occurred the most delicious bit of our summer camping. It was only a
day or two after their first appearance; they knew simply that crumbs
and a welcome awaited them at my camp, but had not yet learned that
the tin plate in the cedar roots was their special portion. Simmo had
gone off at daylight, looking up beaver signs for his fall trapping. I
had just returned from the morning fishing, and was getting breakfast,
when I saw an otter come out into the lake from a cold brook over on
the east shore. Grabbing a handful of figs, and some pilot bread from
the cracker box, I paddled away after the otter; for that is an animal
which one has small chance to watch nowadays. Besides, I had found a
den over near the brook, and I wanted to find out, if possible, how a
mother otter teaches her young to swim. For, though otters live much
in the water and love it, the young ones are afraid of it as so many
kittens. So the mother--
But I must tell about that elsewhere. I did not find out that day; for
the young were already good swimmers. I watched the den two or three
hours from a good hiding place, and got several glimpses of the mother
and the little ones. On the way back I ran into a little bay where a
mother shelldrake was teaching her brood to dive and catch trout.
There was also a big frog there that always sat in the same place, and
that I used to watch. Then I thought of a trap, two miles away, which
Simmo had set, and went to see if Nemox, the cunning fisher, who
destroys the sable traps in winter, had been caught at his own game.
So it was afternoon, and I was hungry, when I paddled back to camp. It
occurred to me suddenly that Killooleet might be hungry too; for I had
neglected to feed him. He had grown sleek and comfortable of late, and
never went insect hunting when he could get cold fried trout and corn
bread.
I landed silently and stole up to the tent to see if he were exploring
under the fly, as he sometimes did when I was away. A curious sound, a
hollow _tunk, tunk, tunk, tunk-a-tunk_, grew louder as I approached. I
stole to the big cedar, where I could see the fireplace and the little
opening before my tent, and noticed first that I had left the cracker
box open (it was almost empty) when I hurried away after the otter.
The curious sound was inside, growing more eager every moment--_tunk,
tunk, tunk-a-trrrrrrr-runk, tunk, tunk!_
I crept on my hands and knees to the box, to see what queer thing had
found his way to the crackers, and peeped cautiously over the edge.
There were Killooleet, and Mrs. Killooleet, and the five little
Killooleets, just seven hopping brown backs and bobbing heads, helping
themselves to the crackers. And the sound of their bills on the empty
box made the jolliest tattoo that ever came out of a camping kit.
I crept away more cautiously than I had come, and, standing carelessly
in my tent door, whistled the call I always used in feeding the birds.
Like a flash Killooleet appeared on the edge of the cracker box,
looking very much surprised. "I thought you were away; why, I thought
you were away," he seemed to be saying. Then he clucked, and the
_tunk-a-tunk_ ceased instantly. Another cluck, and Mrs. Killooleet
appeared, looking frightened; then, one after another, the five little
Killooleets bobbed up; and there they sat in a solemn row on the edge
of the cracker box, turning their heads sidewise to see me better.
"There!" said Killooleet, "didn't I tell you he wouldn't hurt you?"
And like five winks the five little Killooleets were back in the box,
and the _tunk-a-tunking_ began again.
This assurance that they might do as they pleased, and help themselves
undisturbed to whatever they found, seemed to remove the last doubt
from the mind of even the little gray mate. After that they stayed
most of the time close about my tent, and were never so far away, or
so busy insect hunting, that they would not come when I whistled and
scattered crumbs. The little Killooleets grew amazingly, and no
wonder! They were always eating, always hungry. I took good pains to
give them less than they wanted, and so had the satisfaction of
feeding them often, and of finding their tin plate picked clean
whenever I came back from fishing.
Did the woods seem lonely to Killooleet when we paddled away at last
and left the wilderness for another year? That is a question which I
would give much, or watch long, to answer. There is always a regret at
leaving a good camping ground, but I had never packed up so
unwillingly before. Killooleet was singing, cheery as ever; but my own
heart gave a minor chord of sadness to his trill that was not there
when he sang on my ridgepole. Before leaving I had baked a loaf, big
and hard, which I fastened with stakes at the foot of the old cedar,
with a tin plate under it and a bark roof above, so that when it
rained, and insects were hidden under the leaves, and their hunting
was no fun because the woods were wet, Killooleet and his little ones
would find food, and remember me. And so we paddled away and left him
to the wilderness.
A year later my canoe touched the same old landing. For ten months I
had been in the city, where Killooleet never sings, and where the
wilderness is only a memory. In the fall, on some long tramps, I had
occasional glimpses of the little singer, solitary now and silent,
stealing southward ahead of the winter. And in the spring he showed
himself rarely in the underbrush on country roads, eager, restless,
chirping, hurrying northward where the streams were clear and the big
woods budding. But never a song in all that time; my ears were hungry
for his voice as I leaped out to run eagerly to the big cedar. There
were the stakes, and the tin plate, and the bark roof all crushed by
the snows of winter. The bread was gone; what Killooleet had spared,
Tookhees the wood mouse had eaten thankfully. I found the old tent
poles and put up my house leisurely, a hundred happy memories
thronging about me. In the midst of them came a call, a clear
whistle,--and there he was, the same full cravat, the same bright cap,
and the same perfect song to set my nerves a-tingling: _I'm here,
sweet Killooleet-lillooleet-lillooleet!_ And when I put crumbs by the
old fireplace, he flew down to help himself, and went off with the
biggest one, as of yore, to his nest by the deer path.
III. KAGAX THE BLOODTHIRSTY.
[Illustration: Kagax]
This is the story of one day, the last one, in the life of Kagax the
Weasel, who turns white in winter, and yellow in spring, and brown in
summer, the better to hide his villainy.
It was early twilight when Kagax came out of his den in the rocks,
under the old pine that lightning had blasted. Day and night were
meeting swiftly but warily, as they always meet in the woods. The life
of the sunshine came stealing nestwards and denwards in the peace of a
long day and a full stomach; the night life began to stir in its
coverts, eager, hungry, whining. Deep in the wild raspberry thickets a
wood thrush rang his vesper bell softly; from the mountain top a night
hawk screamed back an answer, and came booming down to earth, where
the insects were rising in myriads. Near the thrush a striped chipmunk
sat chunk-a-chunking his sleepy curiosity at a burned log which a bear
had just torn open for red ants; while down on the lake shore a
cautious _plash-plash_ told where a cow moose had come out of the
alders with her calf to sup on the yellow lily roots and sip the
freshest water. Everywhere life was stirring; everywhere cries, calls,
squeaks, chirps, rustlings, which only the wood-dweller knows how to
interpret, broke in upon the twilight stillness.
Kagax grinned and showed all his wicked little teeth as the many
voices went up from lake and stream and forest. "Mine, all mine--to
kill," he snarled, and his eyes began to glow deep red. Then he
stretched one sinewy paw after another, rolled over, climbed a tree,
and jumped down from a swaying twig to get the sleep all out of him.
Kagax had slept too much, and was mad with the world. The night
before, he had killed from sunset to sunrise, and much tasting of
blood had made him heavy. So he had slept all day long, only stirring
once to kill a partridge that had drummed near his den and waked him
out of sleep. But he was too heavy to hunt then, so he crept back
again, leaving the bird untasted under the end of his own drumming
log. Now Kagax was eager to make up for lost time; for all time is
lost to Kagax that is not spent in killing. That is why he runs night
and day, and barely tastes the blood of his victims, and sleeps only
an hour or two of cat naps at a time--just long enough to gather
energy for more evil doing.
As he stretched himself again, a sudden barking and snickering came
from a giant spruce on the hill just above. Meeko, the red squirrel,
had discovered a new jay's nest, and was making a sensation over it,
as he does over everything that he has not happened to see before. Had
he known who was listening, he would have risked his neck in a
headlong rush for safety; for all the wild things fear Kagax as they
fear death. But no wild thing ever knows till too late that a weasel
is near.
Kagax listened a moment, a ferocious grin on his pointed face; then he
stole towards the sound. "I intended to kill those young hares first,"
he thought, "but this fool squirrel will stretch my legs better, and
point my nose, and get the sleep out of me--There he is, in the big
spruce!"
Kagax had not seen the squirrel; but that did not matter; he can
locate a victim better with his nose or ears than he can with his
eyes. The moment he was sure of the place, he rushed forward without
caution. Meeko was in the midst of a prolonged snicker at the scolding
jays, when he heard a scratch on the bark below, turned, looked down,
and fled with a cry of terror. Kagax was already halfway up the tree,
the red fire blazing in his eyes.
The squirrel rushed to the end of a branch, jumped to a smaller
spruce, ran that up to the top; then, because his fright had made him
forget the tree paths that ordinarily he knew very well, he sprang out
and down to the ground, a clear fifty feet, breaking his fall by
catching and holding for an instant a swaying fir tip on the way. Then
he rushed pell-mell over logs and rocks, and through the underbrush to
a maple, and from that across a dozen trees to another giant spruce,
where he ran up and down desperately over half the branches, crossing
and crisscrossing his trail, and dropped panting at last into a little
crevice under a broken limb. There he crouched into the smallest
possible space and watched, with an awful fear in his eyes, the rough
trunk below.
Far behind him came Kagax, grim, relentless, silent as death. He paid
no attention to scratching claws nor swaying branches, never looking
for the jerking red tip of Meeko's tail, nor listening for the loud
thump of his feet when he struck the ground. A pair of brave little
flycatchers saw the chase and rushed at the common enemy, striking him
with their beaks, and raising an outcry that brought a score of
frightened, clamoring birds to the scene. But Kagax never heeded. His
whole being seemed to be concentrated in the point of his nose. He
followed like a bloodhound to the top of the second spruce, sniffed
here and there till he caught the scent of Meeko's passage through the
air, ran to the end of a branch in the same direction and leaped to
the ground, landing not ten feet from the spot where the squirrel had
struck a moment before. There he picked up the trail, followed over
logs and rocks to the maple, up to the third branch, and across fifty
yards of intervening branches to the giant spruce where his victim sat
half paralyzed, watching from his crevice.
Here Kagax was more deliberate. Left and right, up and down he went
with deadly patience, from the lowest branch to the top, a hundred
feet above, following every cross and winding of the trail. A dozen
times he stopped, went back, picked up the fresher trail, and went on
again. A dozen times he passed within a few feet of his victim,
smelling him strongly, but scorning to use his eyes till his nose had
done its perfect work. So he came to the last turn, followed the last
branch, his nose to the bark, straight to the crevice under the broken
branch, where Meeko crouched shivering, knowing it was all over.
There was a cry, that no one heeded in the woods; there was a flash
of sharp teeth, and the squirrel fell, striking the ground with a
heavy thump. Kagax ran down the trunk, sniffed an instant at the body
without touching it, and darted away to the form among the ferns. He
had passed it at daylight when he was too heavy for killing.
Halfway to the lake, he stopped; a thrilling song from a dead spruce
top bubbled out over the darkening woods. When a hermit thrush sings
like that, his nest is somewhere just below. Kagax began twisting in
and out like a snake among the bushes, till a stir in a tangle of
raspberry vines, which no ears but his or an owl's would ever notice,
made him shrink close to the ground and look up. The red fire blazed
in his eyes again; for there was Mother Thrush just settling onto her
nest, not five feet from his head.
To climb the raspberry vines without shaking them, and so alarming the
bird, was out of the question; but there was a fire-blasted tree just
behind. Kagax climbed it stealthily on the side away from the bird,
crept to a branch over the nest, and leaped down. Mother Thrush was
preening herself sleepily, feeling the grateful warmth of her eggs and
listening to the wonderful song overhead, when the blow came. Before
she knew what it was, the sharp teeth had met in her brain. The
pretty nest would never again wait for a brooding mother in the
twilight.
All the while the wonderful song went on; for the hermit thrush,
pouring his soul out, far above on the dead spruce top, heard not a
sound of the tragedy below.
Kagax flung the warm body aside savagely, bit through the ends of the
three eggs, wishing they were young thrushes, and leaped to the
ground. There he just tasted the brain of his victim to whet his
appetite, listened a moment, crouching among the dead leaves, to the
melody overhead, wishing it were darker, so that the hermit would come
down and he could end his wicked work. Then he glided away to the
young hares.
There were five of them in the form, hidden among the coarse brakes of
a little opening. Kagax went straight to the spot. A weasel never
forgets. He killed them all, one after another, slowly, deliberately,
by a single bite through the spine, tasting only the blood of the last
one. Then he wriggled down among the warm bodies and waited, his nose
to the path by which Mother Hare had gone away. He knew well she would
soon be coming back.
Presently he heard her, _put-a-put_, _put-a-put_, hopping along the
path, with a waving line of ferns to show just where she was. Kagax
wriggled lower among his helpless victims; his eyes blazed red again,
so red that Mother Hare saw them and stopped short. Then Kagax sat up
straight among the dead babies and screeched in her face.
The poor creature never moved a step; she only crouched low before her
own door and began to shiver violently. Kagax ran up to her; raised
himself on his hind legs so as to place his fore paws on her neck;
chose his favorite spot behind the ears, and bit. The hare
straightened out, the quivering ceased. A tiny drop of blood followed
the sharp teeth on either side. Kagax licked it greedily and hurried
away, afraid to spoil his hunt by drinking.
But he had scarcely entered the woods, running heedlessly, when the
moss by a great stone stirred with a swift motion. There was a squeak
of fright as Kagax jumped forward like lightning--but too late.
Tookhees, the timid little wood mouse, who was digging under the moss
for twin-flower roots to feed his little ones, had heard the enemy
coming, and dove headlong into his hole, just in time to escape the
snap of Kagax's teeth.
That angered the fiery little weasel like poking a stick at him. To be
caught napping, or to be heard running through the woods, is more than
he can possibly stand. His eyes fairly snapped as he began digging
furiously. Below, he could hear a chorus of faint squeaks, the clamor
of young wood mice for their supper. But a few inches down, and the
hole doubled under a round stone, then vanished between two roots
close together. Try as he would, Kagax could only wear his claws out,
without making any progress. He tried to force his shoulders through;
for a weasel thinks he can go anywhere. But the hole was too small.
Kagax cried out in rage and took up the trail. A dozen times he ran it
from the hole to the torn moss, where Tookhees had been digging roots,
and back again; then, sure that all the wood mice were inside, he
tried to tear his way between the obstinate roots. As well try to claw
down the tree itself.
All the while Tookhees, who always has just such a turn in his tunnel,
and who knows perfectly when he is safe, crouched just below the
roots, looking up with steady little eyes, like two black beads, at
his savage pursuer, and listening in a kind of dumb terror to his
snarls of rage.
Kagax gave it up at last and took to running in circles. Wider and
wider he went, running swift and silent, his nose to the ground,
seeking other mice on whom to wreak his vengeance. Suddenly he struck
a fresh trail and ran it straight to the clearing where a foolish
field mouse had built a nest in a tangle of dry brakes. Kagax caught
and killed the mother as she rushed out in alarm. Then he tore the
nest open and killed all the little ones. He tasted the blood of one
and went on again.
The failure to catch the wood mouse still rankled in his head and kept
his eyes bright red. Suddenly he turned from his course along the lake
shore; he began to climb the ridge. Up and up he went, crossing a
dozen trails that ordinarily he would have followed, till he came to
where a dead tree had fallen and lodged against a big spruce, near the
summit. There he crouched in the underbrush and waited.
Up near the top of the dead tree, a pair of pine martens had made
their den in the hollow trunk, and reared a family of young martens
that drew Kagax's evil thoughts like a magnet. The marten belongs to
the weasel's own family; therefore, as a choice bit of revenge, Kagax
would rather kill him than anything else. A score of times he had
crouched in this same place and waited for his chance. But the marten
is larger and stronger every way than the weasel, and, though shyer,
almost as savage in a fight. And Kagax was afraid.
But to-night Kagax was in a more vicious mood than ever before; and a
weasel's temper is always the most vicious thing in the woods. He
stole forward at last and put his nose to the foot of the leaning
tree. Two fresh trails went out; none came back. Kagax followed them
far enough to be sure that both martens were away hunting; then he
turned and ran like a flash up the incline and into the den.
In a moment he came out, licking his chops greedily. Inside, the young
martens lay just as they had been left by the mother; only they began
to grow very cold. Kagax ran to the great spruce, along a branch into
another tree; then to the ground by a dizzy jump. There he ran swiftly
for a good half hour in a long diagonal down towards the lake,
crisscrossing his trail here and there as he ran.
Once more his night's hunting began, with greater zeal than before. He
was hungry now; his nose grew keen as a brier for every trail. A faint
smell stopped him, so faint that the keenest-nosed dog or fox would
have passed without turning, the smell of a brooding partridge on her
eggs. There she was, among the roots of a pine, sitting close and
blending perfectly with the roots and the brown needles. Kagax moved
like a shadow; his nose found the bird; before she could spring he was
on her back, and his teeth had done their evil work. Once more he
tasted the fresh brains with keen relish. He broke all the eggs, so
that none else might profit by his hunting, and went on again.
On some moist ground, under a hemlock, he came upon the fresh trail of
a wandering hare--no simple, unsuspecting mother, coming back to her
babies, but a big, strong, suspicious fellow, who knew how to make a
run for his life. Kagax was still fresh and eager; here was game that
would stretch his muscles. The red lust of killing flamed into his
eyes as he jumped away on the trail.
Soon, by the long distances between tracks, he knew that the hare was
startled. The scent was fresher now, so fresh that he could follow it
in the air, without putting his nose to the ground.
Suddenly a great commotion sounded among the bushes just ahead, where
a moment before all was still. The hare had been lying there, watching
his back track to see what was following. When he saw the red eyes of
Kagax, he darted away wildly. A few hundred yards, and the foolish
hare, who could run far faster than his pursuer, dropped in the bushes
again to watch and see if the weasel was still after him.
Kagax was following, swiftly, silently. Again the hare bounded away,
only to stop and scare himself into fits by watching his own trail
till the red eyes of the weasel blazed into view. So it went on for a
half hour, through brush and brake and swamp, till the hare had lost
all his wits and began to run wildly in small circles. Then Kagax
turned, ran the back track a little way, and crouched flat on the
ground.
In a moment the hare came tearing along on his own trail--straight
towards the yellow-brown ball under a fern tip. Kagax waited till he
was almost run over; then he sprang up and screeched. That ended the
chase. The hare just dropped on his fore paws. Kagax jumped for his
head; his teeth met; the hunger began to gnaw, and he drank his fill
greedily.
For a time the madness of the chase seemed to be in the blood he
drank. Keener than ever to kill, he darted away on a fresh trail. But
soon his feast began to tell; his feet grew heavy. Angry at himself,
he lay down to sleep their weight away.
Far behind him, under the pine by the partridge's nest, a long dark
shadow seemed to glide over the ground. A pointed nose touched the
leaves here and there; over, the nose a pair of fierce little eyes
glowed deep red as Kagax's own. So the shadow came to the partridge's
nest, passed over it, minding not the scent of broken eggs nor of the
dead bird, but only the scent of the weasel, and vanished into the
underbrush on the trail.
Kagax woke with a start and ran on. A big bullfrog croaked down on the
shore. Kagax stalked and killed him, leaving his carcass untouched
among the lily pads. A dead pine in a thicket attracted his suspicion.
He climbed it swiftly, found a fresh round hole, and tumbled in upon a
mother bird and a family of young woodpeckers. He killed them all,
tasting the brains again, and hunted the tree over for the father
bird, the great black logcock that makes the wilderness ring with his
tattoo. But the logcock heard claws on the bark and flew to another
tree, making a great commotion in the darkness as he blundered along,
but not knowing what it was that had startled him.
So the night wore on, with Kagax killing in every thicket, yet never
satisfied with killing. He thought longingly of the hard winter, when
game was scarce, and he had made his way out over the snow to the
settlement, and lived among the chicken coops. "Twenty big hens in one
roost--that was killing," snarled Kagax savagely, as he strangled two
young herons in their nest, while the mother bird went on with her
frogging, not ten yards away among the lily pads, and never heard a
rustle.
Toward morning he turned homeward, making his way back in a circle
along the top of the ridge where his den was, and killing as he went.
He had tasted too much; his feet grew heavier than they had ever been
before. He thought angrily that he would have to sleep another whole
day. And to sleep a whole day, while the wilderness was just beginning
to swarm with life, filled Kagax with snarling rage.