RUNNING-WATER
When Shaggycoat regained his sight and full consciousness, for the stick
and the tight collar on his neck had choked him almost into the long
sleep, he was lying on the floor of what seemed to be a very large
lodge, only this lodge was square and his own in the beaver colony was
circular. It was many times larger on the inside than even the great
house in which Shaggycoat's own numerous family lived.
There must be some underground passages, he thought, just as there were
in the beaver house, surely such powerful creatures as these would take
that precaution. He would watch his chance, and before they knew it
plunge down the tunnel to freedom.
Once in the water, this terrifying creature would not get hold of him
again.
There were two of the strangers in the great lodge; the one with the
cruel eyes, and a look that made Shaggycoat's long dark hair stand erect
on his neck, and the other, smaller, and gentler.
When the smaller one talked, it was in a low, sweet voice that soothed
Shaggycoat's wild terror of being held a prisoner.
Her voice reminded him of a little rill gurgling through pebbly
grottoes, and he was glad when she spoke. When Shaggycoat first
struggled to consciousness, she had been bending over him and somehow he
was not afraid to have her look at him, for there was no murder in her
eyes, as there was in Joe's.
"I pring him to you, leetle gal," said Joe, "one long way, by gar. He
heavy, like one pig stone. He your beaver, you got no dog. He good pet
when you tame him. Injun often keep tame beaver in lodge. He pretty,
Wahawa, don't you think, leetle gal?"
"Yes, very handsome, Joe, and I thank you. He will make a good pet if I
can tame him, but he is rather too old."
Wahawa, or Running-water, as her people called her, was Joe's Indian
wife. She had been at the mission school for two years, and as she was
very bright, spoke quite good English for the wilderness.
"See, how he trembles, Joe," she said. "He shakes like the aspen, when
the fingers of the breezes are playing with it. Do you think I can tame
him?"
"O yes, you tame anything," laughed Joe. "You tame me and I wild as
hawk."
"See how he starts every time we move or speak," said the dusky daughter
of the forest. "I am afraid we scare his wits out, before he knows us."
Shaggycoat squeezed into the darkest corner of the shack, where he
stood trembling with fright. There were many sights and smells in the
room that filled him with fear. First there was the strong repellent
man-scent. This he always associated with traps and the "thunder stick"
that killed the wild creatures so easily. One of these fearful things
now rested on some hooks against the wall and the hooks looked very much
like a deer's horns. There were a great many of those cruel things that
lay in the water waiting for the paws of beaver or otter, hanging upon
the wall, suspended by the rattling snake-like thing that Shaggycoat
knew the sound of, as it clattered over the stones. Some of these things
were also lying on the floor, and, as Joe kicked them into a corner,
they made the noise that the beaver knew so well.
"Don't, Joe, you scare him," said the Indian girl, seeing how the beaver
started at the sound.
"Py thunder, we not run this shack just for one beaver," retorted Joe.
"He get used to noise. If he don't, I take his coat off, then he no mind
noise."
At first the captive beaver was so terrified that he noticed almost
nothing of his surroundings, but his eyes roamed wildly about for some
underground passage through which he might escape, and, seeing none, he
got as far into one corner as he could.
Presently he noticed what at first looked like another beaver lying on
the floor asleep near him. But there was something strange and unnatural
about the beaver that filled Shaggycoat with fear.
He seemed to be all flattened out just as though a tree or large stone
had fallen upon him. But even any kind of a beaver's company was
preferable to these creatures into whose power he had fallen, so
Shaggycoat poked the sleeping beaver, to waken him.
His nose was not warm and moist, as it should have been, but dry and
hard. Shaggycoat poked again, and the sleeping beaver moved, not by his
own power, but the slight touch he had given had moved him. Again the
bewildered Shaggycoat nosed his companion and the sleeper rolled over.
At the sight that met his eyes, every hair upon Shaggycoat's back and
neck stood up, for the sleeping beaver was not a live beaver at all, but
merely a beaver skin that had come off in some unaccountable manner. He
had often seen the winter coat of the water-snake lying on the bank of
the stream, but never that of a beaver. What strange unknown thing was
this that had happened to his dead kinsman!
Presently Joe opened a trap-door in the floor to descend to his
improvised cellar, and quick as a flash the captive beaver shot down
ahead of him. But, alas, no fresh cool lake opened its inviting arms to
receive him as he had expected. Instead of this he landed with a bump
on the bottom of a cold, dark hole, which seemed even more like a prison
than the room above.
It was something though to be away from their eyes, especially Joe's,
and it was quiet down here and perhaps he could think what to do, so
Shaggycoat wriggled into a far corner and kept very quiet while Joe
rummaged about for flour and bacon. When he ascended the ladder to the
room above, the beaver felt less terrified, although he knew that his
plight was still desperate.
He had not been long alone when he began to dig himself a burrow in one
corner of the cellar. Perhaps it would lead down to the lake, for surely
these creatures would not be so foolish as to build their lodge on the
land. Even if he could not strike water, the burrow would make a place
of refuge where he could get away from the noise and the man-scent that
fairly made his nostrils tingle.
So industriously he labored that when Wahawa came down the following
morning to see if the beaver was spoiling their provisions, she could
see nothing of him at first. Finally, after flashing the torchlight into
all the corners, she discovered a pile of dirt, and holding the torch
down to the entrance of the hole, found the beaver staring wild-eyed and
pitifully up at her from the bottom of his new hiding-place.
"O thou, Puigagis, king of the beavers," she cried in a low rippling
voice that again reminded the prisoner of the purling of a tiny stream,
"come up to Wahawa, whose name is Running-water. She will not hurt you.
She will feed you and caress you." The beaver was always the Indian's
friend, teaching him industry and the need of a store of food for the
cold winter months.
"Come up to Wahawa, O king of the beavers, and she will be your friend.
The great trapper has gone to the lake and the streams to visit his
many traps and cannot harm you; besides you belong to Running-water.
Come up and she will be your friend."
But the poor captive only cowered at the bottom of his burrow and would
not come up, so the Indian girl finally went away disappointed, but like
the rest of her race she was patient, and knew that it takes days and
weeks, or even months to gain the confidence of the wild creatures.
Nevertheless she had accomplished more than she knew, for Shaggycoat was
not afraid of her voice. There seemed something about its tones akin to
the wind and the waters; a touch of nature, like the song of a bird or
the murmur of distant rivers. There was something in the voice that told
him this creature was kind.
Later on in the day when she brought him a maple sapling that she had
cut with a hatchet, he felt that his confidence in the kindness of this
stranger was not misplaced and although he was too frightened and
homesick to eat, yet it did him good to see the tempting bark so near
and to know that the Indian girl understood his wants.
When darkness again spread its sombre mantle over the land, Shaggycoat,
hearing Joe's voice in the room above and the rattle of chains, as he
kicked some traps into one corner, scurried into his burrow.
There were two events in Shaggycoat's life during the old days when he
had been a beaver kid, playing with his brothers and sisters on the
shores of their forest lake, in the old beaver city that he always
remembered in time of peril. Both were startling and tragic and they had
burned into his brain so deeply that he had never forgotten them, and he
remembered them now in his lonely burrow.
One evening, just at twilight, he had been searching in the bushes along
the shore for wild hops, a favorite dainty with young beavers, when he
heard a noise in the woods close at hand. A strange noise always meant,
"keep still and watch and listen." Although Shaggycoat was only five or
six months old, the wild instinct of animal cunning was strong enough in
him to prompt this wariness.
Presently the bushes parted and a tall, imperious creature came striding
down to the lake. As he was coming directly for the spot where the young
beaver was concealed, Shaggycoat made haste to scramble into the water,
where he hid under the lily pads.
At the sound of his splashing, the tall creature stopped and snorted and
stamped. He, too, was suspicious of strange noises, but, finally
concluding that it was either a big bullfrog or a musquash, he strode
down and began drinking in the lake. He stood very close to Shaggycoat,
who should have kept quiet and let the stranger drink in peace, but
curiosity, which is strong in many wild creatures, prompted the young
beaver to peep out from under his lily pad screen at the tall stranger.
Shaggycoat did not think that the buck looked harmful so he slowly edged
out from under the pads to get a better look at him. Then quick as a
flash one of those slender hoofs rose and fell, and the young beaver
went kicking to the bottom, leaving a bright streak of blood behind him.
One of the older beavers found him half an hour later, lying on his back
in the lily pads, stunned and bleeding. His head did not resume its
normal size for several days, but the event taught him a lesson that he
never forgot and after that day curiosity was always tempered with
prudence.
The second event that Shaggycoat could never forget happened like the
first just at dusk. This time neither he nor his brother with whom he
was playing was at fault, but the thing happened, as things do in the
woods and the waters, and when the ripple had passed, the lake was as
placid and smiling as ever.
They were playing in the shallows. The game might have been water-tag,
or perhaps it was just rough and tumble, but, in either event, they were
having a jolly time. The sun had just set in a blaze of glory at the
upper end of the lake and long shadows were stealing across the water.
Then upon the stillness there broke a peculiar sound, who-o-o, who-o-o,
who-o-o, who-o-o; the first few notes long and loud, and the last short
and soft like an echo. It was the hunting cry of the great horned owl,
going forth on his twilight quest for food. There were two impatient
owlets in the top of a tall tree, back in the woods who were waiting for
their supper of mice and chipmunks or small birds. But Shaggycoat and
his brother had never even heard of the great horned owl so they
continued their romp in the lily pads.
Who-o-o, who-o-o, who-o-o, who-o-o, came the cry again, this time close
at hand, but the young beavers continued their play and the great horned
owl his hunt.
Suddenly Shaggycoat noticed something large above them that darkened the
sky and which kept flapping like the bushes along the lake when the wind
blew. There were two fiery, yellow balls and a strong hook between them,
and two other sets of hooks that looked sharp as the brambles on the
thorn-bush. This much Shaggycoat saw, for the great flapping thing was
just above them and much nearer than he wished. Then a set of hooks
reached down and gripped his brother in the back of the neck and bore
him away. Higher and higher the strange thing went, carrying the
owlets' supper in the strong set of hooks, and Shaggycoat knew by the
piteous cry floating back that something dreadful had happened, but he
was too young to understand just what.
Then a strange terror of the woods and the shore came over him and he
fled to the lodge and did not leave it again for days.
Where his brother went, and who the stranger was, Shaggycoat never knew,
but the owlets in the top of the tall tree in the deep woods tasted
beaver meat and found it good.