THE BULL MOOSE
Gomposh's lair was in the black heart of the cedar swamp. Old though
the cedars were, Gomposh had the feeling of being even older. He
liked the ancientness of the place; its dankness and darkness, and,
above all, its silence--the silence of green decaying things. It was
so silent that he could almost _hear_ himself thinking, and his
thoughts seemed to make more noise even than his great padded feet.
Under the grey twisted trunks, the ground oozed with moisture, which
fed the pits of black water that never went dry even in the summer
drought. Whatever life stirred in those black pits, occasionally
disturbing their stagnant surfaces with oily ripples, it did not
greatly affect Gomposh. He preferred not to bother about them, and
to devote his mind instead to the clumps of fat fungus--white, red,
pink and orange--which, glowed like dull lamps in the heart of the
gloom. The taste of their flabby fatness pleased his palate. It was
not exactly an exciting form of food; but it grew on your doorstep,
so to speak, and saved a lot of trouble. And when you wanted to vary
your diet, there were the skunk cabbages and other damp vegetables.
Another thing that recommended the place to the old bear was its
comparative freedom from other animals. Goohooperay, it is true,
inhabited the hollow hemlock on the farther side of the swamp, but he
seldom came near Gomposh's lair, since his activities took him
generally to the open slopes of the Bargloosh where the hunting was
fair to medium, and sometimes even good. His voice, of course, was a
thing to be regretted, and when, on first getting out of bed, he
would perch at the top of his tree and send the loudest parts of
himself shrilling lamentably far out into the twilight, Gomposh's
little eyes would shine with disapproval, and he would make remarks
to himself deep down in his throat. But a voice cannot be cuffed
into silence, when it has wings that carry it out of the reach of
your paw, and so Gomposh had to content himself with a little
wholesome grumbling which, after all, kept him from becoming all
fungus and fat, and made him change his feeding-ground from place to
place. The only other bird that ever intruded upon his privacy was
the nuthatch. But as this little bird, being one of the quietest of
all the feathered folk, spent its time mainly in sliding up and down
the cedar trunks like a shadow without feet, only now and then giving
forth a tiny faint note in long silences, as if it were apologizing
to itself for being there at all--Gomposh couldn't find it in his
heart to lodge a complaint. He would lie in his lair for hours and
hours, listening contentedly to the fat, oozy silence, and observing
the solemn gloom in which the colours of the red and orange
toadstools seemed loud enough to make a noise, and wish that the
nuthatch needn't go on apologizing.
The lair was in a deep hollow, between the humpy roots of a large old
cedar. It was dry enough, except when the rains were very heavy, as
it was tunnelled out on the edge of one of the Hardwood knolls which
rose up from the swamp here and there, like the last remaining
hill-tops of a drowned world. To make this hole still more
rainproof, and at the same time warmer, Gomposh had covered the cedar
roots with boughs which he had contrived cunningly into a roof! Oh,
he was a wise, wary old person, was Gomposh! and the experience of
unnumbered winters had taught him that when the blizzards come
swirling over the Bargloosh from the northeast, it is a grand and
comforting thing to have a good roof over you, thatched thick and
warm with snow. So to this deep cave in the roots of the cedar when
the wind moaned in the draughty tops of the spruce woods and the
frost bit with invisible teeth, Gomposh, bulging with berries and
fat, would retire for the winter, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep!
Toadstools and various sorts of berries made up the principal part of
his diet; but as berries did not grow in the swamp, and after a time
he had eaten all the best toadstools in the neighbourhood of his den,
he occasionally found it pleasant to leave the swamp and ascend to
the blueberry barrens high up on the slopes of the Bargloosh.
One morning, not many days after Shasta's return to his wolf kin,
Gomposh got up with the berry feeling in him very bad. It was a
little early for blueberries, but there were other things he might
find--perhaps an Indian pear with its sweet though tasteless fruit,
ripened early in some sunny spot. And anyhow there were always
confiding beetles under stones, and whole families of insects that
live in rotten logs.
He left his lair, picking his way carefully between the humpy roots
that made the ground lift itself into such strange shapes, and
setting his great padded feet on the thick moss as delicately as a
fox, so that, in case some mouse or water-rat should be out of its
hole, he might catch it unawares with one of the lightning movements
of his immense paw. At the edge of the swamp he pushed his way
stealthily through a thicket of Indian willows and then paused to
sniff the air with that old sensitive nose of his which brought him
tidings of the trails as to what was abroad, with a fine certainty
that could not err. But, sniff as he would, nothing came to his
questing nostrils except the smell that was as old as the
centuries--the raw, keen sweetness of the wet spruce and fir forests,
mixed with the homely scent of the cedar swamp. Yet in spite of
this, he did not move without the utmost caution, and, for all his
apparent clumsiness, his vast furry bulk seemed to drift in among the
spruces with the quietness of smoke.
Far away on the other side of the lake, a great bull moose was making
his way angrily through the woods, looking for the cow he had heard
calling to him at dawn, and thrashing the bushes with his mighty
antlers as a challenge to any one who should be rash enough to
dispute his title of Lord of the Wilderness. But as he was
travelling up-wind, and was, moreover, too far away for the sound of
his temper to carry, Gomposh's unerring nose did not receive the
warning as he ascended the Bargloosh with the berry want in his
inside.
He was half-way up the mountain, when, all at once, he stopped, and
swung his nose into the wind. Something was abroad now--something
with a warmer, thicker scent than the sharp tang of the spruces.
What was it? There was a smell of wolf in it, and yet again
something which was not wolf. It was a mixture of scents so finely
jumbled together that only a nose like Gomposh's could have
disentangled them. In spite of his immense knowledge of the thousand
ways in which the wilderness kindreds spill themselves upon the air,
the old bear was puzzled. So, in order to give his mind perfect
leisure to attend to his nose, Gomposh sank back on his haunches, and
then sat bolt upright with his paws hanging idly in the air.
The scent came more and more plainly. And as it grew, Gomposh's
brain worked faster and faster. The smell was half strange and half
familiar. Where had he smelt it before? And then, suddenly, he
_knew_.
Shasta, stealing through the spruces as noiselessly as any of the
wild brotherhood, thought he had done an extremely clever thing. He
fully believed he had caught an old black bear unawares, sitting up
on the trail and sniffing at nothing, with his paws dangling
foolishly before him. It was not until the boy was close upon him
that Gomposh quickly turned his head, and pretended to be surprised.
Shasta, recognizing his old friend, came slowly forward with shining
eyes.
At first Gomposh did not speak, but that was not surprising. Gomposh
was not one to rush into speech when you could express so much by
saying nothing. To be able to express a good deal, and yet not to
put it into the shape of words--to say things with your whole body
and mind without making noises with your mouth and throat--is a
wonderful faculty. Few people know anything about it; because half
the business of people's lives is carried on in the mouth, and they
are not happy or wise enough to be quiet; but the beasts use it
continually; because they are very happy and very wise.
So Gomposh looked at Shasta, and Shasta looked at Gomposh, and for a
long time neither of them made a sound. But the mind that was in
Gomposh's big body, and the body that was outside Gomposh's big mind,
went on quietly making all sorts of observations which Shasta easily
understood. So he knew, just as well as if Gomposh had said it, that
the bear was telling him he had been on his travels; also that things
were different in him; that he was another sort of person, because
many things had happened to him in the meantime. Exactly what those
things were, Gomposh did not know; but he knew what the effect was
which they had produced in Shasta. He knew that the part of Shasta
that was not wolf had mingled with that part of the world which also
is not wolf, and that therefore he was a little less wolfish than
before.
At first Shasta felt a little uncomfortable at the way Gomposh looked
him calmly through and through. It was as if Gomposh said: "We are a
long way off, little Brother. We have travelled far apart. But I
catch you with the mind."
And Shasta couldn't help feeling as if he had done something of which
he was ashamed. He had left the wild kindred--the wolf-father, the
wolf-mother, all that swift, stealthy, fierce wolf-world that had its
going among the trees. He had gone out to search for another
kindred, almost as swift, stealthy and fierce as the wolves
themselves, yet of a strange, unnamable cunning, and of a smell
stranger still. And yet with all this strangeness, the new kindred
had fastened itself upon him with a hold which Shasta could not shake
off, as of something which his half-wolf nature could neither resist
nor deny. And the more Gomposh looked at him out of his little
piercing eyes, the more keenly he felt that the old bear was
realizing this hold upon him of the new kindred, far off beyond the
trees.
When at last Gomposh spoke--that is, when he allowed the wisdom that
was in him to ooze out in bear language--what he remarked amounted to
this:
"You have found the new kindred. You have learnt the new knowledge.
You are less wolf than you were."
Shasta did not like being told that he had grown less a wolf. It was
just as if Gomposh had accused him of having lost something which was
not to be recovered.
"I am just the same as I was," he replied stoutly; but he knew it was
not true.
"The moons have gone by, and the moons have gone by," Gomposh said.
"The runways have been filled with folk. But you have not come along
them. You have not watched them. You have missed everything that
has gone by."
Shasta made it clear that one could not be everywhere at the same
time, and that, anyhow, he had not missed the moons.
"No one misses the moons," Gomposh remarked gravely, "except those of
us who go to sleep. It is a pleasant sleep in the winter when we go
sleeping through the moons."
"Nitka and Shoomoo do not sleep," Shasta said boastfully. "We do not
sleep the winter sleep--we of the wolves!"
"And so you do not find the world beautifully new when you wake up in
the spring," Gomposh said.
That was a fresh idea to Shasta. He knew what a wonderful thing it
was to find the world new every day, but it must seem terribly new
indeed to you after the winter sleep. The thought of hunger came to
his rescue.
"You must be very hungry," he said triumphantly.
"It is better to be very hungry once and get it over," Gomposh said
composedly, "than to go on being hungry all the winter when they tell
me food is scarce."
Another fresh thought for Shasta! If Gomposh kept on putting new
ideas into him at this rate, he felt as if something unpleasant must
happen in his head. If he had been rather more of a boy, and rather
less of a wolf, he might have been inclined to argue with Gomposh,
just for the sake of arguing. As it was, he was wise enough to
realize that Gomposh knew more than he did; and that however new or
uncomfortable the things were that Gomposh said, they were most
likely true. So he said nothing more for some time, but kept turning
over in his head the fresh ideas about newness and hunger, and the
being less a wolf.
"You will not stay among us," Gomposh said after a long pause. "You
will go back to the new kindred, and the new smell."
Shasta felt frightened at that--so frightened as to be indignant. He
was afraid lest the old bear might be saying what was true. And the
memory of the hide thong that had cut into his flesh and of the
horrible captivity when he had been forced to stay in one small
space, whether he liked it or not, made him feel more and more
strongly that he would not go back whatever happened.
As Gomposh did not seem inclined to talk any more, Shasta thought he
would continue his walk. It was good to be out on the trails again,
passing where the wild feet passed that had never known what it was
to be held prisoners in one place. And as he went, all his senses
were on the watch to see and hear and smell everything that was going
on. Softly he went, without the slightest sound, putting his hands
and feet so delicately to the ground that not a leaf rustled, not a
twig snapped.
But wary though he was, other things were even warier. Gleaming eyes
he did not see watched him out of sight. Keen noses winded
him--noses of creatures that kept their bodies a secret almost from
themselves! And so when Shasta suddenly found himself face to face
with a big bull moose he nearly jumped out of himself with
astonishment.
It was not the first time that he had seen moose. In the early
summer, down in the alder thicket at the edge of the lake, Shasta,
watching motionless between the leaves, had seen a big cow and her
lanky calf come down into the lake. The cow began to busy herself by
pulling water-lily roots, and the calf nosed along the bank in an
inquisitive manner as if it still found the world a most bewildering
place. They did not seem animals to be frightened at; and even the
big cow looked a harmless sort of being whose mind, what there was of
it, was in her mouth and ears. But the huge bull now in front of
Shasta was a very different sort of beast. From the ground to the
ridge of the immense fore shoulders, he measured a good six feet.
That great humped ridge covered with thick black hair seemed to mound
itself over some enormous strength which lay solid and compact ready
to hurl itself forth at an instant's notice in one terrifying blow
which would smash any object that dared to challenge it. But what
impressed Shasta more than anything else was the great spread of
polished antlers on each side of his head. Antlers like those he had
never seen. It was like wearing a forest on your forehead: it made
you uncomfortable to look at: it was like being an animal and a tree
at the same time.
The moose was equally surprised at Shasta. With all the creatures of
the forest--lynxes, catamounts, raccoons, wolves, deer, foxes, bears
and chipmunks--he was familiar. But this smooth, hornless,
round-headed thing was Like none of them. It had a shape and a
character extraordinarily different; and the big moose was not
pleased. There was another thing that he did not like, and that was
Shasta's smell. Not that this was so unfamiliar as his shape.
Indeed, something like it the moose had often smelt before.
Moreover, it was a smell that always made him angry. It was that of
the wolves. And yet, mingled with it in a curious and bewildering
way, there was another odour, not so pungent as the wolf scent, but
hardly less objectionable to the moose, and that was the smell of
man. What this might mean, the moose did not know. Along all the
lonely trails of his wild and adventurous life, he had never yet come
within sight or scent of the creature that went always upon its hind
legs, with cunning in its hornless head, and death that it shot out
with its hands.
With his great over-hanging muzzle lifted up, and his nostrils
quivering, he looked at Shasta viciously out of his little gleaming
eyes.
It was the wolf in Shasta that made the creature angry. From the
endless generations behind him--grandfathers and grandfathers'
grandfathers that reached back beyond the flood--there had come down
to him, through the uncounted ages, this hatred, born of fear, of the
wolves. It was not that he feared any single wolf. Few wolves in
all that immense North Land would have dared to attack him singly, or
dispute his lordship of the world. But when the snows lay heavy on
the hemlocks, and the nights were keen with a bitter air from the
white heart of the Pole, those long shadow-like shapes that came
floating over the barrens in packs, with the hunting note in their
throats, were not things to be treated contemptuously by even the
lordliest moose, at home in his winter "Yard."
Shasta, on his side, felt no enmity towards the moose. He was not
wolf enough to have the moose-hatred--handed down, pack after pack,
since the beginning of the world--running in his blood. What he
inherited from his grandfathers' grandfathers were Indian instincts,
though, in his utter ignorance of his nature, he did not know them
for what they were. So he just stared at the moose with a great
astonishment, and wondered what would be the right thing to do.
In spite of himself, he felt a little uneasy. Something--he didn't
know what--warned him that the moose did not like him, and therefore
was not going to be his friend. Left to himself, Shasta was willing
to be friends--if they would let him--with all the forest folk. And
as he never frightened them, or attempted to do them any hurt, most
of the creatures came to regard him as a harmless sort of person.
Those that did not, respected him too much to molest him because of
his strange man-smell, which was so dangerously mixed with that of
wolf. But now, here was a beast which, he felt sure, was so far from
being his friend that it would take only some very little thing to
turn him into a dangerous enemy. A movement, a look, a puff of air
to make scent stronger--and some terrible thing might happen: you
could never tell.
Now Shasta knew several ways of making himself a bigger person, as it
were, and so more to be respected. One was to keep as still as a
stone, and to put all of himself into his eyes, staring and staring
till it seemed as if they must suddenly become mouths and bite; which
made the creatures so uneasy that very few could stand it for long,
and would politely melt away among the trees. Another was to make
some sudden, violent movement, and to give the hunting cry of the
wolves with his full throat. That struck fear into most animals; and
they would flee in panic, never stopping till they had put long
lengths of trail between them and the little naked Terror that had
the wolf-cry in its throat. But now, though Shasta put everything
that was in him into his eyes, the big bull bore the stare in an
unflinching manner, and stared back defiantly. He did more. He
began to paw the ground impatiently with one of his hoofs, as if to
show that he was tired of this duel with the eyes, and wanted to try
some more complete trial of strength. If Shasta had looked
particularly at the pawing hoof, he would have noticed how deeply
cleft it was, and what sharp cutting edges it had. A terrible
instrument that, when it descended like a sledge-hammer with all the
weight of the huge seven-hundred-pound body behind it to give it
driving force! But Shasta was too much occupied in attending to the
expression in the animal's eyes, and in fearful admiration of the
huge spreading antlers that made so grand an ornament to the mighty
head.
And then, because the Spirit of the wild things did not tell him what
to do, or because, if it did, his attention was too much taken up to
give heed to its warning, he did the wrong thing instead of the right
one. With a sudden spring in the air, he loosed the wolf-cry from
his throat.
If anything was needed to make the moose furious this action of
Shasta's was sufficient, At the boy's unexpected movement and cry he
bounded to one side. Then he stood snorting and stamping the ground
viciously. But he did not turn tail. Instead, he began to thrash
the underwood furiously with his antlers.
Shasta was no coward. Yet what could he do, naked and utterly
defenceless against this enormous animal, armed with those dreadful
antlers and those pitiless hatchets on his feet? He looked quickly
round, measuring the distance between himself and the nearest tree.
To dart to it and climb into safety would be done in less time than
it would take to tell it. But quick though he was, he knew, by
experience, that some of the wild things were even quicker. What the
moose could do in the way of quickness he had just seen. The whole
of that great body was a mass of sinews and muscles that could hurl
it this way or that like a flash of lightning before you had time to
blink. And the moose, like the wolves and the bears, could make up
his mind in less than a thousandth part of a minute, and be somewhere
else almost before he had started, and finish a thing completely
almost before it was begun!
If only Nitka or Shoomoo, or one of the wolf-brothers, could know the
danger he was in, and come to the rescue! Big though he might be, it
would be a bold moose who would lightly tackle Shoomoo, or any of his
terrible brood, when once their blood was roused. But though Shasta
looked wildly on every side, hoping that the call he had given might
have attracted attention, not a dead leaf rustled in response under
swiftly padding feet!
He turned his gaze again upon his enemy--for enemy he had now
undoubtedly become--to catch the first sign of what he might be about
to do. The moose was still thrashing the thicket as if to lash
himself into increasing fury, and glaring at Shasta passionately out
of his shining eyes. Because he did not know what was best to be
done, Shasta threw back his head, and once again sent out the long
ringing wolf-cry that was a summons to the pack. But as luck would
have it, not one of all the wolf kindred was within ear-shot, and the
Bargloosh was as empty of wolves as the sky of clouds.
At the second cry, the moose stopped thrashing the bushes, and stood
still. But along his neck and shoulders the coarse black hair rose
threateningly. A red light burned dangerously in his eyes.
Suddenly, without warning, he sprang. Quick as a wolf, Shasta leaped
aside. If he had been the fraction of a second later he would have
been trampled to death. The murderous hoof of the moose missed its
mark by a quarter of an inch. Snorting with rage, he raised himself
on his hind legs to strike again.
And then the wonderful thing happened. Even as the moose rose, a
huge black form hurled itself through the air, descending upon him
like a thunderbolt. Before he could deliver the blow intended for
Shasta, even before he could change his position in order to protect
himself, a huge paw, armed with claws like curved daggers, had ripped
his shoulder half-way to the bone.
So great was the force of the blow, with the whole weight of
Gomposh's body behind it, that the moose was hurled to the ground.
He had hardly touched it, however, before he was on his feet,
quivering with pain and fury. Seeing that his assailant was one of
the hated bears, his fury redoubled. In spite of his wounds, now
streaming with blood, he rushed savagely at the bear, striking again
with his hoofs. But Gomposh, though now old, was no novice at
boxing. He simply gathered his great hind quarters under him and sat
well back upon them, with his forepaws lifted. Each time the moose
struck, Gomposh parried the blow with a lightning sweep of his
gigantic paw; and each time the paw swept, the moose bled afresh.
Only once did he do Gomposh any injury, and that was when, with a
sudden charge of his left-hand antler, he caught the bear in the
ribs. But he paid dearly for the action. Gomposh, though nearly
losing his balance, brought his right paw down with such
sledge-hammer force on his opponent's shoulder, that the moose
staggered, and almost fell. The blow was so tremendous that the
great bull did not care to receive another. With a harsh bellow of
rage and anguish he turned, plunged into the underwood, and
disappeared.
[Illustration: WITH A HARSH BELLOW OF RAGE AND ANGUISH HE PLUNGED
INTO THE UNDERWOOD]
The whole forest seemed to quake as he went.
While all this was happening, Shasta, crouched behind his tree, had
watched with intense excitement the progress of the fight. Now that
Gomposh had proved himself conqueror, and that the moose had
disappeared, he came out from his refuge.
He wanted to thank Gomposh, to make him feel how glad he was that he
had beaten the moose. But for some reason peculiar to himself,
Gomposh evidently did not want to be thanked. And when Shasta went
up to lay his hand on his thick black coat, he rumbled something rude
in his chest and moved sulkily away. As he went he turned once to
look back at the boy, and then, like the moose, disappeared among the
trees.
Left alone on the spot where the great battle had been fought, and
where he had come so near losing his life, Shasta looked about him
carefully. The ground was torn up and trampled, the grass and leaves
blotched with dark stains. A faint smell of newly-spilt blood filled
the air. And all round crowded the trees, dark, solemn, full of
unnamable things.
As Shasta watched, a feeling of dread came over him. He could not
have explained the feeling. All he knew was that it was a bad place
where bad things could happen, and where even Gomposh had not cared
to remain. Without lingering another moment, he fled away on
noiseless naked feet.
And down in the cedar swamp, among the skunk cabbage and the bad
black pools, old Gomposh sat in his lair and licked his wound. It
did not heal for several days; but the big slavery tongue kept busily
at work, and Nature, the old unfailing nurse, attended to her job. A
good deal of grumbling accompanied the licking, and acted like a
tongue on Gomposh's mind. So it was not long before he went about as
usual, and the nuthatches perceived that Gomposh was so very much
Gomposh again that the toadstools were being punished for having
grown so fat!