_Wood Folk at School_ [Illustration] [Illustration: "THERE AT A TURN IN THE PATH, NOT TEN YARDS AHEAD, STOODA HUGE BEAR. "] WOOD FOLK AT SCHOOL BY WILLIAM J. LONG _WOOD FOLK SERIESBOOK FOUR_ GINN & COMPANYBOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · LONDON ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL COPYRIGHT, 1902, 1903BY WILLIAM J. LONG ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Athenæum PressGINN & COMPANY · CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS PREFACE It may surprise many, whose knowledge of wild animals is gained fromrare, fleeting glimpses of frightened hoof or wing in the woods, toconsider that there can be such a thing as a school for the Wood Folk;or that instruction has any place in the life of the wild things. Nevertheless it is probably true that education among the higher orderof animals has its distinct place and value. Their knowledge, howeversimple, is still the result of three factors: instinct, training, andexperience. Instinct only begins the work; the mother's trainingdevelops and supplements the instinct; and contact with the world, withits sudden dangers and unknown forces, finishes the process. For many years the writer has been watching animals and recording hisobservations with the idea of determining, if possible, which of thesethree is the governing factor in the animal's life. Some of the resultsof this study were published last year in a book called "School of theWoods, " which consisted of certain studies of animals from life, andcertain theories in the form of essays to account for what the writer'seyes had seen and his own ears heard in the great wilderness among theanimals. A school reader is no place for theories; therefore that part of thebook is not given here. The animal studies alone are reproduced inanswer to the requests from many teachers that these be added to theWood Folk books. From these the reader can form his own conclusions asto the relative importance of instinct and training, if he will. Butthere is another and a better way open: watch the purple martins for afew days when the young birds first leave the house; find a crow's nest, and watch secretly while the old birds are teaching their little ones tofly; follow a fox, or any other wild mother-animal, patiently as sheleaves the den and leads the cubs out into the world of unknown sightsand sounds and smells, --and you will learn more in a week of whateducation means to the animals than anybody's theories can ever teachyou. These are largely studies of individual animals and birds. They do notattempt to give the habits of a class or species, for the animals of thesame class are alike only in a general way; they differ in interest andintelligence quite as widely as men and women of the same class, if youbut watch them closely enough. The names here given are those of theMilicete Indians, as nearly as I can remember them; and the incidentshave all passed under my own-eyes and were recorded in the woods, frommy tent or canoe, just as I saw them. WILLIAM J. LONG. STAMFORD, CONN. , March, 1903. CONTENTS PAGEWHAT THE FAWNS MUST KNOW 1 A CRY IN THE NIGHT 11 ISMAQUES THE FISHHAWK 31 A SCHOOL FOR LITTLE FISHERMEN 48 WHEN YOU MEET A BEAR 58 QUOSKH THE KEEN EYED 75 UNK WUNK THE PORCUPINE 111 A LAZY FELLOW'S FUN 124 THE PARTRIDGES' ROLL CALL 134 UMQUENAWIS THE MIGHTY 151 AT THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET 175 GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES 187 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS "THERE AT A TURN IN THE PATH, NOT TEN YARDS AHEAD, STOOD A HUGE BEAR" _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE"THE WHITE FLAG SHOWING LIKE A BEACON LIGHT AS SHE JUMPED AWAY" 9 "HER EYES ALL ABLAZE WITH THE WONDER OF THE LIGHT" 24 "PRESENTLY THEY BEGAN TO SWOOP FIERCELY AT SOME ANIMAL" 43 "GRIPPING HIS FISH AND _pip-pipping_ HIS EXULTATION" 53 "A DOZEN TIMES THE FISHER JUMPED, FILLING THE AIR WITH FEATHERS" 104 "BOTHERS AND IRRITATES THE PORCUPINE BY FLIPPING EARTH AT HIM" 118 "THEY WOULD TURN THEIR HEADS AND LISTEN INTENTLY" 145 "PLUNGING LIKE A GREAT ENGINE THROUGH UNDERBRUSH AND OVER WINDFALLS" 152 "A MIGHTY SPRING OF HIS CROUCHING HAUNCHES FINISHED THE WORK" 183 What the Fawns Must Know [Illustration] To this day it is hard to understand how any eyes could have found them, they were so perfectly hidden. I was following a little brook, which ledme by its singing to a deep dingle in the very heart of the big woods. Agreat fallen tree lay across my path and made a bridge over the stream. Now, bridges are for crossing; that is plain to even the least of thewood folk; so I sat down on the mossy trunk to see who my neighborsmight be, and what little feet were passing on the King's highway. Here, beside me, are claw marks in the moldy bark. Only a bear couldleave that deep, strong imprint. And see! there is where the mossslipped and broke beneath his weight. A restless tramp is Mooween, whoscatters his records over forty miles of hillside on a summer day, whenhis lazy mood happens to leave him for a season. Here, on the otherside, are the bronze-green petals of a spruce cone, chips from asquirrel's workshop, scattered as if Meeko had brushed them hastily fromhis yellow apron when he rushed out to see Mooween as he passed. There, beyond, is a mink sign, plain as daylight, where Cheokhes sat down alittle while after his breakfast of frogs. And here, clinging to a stub, touching my elbow as I sit with heels dangling idly over the lazy brook, is a crinkly yellow hair, which tells me that Eleemos the Sly One, asSimmo calls him, hates to wet his feet and so uses a fallen tree or astone in the brook for a bridge, like his brother fox of thesettlements. Just in front of me was another fallen tree, lying alongside the streamin such a way that no animal more dangerous than a roving mink wouldever think of using it. Under its roots, away from the brook, was ahidden and roomy little house with hemlock tips drooping over itsdoorway for a curtain. "A pretty place for a den, " I thought; "for noone could ever find you there. " Then, as if to contradict me, a straysunbeam found the spot and sent curious bright glintings of sheen andshadow dancing and playing under the fallen roots and trunk. "Beautiful!" I cried, as the light fell on the brown mold and flecked itwith white and yellow. The sunbeam went away again, but seemed to leaveits brightness behind it; for there were still the gold-brown moldunder the roots and the flecks of white and yellow. I stooped down tosee it better; I reached in my hand--then the brown mold changedsuddenly to softest fur; the glintings of white and yellow were thedappled sides of two little fawns, lying there very still andfrightened, just where their mother had hidden them when she went away. They were but a few days old when I found them. Each had on his littleJoseph's coat; and each, I think, must have had also a magic cloaksomewhere about him; for he had only to lie down anywhere to becomeinvisible. The curious markings, like the play of light and shadowthrough the leaves, hid the little owners perfectly so long as they heldthemselves still and let the sunbeams dance over them. Their beautifulheads were a study for an artist, --delicate, graceful, exquisitelycolored. And their great soft eyes had a questioning innocence, as theymet yours, which went straight to your heart and made you claim thebeautiful creatures for your own instantly. Indeed, there is nothing inall the woods that so takes your heart by storm as the face of a littlefawn. They were timid at first, lying close without motion of any kind. Theinstinct of obedience--the first and strongest instinct of everycreature born into this world--kept them loyal to the mother's commandto stay where they were and be still till she came back. So even afterthe hemlock curtain was brushed aside, and my eyes saw and my handtouched them, they kept their heads flat to the ground and pretendedthat they were only parts of the brown forest floor, and that the spotson their bright coats were but flecks of summer sunshine. I felt then that I was an intruder; that I ought to go straight away andleave them; but the little things were too beautiful, lying there intheir wonderful old den, with fear and wonder and questionings dancingin their soft eyes as they turned them back at me like a mischievouschild playing peekaboo. It is a tribute to our higher nature that onecannot see a beautiful thing anywhere without wanting to draw near, tosee, to touch, to possess it. And here was beauty such as one rarelyfinds, and, though I was an intruder, I could not go away. The hand that touched the little wild things brought no sense of dangerwith it. It searched out the spots behind their velvet ears where theylove to be rubbed; it wandered down over their backs with a little wavycaress in its motion; it curled its palm up softly under their moistmuzzles and brought their tongues out instantly for the faint suggestionof salt that was in it. Suddenly their heads came up. All deception wasover now. They had forgotten their hiding, their first lesson; theyturned and looked at me full with their great, innocent, questioningeyes. It was wonderful; I was undone. One must give his life, if needbe, to defend the little things after they had looked at him just oncelike that. When I rose at last, after petting them to my heart's content, theystaggered up to their feet and came out of their house. Their mother hadtold them to stay; but here was another big, kind animal, evidently, whom they might safely trust. "Take the gifts the gods provide thee" wasthe thought in their little heads; and the salty taste in their tongues'ends, when they licked my hand, was the nicest thing they had everknown. As I turned away they ran after me, with a plaintive little cryto bring me back. When I stopped they came close, nestling against me, one on either side, and lifted their heads to be petted and rubbedagain. Standing so, all eagerness and wonder, they were a perfect study infirst impressions of the world. Their ears had already caught the deertrick of twitching nervously and making trumpets at every sound. A leafrustled, a twig broke, the brook's song swelled as a floating stickjammed in the current, and instantly the fawns were all alert. Eyes, ears, noses questioned the phenomenon. Then they would raise their eyesslowly to mine. "This is a wonderful world. This big wood is full ofmusic. We know so little; please tell us all about it, "--that is whatthe beautiful eyes were saying as they lifted up to mine, full ofinnocence and delight at the joy of living. Then the hands that restedfondly, one on either soft neck, moved down from their ears with acaressing sweep and brought up under their moist muzzles. Instantly thewood and its music vanished; the questions ran away out of their eyes. Their eager tongues were out, and all the unknown sounds were forgottenin the new sensation of lapping a man's palm, which had a wonderfultaste hidden somewhere under its friendly roughnesses. They were stilllicking my hands, nestling close against me, when a twig snapped faintlyfar behind us. Now, twig snapping is the great index to all that passes in thewilderness. Curiously enough, no two animals can break even a twig undertheir feet and give the same warning. The _crack_ under a bear's foot, except when he is stalking his game, is heavy and heedless. The hoof ofa moose crushes a twig, and chokes the sound of it before it can tellits message fairly. When a twig speaks under a deer in his passagethrough the woods, the sound is sharp, dainty, alert. It suggests the_plop_ of a raindrop into the lake. And the sound behind us now couldnot be mistaken. The mother of my little innocents was coming. I hated to frighten her, and through her to destroy their newconfidence; so I hurried back to the den, the little ones running closeby my side. Ere I was halfway, a twig snapped sharply again; there was aswift rustle in the underbrush, and a doe sprang out with a low bleat asshe saw the home log. At sight of me she stopped short, trembling violently, her ears pointingforward like two accusing fingers, an awful fear in her soft eyes as shesaw her little ones with her archenemy between them, his hands restingon their innocent necks. Her body swayed away, every muscle tense forthe jump; but her feet seemed rooted to the spot. Slowly she swayed backto her balance, her eyes holding mine; then away again as the dangerscent poured into her nose. But still the feet stayed. She could notmove; could not believe. Then, as I waited quietly and tried to make myeyes say all sorts of friendly things, the harsh, throaty _K-a-a-a-h!k-a-a-a-h!_ the danger cry of the deer, burst like a trumpet blastthrough the woods, and she leaped back to cover. At the sound the little ones jumped as if stung, and plunged into thebrush in the opposite direction. But the strange place frightened them;the hoarse cry that went crashing through the startled woods filled themwith nameless dread. In a moment they were back again, nestling closeagainst me, growing quiet as the hands stroked their sides withouttremor or hurry. Around us, out of sight, ran the fear-haunted mother, calling, calling;now showing her head, with the terror deep in her eyes; now dashingaway, with her white flag up, to show her little ones the way they musttake. But the fawns gave no heed after the first alarm. They felt thechange; their ears were twitching nervously, and their eyes, which hadnot yet grown quick enough to measure distances and find their mother inher hiding, were full of strange terror as they questioned mine. Still, under the alarm, they felt the kindness which the poor mother, dog-driven and waylaid by guns, had never known. Therefore they stayed, with a deep wisdom beyond all her cunning, where they knew they weresafe. I led them slowly back to their hiding place, gave them a last lick atmy hands, and pushed them gently under the hemlock curtain. When theytried to come out I pushed them back again. "Stay there, and mind yourmother; stay there, and follow your mother, " I kept whispering. And tothis day I have a half belief that they understood, not the word butthe feeling behind it; for they grew quiet after a time and looked outwith wide-open, wondering eyes. Then I dodged out of sight, jumped thefallen log to throw them off the scent should they come out, crossed thebrook, and glided out of sight into the underbrush. Once safely out ofhearing I headed straight for the open, a few yards away, where theblasted stems of the burned hillside showed faintly through the green ofthe big woods, and climbed, and looked, and changed my position, till atlast I could see the fallen tree under whose roots my little innocentswere hiding. The hoarse danger cry had ceased; the woods were all still again. Amovement in the underbrush, and I saw the doe glide out beyond the brookand stand looking, listening. She bleated softly; the hemlock curtainwas thrust aside, and the little ones came out. At sight of them sheleaped forward, a great gladness showing eloquently in every line of hergraceful body, rushed up to them, dropped her head and ran her keen noseover them, ears to tail and down their sides and back again, to be surethat they were her own little ones and were not harmed. All the whilethe fawns nestled close to her, as they had done a moment before to me, and lifted their heads to touch her sides with their noses, and ask intheir own dumb way what it was all about, and why she had run away. [Illustration: "THE WHITE FLAG SHOWING LIKE A BEACON LIGHT AS SHE JUMPEDAWAY"] Then, as the smell of the man came to her from the tainted underbrush, the absolute necessity of teaching them their neglected second lessonbefore another danger should find them swept over her in a flood. Shesprang aside with a great bound, and the hoarse _K-a-a-a-h! k-a-a-a-h!_crashed through the woods again. Her tail was straight up, the whiteflag showing like a beacon light as she jumped away. Behind her thefawns stood startled a moment, trembling with a new wonder. Then theirflags went up too, and they wabbled away on slender legs through thetangles and over the rough places of the wood, bravely following theirleader. And I, watching from my hiding, with a vague regret that theycould never again be mine, not even for a moment, saw only the crinklinglines of underbrush and here and there the flash of a little white flag. So they went up the hill and out of sight. First, lie still; and second, follow the white flag. When I saw themagain it needed no danger cry of the mother to remind them of these twothings that every fawn must know who would live to grow up in the bigwoods. [Illustration] A Cry in the Night [Illustration] This is the rest of the story, just as I saw it, of the little fawnsthat I found under the mossy log by the brook. There were two of them, you remember; and though they looked alike at first glance, I soon foundout that there is just as much difference in fawns as there is in folks. Eyes, faces, dispositions, characters, --in all things they were asunlike as the virgins of the parable. One of them was wise, and theother was very foolish. The one was a follower, a learner; he neverforgot his second lesson, to follow the white flag. The other followedfrom the first only his own willful head and feet, and discovered toolate that obedience is life. Until the bear found him, I have no doubthe was thinking, in his own dumb, foolish way, that obedience is onlyfor the weak and ignorant, and that government is only an unfairadvantage which all the wilderness mothers take to keep little wildthings from doing as they please. The wise old mother took them both away when she knew I had found them, and hid them in a deeper solitude of the big woods, nearer the lake, where she could the sooner reach them from her feeding grounds. For daysafter the wonderful discovery I used to go in the early morning or thelate afternoon, while mother deer are away feeding along thewatercourses, and search the dingle from one end to the other, hoping tofind the little ones again and win their confidence. But they were notthere; and I took to watching instead a family of mink that lived in aden under a root, and a big owl that always slept in the same hemlock. Then, one day when a flock of partridges led me out of the wild berrybushes into a cool green island of the burned lands, I ran plump uponthe deer and her fawns lying all together under a fallen treetop, dozingaway the heat of the day. They did not see me, but were only scared into action as a branch, uponwhich I stood looking for my partridges, gave way beneath my feet andlet me down with a great crash under the fallen tree. There, lookingout, I could see them perfectly, while Kookooskoos himself could hardlyhave seen me. At the first crack they all jumped like Jack-in-a-boxwhen you touch his spring. The mother put up her white flag--which isthe snowy underside of her useful tail, and shows like a beacon by dayor night--and bounded away with a hoarse _Ka-a-a-a-h!_ of warning. Oneof the little ones followed her on the instant, jumping squarely in hismother's tracks, his own little white flag flying to guide any thatmight come after him. But the second fawn ran off at a tangent, andstopped in a moment to stare and whistle and stamp his tiny foot in anodd mixture of curiosity and defiance. The mother had to circle backtwice before he followed her, at last, unwillingly. As she stole backeach time, her tail was down and wiggling nervously--which is the suresign, when you see it, that some scent of you is floating off throughthe woods and telling its warning into the deer's keen nostrils. Butwhen she jumped away the white flag was straight up, flashing in thevery face of her foolish fawn, telling him as plain as any language whatsign he must follow if he would escape danger and avoid breaking hislegs in the tangled underbrush. I did not understand till long afterwards, when I had watched the fawnsmany times, how important is this latter suggestion. One who follows afrightened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off at breakneck paceover loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swifton one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other sidetill he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where youmust follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break anankle, --finds himself asking with unanswered wonder how any deer canlive half a season in the wilderness without breaking all his legs. Andwhen you run upon a deer at night and hear him go smashing off in thedarkness at the same reckless speed, over a tangled blow-down, perhaps, through which you can barely force your way by daylight, then yourealize suddenly that the most wonderful part of a deer's educationshows itself, not in keen eyes or trumpet ears, or in his finely trainednose, more sensitive a hundred times than any barometer, but in hisforgotten feet, which seem to have eyes and nerves and brains packedinto their hard shells instead of the senseless matter you see there. Watch the doe yonder as she bounds away, wigwagging her heedless littleone to follow. She is thinking only of him; and now you see her feetfree to take care of themselves. As she rises over the big windfall, they hang from the ankle joints, limp as a glove out of which the handhas been drawn, yet seeming to wait and watch. One hoof touches a twig;like lightning it spreads and drops, after running for the smallestfraction of a second along the obstacle to know whether to relax orstiffen, or rise or fall to meet it. Just before she strikes the groundon the down plunge, see the wonderful hind hoofs sweep themselvesforward, surveying the ground by touch, and bracing themselves, in afraction of time so small that the eye cannot follow, for the shock ofwhat lies beneath them, whether rock or rotten wood or yielding moss. The fore feet have followed the quick eyes above, and shoot straight andsure to their landing; but the hind hoofs must find the spot forthemselves as they come down and, almost ere they find it, bracethemselves again for the push of the mighty muscles above. Once only I found where a fawn with untrained feet had broken its leg;and once I heard of a wounded buck, driven to death by dogs, that hadfallen in the same way never to rise again. Those were rare cases. Themarvel is that it does not happen to every deer that fear drives throughthe wilderness. And that is another reason why the fawns must learn to obey a wiser headthan their own. Till their little feet are educated, the mother mustchoose the way for them; and a wise fawn will jump squarely in hertracks. That explains also why deer, even after they are full grown, will often walk in single file, a half-dozen of them sometimes followinga wise leader, stepping in his tracks and leaving but a single trail. Itis partly, perhaps, to fool their old enemy, the wolf, and their newenemy, the man, by hiding the weakling's trail in the stride and hoofmark of a big buck; but it shows also the old habit, and the trainingwhich begins when the fawns first learn to follow the flag. After that second discovery I used to go in the afternoon to a point onthe lake nearest the fawns' hiding place, and wait in my canoe for themother to come out and show me where she had left her little ones. Asthey grew, and the drain upon her increased from their feeding, sheseemed always half starved. Waiting in my canoe I would hear the crackleof brush, as she trotted straight down to the lake almost heedlessly, and see her plunge through the fringe of bushes that bordered the water. With scarcely a look or a sniff to be sure the coast was clear, shewould jump for the lily pads. Sometimes the canoe was in plain sight;but she gave no heed as she tore up the juicy buds and stems, andswallowed them with the appetite of a famished wolf. Then I would paddleaway and, taking my direction from her trail as she came, huntdiligently for the fawns until I found them. This last happened only two or three times. The little ones were alreadywild; they had forgotten all about our first meeting, and when I showedmyself, or cracked a twig too near them, they would promptly bolt intothe brush. One always ran straight away, his white flag flying to showthat he remembered his lesson; the other went off zigzag, stopping atevery angle of his run to look back and question me with his eyes andears. There was only one way in which such disobedience could end. I saw itplainly enough one afternoon, when, had I been one of the fierceprowlers of the wilderness, the little fellow's history would havestopped short under the paw of Upweekis, the shadowy lynx of the burnedlands. It was late afternoon when I came over a ridge, following a deerpath on my way to the lake, and looked down into a long narrow valleyfilled with berry bushes, and with a few fire-blasted trees standinghere and there to point out the perfect loneliness and desolation of theplace. Just below me a deer was feeding hungrily, only her hind quartersshowing out of the underbrush. I watched her awhile, then dropped on allfours and began to creep towards her, to see how near I could get andwhat new trait I might discover. But at the first motion (I had stood atfirst like an old stump on the ridge) a fawn that had evidently beenwatching me all the time from his hiding sprang into sight with a sharpwhistle of warning. The doe threw up her head, looking straight at me asif she had understood more from the signal than I had thought possible. There was not an instant's hesitation or searching. Her eyes went directto me, as if the fawn's cry had said: "Behind you, mother, in the pathby the second gray rock!" Then she jumped away, shooting up the oppositehill over roots and rocks as if thrown by steel springs, blowinghoarsely at every jump, and followed in splendid style by her watchfullittle one. At the first snort of danger there was a rush in the underbrush nearwhere she had stood, and a second fawn sprang into sight. I knew himinstantly--the heedless one--and knew also that he had neglected toolong the matter of following the flag. He was confused, frightened, chuckle-headed now; he came darting up the deer path in the wrongdirection, straight towards me, to within two jumps, before he noticedthe man kneeling in the path before him and watching him quietly. At the startling discovery he stopped short, seeming to shrink smallerand smaller before my eyes. Then he edged sidewise to a great stump, hidhimself among the roots, and stood stock-still, --a beautiful picture ofinnocence and curiosity, framed in the rough brown roots of the sprucestump. It was his first teaching, to hide and be still. Just as heneeded it most, he had forgotten absolutely the second lesson. We watched each other full five minutes without moving an eyelash. Thenhis first lesson ebbed away. He sidled out into the path again, cametowards me two dainty, halting steps, and stamped prettily with his leftfore foot. He was a young buck, and had that trick of stamping withoutany instruction. It is an old, old ruse to make you move, to startle youby the sound and threatening motion into showing who you are and whatare your intentions. But still the man did not move; the fawn grew frightened at his ownboldness and ran away down the path. Far up the opposite hill I heardthe mother calling him. But he heeded not; he wanted to find out thingsfor himself. There he was in the path again, watching me. I took out myhandkerchief and waved it gently; at which great marvel he trotted back, stopping anon to look and stamp his little foot, to show me that he wasnot afraid. "Brave little chap, I like you, " I thought, my heart going out to him ashe stood there with his soft eyes and beautiful face, stamping hislittle foot. "But what, " my thoughts went on, "had happened to you erenow, had a bear or lucivee lifted his head over the ridge? Next month, alas! the law will be off; then there will be hunters in these woods, some of whom leave their hearts, with their wives and children, behindthem. You can't trust them, believe me, little chap. Your mother isright; you can't trust them. " The night was coming swiftly. The mother's call, growing ever moreanxious, more insistent, swept over the darkening hillside. "Perhaps, " Ithought, with sudden twinges and alarms of conscience, "perhaps I setyou all wrong, little chap, in giving you the taste of salt that day, and teaching you to trust things that meet you in the wilderness. " Thatis generally the way when we meddle with Mother Nature, who has her owngood reasons for doing things as she does. "But no! there were two ofyou under the old log that day; and the other, --he's up there with hismother now, where you ought to be, --he knows that old laws are saferthan new thoughts, especially new thoughts in the heads of foolishyoungsters. You are all wrong, little chap, for all your prettycuriosity, and the stamp of your little foot that quite wins my heart. Perhaps I am to blame, after all; anyway, I'll teach you better now. " At the thought I picked up a large stone and sent it crashing, jumping, tearing down the hillside straight at him. All his bravado vanishedlike a wink. Up went his flag, and away he went over the logs and rocksof the great hillside; where presently I heard his mother running in agreat circle till she found him with her nose, thanks to the wood wiresand the wind's message, and led him away out of danger. One who lives for a few weeks in the wilderness, with eyes and earsopen, soon finds that, instead of the lawlessness and blind chance whichseem to hold sway there, he lives in the midst of law and order--anorder of things much older than that to which he is accustomed, withwhich it is not well to interfere. I was uneasy, following the littledeer path through the twilight stillness; and my uneasiness was notdecreased when I found on a log, within fifty yards of the spot wherethe fawn first appeared, the signs of a big lucivee, with plenty offawn's hair and fine-cracked bones to tell me what he had eaten for hismidnight dinner. * * * * * Down at the lower end of the same deer path, where it stopped at thelake to let the wild things drink, was a little brook. Outside the mouthof this brook, among the rocks, was a deep pool; and in the pool livedsome big trout. I was there one night, some two weeks later, trying tocatch some of the big trout for my next breakfast. Those were wise fish. It was of no use to angle for them by day anymore. They knew all the flies in my book; could tell the new Jenny Lindfrom the old Bumble Bee before it struck the water; and seemed to knowperfectly, both by instinct and experience, that they were all frauds, which might as well be called Jenny Bee and Bumble Lind for any sweetreasonableness that was in them. Besides all this, the water was warm;the trout were logy and would not rise. By night, however, the case was different. A few of the trout wouldleave the pool and prowl along the shores in shallow water to see whattidbits the darkness might bring, in the shape of night bugs andcareless piping frogs and sleepy minnows. Then, if you built a fire onthe beach and cast a white-winged fly across the path of the firelight, you would sometimes get a big one. It was fascinating sport always, whether the trout were rising or not. One had to fish with his ears, and keep most of his wits in his hand, ready to strike quick and hard when the moment came, after an hour ofcasting. Half the time you would not see your fish at all, but only hearthe savage plunge as he swirled down with your fly. At other times, asyou struck sharply at the plunge, your fly would come back to you, ortangle itself up in unseen snags; and far out, where the verge of thefirelight rippled away into darkness, you would see a sharp wave-wedgeshooting away, which told you that your trout was only a musquash. Swimming quietly by, he had seen you and your fire, and slapped his taildown hard on the water to make you jump. That is a way Musquash has inthe night, so that he can make up his mind what queer thing you are andwhat you are doing. All the while, as you fish, the great dark woods stand close about you, silent, listening. The air is full of scents and odors that steal abroadonly by night, while the air is dew-laden. Strange cries, calls, squeaks, rustlings run along the hillside, or float in from the water, or drop down from the air overhead, to make you guess and wonder whatwood folk are abroad at such unseemly hours, and what they are about. Sothat it is good to fish by night, as well as by day, and go home withheart and head full, even though your creel be empty. I was standing very still by my fire, waiting for a big trout that hadrisen and missed my fly to regain his confidence, when I heard cautiousrustlings in the brush behind me. I turned instantly, and there were twogreat glowing spots, the eyes of a deer, flashing out of the darkwoods. A swift rustle, and two more coals glow lower down, flashing andscintillating with strange colors; and then two more; and I know thatthe doe and her fawns are there, stopped and fascinated on their way todrink by the great wonder of the light, and by the witchery of thedancing shadows that rush up at timid wild things, as if to frightenthem, but only jump over them and back again, as if inviting them tojoin the silent play. I knelt down quietly beside my fire, slipping on a great roll of birchbark which blazed up brightly, filling the woods with light. There, under a spruce, where a dark shadow had been a moment agone, stood themother, her eyes all ablaze with the wonder of the light; now staringsteadfastly into the fire; now starting nervously, with low questioningsnorts, as a troop of shadows ran up to play hop-scotch with the littleones, which stood close behind her, one on either side. A moment only it lasted. Then one fawn--I knew the heedless one, even inthe firelight, by his face and by his bright-dappled Joseph's coat--camestraight towards me, stopping to stare with flashing eyes when the firejumped up, and then to stamp his little foot at the shadows to show themthat he was not afraid. [Illustration: "HER EYES ALL ABLAZE WITH THE WONDER OF THE LIGHT"] The mother called him anxiously; but still he came on, stampingprettily. She grew uneasy, trotting back and forth in a half circle, warning, calling, pleading. Then, as he came between her and the fire, and his little shadow stretched away up the hill where she was, showinghow far away he was from her and how near the light, she broke away fromits fascination with an immense effort: _Ka-a-a-h! ka-a-a-h!_ the hoarsecry rang through the startled woods like a pistol shot; and she boundedaway, her white flag shining like a wave crest in the night to guide herlittle ones. The second fawn followed her instantly; but the heedless one barelyswung his head to see where she was going, and then came on towards thelight, staring and stamping in foolish wonder. I watched him a little while, fascinated myself by his beauty, hisdainty motions, his soft ears with a bright oval of light about them, his wonderful eyes glowing like burning rainbows kindled by thefirelight. Far behind him the mother's cry ran back and forth along thehillside. Suddenly it changed; a danger note leaped into it; and again Iheard the call to follow and the crash of brush as she leaped away. Iremembered the lynx and the sad little history written on the log above. As the quickest way of saving the foolish youngster, I kicked my fireto pieces and walked out towards him. Then, as the wonder vanished indarkness and the scent of the man poured up to him on the lake's breath, the little fellow bounded away--alas! straight up the deer path, atright angles to the course his mother had taken a moment before. Five minutes later I heard the mother calling a strange note in thedirection he had taken, and went up the deer path very quietly toinvestigate. At the top of the ridge, where the path dropped away into adark narrow valley with dense underbrush on either side, I heard thefawn answering her, below me among the big trees, and knew instantlythat something had happened. He called continuously, a plaintive cry ofdistress, in the black darkness of the spruces. The mother ran aroundhim in a great circle, calling him to come; while he lay helpless in thesame spot, telling her he could not, and that she must come to him. Sothe cries went back and forth in the listening night, --_Hoo-wuh_, "comehere. " _Bla-a-a, blr-r-t, _ "I can't; come here. " _Ka-a-a-h, ka-a-a-h!_"danger, follow!"--and then the crash of brush as she rushed awayfollowed by the second fawn, whom she must save, though she abandonedthe heedless one to prowlers of the night. It was clear enough what had happened. The cries of the wilderness allhave their meaning, if one but knows how to interpret them. Runningthrough the dark woods his untrained feet had missed their landing, andhe lay now under some rough windfall, with a broken leg to remind him ofthe lesson he had neglected so long. I was stealing along towards him, feeling my way among the trees in thedarkness, stopping every moment to listen to his cry to guide me, when aheavy rustle came creeping down the hill and passed close before me. Something, perhaps, in the sound--a heavy, though almost noiselessonward push which only one creature in the woods can possiblymake--something, perhaps, in a faint new odor in the moist air told meinstantly that keener ears than mine had heard the cry; that Mooween thebear had left his blueberry patch, and was stalking the heedless fawn, whom he knew, by the hearing of his ears, to have become separated fromhis watchful mother in the darkness. I regained the path silently--though Mooween heeds nothing when his gameis afoot--and ran back to the canoe for my rifle. Ordinarily a bear istimid as a rabbit; but I had never met one so late at night before, andknew not how he would act should I take his game away. Besides, thereis everything in the feeling with which one approaches an animal. If onecomes timidly, doubtfully, the animal knows it; and if one comes swift, silent, resolute, with his power gripped tight, and the hammer back, anda forefinger resting lightly on the trigger guard, the animal knows ittoo, you may depend. Anyway, they always act as if they knew; and youmay safely follow the rule that, whatever your feeling is, whether fearor doubt or confidence, the large and dangerous animals will sense itinstantly and adopt the opposite feeling for their rule of action. Thatis the way I have always found it in the wilderness. I met a bear onceon a narrow path--but I must tell about that elsewhere. The cries had ceased; the woods were all dark and silent when I cameback. I went as swiftly as possible--without heed or caution; forwhatever crackling I made the bear would attribute to the desperatemother--to the spot where I had turned back. Thence I went oncautiously, taking my bearings from one great tree on the ridge thatlifted its bulk against the sky; slower and slower, till, just this sidea great windfall, a twig cracked sharply under my foot. It was answeredinstantly by a grunt and a jump beyond the windfall--and then thecrashing rush of a bear up the hill, carrying something that caught andswished loudly on the bushes as it passed, till the sounds vanished in afaint rustle far away, and the woods were still again. All night long, from my tent over beyond an arm of the big lake, I heardthe mother calling at intervals. She seemed to be running back and forthalong the ridge, above where the tragedy had occurred. Her nose told herof the bear and the man; but what awful thing they were doing with herlittle one she knew not. Fear and questioning were in the calls thatfloated down the ridge and across the water to my little tent. At daylight I went back to the spot. I found without trouble where thefawn had fallen; the moss told mutely of his struggle; and a stain ortwo showed where Mooween grabbed him. The rest was a plain trail ofcrushed moss and bent grass and stained leaves, and a tuft of soft hairhere and there on the jagged ends of knots in the old windfalls. So thetrail hurried up the hill into a wild, rough country where it was of nouse to follow. As I climbed the last ridge on my way back to the lake, I heardrustlings in the underbrush, and then the unmistakable crack of a twigunder a deer's foot. The mother had winded me; she was now followingand circling down wind to find out whether her lost fawn were with me. As yet she knew not what had happened. The bear had frightened her intoextra care of the one fawn of whom she was sure. The other had simplyvanished into the silence and mystery of the great woods. Where the path turned downward, in sight of the lake, I saw her for amoment plainly, standing half hid in the underbrush, looking intently atmy old canoe. She saw me at the same instant and bounded away, quartering up the hill in my direction. Near a thicket of evergreen thatI had just passed, she sounded her hoarse _K-a-a-h, k-a-a-h!_ and threwup her flag. There was a rush within the thicket; a sharp _K-a-a-h!_answered hers. Then the second fawn burst out of the cover where she hadhidden him, and darted along the ridge after her, jumping like a big redfox from rock to rock, rising like a hawk over the windfalls, hittingher tracks wherever he could, and keeping his little nose hard down tohis one needful lesson of following the white flag. [Illustration] ISMAQUES, THE FISHHAWK [Illustration] _Whit, whit, ch'wee? Whit, whit, whit, ch'weeeeee!_ over my head wentthe shrill whistling, the hunting cry of Ismaques. Looking up from myfishing I could see the broad wings sweeping over me, and catch thebright gleam of his eye as he looked down into my canoe, or behind me atthe cold place among the rocks, to see if I were catching anything. Then, as he noted the pile of fish, --a blanket of silver on the blackrocks, where I was stowing away chub for bear bait, --he would drop lowerin amazement to see how I did it. When the trout were not rising, andhis keen glance saw no gleam of red and gold in my canoe, he wouldcircle off with a cheery _K'weee!_ the good-luck call of a brotherfisherman. For there is no envy nor malice nor any uncharitableness inIsmaques. He lives in harmony with the world, and seems glad when youland a big one, even though he be hungry himself, and the clamor fromhis nest, where his little ones are crying, be too keen for his heart'scontent. What is there in going a-fishing, I wonder, that seems to change eventhe leopard's spots, and that puts a new heart into the man who hies himaway to the brook when buds are swelling? There is Keeonekh the otter. Before he turned fisherman he was probably fierce, cruel, bloodthirsty, with a vile smell about him, like all the other weasels. Now he lives atpeace with all the world and is clean, gentle, playful as a kitten andfaithful as a dog when you make a pet of him. And there is Ismaques thefishhawk. Before he turned fisherman he was probably hated, like everyother hawk, for his fierceness and his bandit ways. The shadow of hiswings was the signal for hiding to all the timid ones. Jay and crowcried _Thief! thief!_ and kingbird sounded his war cry and rushed out tobattle. Now the little birds build their nests among the sticks of hisgreat house, and the shadow of his wings is a sure protection. For owland hawk and wild-cat have learned long since the wisdom of keeping wellaway from Ismaques' dwelling. Not only the birds, but men also, feel the change in Ismaques'disposition. I hardly know a hunter who will not go out of his way for ashot at a hawk; but they send a hearty good-luck after this wingedfisherman of the same fierce family, even though they see him risingheavily out of the very pool where the big trout live, and where theyexpect to cast their flies at sundown. Along the southern New Englandshores his coming--regular as the calendar itself--is hailed withdelight by the fishermen. One state, at least, where he is mostabundant, protects him by law; and even our Puritan forefathers, whoseem to have neither made nor obeyed any game laws, looked upon him witha kindly eye, and made him an exception to the general license forkilling. To their credit, be it known, they once "publikly reeprimanded"one Master Eliphalet Bodman, a son of Belial evidently, for violently, with powder and shot, doing away with one fishhawk, and wickedlydestroying the nest and eggs of another. Whether this last were also done violently, with powder and shot, byblowing the nest to pieces with an old gun, or in simple boy-fashion byshinning up the tree, the quaint old town record does not tell. But allthis goes to show that our ancestors of the coast were kindly people atheart; that they looked upon this brave, simple fisherman, who built hisnest by their doors, much as the German village people look upon thestork that builds upon their chimneys, and regarded his coming as anomen of good luck and plenty to the fisher folk. Far back in the wilderness, where Ismaques builds his nest and goesa-fishing just as his ancestors did a thousand years ago, one finds thesame honest bird, unspoiled alike by plenty or poverty, that excited ourboyish imagination and won the friendly regard of our ancestors of thecoast. Opposite my camp on the lake, where I tarried long one summer, charmed by the beauty of the place and the good fishing, a pair offishhawks had built their nest in the top of a great spruce on themountain side. It was this pair of birds that came daily to circle overmy canoe, or over the rocks where I fished for chub, to see how I fared, and to send back a cheery _Ch'wee! chip, ch'weeee!_ "good luck and goodfishing, " as they wheeled away. It would take a good deal of argumentnow to convince me that they did not at last recognize me as afellow-fisherman, and were not honestly interested in my methods andsuccess. At first I went to the nest, not so much to study the fishhawks as tocatch fleeting glimpses of a shy, wild life of the woods, which ishidden from most eyes. The fishing was good, and both birds were expertfishermen. While the young were growing there was always an abundance inthe big nest on the spruce top. The overflow of this abundance, in theshape of heads, bones and unwanted remnants, was cast over the sides ofthe nest and furnished savory pickings for a score of hungry prowlers. Mink came over from frog hunting in the brook, drawn by the good smellin the air. Skunks lumbered down from the hill, with a curious, hollow, bumping sound to announce their coming. Weasels, and one grizzly oldpine marten, too slow or rheumatic for successful tree hunting, glidedout of the underbrush and helped themselves without asking leave. Wild-cats quarreled like fiends over the pickings; more than once Iheard them there screeching in the night. And one late afternoon, as Ilingered in my hiding among the rocks while the shadows deepened, a biglucivee stole out of the bushes, as if ashamed of himself, and took tonosing daintily among the fish bones. It was his first appearance, evidently. He did not know that the feastwas free, but thought all the while that he was stealing somebody'scatch. One could see it all in his attitudes, his starts and listenings, his low growlings to himself. He was bigger than anybody else there, andhad no cause to be afraid; but there is a tremendous respect among allanimals for the chase law and the rights of others; and the big cat feltit. He was hungry for fish; but, big as he was, his every movementshowed that he was ready to take to his heels before the first littlecreature that should rise up and screech in his face: "This is mine!"Later, when he grew accustomed to things and the fishhawks' generosityin providing a feast for all who might come in from the wildernessbyways and hedges, he would come in boldly enough and claim his own; butnow, moving stealthily about, halting and listening timidly, hefurnished a study in animal rights that repaid in itself all the longhours of watching. But the hawks themselves were more interesting than their unbiddenguests. Ismaques, honest fellow that he is, mates for life, and comesback to the same nest year after year. The only exception to this rulethat I know is in the case of a fishhawk, whom I knew well as a boy, andwho lost his mate one summer by an accident. The accident came from agun in the hands of an unthinking sportsman. The grief of Ismaques wasevident, even to the unthinking. One could hear it in the lonely, questioning cry that he sent out over the still summer woods; and see itin the sweep of his wings as he went far afield to other ponds, not tofish, for Ismaques never fishes on his neighbor's preserves, but tosearch for his lost mate. For weeks he lingered in the old haunts, calling and searching everywhere; but at last the loneliness and thememories were too much for him. He left the place long before the timeof migration had come; and the next spring a strange couple came to thespot, repaired the old nest, and went fishing in the pond. Ordinarilythe birds respect each other's fishing grounds, and especially the oldnests; but this pair came and took possession without hesitation, as ifthey had some understanding with the former owner, who never came backagain. The old spruce on the mountain side had been occupied many years by myfishing friends. As is usually the case, it had given up its life to itsbird masters. The oil from their frequent feastings had soaked into thebark, following down and down, checking the sap's rising, till at lastit grew discouraged and ceased to climb. Then the tree died and gave upits branches, one by one, to repair the nest above. The jagged, brokenends showed everywhere how they had been broken off to supply the hawks'necessities. There is a curious bit of building lore suggested by these brokenbranches, that one may learn for himself any springtime by watching thebirds at their nest building. Large sticks are required for afoundation. The ground is strewed with such; but Ismaques never comesdown to the ground if he can avoid it. Even when he drops an unusuallyheavy fish, in his flight above the trees, he looks after itregretfully, but never follows. He may be hungry, but he will not sethis huge hooked talons on the earth. He cannot walk, and loses all hispower there. So he goes off and fishes patiently, hours long, to replacehis lost catch. When he needs sticks for his nest, he searches out a tree and breaks offthe dead branches by his weight. If the stick be stubborn, he rises farabove it and drops like a cannon ball, gripping it in his claws andsnapping it short off at the same instant by the force of his blow. Twice I have been guided to where Ismaques and his mate were collectingmaterial by reports like pistol shots ringing through the wood, as thegreat birds fell upon the dead branches and snapped them off. Once, whenhe came down too hard, I saw him fall almost to the ground, flappinglustily, before he found his wings and sailed away with his four-footstick triumphantly. There is another curious bit of bird lore that I discovered here in theautumn, when, much later than usual, I came back through the lake. Ismaques, when he goes away for the long winter at the South, does notleave his house to the mercy of the winter storms until he has firstrepaired it. Large fresh sticks are wedged in firmly across the top ofthe nest; doubtful ones are pulled out and carefully replaced, and thewhole structure made shipshape for stormy weather. This careful repair, together with the fact that the nest is always well soaked in oil, whichpreserves it from the rain, saves a deal of trouble for Ismaques. Hebuilds for life and knows, when he goes away in the fall, that, barringuntoward accidents, his house will be waiting for him with the quietwelcome of old associations when he comes back in the spring. Whetherthis is a habit of all ospreys, or only of the two on Big SquatukLake--who were very wise birds in other ways--I am unable to say. What becomes of the young birds is also, to me, a mystery. The home tiesare very strong, and the little ones stay with the parents much longerthan most other birds do; but when the spring comes you will see onlythe old birds at the home nest. The young come back to the same generalneighborhood, I think; but where the lake is small they never build nortrespass on the same waters. As with the kingfishers and sheldrakes, each pair of birds seem to have their own pond or portion; but by whatold law of the waters they find and stake their claim is yet to bediscovered. There were two little ones in the nest when I first found it; and I usedto watch them in the intervals when nothing was stirring in theunderbrush near my hiding place. They were happy, whistling, littlefellows, well fed and contented with the world. At times they wouldstand for hours on the edge of the nest, looking down over the slantingtree-tops to the lake, finding the great rustling green world, and thepassing birds, and the glinting of light on the sparkling water, and thehazy blue of the distant mountains marvelously interesting, if one couldjudge from their attitude and their pipings. Then a pair of broad wingswould sweep into sight, and they would stretch their wings wide andbreak into eager whistlings, --_Pip, pip, ch'wee? chip, ch'weeeeee?_ "didyou get him? is he a big one, mother?" And they would stand tiptoeinggingerly about the edge of the great nest, stretching their neckseagerly for a first glimpse of the catch. At times only one of the old birds would go a-fishing, while the otherwatched the nest. But when luck was poor both birds would seek the lake. At such times the mother bird, larger and stronger than the male, wouldfish along the shore, within sight and hearing of her little ones. Themale, meanwhile, would go sweeping down the lake to the trout pools atthe outlet, where the big chub lived, in search of better fishinggrounds. If the wind were strong, you would see a curious bit of sealore as he came back with his fish. He would never fly straight againstthe wind, but tack back and forth, as if he had learned the trick fromwatching the sailor fishermen of the coast beating back into harbor. And, watching him through your glass, you would see that he alwayscarried his fish endwise and head first, so as to present the leastpossible resistance to the breeze. While the young were being fed, you were certain to gain new respect forIsmaques by seeing how well he brought up his little ones. If the fishwere large, it was torn into shreds and given piecemeal to the young, each of whom waited for his turn with exemplary patience. There was nocrowding or pushing for the first and biggest bite, such as you see in anest of robins. If the fish were small, it was given entire to one ofthe young, who worried it down as best he could, while the mother birdswept back to the lake for another. The second nestling stood on theedge of the nest meanwhile, whistling good luck and waiting his turn, without a thought, apparently, of seizing a share from his mate besidehim. * * * * * Just under the hawks a pair of jays had built their nest among thesticks of Ismaques' dwelling, and raised their young on the abundantcrumbs which fell from the rich man's table. It was curious andintensely interesting to watch the change which seemed to be going onin the jays' disposition by reason of the unusual friendship. Deedeeaskhthe jay has not a friend among the wood folk. They all know he is athief and a meddler, and hunt him away without mercy if they find himnear their nests. But the great fishhawks welcomed him, trusted him; andhe responded nobly to the unusual confidence. He never tried to stealfrom the young, not even when the mother bird was away, but contentedhimself with picking up the stray bits that they had left. And he morethan repaid Ismaques by the sharp watch which he kept over the nest, andindeed over all the mountain side. Nothing passes in the woods withoutthe jay's knowledge; and here he seemed, for all the world, like awatchful terrier, knowing that he had only to bark to bring a power ofwing and claw sufficient to repel any danger. When prowlers came downfrom the mountain to feast on the heads and bones scattered about thefoot of the tree, Deedeeaskh dropped down among them and went dodgingabout, whistling his insatiable curiosity. So long as they took onlywhat was their own, he made no fuss about it; but he was there to watch, and he let them know sharply their mistake, if they showed any desire tocast evil eyes at the nest above. [Illustration: "PRESENTLY THEY BEGAN TO SWOOP FIERCELY AT SOME ANIMAL"] Once, as my canoe was gliding along the shore, I heard the jays'unmistakable cry of danger. The fishhawks were wheeling in great circlesover the lake, watching for the glint of fish near the surface, when thecry came, and they darted away for the nest. Pushing out into the lake, I saw them sweeping above the tree-tops in swift circles, utteringshort, sharp cries of anger. Presently they began to swoop fiercely atsome animal--a fisher, probably--that was climbing the tree below. Istole up to see what it was; but ere I reached the place they had driventhe intruder away. I heard one of the jays far off in the woods, following the robber and screaming to let the fishhawks know just wherehe was. The other jay sat close by her own little ones, cowering underthe shadow of the great dark wings above. And presently Deedeeaskh cameback, bubbling over with the excitement, whistling to them in his ownway that he had followed the rascal clear to his den, and would keep asharp watch over him in future. When a big hawk came near, or when, on dark afternoons, a young owl tookto hunting in the neighborhood, the jays sounded the alarm, and thefishhawks swept up from the lake on the instant. Whether Deedeeaskh weremore concerned for his own young than for the young fishhawks I have nomeans of knowing. The fishermen's actions at such times showed acurious mixture of fear and defiance. The mother would sit on the nestwhile Ismaques circled over it, both birds uttering a shrill, whistlingchallenge. But they never attacked the feathered robbers, as they haddone with the fisher, and, so far as I could see, there was no need. Kookooskoos the owl and Hawahak the hawk might be very hungry; but thesight of those great wings circling over the nest and the shrill cry ofdefiance in their ears sent them hurriedly away to other huntinggrounds. There was only one enemy that ever seriously troubled the fishhawks; andhe did it in as decent a sort of way as was possible under thecircumstances. That was Cheplahgan the eagle. When he was hungry and hadfound nothing himself, and his two eaglets, far away in their nest onthe mountain, needed a bite of fish to vary their diet, he would set hiswings to the breeze and mount up till he could see both ospreys at theirfishing. There, sailing in slow circles, he would watch for hours tillhe saw Ismaques catch a big fish, when he would drop like a bolt andhold him up at the point of his talons, like any other highwayman. Itwas of no use trying to escape. Sometimes Ismaques would attempt it, butthe great dark wings would whirl around him and strike down a sharp andunmistakable warning. It always ended the same way. Ismaques, beingwise, would drop his fish, and the eagle would swoop down after it, often seizing it ere it reached the water. But he never injured thefishhawks, and he never disturbed the nest. So they got along wellenough together. Cheplahgan had a bite of fish now and then in his ownhigh-handed way; and honest Ismaques, who never went long hungry, madethe best of a bad situation. Which shows that fishing has also taughthim patience, and a wise philosophy of living. The jays took no part in these struggles. Occasionally they cried out asharp warning as Cheplahgan came plunging down out of the blue, over thehead of Ismaques; but they seemed to know perfectly how the unequalcontest must end, and they always had a deal of jabber among themselvesover it, the meaning of which I could never make out. As for myself, I am sure that Deedeeaskh could never make up his mindwhat to think of me. At first, when I came, he would cry out a dangernote that brought the fishhawks circling over their nest, looking downinto the underbrush with wild yellow eyes to see what danger threatened. But after I had hidden myself away a few times, and made no motion todisturb either the nest or the hungry prowlers that came to feast onthe fishhawks' bounty, Deedeeaskh set me down as an idle, harmlesscreature who would, nevertheless, bear watching. He never got over hiscuriosity to know what brought me there. Sometimes, when I thought himfar away, I would find him suddenly on a branch just over my head, looking down at me intently. When I went away he would follow me, whistling, to my canoe; but he never called the fishhawks again, unlesssome unusual action of mine aroused his suspicion; and after one lookthey would circle away, as if they knew they had nothing to fear. Theyhad seen me fishing so often that they thought they understood me, undoubtedly. There was one curious habit of these birds that I had never noticedbefore. Occasionally, when the weather threatened a change, or when thebirds and their little ones had fed full, Ismaques would mount up to anenormous altitude, where he would sail about in slow circles, his broadvans steady to the breeze, as if he were an ordinary hen hawk, enjoyinghimself and contemplating the world from an indifferent distance. Suddenly, with one clear, sharp whistle to announce his intention, he would drop like a plummet for a thousand feet, catch himself inmid-air, and zigzag down to the nest in the spruce top, whirling, diving, tumbling, and crying aloud the while in wild, ecstaticexclamations, --just as a woodcock comes whirling, plunging, twitteringdown from a height to his brown mate in the alders below. Then Ismaqueswould mount up again and repeat his dizzy plunge, while his larger matestood quiet in the spruce top, and the little fishhawks tiptoed aboutthe edge of the nest, _pip-pipping_ their wonder and delight at theirown papa's dazzling performance. This is undoubtedly one of Ismaques' springtime habits, by which hetries to win an admiring look from the keen yellow eyes of his mate; butI noticed him using it more frequently as the little fishhawks' wingsspread to a wonderful length, and he was trying, with his mate, by everygentle means to induce them to leave the nest. And I havewondered--without being able at all to prove my theory--whether he werenot trying in this remarkable way to make his little ones want to fly byshowing them how wonderful a thing flying could be made to be. [Illustration] A School for Little Fishermen [Illustration] There came a day when, as I sat fishing among the rocks, the cry of themother osprey changed as she came sweeping up to my fishinggrounds, --_Chip, ch'wee! Chip, chip, ch'weeeee?_ That was thefisherman's hail plainly enough; but there was another note in it, alook-here cry of triumph and satisfaction. Before I could turn my head, for a fish was nibbling, there came other sounds behind it, --_Pip, pip, pip, ch'weee! pip, ch'wee! pip, ch'weeee!_ a curious medley, a hail ofgood-luck cries; and I knew without turning that two other fishermen hadcome to join the brotherhood. The mother bird--one can tell her instantly by her greater size anddarker breast markings--veered in as I turned to greet the newcomers, and came directly over my head, her two little ones flapping lustilybehind her. Two days before, when I went down to another lake on anexcursion after bigger trout, the young fishhawks were still standingon the nest, turning a deaf ear to all the old birds' assurances thatthe time had come to use their big wings. The last glimpse I had of themthrough my glass showed me the mother bird in one tree, the father inanother, each holding a fish, which they were showing the young across atantalizing short stretch of empty air, telling the young in fishhawklanguage to come across and get it; while the young birds, on theirpart, stretched wings and necks hungrily and tried to whistle the fishover to them, as one would call a dog across the street. In the short interval that I was absent mother wiles and mother patiencehad done their good work. The young were already flying well. Now theywere out for their first lesson in fishing, evidently; and I stoppedfishing myself, letting my bait sink into the mud--where an eelpresently tangled my hooks into an old root--to see how it was done. Forfishing is not an instinct with Ismaques, but a simple matter oftraining. As with young otters, they know only from daily experiencethat fish, and not grouse and rabbits, are their legitimate food. Leftto themselves, especially if one should bring them up on flesh and thenturn them loose, they would go straight back to the old hawk habit ofhunting the woods, which is much easier. To catch fish, therefore, theymust be taught from the first day they leave the nest. And it is afascinating experience for any man to watch the way they go about it. The young ospreys flew heavily in short irregular circles, scanning thewater with their inexperienced eyes for their first strike. Over themwheeled the mother bird on broad, even wings, whistling directions tothe young neophytes, who would presently be initiated into the old sweetmysteries of going a-fishing. Fish were plenty enough; but that meansnothing to a fishhawk, who must see his game reasonably near the surfacebefore making his swoop. There was a good jump on the lake, and the sunshone brightly into it. Between the glare and the motion on the surfacethe young fishermen were having a hard time of it. Their eyes were notyet quick enough to tell them when to swoop. At every gleam of silver inthe depths below they would stop short and cry out: _Pip!_ "there heis!" _Pip, pip!_ "here goes!" like a boy with his first nibble. But ashort, clear whistle from the mother stopped them ere they had begun tofall; and they would flap up to her, protesting eagerly that they couldcatch that fellow, sure, if she would only let them try. As they wheeled in over me on their way down the lake, one of theyoungsters caught the gleam of my pile of chub among the rocks. _Pip, ch'weee!_ he whistled, and down they came, both of them, like rockets. They were hungry; here at hand were fish galore; and they had notnoticed me at all, sitting very still among the rocks. _Pip, pip, pip, hurrah!_ they piped as they came down. But the mother bird, who had noted me and my pile of fish the firstthing as she rounded the point, swept in swiftly with a curious, half-angry, half-anxious chiding that I had never heard from herbefore, --_Chip, chip, chip! Chip! Chip!_--growing sharper and shrillerat each repetition, till they heeded it and swerved aside. As I lookedup they were just over my head, looking down at me now with eager, wondering eyes. Then they were led aside in a wide circle and talked towith wise, quiet whistlings before they were sent back to their fishingagain. And now as they sweep round and round over the edge of a shoal, one ofthe little fellows sees a fish and drops lower to follow it. The mothersees it too; notes that the fish is slanting up to the surface, andwisely lets the young fisherman alone. He is too near the water now; theglare and the dancing waves bother him; he loses his gleam of silver inthe flash of a whitecap. Mother bird mounts higher, and whistles him upwhere he can see better. But there is the fish again, and the youngster, hungry and heedless, sets his wings for a swoop. _Chip, chip!_ "wait, he's going down, " cautions the mother; but the little fellow, toohungry to wait, shoots down like an arrow. He is a yard above thesurface when a big whitecap jumps up at him and frightens him. Hehesitates, swerves, flaps lustily to save himself. Then under thewhitecap is a gleam of silver again. Down he goes on the instant, --_ugh!boo!_--like a boy taking his first dive. He is out of sight for a fullmoment, while two waves race over him, and I hold my breath waiting forhim to come up. Then he bursts out, sputtering and shaking himself, andof course without his fish. As he rises heavily the mother, who has been circling over him whistlingadvice and comfort, stops short with a single blow of her pinionsagainst the air. She has seen the same fish, watched him shoot awayunder the plunge of her little one, and now sees him glancing up to theedge of the shoal where the minnows are playing. She knows that theyoung pupils are growing discouraged, and that the time has come tohearten them. _Chip, chip!_--"watch, I'll show you, " shewhistles--_Cheeeep!_ with a sharp up-slide at the end, which I soon growto recognize as the signal to strike. At the cry she sets her wings andshoots downward with strong, even plunge, strikes a wave squarely as itrises, passes under it, and is out on the other side gripping a bigchub. The little ones follow her, whistling their delight, andtelling her that perhaps now they will go back to the nest and take alook at the fish before they go on with their fishing. Which means, ofcourse, that they will eat it and go to sleep perfectly satisfied withthe good fun of fishing; and then lessons are over for the day. [Illustration: "GRIPPING HIS FISH AND _PIP-PIPPING_ HIS EXULTATION"] The mother, however, has other thoughts in her wise head. She knows thatthe little ones are not yet tired, only hungry; and that there is muchto teach them before the chub stop shoaling and fishhawks must be off tothe coast. She knows also that they have thus far missed the two thingsshe brought them out to learn: to take a fish always as he comes up; andto hit a wave always on the front side, under the crest. Gripping herfish tightly, she bends in her slow flight and paralyzes it by a singleblow in the spine from her hooked beak. Then she drops it back into thewhitecaps, where, jumping to the top of my rock, I can see itoccasionally struggling near the surface. _Cheeeep!_ "try it now, " she whistles. _Pip, pip!_ "here goes!" cries the little one who failed before; anddown he drops, _souse!_ going clear under in his impatient hunger, forgetting precept and example and past experience. Again the waves race over him; but there is a satisfied note in themother's whistle which tells me that she sees him, and that he is doingwell. In a moment he is out again with a great rush and sputter, gripping his fish and _pip-pipping_ his exultation. Away he goes in lowheavy flight to the nest. The mother circles over him a moment to besure he is not overloaded; then she goes back with the other neophyteand ranges back and forth over the shoal's edge. It is clear now to even my eyes that there is a vast difference in thecharacters of young fishhawks. The first was eager, headstrong, impatient; the second is calmer, stronger, more obedient. He watches themother; he heeds her signals. Five minutes later he makes a clean, beautiful swoop and comes up with his fish. The mother whistles herpraise as she drops beside him. My eyes follow them as, gossiping liketwo old cronies, they wing their slow way over the dancing whitecaps andclimb the slanting tree-tops to the nest. The day's lessons are over now, and I go back to my bait-catching with anew admiration for these winged members of the brotherhood. Perhapsthere is also a bit of envy or regret in my meditation as I tie on a newhook to replace the one that an uneasy eel is trying to rid himself of, down in the mud. If I had only had some one to teach me like that, Ishould certainly now be a better fisherman. Next day, when the mother came up the lake to the shoal with her twolittle ones, there was a surprise awaiting them. For half an hour I hadbeen watching from the point to anticipate their coming. There were somethings that puzzled me, and that puzzle me still, in Ismaques' fishing. If he caught his fish in his mouth, after the methods of loon and otter, I could understand it better. But to catch a fish--whose dart is likelightning--under the water with his feet, when, after his plunge, he cansee neither his fish nor his feet, must require some puzzlingcalculation. And I had set a trap in my head to find out how it is done. When the fishermen hove into sight, and their eager pipings came faintlyup the lake ahead of them, I paddled hastily out and turned loose ahalf-dozen chub in the shallow water. I had kept them alive as long aspossible in a big pail, and they still had life enough to fin about nearthe surface. When the fishermen arrived I was sitting among the rocks asusual, and turned to acknowledge the mother bird's _Ch'wee?_ But mydeep-laid scheme to find out their method accomplished nothing; except, perhaps, to spoil the day's lesson. They saw my bait on the instant. Oneof the youngsters dove headlong without poising, went under, missed hisfish, rose, plunged again. He got him that time and went awaysputtering. The second took his time, came down on a long swift slant, and got his fish without going under. Almost before the lesson began itwas over. The mother circled about for a few moments in a puzzled sortof way, watching the young fishermen flapping up the slope to theirnest. Something was wrong. She had fished enough to know that successmeans something more than good luck; and this morning success had cometoo easily. She wheeled slowly over the shallows, noting the fish there, where they plainly did not belong, and dropping to examine withsuspicion one big chub that was floating, belly up, on the water. Thenshe went under with a rush, where I could not see, came out again with afish for herself, and followed her little ones to the nest. Next day I set the trap again in the same way. But the mother, with herlesson well laid out before her, remembered yesterday's unearned successand came over to investigate, leaving her young ones circling along thefarther shore. There were the fish again, in shallow water; andthere--too easy altogether!--were two dead ones floating among thewhitecaps. She wheeled away in a sharp turn, as if she had not seenanything, whistled her pupils up to her, and went on to other fishinggrounds. Presently, above the next point, I heard their pipings and the sharp, up-sliding _Cheeeep!_ which was the mother's signal to swoop. Paddlingup under the point in my canoe, I found them all wheeling and divingover a shoal, where I knew the fish were smaller and more nimble, andwhere there were lily pads for a haven of refuge, whither no hawk couldfollow them. Twenty times I saw them swoop only to miss, while themother circled above or beside them, whistling advice and encouragement. And when at last they struck their fish and bore away towards themountain, there was an exultation in their lusty wing beats, and in thewhistling cry they sent back to me, which was not there the day before. The mother followed them at a distance, veering in when near my shoal totake another look at the fish there. Three were floating now instead oftwo; the others--what were left of them--struggled feebly at thesurface. _Chip, ch'weee!_ she whistled disdainfully; "plenty fish here, but mighty poor fishing. " Then she swooped, passed under, came out witha big chub, and was gone, leaving me only a blinding splash and awidening circle of laughing, dancing, tantalizing wavelets to tell mehow she catches them. When You Meet a Bear There are always two surprises when you meet a bear. You have one, andhe has the other. On your tramps and camps in the big woods you may beon the lookout for Mooween; you may be eager and even anxious to meethim; but when you double the point or push into the blueberry patch and, suddenly, there he is, blocking the path ahead, looking intently intoyour eyes to fathom at a glance your intentions, then, I fancy, theexperience is like that of people who have the inquisitive habit oflooking under their beds nightly for a burglar, and at last find himthere, stowed away snugly, just where they always expected him to be. Mooween, on his part, is always looking for you when once he has learnedthat you have moved into his woods. But not from any desire to see you!He is like a lazy man looking for work, and hoping devoutly that he maynot find it. A bear has very little curiosity--less than any other ofthe wood folk. He loves to be alone; and so, when he goes hunting foryou, to find out just where you are, it is always with the creditabledesire to leave you in as large a room as possible, while he himselfgoes quietly away into deeper solitudes. As this desire of his is muchstronger than your mere idle curiosity to see something new, you rarelysee Mooween even where he is most at home. And that is but another bitof the poetic justice which you stumble upon everywhere in the bigwoods. It is more and more evident, I think, that Nature adapts her gifts, notsimply to the necessities, but more largely to the desires, of hercreatures. The force and influence of that intense desire--more intensebecause usually each animal has but one--we have not yet learned tomeasure. The owl has a silent wing, not simply because he needs it--forhis need is no greater than that of the hawk, who has no silentwing--but, more probably, because of his whole-hearted desire forsilence as he glides through the silent twilight. And so with thepanther's foot; and so with the deer's eye, and the wolf's nose, whoseone idea of bliss is a good smell; and so with every other stronglymarked gift which the wild things have won from nature, chiefly bydesiring it, in the long years of their development. This theory may possibly account for some of Mooween's peculiarities. Nature, who measures her gifts according to the desires of hercreatures, remembers his love of peace and solitude, and endows himaccordingly. He cares little to see you or anybody else; therefore hiseyes are weak--his weakest point, in fact. He desires ardently to avoidyour society and all society but his own; therefore his nose and earsare marvelously alert to discover your coming. Often, when you thinkyourself quite alone in the woods, Mooween is there. The wind has toldyour story to his nose; the clatter of your heedless feet long agoreached his keen ears, and he vanishes at your approach, leaving you toyour noise and inquisitiveness and the other things you like. His giftsof concealment are so much greater than your powers of detection that hehas absolutely no thought of ever seeing you. His surprise, therefore, when you do meet unexpectedly is correspondingly greater than yours. What he will do under the unusual circumstances depends largely, notupon himself, but upon you. With one exception, his feelings areprobably the reverse of your own. If you are bold, he is timid as arabbit; if you are panic-stricken, he knows exactly what to do; if youare fearful, he has no fear; if you are inquisitive, he is instantlyshy; and, like all other wild creatures, he has an almost uncanny way ofunderstanding your thought. It is as if, in that intent, penetratinggaze of his, he saw your soul turned inside out for his inspection. Theonly exception is when you meet him without fear or curiosity, with thedesire simply to attend to your own affairs, as if he were a strangerand an equal. That rare mental attitude he understands perfectly--for isit not his own?--and he goes his way quietly, as if he had not seen you. For every chance meeting Mooween seems to have a plan of action ready, which he applies without a question or an instant's hesitation. Make anunknown sound behind him as he plods along the shore, and he hurlshimself headlong into the cover of the bushes, as if your voice hadtouched a button that released a coiled spring beneath him. Afterwardshe may come back to find out what frightened him. Sit perfectly still, and he rises on his hind legs for a look and a long sniff to find outwho you are. Jump at him with a yell and a flourish the instant heappears, and he will hurl chips and dirt back at you as he digs histoes into the hillside for a better grip and scrambles away whimperinglike a scared puppy. Once in a way, as you steal through the autumn woods or hurry over thetrail, you will hear sudden loud rustlings and shakings on the hardwoodridge above you, as if a small cyclone were perched there for a while, amusing itself among the leaves before blowing on. Then, if you steal uptoward the sound, you will find Mooween standing on a big limb of abeech tree, grasping the narrowing trunk with his powerful forearms, tugging and pushing mightily to shake down the ripe beechnuts. Therattle and dash of the falling fruit are such music to Mooween's earsthat he will not hear the rustle of your approach, nor the twig thatsnaps under your careless foot. If you cry aloud now to your friends, under the hilarious impressionthat you have Mooween sure at last, there is another surprise awaitingyou. And that suggests a bit of advice, which is most pertinent: don'tstand under the bear when you cry out. If he is a little fellow, he willshoot up the tree, faster than ever a jumping jack went up his stick, and hide in a cluster of leaves, as near the top as he can get. But ifhe is a big bear, he will tumble down on you before you know what hashappened. No slow climbing for him; he just lets go and comes down bygravitation. As Uncle Remus says--who has some keen knowledge of animalways under his story-telling humor--"Brer B'ar, he scramble 'bouthalf-way down de bee tree, en den he turn eve'ything loose en hit degroun' _kerbiff_! Look like 't wuz nuff ter jolt de life out'n 'im. " Somehow it never does jolt the life out of him, notwithstanding hisgreat weight; nor does it interfere in any way with his speed of action, which is like lightning, the instant he touches the ground. Like thecoon, who can fall from an incredible distance without hurting himself, Mooween comes down perfectly limp, falling on himself like a greatcushion; but the moment he strikes, all his muscles seem to contract atonce, and he bounds off like a rubber ball into the densest bit of coverat hand. Twice have I seen him come down in this way. The first time there weretwo cubs, nearly full-grown, in a tree. One went up at our shout; theother came down with such startling suddenness that the man who stoodready with his rifle, to shoot the bear, jumped for his life to get outof the way; and before he had blinked the astonishment out of his eyesMooween was gone, leaving only a violent nodding of the ground sprucesto tell what had become of him. All these plans of ready action in Mooween's head, for the rareoccasions when he meets you unexpectedly, are the result of carefultraining by his mother. If you should ever have the good fortune towatch a mother bear and her cubs when they have no idea that you arenear them, you will note two characteristic things. First, when they aretraveling--and Mooween is the most restless tramp in all the woods--youwill see that the cubs follow the mother closely and imitate her everyaction with ludicrous exactness, sniffing where she sniffs, jumpingwhere she jumps, rising on their hind legs, with forearms hangingloosely and pointed noses thrust sharp up into the wind, on the instantthat she rises, and then drawing silently away from the shore into theshelter of the friendly alders when some subtle warning tells themother's nose that the coast ahead is not perfectly clear. So they learnto sift the sounds and smells of the wilderness, and to govern theiractions accordingly. And second, when they are playing you will see thatthe mother watches the cubs' every action as keenly as they watched hersan hour ago. She will sit flat on her haunches, her fore paws plantedbetween her outstretched hind legs, her great head on one side, notingevery detail of their boxing and wrestling and climbing, as if she hadshowed them once how it ought to be done and were watching now to seehow well they remembered their lessons. And now and then one or theother of the cubs receives a sound cuffing; for which I am unable toaccount, except on the theory that he was doing something contrary tohis plain instructions. It is only when Mooween meets some new object, or some circumstanceentirely outside of his training, that instinct and native wit are setto work; and then you see for the first time some trace of hesitation onthe part of this self-confident prowler of the big woods. Once Istartled him on the shore, whither he had come to get the fore quartersof a deer that had been left there. He jumped for cover at the firstalarm without even turning his head, just as he had seen his mother do, a score of times, when he was a cub. Then he stopped, and for three orfour seconds considered the danger in plain sight--a thing I have neverseen any other bear imitate. He wavered for a moment more, doubtfulwhether my canoe were swifter than he and more dangerous. Then satisfiedthat, at least, he had a good chance, he jumped back, grabbed the deer, and dragged it away into the woods. Another time I met him on a narrow path where he could not pass me andwhere he did not want to turn back, for something ahead was calling himstrongly. That short meeting furnished me the best study in bear natureand bear instinct that I have ever been allowed to make. And, at thisdistance, I have small desire to repeat the experience. It was on the Little Sou'west Mirimichi, a very wild river, in the heartof the wilderness. Just above my camp, not half a mile away, was asalmon pool that, so far as I know, had never been fished. One bank ofthe river was an almost sheer cliff, against which the current frettedand hissed in a strong deep rush to the rapids and a great silent poolfar below. There were salmon under the cliff, plenty of them, balancingthemselves against the arrowy run of the current; but, so far as myflies were concerned, they might as well have been in the Yukon. Onecould not fish from the opposite shore--there was no room for a backcast, and the current was too deep and swift for wading--and on theshore where the salmon were there was no place to stand. If I had had acouple of good Indians, I might have dropped down to the head of theswift water and fished, while they held the canoe with poles braced onthe bottom; but I had no two good Indians, and the one I did have wasunwilling to take the risk. So we went hungry, almost within sight andsound of the plunge of heavy fish, fresh run from the sea. One day, in following a porcupine to see where he was going, I found anarrow path running for a few hundred yards along the side of the cliff, just over where the salmon loved to lie, and not more than thirty feetabove the swift rush of water. I went there with my rod and, withoutattempting to cast, dropped my fly into the current and paid out from myreel. When the line straightened I raised the rod's tip and set my flydancing and skittering across the surface to an eddy behind a greatrock. In a flash I had raised and struck a twenty-five pound fish; andin another flash he had gone straight downstream in the current, wherefrom my precarious seat I could not control him. Down he went, leapingwildly high out of water, in a glorious rush, till all my line buzzedout of the reel, down to the very knot at the bottom, and the leadersnapped as if it had been made of spider's web. I reeled in sadly, debating with myself the unanswerable question of howI should ever have reached down thirty feet to gaff my salmon, had Iplayed him to a standstill. Then, because human nature is weak, I put ona stronger, double leader and dropped another fly into the current. Imight not get my salmon; but it was worth the price of fly and leaderjust to raise him from the deeps and see his terrific rush downstream, jumping, jumping, as if the witch of Endor were astride of his tail inlieu of her broomstick. A lively young grilse plunged headlong at the second fly and, thanks tomy strong leader, I played him out in the current and led himlistlessly, all the jump and fight gone out of him, to the foot of thecliff. There was no apparent way to get down; so, taking my line inhand, I began to lift him bodily up. He came easily enough till his tailcleared the water; then the wiggling, jerky strain was too much. The flypulled out, and he vanished with a final swirl and slap of his broadtail to tell me how big he was. Just below me a bowlder lifted its head and shoulders out of theswirling current. With the canoe line I might easily let myself down tothat rock and make sure of my next fish. Getting back would be harder;but salmon are worth some trouble; so I left my rod and started back tocamp for the stout rope that lay coiled in the bow of my canoe. It waslate afternoon and I was hurrying along the path, giving chief heed tomy feet in the ticklish walking, with the cliff above and the riverbelow, when a loud _Hoowuff!_ brought me up with a shock. There at aturn in the path, not ten yards ahead, stood a huge bear, callingunmistakable halt, and blocking me in as completely as if the mountainhad toppled over before me. There was no time to think; the shock and scare were too great. I justgasped _Hoowuff!_ instinctively, as the bear had shot it out of his deeplungs a moment before, and stood stock-still, as he was doing. He wasstartled as well as I. That was the only thing that I was sure about. I suppose that in each of our heads at first there was just one thought:"I'm in a fix; how shall I get out?" And in his training or mine therewas absolutely nothing to suggest an immediate answer. He was anxious, evidently, to go on. Something, a mate perhaps, must be calling him upriver; else he would have whirled and vanished at the first alarm. Buthow far might he presume on the big animal's timidity who stood beforehim blocking the way? That was his question, plainly enough. Had I beena moment sooner, or he a moment later, we would have met squarely at theturn; he would have clinched with me in sudden blind ferocity, and thatwould have been the end of one of us. As it was he saw me comingheedlessly and, being peaceably inclined, had stopped me with his sharp_Hoowuff!_ before I should get too near. There was no snarl or growl, nosavageness in his expression; only intense wonder and questioning in thelook which fastened upon my face and seemed to bore its way through, tofind out just what I was thinking. I met his eyes squarely with mine and held them, which was perhaps themost sensible thing I could have done; though it was all unconscious onmy part. In the brief moment that followed I did a lot of thinking. There was no escape, up or down; I must go on or turn back. If I jumpedforward with a yell, as I had done before under different circumstances, would he not rush at me savagely, as all wild creatures do whencornered? No, the time for that had passed with the first instant of ourmeeting. The bluff would now be too apparent; it must be done withouthesitation, or not at all. On the other hand, if I turned back he wouldfollow me to the end of the ledge, growing bolder as he came on; andbeyond that it was dangerous walking, where he had all the advantage andall the knowledge of his ground. Besides, it was late, and I wanted asalmon for my supper. I have wondered since how much of this hesitation he understood; and howhe came to the conclusion, which he certainly reached, that I meant himno harm, but only wanted to get on and was not disposed to give him thepath. All the while I looked at him steadily, until his eyes began tolose their intentness. My hand slipped back and gripped the handle of myhunting knife. Some slight confidence came with the feel of the heavyweapon; though I would certainly have gone over the cliff and taken mychances in the current, rather than have closed with him, with all hisenormous strength, in that narrow place. Suddenly his eyes wavered frommine; he swung his head to look down and up; and I knew instantly that Ihad won the first move--and the path also, if I could keep my nerve. I advanced a step or two very quietly, still looking at him steadily. There was a suggestion of white teeth under his wrinkled chops; but heturned his head to look back over the way he had come, and presently hedisappeared. It was only for a moment; then his nose and eyes were pokedcautiously by the corner of rock. He was peeking to see if I were stillthere. When the nose vanished again I stole forward to the turn andfound him just ahead, looking down the cliff to see if there were anyother way below. He was uneasy now; a low, whining growl came floating up the path. ThenI sat down on a rock, squarely in his way, and for the first time somefaint suggestion of the humor of the situation gave me a bit ofconsolation. I began to talk to him, not humorously, but as if he were aScotchman and open only to argument. "You're in a fix, Mooween, aterrible fix, " I kept saying softly; "but if you had only stayed at hometill twilight, as a bear ought to do, we should be happy now, both ofus. You have put me in a fix, too, you see; and now you've just got toget me out of it. I'm not going back. I don't know the path as well asyou do. Besides, it will be dark soon, and I should probably break myneck. It's a shame, Mooween, to put any gentleman in such a fix as I amin this minute, just by your blundering carelessness. Why didn't yousmell me anyway, as any but a fool bear would have done, and take someother path over the mountain? Why don't you climb that spruce now andget out of the way?" I have noticed that all wild animals grow uneasy at the sound of thehuman voice, speaking however quietly. There is in it something deep, unknown, mysterious beyond all their powers of comprehension; and theygo away from it quickly when they can. I have a theory also that allanimals, wild and domestic, understand more of our mental attitude thanwe give them credit for; and the theory gains rather than loses strengthwhenever I think of Mooween on that narrow pass. I can see him now, turning, twisting uneasily, and the half-timid look in his eyes as theymet mine furtively, as if ashamed; and again the low, troubled whinecomes floating up the path and mingles with the rush and murmur of thesalmon pool below. A bear hates to be outdone quite as much as a fox does. If you catch himin a trap, he seldom growls or fights or resists, as lynx and otter andalmost all other wild creatures do. He has outwitted you and shown hissuperiority so often that he is utterly overwhelmed and crushed when youfind him, at last, helpless and outdone. He seems to forget all hisgreat strength, all his frightful power of teeth and claws. He just layshis head down between his paws, turns his eyes aside, and refuses tolook at you or to let you see how ashamed he is. That is what you arechiefly conscious of, nine times out of ten, when you find a bear or afox held fast in your trap; and something of that was certainly inMooween's look and actions now, as I sat there in his path enjoying hisconfusion. Near him a spruce tree sprang out of the rocks and reached upward to aledge far above. Slowly he raised himself against this, but turned tolook at me again sitting quietly in his own path--that he could nolonger consider his--and smiling at his discomfiture as I remember howashamed he is to be outdone. Then an electric shock seemed to hoist himout of the trail. He shot up the tree in a succession of nervous, jerkyjumps, rising with astonishing speed for so huge a creature, smashingthe little branches, ripping the rough bark with his great claws, sending down a clattering shower of chips and dust behind him, till hereached the level of the ledge above and sprang out upon it; where hestopped and looked down to see what I would do next. And there hestayed, his great head hanging over the edge of the rock, looking at meintently till I rose and went quietly down the trail. It was morning when I came back to the salmon pool. Unlike the mossyforest floor, the hard rock bore no signs to tell me--what I was mostcurious to know--whether he came down the tree or found some other wayover the mountain. At the point where I had stood when his deep_Hoowuff!_ first startled me I left a big salmon, for a taste of whichany bear will go far out of his way. Next morning it was gone; and so itmay be that Mooween, on his next journey, found another and a pleasantersurprise awaiting him at the turn of the trail. [Illustration] Quoskh the Keen Eyed [Illustration] Sometimes, at night, as you drift along the shore in your canoe, siftingthe night sounds and smells of the wilderness, when all harsher criesare hushed and the silence grows tense and musical, like a greatstretched chord over which the wind is thrumming low suggestivemelodies, a sudden rush and flapping in the grasses beside you breaksnoisily into the gamut of half-heard primary tones and rising, vanishingharmonics. Then, as you listen, and before the silence has againstretched the chords of her Eolian harp tight enough for the wind'sfingers, another sound, a cry, comes floating down from theair--_Quoskh? quoskh-quoskh?_ a wild, questioning call, as if thestartled night were asking who you are. It is only a blue heron, wakenedout of his sleep on the shore by your noisy approach, that you thoughtwas still as the night itself. He circles over your head for a moment, seeing you perfectly, though you catch never a shadow of his broadwings; then he vanishes into the vast, dark silence, crying _Quoskh?quoskh?_ as he goes. And the cry, with its strange, wild interrogationvanishing away into the outer darkness, has given him his mostfascinating Indian name, Quoskh the Night's Question. To many, indeed, even to some Indians, he has no other name and nodefinite presence. He rarely utters the cry by day--his voice then is aharsh croak--and you never see him as he utters it out of the solemnupper darkness; so that there is often a mystery about this voice of thenight, which one never thinks of associating with the quiet, patient, long-legged fisherman that one may see any summer day along the bordersof lonely lake or stream. A score of times I have been asked by oldcampers, "What is that?" as a sharp, questioning _Quoskh-quoskh?_ seemedto tumble down into the sleeping lake. Yet they knew the great blueheron perfectly--or thought they did. Quoskh has other names, however, which describe his attributes anddoings. Sometimes, when fishing alongshore with my Indian at the paddle, the canoe would push its nose silently around a point, and I would seethe heron's heavy slanting flight already halfway up to the tree-tops, long before our coming had been suspected by the watchful little mothersheldrake, or even by the deer feeding close at hand among the lilypads. Then Simmo, who could never surprise one of the great birdshowever silently he paddled, would mutter something which sounded like_Quoskh K'sobeqh_, Quoskh the Keen Eyed. At other times, when we noticedhim spearing frogs with his long bill, Simmo, who could not endure thesight of a frog's leg on my fry pan, would speak of him disdainfully inhis own musical language as Quoskh the Frog Eater, for my especialbenefit. Again, if I stopped casting suddenly at the deep trout poolopposite a grassy shore, to follow with my eyes a tall, gray-blue shadowon stilts moving dimly alongshore in seven-league-boot strides for thenext bog, where frogs were plenty, Simmo would point with his paddle andsay: "See, Ol' Fader Longlegs go catch-um more frogs for his babies. Funny kin' babies dat, eat-um bullfrog; don' chu tink so?" Of all his names--and there were many more that I picked up fromwatching him in a summer's outing--"Old Father Longlegs" seemed alwaysthe most appropriate. There is a suggestion of hoary antiquity aboutthis solemn wader of our lakes and streams. Indeed, of all birds he isthe nearest to those ancient, uncouth monsters which Nature made topeople our earth in its uncouth infancy. Other herons and bitterns havegrown smaller and more graceful, with shorter legs and necks, to suitour diminishing rivers and our changed landscape. Quoskh is also, undoubtedly, much smaller than he once was; but still his legs and neckare disproportionately long, when one thinks of the waters he wades andthe nest he builds; and the tracks he leaves in the mud are startlinglylike those fossilized footprints of giant birds that one finds in therocks of the Pliocene era, deep under the earth's surface, to tell whatsort of creatures lived in the vast solitudes before man came toreplenish the earth and subdue it. Closely associated with this suggestion of antiquity in Quoskh'sdemeanor is the opposite suggestion of perpetual youth which he carrieswith him. Age has no apparent effect on him whatsoever. He is as old andyoung as the earth itself is; he is a March day, with winter and springin its sunset and sunrise. Who ever saw a blue heron with his jewel eyedimmed or his natural force abated? Who ever caught one sleeping, or sawhim tottering weakly on his long legs, as one so often sees our commonwild birds clinging feebly to a branch with their last grip? A Cape Codsailor once told me that, far out from land, his schooner had passed ablue heron lying dead on the sea with outstretched wings. That is theonly heron that I have ever heard of who was found without all his witsabout him. Possibly, if Quoskh ever dies, it may suggest a solution tothe question of what becomes of him. With his last strength he may flyboldly out to explore that great ocean mystery, along the borders ofwhich his ancestors for untold centuries lived and moved, back andforth, back and forth, on their endless, unnecessary migrations, restless, unsatisfied, wandering, as if the voice of the sea werecalling them whither they dared not follow. * * * * * Just behind my tent on the big lake, one summer, a faint, woodsy littletrail wandered away into the woods, with endless turnings and twistings, and without the faintest indication anywhere, till you reached the veryend, whither it intended going. This little trail was always full ofinteresting surprises. Red squirrels peeked down at you over the edge ofa limb, chattering volubly and getting into endless mischief along itsborders. Moose birds flitted silently over it on their mysteriouserrands. Now a jumping, smashing, crackling rush through the underbrushhalts you suddenly, with quick beating heart, as you climb over one ofthe many windfalls across your path. A white flag followed by anotherlittle one, flashing, rising, sinking and rising again over the fallentimber, tells you that a doe and her fawn were lying behind thewindfall, all unconscious of your quiet approach. Again, at a turn ofthe trail, something dark, gray, massive looms before you, blocking thefaint path; and as you stop short and shrink behind the nearest tree, ahuge head and antlers swing toward you, with widespread nostrils andkeen, dilating eyes, and ears like two trumpets pointing straight atyour head--a bull moose, _sh!_ For a long two minutes he stands there motionless, watching the newcreature that he has never seen before; and it will be well for you tokeep perfectly quiet and let him surrender the path when he is sodisposed. Motion on your part may bring him nearer to investigate; andyou can never know at what slight provocation the red danger light willblaze into his eyes. At last he moves away, quietly at first, turningoften to look and to make trumpets of his ears at you. Then he lays hisgreat antlers back on his shoulders, sticks his nose far up ahead ofhim, and with long, smooth strides lunges away over the windfalls and isgone. So every day the little trail had some new surprise for you, --owl, orhare, or prickly porcupine rattling his quills, like a quiver of arrows, and proclaiming his Indian name, _Unk-wunk! Unk-wunk!_ as he loafedalong. When you had followed far, and were sure that the loitering trailhad certainly lost itself, it crept at last under a dark hemlock; andthere, through an oval frame of rustling, whispering green, was theloneliest, loveliest little deer-haunted beaver pond in the world, whereQuoskh lived with his mate and his little ones. The first time I came down the trail and peeked through the oval frameof bushes, I saw him; and the very first glimpse made me jump at thethought of what a wonderful discovery I had made, namely, that littleherons play with dolls, as children do. But I was mistaken. Quoskh hadbeen catching frogs and hiding them, one by one, as I came along. Heheard me before I knew he was there, and jumped for his last frog, a bigfat one, with which he slanted up heavily on broad vans--with a hump onhis back and a crook in his neck and his long legs trailing below andbehind--towards his nest in the hemlock, beyond the beaver pond. When Isaw him plainly he was just crossing the oval frame through which Ilooked. He had gripped the frog across the middle in his long beak, muchas one would hold it with a pair of blunt shears, swelling it out ateither side, like a string tied tight about a pillow. The head and shortarms were forced up at one side, the limp legs dangled down on theother, looking for all the world like a stuffed rag doll that Quoskh wascarrying home for his babies to play with. Undoubtedly they liked the frog much better; but my curious thoughtabout them, in that brief romantic instant, gave me an interest in thelittle fellows which was not satisfied till I climbed to the nest, longafterwards, and saw them, and how they lived. When I took to studying Quoskh, so as to know him more intimately, Ifound a fascinating subject; not simply because of his queer ways, butalso because of his extreme wariness and the difficulties I met incatching him doing things. Quoskh K'sobeqh was the name that at firstseemed most appropriate, till I had learned his habits and how best toget the weather of him--which happened only two or three times in thecourse of a whole summer. One morning I went early to the beaver pond and sat down against a graystump on the shore, with berry bushes growing to my shoulders all aboutme. "Now I shall keep still and see everything that comes, " I thought, "and nothing, not even a blue jay, will see me. " That was almost true. Little birds, that had never seen a man in thewoods before, came for the berries and billed them off within six feetof my face before they noticed anything unusual. When they did see methey would turn their heads so as to look at me, first with one eye, then with the other, and shoot up at last, with a sharp _Burr!_ of theirtiny wings, to a branch over my head. There they would watch me keenly, for a wink or a minute, according to their curiosity, then swoop downand whirr their wings loudly in my face, so as to make me move and showwhat I was. Across a little arm of the pond, a stone's throw away, a fine buck cameto the water, put his muzzle into it, then began to fidget uneasily. Some vague, subtle flavor of me floated across and made him uneasy, though he knew not what I was. He kept tonguing his nostrils, as a cowdoes, so as to moisten them and catch the scent of me better. On myright, and nearer, a doe was feeding unconcernedly among the lily pads. A mink ran, hopping and halting, along the shore at my feet, dodging inand out among roots and rocks. Cheokhes always runs that way. He knowshow glistening black his coat is, how shining a mark he makes for owland hawk against the sandy shore; and so he never runs more than fivefeet without dodging out of sight; and he always prefers the roots androcks that are blackest to travel on. A kingfisher dropped with his musical _K'plop!_ into the shoal ofminnows that were rippling the water in their play just in front of me. Farther out, a fishhawk came down heavily, _Souse!_ and rose with a bigchub. And none of these sharp-eyed wood folk saw me or knew that theywere watched. Then a wide, wavy, blue line, like a great Cupid's bow, came gliding swiftly along the opposite bank of green, and Quoskh hoveinto sight for his morning's fishing. Opposite me, just where the buck had stood, he folded his great wings;his neck crooked sharply; his long legs, which had been trailedgracefully behind him in his swift flight, swung under him like twopendulums as he landed lightly on the muddy shore. He knew his groundperfectly; knew every stream and frog-haunted bay in the pond as oneknows his own village; yet no amount of familiarity with hissurroundings can ever sing lullaby to Quoskh's watchfulness. The instanthe landed he drew himself up straight, standing almost as tall as a man, and let his keen glance run along every shore just once. His head, withits bright yellow eye and long yellow beak glistening in the morninglight, veered and swung over his long neck like a gilded weather-vane ona steeple. As the vane swung up the shore toward me I held my breath, soas to be perfectly motionless, thinking I was hidden so well that no eyecould find me at that distance. As it swung past me slowly I chuckled, thinking that Quoskh was deceived. I forgot altogether that a bird neversees straight ahead. When his bill had moved some thirty degrees off mynose, just enough so as to bring his left eye to bear, it stoppedswinging instantly. --He had seen me at the first glance, and knew that Idid not belong there. For a long moment, while his keen eye seemed to look through and throughme, he never moved a muscle. One could easily have passed over him, thinking him only one of the gray, wave-washed roots on the shore. Thenhe humped himself together, in that indescribably awkward way that allherons have at the beginning of their flight, slanted heavily up to thehighest tree on the shore, and stopped for a longer period on a deadbranch to look back at me. I had not moved so much as an eyelid;nevertheless he saw me too plainly to trust me. Again he humped himself, rose high over the tree-tops and bore away in strong, even, gracefulflight for a lonelier lake, where there was no man to watch or botherhim. Far from disappointing me, this keenness of Quoskh only whetted myappetite to know more about him, and especially to watch him, close athand, at his fishing. Near the head of the little bay, where frogs wereplenty, I built a screen of boughs under the low thick branches of aspruce tree, and went away to watch other wood folk. Next morning he did not come back; nor were there any fresh tracks ofhis on the shore. This was my first intimation that Quoskh knows wellthe rule of good fishermen, and does not harry a pool or a place toofrequently, however good the fishing. The third morning he came back;and again the sixth evening; and then the ninth morning, alternatingwith great regularity as long as I kept tabs on him. At other times Iwould stumble upon him far afield, fishing in other lakes and streams;or see him winging homeward, high over the woods, from waters far beyondmy ken; but these appearances were too irregular to count in a theory. Ihave no doubt, however, that he fished the near-by waters with as greatregularity as he fished the beaver pond, and went wider afield only whenhe wanted a bit of variety, or bigger frogs, as all fishermen do; orwhen he had poor luck in satisfying the clamorous appetite of hisgrowing brood. It was on the sixth afternoon that I had the best chance of studying hisqueer ways of fishing. I was sitting in my little blind at the beaverpond, waiting for a deer, when Quoskh came striding along the shore. Hewould swing his weather-vane head till he saw a frog ahead, then stalkhim slowly, deliberately, with immense caution; as if he knew as well asI how watchful the frogs are at his approach, and how quickly they diveheadlong for cover at the first glint of his stilt-like legs. Nearer andnearer he would glide, standing motionless as a gray root when hethought his game was watching him; then on again more cautiously, bending far forward and drawing his neck back to the angle of greatestspeed and power for a blow. A quick start, a thrust like lightning--thenyou would see him shake his frog savagely, beat it upon the neareststone or root, glide to a tuft of grass, hide his catch cunningly, andgo on unincumbered for the next stalk, his weather-vane swinging, swinging in the ceaseless search for frogs, or possible enemies. If the swirl of a fish among the sedges caught his keen eye, he wouldchange his tactics, letting his game come to him instead of stalking it, as he did with the frogs. Whatever his position was, both feet down orone foot raised for a stride, when the fish appeared, he never changedit, knowing well that motion would only send his game hurriedly intodeeper water. He would stand sometimes for a half hour on one leg, letting his head sink slowly down on his shoulders, his neck curledback, his long sharp bill pointing always straight at the quivering linewhich marked the playing fish, his eyes half closed till the rightmoment came. Then you would see his long neck shoot down, hear thesplash and, later, the whack of his catch against the nearest root, tokill it; and watch with curious feelings of sympathy as he hid it in thegrass and covered it over, lest Hawahak the hawk should see, or Cheokhesthe mink smell it, and rob him while he fished. If he were near his last catch, he would stride back and hide the twotogether; if not, he covered it over in the nearest good place and wenton. No danger of his ever forgetting, however numerous the catch!Whether he counts his frogs and fish, or simply remembers the differenthiding places, I have no means of knowing. Sometimes, when I surprised him on a muddy shore and he flew awaywithout taking even one of his tidbits, I would follow his back trackand uncover his hiding places to see what he had caught. Frogs, fish, pollywogs, mussels, a baby muskrat, --they were all there, each hiddencunningly under a bit of dried grass and mud. And once I went away andhid on the opposite shore to see if he would come back. After an hour ormore he appeared, looking first at my tracks, then at all the shore withgreater keenness than usual; then he went straight to three differenthiding places that I had found, and two more that I had not seen, andflew away to his nest, a fringe of frogs and fish hanging at either sideof his long bill as he went. He had arranged them on the ground like the spokes of a wheel, as a foxdoes, heads all out on either side, and one leg or the tail of eachcrossed in a common pile in the middle; so that he could bite down overthe crossed members and carry the greatest number of little frogs andfish with the least likelihood of dropping any in his flight. The mussels which he found were invariably, I think, eaten as his ownparticular tidbits; for I never saw him attempt to carry them away, though once I found two or three where he had hidden them. Generally hecould crack their shells easily by blows of his powerful beak, or bywhacking them against a root; and so he had no need (and probably noknowledge) of the trick, which every gull knows, of mounting up to aheight with some obstinate hardshell and dropping it on a rock to crackit. If Quoskh were fishing for his own dinner, instead of for his hungrynestlings, he adopted different tactics. For them he was a hunter, sly, silent, crafty, stalking his game by approved still-hunting methods; forhimself he was the true fisherman, quiet, observant, endlessly patient. He seemed to know that for himself he could afford to take his time andbe comfortable, knowing that all things, especially fish, come to himwho waits long enough; while for his little ones he must hurry, elsetheir croakings from too long fasting would surely bring hungry, unwelcome prowlers to the big nest in the hemlock. Once I saw him fishing in a peculiar way, which reminded me instantly ofthe chumming process with which every mackerel fisherman on the coast isfamiliar. He caught a pollywog for bait, with which he waded to a deep, cool place under a shady bank. There he whacked his pollywog into smallbits and tossed them into the water, where the chum speedily brought ashoal of little fish to feed. Quoskh meanwhile stood in the shadow, where he would not be noticed, knee-deep in water, his head drawn downinto his shoulders, and a friendly leafy branch bending over him toscreen him from prying eyes. As a fish swam up to his chum he wouldspear it like lightning; throw his head back and wriggle it head-firstdown his long neck; then settle down to watch for the next one. Andthere he stayed, alternately watching and feasting, till he had enough;when he drew his head farther down into his shoulders, shut his eyes, and went fast asleep in the cool shadows, --a perfect picture of fishingindolence and satisfaction. * * * * * When I went to the nest and hid myself in the underbrush to watch, dayafter day, I learned more of Quoskh's fishing and hunting. The nest wasin a great evergreen, in a gloomy swamp, --a villainous place of bogs andtreacherous footing, with here and there a little island of large trees. On one of these islands a small colony of herons were nesting. Duringthe day they trailed far afield, scattering widely, each pair to its ownparticular fishing grounds; but when the shadows grew long, and nightprowlers stirred abroad, the herons came trailing back again, makingcurious, wavy, graceful lines athwart the sunset glow, to croak and besociable together, and help each other watch the long night out. [Illustration] Quoskh the Watchful--I could tell my great bird's mate by sight orhearing from all others, either by her greater size or a peculiar doublecroak she had--had hidden her nest in the top of a great green hemlock. Near by, in the high crotch of a dead tree, was another nest, which shehad built, evidently, years before and added to each successive spring, only to abandon it at last for the evergreen. Both birds used to go tothe old nest freely; and I have wondered since if it were not a bit ofgreat shrewdness on their part to leave it there in plain sight, whereany prowler might see and climb to it; while the young were securelyhidden, meanwhile, in the top of the near-by hemlock, where they couldsee without being seen. Only at a distance could you find the nest. Whenunder the hemlock, the mass of branches screened it perfectly, and yourattention was wholly taken by the other nest, standing out in boldrelief in the dead tree-top. Such wisdom, if wisdom it were and not chance, is gained only byexperience. It took at least one brood of young herons, sacrificed tothe appetite of lucivee or fisher, to teach Quoskh the advantage of thatdecoy nest to tempt hungry prowlers upon the bare tree hole where shecould have a clear field to spear them with her powerful bill and beatthem down with her great wings before they should discover theirmistake. By watching the birds through my glass as they came to the young, Icould generally tell what kind of game was afoot for their following. Once a long snake hung from the mother bird's bill; once it was a birdof some kind; twice she brought small animals, whose species I could notmake out in the brief moment of alighting on the nest's edge, --all thesebesides the regular fare of fish and frogs, of which I took no account. And then, one day while I lay in my hiding, I saw the mother heron slideswiftly down from the nest, make a sharp wheel over the lake, and plungeinto the fringe of berry bushes on the shore after some animal that herkeen eyes had caught moving. There was a swift rustling in the bushes, ablow of her wing to head off a runaway, two or three lightning thrustsof her javelin beak; then she rose heavily, taking a leveret with her;and I saw her pulling it to pieces awkwardly on the nest to feed herhungry little ones. It was partly to see these little herons, the thought of which hadfascinated me ever since I had seen Quoskh taking home what I thought, at first glance, was a rag doll for them to play with, and partly tofind out more of Quoskh's hunting habits by seeing what he brought home, that led me at last to undertake the difficult task of climbing the hugetree to the nest. One day when the mother had brought home some unknownsmall animal--a mink, I thought--I came suddenly out of my hiding andcrossed over to the nest. It had always fascinated me. Under it, attwilight, I had heard the mother heron croaking softly to her littleones--a husky lullaby, but sweet enough to them--and then, as I paddledaway, I would see the nest dark against the sunset with Mother Quoskhstanding over it, a tall, graceful silhouette against the glory oftwilight, keeping sentinel watch over her little ones. Now I would solvethe mystery of the high nest by looking into it. The mother, alarmed by my sudden appearance, --she had no idea that shehad been watched, --shot silently away, hoping I would not notice herhome through the dense screen of branches. I climbed up with difficulty;but not till I was within ten feet could I make out the mass of sticksabove me. The surroundings were getting filthy and evil-smelling by thistime; for Quoskh teaches the young herons to keep their nest perfectlyclean by throwing all refuse over the sides of the great home. A dozentimes I had watched the mother birds of the colony push their littleones to the edge of the nest to teach them this rule of cleanliness, sodifferent from most other birds. As I hesitated about pushing through the filth-laden branches, somethingbright on the edge of the nest caught my attention. It was a youngheron's eye looking down at me over a long bill, watching my approachwith a keenness that was but thinly disguised by the half-drawn eyelids. I had to go round the tree at this point for a standing on a largerbranch; and when I looked up, there was another eye watching down overanother long bill. So, however I turned, they watched me closely gettingnearer and nearer, till I reached up my hand to touch the nest. Thenthere was a harsh croak. Three long necks reached down suddenly over theedge of the nest on the side where I was; three long bills opened widejust over my head; and three young herons grew suddenly seasick, as ifthey had swallowed ipecac. [Illustration] I never saw the inside of that home. At the moment I was in too much ofa hurry to get down and wash in the lake; and after that, so large werethe young birds, so keen and powerful the beaks, that no man or beastmight expect to look over the edge of the nest, with hands or pawsengaged in holding on, and keep his eyes for a single instant. It ismore dangerous to climb for young herons than for young eagles. A heronalways strikes for the eye, and his blow means blindness or death, unless you watch like a cat and ward it off. When I saw the young again they were taking their first lessons. Adismal croaking in the tree-tops attracted me, and I came overcautiously to see what my herons were doing. The young were standing upon the big nest, stretching necks and wings, and croaking hungrily;while the mother stood on a tree-top some distance away, showing themfood and telling them plainly, in heron language, to come and get it. They tried it after much coaxing and croaking; but their long, awkwardtoes missed their hold upon the slender branch on which she wasbalancing delicately--just as she expected it to happen. As they fell, flapping lustily, she shot down ahead of them and led them in a long, curving slant to an open spot on the shore. There she fed them with themorsels she held in her beak; brought more food from a tuft of grasswhere she had hidden it, near at hand; praised them with gurgling croakstill they felt some confidence on their awkward legs; then the wholefamily started up the shore on their first frogging expedition. It was intensely interesting for a man who, as a small boy, had oftengone a-frogging himself--to catch big ones for a woodsy corn roast, orlittle ones for pickerel bait--to sit now on a bog and watch the littleherons try their luck. Mother Quoskh went ahead cautiously, searchingthe lily pads; the young trailed behind her awkwardly, lifting theirfeet like a Shanghai rooster and setting them down with a splash toscare every frog within hearing, exactly where the mother's foot hadrested a moment before. So they went on, the mother's head swinging likea weather-vane to look far ahead, the little ones stretching their necksso as to peek by her on either side, full of wonder at the new world, full of hunger for things that grew there, till a startled young frogsaid _K'tung!_ from behind a lily bud, where they did not see him, anddove headlong into the mud, leaving a long, crinkly, brown trail to tellexactly how far he had gone. A frog is like an ostrich. When he sees nothing, because his head ishidden, he thinks nothing can see him. At the sudden alarm Mother Quoskhwould stretch her neck, watching the frog's flight; then turn her headso that her long bill pointed directly at the bump on the muddy bottom, which marked the hiding place of Chigwooltz, and croak softly as asignal. At the sound one of the young herons would hurry forwardeagerly; follow his mother's bill, which remained motionless, pointingall the while; twist his head till he saw the frog's back in the mud, and then lunge at it like lightning. Generally he got his frog, andthrough your glass you would see the unfortunate creature wriggling andkicking his way into Quoskh's yellow beak. If the lunge missed, themother's keen eye followed the frog's frantic rush through the mud, witha longer trail this time behind him, till he hid again; whereupon shecroaked the same youngster up for another try, and then the whole familymoved jerkily along, like a row of boys on stilts, to the next clump oflily pads. As the young grew older and stronger on their legs, I noticed therudiments, at least, of a curious habit of dancing, which seems tobelong to most of our long-legged wading birds. Sometimes, sittingquietly in my canoe, I would see the young birds sail down in a longslant to the shore. Immediately on alighting, before they gave anythought to frogs or fish or carnal appetite, they would hop up and down, balancing, swaying, spreading their wings, and hopping again round abouteach other, as if bewitched. A few moments of this crazy performance, and then they would stalk sedately along the shore, as if ashamed oftheir ungainly levity; but at any moment the ecstasy might seize themand they would hop again, as if they simply could not help it. Thisoccurred generally towards evening, when the birds had fed full andwere ready for play or for stretching their broad wings in preparationfor the long autumn flight. Watching them, one evening, I remembered suddenly a curious scene that Ihad stumbled upon when a boy. I had seen a great blue heron sailcroaking, croaking, into an arm of the big pond where I was catchingbullpouts, and crept down through dense woods to find out what he wascroaking about. Instead of one, I found eight or ten of the great birdson an open shore, hopping ecstatically through some kind of a crazydance. A twig snapped as I crept nearer, and they scattered in instantflight. It was September, and the instinct to flock and to migrate wasat work among them. When they came together for the first time some dim, old remembrance of generations long gone by--the shreds of an ancientinstinct, whose meaning we can only guess at--had set them to dancingwildly; though I doubted at the time whether they understood much whatthey were doing. [Illustration] Perhaps I was wrong in this. Watching the young birds at their ungainlyhopping, the impulse to dance seemed uncontrollable; yet they wereimmensely dignified about it at times; and again they appeared to getsome fun out of it--as much, perhaps, as we do out of some of ourpeculiar dances, of which a visiting Chinaman once asked innocently:"Why don't you let your servants do it for you?" I have seen little green herons do the same thing in the woods at matingtime; and once, in the Zoölogical Gardens at Antwerp, I saw amagnificent hopping performance by some giant cranes from Africa. Ourown sand-hill and whooping cranes are notorious dancers; and undoubtedlyit is more or less instinctive with all the tribes of the cranes andherons, from the least to the greatest. But what the instinctmeans--unless, like our own dancing, it is a pure bit ofpleasure-making, as crows play games and loons swim races--nobody cantell. * * * * * Before the young were fully grown, and while yet they were following themother to learn the ways of frogging and fishing, a startling thingoccurred which made me ever afterwards look up to Quoskh with honestadmiration. I was still-fishing in the middle of the big lake, one lateafternoon, when Quoskh and her little ones sailed over the trees fromthe beaver pond and lit on a grassy shore. A shallow little brook stoleinto the lake there, and Mother Quoskh left her young to frog forthemselves, while she went fishing up the brook under the alders. I waswatching the young herons through my glass when I saw a sudden rush inthe tall grass near them. All three humped themselves, heron fashion, onthe instant. Two got away safely; the other had barely spread his wingswhen a black animal leaped out of the grass for his neck and pulled himdown, flapping and croaking desperately. I pulled up my killick on the instant and paddled over to see what wasgoing on, and what the creature was that had leaped out of the grass. Before my paddle had swung a dozen strokes I saw the alders by the brookopen swiftly, and Mother Quoskh sailed out and drove like an arrowstraight at the struggling wing tips, which still flapped spasmodicallyabove the grass. Almost before her feet had dropped to a solid landingshe struck two fierce, blinding, downward blows of her great wings. Herneck curved back and shot straight out, driving the keen six-inch billbefore it, quicker than ever a Roman arm drove its javelin. Above the_lap-lap_ of my canoe I heard a savage cry of pain; the same blackanimal leaped up out of the tangled grass, snapping for the neck; and adesperate battle began, with short gasping croaks and snarls that madecaution unnecessary as I sped over to see who the robber was, and howQuoskh was faring in the good fight. The canoe shot up behind a point where, looking over the low bank, I hadthe arena directly under my eye. The animal was a fisher--black-cat thetrappers call him--the most savage and powerful fighter of his size inthe whole world, I think. In the instant that I first saw him, quickerthan thought he had hurled himself twice at the towering bird's breast. Each time he was met by a lightning blow in the face from Quoskh'sstiffened wing. His teeth ground the big quills to pulp; his claws torethem into shreds; but he got no grip in the feathery mass, and heslipped, clawing and snarling, into the grass, only to spring again likea flash. Again the stiff wing blow; but this time his jump was higher;one claw gripped the shoulder, tore its way through flying feathers tothe bone, while his weight dragged the big bird down. Then Quoskhshortened her neck in a great curve. Like a snake it glided over theedge of her own wing for two short, sharp down-thrusts of the deadlyjavelin--so quick that my eye caught only the double yellow flash of it. With a sharp screech the black-cat leaped away and whirled towards meblindly. One eye was gone; an angry red welt showed just over theother, telling how narrowly the second thrust had missed its mark. A shiver ran over me as I remembered how nearly I had once come myselfto the black-cat's condition, and from the same keen weapon. I was asmall boy at the time, following a big, good-natured hunter that I metin the woods, one day, from pure love of the wilds and for the glory ofcarrying the game bag. He shot a great blue heron, which fell with abroken wing into some soft mud and water grass. Carelessly he sent me tofetch it, not caring to wet his own feet. As I ran up, the heron layresting quietly, his neck drawn back, his long keen bill pointing alwaysstraight at my face. I had never seen so big a bird before, and bentover him wondering at his long bill, admiring his intensely bright eye. I did not know then--what I have since learned well--that you can alwaystell when the rush or spring or blow of any beast or bird--or of anyman, for that matter--will surely come by watching the eye closely. There is a fire that blazes in the eye before the blow comes, beforeever a muscle has stirred to do the brain's quick bidding. As I bentover, fascinated by the keen, bright look of the wounded bird, andreached down my hand to pick him up, there was a flash deep in the eye, like the glint of sunshine from a mirror, and I dodged instinctively. Well for me that I did so. Something shot by my face like lightning, opening up a long red gash across my left temple from eye-brow to ear. As I jumped I heard a careless laugh. "Look out, Sonny, he may biteyou--Gosh! what a close call!" And with a white, scared face, as he sawthe ugly wound that the heron's beak had opened, he dragged me away asif there had been a bear in the water grass. The black-cat had not yet received punishment enough. He is one of thelargest of the weasel family, and has a double measure of the weasel'ssavageness and tenacity. He darted about the heron in a quick, nervous, jumping circle, looking for an opening behind; while Quoskh lifted hergreat torn wings as a shield and turned slowly on the defensive, so asalways to face the danger. A dozen times the fisher jumped, filling theair with feathers; a dozen times the stiffened wings struck down tointercept his spring, and every blow was followed by a swift javelinthrust. Then, as the fisher crouched snarling in the grass, off hisguard for an instant, I saw Mother Quoskh take a sudden step forward, her first offensive move--just as I had seen her twenty times at thefinish of a frog stalk--and her bill shot down with the whole powerof her long neck behind it. A harsh screech of pain followed the swiftblow; then the fisher wobbled away with blind, uncertain jumps towardsthe shelter of the woods. [Illustration: "A DOZEN TIMES THE FISHER JUMPED, FILLING THE AIR WITHFEATHERS"] And now, with her savage enemy in full flight, a fierce, hot angerseemed to flare within the mother heron, burning out all the previouscool, calculating defense. Her wings heaved aloft, as the soldiers ofold threw up their shields in the moment of victory; while her wholeframe seemed to swell with power, like a hero whose fight is won. Shedarted after the fisher, first on the run, then with heavy wing beats, till she headed him and with savage blows of pinion and beak drove himback, seeing nothing, guided only by fear and instinct, towards thewater. For five minutes more she chevied him hither and yon through thetrampled grass, driving him from water to bush and back again, jabbinghim at every turn; till a rustle of leaves invited him, and he dashedblindly into thick underbrush, where her broad wings could not follow. Then with marvelous watchfulness she saw me standing near in my canoe;and without a thought, apparently, for the young heron lying so still inthe grass close beside her, she spread her torn wings and flapped awayheavily in the path of her more fortunate younglings. I followed the fisher's trail into the woods and found him curled up ina hollow stump. He made slight resistance as I pulled him out. All hisferocity was already lulled to sleep in the vague, dreamy numbness whichNature always sends to her stricken creatures. He suffered nothing, apparently, though he was fearfully wounded; he just wanted to be letalone. Both eyes were gone, and there was nothing left for me except tofinish mercifully what little Quoskh had left undone. [Illustration] When September came, and family cares were over, the colony beyond thebeaver pond scattered widely, returning each one to the shy, wild, solitary life that Quoskh likes best. Almost anywhere, in the loneliestplaces, I might come upon a solitary heron stalking frogs, or chumminglittle fish, or treading the soft mud expectantly, like a clam digger, to find where the mussels were hidden by means of his long toes; orjust standing still to enjoy the sleepy sunshine till the late afternooncame, when he likes best to go abroad. They slept no more on the big nest, standing like sentinels against thetwilight glow and the setting moon; but each one picked out a good spoton the shore and slept as best he could on one leg, waiting for theearly fishing. It was astonishing how carefully even the young birdspicked out a safe position. By day they would stand like statues in theshade of a bank or among the tall grasses, where they were almostinvisible by reason of their soft colors, and wait for hours for fishand frogs to come to them. By night each one picked out a spot on theclean open shore, off a point, generally, where he could see up anddown, where there was no grass to hide an enemy, and where the bushes onthe bank were far enough away so that he could hear the slight rustle ofleaves before the creature that made it was within springing distance. And there he would sleep safe through the long night, unless disturbedby my canoe or by some other prowler. Herons see almost as well by nightas by day, and their ears are keen as a weasel's; so I could never getnear enough to surprise them, however silently I paddled. I would hearonly a startled rush of wings, and then a questioning call as theysailed over me before winging away to quieter beaches. If I were jacking, with a light blazing brightly before me in my canoe, to see what night folk I might surprise on the shore, Quoskh was theonly one for whom my jack had no fascination. Deer and moose, foxes andwild ducks, frogs and fish, --all seemed equally charmed by the greatwonder of a light shining silently out of the vast darkness. I saw themall, at different times, and glided almost up to them before timiditydrove them away from the strange bright marvel. But Quoskh was not to bewatched in that way, nor to be caught by any such trick. I would see avague form on the far edge of the light's pathway; catch the brightflash of either eye as he swung his weather-vane head; then the vagueform would slide into the upper darkness. A moment's waiting; then, above me and behind, where the light did not dazzle his eyes, I wouldhear his night cry--with more of anger than of questioning in it--and asI turned the jack upward I would catch a single glimpse of his broadwings sailing over the lake. Nor would he ever come back, like the foxon the bank, for a second look to be quite sure what I was. When the bright, moonlit nights came, there was uneasiness in Quoskh'swild breast. The solitary life that he loves best claimed him by day;but at night the old gregarious instinct drew him again to his fellows. Once, when drifting over the beaver pond through the delicate witcheryof the moonlight, I heard five or six of the great birds croakingexcitedly at the heronry, which they had deserted weeks before. Thelake, and especially the lonely little pond at the end of the trail, waslovelier than ever before; but something in the south was calling himaway. I think that Quoskh was also moonstruck, as so many wild creaturesare; for, instead of sleeping quietly on the shore, he spent his timecircling aimlessly over the lake and woods, crying his name aloud, orcalling wildly to his fellows. At midnight of the day before I broke camp, I was out on the lake for alast paddle in the moonlight. The night was perfect, --clear, cool, intensely still. Not a ripple broke the great burnished surface of thelake; a silver pathway stretched away and away over the bow of mygliding canoe, leading me on to where the great forest stood, silent, awake, expectant, and flooded through all its dim, mysterious archeswith marvelous light. The wilderness never sleeps. If it grow silent, itis to listen. To-night the woods were tense as a waiting fox, watchingto see what new thing would come out of the lake, or what strangemystery would be born under their own soft shadows. Quoskh was abroad too, bewitched by the moonlight. I heard him callingand paddled down. He knew me long before he was anything more to me thana voice of the night, and swept up to meet me. For the first time afterdarkness fell I saw him--just a vague, gray shadow with edges touchedsoftly with silver light, which whirled once over my canoe and lookeddown into it. Then he vanished; and from far over on the edge of thewaiting woods, where the mystery was deepest, came a cry, a challenge, ariddle, the night's wild question which no man has ever yetanswered--_Quoskh? quoskh?_ [Illustration] UNK WUNK THE PORCUPINE [Illustration] A rustling in the brakes just outside my little tent roused me from alight slumber. There it was again! the push of some heavy animal tryingto move noiselessly through the tangle close at hand; while from the oldlumber camp in the midst of the clearing a low gnawing sound floated upthrough the still night. I sat up quickly to listen; but at the slightmovement all was quiet again. The night prowlers had heard me and wereon their guard. One need have no fear of things that come round in the night. They aremuch shyer than you are, and can see you better; so that, if you blundertowards them, they mistake your blindness for courage, and take to theirheels promptly. As I stepped out there was a double rush in some bushesbehind my tent, and by the light of a half-moon I caught one glimpse ofa bear and her cub jumping away for the shelter of the woods. The gnawing still went on behind the old shanty by the river. "Anothercub!" I thought--for I was new to the big woods--and stole down to peekby the corner of the camp, in whose yard I had pitched my tent the firstnight out in the wilderness. There was an old molasses hogshead lying just beyond the log camp, itsmouth looking black as ink in the moonlight, and the scratching-gnawingsounds went on steadily within its shadow. "He's inside, " I thought withelation, "scraping off the crusted sugar. Now to catch him!" I stole round the camp, so as to bring the closed end of the hogsheadbetween me and the prize, crept up breathlessly, and with a quick jerkhove the old tub up on end, trapping the creature inside. There was athump, a startled scratching and rustling, a violent rocking of thehogshead, which I tried to hold down; then all was silent in the trap. "I've got him!" I thought, forgetting all about the old she-bear, andshouted for Simmo to wake up and bring the ax. We drove a ring of stakes close about the hogshead, weighted it downwith heavy logs, and turned in to sleep. In the morning, with coolerjudgment, we decided that a bear cub was too troublesome a pet to keepin a tent; so I stood by with a rifle while Simmo hove off the logs andcut the stakes, keeping a wary eye on me, meanwhile, to see how far hemight trust his life to my nerve in case the cub should be big andtroublesome; for an Indian takes no chances. A stake fell; the hogsheadtoppled over by a push from within; Simmo sprang away with a yell; andout wobbled a big porcupine, the biggest I ever saw, and tumbled awaystraight towards my tent. After him went the Indian, making sweepingcuts at the stupid thing with his ax, and grunting his derision at mybear cub. Halfway to the tent Unk Wunk stumbled across a bit of pork rind, andstopped to nose it daintily. I caught Simmo's arm and stayed the blowthat would have made an end of my catch. Then, between us, Unk Wunk satup on his haunches, took the pork in his fore paws and sucked the saltout of it, as if he had never a concern and never an enemy in the wideworld. A half hour later he loafed into my tent, where I sat repairing afavorite salmon fly that some hungry sea-trout had torn to tatters, anddrove me unceremoniously out of my own bailiwick in his search for moresalt. Such a philosopher, whom no prison can dispossess of his peace of mind, and whom no danger can deprive of his simple pleasures, deserves moreconsideration than the naturalists have ever given him. I resolved onthe spot to study him more carefully. As if to discourage all suchattempts and make himself a target for my rifle, he nearly spoiled mycanoe the next night by gnawing a hole through the bark and ribs forsome suggestion of salt that only his greedy nose could possibly havefound. Once I found him on the trail, some distance from camp, and, havingnothing better to do, I attempted to drive him home. My intention was toshare hospitality; to give him a bit of bacon, and then study him as Iate my own dinner. He turned at the first suggestion of being driven, came straight at my legs, and by a vicious slap of his tail left some ofhis quills in me before I could escape. Then I drove him in the oppositedirection, whereupon he turned and bolted past me; and when I arrived atcamp he was busily engaged in gnawing the end from Simmo's ax handle. However you take him, Unk Wunk is one of the mysteries. He is aperpetual question scrawled across the forest floor, which nobodypretends to answer; a problem that grows only more puzzling as you studyto solve it. Of all the wild creatures he is the only one that has no intelligentfear of man, and that never learns, either by instinct or experience, to avoid man's presence. He is everywhere in the wilderness, until hechanges what he would call his mind; and then he is nowhere, and youcannot find him. He delights in solitude, and cares not for his ownkind; yet now and then you will stumble upon a whole convention ofporcupines at the base of some rocky hill, each one loafing around, rattling his quills, grunting his name _Unk Wunk! Unk Wunk!_ and doingnothing else all day long. You meet him to-day, and he is timid as a rabbit; to-morrow he comesboldly into your tent and drives you out, if you happen to be caughtwithout a club handy. He never has anything definite to do, nor anyplace to go to; yet stop him at any moment and he will risk his life togo just a foot farther. Now try to drive or lead him another foot in thesame direction, and he will bolt back, as full of contrariness as twopigs on a road, and let himself be killed rather than go where he washeading a moment before. He is perfectly harmless to every creature; yethe lies still and kills the savage fisher that attacks him, or even thebig Canada lynx, that no other creature in the woods would dare totackle. Above all these puzzling contradictions is the prime question of howNature ever produced such a creature, and what she intended doing withhim; for he seems to have no place nor use in the natural economy ofthings. Recently the Maine legislature has passed a bill forbidding theshooting of porcupines, on the curious ground that he is the only wildanimal that can easily be caught and killed without a gun; so that a manlost in the woods need not starve to death but may feed on porcupine, asthe Indians sometimes do. This is the only suggestion thus far, from apurely utilitarian standpoint, that Unk Wunk is no mistake, but may havehis uses. Once, to test the law and to provide for possible future contingencies, I added Unk Wunk to my bill of fare--a vile, malodorous suffix thatmight delight a lover of strong cheese. It is undoubtedly a good law;but I cannot now imagine any one being grateful for it, unless the sternalternative were death or porcupine. The prowlers of the woods would eat him gladly enough, but that they aresternly forbidden. They cannot even touch him without suffering theconsequences. It would seem as if Nature, when she made this block ofstupidity in a world of wits, provided for him tenderly, as she wouldfor a half-witted or idiot child. He is the only wild creature for whomstarvation has no terrors. All the forest is his storehouse. Buds andtender shoots delight him in their season; and when the cold becomesbitter in its intensity, and the snow packs deep, and all othercreatures grow gaunt and savage in their hunger, Unk Wunk has only toclimb the nearest tree, chisel off the rough, outer shell with hispowerful teeth, and then feed full on the soft inner layer of bark, which satisfies him perfectly and leaves him as fat as an alderman. Of hungry beasts Unk Wunk has no fear whatever. Generally they let himseverely alone, knowing that to touch him would be more foolish than tomouth a sunfish or to bite a Peter-grunter. If, driven by hunger in thekilling March days, they approach him savagely, he simply rolls up andlies still, protected by an armor that only a steel glove might safelyexplore, and that has no joint anywhere visible to the keenest eye. Now and then some cunning lynx or weasel, wise from experience butdesperate with hunger, throws himself flat on the ground, close by UnkWunk, and works his nose cautiously under the terrible bur, searchingfor the neck or the underside of the body, where there are no quills. One grip of the powerful jaws, one taste of blood in the famished throatof the prowler--and that is the end of both animals. For Unk Wunk has aweapon that no prowler of the woods ever calculates upon. His broad, heavy tail is armed with hundreds of barbs, smaller but more deadly thanthose on his back; and he swings this weapon with the vicious sweep ofa rattlesnake. It is probably this power of driving his barbs home by alightning blow of his tail that has given rise to the curious delusionthat Unk Wunk can shoot his quills at a distance, as if he were filledwith compressed air--which is, of course, a harmless absurdity thatkeeps people from meddling with him too closely. Sometimes, when attacked, Unk Wunk covers his face with this weapon. More often he sticks his head under a root or into a hollow log, leavinghis tail out ready for action. At the first touch of his enemy the tailsnaps right and left quicker than thought, driving the hostile head andsides full of the deadly quills, from which there is no escape; forevery effort, every rub and writhe of pain, only drives them deeper anddeeper, till they rest in heart or brain and finish their work. Mooween the bear is the only one of the wood folk who has learned thetrick of attacking Unk Wunk without injury to himself. If, when veryhungry, he finds a porcupine, he never attacks him directly, --he knowstoo well the deadly sting of the barbs for that, --but bothers andirritates the porcupine by flipping earth at him, until at last Unk Wunkrolls all his quills outward and lies still. Then Mooween, with immensecaution, slides one paw under him and with a quick flip hurls himagainst the nearest tree, and knocks the life out of him. [Illustration: "BOTHERS AND IRRITATES THE PORCUPINE BY FLIPPING EARTH ATHIM"] If he find Unk Wunk in a tree, he will sometimes climb after him and, standing as near as the upper limbs allow, will push and tug mightily toshake him off. That is usually a vain attempt; for the creature thatsleeps sound and secure through a gale in the tree-tops has no concernfor the ponderous shakings of a bear. In that case Mooween, if he canget near enough without risking a fall from too delicate branches, willwrench off the limb on which Unk Wunk is sleeping and throw it to theground. That also is usually a vain proceeding; for before Mooween canscramble down after his game, Unk Wunk is already up another tree andsleeping, as if nothing had happened, on another branch. Other prowlers, with less strength and cunning than Mooween, fare badlywhen driven by famine to attack this useless creature of the woods, forwhom Nature nevertheless cares so tenderly. Trappers have told me thatin the late winter, when hunger is sharpest, they sometimes catch awild-cat or lynx or fisher in their traps with his mouth and sides fullof porcupine quills, showing to what straits he had been driven forfood. These rare trapped animals are but an indication of many a silentstruggle that only the trees and stars are witnesses of; and thetrapper's deadfall, with its quick, sure blow, is only a merciful endingto what else had been a long, slow, painful trail, ending at last undera hemlock tip with the snow for a covering. Last summer, in a little glade in the wilderness, I found two skeletons, one of a porcupine, the other of a large lynx, lying side by side. Inthe latter three quills lay where the throat had once been; the shaft ofanother stood firmly out of an empty eye orbit; a dozen more lay aboutin such a way that one could not tell by what path they had entered thebody. It needed no great help of imagination to read the story here of astarving lynx, too famished to remember caution, and of a dinner thatcost a life. Once also I saw a curious bit of animal education in connection with UnkWunk. Two young owls had begun hunting, under direction of the motherbird, along the foot of a ridge in the early twilight. From my canoe Isaw one of the young birds swoop downward at something in the bushes onthe shore. An instant later the big mother owl followed with a sharp, angry _hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!_ of warning. The youngster dropped into thebushes; but the mother fairly knocked him away from his game in herfierce rush, and led him away silently into the woods. I went over onthe instant, and found a young porcupine in the bushes where the owl hadswooped, while two more were eating lily stems farther along the shore. Evidently Kookooskoos, who swoops by instinct at everything that moves, must be taught by wiser heads the wisdom of letting certain thingsseverely alone. That he needs this lesson was clearly shown by an owl that my friendonce shot at twilight. There was a porcupine quill imbedded for nearlyits entire length in his leg. Two more were slowly working their wayinto his body; and the shaft of another projected from the corner of hismouth like a toothpick. Whether he were a young owl and untaught, orwhether, driven by hunger, he had thrown counsel to the winds andswooped at Unk Wunk, will never be known. That he should attack so largean animal as the porcupine would seem to indicate that, like the lynx, hunger had probably driven him beyond all consideration for his mother'steaching. Unk Wunk, on his part, knows so very little that it may fairly bedoubted whether he ever had the discipline of the school of the woods. Whether he rolls himself into a chestnut bur by instinct, as the possumplays dead, or whether that is a matter of slow learning is yet to bediscovered. Whether his dense stupidity, Which disarms his enemies andbrings him safe out of a hundred dangers where wits would fail, is, like the possum's blank idiocy, only a mask for the deepest wisdom; orwhether he is quite as stupid as he acts and looks, is also a question. More and more I incline to the former possibility. He has learnedunconsciously the strength of lying still. A thousand generations of fatand healthy porcupines have taught him the folly of trouble and rush andworry in a world that somebody else has planned, and for which somebodyelse is plainly responsible. So he makes no effort and lives in profoundpeace. But this also leaves you with a question which may take youoverseas to explore Hindu philosophy. Indeed, if you have one questionwhen you meet Unk Wunk for the first time, you will have twenty afteryou have studied him for a season or two. His paragraph in the woods'journal begins and ends with a question mark, and a dash for what isleft unsaid. The only indication of deliberate plan and effort that I have ever notedin Unk Wunk was in regard to teaching two young ones the simple art ofswimming, --which porcupines, by the way, rarely use, and for which thereseems to be no necessity. I was drifting along the shore in my canoewhen I noticed a mother porcupine and two little ones, a prickly pairindeed, on a log that reached out into the lake. She had brought themthere to make her task of weaning them more easy by giving them a tasteof lily buds. When they had gathered and eaten all the buds and stemsthat they could reach, she deliberately pushed both little ones into thewater. When they attempted to scramble back she pushed them off again, and dropped in beside them and led them to a log farther down the shore, where there were more lily pads. The numerous hollow quills floated them high in the water, like so manycorks, and they paddled off with less effort than any other younganimals that I have ever seen in the water. But whether this were aswimming lesson, or a rude direction to shift and browse for themselves, is still a question. With the exception of one solitary old genius, whohad an astonishing way of amusing himself and scaring all the other woodfolk, this was the only plain bit of fore-thought and sweetreasonableness that I have ever found in a porcupine. [Illustration] A LAZY FELLOW'S FUN [Illustration] A new sound, a purring rustle of leaves, stopped me instantly as Iclimbed the beech ridge, one late afternoon, to see what wood folk Imight surprise feeding on the rich mast. _Pr-r-r-r-ush, pr-r-r-r-ush!_ acurious combination of the rustling of squirrels' feet and the soft, crackling purr of an eagle's wings, growing nearer, clearer everyinstant. I slipped quietly behind the nearest tree to watch and listen. Something was coming down the hill; but what? It was not an animalrunning. No animal that I knew, unless he had gone suddenly crazy, wouldever make such a racket to tell everybody where he was. It was notsquirrels playing, nor grouse scratching among the new-fallen leaves. Their alternate rustlings and silences are unmistakable. It was not abear shaking down the ripe beechnuts--not heavy enough for that, yet tooheavy for the feet of any prowler of the woods to make on his stealthyhunting. _Pr-r-r-r-ush, swish! thump!_ Something struck the stem of abush heavily and brought down a rustling shower of leaves; then out fromunder the low branches rolled something that I had never seen before, --aheavy, grayish ball, as big as a half-bushel basket, so covered overwith leaves that one could not tell what was inside. It was as if someone had covered a big kettle with glue and sent it rolling down thehill, picking up dead leaves as it went. So the queer thing tumbled pastmy feet, purring, crackling, growing bigger and more ragged every momentas it gathered up more leaves, till it reached the bottom of a sharppitch and lay still. I stole after it cautiously. Suddenly it moved, unrolled itself. Thenout of the ragged mass came a big porcupine. He shook himself, stretched, wobbled around a moment, as if his long roll had made himdizzy; then he meandered aimlessly along the foot of the ridge, hisquills stuck full of dead leaves, looking big and strange enough tofrighten anything that might meet him in the woods. Here was a new trick, a new problem concerning one of the stupidest ofall the wood folk. When you meet a porcupine and bother him, he usuallyrolls himself into a huge pincushion with all its points outward, covershis face with his thorny tail, and lies still, knowing well that youcannot touch him anywhere without getting the worst of it. Now had hebeen bothered by some animal and rolled himself up where it was so steepthat he lost his balance, and so tumbled unwillingly down the long hill;or, with his stomach full of sweet beechnuts, had he rolled down lazilyto avoid the trouble of walking; or is Unk Wunk brighter than he looksto discover the joy of roller coasting and the fun of feeling dizzyafterwards? There was nothing on the hill above, no rustle or suggestion of anyhunting animal to answer the question; so I followed Unk Wunk on hisaimless wanderings along the foot of the ridge. A slight movement far ahead caught my eye, and I saw a hare gliding anddodging among the brown ferns. He came slowly in our direction, hoppingand halting and wiggling his nose at every bush, till he heard ourapproach and rose on his hind legs to listen. He gave a great jump asUnk Wunk hove into sight, covered all over with the dead leaves thathis barbed quills had picked up on his way downhill, and lay quiet wherehe thought the ferns would hide him. The procession drew nearer. Moktaques, full of curiosity, lifted hishead cautiously out of the ferns and sat up straight on his haunchesagain, his paws crossed, his eyes shining in fear and curiosity at thestrange animal rustling along and taking the leaves with him. For amoment wonder held him as still as the stump beside him; then he boltedinto the bush in a series of high, scared jumps, and I heard himscurrying crazily in a half circle around us. [Illustration] Unk Wunk gave no heed to the interruption, but yew-yawed hither and yonafter his stupid nose. Like every other porcupine that I have followed, he seemed to have nothing whatever to do, and nowhere in the wide worldto go. He loafed along lazily, too full to eat any of the beechnutsthat he nosed daintily out of the leaves. He tried a bit of bark hereand there, only to spit it out again. Once he started up the hill; butit was too steep for a lazy fellow with a full stomach. Again he triedit; but it was not steep enough to roll down afterwards. Suddenly heturned and came back to see who it was that followed him about. I kept very quiet, and he brushed two or three times past my legs, eyeing me sleepily. Then he took to nosing a beechnut from under myfoot, as if I were no more interesting than Alexander was to Diogenes. I had never made friends with a porcupine, --he is too briery a fellowfor intimacies, --but now with a small stick I began to search himgently, wondering if, under all that armor of spears and brambles, Imight not find a place where it would please him to be scratched. At thefirst touch he rolled himself together, all his spears sticking straightout on every side, like a huge chestnut bur. One could not touch himanywhere without being pierced by a dozen barbs. Gradually, however, asthe stick touched him gently and searched out the itching spots underhis armor, he unrolled himself and put his nose under my foot again. Hedid not want the beechnut; but he did want to nose it out. Unk Wunk islike a pig. He has very few things to do besides eating; but when hedoes start to go anywhere or do anything he always does it. Then I bentdown to touch him with my hand. That was a mistake. He felt the difference in the touch instantly. Alsohe smelled the salt in my hand, for a taste of which Unk Wunk will putaside all his laziness and walk a mile, if need be. He tried to graspthe hand, first with his paws, then with his mouth; but I had too muchfear of his great cutting teeth to let him succeed. Instead I touchedhim behind the ears, feeling my way gingerly through the thick tangle ofspines, testing them cautiously to see how easily they would pull out. The quills were very loosely set in, and every arrowheaded barb was assharp as a needle. Anything that pressed against them roughly wouldsurely be pierced; the spines would pull out of the skin, and work theirway rapidly into the unfortunate hand or paw or nose that touched them. Each spine was like a South Sea Islander's sword, set for half itslength with shark's teeth. Once in the flesh it would work its own way, unless pulled out with a firm hand spite of pain and terriblelaceration. No wonder Unk Wunk has no fear or anxiety when he rollshimself into a ball, protected at every point by such terrible weapons. The hand moved very cautiously as it went down his side, within reach ofUnk Wunk's one swift weapon. There were thousands of the spines, roughas a saw's edge, crossing each other in every direction, yet with everypoint outward. Unk Wunk was irritated, probably, because he could nothave the salt he wanted. As the hand came within range, his tail snappedback like lightning. I was watching for the blow, but was not half quickenough. At the rustling snap, like the voice of a steel trap, I jerkedmy hand away. Two of his tail spines came with it; and a dozen more werein my coat sleeve. I jumped away as he turned, and so escaped the quickdouble swing of his tail at my legs. Then he rolled into a chestnut buragain, and proclaimed mockingly at every point: "Touch me if you dare!" I pulled the two quills with sharp jerks out of my hand, pushed all theothers through my coat sleeve, and turned to Unk Wunk again, sucking mywounded hand, which pained me intensely. "All your own fault, " I kepttelling myself, to keep from whacking him across the nose, his onevulnerable point, with my stick. Unk Wunk, on his part, seemed to have forgotten the incident. Heunrolled himself slowly and loafed along the foot of the ridge, hisquills spreading and rustling as he went, as if there were not such athing as an enemy or an inquisitive man in all the woods. He had an idea in his head by this time and was looking for something. As I followed close behind him, he would raise himself against a smalltree, survey it solemnly for a moment or two, and go on unsatisfied. Abreeze had come down from the mountain and was swaying all the tree-topsabove him. He would look up steadily at the tossing branches, and thenhurry on to survey the next little tree he met, with paws raised againstthe trunk and dull eyes following the motion overhead. At last he found what he wanted, --two tall saplings growing closetogether and rubbing each other as the wind swayed them. He climbed oneof these clumsily, higher and higher, till the slender top bent with hisweight towards the other. Then he reached out to grasp the second topwith his fore paws, hooked his hind claws firmly into the first, and laythere binding the tree-tops together, while the wind rose and began torock him in his strange cradle. Wider and wilder he swung, now stretched out thin, like a rubber string, his quills lying hard and flat against his sides as the tree-topsseparated in the wind; now jammed up against himself as they cametogether again, pressing him into a flat ring with spines stickingstraight out, like a chestnut bur that has been stepped upon. And therehe swayed for a full hour, till it grew too dark to see him, stretching, contracting, stretching, contracting, as if he were an accordion and thewind were playing him. His only note, meanwhile, was an occasionalsquealing grunt of satisfaction after some particularly good stretch, orwhen the motion changed and both trees rocked together in a wide, wild, exhilarating swing. Now and then the note was answered, farther down theridge, by another porcupine going to sleep in his lofty cradle. A stormwas coming; and Unk Wunk, who is one of the wood's best barometers toforetell the changing weather, was crying it aloud where all might hear. So my question was answered unexpectedly. Unk Wunk was out for fun thatafternoon, and had rolled down the hill for the joy of the swift motionand the dizzy feeling afterwards, as other wood folk do. I have watchedyoung foxes, whose den was on a steep hill side, rolling down one afterthe other, and sometime varying the programme by having one cub roll asfast as he could, while another capered alongside, snapping and worryinghim in his brain-muddling tumble. That is all very well for foxes. One expects to find such an idea inwise little heads. But who taught Unk Wunk to roll downhill and stickhis spines full of dry leaves to scare the wood folk? And when did helearn to use the tree-tops for his swing and the wind for his motivepower? Perhaps--since most of what the wood folk know is a matter of learning, not of instinct--his mother teaches him some things that we have neveryet seen. If so, Unk Wunk has more in his sleepy, stupid head than wehave given him credit for, and there is a very interesting lessonawaiting him who shall first find and enter the porcupine school. [Illustration] The Partridges' Roll Call [Illustration] I was fishing, one September afternoon, in the pool at the foot of thelake, trying in twenty ways, as the dark evergreen shadows lengthenedacross the water, to beguile some wary old trout into taking my flies. They lived there, a score of them, in a dark well among the lily pads, where a cold spring bubbled up from the bottom; and their moods andhumors were a perpetual source of worry or amusement, according to thehumor of the fisherman himself. For days at a time they would lie in the deep shade of the lily pads instupid or sullen indifference. Then nothing tempted them. Flies, worms, crickets, redfins, bumblebees, --all at the end of dainty hair leaders, were drawn with crinkling wavelets over their heads, or dropped gentlybeside them; but they only swirled sullenly aside, grouty as King Ahabwhen he turned his face to the wall and would eat no bread. At such times scores of little fish swarmed out of the pads and ran riotin the pool. Chub, shiners, "punkin-seeds, " perch, boiled up at yourflies, or chased each other in savage warfare through the forbiddenwater, which seemed to intoxicate them by its cool freshness. You hadonly to swing your canoe up near the shadowy edge of the pool and drawyour cast once across the open water to know whether or not you wouldeat trout for breakfast. If the small fish chased your flies, then youmight as well go home or study nature; you would certainly get no trout. But you could never tell when the change would come. With the smallestoccasion sometimes--a coolness in the air, the run of a cat's-pawbreeze, a cloud shadow drifting over--a transformation would sweep overthe speckled Ahabs lying deep under the lily pads. Some blind, unknownwarning would run through the pool before ever a trout had changed hisposition. Looking over the side of your canoe you would see the littlefish darting helter-skelter away among the pads, seeking safety inshallow water, leaving the pool to its tyrant masters. Now is the timeto begin casting; your trout are ready to rise. A playful mood would often follow the testy humor. The plunge of athree-pound fish, the slap-dash of a dozen smaller ones would startleyou into nervous casting. But again you might as well spare yourefforts, which only served to acquaint the trout with the best fraudsin your fly book. They would rush at Hackle or Coachman or SilverDoctor, swirl under it, jump over it, but never take it in. They playedwith floating leaves; their wonderful eyes caught the shadow of apassing mosquito across the silver mirror of their roof, and their broadtails flung them up to intercept it; but they wanted nothing more thanplay or exercise, and they would not touch your flies. Once in a way there would come a day when your study and patience foundtheir rich reward. The slish of a line, the flutter of a fly droppingsoftly on the farther edge of the pool--and then the shriek of yourreel, buzzing up the quiet hillside, was answered by a loud snort, asthe deer that lived there bounded away in alarm, calling her two fawnsto follow. But you scarcely noticed; your head and hands were too full, trying to keep the big trout away from the lily pads, where you wouldcertainly lose him with your light tackle. On the afternoon of which I write the trout were neither playful norsullen. No more were they hungry. The first cast of my midget fliesacross the pool brought no answer. That was good; the little fish hadbeen ordered out, evidently. Larger flies followed; but the big troutneither played with them nor let them alone. They followed cautiously, afoot astern, to the near edge of the lily pads, till they saw me andswirled down again to their cool haunts. They were suspicious clearly;and with the lower orders, as with men, the best rule in such a case isto act naturally, with more quietness than usual, and give them time toget over their suspicion. As I waited, my flies resting among the pads near the canoe, curioussounds came floating down the hillside--_Prut, prut, pr-r-r-rt!Whit-kwit? whit-kwit? Pr-r-rt, pr-r-rt! Ooo-it, ooo-it? Pr-r-reeee_!this last with a swift burr of wings. And the curious sounds, halfquestioning, half muffled in extreme caution, gave a fleeting impressionof gliding in and out among the tangled underbrush. "A flock ofpartridges--ruffed grouse, " I thought, and turned to listen moreintently. The shadows had grown long, with a suggestion of coming night; and otherears than mine had heard the sounds with interest. A swifter shadow fellon the water, and I looked up quickly to see a big owl sail silently outfrom the opposite hill and perch on a blasted stub overlooking the pool. Kookooskoos had been sleeping in a dark spruce when the sounds wakedhim, and he started out instantly, not to hunt--it was still toobright--but to locate his game and follow silently to the roostingplace, near which he would hide and wait till the twilight fell darkly. I could see it all in his attitude as he poised forward, swinging hisround head to and fro, like a dog on an air trail, locating the flockaccurately before he should take another flight. Up on the hillside the eager sounds had stopped for a moment, as if somestrange sixth sense had warned the birds to be silent. The owl waspuzzled; but I dared not move, because he was looking straight over me. Some faint sound, too faint for my ears, made him turn his head, and onthe instant I reached for the tiny rifle lying before me in the canoe. Just as he spread his wings to investigate the new sound, the littlerifle spoke, and he tumbled heavily to the shore. "One robber the less, " I was thinking, when the canoe swung slightly onthe water. There was a heavy plunge, a vicious rush of my unheeded line, and I seized my rod to find myself fast to a big trout, which had beenwatching my flies from his hiding among the lily pads till hissuspicions were quieted, and the first slight movement brought him upwith a rush. Ten minutes later he lay in my canoe, where I could see him plainly tomy heart's content. I was waiting for the pool to grow quiet again, whena new sound came from the underbrush, a rapid _plop, lop, lop, lop, lop_, like the sound in a sunken bottle as water pours in and the airrushes out. There was a brook near the sounds, a lazy little stream that had lostitself among the alders and forgotten all its music; and my firstthought was that some animal was standing in the water to drink, andwaking the voice of the brook as the current rippled past his legs. Thecanoe glided over to find out what he was, when, in the midst of thesounds, came the unmistakable _Whit-kwit?_ of partridges--and there theywere, just vanishing glimpses of alert forms and keen eyes gliding amongthe tangled alder stems. When near the brook they had changed the soft, gossipy chatter, by which a flock holds itself together in the wildtangle of the burned lands, into a curious liquid sound, so like thegurgling of water by a mossy stone that it would have deceived mecompletely, had I not seen the birds. It was as if they tried to remindthe little alder brook of the music it had lost far back among thehills. Now I had been straitly charged, on leaving camp, to bring back threepartridges for our Sunday dinner. My own little flock had grown a bittired of trout and canned foods; and a taste of young broiled grouse, which I had recently given them, had left them hungry for more. So Ileft the pool and my fishing rod, just as the trout began to rise, toglide into the alders with my pocket rifle. There were at least a dozen birds there, full-grown and strong of wing, that had not yet decided to scatter to the four winds, as had most ofthe coveys which one might meet on the burned lands. All summer long, while berries are plenty, the flocks hold together, finding ten pairs ofquiet eyes much better protection against surprises than one frightenedpair. Each flock is then under the absolute authority of the motherbird; and one who follows them gets some curious and intenselyinteresting glimpses of a partridge's education. If the mother bird iskilled, by owl or hawk or weasel, the flock still holds together, whileberries last, under the leadership of one of their own number, more boldor cunning than the others. But with the ripening autumn, when the birdshave learned, or think they have learned, all the sights and sounds anddangers of the wilderness, the covey scatters; partly to cover a widerrange in feeding as food grows scarcer; partly in natural revolt atmaternal authority, which no bird or animal likes to endure after he hasonce learned to take care of himself. I followed the flock rapidly, though cautiously, through an interminabletangle of alders that bordered the little stream, and learned somethings about them; though they gave me no chance whatever for a rifleshot. The mother was gone; their leader was a foxy bird, the smallestof the lot, who kept them moving in dense cover, running, crouching, hiding, inquisitive about me and watching me, yet keeping themselvesbeyond reach of harm. All the while the leader talked to them, a curiouslanguage of cheepings and whistlings; and they answered back withquestions or sharp exclamations as my head appeared in sight for amoment. Where the cover was densest they waited till I was almost uponthem before they whisked out of sight; and where there was a bit ofopening they whirred up noisily on strong wings, or sailed swiftly awayfrom a fallen log with the noiseless flight that a grouse knows so wellhow to use when the occasion comes. Already the instinct to scatter was at work among them. During the daythey had probably been feeding separately along the great hillside; butwith lengthening shadows they came together again to face the wildernessnight in the peace and security of the old companionship. And I hadfortunately been quiet enough at my fishing to hear when the leaderbegan to call them together and they had answered, here and there, fromtheir feeding. I gave up following them after a while--they were too quick for me inthe alder tangle--and came out of the swamp to the ridge. There I ranalong a deer path and circled down ahead of them to a thicket of cedar, where I thought they might pass the night. Presently I heard them coming--_Whit-kwit? pr-r-r, pr-r-r, prut, prut!_--and saw five or six of them running rapidly. The little leadersaw me at the same instant and dodged back out of sight. Most of hisflock followed him; but one bird, more inquisitive than the rest, jumpedto a fallen log, drew himself up straight as a string, and eyed mesteadily. The little rifle spoke at his head promptly; and I stowed himaway comfortably, a fine plump bird, in a big pocket of my huntingshirt. At the report another partridge, questioning the unknown sound, flew toa thick spruce, pressed close against the trunk to hide himself, andstood listening intently. Whether he was waiting to hear the soundagain, or was frightened and listening for the call of the leader, Icould not tell. I fired at his head quickly, and saw him sail downagainst the hillside, with a loud thump and a flutter of feathers behindhim to tell me that he was hard hit. I followed him up the hill, hearing an occasional flutter of wings toguide my feet, till the sounds vanished into a great tangle ofunderbrush and fallen trees. I searched here ten minutes or more invain, then listened in the vast silence for a longer period; but thebird had hidden himself away in some hole or covert where an owl mightpass by without finding him. Reluctantly I turned away toward the swamp. Close beside me was a fallen log; on my right was another; and the twohad fallen so as to make the sides of a great angle, their tops restingtogether against the hill. Between the two were several huge treesgrowing among the rocks and underbrush. I climbed upon one of thesefallen trees and moved along it cautiously, some eight or ten feet abovethe ground, looking down searchingly for a stray brown feather to guideme to my lost partridge. Suddenly the log under my feet began to rock gently. I stopped inastonishment, looking for the cause of the strange teetering; but therewas nothing on the log beside myself. After a moment I went on again, looking again for my partridge. Again the log rocked, heavily this time, almost throwing me off. Then I noticed that the tip of the other log, which lay balanced across a great rock, was under the tip of my log andwas being pried up by something on the other end. Some animal was there, and it flashed upon me suddenly that he was heavy enough to lift myweight with his stout lever. I stole along so as to look behind a greattree--and there on the other log, not twenty feet away, a big bear wasstanding, twisting himself uneasily, trying to decide whether to go onor go back on his unstable footing. He discovered me at the instant that my face appeared behind the tree. Such surprise, such wonder I have seldom seen in an animal's face. For along moment he met my eyes steadily with his. Then he began to twistagain, while the logs rocked up and down. Again he looked at the strangeanimal on the other log; but the face behind the tree had not moved norchanged; the eyes looked steadily into his. With a startled movement heplunged off into the underbrush, and but for a swift grip on a branchthe sudden lurch would have sent me off backward among the rocks. As hejumped I heard a swift flutter of wings. I followed it timidly, notknowing where the bear was, and in a moment I had the second partridgestowed away comfortably with his brother in my hunting shirt. The rest of the flock had scattered widely by this time. I found one ortwo and followed them; but they dodged away into the thick alders, whereI could not find their heads quick enough with my rifle sight. After avain, hasty shot or two I went back to my fishing. Woods and lake were soon quiet again. The trout had stopped rising, inone of their sudden moods. A vast silence brooded over the place, unbroken by any buzz of my noisy reel, and the twilight shadows weregrowing deeper and longer, when the soft, gliding, questioning chatterof partridges came floating out of the alders. The leader was there, inthe thickest tangle--I had learned in an hour to recognize his peculiar_Prut, prut_--and from the hillside and the alder swamp and the bigevergreens his scattered flock were answering; here a _kwit_, and therea _prut_, and beyond a swift burr of wings, all drawing closer andcloser together. I had still a third partridge to get for my own hungry flock; so I stoleswiftly back into the alder swamp. There I found a little game path andcrept along it on hands and knees, drawing cautiously near to theleader's continued calling. [Illustration: "THEY WOULD TURN THEIR HEADS AND LISTEN INTENTLY"] In the midst of a thicket of low black alders, surrounded by a perfecthedge of bushes, I found him at last. He was on the lower end of afallen log, gliding rapidly up and down, spreading wings and tail andbudding ruff, as if he were drumming, and sending out his peculiar callat every pause. Above him, in a long line on the same log, five otherpartridges were sitting perfectly quiet, save now and then, when ananswer came to the leader's call, they would turn their heads and listenintently till the underbrush parted cautiously and another bird flittedup beside them. Then another call, and from the distant hillside a faint_kwit-kwit_ and a rush of wings in answer, and another partridge wouldshoot in on swift pinions to pull himself up on the log beside hisfellows. The line would open hospitably to let him in; then the row grewquiet again, as the leader called, turning their heads from side to sidefor the faint answers. There were nine on the log at last. The calling grew louder and louder;yet for several minutes now no answer came back. The flock grew uneasy;the leader ran from his log into the brush and back again, callingloudly, while a low chatter, the first break in their strange silence, ran back and forth through the family on the log. There were others tocome; but where were they, and why did they tarry? It was growing late;already an owl had hooted, and the roosting place was still far away. _Prut, prut, pr-r-r-reee!_ called the leader, and the chatter ceased asthe whole flock listened. I turned my head to the hillside to listen also for the laggards; butthere was no answer. Save for the cry of a low-flying loon and the snapof a twig--too sharp and heavy for little feet to make--the woods wereall silent. As I turned to the log again, something warm and heavyrested against my side. Then I knew; and with the knowledge came a swiftthrill of regret that made me feel guilty and out of place in thesilent woods. The leader was calling, the silent flock were waiting fortwo of their number who would never answer the call again. I lay scarcely ten yards from the log on which the sad little drama wenton in the twilight shadows, while the great silence grew deep anddeeper, as if the wilderness itself were in sympathy and ceased itscries to listen. Once, at the first glimpse of the group, I had raisedmy rifle and covered the head of the largest bird; but curiosity to knowwhat they were doing held me back. Now a deeper feeling had taken itsplace; the rifle slid from my hand and lay unnoticed among the fallenleaves. Again the leader called. The flock drew itself up, like a row ofgray-brown statues, every eye bright, every ear listening, till somevague sense of fear and danger drew them together; and they huddled onthe ground in a close group; all but the leader, who stood above them, counting them over and over, apparently, and anon sending his cry outinto the darkening woods. I took one of the birds out of my pocket and began to smooth the rumpledbrown feathers. How beautiful he was, how perfectly adapted in form andcolor for the wilderness in which he had lived! And I had taken hislife, the only thing he had. Its beauty and something deeper, which isthe sad mystery of all life, were gone forever. All summer long he hadrun about on glad little feet, delighting in nature's abundance, callingbrightly to his fellows as they glided in and out in eager searchthrough the lights and shadows. Fear on the one hand, absolute obedienceto his mother on the other, had been the two great factors of his life. Between them he grew strong, keen, alert, knowing perfectly when to runand when to fly and when to crouch motionless, as danger passed closewith blinded eyes. Then when his strength was perfect, and he glidedalone through the wilderness coverts in watchful self-dependence--amoment's curiosity, a quick eager glance at the strange animal standingso still under the cedar, a flash, a noise; and all was over. The callof the leader went searching, searching through the woods; but he gaveno heed any more. The hand had grown suddenly very tender as it stroked his feathers. Ihad taken his life; I must try to answer for him now. At the thought Iraised my head and gave the clear _whit-kwit_ of a running partridge. Instantly the leader answered; the flock sprang to the log again andturned their heads in my direction to listen. Another call, and now theflock dropped to the ground and lay close, while the leader drew himselfup straight on the log and became part of a dead stub beside him. Something was wrong in my call; the birds were suspicious, knowing notwhat danger had kept their fellows silent so long, and now threatenedthem out of the black alders. A moment's intent listening; then theleader stepped slowly down from his log and came towards me cautiously, halting, hiding, listening, gliding, swinging far out to one side andback again in stealthy advance, till he drew himself up abruptly atsight of my face peering out of the underbrush. For a long two minuteshe never stirred so much as an eyelid. Then he glided swiftly back, witha faint, puzzled, questioning _kwit-kwit?_ to where his flock werewaiting. A low signal that I could barely hear, a swift movement--thenthe flock thundered away in scattered flight into the silent, friendlywoods. Ten minutes later I was crouched in some thick underbrush looking upinto a great spruce, when I could just make out the leader standing byan upright branch in sharp silhouette against the glowing west. I hadfollowed his swift flight, and now lay listening again to his searchingcall as it went out through the twilight, calling his little flock tothe roosting tree. From the swamp and the hillside and far down by thequiet lake they answered, faintly at first, then with clearer call andthe whirr of swift wings as they came in. But already I had seen and heard enough; too much, indeed, for my peaceof mind. I crept away through the swamp, the eager calls following meeven to my canoe; first a plaint, as if something were lacking to theplacid lake and quiet woods and the soft beauty of twilight; and then afaint question, always heard in the _kwit_ of a partridge, as if only Icould explain why two eager voices would never again answer to roll callwhen the shadows lengthened. [Illustration] Umquenawis The Mighty [Illustration] Umquenawis the Mighty is lord of the woodlands. None other among thewood folk is half so great as he; none has senses so keen to detect adanger, nor powers so terrible to defend himself against it. So he fearsnothing, moving through the big woods like a master; and when you seehim for the first time in the wilderness pushing his stately, silent wayamong the giant trees, or plunging like a great engine throughunderbrush and over windfalls, his nose up to try the wind, his broadantlers far back on his mighty shoulders, while the dead tree thatopposes him cracks and crashes down before his rush, and the aldersbeat a rattling, snapping tattoo on his branching horns, --when you seehim thus, something within you rises up, like a soldier at salute, andsays: "Milord the Moose!" And though the rifle is in your hand, itsdeadly muzzle never rises from the trail. [Illustration: "PLUNGING LIKE A GREAT ENGINE THROUGH UNDERBRUSH AND OVERWINDFALLS"] That great head with its massive crown is too big for any house. Hungstupidly on a wall, in a room full of bric-a-brac, as you usually seeit, with its shriveled ears that were once living trumpets, its bulgingeyes that were once so small and keen, and its huge muzzle stretched outof all proportion, it is but misplaced, misshapen ugliness. It has nomore, and scarcely any higher, significance than a scalp on the pole ofa savage's wigwam. Only in the wilderness, with the irresistible push ofhis twelve-hundred pound, force-packed body behind it, the cracklingunderbrush beneath, and the lofty spruce aisles towering overhead, canit give the tingling impression of magnificent power which belongs toUmquenawis the Mighty in his native wilds. There only is his head athome; and only as you see it there, whether looking out in quiet majestyfrom a lonely point over a silent lake, or leading him in his terrificrush through the startled forest, will your heart ever jump and yournerves tingle in that swift thrill which stirs the sluggish blood toyour very finger tips, and sends you quietly back to camp with yoursoul at peace--well satisfied to leave Umquenawis where he is, ratherthan pack him home to your admiring friends in a freight car. Though Umquenawis be lord of the wilderness, there are two things, andtwo things only, which he sometimes fears: the smell of man, and thespiteful crack of a rifle. For Milord the Moose has been hunted and haslearned fear, which formerly he was stranger to. But when you go deepinto the wilderness, where no hunter has ever gone, and where the bangof a rifle following the roar of a birch-bark trumpet has never brokenthe twilight stillness, there you may find him still, as he was beforefear came; there he will come smashing down the mountain side at yourcall, and never circle to wind an enemy; and there, when the mood is onhim, he will send you scrambling up the nearest tree for your life, as asquirrel goes when the fox is after him. Once, in such a mood, I saw himcharge a little wiry guide, who went up a spruce tree with his snowshoeson; and never a bear did the trick quicker, spite of the four-foot websin which his feet were tangled. We were pushing upstream, late one afternoon, to the big lake at theheadwaters of a wilderness river. Above the roar of rapids far behind, and the fret of the current near at hand, the rhythmical _clunk_, _clunk_ of the poles and the _lap_, _lap_ of my little canoe as shebreasted the ripples were the only sounds that broke the foreststillness. We were silent, as men always are to whom the woods havespoken their deepest message, and to whom the next turn of the river maybring its thrill of unexpected things. Suddenly, as the bow of our canoe shot round a point, we ran plump upona big cow moose crossing the river. At Simmo's grunt of surprise shestopped short and whirled to face us. And there she stood, one hugequestion mark from nose to tail, while the canoe edged in to the lee ofa great rock and hung there quivering, with poles braced firmly on thebottom. We were already late for camping, and the lake was still far ahead. Igave the word at last, after a few minutes' silent watching, and thecanoe shot upward. But the big moose, instead of making off into thewoods, as a well-behaved moose ought to do, splashed straight toward us. Simmo, in the bow, gave a sweeping flourish of his pole, and we allyelled in unison; but the moose came on steadily, quietly, bound to findout what the queer thing was that had just come up river and broken thesolemn stillness. "Bes' keep still; big moose make-um trouble sometime, " muttered Noelbehind me; and we dropped back silently into the lee of the friendlyrock, to watch awhile longer and let the big creature do as she would. For ten minutes more we tried every kind of threat and persuasion to getthe moose out of the way, ending at last by sending a bullet _zipping_into the water under her body; but beyond an angry stamp of the footthere was no response, and no disposition whatever to give us thestream. Then I bethought me of a trick that I had discovered long beforeby accident. Dropping down to the nearest bank, I crept up behind themoose, hidden in the underbrush, and began to break twigs, softly atfirst, then more and more sharply, as if something were coming throughthe woods fearlessly. At the first suspicious crack the moose whirled, hesitated, started nervously across the stream, twitching her nostrilsand wigwagging her big ears to find out what the crackle meant, andhurrying more and more as the sounds grated harshly upon her sensitivenerves. Next moment the river was clear and our canoe was breasting therippling shallows, while the moose watched us curiously, half hidden inthe alders. That is a good trick, for occasions. The animals all fear twig snapping. Only never try it at night, with a bull, in the calling season, as I didonce unintentionally. Then he is apt to mistake you for his tantalizingmate and come down on you like a tempest, giving you a big scare and amonkey scramble into the nearest tree before he is satisfied. Within the next hour I counted seven moose, old and young, from thecanoe; and when we ran ashore at twilight to the camping ground on thebig lake, the tracks of an enormous bull were drawn sharply across ourlanding. The water was still trickling into them, showing that he hadjust vacated the spot at our approach. How do I know it was a bull? At this season the bulls travel constantly, and the points of the hoofs are worn to a clean, even curve. The cows, which have been living in deep retirement all summer, teaching theirungainly calves the sounds and smells and lessons of the woods, travelmuch less; their hoofs, in consequence, are generally long and pointedand overgrown. Two miles above our camp was a little brook, with an alder swale on oneside and a dark, gloomy spruce tangle on the other--an ideal spot for amoose to keep her little school, I thought, when I discovered the placea few days later. There were tracks on the shore, plenty of them; and Iknew I had only to watch long enough to see the mother and her calf, andto catch a glimpse, perhaps, of what no man has ever yet seen clearly;that is, a moose teaching her little one how to hide his bulk; how tomove noiselessly and undiscovered through underbrush where, one wouldthink, a fox must make his presence known; how to take a windfall on therun; how to breast down a young birch or maple tree and keep it underhis body while he feeds on the top, --and a score of other things thatevery moose must know before he is fit to take care of himself in thebig woods. I went there one afternoon in my canoe, grasped a few lily stems to holdthe little craft steady, and snuggled down till only my head showedabove the gunwales, so as to make canoe and man look as much like anold, wind-blown log as possible. It was getting toward the hour when Iknew the cow would be hungry, but while it was yet too light to bringher little one to the open shore. After an hour's watching, the cow camecautiously down the brook. She stopped short at sight of the floatinglog; watched it steadily for two or three minutes, wigwagging her ears;then began to feed greedily on the lily pads that fringed all the shore. When she went back I followed, guided now by the crack of a twig, now bya swaying of brush tops, now by the flip of a nervous ear or the push ofa huge dark body, keeping carefully to leeward all the time and makingthe big, unconscious creature guide me to where she had hidden herlittle one. Just above me, and a hundred yards in from the shore, a tree had fallen, its bushy top bending down two small spruces and making a low den, sodark that an owl could scarcely have seen what was inside. "That's thespot, " I told myself instantly; but the mother passed well above it, without noting apparently how good a place it was. Fifty yards fartheron she turned and circled back, below the spot, trying the wind withears and nose as she came on straight towards me. "Aha! the old moose trick, " I thought, remembering how a hunted moosenever lies down to rest without first circling back for a long distance, parallel to his trail and to leeward, to find out from a safe distancewhether anything is following him. When he lies down, at last, it willbe close beside his trail, but hidden from it; so that he hears orsmells you as you go by. And when you reach the place, far ahead, wherehe turned back he will be miles away, plunging along down wind at a pacethat makes your snowshoe swing like a baby's toddle. So you camp wherehe lay down, and pick up the trail in the morning. When the big cow turned and came striding back I knew that I should findher little one in the spruce den. But would she not find me, instead, and drive me out of her bailiwick? You can never be sure what a moosewill do if she finds you near her calf. Generally they run--always, infact--but sometimes they run your way. And besides, I had been tryingfor years to see a mother moose teaching in her little school. Now Idropped on all fours and crawled away down wind, so as to get beyond kenof the mother's inquisitive nose if possible. She came on steadily, moving with astonishing silence through thetangle, till she stood where I had been a moment before, when shestarted violently and threw her head up into the wind. Some scent of mewas there, clinging faintly to the leaves and the moist earth. For amoment she stood like a rock, sifting the air in her nose; then, findingnothing in the wind, she turned slowly in my direction to use her earsand eyes. I was lying very still behind a mossy log by this time, andshe did not see me. Suddenly she turned and called, a low bleat. Therewas an instant stir in the spruce den, an answering bleat, and a moosecalf scrambled out and ran straight to the mother. There was an unvoicedcommand to silence that no human sense could understand. The mother puther great head down to earth--"Smell of that; mark that, and remember, "she was saying in her own way; and the calf put his little head downbeside hers, and I heard him sniff-sniffing the leaves. Then the motherswung her head savagely, bunted the little fellow out of his tracks, anddrove him hurriedly ahead of her away from the place--"Get out, hurry, danger!" was what she was saying now, and emphasizing her teaching withan occasional bunt from behind that lifted the calf over the hardplaces. So they went up the hill, the calf wondering and curious, yetever reminded by the hard head at his flank that obedience was hisbusiness just now, the mother turning occasionally to sniff and listen, till they vanished silently among the dark spruces. For a week or more I haunted the spot; but though I saw the pairoccasionally, in the woods or on the shore, I learned no more ofUmquenawis' secrets. The moose schools are kept in far-away, shadydingles beyond reach of inquisitive eyes. Then, one morning at daylightas my canoe shot round a grassy point, there were the mother and hercalf standing knee-deep among the lily pads. With a yell I drove thecanoe straight at the little one. Now it takes a young moose or caribou a long time to learn that whensudden danger threatens he is to follow, not his own frightened head, but his mother's guiding tail. To young fawns this is practically thefirst thing taught by the mothers; but caribou are naturally stupid, ortrustful, or burningly inquisitive, according to their severaldispositions; and moose, with their great strength, are naturallyfearless; so that this needful lesson is slowly learned. If you surprisea mother moose or caribou with her young at close quarters and rush atthem instantly, with a whoop or two to scatter their wits, the chancesare that the mother will bolt into the brush, where safety lies, and thecalf into the lake or along the shore, where the going is easiest. Several times I have caught young moose and caribou in this way, eitherswimming or stogged in the mud, and after turning them back to shorehave watched the mother's cautious return and her treatment of the lostone. Once I paddled up beside a young bull moose, half grown, andgrasping the coarse hair on his back had him tow me a hundred yards, tothe next point, while I studied his expression. As my canoe shot up to the two moose they did exactly what I hadexpected; the mother bolted for the woods in mighty, floundering jumps, mud and water flying merrily about her; while the calf darted along theshore, got caught in the lily pads, and with a despairing bleat settleddown in the mud of a soft place, up to his back, and turned his head tosee what I was. I ran my canoe ashore and approached the little fellow quietly, withouthurry or excitement. Nose, eyes, and ears questioned me; and his feargradually changed to curiosity as he saw how harmless a thing hadfrightened him. He even tried to pull his awkward little legs out of themud in my direction. Meanwhile the big mother moose was thrashing aroundin the bushes in a terrible swither, calling her calf to come. I had almost reached the little fellow when the wind brought him thestrong scent that he had learned in the woods a few days before, and hebleated sharply. There was an answering crash of brush, a pounding ofhoofs that told one unmistakably to look out for his rear, and out ofthe bushes burst the mother, her eyes red as a wild pig's, and the longhair standing straight up along her back in a terrifying bristle. "Standnot upon the order of your mogging, but mog at once--_eeeunh! unh!_" shegrunted; and I turned otter instantly and took to the lake, diving assoon as the depth allowed and swimming under water to escape the oldfury's attention. There was little need of fine tactics, however, as Ifound out when my head appeared again cautiously. Anything in the way ofan unceremonious retreat of the enemy satisfied her as perfectly as ifshe had been a Boer general. She went straight to her calf, thrust hergreat head under his belly, hiked him roughly out of the mud, and thenbutted him ahead of her into the bushes. It was stern, rough discipline; but the youngster needed it to teach himthe wisdom of the woods. From a distance I watched the quivering line ofbrush tops that marked their course, and then followed softly. When Ifound them again, in the twilight of the great spruces, the mother waslicking the sides of her calf, lest he should grow cold too suddenlyafter his unwonted bath. All the fury and harshness were gone. Her greathead lowered tenderly over the foolish, ungainly youngster, tonguinghim, caressing him, drying and warming his poor sides, telling him inmother language that it was all right now, and that next time he woulddo better. * * * * * There were other moose on the lake, all of them as uncertain as the bigcow and her calf. Probably most of them had never seen a man before ourarrival, and it kept one's expectations on tiptoe to know what theywould do when they saw the strange two-legged creature for the firsttime. If a moose smelled me before I saw him, he would make off quietlyinto the woods, as all wild creatures do, and watch from a safedistance. But if I stumbled upon him unexpectedly, when the wind broughtno warning to his nostrils, he was fearless, usually, and full ofcuriosity. The worst of them all was the big bull whose tracks were on the shorewhen we arrived. He was a morose, ugly old brute, living apart byhimself, with his temper always on edge ready to bully anything thatdared to cross his path or question his lordship. Whether he was anoutcast, grown surly from living too much alone, or whether he bore someold bullet wound to account for his hostility to man, I could never findout. Far down the river a hunter had been killed, ten years before, by abull moose that he had wounded; and this may have been, as Noeldeclared, the same animal, cherishing his resentment with a memory asmerciless as an Indian's. Before we had found this out I stumbled upon the big bull one afternoon, and came near paying the penalty of my ignorance. I had beenstill-fishing for togue (lake trout), and was on my way back to campwhen, doubling a point, I ran plump upon a bull moose feeding among thelily pads. My approach had been perfectly silent, --that is the only wayto see things in the woods, --and he was quite unconscious that anybodybut himself was near. He would plunge his great head under water till only his antler tipsshowed, and nose around on the bottom till he found a lily root. With aheave and a jerk he would drag it out, and stand chewing it endwisewith huge satisfaction, while the muddy water trickled down over hisface. When it was all eaten he would grope under the lily pads foranother root in the same way. Without thinking much of the possible risk, I began to steal towardshim. While his head was under I would work the canoe along silently, simply "rolling the paddle" without lifting it from the water. At thefirst lift of his antlers I would stop and sit low in the canoe till hefinished his juicy morsel and ducked for more. Then one could slip alongeasily again without being discovered. Two or three times this was repeated successfully, and still the big, unconscious brute, facing away from me fortunately, had no idea that hewas being watched. His head went under water again--not so deep thistime; but I was too absorbed in the pretty game to notice that he hadfound the end of a root above the mud, and that his ears were out ofwater. A ripple from the bow of my canoe, or perhaps the faint brush ofa lily leaf against the side, reached him. His head burst out of thepads unexpectedly; with a snort and a mighty flounder he whirled uponme; and there he stood quivering, ears, eyes, nose, --everything abouthim reaching out to me and shooting questions at my head with aninsistence that demanded instant answer. I kept quiet, though I was altogether too near the big brute forcomfort, till an unfortunate breeze brushed the bow of my canoe stillnearer to where he stood, threatening now instead of questioning. Themane on his back began to bristle, and I knew that I had but a smallsecond in which to act. To get speed I swung the bow of the canoeoutward, instead of backing away. The movement brought me a triflenearer, yet gave me a chance to shoot by him. At the first sudden motionhe leaped; the red fire blazed out in his eyes, and he plunged straightat the canoe--one, two splashing jumps, and the huge velvet antlers wereshaking just over me and the deadly fore foot was raised for a blow. I rolled over on the instant, startling the brute with a yell as I didso, and upsetting the canoe between us. There was a splintering crackbehind me as I struck out for deep water. When I turned, at a safedistance, the bull had driven one sharp hoof through the bottom of theupturned canoe, and was now trying awkwardly to pull his leg out fromthe clinging cedar ribs. He seemed frightened at the queer, dumb thingthat gripped his foot, for he grunted and jumped back and thrashed hisbig antlers in excitement; but he was getting madder every minute. To save the canoe from being pounded to pieces was now the only pressingbusiness on hand. All other considerations took to the winds in thethought that, if the bull's fury increased and he leaped upon the canoe, as he does when he means to kill, one jump would put the frail thingbeyond repair, and we should have to face the dangerous river below in aspruce bark of our own building. I swam quickly to the shore andsplashed and shouted and then ran away to attract the bull's attention. He came after me on the instant--_unh! unh! chock, chockety-chock!_ tillhe was close enough for discomfort, when I took to water again. The bullfollowed, deeper and deeper, till his sides were awash. The bottom wasmuddy and he trod gingerly; but there was no fear of his swimming afterme. He knows his limits, and they stop him shoulder deep. When he would follow no farther I swam to the canoe and tugged it outinto deep water. Umquenawis stood staring now in astonishment at thesight of this queer man-fish. The red light died out of his eyes for thefirst time, and his ears wigwagged like flags in the wind. He made noeffort to follow, but stood as he was, shoulder deep, staring, wondering, till I landed on the point above, whipped the canoe over, andspilled the water out of it. The paddle was still fast to its cord--as it should always be in tryingexperiments--and I tossed it into the canoe. The rattle rousedUmquenawis from his wonder, as if he had heard the challenging clack ofantlers on the alder stems. He floundered out in mighty jumps and cameswinging along the shore, _chocking_ and grunting fiercely. He had seenthe man again and knew it was no fish--_Unh! unh! eeeeeunh-unh!_ hegrunted, with a twisting, jerky wriggle of his neck and shoulders at thelast squeal, as if he felt me already beneath his hoofs. But before hereached the point I had stuffed my flannel shirt into the hole in thecanoe and was safely afloat once more. He followed along the shore tillhe heard the sound of voices at camp, when he turned instantly andvanished in the woods. A few days later I saw the grumpy old brute again in a curious way. Iwas sweeping the lake with my field glasses when I saw what I thoughtwas a pair of black ducks near a grassy shore. I paddled over, watchingthem keenly, till a root seemed to rise out of the water between them. Before I could get my glasses adjusted again they had disappeared. Idropped the glasses and paddled faster. They were diving, perhaps--anunusual thing for black ducks--and I might surprise them. There theywere again; and there again was the old root bobbing up unexpectedlybetween them. I whipped my glasses up--the mystery vanished. The twoducks were the tips of Umquenawis' big antlers; the root that rosebetween them was his head, as he came up to breathe. It was a close, sultry afternoon; the flies and mosquitos were out inmyriads, and Umquenawis had taken a philosophical way of getting rid ofthem. He was lying in the water, over a bed of mud, his body completelysubmerged. As the swarm of flies that pestered him rose to his head hewould sink it slowly, drowning them off. Through my glass, as I drewnear, I could see a cloud of them hovering above the wavelets, orcovering the exposed antlers. After a few moments there would be abubbling grumble down in the mud, as Umquenawis blew the air from hisgreat lungs. His head would come up lazily to breathe among the poppingbubbles; the flies would settle upon him like a cloud, and he woulddisappear again, blinking sleepily as he went down, with an air ofimmense satisfaction. It seemed too bad to disturb such comfort; but I wanted to know moreabout the surly old tyrant that had treated me with such scant courtesy;so I stole near him again, running up when his head disappeared, andlying quiet whenever he came up to breathe. He saw me at last when I wasquite near, and leaped up with a terrible start. There was fear in hiseyes this time. Here was the man-fish again, the creature that lived onland or water, and that could approach him so silently that the sensesin which he had always trusted gave him no warning. He stared hard for amoment; then as the canoe glided rapidly straight towards him withoutfear or hesitation he waded out, stopping every instant to turn, andlook, and try the wind, till he reached the fringe of woods beyond thegrasses. There he thrust his nose up ahead of him, laid his big antlersback on his shoulders, and plowed straight through the tangle like agreat engine, the alders snapping and crashing merrily about him as hewent. In striking contrast was the next meeting. I was out at midnight, jacking, and passed close by a point where I had often seen the bigbull's tracks. He was not there, and I closed the jack and went on alongthe shore, listening for any wood folk that might be abroad. When I cameback, a few minutes later, there was a suspicious ripple on the point. Iopened the jack, and there was Umquenawis, my big bull, standing outhuge and magnificent against the shadowy background, his eyes glowingand flashing in fierce wonder at the sudden brightness. He had passedalong the shore within twenty yards of me, through dense underbrush, --asI found out from his tracks next morning, --yet so silently did he pushhis great bulk through the trees, halting, listening, trying the groundat every step for telltale twigs ere he put his weight down, that I hadheard no sound, though I was listening intently in the dead hush thatwas on the lake. It may have been curiosity, or the uncomfortable sense of being watchedand followed by the man-fish, who neither harmed nor feared him, thatbrought Umquenawis at last to our camp to investigate. One day Noel waswashing some clothes of mine in the lake when some subtle warning madehim turn his head. There stood the big bull, half hidden by the dwarfspruces, watching him intently. On the instant Noel left the duds wherethey were and bolted along the shore under the bushes, calling me loudlyto come quick and bring my rifle. When we went back Umquenawis hadtrodden the clothes into the mud, and vanished as silently as he came. The Indians grew insistent at this, telling me of the hunter that hadbeen killed, claiming now, beyond a doubt, that this was the same bull, and urging me to kill the ugly brute and rid the woods of a positivedanger. But Umquenawis was already learning the fear of me, and Ithought the lesson might be driven home before the summer was ended. Soit was; but before that time there was almost a tragedy. One day a timber cruiser--a lonely, silent man with the instincts of ananimal for finding his way in the woods, whose business it is to go overtimber lands to select the best sites for future cutting--came up tothe lake and, not knowing that we were there, pitched by a spring a mileor two below us. I saw the smoke of his camp fire from the lake, where Iwas fishing, and wondered who had come into the great solitude. That wasin the morning. Towards twilight I went down to bid the stranger welcomeand to invite him to share our camp, if he would. I found him stiff andsore by his fire, eating raw-pork sandwiches with the appetite of awolf. Almost at the same glance I saw the ground about a tree torn up, and the hoof marks of a big bull moose all about. -- "Hello! friend, what's up?" I hailed him. "Got a rifle?" he demanded, with a rich Irish burr in his voice, payingno heed to my question. When I nodded he bolted for my canoe, grabbed myrifle, and ran away into the woods. "Queer Dick! unbalanced, perhaps, by living too much alone in thewoods, " I thought, and took to examining the torn ground and the bull'stracks to find out for myself what had happened. But there was no queerness in the frank, kindly face that met mine whenthe stranger came out of the bush a half hour later. -- "Th' ould baste! he's had me perrched up in that three there, like ablackburrd, the last tin hours; an' niver a song in me throat or a bitein me stomach. He wint just as you came--I thought I could returrn hiscompliments wid a bullet, " he said, apologetically, as he passed me backthe rifle. Then, sitting by his fire, he told me his story. He had just lit hisfire that morning, and was taking off his wet stockings to dry them, when there was a fierce crashing and grunting behind him, and a bullmoose charged out of the bushes like a fury. The cruiser jumped anddodged; then, as the bull whirled again, he swung himself into a treeand sat there astride a limb, while the bull grunted and pushed andhammered the ground below with his sharp hoofs. All day long the moosehad kept up the siege, now drawing off cunningly to hide in the bushes, now charging out savagely as the timber cruiser made effort to come downfrom his uncomfortable perch. A few minutes before my approach a curious thing happened; which seemsto indicate, as do many other things in the woods, that certainanimals--perhaps all animals, including man--have at times an unknownsixth sense, for which there is no name and no explanation. I was stillhalf a mile or more away, hidden by a point and paddling silentlystraight into the wind. No possible sight or sound or smell of me couldhave reached any known sense of any animal; yet the big brute began togrow uneasy. He left his stand under the tree and circled nervouslyaround it, looking, listening, wigwagging his big ears, trying the windat every step, and setting his hoofs down as if he trod on dynamite. Suddenly he turned and vanished silently into the brush. McGarven, thetimber cruiser, who had no idea that there was any man but himself onthe lake, watched the bull with growing wonder and distrust, thinkinghim possessed of some evil demon. In his long life in the woods he hadmet hundreds of moose, but had never been molested before. [Illustration] With the rifle at full cock and his heart hot within him, he hadfollowed the trail, which stole away, cautiously at first, a longswinging stride straight towards the mountain. --"Oh, 'tis the quarebaste he is altogether!" he said as he finished his story. AT THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET [Illustration] It was now near the calling season, and the nights grew keen withexcitement. Now and then as I fished, or followed the brooks, or prowledthrough the woods in the late afternoon, the sudden bellow of a cowmoose would break upon the stillness, so strange and uncertain in thethick coverts that I could rarely describe, much less imitate, thesound, or even tell the direction whence it had come. Under the dusk ofthe lake shore I would sometimes come upon a pair of the huge animals, the cow restless, wary, impatient, the bull now silent as a shadow, nowripping and rasping the torn velvet from his great antlers among thealders, and now threatening and browbeating every living thing thatcrossed his trail, and even the unoffending bushes, in his testy humor. One night I went to the landing just below my tent with Simmo and triedfor the first time the long call of the cow moose. He and Noel refusedabsolutely to give it, unless I should agree to shoot the ugly old bullat sight. Several times of late they had seen him near our camp, or hadcrossed his deep trail on the nearer shores, and they were growingsuperstitious as well as fearful. There was no answer to our calling for the space of an hour; silencebrooded like a living, watchful thing over sleeping lake and forest, asilence that grew only deeper and deeper after the last echoes of thebark trumpet had rolled back on us from the distant mountain. SuddenlySimmo lowered the horn, just as he had raised it to his lips for a call. "Moose near!" he whispered. "How do you know?" I breathed; for I had heard nothing. "Don' know how; just know, " he said sullenly. An Indian hates to bequestioned, as a wild animal hates to be watched. As if in confirmationof his opinion, there was a startling crash and plunge across thelittle bay over against us, and a bull moose leaped the bank into thelake within fifty yards of where we crouched on the shore. "Shoot! shoot-um quick!" cried Simmo; and the fear of the old bull wasin his voice. For answer there came a grunt from the moose--a ridiculously small, squeaking grunt, like the voice of a penny trumpet--as the huge creatureswung rapidly along the shore in our direction. "Uh! young bull, lil fool moose, " whispered Simmo, and breathed a soft, questioning _Whooowuh?_ through the bark horn to bring him nearer. He came close to where we were hidden, then entered the woods andcircled silently about our camp to get our wind. In the morning histracks, within five feet of my rear tent pole, showed how little hecared for the dwelling of man. But though he circled back and forth foran hour, answering Simmo's low call with his ridiculous little grunt, hewould not show himself again on the open shore. I stole up after a while to where I had heard the last twig snap underhis hoofs. Simmo held me back, whispering of danger; but there was aquestion in my head which has never received a satisfactory answer: Whydoes a bull come to a call anyway? It is held generally--and with truth, I think--that he comes because he thinks the sound is made by a cowmoose. But how his keen ears could mistake such a palpable fraud is thegreatest mystery in the woods. I have heard a score of hunters andIndians call, all differently, and have sometimes brought a bull intothe open at the wail of my own bark trumpet; but I have never yetlistened to a call that has any resemblance to the bellow of a cow mooseas I have often heard it in the woods. Nor have I ever heard, or evermet anybody who has heard, a cow moose give forth any sound like the"long call" which is made by hunters, and which is used successfully tobring the bull from a distance. Others claim, and with some reason, that the bull, more fearless andcareless at this season than at other times, comes merely to investigatethe sound, as he and most other wild creatures do with every queer orunknown thing they hear. The Alaskan Indians stretch a skin into a kindof tambourine and beat it with a club to call a bull; which sound, however, might not be unlike one of the many peculiar bellows that Ihave heard from cow moose in the wilderness. And I have twice knownbulls to come to the _chuck_ of an ax on a block; which sound, at adistance, has some resemblance to the peculiar _chock-chocking_ that thebulls use to call their mates from a distance. From any point of view the thing has contradictions enough to make onewary of a too positive opinion. Here at hand was a "lil fool moose" whoknew no fear, and who might, therefore, enlighten me on the obscuresubject. I told Simmo to keep on calling softly at intervals while Icrept up into the woods to watch the effect. It was all as dark as a pocket beyond the open shore. One had to feelhis way along, and imitate the moose himself in putting his feet down. Spite of my precaution a bush whispered; a twig cracked. Instantly therewas a swift answering rustle ahead as the bull glided towards me. He hadheard the faint message and was coming to see if it were not histantalizing mate, ready to whack her soundly, according to his wont, forcausing him so much worry, and to beat her out ahead of him to the openwhere he could watch her closely and prevent any more of her hidingtricks. I stood motionless behind a tree, grasping a branch above, ready toswing up out of reach when the bull charged. A vague black hulk thrustitself out of the dark woods, close in front of me, and stood still. Against the faint light, which showed from the lake through the fringeof trees, the great head and antlers stood out like an upturned root;but I had never known that a living creature stood there were it notfor a soft, clucking rumble that the bull kept going in his throat, --aponderous kind of love note, intended, no doubt, to let his elusive mateknow that he was near. He took another step in my direction, brushing the leaves softly, a low, whining grunt telling of his impatience. Two more steps and he must havediscovered me, when fortunately an appealing gurgle and a measured_plop, plop, plop_--like the feet of a moose falling in shallowwater--sounded from the shore below, where Simmo was concealed. Instantly the bull turned and glided away, a shadow among the shadows. Afew minutes later I heard him running off in the direction whence he hadfirst come. After that the twilight always found him near our camp. He was convincedthat there was a mate hiding somewhere near, and he was bound to findher. We had only to call a few times from our canoe, or from the shore, and presently we would hear him coming, blowing his penny trumpet, andat last see him break out upon the shore with a crashing plunge to wakenall the echoes. Then, one night as we lay alongside a great rock in deepshadow, watching the puzzled young bull as he ranged along the shore inthe moonlight, Simmo grunted softly to call him nearer. At the sound alarger bull, that we had not suspected, leaped out of the bushes closebeside us with a sudden terrifying plunge and splashed straight at thecanoe. Only the quickest kind of work saved us. Simmo swung the bow off, with a startled grunt of his own, and I paddled away, while the bull, mistaking us in the dim light for the exasperating cow that had beencalling and hiding herself for a week, followed after us into deepwater. There was no doubt whatever that this moose, at least, had come to whathe thought was the call of a mate. Moonlight is deceptive beyond a fewfeet; so when the low grunt sounded in the shadow of the great rock hewas sure he had found the coy creature at last, and broke out of hisconcealment resolved to keep her in sight and not to let her get awayagain. That is why he swam after us. Had he been investigating some newsound or possible danger, he would never have left the land, where alonehis great power and his wonderful senses have full play. In the water heis harmless, as most other wild creatures are. I paddled cautiously just ahead of him, so near that, looking over myshoulder, I could see the flash of his eye and the waves crinkling awaybefore the push of his great nose. After a short swim he grew suspiciousof the queer thing that kept just so far ahead, whether he swam fast orslow, and turned in towards the shore whining his impatience. I followedslowly, letting him get some distance ahead, and just as his feetstruck bottom whispered to Simmo for his softest call. At the sound thebull whirled and plunged after us again recklessly, and I led him acrossto where the younger bull was still ranging up and down the shore, calling imploringly to his phantom mate. I expected a battle when the two rivals should meet; but they paidlittle attention to each other. The common misfortune, or the commonmisery, seemed to kill the fierce natural jealousy whose fury I had morethan once been witness of. They had lost all fear by this time; theyranged up and down the shore, or smashed recklessly through the swamps, as the elusive smells and echoes called them hither and yon in theirfrantic search. Far up on the mountain side the sharp, challenging grunt of a masterbull broke out of the startled woods in one of the lulls of our excitingplay. Simmo heard and turned in the bow to whisper excitedly: "Notherbull! Fetch-um Ol' Dev'l this time, sartin. " Raising his horn he gavethe long, rolling bellow of a cow moose. A fiercer trumpet call from themountain side answered; then the sound was lost in the _crash-crash_ ofthe first two bulls, as they broke out upon the shore on opposite sidesof the canoe. We gave little heed now to the nearer play; our whole attentionwas fixed on a hoarse, grunting roar--_Uh, uh, uh! eeeyuh!r-r-r-runh-unh!_--with a rattling, snapping crash of underbrush for anaccompaniment. The younger bull heard it; listened for a moment, like agreat black statue under the moonlight; then he glided away into theshadows under the bank. The larger bull heard it, threw up his greathead defiantly, and came swinging along the shore, hurling a savagechallenge back on the echoing woods at every stride. There was an ominous silence up on the ridge where, a moment before, allwas fierce commotion. Simmo was silent too; the uproar had beenappalling, with the sleeping lake below us, and the vast forest, wheresilence dwells at home, stretching up and away on every hand to the skyline. But the spirit of mischief was tingling all over me as I seizedthe horn and gave the low appealing grunt that a cow would have utteredunder the same circumstances. Like a shot the answer was hurled back, and down came the great bull--smash, crack, _r-r-runh!_ till he burstlike a tempest out on the open shore, where the second bull with achallenging roar leaped to meet him. Simmo was begging me to shoot, shoot, telling me excitedly that "Ol'Dev'l, " as he called him, would be more dangerous now than ever, if Ilet him get away; but I only drove the canoe in closer to the splashing, grunting uproar among the shadows under the bank. [Illustration: "A MIGHTY SPRING OF HIS CROUCHING HAUNCHES FINISHED THEWORK"] There was a terrific duel under way when I swung the canoe alongside amoment later. The bulls crashed together with a shock to break theirheads. Mud and water flew over them; their great antlers clashed andrang like metal blades as they pushed and tugged, grunting like demonsin the fierce struggle. But the contest was too one-sided to last long. The big bull that had almost killed me, but in whom I now found myselftaking an almost savage pride, had smashed down from the mountain in afrightful rage, and with a power that nothing could resist. With a quicklunge he locked antlers in the grip he wanted; a twist of his massiveneck and shoulders forced the opposing head aside, and a mighty springof his crouching haunches finished the work. The second moose went overwith a plunge like a bolt-struck pine. As he rolled up to his feet againthe savage old bull jumped for him and drove the brow antlers into hisflanks. The next moment both bulls had crashed away into the woods, oneswinging off in giant strides through the crackling underbrush for hislife, the other close behind, charging like a battering-ram into hisenemy's rear, grunting like a huge wild boar in his rage and exultation. So the chase vanished over the ridge into the valley beyond; and silencestole back, like a Chinese empress, into her disturbed dominions. From behind a great windfall on the point above, where he had evidentlybeen watching the battle, the first young bull stole out, and camehalting and listening along the shore to the scene of the conflict. "Tothe discreet belong the spoils" was written in every timorous step andstealthy movement. A low grunt from my horn reassured him; he grewconfident. Now he would find the phantom mate that had occasioned somuch trouble, and run away with her before the conqueror should returnfrom his chase. He swung along rapidly, rumbling the low call in histhroat. Then up on the ridge sounded again the crackle of brush and theroar of a challenge. Rage had not made the victor to forget; indeed, here he was, coming back swiftly for his reward. On the instant allconfidence vanished from the young bull's attitude. He slipped away intothe woods. There was no sound; scarcely a definite motion. A shadowseemed to glide away into the darker shadows. The underbrush closedsoftly behind it, and he was gone. Next morning at daybreak I found my old bull on the shore, a mile below;and with him was the great cow that had hunted me away from her littleone. The youngster was well grown and sturdy now, but still he followedhis mother obediently; and the big bull had taken them both under hisprotection. I left them there undisturbed, with a thought of the mightyoffspring that shall some day come smashing down from the mountain todelight the heart of camper or hunter and set his nerves a-tingle, whenthe lake shall again be visited and the roar of a bark trumpet roll overthe sleeping lake and the startled woods. Let them kill who will. I haveseen Umquenawis the Mighty as he was before fear came, and am satisfied. [Illustration] GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES +Cheokhes+, _chē-ok-hĕs´_, the mink. +Cheplahgan+, _chep-lâh´gan_, the bald eagle. +Ch'geegee-lokh-sis+, _ch'gee-gee´lock-sis_, the chickadee. +Chigwooltz+, _chig-wooltz´_, the bullfrog. +Clóte Scarpe+, a legendary hero, like Hiawatha, of the Northern Indians. Pronounced variously, Clote Scarpe, Groscap, Gluscap, etc. +Commoosie+, _com-moo-sie´_, a little shelter, or hut, of boughs and bark. +Deedeeaskh+, _dee-dee´ask_, the blue jay. +Eleemos+, _el-ee´mos_, the fox. +Hawahak+, _hâ-wâ-hăk´_, the hawk. +Hukweem+, _huk-weem´_, the great northern diver, or loon. +Ismaques+, _iss-mâ-ques´_, the fishhawk. +Kagax+, _kăg´ăx_, the weasel. +Kakagos+, _kâ-kâ-gŏs´_, the raven. +K'dunk+, _k'dunk´_, the toad. +Keeokuskh+, _kee-o-kusk´_, the muskrat. +Keeonekh+, _kee´o-nek_, the otter. +Killooleet+, _kil´loo-leet_, the white-throated sparrow. +Kookooskoos+, _koo-koo-skoos´_, the great horned owl. +Koskomenos+, _kŏs´kŏm-e-nŏs´_, the kingfisher. ̤+Kupkawis+, _cup-ka̤´wis_, the barred owl. +Kwaseekho+, _kwâ-seek´ho_, the sheldrake. +Lhoks+, _locks_, the panther. +Malsun+, _măl´sun_, the wolf. +Meeko+, _meek´ō_, the red squirrel. +Megaleep+, _meg´â-leep_, the caribou. +Milicete+, _mil´ĭ-cete_, the name of an Indian tribe; written also Malicete. +Mitches+, _mit´chĕs_, the birch partridge, or ruffed grouse. +Moktaques+, _mok-tâ´ques_, the hare. +Mooween+, _moo-ween´_, the black bear. +Musquash+, _mus´quâsh_, the muskrat. +Nemox+, _nĕm´ox_, the fisher. +Pekquam+, _pek-wăm´_, the fisher. +Quoskh+, _quoskh_, the blue heron. +Seksagadagee+, _sek´sâ-gā-dâ´gee_, the Canada grouse, or spruce partridge. +Skooktum+, _skook´tum_, the trout. +Tookhees+, _tôk´hees_, the wood mouse. +Umquenawis+, _um-que-nâ´wis_, the moose. +Unk Wunk+, _unk´ wunk_, the porcupine. +Upweekis+, _up-week´iss_, the Canada lynx. [Illustration] ANNOUNCEMENTS WOOD FOLK SERIES By WILLIAM J. LONG The unique merit of this nature student rests in his fascinating styleof writing, which invariably interests young and old; for without thiselement his pioneer work in the realm of nature would now be familiaronly to scientists. As it is, Long's Wood Folk Series is in use inthousands of schools the country over, has been adopted by many readingcircles, and is now on the library lists of six important states; thusleading laymen, young and old, into the wonderland of nature hithertoentirely closed to all. WAYS OF WOOD FOLK 205 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents This delightful work tells of the lives and habits of the commoner woodfolk, such as the crow, the rabbit, the wild duck. The book is profuselyillustrated by Charles Copeland and other artists. WILDERNESS WAYS 155 pages. Illustrated. List price, 45 cents; mailing price, 50 cents "Wilderness Ways" is written in the same intensely interesting style asits predecessor, "Ways of Wood Folk. " The hidden life of the wildernessis here presented by sketches and stories gathered, not from books orhearsay, but from the author's personal contact with wild things ofevery description. SECRETS OF THE WOODS 184 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents This is another chapter in the shy, wild life of the fields and woods. Little Toohkees, the wood mouse that dies of fright in the author'shand; the mother otter, Keeonekh, teaching her little ones to swim; andthe little red squirrel with his many curious habits, --all are presentedwith the same liveliness and color that characterize the descriptions inthe first two volumes. The illustrations by Charles Copeland areunusually accurate in portraying animal life as it really exists in itsnative haunts. WOOD FOLK AT SCHOOL 186 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents The title of this new book suggests the central thought about which theauthor has grouped some of his most fascinating animal studies. To him"the summer wilderness is one vast schoolroom in which a multitude ofwise, patient mothers are teaching their little ones the things theymust know in order to hold their place in the world and escape unharmedfrom a hundred dangers. " This book, also, is adequately illustrated byCharles Copeland. A LITTLE BROTHER TO THE BEAR 178 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents This latest book in the Wood Folk Series contains observations coveringa period of nearly thirty years. Some of the chapters represent thecharacteristics of animals of the same species, and others show theacute intelligence of certain individual animals that nature seems tohave lifted far above the level of their fellows. The book is wellillustrated and is the most noteworthy contribution to nature literatureduring the past two years. GINN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS NATURE STUDY List Mailing price priceThe Jane Andrews Books: The Seven Little Sisters $0. 50 $0. 55 Each and All . 50 . 55 Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children . 50 . 55 My Four Friends . 40 . 45Atkinson's First Studies of Plant Life . 60 . 70Beal's Seed Dispersal . 35 . 40Bergen's Glimpses at the Plant World . 40 . 45Burt's Little Nature Studies for Little People. Vol. I. A Primer and a First Reader. Vol. II. 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The authors believe that there is no line of separation between thescience of agriculture and the practical art of agriculture, and thatthe subject is eminently teachable. Theory and practice are presented atone and the same time, so that the pupil is taught the fundamentalprinciples of farming just as he is taught the fundamental truths ofarithmetic, geography, or grammar. The work is planned for use in grammar-school classes. It thus presentsthe subject to the pupil when his aptitudes are the most rapidlydeveloping and when he is forming life habits. It will give to him, therefore, at the vital period of his life a training which will go fartoward making his life work profitable and delightful. The text isclear, interesting, and teachable. While primarily intended for classwork in the public schools, it will no doubt appeal to all who desire aknowledge of the simple scientific truths which lie at the foundation ofmost farm operations. The two hundred and eighteen illustrations are unusually excellent andare particularly effective in illuminating the text. The book issupplied throughout with practical exercises, simple and interestingexperiments, and helpful suggestions. The Appendix, devoted to sprayingmixtures and fertilizer formulas, the Glossary, in which are explainedunusual and technical words, and the complete Index are important. In mechanical execution--in the attractive and durable binding, in theclear, well-printed page, and in the illustrations--the book is easilysuperior to any other elementary work on agriculture. GINN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note | | | | The following words were found in both hyphenated and | | unhyphenated forms: | | | | half-way halfway | | tree-top treetop | | | | Words printed in bold font in the book are surrounded by '+' | | signs. | | | | Illustrations have been moved to more appropriate places in | | the text. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+