stop and listen longingly tothe happy noise from over beyond the reed-fringes. At last, goadedinto a moment of forgetfulness by the urge of his desire, he lifted uphis voice in a sudden abrupt _honk, honk_!

The pot-hunter stopped his crawling and peered delightedly through thesedgy stems. Here was a prize ready to his hand. The flock was stillfar off, and might easily take alarm before he could get within range. But this stray bird, a beauty too, was so near that he could not miss. Stealthily he brought his heavy weapon to the shoulder; and slowly, carefully, he took aim. 

The report of the big duck gun was like thunder, and roused themarshes. In a fury the hunter sprang from his ambush across the mere, and ran down to the water's edge, threatening vengeance on the loutwho would fire on a decoy. The brown retriever, wild with excitement, dashed barking up and down the shore, not knowing just what he oughtto do. Sandpipers went whistling in every direction. And the foragingflock, startled from their security, screamed wildly and flapped offunhurt to remoter regions of the marsh. But the lonely captive, thewise old gander who had piloted his clan through so many hundredleagues of trackless air, lay limp and mangled on the stained water, torn by the heavy charge of the duck gun. The whimsical fate thatseems to play with the destinies of the wild kindreds had chosen tolet him save one flock from the slaughterer, and expiate his blamelesstreason. 

The Laugh in the Dark

Though the darkness under the great trees was impenetrable, it gave animpression of transparency which invited the eyes to strain and peer, as if vision might be expected to reward an adequate effort. It wasthat liquid darkness which means not mist, but the utter absence oflight on a clear air; and it was filled with elusive yet almostilluminating forest scents. To the keen nostrils of the man who wassilently mounting the trail, it seemed as if these wild aromas almostenabled him to veritably see the trees which towered all about him, soclearly did they differentiate to him their several species as hepassed, --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 dartinggleam which might come from a wet leaf, or from the gaze of a watchingwood-mouse, or merely from the stirrings of the blood within his ownbrain. 

The man was on his way up from the lake, by an old trail long agofamiliar to his feet, to make camp for the night in a deserted lumbershanty about a quarter of a mile back from the water. Over the dimlyglimmering, windless water, under a cloudless sky, he had groped hisway in his canoe to the old landing. Turning the canoe over hissupplies for protection in case of rain, he had set out for the lumbershanty with only a blanket and a couple of hardtack. His rifle he hadindifferently left in the canoe, but in his right hand he carried apaddle, to steady his steps and help him feel his way through thedark. 

Once the grayness of the open shore had faded behind him, the manfound himself walking stealthily, like the stealthiest of the wildkindred themselves. The trail being well-worn, though long deserted byman, his feet kept it without difficulty; but he held the paddle outbefore him lest he should stumble over a windfall. Presently he tooknote of the fact that the trail was marvellously smooth for one thathad been so long deserted, and with a little creeping of the skin, which was not in any sense fear but rather an acknowledgment ofmystery, he realized that it was other than human feet which werekeeping the lonely path in use. What kind were they, he wondered, --thegreat, noiseless pads of bear, or lynx, or panther, the hard hoofs ofmoose or deer, or the airy, swift feet of hare and mink and marten? Ashe wondered, moving more and more furtively as the spirit of theunseen wild pervaded and possessed him, his nostrils discerned acrossthe savours of the trees and the mould a sudden musky scent; and heknew that one of the frequenters of the trail was a red fox, who hadjust gone by. 

Impressed by a sense that he was not so utterly alone as he hadimagined himself to be, the man now obeyed one of the wary impulses ofthe wood-folk. He stepped aside from the trail, feeling his way, andleaned his back against a huge birch-tree. The ragged, ancient, sweet-smelling bark felt familiar and friendly to his touch. Here hestood, sniffing the still air with discrimination, testing withinitiated ears every faint forest breathing. The infinitesimal andincessant stir of growth and change and readjustment was vaguelyaudible to his fine sense, making a rhythmic background against whichthe slightest unusual sound, even to the squeak of a wood-mouse, orthe falling of a worm-bitten leaf, would have fairly startled thedark. Once he heard a twig snap, far in the depths on the other sideof the trail, and he knew that some one of the wild kindred had movedcarelessly. But on the trail nothing went by. 

Had there been ever so small a glimmer of light, to enable his eyes toplay their part in this forest game, the man could have watched for anhour as moveless as the tree on which he leaned. But in that strange, absolute dark the strain soon grew almost intolerable. The gamecertainly ceased to be amusing after an uneventful fifteen minutes hadpassed. He was just about to give up, to step forth into the trail andresume his journey to the cabin, when he caught a strange sound, whichmade him stiffen back at once into watchful rigidity. 

The sound was a great breath. In its suddenness and its vagueness thelistener was unable to distinguish whether it came from a dozen yardsdown 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 hearhis heart beating. 

For several minutes nothing more was heard. Then through the highleafage overhead splashed a few big drops of rain, with the hushingsound of a shower not heavy enough to break through. The next moment aflash of white lightning lit up the forest aisles, --and in that momentthe man saw a huge black bear standing in the trail, not ten feetdistant. In that moment the eyes of the man and the eyes of the beastmet each other fairly. Then the blackness fell once more; and a thinpeal of midsummer thunder rolled over the unseen tree-tops. 

When all was silence again the man felt uncomfortable, and regrettedthe rifle which he had left under the canoe. That the bear wouldattack him, unprovoked, he knew to be improbable; but he also knewenough about bears to know that it is never well to argue tooconfidently 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, inan uncertainty not much unlike his own. He decided that it was for himto take the initiative. Clapping his hands smartly, he threw back hishead, and burst into a peal of laughter. 

The loud, incongruous sound shocked the silences. It almost horrifiedthe man himself, so unexpected, so unnatural, so inexplicable did itseem even to his own ears. When it ceased, he knew that it hadaccomplished its purpose. He heard rustling and snapping noisesswiftly diminishing in the distance, and knew that the bear wasretreating in a panic. At this he laughed again, not loudly, but tohimself, and stepped out into the trail. 

But the man was not yet done with the effects of his loud challenge tothe solemnities of the dark. Hardly had he taken three steps along thetrail when a little in front of him--perhaps, as he guessed, some fiveand twenty paces--there arose a slashing and crashing noise ofstruggle. Branches cracked and rustled and snapped, heavy feet poundedthe earth, and a confusion of gasping grunts suggested a blindmenagerie in mortal combat. The man, fairly startled, groped his wayback to the tree, and waited behind it, knife in hand. In fact he hada strong inclination to climb into the branches; but this impulse heangrily restrained. 

For a whole minute the daunting uproar continued, neither approachingnor receding, and at length the man's curiosity, ever insatiable wherethe mysteries of the wild were concerned, got the better of hisprudence. He lit a match and peered from behind his shelter. Thelittle, sudden blaze spread a sharp light, but whatever was making theuproar went on as before, quite heedless of the singular phenomenon. When the match died out it left the man no wiser. Then with hurriedhands he stripped some birch bark, and rolled himself a serviceabletorch. When this blazed up with its smoky flame, he held it well offto one side and a little behind him, and made his way warily to thescene of the disturbance. 

A turn in the trail, and the mystery stood revealed. With a cry ofindignation the man darted forward, no longer cautious. What he sawbefore him was a great, gaunt moose-cow reared upon her hind legs, caught under the jaws by a villainous moose-snare. With her head highamong the branches, she lurched and kicked in a brave struggle forlife, while every effort but drew tighter the murdering noose. A fewfeet away stood her lanky calf, trembling, and staring stupidly at thelight. 

The man lost not a moment. Dropping his bundle and paddle, butcarefully guarding the torch, he climbed the tree above the victim, lay out on a branch, reached down, and dexterously severed the noosewith his knife. What matter if, with his haste and her struggles, heat the same time cut a slash in the beast's stout hide? Theblood-letting was a sorely needed medicine to her choked veins. Shefell in a heap, and for a minute or two lay gasping loudly. Then shestaggered to her feet, and stood swaying, while she nosed the calfwith her long muzzle to assure herself that it had not been hurt inthe cataclysm which had overtaken her. 

The man watched her until his torch was almost gone, then climbed downthe tree (which was not a birch) to get himself another. Noticing himnow for the first time, the moose pulled herself together with amighty effort, and thrust the calf behind her. Could this be the enemywho had so nearly vanquished her? For a moment the man thought she wasgoing to charge upon him, and he held himself in readiness to go upthe tree again. But the poor shaken beast thought better of it. Pain, rage, fear, amazement, doubt, --all these the man fancied he could seein her staring, bloodshot eyes. He stood quite still, pitying her, andcursing the brutal poachers who had set the snare. Then, just beforethe torch gave its last flicker, the great animal turned and led hercalf 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 andstamping as he went, as a warning to all wild creatures that a manwas in their woods, and that they must give room to a master. Hecarried with him now, besides his blanket and his paddle, a generousroll of birch bark, with which to illuminate the lumber shanty beforegoing in. It had occurred to him that possibly some lynx or wildcatmight have taken up its dwelling therein; and if so, he was no longerin the mood to meet it at close quarters in the dark. 

The Kings of the Intervale

Far out over the pale, smooth surface of the river a crow flew, flapping heavily. From time to time he uttered an angry and frightenedsquawk. Over, under, and all around him, now darting at his eyes, nowdropping upon him like a little, arrow-pointed thunderbolt, nowslapping 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. Hehad forgotten his own powers of attack. He seemed to fear for hiseyes, --and among all the wild kindred there is no fear more horrifyingthan that. When he ducked, and swerved, and tried to dodge, he did itawkwardly, as if his presence of mind was all gone. 

His assailant, less than a third of his weight, was a king-bird, whosenest, in the crotch of an elm on the intervale meadow, the crow hadbeen so ill-advised as to investigate. The crow was comparativelyinexperienced, or he would have known enough to keep away from thenests of the king-birds. But there it was, in plain sight; and heloved eggs or tender nestlings. Before he had had time to find outwhich it was that the nest contained, both the parent birds had fallenupon him with a swift ferocity which speedily took away his appetitefor food or fight. Their beaks were sturdy and burning sharp. Theirshort, powerful wings gave them a flight so swift and darting that, for all his superior strength, he felt himself at their mercy. His onethought was to save his eyes and escape. 

Both birds chased him till he was well out over the river. Then thefemale returned to her nest, leaving her mate to complete theintruder's chastisement. Had the crow been an old and cunning bird, hewould have sought the extreme heights of air, where the king-bird isdisinclined to follow; but lacking this crow-wisdom, he kept on at thelevel 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 struckhis eyes. But for this, it is probable, he had only the indulgence ofthe 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 densesthemlock, where he rolled his eyes and preened his plumage silently foran hour before daring again the vicissitudes of the wilderness world. 

The nest to which the triumphant king-bird hurried back wasaudaciously perched in plain view of every prowler. The crotch of theelm-tree which it occupied was about twelve feet from the ground. Theintervale, or water-meadow, by the side of the river, held but a fewwidely scattered trees, --trees of open growth, such as elm, balsam-poplar, and water-ash. It was free from all underbrush. Therewas nothing, therefore, to shield the nest from even the most carelesseyes; and with an insolence of fearlessness matched only by that ofthe osprey, it was made the more conspicuous by having great tufts ofwhite 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 inthe tree from the time of freshet. But if the two king-birds relied onthis resemblance as a concealment, they presumed as so clever a birdis not likely to do upon the blindness or stupidity of the wildkindred. The wild kindred are seldom blind, and very seldom stupid, because those members of the fellowship who are possessed of suchdefects sooner or later go to feed their fellows. Hence it was thatmost of the folk of the riverside, furred or feathered, knew wellenough what the big whitish-gray bunch of rubbish in the elm-crotchwas. 

There were five eggs at the bottom of the smooth, warm cup, whichformed the heart of the nest. They were a little smaller than arobin's egg, and of a soft creamy white, blotched irregularly withdull purplish maroon of varying tone. So jealous of these mottledmarvels were the king-birds that not even the most harmless ofvisitors were allowed to look upon them. If so much as a thrush, or apewee, or a mild-mannered white throat, presumed to alight on the veryremotest branch of that elm, it was brusquely driven away. 

One morning early, the male king-bird was sitting very erect, as washis custom, on the naked tip of a long, slender, dead branch some tenfeet above the nest The morning chill was yet in the air, so it was alittle early for the flies which formed his food to be stirring. Buthe was hungry, and on the alert for the first of them to appear. Onlythe tense feathers of his crest, raised to show the flame-orange spotwhich was his kingly crown, betrayed his eagerness; for he was aself-contained bird. The sun was just beginning to show the redtopmost edge of his rim through the jagged line of firs across theriver, and the long, level streaks of aerial rose, creeping under thebranches, filled all the shadowed places of the wilderness withmysterious light. The eastward sides of the tree-trunks and nakedbranches glimmered pink; and dew-wet leaves, here and there, shonelike pale jewels of pink, amber, and violet. The mirror-like surfaceof the river was blurred with twisting spirals of mist, silvery andopalescent, through which the dim-seen figure of a duck in straightflight shot like a missile. 

As the king-bird sat erect on his branch, watching with bright eyesthe miracle of the morning, an over-adventurous dragon-fly arose froma weed-top below him and flew into the rosy light. The bird dartedstraight and true, zigzagged sharply as the victim tried to dodge, caught the lean prize in his beak, and carried it very gallantly tohis mate upon the nest. Then he fluttered back to his post on thebranch. 

As the sun got up over the hill, and the warmth dried their wings, theintervale began to hum softly with dancing flies and hurryingbeetles, and the king-bird was continually on the move, twitteringwith soft monotony (his sole attempt at song), between each successfulsally. At length the female rose from her eggs, stood on the edge ofthe nest, and gave an impatient call. Her mate flew down to take herplace, and the two perched side by side, making a low chirping soundin their throats. 

Just at this moment a small black snake, warmed into activity andhunger by the first rays of the sun, glided to the tree and began toclimb. Bird's-nesting was the black snake's favourite employment; butit had not stopped to consider that the nest in this particular treewas a king-bird's. It climbed swiftly and noiselessly, and thepreoccupied birds did not get glimpse of it till it was within twofeet of the nest. 

There was no time for consultation in the face of this peril. Likelightning the two darted down upon the enemy, buffeting its head withswift 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 bewilderingassailants. But swift as were its movements, those of the king-birdswere swifter, and its fangs never hit upon so much as one harassingfeather. Suddenly, in its fury, it struck out too far, weakening for amoment its hold upon the crevices of the bark; and in that moment, both birds striking it together, its squirming folds were hurled tothe ground. Thoroughly cowed, it slipped under cover and made off, only a wavering line among the grasses betraying its path. Theking-birds, with excited and defiant twittering, followed for a littleits hidden retreat, and then returned elated to the nest. 

Among the kindred of the wild as well as among those of roof andhearth, events are apt to go in company. For day after day things willrevolve in set fashion. Then chance takes sudden interest in aparticular spot or a certain individual, and there, for a time, isestablished a centre for events. This day of the black snake was aneventful day for the little kings of the intervale. They had hardlymore than recovered from their excitement over the snake when a redsquirrel, his banner of a tail flaunting superbly behind him, camebounding over the grass to their tree. His intentions may have beenstrictly honourable. But a red squirrel's intentions are liable tochange in the face of opportunity. As he ran up the tree, and pausedcuriously at the nested crotch, a feathered thunderbolt struck him onthe side of the head. It knocked him clean out of the tree; and heturned a complete somersault in the air before he could get hisbalance and spread his legs so as to alight properly. When he reachedthe ground he fled in dismay, and was soon heard chatteringvindictively among the branches of a far-off poplar. 

It was a little before noon when came the great event of this eventfulday. The male king-bird was on the edge of the nest, feeding a fatmoth to his mate. As he straightened up and glanced around he saw alarge marsh-hawk winnowing low across the river. As it reached theshore it swooped into the reed-fringe, but rose again without acapture. For a few minutes it quartered the open grass near the bank, hunting for mice. The two king-birds watched it with anxious, angryeyes. Suddenly it sailed straight toward the tree; and the king-birdsshot into the air, ready for battle. 

It was not the precious nest, however, nor the owners of the nest, onwhich the fierce eyes of the marsh-hawk had fallen. When he was withintwenty paces of the nest he dropped into the grass. There was a momentof thrashing wings, then he rose again, and beat back toward the riverwith a young muskrat in his talons. 

Considering the size and savagery of the hawk, any small bird but thelittle king would have been well content with his riddance. Not so theking-birds. With shrill chirpings they sped to the rescue. Their wingscuffed the marauder's head in a fashion that confused him. Theirwedge-like beaks menaced his eyes and brought blood through the shortfeathers on the top of his head. He could make no defence orcounter-attack against opponents so small and so agile of wing. Atlength a sharp jab split the lower lid of one eye, --and this addedfear to his embarrassment. He dropped the muskrat, which fell into theriver and swam off little the worse for the experience. 

Relieved of his burden, the hawk made all speed to escape. At thefarther shore the female king-bird desisted from the pursuit, andhurried back to her nest. But the avenging wrath of the male was notso easily pacified. Finding the tormentor still at his head, the hawkremembered the security of the upper air, and began to mount in sharpspirals. The king-bird pursued till, seen from the earth, he seemed nobigger than a bee dancing over the hawk's back. Then he disappearedaltogether; and the hawk, but for his nervous, harassed flight, mighthave seemed to be alone in that clear altitude. At last his wingswere seen to steady themselves into the tranquil, majestic soaring ofhis kind. Presently, far below the soaring wings, appeared a tiny darkshape, zigzagging swiftly downward; and soon the king-bird, hasteningacross the river, alighted once more on his branch and began to preenhimself composedly. 

The Kill

It was early winter and early morning, and the first of the light laysharp on the new snow. The sun was just lifting over a far and lowhorizon. Long, level rays, streaking the snow with straight, attenuated stains of pinkish gold and sharp lines of smoky-blueshadow, pierced the edges of the tall fir forests of Touladi. Thoughevery tint--of the blackish-green firs, of the black-brown trunks, ofthe violet and yellow and gray birch saplings, of the many-hued snowspaces--was unspeakably tender and delicate, the atmosphere was of atransparency and brilliancy almost vitreous. One felt as if the wholescene might shatter and vanish at the shock of any sudden sound. Thena sound came--but it was not sudden; and the mystic landscape did notdissolve. It was a sound of heavy, measured, muffled footfallscrushing the crisp snow. There was a bending and swishing of barebranches, a rattling as of twigs upon horn or ivory--and a huge bullmoose strode into view. With his splendid antlers laid far back helifted his great, dilating nostrils, stared down the long, whitelanelike 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, glisteninghair was almost black over the upper portions of his body, changingabruptly to a tawny ochre on the belly, and the inner and lower partsof the legs. The maned and hump-like ridge of his mightyfore-shoulders stood a good six feet three from the ground; and thespread of his polished, palmated antlers, so massive as to look aburden for even so colossal a head and neck as his, was well beyondfive feet. The ridge of his back sloped down to hind-quartersdisproportionately small, finished off with a little, meagrely tuftedtail that on any beast less regal in mien and stature would havelooked ridiculous. The majesty of a bull moose, however, is too secureto be marred by the incongruous pettiness of his tail. From the lowerpart 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, hisblack form stood out sharply against the background of the firs. Fardown the silent, glittering slope, a good mile distant, a tall, grayfigure on snow-shoes appeared for a second in the open, caught sightof the pasturing moose, and vanished hurriedly into the birchthickets. 

[Illustration: "STARED DOWN THE LONG, WHITE LANELIKE OPEN. "]

Having cropped a few mouthfuls here and there from branches withineasy reach, the great bull set himself to make a more systematicbreakfast. Selecting a tall young birch with a bushy top, he leanedhis chest against it until he bore it to the ground. Then, straddlingit and working his way along toward the top, he held it firmly whilehe browsed at ease upon the juiciest and most savoury of the tips. 

For some minutes he had been thus pleasantly occupied, when suddenlyan 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 anyreport of danger. He looked about, saw nothing unusual, and fell againto feeding. 

Among the wild kindreds, as far as man can judge, there areoccasional intuitions that seem to work beyond the scope of thesenses. It is not ordinarily so, else would all hunting, on the partof man or of the hunting beasts, be idle. But once in a while, as ifby some unwilling telepathic communication from hunter to hunted, orelse by an obscure and only half-delivered message from the powersthat preside over the wild kindreds, a warning of peril is conveyed toa pasturing creature while yet the peril is far off and unrevealed. The great moose found his appetite all gone. He backed off the saplingand let its top spring up again toward the empty blue. He looked backnervously over his trail, sniffed the air, waved his ears inquiringly. The more he found nothing to warrant his uneasiness, the more hisuneasiness grew. It was as if Death, following far off butrelentlessly, had sent a grim menace along the windings of the trail. Something like a panic came into the dilating eyes of the big bull. Heturned toward the fir forest, at a walk which presently broke into ashambling, rapid trot; and presently he disappeared among the sombreand shadowy colonnades. 

In the strange gloom of the forest, a transparent gloom confused bythin glints and threads of penetrating, pinkish light, the formlessalarm of the moose began to subside. In a few minutes his wild rundiminished into a rapid walk. He would not go back to his feeding, however. He had been seized with a shuddering distrust of the youngbirch thickets on the slope. Over beyond the next ridge there weresome bushy swales which he remembered as good pasturage--where, indeed, he had a mind to "yard up" for the winter, when the snowshould get too deep for wide ranging. Once more quickening his pace, he circled back almost to the fringe of the forest, making toward alittle stretch of frozen marsh, which was one of his frequentedrunways between ridge and ridge. That nameless fear in the birchthickets still haunted him, however, and he moved with marvellousquietness. Not once did his vast antlers and his rushing bulk disturbthe dry undergrowth, or bring the brittle, dead branches crashing downbehind him. The only sound that followed him was that of the shallowsnow yielding crisply under his feet, and a light clicking, as thetips of his deep-cleft, loose-spreading hoofs came together at therecovery of each stride. This clicking, one of the most telltale ofwilderness sounds to the woodsman's ear, grew more sharp and insistentas the moose increased his speed, till presently it became a sort ofcastanet accompaniment to his long, hurried stride. A porcupine, busygirdling a hemlock, ruffled and rattled his dry quills at the sound, and peered down with little, disapproving eyes as the big, black formfled by below him. 

The snowy surface of the marsh was stained with ghosts ofcolour--aerial, elusive tinges of saffron and violet--as the moosecame out upon it. As he swung down its lonely length, his giganticshadow, lopsided and blue, danced along threateningly, its head lostin 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 ayoung willow thicket; but before he could gather one mouthful, thatnameless 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 hadbeen struck before, by falling branches, or by stones bounding down abluff, but this missile seemed very different and very small. Small asit was, however, the blow staggered him for an instant; then heshuddered, and a surge of heat passed through his nerves. But a secondlater he recovered himself fully, and bounded into the woods, just intime to escape a second bullet, as a second shot rang out in vainbehind him. 

Straight up the wooded steep he ran, startled, but less actuallyterrified now, in fleeing from a definite peril, then when tremblingbefore a formless menace. This peril was one that he felt he couldcope with. He knew his own strength and speed. Now that he had thestart of them, these slow-moving, relentless man-creatures, with thesticks that spoke fire, could never overtake him. With confidentvigour he breasted the incline, his mighty muscles working as neverbefore under the black hair of shoulder and flank. But he did not knowthat every splendid stride was measured by a scarlet sign on the snow. 

For a few minutes the moose rushed on through the morning woods, upand up between the tall trunks of the firs, half-forgetting his alarmin the triumph of his speed. Then it began to seem to him that theslope of the hill had grown steeper than of old; gradually, andhalf-unconsciously, he changed his course, and ran parallel with theridge; and with this change the scarlet signs upon his trail grewscanter. But in a few minutes more he began to feel that the snow wasdeeper than it had been--deeper, and more clinging. It weighted hishoofs and fetlocks as it had never done before, and his paceslackened. He began to be troubled by the thick foam welling into hisnostrils and obstructing his breath. As he blew it forth impatientlyit made red flecks and spatters on the snow. He had no pain, norealization that anything had gone wrong with him. But his eyes tookon suddenly a harassed, anxious look, and he felt himself growingtired. He must rest a little before continuing his flight. 

The idea of resting while his enemies were still so near and hot uponthe trail, would, at any other time, have been rejected as absurd; butnow the brain of the black moose was growing a little confused. Oftenbefore 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 along distance, and his slow enemies must have been left far behind. Hecould safely rest. His old craft, however, did not quite fail him atthis point. Before yielding to the impulse which urged him to liedown, he doubled and ran back, parallel to his trail and some fiftypaces from it, for a distance of perhaps two hundred yards. Staggeringat every other stride, and fretfully blowing the stained froth fromhis nostrils, he crouched behind a thicket of hemlock seedlings, andwatched the track by which his foes must come. 

For a little while he kept his watch alertly, antlers laid back, earsattentive, eyes wide and bright. Then, so slowly that he did not seemaware of it himself, his massive head drooped forward till his muzzlelay outstretched upon the snow. So far back from the gate of thesenses drew the life within him, that when three gray-coated figureson 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 unsteadytrunks, 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 hewas trailing; and it was his bullet that was speaking through thosescarlet signs on the snow. He kept far ahead of his comrades, elatedand fiercely glad, every nerve strung with expectation. Behind eachbush, each thicket, he looked for the opportunity to make the final, effective shot that should end the great chase. Not unlearned inwoodcraft, he knew what it meant when he reached the loop in thetrail. He understood that the moose had gone back to watch for hispursuers. What he did not know or suspect was, that the watcher's eyeshad grown too dim to see. He took it for granted that the wise beasthad marked their passing, and fled off in another direction as soon asthey got by. Instead, however, of redoubling his caution, he plungedahead with a burst of fresh enthusiasm. He was very properly sure hisbullet had done good work, since it had so soon compelled the enduringanimal to rest. 

A puff of wandering air, by chance, drifted down from the running manto the thicket, behind which the black bull lay, sunk in his torpor. The dreaded man-scent--the scent of death to the wilderness folk--wasblown to the bull's nostrils. Filled though they were with that redfroth, their fine sense caught the warning. The eyes might fail intheir duty, the ears flag and betray their trust; but the nostrils, skilled and schooled, were faithful to the last. Their imperativemessage pierced to the fainting brain, and life resumed its duties. Once more the dull eyes awoke to brightness. The great, black formlunged up and crashed forward into the open, towering, formidable, andshaking ominous antlers. 

Taken by surprise, and too close to shoot in time, the rash huntersprang aside to make for a tree. He had heard much of the charge of awounded moose. As he turned, the toe of one snow-shoe caught on abranchy stub, just below the surface of the snow. The snow-shoe turnedside on, and tripped him, and he fell headlong right in the path ofthe charging beast. 

As he fell, he heard a shout from his comrades, hurrying up far behindhim; but the thought that flashed through him was that they could notbe in time. Falling on his face, he expected the next instant to feelthe bull's great rending hoofs descend upon his back and stamp hislife out. 

But the blow never fell. The moose had seen his foe coming, andcharged to meet him, his strength and valour flashing up for aninstant as the final emergency confronted him. But ere he could reachthat prostrate shape in the snow, he forgot what he was doing, andstopped short. With legs a little apart he braced himself, and stoodrigid. His noble head was held high, as if he scorned the enemies whohad dogged him to his last refuge. But in reality he no longer sawthem. The breath came hard through his rattling nostrils, and hiseyes, very wide open, were dark with a fear which he could notunderstand. The life within him strove desperately to maintain itshold upon that free and lordly habitation. The second hunter, now, wasjust lifting his rifle, --but before he could sight and fire, the chasewas ended. That erect, magnificent figure, towering over the fallenman, collapsed all at once. It fell together into a mere heap of hideand antlers. The light in the eyes went out, as a spark that istrodden, and the laboured breathing stopped in mid-breath. The fallenhunter sprang up, rushed forward with a shout, and drew his knifeacross the outstretched throat. 

The Little People of the Sycamore

I. 

The fantastic old sycamore, standing alone on the hill, thrust out itsone gaunt limb across the face of the moon. It was late April, and thebuds not yet swollen to bursting. On the middle of the limb, blacklysilhouetted against the golden disk, crouched a raccoon, who sniffedthe spring air and scanned the moon-washed spaces. From the marshyspots at the foot of the hill, over toward the full-fed, softlyrushing brook, came the high piping of the frogs, a voice of poignant, indeterminate desire. 

Having reconnoitred the night to her satisfaction, the raccoonreturned to a deep hole in the sycamore, and hastily touched with herpointed nose each in turn of her five, blind, furry little ones. Verylittle they were, half-cub, half-kitten in appearance, with their longnoses, long tails, and bear-like feet. They huddled luxuriouslytogether in the warm, dry darkness of the den, and gave littlesqueals in response to their mother's touch. In her absence they hadbeen voiceless, almost moveless, lest voice or motion should betraythem to an enemy. 

Having satisfied herself as to the comfort of the furry children, theold raccoon nimbly descended the tree, ran lightly down the hill, andmade for the nearest pool, where the frogs were piping. She was asturdy figure, yet lithe and graceful, about the bulk of the largestcat, 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, fora moment of wary observation, she stood still, her feet came downflatly, 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 inshape, with the nose very long and pointed; and a bar of black acrossthe middle of her face, gave a startling intensity to her dark, keen, half-malicious eyes. Her fur, very long and thick, was of a cloudybrown; and the black rings on her gray tail stood out sharply in themoonlight. Both in expression and in movement, she showed that strangemixture of gaiety, ferocity, mischievousness, and confident sagacity, which makes the raccoon unlike in character to all the other wildkindreds. 

[Illustration: "CROUCHED FLAT, MOVELESS AS THE LOG ITSELF. "]

Though she was on important affairs intent, and carrying the cares ofthe family, she was not too absorbed to feel the glad impulse of thespring; and for sheer exuberance of life, she would go bounding over astick or a stone as if it were a tree or a boulder. Though life was aserious matter, she was prepared to get out of it all the fun therewas to be had. 

But when she neared the noisy pools she went stealthily enough. Nevertheless, for all her caution, the pipings ceased in that sectionof 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 smallpiper was staring at her with fixed, protruding eyes. On she went, straight out to the end of a half-submerged log, and there crouchedflat, moveless as the log itself. She knew that if she only kept stilllong enough, she would come to be regarded by the pool-dwellers asnothing more than a portion of the log. Meanwhile the high chorus fromthe adjoining pools swelled ever louder and shriller, as the smallmusicians voiced the joy of spring. 

For perhaps ten minutes the space about the waiting raccoon on the logappeared lifeless. Then one little black spot, which had seemed like alump of mud against a dead grass-stalk, moved; then another, andanother, and another--all over the pool. Pale throats began to throbrhythmically; and the pipings once more pulsed forth buoyant andstrong. The frogs had utterly forgotten the intruder, and theirbulging eyes were no longer fixed on the log. Nevertheless, as itchanced, there was not a single piper within reach of the watcher'spaw. 

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, waspatience as untiring as a stone. Only her full, dark eyes, set intheir bar of black, moved watchfully, searching the pallid spaces allabout the log. 

A moment more and her patience was rewarded. A big frog from theneighbour pool, unaware that there had been any intrusion here, cameswimming up, on some errand of private urgency, and made directly forthe log. The next instant, before he had any inkling of the imminenceof doom, the raccoon's forepaw shot out like a flash. It was awide-spread, flexible paw, like a little, black, lean hand, strong anddelicate, the fingers tipped with formidable claws. It caught theswimming frog under the belly, swept him from the water, and threw himfar up on to the shore. With a pounce, the raccoon was upon him; anda 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 coveredwith bits of dried stubble and leaf and earth, which clung to itssticky 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, sousingit up and down till there was not a vestige of soilure to be foundupon 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 whosebreast must supply five hungry little mouths? She ran over to thebrook, and followed down its bank to a spot where it widened out and astrong eddy made up against the hither shore, washing a slope ofgravel. Here, in the shallows, she heard a feeble flopping, and knewthat a sick or disabled fish was making its last fight with fate. Itwas a large chub, which had evidently been hooked by some heedlesstrout-fisher farther up-stream, torn from the hook in anger because itwas not a trout, and thrown back into the water, to survive or die asthe water-fates should will. It turned on one side, revealing itswhite belly and torn gills; then, feeling itself washed ashore by theeddy, it gave one more feeble flop in the effort to regain the safedeeps. At this moment the raccoon, pouncing with a light splash intothe shallows, seized it, and with a nip through the backbone ended itsmisery. 

Having eaten the fish, and daintily cleaned her fur, the raccoonascended the bank, with the purpose of returning to her lair in theold sycamore. She stopped abruptly, however, as a new sound, verydifferent from that of the frog chorus, fell upon her heedful ear. Itwas an excited, yelping whine; and presently she caught sight of along-legged, plumy-tailed dog, rushing wildly hither and thither, noseto 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. Hisqualities and capabilities, however, were, as yet, unknown to her. Though she knew herself more than a match for the average dog, andparticularly for the small black and white mongrel which, up to amonth ago, had been the only dog on the farm, she did not know justhow dangerous the Irish setter might be. Therefore, though the lightof 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 dogcaught sight of her. At the same instant he also caught her scent. Itwas a new scent to him, a most interesting scent; and he rushed uponher, with streaming tail and a peal of joyously savage yelpings. Theraccoon 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 andheadlong after the manner of his breed. Of raccoons and theircapabilities he had had no experience. This small, crouching animal, under the rock in the moonlight, seemed to promise an easy victory. Hesprang upon her, open-mouthed, and snapped confidently at her neck. 

All his big jaws got were a few hairs; for on the instant the raccoonhad 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 deadlyteeth 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 dealabout raccoons. He now refused to come within four or five feet of hissmall antagonist. He leaped up and down, snapping and barking, but hadno more stomach for the actual encounter. His noisy threatenings, however, which did violence to the silver magic of the night, soonbrought no answer; and the black and white mongrel, barking in greatexcitement, rushed up to take a hand in the affray. 

At the sight of the quietly desperate raccoon he stopped short. Buthis hesitation was from discretion, not from cowardice. He knew thatthe raccoon could master him. He took some sort of swift counsel, therefore, with the blustering setter; and then, having apparentlyreceived 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 reconsideredhis promise to take a hand, contented himself with barking braveencouragement from a safe distance. At last the black and whitemongrel, finding that he was getting badly worsted and receiving nosupport, tried to draw away; and the raccoon, fearing to be draggedfrom her post of vantage against the rock, at once let him go. Bothcombatants were breathless and bleeding, and they eyed each other withthe watchfulness born of respect. 

The little mongrel now seemed to hold a second and more elaborateconference with the Irish setter. Possibly he conveyed his opinion ofthe latter's character, for the proud-plumed tail droopeddisconsolately, and the loud-mouthed threatenings ceased. Just whatnew courage the sagacious mongrel might have succeeded in infusinginto the volatile heart of his ally, just what plan of concertedaction might have been evolved, to the ruin of the heroic littlefighter under the rock, will never be known; for at this moment asecond and larger raccoon came running swiftly and silently up thebank. 

It was the mother 'coon's mate, who had heard the noise of combatwhere he was foraging by himself, far down the brook. At sight of thismost timely reinforcement, the beleaguered raccoon made a sortie. Recognizing the weak point in the assailing forces, she dartedstraight upon the hesitating setter, and snapped at his leg. 

This was quite too much for his jarred nerves, and with a howl, as ifhe already felt those white teeth crunching to the bone, the setterturned and fled. The black and white mongrel, highly disgusted, butrealizing the hopelessness of the situation, turned and fled after himin silence. Then the triumphant raccoons touched noses in briefcongratulation, and presently moved off to their hunting as if nothinghad happened. The wild kindred, as a rule, maintain a poise which themost extravagant adventures this side of death seldom deeply disturb. 

II. 

Up to this time, through the hungry weeks of late winter and the firstthaws, the raccoons in the old sycamore had resisted the temptation ofthe farmer's hen-roosts. They knew that the wilderness hunting, thoughthe most difficult, was safe, while any serious depredations at thefarm would be sure to bring retaliation from that most crafty anddangerous creature, man. Now, however, after the fight with the dogs, a mixture of audacity with the desire for revenge got the better ofthem; and that same night, very late, when the moon was casting long, sharp shadows from the very rim of the horizon, they hurried throughthe belt of forest, which separated their sycamore from the clearedfields, and stole into the rear of the barn-yard. 

The farm was an outpost, so to speak, of the settlements, on thedebatable ground between the forces of the forest and the forces ofcivilization, and therefore much exposed to attack. As the raccoonscrept along behind the wood-shed they smelt traces of a sickly pungentodour, and knew that other marauders had been on the ground not verylong before. This made them bolder in their enterprise, for they knewthat such depredations as they might commit would be laid to theaccount of the skunks, and therefore not likely to draw down vengeanceupon 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 couldhold, and went away highly elated. For three successive nights theyrepeated their raid upon the fowl-house, each night smelling thepungent, choking scent more strongly, but never catching a glimpse ofthe rival marauder. On the fourth night, as they crossed the hillockystump-lot behind the barns, the scent became overpowering, and theyfound the body of the skunk, where fate had overtaken him, lyingbeside the path. They stopped, considered, and turned back to theirwildwood foraging; and through all that spring they went no more tothe farmyard, lest they should call down a similar doom uponthemselves. 

As spring ripened and turned to summer over the land, food grewabundant in the neighbourhood of the sycamore, and there was notemptation to trespass on man's preserves. There were grouse nests torifle, there were squirrels, hare, wood-mice, chipmunks, to exerciseall the craft and skill of the raccoons. Also there were theoccasional unwary trout, chub, or suckers, to be scooped up upon theborders of the brook. And once, more in hate than in hunger, the oldmother 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 theweasel tribe, whose blood-lust menaces all the lesser wood-folk, andwhose teeth delight to kill, after hunger is sated, for the mererelish of a taste of quivering brain or a spurt of warm blood. Theraccoon carried more scars from the victory over the weasels than shehad to remind her of the scuffle with the dogs. But she had the nervethat takes punishment without complaint, and the scars troubled herlittle. 

When the five young raccoons came down from the sycamore and began todepend upon their own foraging, it soon became necessary to extend therange, as game grew shyer and more scarce. Even chub and suckerslearn something in course of time; and as for wood-mice and chipmunks, under such incentive as an active family of raccoons can give themthey attain to a truly heartless cunning in the art of making theirenemies go hungry. Hanging together with an intense clannishness, theraccoon family would make expeditions of such length as to keep oftenfor 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 lowamong the warm and thick-leaved trees, and warm scents steamed upwherever the dew was disturbed by furry feet, the raccoons wanderedover to the edge of the corn-field. It chanced that the corn was justplumping to tender and juicy fulness. The old raccoons showed theyoungsters what richness of sweetness lay hidden within the greenwrappings of the ears; and forth-with the whole clan fell to feastingrecklessly. 

In regard to the ducks and chickens of the farm, the raccoons wereshrewd enough to know that any extensive depredations upon them wouldcall down the swift vengeance of the farmer-folk; but they could notrealize that they were in mischief when they helped themselves tothese juicy, growing things. The corn, though manifestly in some wayinvolved with the works of man, seemed nevertheless to them a portionof nature's liberality. They ran riot, therefore, through the tall, well-ordered ranks of green, without malice or misgiving; and in theirgaiety they were extravagant. They would snatch a mouthful out of onesweet ear, then out of another, spoiling ten for one that theyconsumed. 

Night after night they came to the corn-field, and waxed fat on theirplunder, till at last, when they had done the damage of a herd ofoxen, one silvery night they were discovered. The young farmer, withhis hired boy and the harebrained, Irish setter, chanced to come bythrough the woods, and to notice that the corn was moving althoughthere was no wind. The raccoons were promptly hunted out; and one ofthe young ones, before they could gain the shadowy refuge of thetrees, was killed with sticks, --the setter contributing much noise, but keeping at a very safe distance. When the affray was over, and theyoung farmer, going through the field, found out what damage had beendone, he was eloquent with picturesque backwoods blasphemies, andvowed the extermination of the whole 'coon clan. With the aid of thesetter, who now, for the first time, was able to prove the worth ofhis breeding, he tracked the escaping marauders through the woods, and at last, after a long hunt, located their lair in the oldsycamore-tree on the hill. At this his wrath gave way to the hunter'selation. His eyes sparkled. 

[Illustration: "THEY RAN RIOT ... THROUGH THE TALL, WELL-ORDERED RANKSOF GREEN. "]

"To-morrow night, " said he, to the hired boy, "we'll have a reg'larold-fashioned 'coon hunt!"

Then, whistling off the setter, who was barking, jumping, and whiningecstatically at the foot of the sycamore-tree, he turned and strodeaway through the moon-shadows of the forest, with the dog and thehired boy at his heels. The diminished raccoon family, with beatinghearts and trembling nerves, snuggled down together into the depths ofthe sycamore, and dreamed not of the doom preparing for them. 

III. 

On the following night, soon after moonrise, they came. Stealthily, though there was little need of stealth, they crept, Indian file, around the branchy edges of the fields, through the wet, sweet-smelling thickets. The hunter's fever was upon them, fierce andfurtive. They came to the corn-field--to find that the raccoons hadpaid their visit, made their meal, and got away at the first faintsignal of the approach of danger. With an outburst of excitedyelpings, the dogs took up the hot trail, and the hunters madestraight through the woods for the sycamore-tree. 

It was a party of five. With the young farmer, the hired boy, theharebrained Irish setter, and the wise little black and white mongrel, came also the young schoolmaster of the settlement, who boarded at thefarm. A year out of college, and more engrossed in the study of thewild creatures than ever he had been in his books, he had joined thehunt less from sympathy than from curiosity. He had outgrown hisboyhood's zeal for killing things, and he had a distinct partialityfor raccoons; but he had never taken part in a 'coon hunt, and it washis way to go thoroughly into whatever he undertook. He carried alittle . 22 Winchester repeater, which he had brought with him fromcollege, and had employed, hitherto, on nothing more sentient thanempty bottles or old tomato-cans. 

Now it chanced that not all the raccoon family had made their escapeto the deep hole in the sycamore. The old male, who was rathersolitary and moody in his habits at this season, had followed theflight of the clan for only a short distance; and suddenly, to theirdoubtful joy and complete surprise, the two dogs, who were far aheadof the hunters, overtook him. After a moment's wise hesitation, theblack and white mongrel joined battle, while the setter contributed agreat deal of noisy encouragement. By the time the hunters came up themongrel had drawn off, bleeding and badly worsted; and the angryraccoon, backed up against a tree, glared at the newcomers with fierceeyes and wide-open mouth, as if minded to rush upon them. 

The odds, however, were much too great for even so dauntless a soul ashis; and when the enemy were within some ten or twelve paces, heturned and ran up the tree. In the first fork he crouched, almosthidden, and peered down with one watchful eye. 

The young farmer was armed with an old, muzzle-loading, single-barrelled duck-gun. He raised it to his shoulder and took aimat the one bright eye gleaming from behind the branch. Then he loweredit, and turned to his boarder with a mixture of politeness and rusticmockery. 

"Your first shot!" said he. "I'll shoot the critter, after you'vetried that there pea-shooter on him!"

"He's licked the dogs in fair fight, " said the schoolmaster. "Let'slet him off!"

The farmer swore in unaffected amazement. "Why, that's the ---- ----that does more damage than all the rest put together!" he exclaimed. "You'll see me fix _him_. But you take first shot, Mister Chase. Iwant to see the pea-shooter work!"

The young schoolmaster saw his prestige threatened, --and with noprofit whatever to the doomed raccoon. Prestige is nowhere held athigher premium than in the backwoods. It is the magic wand of power. The young man fired, a quick, but careful shot; and on the snappy, insignificant report, the raccoon fell dead from the tree. 

"You _kin_ shoot some!" remarked the farmer, picking up the victim, and noting the bullet-hole in its forehead. And the hired boy spreadhis mouth in a huge, broken-toothed grin of admiration. 

The old sycamore stood out lonely in the flood of the moonlight. Not araccoon was in sight; but the round, black doorway to their den wasvisible against the gray bark, beside the crotch of the one greatlimb. The frantic yelpings of the dogs around the foot of the treewere proof enough that the family were at home. The hunters, after theancient custom of men that hunt 'coons, had brought an axe with them;but the hired boy, who carried it, looked with dismay at the hugegirth of the sycamore. 

"Won't git that chopped down in a week!" said he, with pardonabledepreciation of his powers. 

"Go fetch another axe!" commanded the farmer, seating himself on astump, and getting out his pipe. 

"It would be a pity to cut down that tree, the biggest sycamore in thecountry, just to get at a 'coon's nest!" said the young schoolmaster, willing to spare both the tree and its inhabitants. 

The farmer let his match go out while he eyed the great trunk. 

"Never mind the axe, " said he, calling back the hired boy. "Fetch methe new bindin' rope out of the spare manger; an' a bunch of rags, an'some salmon-twine. An' stir yerself!"

Relieved of his anxiety as to the chopping, the boy sped willingly onhis errand. And the young schoolmaster realized, with a little twingeof regret, that the raccoon family was doomed. 

When the boy came back, the farmer took the bunch of rags, smearedthem liberally with wet gunpowder, and tied them into a loose, fluffyball, on the end of a length of salmon-twine. Then, having thrown therope over the limb of the sycamore, he held both ends, and sent thehired boy up into the tree, where he sat astride, grinning andexpectant, and peered into the well-worn hole. 

"Now, " said the farmer, tossing the ball of rags up to him, "lightthis 'ere spittin' devil, an' lower it into the hole, an' we'll seewhat's what!"

As he spoke, he turned, and gave the schoolmaster a slow wink, whichquickened the latter's expectations. The next moment the boy had set amatch to the rags, and they were ablaze with wild sputterings and jetsof red flame. Eagerly, but carefully, he lowered the fiery ball intothe hole, paying out the string till it was evident that the tree washollow almost down to the butt. 

Suddenly there was a wild commotion of squeals, grunts, andscratchings in the depths of the invaded hole. The sounds rose swiftlyup the inside of the trunk. Then there was an eruption at the mouth ofthe hole. A confusion of furry forms shot forth, with such violencethat the startled boy almost lost his balance. As it was, he backedaway precipitately along the branch, amid derisive encouragement fromhis friends below. 

Having eluded, for the moment, the flaming invader of their home, theraccoons paused on the limb to survey the situation. 

"Fling 'em down to us, " jeered the farmer, hugely amused at the boy'sdismay. 

The latter grinned nervously, and started forward as if to obey. Butat this moment the raccoons made their decision. The dogs and menbelow looked more formidable than the hesitating boy astride of theirbranch. In a resolute line, their fierce old mother leading, they madefor him. 

The boy backed away with awkward alacrity, but still keeping his holdon the salmon-twine. Consequently, by the time he had nearly reachedthe end of the limb, the still sputtering fire-ball emerged from thehole in the crotch. At the sound of it behind them the young raccoonsturned in terror, and straightway dropped from the tree; but the oldmother, undaunted, darted savagely upon her foe. The boy gave a cry offear. The next instant there was a spiteful crack from theschoolmaster's little rifle. The old raccoon stopped, shrank, androlled lifeless from the limb. 

Meanwhile, the youngsters were in a _mêlée_ with the two dogs. Thoughlittle more than three-fourths grown, they had courage; and so brave afront did they oppose to their enemies that for a few moments the dogswere cautious in attack. Then the black and white mongrel sprang in;and the big setter, realizing that these were no such antagonists astheir parents had been, followed, and was astonished to learn that hecould stand a bite from those sharp teeth and resist the impulse tohowl and run away. In less time than it takes to describe, one of theraccoons was shaken to death in the setter's great jaws, and then theother three scattered in flight. 

One was overtaken in two seconds by the black and white mongrel, andbitten through the back. The second ran past the farmer, and waskilled by a quick blow with his gun-barrel. The third, full of courageand resource, flew straight at the setter's throat, and so alarmed himthat he jumped away. Then, seeing no tree within reach, and probablyrealizing that there was no escape by any ordinary course, he fledstraight to the farmer. 

The farmer, however, mistook this action for the ferocity of despair. He struck out with his gun-barrel, missed his aim, sworeapprehensively, and caught the little animal a kick, which landed itwithin a couple of yards of the spot where stood the youngschoolmaster, watching the scene with mingled interest and pity. Hissympathies now went out warmly to this brave and sole survivor of thelittle people of the sycamore. His quick intuitions had understood theappeal which had been so cruelly repulsed. 

For a second the young raccoon stood still where he had fallen, andhis keen, dark eyes flashed a glance on each of his enemies in turn. Both dogs were now rushing upon him. The ever-imminent doom of thewild kindred was about to lay hold of him. He half-turned, as if todie fighting, then changed his mind, darted to the feet of the youngschoolmaster, ran up his trouser-leg, and confidently took refugeunder his coat. 

"Shake him off! Shake him off! A 'coon's bite is pizen!" shouted thefarmer, in great excitement. 

"Not much!" said the young schoolmaster, with decision, gathering hiscoat snugly around his panting guest. "This 'coon hunt's over. Thislittle chap's coming home to live with me!"

The farmer stared, and then laughed good-naturedly. 

"Jest as you say, " said he. "Recken ye've 'arned the right to have asay in the matter. But ye'll find 'coons is mighty mischeevous 'rounda house. Fetch the karkisses, Jake. Reckon we've done pretty well forone night's huntin', an' there ain't goin' to be no more 'coonsmessin' in the corn _this_ summer!"

In a few minutes the procession was again plodding, Indian file, through the still, dew-fragrant, midnight woods. The little raccoon, its heart now beating quietly, nestled in secure contentment underthe young schoolmaster's arm, untroubled even by the solemn anddeep-toned menace of a horned-owl's cry from the spiky top of a deadhemlock near at hand. From the lake behind the hill came the longlaughter of a loon, the wildest and saddest of all the wildernessvoices. And a lonely silence settled down about the old sycamore onthe hill, solitary under the white, high-sailing moon. 

Horns and Antlers

The young red and white bull was very angry. He stood by the pasturebars grumbling, and blowing through his nostrils, and shaking hisshort, straight horns, and glaring fiercely after the man, who wasdriving three cows down the hill to the farmyard in the shadowyvalley. Every evening for weeks the man had come about sunset andtaken away the cows in that fashion, rudely suppressing the youngbull's efforts to accompany his herd, and leaving him to the solecompanionship of two silly and calf-like yearlings whom he scorned tonotice. For the past few evenings the bull had been trying to workhimself up to the point of fairly joining issue with the man, andhaving it out with him. But there was something in the man's coolassurance, in his steady, compelling eye, in the abrupt authority ofhis voice, which made the angry animal hesitate to defy him. Certainlythe bull could see that the man was very much smaller than he, --apigmy, indeed, in comparison; but he felt that within that erect andfragile-looking shape there dwelt an unknown force which nofour-footed beast could ever hope to withstand. Every evening, afterthe man and cows had gone half-way down the hillside, the bull wouldfall to bellowing and pawing the ground, and rolling his defianceacross the quiet valley. But when next the man came face to face withhim, and spoke to him, he would assume, in spite of himself, anattitude of lofty and reluctant deference. 

The high hill pasture, with its decaying stumps, its rounded hillocks, its patches of withering fern and harsh dwarf juniper, was bathed inall the colours of the autumn sunset, while the farmyard down in thevalley was already in the first purple of the twilight. The centre ofthe pasture was the hilltop, roughly rounded, and naked save for onemaple-tree, now ablaze with scarlet and amber. Along the line of hillsacross the dusk valley the last of the sunset laid a band of clearorange, which faded softly through lemon and pink and violet andtender green to the high, cold gray-blue of the dome above the hill, where one crow was beating his way toward the tree-tops on the fartherridge. The tranquillity of the scene was curiously at variance withthe loud vapourings of the bull, as he raged up and down behind thebars, watched tremblingly by the pair of awestruck yearlings. 

Over on the other side of the hill, behind the red maple, where thehillocks and fern patches lay already in a cool, violet-brown shadow, stood a high-antlered red buck, listening to the bull's ravings. Hehad just come out of the woods and up to the snake fence of splitrails which bounded the pasture. With some curiosity, not unmixed withscorn, he had sniffed at the fence, a phenomenon with which he wasunfamiliar. But the voice of the bull had promptly absorbed hisattention. There was something in the voice that irritated him, --whichseemed, though in a language he did not know, to convey a taunt and achallenge. His fine, slim head went high. He snorted several times, stamped his delicate hoofs, then bounded lightly over the fence andtrotted up the slope toward the shining maple. 

For most of the greater members of the wild kindred, --and for thetribes of the deer and moose, in particular, --the month of October isthe month of love and war. Under those tender and enchanting skies, amid the dying crimsons and purples and yellows and russets, and inthe wistfulness of the falling leaf, duels are fought to the death inthe forest aisles and high hill glades. When a sting and a tangstrike across the dreamy air, and the frosts nip crisply, then theblood runs hot in the veins and mating-time stirs up both love andhate. The red buck, as it happened, had been something of a laggard inawakening to the season's summons. His antlers, this year, had beenlate to mature and overlong in the velvet. When he entered the field, therefore, he found that other bucks had been ahead of him, and thatthere were no more does wandering forlorn. He had "belled" in vain forseveral days, searched in vain the limits of his wonted range, and atlast set out in quest of some little herd whose leader his superiorstrength might beat down and supplant. Of his own prowess, his powerto supplant all rivals, he had no doubt. But hitherto he had foundnone to answer his challenge, and his humour was testy. He had no ideawhat sort of an animal it was that was making such objectionablenoises on the other side of the hill; but whatever it might be, he didnot like it. He knew it was not a bear. He knew it was not abull-moose. And of nothing else that walked the forest did he stand indeference, when the courage of rutting-time was upon him. 

Stepping daintily, the red buck reached the top of the hill and sawthe bull below him. A formidable antagonist, surely! The buck stoppedwhere he was. He had now less inclination to pick a quarrel; but hewas consumed with curiosity. What could the heavy red and white beastbe up to, with his grunting and bellowing, his pawings of the sod, andhis rampings to and fro? The buck could see no object for suchdefiance, no purpose to such rage. It was plain to him, however, thatthose two odd-looking, rather attractive little animals, who stoodaside and watched the bull's rantings, were in no way the cause orobject, as the bull completely ignored them. Growing more and moreinquisitive as he gazed, the buck took a few steps down the slope, andagain paused to investigate. 

At this point the bull caught sight of the intruder, and wheeledsharply. His half-artificial rage against the man was promptlyforgotten. Who was this daring trespasser, advancing undismayed intothe very heart of his domain? He stared for a moment or two insilence, lashing his tail wrathfully. Then, with a rumbling bellowdeep in his throat, he lowered his head and charged. 

This was a demonstration which the red buck could very wellunderstand, but his ill-humour had been swallowed up in curiosity, and he was not now so ready to fight. In fact, it was with largeapprehension that he saw that dangerous bulk charging upon him, andhis great, liquid eyes opened wide. He stood his ground, however, tillthe bull was almost upon him, and then bounded lightly aside. 

The bull, infuriated at this easy evasion, almost threw himself in hiseffort to stop and turn quickly; and in a few seconds he chargedagain. This time the charge was down-hill, which doubled its speed andresistlessness. But again the buck sprang aside, and the bullthundered on for a score of yards, ploughing up the turf in the fierceeffort to stop himself. 

And now the big, wondering eyes of the buck changed. A glitter cameinto them. It had angered him to be so hustled. And moreover, theponderous clumsiness of the bull filled him with contempt. When thebull charged him for the third time, he stamped his narrow, sharphoofs in defiance, and stood with antlers down. At the last moment hejumped aside no farther than was absolutely necessary, and plowed ared furrow in the bull's flank as he plunged by. 

[Illustration: "THIS TIME THE CHARGE WAS DOWN-HILL. "]

Beside himself with rage, the bull changed his tactics, tryingshort, close rushes and side lunges with his horns. But the buck, thoroughly aroused, and elated with the joy of battle, was always justbeyond his reach, and always punishing him. Before the fight hadlasted ten minutes, his flanks and neck were streaming with blood. 

With his matchless agility, the buck more than once sprang right overhis enemy's back. It was impossible for the bull to catch him. Sometimes, instead of ripping with the antlers, he would rear straightup, and slash the bull mercilessly with his knifelike hoofs. For atime, the bull doggedly maintained the unequal struggle; but atlength, feeling himself grow tired, and realizing that his foe was aselusive as a shadow, he lost heart and tried to withdraw. But thebuck's blood was up, and he would have no withdrawing. He followedrelentlessly, bounding and goring and slashing, till the helpless bullwas seized with panic, and ran bellowing along the fence, lookingvainly for an exit. 

For perhaps a hundred yards the conquering buck pursued, now half inmalice, half in sport, but always punishing, punishing. Then, suddenlygrowing tired of it, he stopped, and went daintily mincing his stepsback to where the two yearlings stood huddled in awe. They shrank, staring wildly, as he approached, but for some reason did not runaway. Sniffing at them curiously, and not finding their scent to histaste, he lifted his slim muzzle, and "belled" sonorously severaltimes, pausing between the calls to listen for an answer from theforest. Then, receiving no reply, he seemed to remember hisinterrupted quest, and moved off over the hill through the fadinglight. 

In the Deep of the Grass

Misty gray green, washed with tints of the palest violet, spotted withred clover-blooms, white oxeyes, and hot orange Canada lilies, thedeep-grassed levels basked under the July sun. A drowsy hum of beesand flies seemed to distil, with warm aromatic scents, from thesun-steeped blooms and grass-tops. The broad, blooming, tranquilexpanse, shimmering and softly radiant in the heat, seemed the veryepitome of summer. Now and again a small cloud-shadow sailed acrossit. Now and again a little wind, swooping down upon it gently, bentthe grass-tops all one way, and spread a sudden silvery pallor. Savefor the droning bees and flies there seemed to be but one livecreature astir between the grass and the blue. A solitary marsh-hawk, far over by the rail fence, was winnowing slowly, slowly hither andthither, lazily hunting. 

All this was in the world above the grass-tops. But below thegrass-tops was a very different world, --a dense, tangled world of dimgreen shade, shot with piercing shafts of sun, and populous withsmall, furtive life. Here, among the brown and white roots, thecrowded green stems and the mottled stalks, the little earth kindredswent busily about their affairs and their desires, giving scantthought to the aerial world above them. All that made life significantto them was here in the warm, green gloom; and when anything chancedto part the grass to its depths they would scurry away in unanimousindignation. 

On a small stone, over which the green closed so thickly that, when hechanced to look upward, he caught but the scantiest shreds of sky, sata half-grown field-mouse, washing his whiskers with his dainty claws. His tiny, bead-like eyes kept ceaseless watch, peering through theshadowy tangle for whatever might come near in the shape of foe orprey. Presently two or three stems above his head were beaten down, and a big green grasshopper, alighting clumsily from one of his blindleaps, fell sprawling on the stone. Before he could struggle to hislong legs and climb back to the safer region of the grass-tops, thelittle mouse was upon him. Sharp, white teeth pierced his green mail, his legs kicked convulsively twice or thrice, and the faintiridescence faded out of his big, blank, foolish eyes. The mouse madehis meal with relish, daintily discarding the dry legs and wing-cases. Then, amid the green débris scattered upon the stone, he sat up, andonce more went through his fastidious toilet. 

But life for the little mouse in his grass-world was not quite allwatching and hunting. When his toilet was complete, and he had amiablylet a large black cricket crawl by unmolested, he suddenly began towhirl round and round on the stone, chasing his own tail. As he wasamusing himself with this foolish play, another mouse, about the samesize as himself, and probably of the same litter, jumped upon thestone, and knocked him off. He promptly retorted in kind; and forseveral minutes, as if the game were a well-understood one, the twokept it up, squeaking soft merriment, and apparently forgetful of allperil. The grass-tops above this play rocked and rustled in a way thatwould certainly have attracted attention had there been any eyes tosee. But the marsh-hawk was still hunting lazily at the other side ofthe field, and no tragedy followed the childishness. 

Both seemed to tire of the sport at the same instant; for suddenlythey stopped, and hurried away through the grass on opposite sides ofthe stone, as if remembered business had just called to them. Whateverthe business was, the first mouse seemed to forget it very speedily, for in half a minute he was back upon the stone again, combing hisfine whiskers and scratching his ears. This done to his satisfaction, he dropped like a flash from his seat, and disappeared into a smallhollow beneath it. As he did so, a hairy black spider darted out, andran away among the roots. 

A minute or two after the disappearance of the mouse, a creature camealong which appeared gigantic in the diminutive world of the grassfolk. It was nearly three feet long, and of the thickness of a man'sfinger. Of a steely gray black, striped and reticulated in amysterious pattern with a clear whitish yellow, it was an ominousshape indeed, as it glided smoothly and swiftly, in graceful curves, through the close green tangle. The cool shadows and thin lightstouched it flickeringly as it went, and never a grass-top stirred tomark its sinister approach. Without a sound of warning it camestraight up to the stone, and darted its narrow, cruel head into thehole. 

There was a sharp squeak, and instantly the narrow head came outagain, ejected by the force of the mouse's agonized spring. But thesnake's teeth were fastened in the little animal's neck. The doom ofthe green world had come upon him while he slept. 

But doomed though he was, the mouse was game. He knew there was nopoison in those fangs that gripped him, and he struggled desperatelyto break free. His powerful hind legs kicked the ground with a forcewhich the snake, hampered at first by the fact of its length beingpartly trailed out through the tangle, was unable to quite control. With unerring instinct, --though this was the first snake he had everencountered, --the mouse strove to reach its enemy's back and sever thebone with the fine chisels of his teeth. But it was just this that thesnake was watchful to prevent. Three times in his convulsive leaps themouse succeeded in touching the snake's body, --but with his feet only, never once with those destructive little teeth. The snake held himinexorably, with a steady, elastic pressure which yielded just so far, and never quite far enough. And in a minute or two the mouse's bravestruggles grew more feeble. 

All this, however, --the lashing and the wriggling and thejumping, --had not gone on without much disturbance to the grass-tops. Timothy head and clover-bloom, oxeye and feathery plume-grass, theyhad bowed and swayed and shivered till the commotion, very conspicuousto one looking down upon the tranquil, flowery sea of green, caughtthe attention of the marsh-hawk, which at that moment chanced to beperching on a high fence stake. The lean-headed, fierce-eyed, trim-feathered bird shot from his perch, and sailed on long wings overthe grass to see what was happening. As the swift shadow hovered overthe grass-tops, the snake looked up. Well he understood thesignificance of that sudden shade. Jerking back his fangs withdifficulty from the mouse's neck, he started to glide off under thethickest matting of the roots. But lightning quick though he was, hewas not quite quick enough. Just as his narrow head darted under theroots, the hawk, with wings held straight up, and talons reachingdown, dropped upon him, and clutched the middle of his back in a gripof steel. The next moment he was jerked into the air, writhing andcoiling, and striking in vain frenzy at his captor's mail of hardfeathers. The hawk flew off with him over the sea of green to the topof the fence stake, there to devour him at leisure. The mouse, sorewounded but not past recovery, dragged himself back to the hollowunder the stone. And over the stone the grass-tops, once more still, hummed with flies, and breathed warm perfumes in the distillingheat. 

When the Moon Is over the Corn

In the mystical transparency of the moonlight the leafy world seemedall afloat. The solid ground, the trees, the rail fences, the serriedranks of silver-washed corn seemed to have lost all substantialfoundation. Everything lay swimming, as it were, upon a dream. Thelight that poured down from the round, gold-white, high-sailing moonwas not ordinary moonlight, but that liquid enchantment which thesorceress of the heavens sheds at times, and notably at the ripe ofthe summer, lest earth should forget the incomprehensibility ofbeauty. A little to one side, beyond the corn-field and over a billowymass of silvered leafage, stood the gray, clustered roofs of abackwoods farmstead. 

In the top of a tall, slim poplar, leaning out from the edge of thewoods and over the fence that marked the bounds of the wilderness, clung a queer-looking, roundish object, gently swaying in the magiclight. It might almost have been mistaken for a huge, bristlybird's-nest, but for the squeaky grunts of satisfaction which it keptemitting at intervals. Whether it was that the magic of the moonlighthad got into its blood, driving it to strange pastimes, or that it wasmerely indulging an established taste for the game of "Rock-a-bye-baby, "observation made it plain that the porcupine was amusing itself byswinging in the tree-top. Any other of the woods folk would have chosenfor their recreation a less conspicuous spot than this poplar-top thrustout over the open field. But the porcupine feared nobody, and was quiteuntroubled by bashfulness. He cared not a jot who heard, saw, or deridedhim. It was a pleasant world; and for all that had ever been shown himto the contrary, it belonged to him. 

After a time he got tired of swinging and squeaking. He straightenedhimself out, slowly descended the tree, and set off along the top ofthe fence toward the farmyard. Never before had it occurred to him tovisit the farmyard; but now that the moon had put the madness into hishead, he acted upon the whim without a moment's misgiving. Unlike therest of the wild kindreds, he stood little in awe of either the worksor the ways of man. 

[Illustration: "SET OFF ALONG THE TOP OF THE FENCE. "]

Presently the fence turned off at a sharp angle to the way he hadchosen to go. He descended, and crawled in leisurely fashion along anunused, grassy lane, wandering from side to side as he went, as iftime were of no concern to him. About a hundred feet from the fence hecame to a brook crossing the lane. Spring freshets had carried awaythe little bridge, doubtless years before, and now the stream wasspanned by nothing but an old tree-trunk, carelessly thrown across. Upon the end of this, --for him an ample bridge, --the porcupinecrawled, never troubling himself to inquire if another passenger mightchance to be crossing from the other side. 

At the very same moment, indeed, another passenger raised furtive, padded paws, and took possession of the opposite end of the bridge. Itwas a huge bob-cat, with stubby tail and wide, pale green, unwinkingeyes. It had come stealing down from the thick woods to visit thefarmyard, --driven, perhaps, by the same moon-madness that stirred theporcupine. But at the edge of the silent farmyard, white and tranquilunder the flooding radiance, the man-smell on the bars had brought thebob-cat to a sudden halt. No moon-madness could make the cautious catforget the menace of that smell. It had turned in its tracks, andconcluded to look for woodchucks in the corn-field. 

When the bob-cat had taken a few paces along the log, it paused andglared at the porcupine vindictively, its eyes seeming to emit faint, whitish flames. The porcupine, on the other hand, came right on, slowly and indifferently, as if unaware of the bob-cat's presence. Thelatter crouched down, flattened back its ears, dug long, punishingclaws into the bark, opened its sharp-toothed jaws, and gave a savagespitting snarl. Was it possible that this insignificant, blundering, sluggish creature, this pig of the tree-tops, was going to demand theright of way? The porcupine, unhurried, continued to advance, nothingbut an increased elevation of his quills betraying that he was awareof an opponent. The cat's absurd stub of a tail twitchedspasmodically, and for a few seconds it seemed as if rage might getthe better of discretion. But all the wild creatures know thequalities of that fine armory of quills carried by the porcupine. Thebig cat pulled himself together with a screech, ran back, and sprangoff to a rock on the bank, whence he spat impotently while theporcupine crawled by. 

So leisurely was the progress of the bristling little adventurer thatit was a good half-hour ere he reached the farmyard bars. Here hestopped, and sniffed curiously. But it was no dread of the dreadedman-smell that delayed him. The bars had been handled by many hot, toiling hands; and the salt of their sweat had left upon the wood ataste which the porcupine found pleasant. Here and there, up and down, he gnawed at the discoloured surfaces. Then, when the relish wasexhausted, he climbed down on the inside, and marched deliberately upthe middle of the yard toward the kitchen door. His quills made a dry, rustling noise as he went; his claws rattled on the chips, and in theunshadowed open he was most audaciously in evidence. His bearing wasnot defiant, but self-reliant, as of one who minded his own businessand demanded to be let alone. From the stables across the yard camethe stamping of horses' hoofs; a turkey in the tree behind thebarn _quit-quitted_ warningly; and a long-drawn, high-pitched_kwee-ee-ee-ee-ee_ of inquiry came from the wakeful Leghorn cock inthe poultry-house. To all these unfamiliar sounds the porcupine turnedthe deaf ear of self-contained indifference. 

At this moment around from the front door-step came the farmer's bigblack and white dog, to see what was exciting his family. He was awise dog, and versed in the lore of the wilderness. Had the intruderbeen a bear he would have sought to attract its attention, and raisedan outcry to summon his master to the fray. But a porcupine! He wastoo wary to attack it, and too dignified to make any fuss over it. With a scornful _woof_, he turned away, and strolled into the garden, to dig up an old bone which he had buried in the cucumber-bed. 

The porcupine, meanwhile, had found something that interested him. Near the kitchen door stood an empty wooden box, shining in themoonlight. First its bright colour, then its scent, attracted hisattention. It had recently contained choice flakes of salted codfish, and the salt had soaked deep into its fibres. With the long, keenchisels of his front teeth, he attacked the wood eagerly, --and theloud sound of his gnawings echoed on the stillness. It awoke thefarmer, who rubbed his eyes, arose on his elbow, listened a moment, muttered, "Another of them durn porkypines!" and dropped to sleepagain. 

When the leisurely adventurer had eaten as much of the box as he couldhold, he took it into his head to go home, --which meant, to anycomfortable tree back in the woods. His home was at large. This timehe decided to go through a hole under the board fence between the barnand the fowl-house. And it was here that, for the first time on thisexpedition, he was induced by a power outside himself to change hismind. As he approached the hole under the fence, from the radiance ofthe open yard beyond came another animal, heading for the same point. The stranger was much smaller than the porcupine, and wore no panoplyof points. But it had the same tranquil air of owning the earth. Themoonlight, shining full upon it, showed its pointed nose, and twobroad, white stripes running down the black fur of its back. 

The stranger reached the opening in the fence about three secondsahead of the porcupine. And this time the porcupine was the one todefer. He did not like it. He grunted angrily, and his deadly spinesstood up. But he drew aside, and avoided giving any offence to soformidable an acquaintance. No foot of ground would his sturdy courageyield to bob-cat, bear, or man; but of a skunk he was afraid. When theskunk had passed through the fence, and wandered off to hunt for eggsunder the barn, the porcupine turned and went all the way around thefowl-house. Then he struck down through the back of the garden, gainedthe rail fence enclosing the corn-field, and at length, whether byintention, or because the fence, a convenient promenade, led him toit, he came back to the leaning poplar. With a pleasant memory drawinghim on, he climbed the tree once more. The round moon was getting lownow, and the shadows she cast out across the corn were long and weird. But the downpour of her light was still mysterious in its clarity, andin its sheen the porcupine, rolled up like a bird's nest, swunghimself luxuriously to sleep. 

The Truce

Too early, while yet the snow was thick and the food scarce, the bigblack bear had roused himself from his long winter sleep and forsakenhis snug den under the roots of the pine-tree. The thawing springworld he found an empty place, no rabbits to be captured, no roots tobe dug from wet meadows; and his appetite was sorely vexing him. Hewould have crept back into his hole for another nap; but the air wastoo stimulatingly warm, too full of promise of life, to suffer him toresume the old, comfortable drowsiness. Moreover, having gone to bedthin the previous December, he had waked up hungry; and hunger is arestless bedfellow. In three days he had had but one meal--a bigtrout, clawed out half-dead from a rocky eddy below the Falls; andnow, as he sniffed the soft, wet air with fiercely eager nostrils, heforgot his customary tolerance of mood and was ready to do battle withanything that walked the wilderness. 

It was a little past noon, and the shadows of the tree-tops fell blueon the rapidly shrinking snow. The air was full of faint tricklingnoises, and thin tinklings where the snow veiled the slopes of littlerocky hollows. Under the snow and under the rotting patches of ice, innumerable small streams were everywhere hurrying to swell the stillice-fettered flood of the river, the Big Fork, whose roomy valley layabout a half-mile eastward through the woods. Every now and then, whena soft gust drew up from the south, it bore with it a heavy roar, anoise as of muffled and tremendous trampling, the voice of the BigFork Falls thundering out from under their decaying lid of ice. TheFalls were the only thing which the black bear really feared. Often ashe had visited them, to catch wounded fish in the ominous eddies attheir foot, he could never look at their terrific plunge without acertain awed dilation of his eyes, a certain shrinking at his heart. Perhaps by reason of some association of his cubhood, some imminentperil and narrow escape at the age when his senses were mostimpressionable, in all his five years of life the Falls had neverbecome a commonplace to him. And even now, while questing noiselesslyand restlessly for food, he rarely failed to pay the tribute of aninstinctive, unconscious turn of head whenever that portentous voicecame up upon the wind. 

Prowling hither and thither among the great ragged trunks, peering andsniffing and listening, the bear suddenly caught the sound of smallclaws on wood. The sound came apparently from within the trunk of ahuge maple, close at hand. Leaning his head to one side, he listenedintently, his ears cocked, eager as a child listening to a watch. There was, indeed, something half childish in the attitude of the hugefigure, strangely belying the ferocity in his heart. Yes, the soundcame, unmistakably, from within the trunk. He nosed the bark warily. There was no opening; and the bark was firm. He stole to the otherside of the tree, his head craftily outstretched and reaching aroundfar before him. 

The situation was clear to him at once, --and his hungry muzzle jammeditself into the entrance to a chipmunk's hole. The maple-tree wasdead, and partly decayed, up one side of the trunk. All his craftforgotten on the instant, the bear sniffed and snorted and drew loud, fierce breaths, as if he thought to suck the little furry tenant forthby inhalation. The live, warm smell that came from the hole wasdeliciously tantalizing to his appetite. The hole, however, was barelybig enough to admit the tip of his black snout, so he presently gaveover his foolish sniffings, and set himself to tear an entrance withhis resistless claws. The bark and dead wood flew in showers under hisefforts, and it was evident that the chipmunk's little home wouldspeedily lie open to the foe. But the chipmunk, meanwhile, from thecrotch of a limb overhead, was looking down in silent indignation. Little Stripe-sides had been wise enough to provide his dwelling witha sort of skylight exit. 

Suddenly, in the midst of his task, the bear stopped and lifted hismuzzle to the wind. What was that new taint upon the air? It was onealmost unknown to him, --but one which he instinctively dreaded, thoughwithout any reason based directly upon experience of his own. Atalmost any other time, indeed, he would have taken the first whiff ofthat ominous man-smell as a signal to efface himself and make offnoiselessly down the wind. But just now, his first feeling was wrathat the thought of being hindered from his prospective meal. He wouldlet no one, not even a man, rob him of that chipmunk. Then, as hiswrath swelled rapidly, he decided to hunt the man himself. Perhaps, as the bear relishes practically everything edible under the sunexcept human flesh, he had no motive but a savage impulse to punishthe intruder for such an untimely intrusion. However that may be, ared light came into his eyes, and he swung away to meet this unknowntrespasser upon his trails. 

On that same day, after a breakfast before dawn in order that he mightmake an early start, a gaunt trapper had set out from the Settlementon the return journey to his camp beyond the Big Fork. He had been into the Settlement with a pack of furs, and was now hurrying back asfast as he could, because of the sudden thaw. He was afraid the icemight go out of the river and leave him cut off from his camp, --forhis canoe was on the other side. As the pelts were beginning to getpoor, he had left his rifle at home, and carried no weapon but hisknife. He had grown so accustomed to counting all the furry wildfolk as his prey that he never thought of them as possibleadversaries, --unless it might chance to be some such exception as abull-moose in rutting season. A rifle, therefore, when he was notafter skins, seemed to him a useless burden; and he was carrying, moreover, a pack of camp supplies on his broad back. He was tall, lean, leather-faced and long-jawed, with calm, light blue eyes underheavy brows; and he wore a stout, yellow-brown, homespun shirt, squirrel-skin cap, long leggings of deerhide, and oiled cowhidemoccasins. He walked rapidly with a long, slouching stride that wasalmost a lope, his toes pointing straight ahead like an Indian's. 

When, suddenly, the bear lurched out into his trail and confrontedhim, the woodsman was in no way disturbed. The bear paused, swaying insurly fashion, about ten paces in front of him, completely blockingthe trail. But the woodsman kept right on. The only attention he paidto the big, black stranger was to shout at him authoritatively--"Gitout the way, thar!"

To his unbounded astonishment, however, the beast, instead of gettingout of the way, ran at him with a snarling growl. The woodsman's calmblue eyes flamed with anger; but the life of the woods teaches one tothink quickly, or rather, to act in advance of one's thoughts. He knewthat with no weapon but his knife he was no match for such a foe, so, leaping aside as lightly as a panther, he darted around a tree, regained the trail beyond his assailant, and ran on at his best speedtoward the river. He made sure that the bear had acted under a merespasm of ill-temper, and would not take the trouble to follow far. 

When, once in a long time, a hunter or trapper gets the worst of it inhis contest with the wild kindreds, in the majority of cases it isbecause he had fancied he knew all about bears. The bear is strong inindividuality and delights to set at nought the traditions of hiskind. So it happens that every now and then a woodsman pays with hislife for failing to recognize that the bear won't always play by rule. 

To the trapper's disgusted amazement, this particular bear followedhim so vindictively that before he realized the full extent of hisperil he was almost overtaken. He saw that he must deliver up hisprecious pack, the burden of which was effectively handicapping him inthe race for life. When the bear was almost upon him, he flung thebundle away, with angry violence, expecting that it would at oncedivert the pursuer's attention. 

In about ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, perhaps, it would havedone so, for among other things it contained bacon and sugar, daintiesaltogether delectable to a bear's palate. But as luck would have it, the bundle so bitterly hurled struck the beast full on the snout, making him grunt with pain and fresh fury. From that moment he was averitable demon of vengeance. Well enough he knew it was not thebundle, but the man who had thrown it, upon whom he must wipe out theaffront. His hunger was all forgotten in red rage. 

Fortunate it was now for the tall woodsman that he had livedabstemiously and laboured sanely all that winter, and could dependupon both wind and limb. Fortunate, too, that on the open trail, cutyears before by the lumbermen of the Big Fork Drive, the snow wasalready almost gone, so that it did not seriously impede his running. He ran almost like a caribou, with enough in reserve to be able toglance back over his shoulder from time to time. But seeing howimplacable was the black bulk that pursued, he could not help thinkingwhat would happen, there in the great, wet, shadow-mottled solitudes, if he should chance to trip upon a root, or if his wind should failhim before he could reach the camp. At this thought, not fear, but acertain disgust and impotent resentment, swelled his heart; and with achallenging look at the ancient trunks, the familiar forest aisles, the high, branch-fretted blue, bright with spring sunshine, he defiedthe wilderness, which he had so long loved and ruled, to turn upon himwith such an unspeakable betrayal. 

The wilderness loves a master; and the challenge was not accepted. Noroot tripped his feet, nor did his wind fail him; and so he came out, with the bear raging some ten paces behind his heels, upon the banksof the Big Fork. Once across that quarter-mile of sloppy, rotting ice, he knew there was good, clear running to his cabin and his gun. Hisheart rose, his resentment left him, and he grinned as he gave onemore glance over his shoulder. 

As he raced down the bank, the trampling of the Falls, a mile away, roared up to him on a gust of wind. In spite of himself he could notbut notice how treacherous the ice was looking. In spite of himself henoticed it, having no choice but to trust it. The whole surface lookedsick, with patches of sodden white and sickly lead-colour; and downalong the shore it was covered by a lane of shallow, yellowish water. It appeared placid and innocent enough; but the woodsman's practisedeye perceived that it might break up, or "go out, " at any moment. Thebear was at his heels, however, and that particular moment was not theone for indecision. The woodsman dashed knee-deep through the marginwater, and out upon the free ice; and he heard the bear, reckless ofall admonitory signs, splash after him about three seconds later. 

On the wide, sun-flooded expanse of ice, with the dark woods beyondand soft blue sky above, the threat of imminent death seemed to thewoodsman curiously out of place. Yet there death was, panting savagelyat his heels, ready for the first mis-step. And there, too, a milebelow, was death in another form, roaring heavily from the swollenFalls. And hidden under a face of peace, he knew that death lurked allabout his feet, liable to rise in mad fury at any instant with thebreaking of the ice. As he thought of all this besetting menace, thewoodsman's nerves drew themselves to steel. He set his teeth grimly. Alight of elation came into his eyes. And he felt himself able to winthe contest against whatever odds. 

As this sense of new vigour and defiance spurred him to a fresh burstof speed, the woodsman took notice that he was just about half-wayacross the ice. "Good!" he muttered, counting the game now more thanhalf won. Then, even as he spoke, a strange, terrifying sound ran allabout him. Was it in the air, or beneath the ice? It came fromeverywhere at once, --a straining grumble, ominous as the first growlof an earthquake. The woodsman understood that dreadful voice verywell. He wavered for a second, then sprang forward desperately. Andthe bear, pursuing, understood also. His rage vanished in a breath. Hestumbled, whimpered, cast one frightened glance at the too distantshore behind him, then followed the woodsman's flight, --followed now, with no more heed to pursue. 

For less than half a minute that straining grumble continued. Then itgrew louder, mingled with sharp, ripping reports, and long, blacklanes opened suddenly in every direction. Right before the woodsman'sflying feet one opened. He took it with a bound. But even as he sprangthe ice went all to pieces. What he sprang to was no longer a solidsurface, but a tossing fragment which promptly went down beneath theimpact of his descent. Not for nothing was it, however, that thewoodsman had learned to "run the logs" in many a tangled boom andracing "drive. " His foot barely touched the treacherous floe ere heleaped again and yet again, till he had gained, by a path which nonebut a riverman could ever have dreamed of traversing, an ice-cakebroad and firm enough to give him foothold. Beyond this refuge was aspace of surging water, foam, and ice-mush, too broad for the essay ofany human leap. 

The Big Fork, from shore to shore, was now a tossing, swishing, racing, whirling, and grinding chaos of ice-cakes, churning in anangry flood and hurrying blindly to the Falls. In the centre of hisown floe the woodsman sat down, the better to preserve his balance. Hebit off a chew from his plug of "blackjack, " and with calm eyessurveyed the doom toward which he was rushing. A mile is a very shortdistance when it lies above the inevitable. The woodsman saw clearlythat there was nothing to be done but chew his "blackjack, " and waiton fate. That point settled, he turned his head to see what the bearwas doing. 

To his surprise, the animal was now a good fifty yards fartherup-stream, having evidently been delayed by some vagary of thestruggling ice. He was now sitting up on his haunches on a floe, andstaring silently at the volleying cloud which marked the Falls. Thewoodsman was aware of a curious fellow feeling for the great beastwhich, not five minutes ago, had been raging for his life. To thewoodsman, with his long knowledge and understanding of the wildkindreds, that rage and that pursuit now appeared as lying more orless in the course of events, a part of the normal savagery of Nature, and no matter of personal vindictiveness. 

Now that he and his enemy were involved in a common and appallingdoom, the enmity was forgotten. "Got cl'ar grit, too!" he murmured tohimself, as he took note of the quiet way the bear was eyeing theFalls. 

And now it seemed to him that the trampling roar grew louder everysecond, drowning into dumbness the crashing and grinding of the ice;and the volleying mist-clouds seemed to race up-stream to meet him. Then, with a sickening jump and turn of his heart, a hope came andshook him out of his stoicism. He saw that his ice-cake was sailingstraight for a little rocky islet just above the fall. Two minutesmore would decide his fate, --at least for the time. He did not troubleto think what he would do on the island, if he got there. He rosecautiously and crouched, every sinew tense to renew the battle forlife. 

Another minute fled away, and the island was close ahead, wrapped inthe roar and the mist-volleys. A cross-current seized the racingice-cake, dragging it aside, --and the man clenched his fists in afury of disappointment as he saw that he would miss the refuge afterall. He made ready to plunge in and at least die battling. Then fatetook yet another whim, and a whirling mass of logs and ice, collidingwith the floe, forced it back to its original course. Another momentand it grounded violently, breaking into four pieces, which rolled offon either side toward the abyss. And the woodsman, splashing into theturbulent shallows, made good his hold upon a rock and dragged himselfashore. 

Fairly landed, he shook himself, spat coolly into the flood, andturned to see what was happening to his fellow in distress. To theroaring vortex just below him--so close that it seemed as if it mightat any moment drag down the little island and engulf it--he paid noheed whatever, but turned his back contemptuously upon the tumult andthe mists. His late enemy, alive, strong, splendid, and speeding to ahideous destruction, was of the keener interest to his wildernessspirit. 

[Illustration: "HE LAUNCHED HIMSELF AGAIN, DESPERATELY. "]

The bear was now about twenty paces above the island; but caught by aninexorable current, he was nearly that distance beyond it. With adistinct regret, a pang of sympathy, the man saw that there was nochance of his adversary's escape. But the bear, like himself, seeing arefuge so near, was not of the temper to give up without a struggle. Suddenly, like a gigantic spring uncoiling, he launched himself forthwith a violence that completely up-ended his ice-cake, and carried himover a space of churned torrent to the edge of another floe. Grippingthis with his mighty forearms till he pulled it half under, hesucceeded in clawing out upon it. Scrambling across, he launchedhimself again, desperately, sank almost out of sight, rose and beganswimming, with all the energy of courage and despair combined. 

But already he was opposite the head of the island. Could he make it?The man's own muscles strained and heaved in unconscious sympathy withthat struggle. The bear was a gallant swimmer, and for a moment itlooked as if there might be the ghost of a chance for him. But no, thetorrent had too deadly a grip upon his long-furred bulk. He would_just_ miss that last safe ledge!

In his eagerness, and without any conscious thought of what he wasdoing, the man stepped down into the water knee-deep, bracing himself, and clinging with his left hand to a tough projecting root. Closercame the bear, beating down the splintered refuse that obstructed him, his long, black body labouring dauntlessly. Closer he came, --but notquite close enough to get his strong paws on the rock. A foot morewould have done it, --but that paltry foot he was unable to make good. 

The man could not stand it. It was quite too fine a beast to bedragged over the Falls before his eyes, if he could help it. Reachingout swiftly with his right hand, he caught the swimmer by the long furof his neck, and heaved with all his strength. 

For a moment he wondered if he could hold on. The great current drewand sucked, almost irresistibly. But his grip was of steel, hismuscles sound and tense. For a moment or two the situation hung indoubt. Then the swimmer, stroking desperately, began to gain. A momentmore, and that narrow, deadly foot of space was covered. The animalgot first one paw upon the rocks, then the other. With promptdiscretion, the woodsman dropped his hold and stepped back to the topof the island, suddenly grown doubtful of his own wisdom. 

Drawing himself just clear of the torrent, the bear crouched pantingfor several minutes, exhausted from the tremendous struggle; and theman, on the top of the rock, waited with his hand upon his knife-hiltto see what would come of his reckless act. In reality, however, hedid not look for trouble, knowing the natures of the wild kindreds. Hewas merely holding himself on guard against the unexpected. But hesoon saw that his caution was unnecessary. Recovering breath, the bearclambered around the very edge of the rocks to the farther side of theisland, as far as possible from his rescuer. There he seated himselfupon his haunches, and devoted himself to gazing down, as iffascinated, at the cauldron from which he had been snatched. 

During the next half-hour the woodsman began to think. For thepresent, he knew that the bear was quite inoffensive, being bothgrateful and overawed. But there was no food on the island for either, except the other. So the fight was bound to be renewed at last. Andafter that, whoever might be the victor, what remained for him? Fromthat island, on the lip of the fall and walled about with wild rapids, there could be no escape. The situation was not satisfactory from anypoint of view. But that it was clear against his principles toknuckle down, under any conditions, to beast, or man, or fate, thewoodsman might have permitted himself to wish that, after all, hisice-cake had missed the island. As it was, however, he took anotherbite from his plug of "blackjack, " and set himself to whittling astick. 

With a backwoodsman's skill in the art of whittling, he had made goodprogress toward the shaping of a toy hand-sled, when, looking up fromhis task, he saw something that mightily changed the face of affairs. He threw away the half-shaped toy, thrust the knife back into hisbelt, and rose to his feet. After a long, sagacious survey of theflood, he drew his knife again, and proceeded to cut himself a stoutstaff, a sort of alpenstock. He saw that an ice-jam was forming justabove the falls. 

The falls of the Big Fork lie at a sharp elbow of the river, and crossthe channel on a slant. Immediately above them the river shoalssharply; and though at ordinary seasons there is only one islandvisible, at times of low water huge rocks appear all along the brink. It chanced, at this particular time, that after the first run of theice had passed there came a second run that was mixed with logs. Thisice, moreover, was less rotten than that which had formed near thefalls, and it came down in larger cakes. When some of these big cakes, cemented with logs, grounded on the head of the island, the nucleus ofa jam was promptly formed. At the same time some logs, deeply frozeninto an ice-floe, caught and hung on one of the unseen mid-streamledges. An accumulation gathered in the crook of the elbow, over onthe farther shore; and then, as if by magic, the rush stopped, theflood ran almost clear from the lip of the falls, and the river wasclosed from bank to bank. 

The woodsman sat quietly watching, as if it were a mere idlespectacle, instead of the very bridge of life, that was forming beforehis eyes. Little by little the structure welded itself, the masses ofdrift surging against the barrier, piling up and diving under, till itwas compacted and knit to the very bottom, --and the roar of the fallsdwindled with the diminishing of the stream. This was the moment forwhich the man was waiting. Now, if ever, the jam was solid, and mighthold so until he gained the farther shore. But beyond this momentevery second of delay only served to gather the forces that werestraining to break the obstruction. He knew that in a very few minutesthe rising weight of the flood must either sweep all before it, orflow roaring over the top of the jam in a new cataract that wouldsweep the island bare. He sprang to his feet, grasped his stick, andscanned the tumbled, precarious surface, choosing his path. Then heturned and looked at the bear, wondering if that animal's woodcraftwere subtler than his own to distinguish when the jam was secure. Hefound that the bear was eyeing him anxiously, and not looking at theice at all; so he chuckled, told himself that if he didn't know morethan a bear he'd no business in the woods, and stepped resolutelyforth upon the treacherous pack. Before he had gone ten paces the bearjumped up with a whimper, and followed hastily, plainly conceding thatthe man knew more than he. 

In the strange, sudden quiet, the shrunken falls clamouring thinly andthe broken ice swishing against the upper side of the jam, the manpicked his way across the slippery, chaotic surface of the dam, expecting every moment that it would crumble with a roar from underhis feet. About ten or a dozen yards behind him came the bear, stepping hurriedly, and trembling as he looked down at the diminishedcataract. The miracle of the vanishing falls daunted his spirit mosteffectively, and he seemed to think that the whole mysteriousphenomenon was of the man's creating. When the two reached shore, theflood was already boiling far up the bank. Without so much as a thankyou, the bear scurried past his rescuer, and made off through thetimber like a scared cat. The man looked after him with a slow smile, then turned and scanned the perilous path he had just traversed. As hedid so, the jam seemed to melt away in mid-channel. Then a terrific, rending roar tortured the air. The mass of logs and ice, and all theincalculable weight of imprisoned waters hurled themselves togetherover the brink with a stupefying crash, and throbbing volumes of sprayleapt skyward. The woodsman's lean face never changed a muscle; butpresently, giving a hitch to his breeches under the belt, he mutteredthoughtfully:

"Blame good thing we come away when we did!"

Then, turning on his larriganed heels, he strode up the trail till thegreat woods closed about him, and the raving thunders gradually diedinto quiet. 

[Illustration: "IT WOULD HAVE SEEMED LIKE NO MORE THAN A DARKER, SWIFTLY-MOVING SHADOW IN THE DARK WATER. "]

The Keeper of the Water-Gate

Some distance below the ice, through the clear, dark water of thequiet-running stream, a dim form went swimming swiftly. It was asturdy, broad-headed, thick-furred form, a little more than a foot inlength, with a naked, flattened tail almost as long as the body. Itheld its small, handlike forepaws tucked up under its chin, and swamwith quick strokes of its strong hind legs and eel-like wrigglings ofthe muscular tail. It would have seemed like no more than a darker, swiftly-moving shadow in the dark water, save for a curious burden ofair-bubbles which went with it. Its close under-fur, which the watercould not penetrate, was thickly sprinkled with longer hairs, whichthe water seemed, as it were, to plaster down; and under these longhairs the air was caught in little silvery bubbles, which made theswimmer conspicuous even under two inches of clear ice and eighteeninches of running water. 

As he went, the swimmer slanted downward and aimed for a round hole atthe bottom of the bank. This hole was the water-gate of his wintercitadel; and he, the keeper of it, was the biggest and pluckiestmuskrat on the whole slow-winding length of Bitter Creek. 

At this point Bitter Creek was about four feet deep and ten or twelvefeet wide, with low, bushy shores subject to overflow at the slightestfreshet. Winter, setting in suddenly with fierce frost, had caught itwhile its sluggish waters were still so high from the late autumnrains that the bushes and border grasses were all awash. Now the youngice, transparent and elastic, held them in firm fetters. The flatworld of field and wood about Bitter Creek was frozen as hard as iron, and a biting gale, which carried a thin drift of dry, gritty snow, waslashing it pitilessly. The branches snapped and creaked under thecruel assault, and not a bird or beast was so hardy as to show itshead abroad. But in the muskrat's world, there under the safe ice, allwas as tranquil as a May morning. The long green and brown water-weedsswayed softly in the faint current, with here and there a silveryyoung chub or an olive-brown sucker feeding lazily among them. Underthe projecting roots lurked water-snails, and small, black, scurryingbeetles, and big-eyed, horn-jawed larvæ which would change next springto aerial forms of radiance. And not one of them, muskrat, chub, orlarva, cared one whit for the scourge of winter on the bleak worldabove the ice. 

The big muskrat swam straight to the mouth of the hole, and plungedhalf-way into it. Then he suddenly changed his mind. Backing outabruptly, he darted up to the surface close under the edge of thebank. Along the edge of the bank the ice-roof slanted upward, thewater having fallen several inches since the ice had set. This left acovered air space, about two inches in height, all along the fringesof the grass roots; and here the muskrat paused, head and shouldershalf out of water, to take breath. He was panting heavily, having comea long way under water without stopping to empty and refill hislong-suffering little lungs. Two inches over his head, on the otherside of the ice, the thin, hard snow went driving and swirling, and hecould hear the alders straining under the bitter wind. His little, bead-bright eyes, set deep in his furry face, gleamed withsatisfaction over his comfortable security. 

Having fully eased his lungs, the muskrat dived again to the bottom, and began to gnaw with fierce energy at a snaky mass of the roots ofthe yellow material. Having cut off a section about as long ashimself, and more than an inch in thickness, he tugged at it fiercelyto loosen the fibres which held it to the bottom. But this particularpiece was more firmly anchored than he had expected to find it, andpresently, feeling as if his lungs would burst, he was obliged toascend to the air-space under the ice for a new breath. There hepuffed and panted for perhaps a minute. But he had no thought ofrelinquishing that piece of succulent, crisp, white-hearted lily-root. As soon as he had rested, he swam down again, and gripping it savagelytore it loose at the first pull. Holding the prize lengthwise that itmight not obstruct his entrance, he plunged into the hole in the bank, the round, black water-gate to his winter house. 

The house was a most comfortable and strictly utilitarian structure. The entrance, dug with great and persistent toil from the very bottomof the bank, for the better discouragement of the muskrat's deadliestenemy, the mink, ran inward for nearly two feet, and then upward on along slant some five or six feet through the natural soil. At thispoint the shore was dry land at the average level of the water; andover this exit, which was dry at the time of the building, the muskrathad raised his house. 

The house was a seemingly careless, roughly rounded heap ofgrass-roots, long water-weeds, lily-roots and stems, and mud, with afew sticks woven into the foundation. The site was cunningly chosen, so that the roots and stems of a large alder gave it secure anchorage;and the whole structure, for all its apparent looseness, was so wellcompacted as to be secure against the sweep of the spring freshets. About six feet in diameter at the base, it rose about the samedistance from the foundation, a rude, sedge-thatched dome, of whichsomething more than three feet now showed itself above the ice. 

To the unobservant eye the muskrat house in the alders might havelooked like a mass of drift in which the rank water-grass had takenroot. But within the clumsy pile, about a foot below the centre of thedome, was a shapely, small, warm chamber, lined with the softestgrasses. From one side of this chamber the burrow slanted down toanother and much larger chamber, the floor of which, at the presenthigh level of the water, was partly flooded. From this chamber leddownward two burrows, --one, the main passage, by which the muskrat hadentered, opening frankly, as we have seen, in the channel of thecreek, and the other, longer and more devious, terminating in a narrowand cunningly concealed exit, behind a deeply submerged willow-root. This passage was little used, and was intended chiefly as a way ofescape in case of an extreme emergency, --such as, for example, theinvasion of a particularly enterprising mink by way of the mainwater-gate. The muskrat is no match for the snake-swift, bloodthirstymink, except in the one accomplishment of holding his breath underwater. And a mink must be very ravenous, or quite mad with theblood-lust, to dare the deep water-gate and the long subaqueouspassage to the muskrat's citadel, at seasons of average high water. Intime of drought, however, when the entrance is nearly uncovered andthe water goes but a little way up the dark tunnels, the mink willoften glide in, slaughter the garrison, and occupy the well-builtcitadel. 

The big muskrat, dragging his lily-root, mounted the narrow, black, water-filled passage till he reached the first chamber. Here he wasmet by his mate, just descending from the upper room. She promptlyappropriated the piece of lily-root, which the big muskrat meekly gaveup. He had fed full before coming, and now had no care except toclean his draggled fur and make his toilet before mounting to thelittle dry top chamber and curling himself up for a nap. 

This toilet was as elaborate and painstaking as that of the cleanliestof cats or squirrels. He was so loose-jointed, so loose-skinned, soflexibly built in every way, that he could reach every part of his furwith his teeth and claws at once. He would seem to pull great folds ofskin from his back around under his breast, where he could comb it themore thoroughly. It was no trouble at all for him to scratch his leftear with his right hind foot. He went about his task with such zealthat in a very few minutes his fur was as fluffy and exquisite as thatof a boudoir kitten. Then he rubbed his face, eyes, and earsvigorously with both forepaws at once in a half-childish fashion, sitting up on his hind-quarters as he did so. This done, he flickedhis tail sharply two or three times, touched his mate lightly with hisnose, and scurried up to the little sleeping-chamber. Something lessthan a foot above his head the winter gale howled, ripped thesnow-flurries, lashed the bushes, sent the snapped twigs hurtlingthrough the bare branches, turned every naked sod to stone. But to thesleeping muskrat all the outside sound and fury came but as a murmurof Jun trees. 

His mate, meanwhile, was gobbling the lily-root as if she had noteaten for a week. Sitting up like a squirrel, and clutching the end ofthe root with both little forepaws, she crushed the white esculentinto her mouth and gnawed at it ravenously with the keen chisels ofher teeth. The root was as long as herself, and its weight perhaps asixth of her own. Yet when it was all eaten she wanted more. Therewere other pieces stored in the chamber; and indeed the whole houseitself was in great part edible, being built largely of such roots andgrasses as the muskrat loves to feed on. But such stores were foremergency use. She could forage for herself at present. Diving downthe main passage she presently issued from the water-gate, andimmediately rose to the clear-roofed air-space. Here she nibbledtentatively at some stems and withered leafage. These proving littleto her taste, she suddenly remembered a clam-bed not far off, andinstantly set out for it. She swam briskly down-stream along theair-space, her eyes and nose just out of the water, the ice gleamingsilvery above her head. 

She had travelled in this position perhaps fifty yards when she saw, some twelve or fifteen feet ahead of her, a lithe, dark, slenderfigure with a sharp-nosed, triangular head, squeeze itself over aprojecting root which almost touched the ice. The stranger was nolarger than herself, --but she knew it was not for her to tryconclusions with even the smallest of minks. Catching a good lungfulof air, she dived on the instant, down, down, to the very bed of thecreek, and out to mid-channel. 

The mink, eagerly desirous of a meal of muskrat-meat, dived also, heading outward to interrupt the fugitive. He swam as well as themuskrat, --perhaps faster, indeed, with a darting, eel-like, deadlyswiftness. But the stream at this point had widened to a breadth oftwelve or fifteen yards, --and this was the little muskrat's salvation. The mink was afraid to follow her to such a distance from theair-space. He knew that by the time he overtook her, and fixed histeeth in her throat, he would be fairly winded; and then, with nobreathing-hole at hand, he would die terribly, bumping up against theclear ice and staring madly through at the free air for which hislungs were agonizing. His fierce heart failed him, and he turned backto the air-space under the bank. But the sight of the muskrat hadwhetted his appetite, and when he came to the muskrat house in thealders, he swam down and thrust his head inside the water-gate. Heeven, indeed, went half-way in; but soon instinct, or experience, orremembered instruction, told him that the distance to the air-chamberwas too great for him. He had no more fancy to be drowned in themuskrat's winding black tunnel, than under the clear daylight of theice; so he turned away, and with red, angry eyes resumed his journeyup-stream. 

The little muskrat, seeing that her enemy was disheartened, went oncheerfully to the clam-bed. Here she clawed up from the oozy bottomand devoured almost enough clams to make a meal for a full-grown man. But she took longer over her meal than the man would, thereby savingherself from an otherwise imminent indigestion. Each bivalve, as shegot it, she would carry up to the air-space among the stones, selecting a tussock of grass on which she could rest half out of thewater. And every time, before devouring her prize, she wouldcarefully, though somewhat impatiently, cleanse her face of the mudand dead leafage which seemed to be an inseparable concomitant of herdigging. When she had eaten as many clams as she could stuff into herlittle body, she hastened back to join her mate in the safe nest overthe water-gate. 

In the upper world the winter was a severe one, but of all itsbitterness the muskrats knew nothing, save by the growing thickness ofthe ice that sheltered them. As Bitter Creek shrank to normal, winterlevel, and the strong ice sank in mid-channel, the air-space alongshore increased till they had a spacious, covered corridor in which todisport themselves. Food was all about them--an unlimited abundance oflily-roots and clams; and once in awhile their diet was varied by thecapture of a half-torpid sucker or chub. There were no otters inBitter Creek; and the mink, which had investigated their water-gate sohungrily, got caught in a trap at an open spring up-stream, where hewas accustomed to fish for eels. So the muskrats had no dangerousenemies to mar their peace. 

The spring thaws came suddenly, while the ice was yet strong, and theflood went wide over the low banks of Bitter Creek. But the littlehouse among the alders withstood them sturdily. The water rose till itfilled the lower chamber. Inch by inch it crept up the last passage, till it glistened dimly just an inch below the threshold. But it neveractually touched that threshold; and the little grass-lined retreatstayed warm and dry. Then the ice went out, under the sun and showersof late April, and the waters sank away as rapidly as they had risen;and the muskrats, wild with the intoxication of spring, rolled, played, and swam gaily hither and thither on the surface of the opencreek. They made long excursions up and down-stream for the sheerdelight of wandering, and found fresh interest in every clam-flat, lily cove, or sprouting bed of sweet-flag. Their appetites they hadalways with them; and though it was fun to chase each other, or toroll and wallow luxuriously on the cool surface of the water when thesun shone warm, there was nothing quite so worth while, day in and dayout, as eating. Other muskrats now appeared, the wander-spirit seizingthem all at once; and the males had many fierce fights, which lefttheir naked tails scarred and bleeding. But the big muskrat, from thehouse in the alders, was denied the joy of battle, because none of hisrivals were so hardy as to confront him. 

About this pleasant season, in the upper chamber over the water-gate, was born a family of nine very small and very naked young muskrats. Their big father was amiably indifferent to them, and spent most ofhis time, when at home, in the lower chamber, which was now dry andclean enough for his luxurious tastes. Their small mother, however, was assiduous in her care; and in an exceedingly short time theyoungsters, very sleek and dark in their first fur, were investigatingthe wonderful, great world beyond their water-gate. They hadprodigious appetites, and they grew prodigiously. One, on their veryfirst outing, got snapped up by a greedy black duck. The attention ofthe little mother was just then occupied, and, never having learned tocount up to nine, she, apparently, never realized her loss; but shewas destined to avenge it, a week or two later, by eating twonew-hatched ducklings of that same black duck's brood. Another of thelittle muskrats encountered fate on the threshold of his existence, being snatched by the hungry jaws of a large pickerel, which dartedupon him like lightning from under the covert of a lily-pad. But inthis case, vengeance was instant and direct. The big muskrat chancedto be near by. He caught the pickerel, while the latter waspreoccupied with his meal, bit clean through the back of his neck, andthen and there devoured nearly half of him. In the engrossing task ofcleaning his fur after this feast, and making his toilet, which he didwith minute nicety on a stranded log by the shore, he promptly forgotthe loss to his little family, the wrong which he had sosatisfactorily and appropriately avenged. As for the remaining seven, they proceeded to grow up as rapidly as possible, and soon ceased tostand in any danger of pickerel or mallard. 

Though fairly omnivorous in his tastes, the big muskrat, like all histribe, was so content with his lilies, flag-root, and clams, that hewas not generally regarded as a foe by the birds and other smallpeople of the wilderness. He was too well fed to be a keen hunter. 

Having learned (and taught his fellows) to avoid muskrat-traps, thebig muskrat enjoyed his lazy summer life on Bitter Creek with acare-free spirit that is permitted to few, indeed, of the furtivekindred of the wild. There was no mink, as we have seen, to beware of;and as for hawks, he ignored them as none of the other small wildcreatures--squirrels, hares, or even the fierce and fearlessweasel--could afford to do. The hawks knew certain inconvenientcapacities of his kind. When, therefore, that sudden alarm would ringclamorous over the still, brown woods, that shrill outcry of thecrows, jays, and king-birds, which sends every weak thing trembling tocover, the big muskrat would sit up, untroubled, on his log, and go onmunching his flag-root with as fine an unconcern as if he had beena bear or a bull moose. 

[Illustration: "WITH A SCREAM OF PAIN AND FEAR, THE BIRD DROPPEDHIM. "]

But one day, one late, rose-amber afternoon, when the gnats weredancing over the glassy creek, he was startled out of this confidence. He was standing in shallow water, digging out an obstinate, buttempting root, when there arose a sudden great outcry from all thebirds. It meant "A hawk!--A hawk!--A hawk!--A hawk!" He understood itperfectly; but he never lifted his head from his task. Next momentthere was a mighty rush of wind in his ears; a thunderbolt seemed tostrike him, frightful claws gripped him, piercing his back, and he wasswept into the air. But it was a young hawk, unversed in the way ofthe muskrat, which had seized him. What those steely claws reallyclutched was little more than a roll of loose skin. Hurt, but notdaunted, the muskrat twisted his head up and back, and sank his long, punishing incisors into the enemy's thigh. He did not hang on, inbulldog fashion, but cut, cut, cut, deep through the bird's hardfeather armour, and into the cringing red strata of veins and muscles. With a scream of pain and fear, the bird dropped him, and he fell intothe water. At first, he dived deep, fearing a second attack, and cameup under a tangle of grasses, from which he could peer forth unseen. Then, perceiving that the hawk had vanished, he, by and by, came outof the grass, and paddled to his favourite log. He was bleedingprofusely, and his toilet that evening was long and painful. But in afew days he was as well as ever, with an added confidence. 

About this time, however, a small, inquisitive, and particularlybloodthirsty mink came down from the upper waters of the creek, wheregame had grown scarce under the ravages of her insatiable andimplacable family. One of her special weaknesses was for muskrat-meat, and many a muskrat house she had invaded so successfully that thelong, smothering, black, drowned galleries had no more terrors forher. 

She came to the house in the alders. She noted its size, and realizedthat here, indeed, was good hunting. She swam down to the water-gateat the bottom of the channel, poked her nose in, and returned to thesurface for a full supply of air. Then, with great speed, she divedagain, and disappeared within the blackness of the water-gate. 

It chanced that the big muskrat was just descending. From the innerdarkness he saw the enemy clearly, before her savage, little, peeringeyes could discover him. He knew all the deadliness of the peril. Hecould easily have escaped, turning back and fleeing by the otherpassage while the foe went on to her bloody work in the chambers. There was no time to warn the rest. 

But flight was far from the big muskrat's mind in that crucial moment. Not panic, but a fierce hate blazed in his usually good-natured eyes. With a swift, strenuous kick of his powerful hind legs, he shotdownward upon the enemy, and grappled with her in the narrow tunnel. 

The mink had seen him just before he fell upon her, and quicker thanthought itself had darted up her snake-like jaws to gain the fatalthroat-hold. But long success had made her over-confident. No muskrathad ever, within her experience, even tried to fight her. This presentimpetuous attack she mistook for a frantic effort to crowd past herand escape. Half careless, therefore, she missed the fatal hold, andcaught only a mouthful of yielding skin. Before she could tryagain--borne down and hampered as she was by the muskrat's weight--aset of long, tenacious teeth, crunching and cutting, met in the sideof her face, just at the root of the jaw. 

This time the muskrat was wise enough to hold on. His deep grip heldlike a vise. The mink's teeth, those vindictive teeth that had killedand killed for the mere joy of killing, now gnashed impotently. Inutter silence, there in the choking deep, the water in their eyes andears and jaws, they writhed and strove, the mink's lithe body twistingaround her foe like a snake. Then, with a convulsive shudder, herstruggles ceased. Her lungs had refused to hold the strained breathany longer. They had opened--and the water had filled them. Her bodytrailed out limply; and the muskrat, still maintaining that inexorablegrip, dragged her out through the water-gate which he had so wellkept. Out in the brown, blurred light of the current he still held herdown, jamming her head into a patch of bright sand, until the ache ofhis own lungs gave him warning. Then, carrying the body to thesurface, he flung it scornfully over a root to await the revival ofhis appetite, and proceeded to calm his excitement by a long, elaborate toilet. Steely dark and cold the waters of Bitter Creekslipped by between their leafless, bushy banks. And inside the dome ofthe house in the alders the thick-furred muskrat colony sleptluxuriously, little dreaming of the doom just averted from theirdoor. 

When the Moose Cow Calls

The smell of the burning rubbish heaps--the penetrating Novembersmell--spread up from the clearings and filled the chilly, windlessevening air. It seemed a sort of expression of the cold sky, thosepale steel-gray and sea-green wastes, deepening into sharp straightbands of orange and smoke colour along the far horizon. It seemedequally an expression of the harsh, darkening upland pastures, dottedwith ragged stumps and backed by ragged forests. It was thedistinctive autumn smell of the backwoods settlements, that smellwhich, taken into the blood in childhood, can never lose its potencyof magic, its power over the most secret springs of memory andlonging. 

On the rude snake fence at the back of the pasture sat a boy, with aroll of birch bark in his hands. The bark was fashioned into the shapeof a fish-horn, and the boy handled it proudly. He took deep breathsof the pungent-smelling air, and felt an exciting thrill as heglanced over his shoulder at the dark woods just behind him. It wasfor the sake of this thrill, this delicious though unfoundedapprehension, that he had come here to the very back of the pasture, in the twilight, after bringing up the cows from the milking. The cowshe couldn't see, for they were feeding in the lower pasture, justunder the rise of the hill. The lights beginning to glimmer in thefarmhouse were very far down in the valley; and very far down were thelittle creeping flames whence came that pungent smell pervading theworld; and the boy felt his spirit both expand and tremble before thegreat spaces of the solitude. 

It was for the purpose of practising privately the call of thecow-moose that the boy had betaken himself to the lonely back pasture. On the previous evening an old hunter, just back from a successful"calling" over on Nictau Lake, had given the boy some lessons in thisalluring and suggestive department of woodcraft, and had made his joycomplete by the gift of the bark "moose-call" itself, a battered oldtube with many "kills" to its credit. The boy, with his young voicejust roughening toward the bass of manhood, had proved an apt pupil. And the hunter had not only told him that practice would make him afirst-class "caller, " but had promised to take him hunting nextseason. This promise had set the boy's imagination aflame, and all dayhe had been dreaming of tall moose-bulls, wide-antlered, huge-belled, black of mane and shoulder. 

Of course, when he went up to the fence of the back pasture topractise his new accomplishment, the boy had no idea of being heard byanything in the shape of a bull-moose, still less of being able todeceive that crafty animal. Had he imagined the possibility of gainingany response to his call, he would have come well-armed, and wouldhave taken up his post in the branches of some safe tree. But it wasgetting near the end of the season, and what was more to the purpose, there ran a tradition in the settlement that the moose never came eastof Five Mile Creek, a water-course some four miles back from the fencewhereon the boy was sitting. Such traditions, once established in abackwoods village, acquire an authority quite superior to fact andproof against much ocular refutation. The boy had an unwavering faiththat, however seductively he might sound the call of the cow, never amoose bull would hear him, because never a moose bull could be foundthis side of Five Mile Creek. It was fascinating to pretend, --but hehad no will to evoke any monstrous apparition from those dark woodsbehind him, on which he found it so thrillingly hard to keep hisback turned. 

After sitting silent and moveless for a few minutes, listening to thevague, mysterious stir of the solitude till his eyes grew wide as awatching deer's, the boy lifted his birchen tube in both hands, stretched his neck, and gave forth the harsh, half-bleating bellow, orbray, with which the cow-moose signals for a mate. It was a goodimitation of what the old hunter had done, and the boy was proud ofit. In his exultation he repeated it thrice. Then he stopped tolisten, --pretending, as boys will, that he expected an answer. 

The silence following upon that sonorous sound seemed startling in itsdepth; and the boy held his breath lest he should mar it. Then came anunexpected noise, at which the boy's heart jumped into his throat, --asharp crashing and rattling of branches, as if somebody was thrashingthe underbrush with sticks. It seemed to be some hundreds of yardsaway, beyond the farthest fence of the pasture. For a moment the boywondered tremulously what it could be. Then he thought he understood. "Some fool steer's got through the fence and gone stumbling throughthe brush piles, " he muttered to himself. The explanation had themerit of explaining; and when the sound had ceased the boy once moreset the bark trumpet to his lips and sounded its harsh appeal. 

This time he called twice. As he paused to draw breath, a littlecreepy feeling on the skin of his cheeks and about the roots of hishair made him turn his head and fix his eyes upon a dense sprucethicket some twenty paces behind him. Surely there was a movementamong the young spruce tops. Almost as smoothly as a mink slips from arock the boy slipt down from his too conspicuous perch and crouchedbehind the fence. Peering between the rails he saw a tall, dark shape, with gigantic head, vast antlers, and portentous bulk of shoulder, step noiselessly from the thicket and stand motionless. With a heartthat throbbed in mingled exultation and terror, the boy realized thathe had called a bull-moose. 

Huge as seemed its stature to the boy's excited vision, the moose wasin reality a young and rather small bull, who had been forced bystronger rivals to go unmated. Driven by his restless desire, he hadwandered beyond his wonted range. Now he stood like a statue, headuplifted, peering on every side to catch sight of the mate whose voicehad so resistlessly summoned him. Only his wide ears moved, wavinginquisitively. His nostrils, ordinarily his chief source ofinformation, were dulled almost to obtuseness by that subtly acridperfume of the smoke. 

The boy in his fence corner, with a gray stump beside him, shrankwithin himself and stared through half-closed eyes, trembling lest themighty stranger should detect him. He had a very reasonable notionthat the mighty stranger might object to the deception which had beenpractised upon his eager emotions, and might not find the old railfence much barrier to his righteous wrath. For all his elation, theboy began to wish that he had not been in such haste to learnmoose-calling. "Don't call till you've some idea who'll answer!" was arule which he deduced from that night's experience. 

It is possible that the bull, during those few minutes while he stoodwaiting and watching, saw the dim figure of the boy behind the fence. If so, the figure had no concern for him. He caught nothing of thedreaded man-smell; and he had no reason to associate that small, harmless creature with the mate to whose calling he had sped soeagerly. But there was no doubt that the calling had come from thisvery place. Was it possible that the cow, more coquettish than herkind are apt to be, had hidden herself to provoke him? He came closerto the fence, and uttered a soft grumble in his throat, a sound bothcaressing and appealing. "My! how disappointed he'll be!" thought theboy, and devoutly wished himself safe at home. 

At this trying moment came relief from an unexpected quarter. Thatdistant threshing of the bushes which the boy had heard after hisfirst calling had not been a stray steer. Not by any means. It was theresponse of another young wandering moose bull, beating on theunderbrush with his ill-developed, but to himself quite wonderful, antlers. He, too, was seeking a mate in a region far remote from thatwhere ruled the tyrannous elder bulls. Silently and swiftly, assuredby the second summons, he had hurried to the tryst; and now, to hisungovernable rage, what he saw awaiting him in the dusk was no mate atall, but a rival. Pausing not to consider the odds, he burst from thecovert and rushed furiously to the attack. 

The first bull, though somewhat the larger of the two, and by far thebetter antlered, was taken at a disadvantage. Before he could whirland present his formidable front to the charge, the newcomer caughthim on the flank, knocked him clear off his feet, and sent himcrashing into the fence. The fence went down like stubble; and theboy, his eyes starting with astonished terror, scurried like a rabbitfor the nearest tree. Climbing into the branches with an agility whichsurprised even himself, he promptly recovered from his panic andturned to watch the fight. 

The first bull, saved from serious injury by the defects of hisadversary's antlers, picked himself up from the wreckage of the fence, and, grunting with anger, plunged back to meet his assailant. Thelatter, somewhat puzzled by the fence and its zig-zag twistings, haddrawn a little to one side, and so it happened that when the firstbull rushed at him, the angle of a fence corner intervened. When theopposing antlers came together, they met harmlessly between the heavyrails, and got tangled in a way that seemed to daunt their owners'rage. In the pushing and struggling the top rail was thrown off andfell smartly across the newcomer's neck. At the same time one of thestakes flew up and caught the first bull fairly on the sensitivemuzzle. Sneezing violently, he jumped back; and the two stood eyeingeach other with fierce suspicion over the top of the fence. 

The boy was trembling with excitement there in his tree, eager for thefight to go on and eager to see which would win. But in this he wasdoomed to disappointment. The end came in a most unlooked-for fashion. It chanced that the boy's "calling" had deceived others besides thetwo young bulls. The old hunter, in his cabin under the hill, hadheard it. He had snatched his rifle from behind the door, and stolenswiftly up to the back pasture. 

From a clump of hemlock not fifty yards away came a red flash and asharp report. The bull on the near side of the fence sprang into theair with a gasping cough, and fell. The smaller bull, who knew whatguns meant, simply vanished. It was as if the dusk had blotted himout, so noiselessly and instantaneously did he sink back into thethickets; and a moment later he was heard crashing away through theunderbrush in mad flight. As the hunter stepped up to examine hisprize, the boy dropped from the tree, grabbed his birch-bark tube, andcame forward proudly. 

"There wasn't any cow at all, --'cept me!" he proclaimed, his voiceringing with triumph. 

The Passing of the Black Whelps

[Illustration: "OVER THE CREST OF THE RIDGE, INKY BLACK FOR AN INSTANTAGAINST THE MOON, CAME A LEAPING DEER"]

I. 

A lopsided, waning moon, not long risen, looked over the ragged crestof the ridge, and sent long shadows down the sparsely wooded slope. Though there was no wind, and every tree was as motionless as ifcarved of ice, these spare, intricate shadows seemed to stir andwrithe, as if instinct with a kind of sinister activity. Thisconfusion of light and dark was increased by the patches of snow thatstill clung in the dips and on the gentler slopes. The air was cold, yet with a bitter softness in it, the breath of the thaw. The sound ofrunning water was everywhere--the light clamour of rivulets, and therush of the swollen brooks; while from the bottom of the valley camethe deep, pervading voice of the river at freshet, labouring betweenhigh banks with its burden of sudden flood. 

Over the crest of the ridge, inky black for an instant against themoon, came a leaping deer. He vanished in a patch of young firs. Heshot out again into the moonlight. Down the slope he came in mightybounds, so light of foot and so elastic that he seemed to floatthrough the air. From his heaving sides and wild eyes it was evidentthat he was fleeing in desperation from some appalling terror. Straight down the slope he came, to the very brink of the high bluffoverlooking the river. There he wheeled, and continued his flight upthe valley, his violent shadow every now and then, as he crossed thespaces of moonlight, projecting grotesquely out upon the swirlingflood. 

Up along the river bluff he fled for perhaps a mile. Then he stoppedsuddenly and listened, his sensitive ears and dilating nostrils heldhigh to catch the faintest waft of air. Not a sound came to him, except the calling of the waters; not a scent, save the raw freshnessof melting snow and the balsamic tang of buds just beginning to thrillto the first of the rising sap. He bounded on again for perhaps ahundred yards, then with a tremendous leap sprang to one side, a fullthirty feet, landing belly-deep in a thicket of scrub juniper. Anotherleap, as if he were propelled by steel springs, carried him yetanother thirty feet aside. Then he turned, ran back a couple ofhundred yards parallel to his old trail, and lay down in a densecovert of spruces to catch breath and ease his pounding heart. He wasa very young buck, not yet seasoned in the craft of the wilderness, and his terror shook him. But he knew enough to take his snatched restat the very edge of his covert, where his eyes could watch the backtrail. For a quarter of an hour, however, nothing appeared along thatstaring trail. Then he got up nervously and resumed his flight, stillascending the valley, but now slanting away from the river, andgradually climbing back toward the crest of the ridge. He had in minda wide reach of swales and flooded meadows, still miles away, whereinhe might hope to elude the doom that followed him. 

Not long after the buck had vanished there arose a strange sound uponthe still, wet air. It came in a rising and falling cadence from farbehind the ridge, under the lopsided moon. It was a high, confusedsound, not unmusical, but terrifying--a cry of many voices. It driftedup into the silvery night, wavered and diminished, swelled again, andthen died away, leaving a sense of fear upon the quiet that followed. The soft clamour of the waters, when one noticed them again, seemed tohave taken a new note from the menace of that cadenced cry. 

Presently over the top of the ridge, at the gap wherein had firstappeared the form of the leaping buck, a low, dark shape came, movingsinuously and with deadly swiftness. It did not bound into the air andfloat, as the buck had seemed to do, but slid smoothly, like a small, dense patch of cloud-shadow--a direct, inevitable movement, wasting noforce and fairly eating up the trail of the fleeing deer. 

As it came down the slope, disappearing in the hemlock groves andemerging upon the bright, snowy hollows, the dread shape resolveditself into a pack of seven wolves. They ran so close, so evenly, withfanged muzzles a little low, and ample, cloudy tails a little high, that one might have almost covered the whole deadly pack with atable-cloth. Their tongues were hanging out, and their eyes shot greenfire. They were fiercely hungry, for game was scarce and cunning thatwinter on their much ravaged range, and this chase was already a longone. When the trail of the buck wheeled at the river-brink, the leaderof the pack gave one short howl as he turned, barely escaping theabyss. It seemed to him that the buck must have been nearly winded, orhe would not, even for an instant, have contemplated taking to suchmad water. With the renewed vigour of encouragement, he swept hispack along up the edge of the bluff. 

On the pack-leader's right flank ran a sturdy wolf of a darker colourthan his fellows--nearly black, indeed, on the top of his head, overhis shoulders, and along his stiff-haired backbone. Not quite so tallor so long-flanked as the leader, he had that greater breadth of skullbetween the eyes which betokens the stronger intelligence, the moreindividualized resourcefulness. He had a look in his deep-set, fierceeye which seemed to prophesy that unless the unforeseen should happenhe would ere long seize the leadership to himself. 

But--the unforeseen did happen, at that moment. The trail, just there, led across a little dip wherein the snow still lingered. Thinlycovered by the snow lay a young pine-tree, lightning shivered and longdead. Thrust up from the trunk was a slim, sharp-pointed stub, keenand hard and preserved by its resin. Upon this hidden dagger-point, ashe ran, the dark wolf planted his right fore foot--planted it fair andwith a mighty push. Between the spreading toes, between the fine bonesand sinews and the cringing nerves of the foot, and out by the firstjoint of the leg it thrust its rending way. 

At the suddenness of the anguish the dark wolf yelped, fallingforward upon his muzzle as he did so, and dropping from his place asthe pack sped on. But as he wrenched his foot free and took onestumbling stride forward, the pack stopped, and turned. Their longwhite fangs snapped, and the fire in their eyes took a different hue. 

Very well the dark wolf knew the meaning of the halt, the turn, thechange in his fellows' eyes. He knew the stern law of the pack--theinstant and inevitable doom of its hurt member. The average gray wolfknows how to accept the inevitable. Fate itself--the law of thepack--he does not presume to defy. He will fight--to justify hisblood, and, perhaps, to drug his despair and die in the heat of thestruggle. But he does not dream of trying to escape. 

And in this fashion, fighting in silence, this dark wolf would havedied at the brink of the river bluff, and been eaten by his fellowsere they continued their chase of the leaping buck--in this fashionwould he have died, but for that extra breadth of skull between theeyes, that heightened individualism and resourcefulness. Had therebeen any chance to escape by fighting, fighting would have been thechoice of his fierce and hardy spirit. But what was he against six?

Defying the fiery anguish in his foot, he made a desperate leap whichtook him to the extreme overhanging edge of the bluff. Already thejaws of the executioners were gnashing at his heels. A second more andthey would have been at his throat. But before that second passed hewas in mid-air, his legs spread wide like those of a squirrel, fallingto the ice-cakes of the swollen river. From the brink above, the grimeyes of the baffled pack flamed down upon him for an instant, and thenwithdrew. What was a drowned wolf, when there was a winded buck notfar ahead?

But the black-shouldered wolf was not drowned. The flood was thick, indeed, with crunching ice-cakes and wallowing logs and slowly turningislets of uprooted trees and the _débris_ of the winter forest. Butfortune so favoured the wolf that he fell in a space of clear water, instead of being dashed to a pulp on ice-cake or tree trunk. Hedisappeared, came to the surface gasping, struck out hardily throughthe grim and daunting turmoil, and succeeded in gaining one of thoseislets of toughly interlaced _débris_ which turned slowly in theflood. Upon this precarious refuge, crouched shivering on the largesttree root and licking persistently at his wounded paw, he was carriedswiftly down-stream through the roar of waters. 

II. 

When the lopsided moon, now hung high over a low, desolate shore ofblanched rampikes, was fading to a papery whiteness against a sky ofdawn, the roar of the river grew louder, and the islet, no longerslowly revolving, plunged forward, through a succession of wallowingwaves, over a wild half-mile of ledges, and joined itself to a widerand mightier stream. The wolf, drenched, shivering, and appalled bythe tumult, clung to his refuge by tooth and claw; and the islet, being well compacted, held together through the wrenching plunges, andcarried its burden safely forth upon the quiet current. 

For a day and a night and a day the starving wolf voyaged down theflood, till his gaunt sides clung together, and a fierce ache gnawedat his vitals. But with the fasting and the ceaseless soothing of histongue his wound rapidly healed; and when, after sunset of his secondevening on the river, the islet grounded in an eddy under the bank, hesprang ashore with speed little impaired. Only a limp and an acheremained to remind him of the hurt which had so nearly cost him hislife and had exiled him to untried hunting-grounds. 

His feet once more on firm ground, the wolf halted warily. The airthat came down the bank carried a strange and warning scent. Noiselessly he crept up the steep, went through a few yards ofshrubbery like a ghost, and peered forth upon a rough back-settlementroad. At one side he saw a cabin, with a barn near it, and twolong-horned steers (he had seen steers at a lumber camp in his ownwild land), thrusting their muzzles over the fence. Down the roadtoward the cabin came a man, in gray homespun and cowhide larrigans, with an axe over his shoulder. It was the man-smell which had made thewolf so cautious. 

With savage but curious eyes he watched the man, with no thought ofattacking alone so redoubtable a foe. Presently the latter began towhistle, and at the incomprehensible sound the wolf shrank back, fearmingled with his curiosity. But when the man was well past, there camea new scent upon the air, a scent quite unknown to him; and then asmall black and white cur trotted into view, nosing along the roadsidein quest of chipmunks. The jaws of the starving wolf dripped water atthe sight. He gathered himself for a rush. He saw that the man haddisappeared. The dog ran across the road, sniffing a new chipmunktrail, and halted, in sudden apprehension, not five feet from thehidden wolf. There was a rustle, a leap, a sharp yelp; and the wolfwas back into cover with his prey. 

Emboldened by the success of this, his first hunting in the unknownland, the wolf slept for a few hours in his bushy retreat, and then, when the misshapen moon was up, went prowling cautiously around theoutskirts of the scattered little settlement. Everywhere the man-smellkept him on his guard. Once he was careless enough to get between thewind and a farmyard, whereupon a watchful cur started a barking, whichwas taken up and kept up for an hour by all the dogs of the village. At this the wolf, with snarling, contemptuous jaws apart, withdrew toa knoll, sat quietly erect upon his haunches, and waited for the dinto subside. He noted carefully the fact that one or two men werearoused by the alarm, and came out to see what was the matter. Whenall was quiet again he sought the house of the nearest yelper, tookhim by surprise, and killed him in sheer rage, leaving his torn bodybeside the very door-step, instead of dragging it away for a latermeal. This was a mistake in hunting craft. Had he been more familiarwith the man-folk, his wide-skulled intelligence would have taught himbetter than to leave a clue behind him in this careless fashion. 

[Illustration: "HE BARED HIS FANGS DISDAINFULLY. "]

From the farmyard he wandered back toward the hills, and came upon alonely sheep pasture. Here he found killing so easy that he slew inwantonness; and then, about daybreak, gorged and triumphant, withdrewto a rocky hillside, where he found a lair to his taste. 

Later in the day, however, he realized his mistake. He had called downupon himself the wrath of the man-folk. A din of dogs aroused him, and, mounting a rock, he saw a motley crowd of curs upon his trail, with half a dozen men following far behind them. He bared his fangsdisdainfully, then turned and sought the forest at a long gallop, which, for all his limp and his twinge, soon carried him beyondear-shot of his pursuers. 

For hours he pressed on ever eastward, with a little trend to thesouth, crossing many a trail of deer, caribou, and moose, passing hereand there a beaver village, and realizing that he had come towonderful hunting-grounds. But when he came to the outskirts ofanother settlement, he halted. His jaws ran water at the thought offinding another sheep pasture, and he decided to range for awhile inthis neighbourhood. He was quick to realize the disadvantage of man'sproximity, but he would dare it for a little before retiring into theuntainted wilderness. He had learned his lesson quickly, however. Thatnight he refrained from stirring up the dogs of the settlement; and hekilled but one sheep, in a secluded corner of the pasture. 

Now, by singular chance, it happened that at this particularsettlement there was already a sheep-killer harrying the thick-wooledflocks. A wandering peddler, smitten with a fever while visiting thesettlement, had died, and left to pay for his board and burial onlyhis pack and his dog. The dog, so fiercely devoted to him as to havemade the funeral difficult, was a long-legged, long-haired, long-jawedbitch, apparently a cross between a collie and a Scotch deerhound. Sounusual a beast, making all the other dogs of the settlement lookcontemptible, was in demand; but she was deaf, for a time, to allovertures. For a week she pined for the dead peddler; and then, withan air of scornful tolerance, consented to take up her abode with thevillage shopkeeper. Her choice was made not for any distinction in theman, but for a certain association, apparently, with the smell of thecontents of her late master's pack. For months she sulked and wasadmired, making friends with neither man, woman, nor child, andkeeping all the village curs at a respectful distance. 

A few days, however, before the arrival of the journeying wolf, a newinterest had entered into the life of the long-jawed bitch. Her eyesresumed their old bright alertness, and she grew perceptibly lessungracious to the loafers gathered around the stove in the back store. She had entered upon a career which would have ended right speedilywith a bullet in her reckless brain, but for an utterly unlooked-forfreak of fate. She had discovered that, if every night she could hunt, run down, and kill one sheep, life might again become worth living, and the coarse-clodded grave in the little lonely cemetery might beforgotten. It was not the killing, but the chase, that she craved. Thekilling was, of course, merely the ecstatic culmination. So she wentabout the sport with artistic cunning. To disguise her trail she cameupon the flocks from the side of the forest, as any wild beast would. Then she would segregate her victim with a skill born of her collieancestry, set it running, madden it to the topmost delirium of fearand flight, and almost let it escape before darting at its throat andending the game with the gush of warm blood between her jaws. 

Such had been her adventures for three nights: and already thesettlement was concerned, and already glances of half-formed suspicionhad been cast upon the long-legged bitch so innocently asleep by thestove, when the wandering wolf arrived upon the outskirts of thesettlement. The newcomer was quick to note and examine the tracks of apeculiarly large dog--a foeman, perhaps, to prove not unworthy of hisfangs. And he conducted his reconnoitring with more care. Then he cameupon the carcass of a sheep, torn and partly eaten. It was almost likea wolf's work--though less cleanly done--and the smell of the coldtrail was unmistakably dog. The black-backed wolf was puzzled. He hada vague notion that dogs were the protectors, not the hunters, of allthe four-legged kindred belonging to men. The problem seemed to him animportant one. He crouched in ambush near the carcass to consider itfor a time, before setting out upon his own sheep-hunting. 

As he crouched, watching, he saw the killer approach. He saw a tall, lean bitch come up, tear carelessly at the dead sheep for a moment ortwo, in a manner of ownership, and turn to leave. She was as long inleg and flank as himself, and possessed of the like punishing jaws;but she was not so massive in the shoulder. The wolf felt that hecould master her in combat; but he felt no disposition for the fight. The dog-smell that came to his nostrils did not excite the usual hotaversion. On the contrary, it made him desire to know more of thesheep-killing stranger. 

But acquaintance is not made lightly among the wild kindred, who arequick to resent a presumption. The wolf slipped noiselessly back intohis covert, emerged upon the farther side of the thicket, and at adistance of some twenty paces stood forth in the glimmering light. Toattract the tall bitch's attention he made a soft, whining sound. 

At the unexpected noise behind her the bitch wheeled like lightning. At sight of the big wolf the hair rose along her back, her fangs baredthemselves dangerously, and she growled a deep note of challenge. Forsome seconds the wolf thought she would fly at him, ; but he stoodmotionless, tail drooping humbly, tongue hanging a little way from hislips, a soft light in his eyes. Then he sat back upon his haunches, let his tongue hang out still farther, and drooped his head a littleto one side--the picture of conciliation and deference. 

The long-jawed bitch had never before seen a wolf, but she recognizedhim at once as a natural enemy. There was something in his attitude ofunoffending confidence, however, which made her hesitate to attack, although he was plainly a trespasser. As she eyed him, she felt heranger melting away. How like he was to certain big, strong dogs whichshe had seen once or twice in her wanderings with the peddler! and howunlike to the diminutive, yelping curs of the settlement! Herbristling hairs smoothed themselves, the skin of her jaws relaxed andset itself about her teeth in a totally different expression; hergrowling ceased, and she gave an amicable whine. Diffidently the twoapproached each other, and in a few minutes a perfect understandingwas established. 

That night they hunted sheep together. In the joy of comradeship andemulation, prudence was scattered to the winds, and they held a riotof slaughter. When day broke a dozen or more sheep lay dead about thepastures. And the wolf, knowing that men and dogs would soon be noisyon their trail, led his new-found mate far back into the wilderness. 

III. 

The tall bitch, hating the settlement and all the folk therein, wasglad to be quit of it. And she found the hunting of deer far morethrilling than the tame pursuit of sheep. Slipping with curious easethe inherited sympathies of her kind, she fell into the ways of thewild kindred, save for a certain brusque openness which she neversucceeded in laying off. 

For weeks the strangely mated pair drifted southward through thebright New Brunswick spring, to come to a halt at last in a region totheir liking between the St. John and the Chiputneticook chain oflakes. It was a land of deer and rabbits and ducks, with settlementssmall and widely scattered; a land where never a wolf-snout had beenseen for half a hundred years. And here, on a thick-wooded hill-slope, the wanderers found a dry cave and made it their den. 

In due course the long-jawed bitch bore a litter of six sturdy whelps, which throve amazingly. As they grew up they showed almost all wolf, harking back to the type--save that in colour they were nearly black, with a touch of tan in the gray of their under parts. When they cameto maturity, and were accredited hunters all, they were in generallarger and more savage than either of their parents, differing morewidely, one from another, than would the like number of full-bloodedwolves. The eight, when they hunted together, made a pack which, forstrength, ferocity, and craft, no like number of full-blooded wolvesin all Canada could have matched. 

The long-jawed bitch, whose highly developed brain guided, for themost part, the destinies of the pack, for a time kept them from thesettlement and away from the contact with men; and the existence ofwolves in the Chiputneticook country was not dreamed of among thebackwoods settlements. In this policy she was backed by the sagacityand strength of her mate, under whose wide-arched skull was a clearperception of the truth that man is the one master animal. But thehybrid whelps, by some perversion of inherited instinct, hated mansavagely, and had less dread of him than either of their parents. Morethan once was the authority of the leaders sharply strained to preventa disastrous attack upon some unsuspecting pair of lumbermen, withtheir ox-team and their axes. 

[Illustration: "THEY PROWLED AND HOWLED ABOUT THE DOOR. "]

The second winter of the wolves in the Chiputneticook country proved avery hard one--game scarce and hunting difficult; and toward theend of February the pack drew in toward the settlements, in the hopeof more abundant foraging. Fate promptly favoured the move. Somesheep, and a heifer or two, were easily killed, with no calamitousresult; and the authority of the leaders was somewhat discredited. Three of the young wolves even went so far as to besiege a solitarycabin, where a woman and some trembling children awaited the return ofthe man. For two hideous moonlit hours they prowled and howled aboutthe door, sniffing at the sill, and grinning in through the lowwindow; and when the sound of bells came near they withdrew sullenly, half-minded to attack the man and horse. 

A few nights after this, when the pack was following together thediscouraging trail of a long-winded and wily buck, they crossed thetrail of a man on snow-shoes. This trail was fresher, and to the youngwolves it seemed to promise easier hunting. The leaders wereoverruled, and the new trail was taken up with heat. 

The trail was that of a gaunt, tan-faced backwoodsman, on his way to alumber camp a few miles down the other side of the lake. He waspacking a supply of light needfuls, of which the lumbermen hadunexpectedly run short, and he was pressing forward in haste to avoida second night on the trail. The pack was carried high on his powerfulshoulders, in a manner to interfere as little as possible with hislong, snow-shoeing stride. In one hand he carried his axe. From underthe brim of his coonskin cap his piercing gray eyes kept watch with aquiet alertness--expecting no danger, indeed, and fearing none, buttrained to cool readiness for every vicissitude of the wild. 

He was travelling through a stretch of heavy timber, where themoonlight came down in such scant streaks that he had trouble inpicking a clear path, when his ear was caught by an unwonted sound farbehind him. He paused to listen, no unwonted sound being matter ofindifference to them who range the wood. It came again, long-drawn andhigh and cadenced. The big woodsman looked surprised. "I'd 'a' took myoath, " said he to himself, "ther' wa'n't a wolf in New Brunswick! ButI knowed the deer'd bring 'em back afore long!" Then, unconcernedly, he resumed his tramp, such experience as he had had with wolves in theWest having convinced him that they would not want to meddle with aman. 

In a few minutes, however, the instinct of the woods awoke in himsuddenly, and told him that it was not some buck, but himself, whomthe hunting pack were trailing. Then the sound came again, perceptiblynearer, though still far off. The woodsman gave a grunt of impatience, angry to think that any four-foot creature of the forest shouldpresume to hunt _him_. But the barest prudence told him that he shouldmake haste for the open. Under protest, as it were, he broke into along trot, and swerved to the right, that he might sooner reach thelake. 

As he ran, the novel experience of feeling himself pursued got on hisnerves, and filled him with rage. Were there not plenty of deer in thewoods? he thought, indignantly. He would teach the vermin a lesson. Several times he was on the point of stopping and waiting, to have itout with them as soon as possible. But wisdom prevailed, and he pushedon to the open. On the lake, the moonlit snow was packed hard, and therunning good. About a mile from shore a little, steep, rocky island, upthrusting itself boldly, suggested to the woodsman that if hispursuers were really going to have the audacity to attack him, itmight be well to have his back to a rock, that he might not besurrounded. He headed for the island, therefore, though with protestin his heart. And just as he got to it the wolves emerged from cover, and darted out upon the shining level. 

"Looks like they really meant it!" growled the big woodsman, loosinghis pack-strap, and setting his jaws for a fight. 

When the pack came near he was astonished first at the stature anddark colour of its members, and he realized, with a sudden fury, thatthe outcome was not so assured as he had taken for granted it wouldbe. Perhaps he would never see camp, after all! Then he was furtherastonished to note that one of the pack-leaders looked like a dog. Heshouted, in a voice of angry command; and the onrushing packhesitated, checked themselves, spread apart. From that dominatingvoice it was evident that this was a creature of power--not to beattacked carelessly, but to be surrounded. 

That voice of command had thrilled the heart of the long-jawed bitch. Something in it reminded her of the dead peddler, who had been amasterful man. She would have none of this hunting. But she looked ateach of her savage whelps, and knew that any attempt to lead them offwould be worse than vain. A strange hatred began to stir within her, and her fangs bared toward them as if they, not the man against therock, were the enemy. She looked again at the man, and saw the bundle, so like a peddler's pack, at his feet! Instantly her heart went out tohim. She was no longer a wolf, but a dog; and there was hermaster--not her old master, but such a one as he had been. At hisside, and fighting his foes, was her place. Like a flash, she dartedaway from her companions, stopped a few feet in front of the readywoodsman, turned about, and faced the pack with a savage growl. Herhair was stiffly erect from neck to tail; her long, white teeth werebared to the roots; her eyes were narrowed to slits of green flame;she half-crouched, ready to spring in mad fury and tear the throat ofany beast which should try to hurt the man. 

As for the woodsman, he knew dogs, and was not greatly surprised athis strange ally. At her sudden approach he had swung his axe inreadiness, but his cool eye had read her signals aright. "Good dog!"he said, with cheerful confidence. "We'll lick the varmints!"

But the young wolves went wild with rage at this defection anddefiance, and rushed in at once. They sprang first upon the bitch;though one, rushing past, leaped venomously at the woodsman's throat. This one got the axe in his skull, and dropped without a sound. Meanwhile, the old wolf, who had been holding back in uncertainty, hadmade his decision. When he saw his mate attacked, his doubts vanished, and a red haze for an instant went over his eyes. These unnaturalwhelps that attacked her--he suddenly saw them, not as wolves at all, but as dogs, and hated them with a deadly hate. Silently he fell uponthe nearest, and tore him savagely. He was too late, however, to savehis mistress. The long-jawed bitch, for all her strength and hervaliant spirit, was overwhelmed by her powerful offspring. One she hadkilled, and for one she had crunched a leg-joint to splinters; but nowshe lay mangled and still under the struggle. The brute whoseleg-joint she had smashed dragged out from the _mêlée_; and herfaithful mate, the wide-skulled old wanderer wolf, found himself inthe death-grapple with three raging adversaries, each fairly his matchfor weight and strength. True wolf, he fought in silence; but in hisantagonists the mixed breed came out, and they fought with yelps andsnarls. 

At this juncture, fortunately for the old wolf, the woodsman'sunderstanding eye had penetrated the whole situation. He saw that theblack-haired beasts were the common enemy; and he fell upon the threewith his axe. His snow-shoes he had kicked off when making ready forthe struggle. In his mighty grasp the light axe whirled and smote withthe cunning of a rapier; and in a few seconds the old wolf, bleedingbut still vigorous, found himself confronting the man across a heap ofmangled black bodies. The man, lowering his axe, looked at thebleeding wolf with mingled doubt and approbation. The wolf glared backfor an instant, --fear, hate, and grief in the green gleam of hiseyes, --then turned and fled, his pace accelerated by the cheerful yellwhich the man sent after him. 

"He's got the sand, sure!" muttered the woodsman, to himself, wipinghis axe. "Glad I didn't hev to knock him on the head, too!"

Then turning about, he saw the disabled whelp trying to sneak off, and, with unerring aim, threw his axe. The black mongrel sank with akick, and lay still. The woodsman got out his pipe, slowly stuffed itwith blackjack, and smoked contemplatively, while he stood andpondered the slain. He turned over the bodies, and patted the fur ofthe long-jawed bitch, which had so splendidly turned back to hertraditions in the time of need. As he thought, the main elements ofthe story unfolded themselves to him. Considerately he carried thelimp body, and securely buried it under a heap of stones on theisland. The rest he cached carelessly, intending to return and skinthem on the morrow. 

"Them black pelts'll be worth somethin', I reckon!" he said to himselfwith satisfaction as he took up his pack. 

The Homeward Trail

In the lumber camp, far back upon the lonely headquarters of theQuah-Davic, there was the stir of something unusual afoot. It wasChristmas Eve, and every kerosene lamp, lantern, and candle that thecamp could boast, was blazing. The little square windows gleamedsoftly through the dust and cobwebs of unwashen years. For all thecold that snapped and bit through the stillness of the forest night, the door of the camp was thrown wide open, and from it a long sheet oflight spread out across the trodden and chip-littered snow. Around thedoorway crowded the rough-shirted woodsmen, loafing and smoking aftertheir prodigious dinner of boiled pork, boiled beans, and steaming-hotmolasses cake. The big box-stove behind them, which heated the camp, was wearing itself to a dull red glow; and the air that rushed outwith the light from the open door was heavy with the smell of wetwoollens, wet larrigans, and wet leather. Many of the men were wearingnothing on their feet but their heavy, home-knit socks of countryyarn; but in these they did not hesitate to come out upon the drysnow, rather than trouble themselves to resume their massivefoot-gear. 

Before the door, in the spread of the light, stood a pair of sturdy, rough-coated gray horses, hitched to a strong box sled, or "pung. " Thebottom of the pung was covered thick with straw, and over the broad, low seat were blankets, with one heavy bearskin robe. Into the spacebehind the seat a gaunt, big-shouldered man was stowing a haunch offrozen moose-meat. A lanky, tow-haired boy of fifteen was tuckinghimself up carefully among the blankets on the left-hand side of theseat. The horses stood patient, but with drooping heads, aggrieved atbeing taken from the stable at this unwonted hour. In the pale-blue, kindly, woods-wise eyes of both the man and the boy shone the light ofhappy anticipation. They seemed too occupied and excited to make muchresponse to the good-natured banter of their comrades, but grinnedcontentedly as they hastened their preparations for departure. The manwas Steve Williams, best axe-man and stream-driver in the camp; theboy, young Steve, his eldest son, who was serving as "cookee, " orassistant to the camp cook. The two were setting out on a long nightdrive through the forest to spend Christmas with their family, on theedge of the lonely little settlement of Brine's Brook. 

When all was ready, the big-shouldered woodsman slipped into the seatbeside his son, pulled the blankets and the bearskin all about him, and picked up the reins from the square dashboard. A sharp _tchk_started the horses, and, amid a chorus of shouts, --good nights andMerry Christmases, and well-worn rustic pleasantries, --the loaded pungslid forward from the light into the great, ghost-white gloom beyond. The sled-bells jangled; the steel runners crunched and sang frostily;and the cheerful camp, the only centre of human life within a radiusof more than twenty miles, sank back behind the voyagers. There wasthe sound of a door slamming, and the bright streak across the snowwas blotted out. The travellers were alone on the trail, with thesolemn ranks of trees and the icy-pointed stars. 

They were well prepared, these two happy Christmas adventurers, toface the rigours of the December night. Under their heavyblanket-coats were many thicknesses of homespun flannel. Inside theirhigh-laced, capacious "shoe-packs" were several pairs of yarn socks. Their hands were covered by double-knit home-made mittens. Theirheads were protected by wadded caps of muskrat fur, with flaps thatpulled down well over the ears. The cold, which iced their eyelashes, turned the tips of their up-turned coat-collars and the edges of theirmufflers to board, and made the old trees snap startlingly, had noterrors at all for their hardy frames. Once well under way, and thecamp quite out of sight, they fell to chatting happily of the surprisethey would give the home folks, who did not expect them home forChristmas. They calculated, if they had "anyways good luck, " to gethome to the little isolated backwoods farmhouse between four and fivein the morning, about when grandfather would be getting up bycandle-light to start the kitchen fire for mother, and then go out andfodder the cattle. They'd be home in time to wake the three youngerchildren (young Steve was the eldest of a family of four), and to addcertain little carven products of the woodsman's whittling--ingeniouswooden toys, and tiny elaborate boxes, filled with choicest globulesof spruce gum--to the few poor Christmas gifts which the resourcefuland busy little mother had managed to get together against thefestival. As they talked these things over, slowly and with frugalspeech, after the fashion of their class, suddenly was borne in uponthem a sense of the loneliness of the home folks' Christmas if theyshould fail to come. Under the spell of this feeling, a kind ofinverted homesickness, their talk died into silence. They satthinking, and listening to the hoarse jangle of their bells. 

In such a night as this, few of the wild kindreds were astir in theforest. The bears, raccoons, woodchucks, and chipmunks were snugly"holed up, " and sleeping away the great white cold. The deer and moosewere in their well-trodden "yards, " for the snow was deep. Thetravellers knew that there were plenty of wood-mice astir, --that ifthere had been light enough they would have seen their delicate trailswandering everywhere among the trees. But the jangling of thesled-bells was enough to keep all shy beasts at a distance. Only theporcupine was quite undaunted by the strange sounds. One came out intothe middle of the road, and stood there seemingly to dispute passage. The boy, in whom primal instincts were still dominant, was for gettingout and killing the insolent little bristler. But the father turnedthe team aside, and gracefully yielded the road, saying:

"Let him be, son! The woods is hisn as much as ourn. An' I respecthim, fer he ain't skeered of nothin' that goes on legs!"

An hour later, when the boy was getting very drowsy from watching theceaseless procession of dark fir-trees, his father nudged him, andwhispered, "Look!" The boy, wide awake on the instant, peered into thegloom, and presently his trained young eyes made out a shadowy, slouching form, that flitted without a sound from tree to tree. 

"Lucivee?" he asked, breathless with interest, laying his mittenedhand on his little rifle under the blankets. 

"Yes, lucivee! lynx!" answered the father. 

"Let me take a shot at him, " said the boy, removing the mitten fromhis right hand, and bringing out his weapon. 

"Oh, what's the good o' killin' the beast Christmas times!" protestedthe father, gently. And the boy laid down the gun. 

"What does he think he's follerin' us fer?" he inquired, a momentlater. 

"The moose-meat, maybe!" replied the man. "He smells it likely, an'thinks we're goin' to give it to him for a Christmas present!"

At this suggestion the boy laughed out loud. His clear young voicerang through the frosty shadows; and the lynx, surprised andoffended, shrank back, and slunk away in another direction. 

"Bloodthirsty varmints, them lucivees!" said the boy, who wanted alynx-skin as a trophy. "Ain't it better to shoot 'em whenever one gitsthe chance?"

"Well, " said the father, dubiously, "maybe so! But there's bettertimes fer killin' than Christmas times!"

A little farther ahead, the road to Brine's Brook turned off. Here thegoing was very heavy. The road was little travelled, and in placesalmost choked up by drifts. Most of the time the horses had to walk;and sometimes the man and boy had to get out and tramp a path ahead ofthe discouraged team. 

"At this rate, dad, we ain't a-goin' to git home in time ferbreakfast!" exclaimed the boy, despondently. To which the man replied, "Don't you fret, son! It'll be better goin' when we git over the rise. You git into the pung now an' take the reins, an' let me do thetrampin'. "

The boy, who was tired out, obeyed gladly. He gathered up thereins, --and in two minutes was sound asleep. The man smiled, tuckedthe blankets snugly around the sleeping form, and trudged ontirelessly for a couple of hours, the horses floundering at hisheels. Then the drifts ceased. The man kicked the snow from histrousers and shoe-packs, and climbed into the pung again. "We'll makeit in time fer breakfast yet!" he murmured to himself, confidently, asthe horses once more broke into a trot. 

They were traversing now a high table-land, rather sparsely wooded, and dotted here and there with towering rampikes. Suddenly from farbehind came a long, wavering cry, high-pitched and peculiarlydaunting. The horses, though they had probably never heard such asound before, started apprehensively, and quickened their pace. Theman reined them in firmly; but as he did so he frowned. 

"I've hearn say the wolves was comin' back to these here parts, " hemuttered, "now that the deer's gittin' so plenty agin! But I didn'tmore'n half-believe it afore!"

Presently the grim sound came again. Then the man once more awoke theboy. 

"Here's somethin' to interest you, lad, " said he, as the latter put amittened fist to sleepy eyes. "Hark to that there noise! Did you everhear the like?"

The boy listened, paled slightly, and was instantly wide awake. 

"Why, that's like what I've read about!" he exclaimed. "It must bewolves!"

"Nary a doubt of it!" assented his father, again reining the uneasyhorses down to a steady gait. "They've followed the deer back, andnow, seems like their a-follerin' us!"

The boy looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, carelessly:

"Oh, well, I reckon there's deer a-plenty for 'em, an' they're notlikely to come too nigh us, lookin' fer trouble. I reckon they ain'tmuch like them Roosian wolves we read about, eh, dad?"

"I reckon, " agreed the father. At the same time, it was with a certainsatisfaction that he set his foot on his trusty axe, amid the straw inthe bottom of the pung. 

As the high, quavering voices drew nearer, the horses grew more andmore alarmed; but the man soothed them with his voice, and sternlyheld them in, husbanding their strength lest there should be moreheavy going farther ahead. At length, some three hundred yards behindthem, they caught a glimpse of their pursuers, four swiftly runningshapes. 

"Only four!" cried the boy, scornfully, as he patted his littlerifle. "I thought there was always more'n that in a pack!"

"You needn't grumble, " said the man, with a grin. "It's gittin' homefer breakfast we're after, not fightin' wolves, son!"

The road was so much better now that the man gave the horses theirhead a little, and the pung flew over the singing snow. But in a fewminutes the four wolves, though keeping a distance of a couple ofhundred yards, were running abreast of them. The animals wereevidently unacquainted with horses or men, and shy about a closeinvestigation. The sled-bells, too, were to them a very suspiciousphenomenon. Deer, assuredly, were safer hunting; but they would, atleast, keep this strange, new kind of quarry in sight for awhile, tosee what might turn up. 

For the next half-hour there was no change in the situation. From timeto time, where the woods thickened, the wolves would draw nearer tothe pung; and the boy, with shining eyes, would lift his rifle. Butpresently they would sheer off again; and the boy grew more and morescornful. Then came the winter dawn, a creeping, bitter gray, and fora few minutes the forest was an unreal place, full of ghosts, and coldwith a cold to pierce the soul. Then, a growing, spreading, pervadingglory of pink and lilac and transparent gold. As the light streamedthrough the trees, the wolves got a clearer view of their quarry; andperceiving in it a something distinctly dangerous, they dropped thechase and faded back into the thickets. The man looked at the boy'sdisappointed face, and said, smilingly:

"I reckon they was extry-ordinary civil, seein' us home that waythrough the woods!"

A few moments later the woods were left behind, and the travellerscame out among the snowy stump-fields. There below them, half-way downthe hill, was home, bathed in the sparkling sun. Smoke was pouringcheerfully from the chimney; and there in the yard was grandfather, bringing in a pail of milk from the barn. 

"Mother'll have breakfast jest about ready!" cried the man, his roughface tender and aglow. 

"But I wisht I could've brought her a nice wolf-skin for Christmas!"exclaimed the boy, sighing softly as he laid down the little rifle. 

THE END.