It was thus at the very moment that Old Man Lynx was striking out with
bared claws, and the gray wolves were closing in on him both at once,
that his unexpected ally reached the scene.
The Hired Man raised his gun, pointing it straight between two gleaming
eyes that shone out in the darkness. He had to do it quickly, they
jumped about so fast. Then a shot rang out on the silent night!
It singed a streak across the lynx's flank, but it felled the wolf whose
jaws were just about to clamp about his leg. A second shot nicked the
tasseled ear of the great cat fighting so desperately. But it singed the
fur on the neck of the second wolf, just in time to check him, as his
fangs were finding their way through the thick fur ruff that protected
the lynx's throat. At this second shot, the wolf, with a howl of terror,
tucked his tail between his legs and ran.
The Hired Man hesitated, then decided that the lynx had won the right to
live by his pluck. Thus Old Man Lynx was left, somewhat the worse for
the meeting, but still able to enjoy the rest of his meal; while the
Hired Man, counting the night well spent, shuffled home on his
snow-shoes. But there was still a gaunt gray wolf at large in the
forest--and Fleet Foot and the fawns had still to get back to the
herd-yard before morning found them in the haunts of man!
But strange things can happen. No sooner had the lone gray wolf fled
from the unexpected slaughter than the wind shifted, and he caught an
odor most agreeable to his palate. For his gaunt sides were so hollow
that every rib showed. It was an odor he had never before followed up.
He had not met it in his Northern wilds, but it smelled porky and
delicious.
It was on the trunk of a wild apple tree that he found the little round
bristly fellow. And he could see, by the gray light of dawn, that his
black sides bulged with fat, in a winter when all the furry folk were
lean and hungry.
That alone was puzzling. But what surprised him even more was that this
queer fellow showed no sign of fear. He was singing a little song, all
in one flat key--"Unk-wunk, unk-wunk, unk-wunk." It was a young
porcupine, one of these prickly fellows so like a tiny bear, only with
long black needles instead of fur. The gray wolf did not know how
terrible those needle-like quills can be, when once they get in one's
paw. For they are barbed like a hook on the end, and when they stick
into one, it hurts worse to pull them out than to leave them where they
are. The wood folk that lived around Lone Lake knew enough to leave
Unk-Wunk strictly alone. So, he was never afraid. But the wolf did not
know. And when the little porcupine, instead of climbing higher, out of
his reach, came lazily back down the trunk and began to gnaw the frozen
bark, the wolf thought it was easy game.
Thus, without so much as wondering what made this strange beast so
fearless, he leaped open-jawed upon the little porcupine. There was just
one howl of agony, as he clamped his jaws on those barbed quills, and it
was not the porcupine who gave it!
Whining and clawing at his tortured mouth, the wolf rolled about in the
snow-drift, choking and spluttering in mingled wrath and terror. For
Unk-Wunk's terrible barbed quills were working deeper and deeper into
the roof of his mouth. Finally he rolled over on them, and they pierced
through to the brain. That was the last of the great gray wolf that had
come down out of the North to prey upon the forest folk around the
Valley Farm.
Unk-Wunk, without in the least realizing that he had done so, had
performed a public service. And in particular, he had made it safe for
Fleet Foot and her fawns to go back home to the deer yard in the gray of
the winter dawn.
"I tell you what," said the Farmer to his son next day. "I've a plan
that I think will interest you."
"What is it?" asked the Boy, eagerly.
"Just this: I've plenty of hay this year, (more than enough for the
stock,) and I'm going to pitch a little of it out, after this, every
time the storms make it hard for the deer. I declare, I can't bear to
think of their being so starved!" And he gazed thoughtfully out over the
drifting snow, as he thought how Fleet Foot had braved everything to
reach their hay-stack.
"Hurray!" shouted the Boy. "May I pitch some out right now? Poor things,
there wasn't much they could reach between the bars," and he gazed at
the dainty footprints the fawns had made the night before.
The deep, dry snow was followed by a freeze that left a glistening crust
over every drift. Once more Fleet Foot and the rest of the deer could
run nimbly on their spreading hoofs; and young Frisky Fox and Mother
Grouse Hen and Mammy Cotton tail, the brown bunny, could foot their way
across the white expanse in search of food. For they were sure of at
least a fighting chance of getting home again.
Fleet Foot and the fawns, returning every night to the hay-stack, with a
little band whose sides were as pinched with hunger as their own, now
passed Old Man Lynx without a fear. For where there was footing that
would bear their weight, they knew they could outspeed him.
Hereafter the snow might whirl and the spruce trees bend and sway in the
wind that wailed through their tops, but the white-tailed deer of the
woods about Mount Olaf were always sure of a little hay to tide them
over the month of hunger.
"Father," said the Boy, "I've made a birthday resolution. I am going to
befriend every furred and feathered creature in these woods."
"All of them?" his Father asked. The Hired Man paused in the smoking of
his traps to listen. "You aren't going to tell us we can't do any more
trapping this winter?"
"You can trap muskrats," said the Boy thoughtfully. "And, of course,
wolves, if any more should come. And weasels--the wicked creatures! They
are only cruel, blood-thirsty ruffians who kill without need, just for
the love of killing."
"What about Old Man Lynx?"
"Well, I know he is not popular. But, after all, he's a good mouser. And
we must spare our mousers, the fox and the skunk and the big barn
owl,--for the mice destroy our grain, and I don't know anything muskrats
are good for except their fur. I'm not quite sure about the wild cat,
but he doesn't do much harm, does he, as long as there are fish to be
caught? And he is a good mouser."
"What about bears?" asked the Hired Man, with one foot on the chopping
block.
"Never do any great amount of harm," returned the Farmer. "They can
catch mice with the best of them. Besides, they're mostly vegetarians.
It isn't once in a coon's age you'll find one of these black bears that
would harm a baby, if you let him alone."
"The deer seem awfully afraid of bears."
"They have a lot more reason for being afraid of men," said the Farmer,
eyeing the Hired Man's gun.
"And porcupines? What about porcupines?" asked the latter.
"They mind their own business," spoke up the Boy. "Let them live. You'll
have plenty to do, hunting animals like wolverines and martins and mink
and weasels. But don't any one hurt my friends!"
Thus Fleet Foot and her fawns were allowed to live happily on, as season
followed season in the good green woods.