Night Watchers
WHEN the Boy came creeping down the hillside, and found the water in
the canal still muddy and foaming, he realized that he had just missed
a chance to see the beavers actually at work on their ditch-digging.
He was disappointed. But he found ample compensation in the fact that
here was one of the much-discussed and sometimes doubted canals,
actually in process of construction. He knew he could outdo the
beavers in their own game of wariness and watchfulness. He made up his
mind he would lie out that very night, on the hillside close by--and
so patiently, so unstirringly, that the beavers would never suspect
the eager eyes that were upon them.
All around him, on the nearer slopes, were evidences of the purpose
for which the canal was designed, as well as of the diligence with
which the little people of the pond were labouring to get in their
winter stores. From this diligence, so early in the season, the Boy
argued an early and severe winter. He found trees of every size up to
two feet in diameter cleanly felled, and stripped of their branches.
With two or three exceptions--probably the work of young beavers
unskilled in their art--the trees were felled unerringly in the
direction of the water, so as to minimize the labour of dragging down
the cuttings. Close to the new part of the canal, he found the tree
whose falling he and Jabe had heard the night before. It was a tall
yellow birch, fully twenty inches through at the place where it was
cut, some fifteen inches from the ground. The cutting was still fresh
and sappy. About half the branches had been gnawed off and trimmed,
showing that the beavers, after being disturbed by the Boy's visit to
the dam, had returned to work later in the night. Much of the smaller
brush, from the top, had been cleared away and dragged down to the
edge of the canal. As the Boy knew, from what trappers and woodsmen
had told him, this brush, and a lot more like it, would all be
anchored in a huge pile in mid-channel, a little above the dam, where
it would serve the double purpose of breaking the force of the floods
and of supplying food through the winter.
Very near the newly felled birch the Boy found another large tree
about half cut through; and he vowed to himself that he would see the
finish of that job that very night. He found the cutting done pretty
evenly all around the tree, but somewhat lower and deeper on the side
next to the water. In width the cut was less than that which a good
axeman would make--because the teeth of a beaver are a more frugal
cutting instrument than the woodsman's axe, making possible a
straighter and less wasteful cut. At the foot of this tree he picked
up chips fully eight inches in length, and was puzzled to imagine how
the beavers imitated the effect of the axe in making the chips fly
off.
For a couple of hours the Boy busied himself joyously, observing the
work of these cunning woodsmen's teeth, noting the trails by which the
remoter cuttings had been dragged down to the water, and studying the
excavations on the canal. Then, fearing to make the little citizens of
the pond so nervous that they might not come out to business that
night, he withdrew over the slope and made his way back to camp. He
would sleep out the rest of the afternoon to be fresh and keen for the
night's watching.
At supper that evening, beside the camp-fire, when the woods looked
magical under the still, white moon, Jabe Smith gradually got fired
with the Boy's enthusiasm. The Boy's descriptions of the canal
digging, of the structure of the dam, and, above all, of the battle
between the otter and the beavers, filled him with a new eagerness to
observe these wonderful little engineers with other eyes than those of
the mere hunter and trapper. In the face of all the Boy's exact
details he grew almost deferential, quite laying aside his usual
backwoods pose of indifference and half derision. He made no move to
go to bed, but refilled his pipe and watched his young comrade's face
with shrewd, bright eyes grown suddenly boyish.
At last the Boy rose and picked up his rifle.
"I must hurry up and get myself hidden," said he, "or I'll see nothing
to-night. Good night, Jabe. I'll not be back, likely, till along
toward morning."
The backwoodsman's usual response was not forthcoming. For some
seconds he fingered his rugged chin in silence. Then, straightening
himself up, he spoke with an air of mingled embarrassment and
carelessness.
"Them beaver of yourn's certainly an interestin' kind of varmint.
D'ye know, blam'd if I ain't got a notion to go along with you
to-night, an' watch 'em myself!"
The Boy, though secretly delighted at this evidence of something like
conversion, eyed Jabe doubtfully. He was not sure of the latter's
capacity for the tireless patience and long self-effacement necessary
for such an adventure as this.
"Well, Jabe," he answered hesitatingly, "you know well how more than
glad I'd be of your company. It would just about double my fun, having
you along, if you were really interested, as I am, you know. And are
you sure you could keep still long enough to see anything?"
Jabe would have resented this halting acceptance of his companionship
had he not known in his heart that it was nothing more than he well
deserved. But the doubt cast upon his woodcraft piqued him.
"Hain't I never set for hours in the wet ma'sh, never movin' a finger,
waitin' for the geese?" he asked with injury in his voice. "Hain't I
never sneaked up on a watchin' buck, or laid so still I've fooled a
bear?"
The Boy chuckled softly at this outbreak, so unexpected in the
taciturn and altogether superior Jabe.
"You're all right, Jabe!" said he. "I reckon you can keep still. But
you must let me be captain, for to-night! This is my trick."
"Sartain," responded the woodsman with alacrity. "I'll eat mud if you
say so! But I'll take along a hunk of cold bacon if you hain't got no
objection."
On the trail through the ghostly, moonlit woods, Jabe followed
obediently at the Boy's heels. Silently as shadows they moved,
silently as the lynx or the moose or the weasel goes through the
softly parting undergrowth. The Boy led far away from the brook, and
over the crest of the ridge, to avoid alarming the vigilant sentries.
As they approached the head of the canal, their caution redoubled, and
they went very slowly, bending low and avoiding every patch of
moonlight. The light breeze, so light as to be almost imperceptible,
drew upward toward them from the meadow, bringing now and then a scent
of the fresh-dug soil. At last the Boy lay down on his belly; and Jabe
religiously imitated him. For perhaps fifty yards they crept forward
inch by inch, till at length they found themselves in the heart of a
young fir thicket, through whose branches they could look out upon the
head of the canal and the trees where the beavers had most recently
been cutting.
Among the trees and in the water, all was still, with the mystic,
crystalline stillness of the autumn moonlight. In that light
everything seemed fragile and unreal, as if a movement or a breath
might dissolve it. After a waiting of some ten minutes Jabe had it on
the tip of his tongue to whisper, derisively, "Nothin' doin'!" But he
remembered the Boy's injunction, as well as his doubts, and checked
himself. A moment later a faint, swirling gurgle of water caught his
ear, and he was glad he had kept silence. An instant more, and the
form of a beaver, spectral-gray in the moonlight, took shape all at
once on the brink of the canal. For several minutes it stood there
motionless, erect upon its hind quarters, questioning the stillness
with eyes and ear and nose. Then, satisfied that there was no danger
near, it dropped on all fours and crept up toward the tree that was
partly cut through.
This pioneer of the woodcutters was followed immediately by three
others, who lost no time in getting down to work. One of them went to
help the leader, while the other two devoted themselves to trimming
and cutting up the branches of the big birch which they had felled
the night before. The Boy wondered where the rest of the pond-people
were, and would have liked to consult Jabe about it; but he remembered
the keenness of the beaver's ears, and held his tongue securely. It
seemed to him probably that they were still down in the pond, working
on the houses, the brush pile, or the dam. Presently one more was
accounted for. A renewed splashing in the canal turned the attention
of the watchers from the tree-cutting, and they saw that a single wise
excavator was at work, carrying forward the head of the ditch.
There was no impatience or desire to fidget left in Jabe Smith now. As
he watched the beavers at work in the moonlight, looking very
mysterious in their stealthy, busy, tireless diligence, and conducting
their toil with an ordered intelligence which seemed to him almost
human, he understood for the first time the Boy's enthusiasm for this
kind of bloodless hunting. He had always known how clever the beavers
were, and allowed them full credit; but till now he had never actually
realized it. The two beavers engaged in cutting down the tree sat
erect upon their haunches, supported by their huge tails, chiseling
indefatigably. Cutting two deep grooves, one about six or eight
inches, perhaps, above the other, they would then wrench off the chips
by main force with their teeth and forepaws, jerking their powerful
necks with a kind of furious impatience. As he noted how they made the
cut deeper and lower on one side than the other, that the tree might
fall as they wished, he was so delighted that he came dangerously near
vowing he would never trap a beaver again. He felt that it was almost
like ensnaring a brother woodsman.
Equally exciting was the work on the other tree, which was being
trimmed. The branches, according to their size, were cut into neat,
manageable lengths, of from three to six or seven feet--the less the
diameter the greater the length, each piece being calculated to be
handled in the water by one beaver. These pieces were then rolled,
shoved or dragged, as the case might require, down the smooth trails
already made in hauling the brush, and dumped into the canal. Other
beavers presently appeared, and began towing the sticks and brush down
the canal to the pond. This part of the process was hidden from the
eager watchers in the thicket; but the Boy guessed, from his own
experience in pushing a log endwise before him while in swimming, that
the beavers would handle the sticks in the same way. With the brush,
however, it was different. In hauling it down the trail each beaver
took a branch in his teeth, by the butt, twisted it across his
shoulders, and let it drag behind him. It was obvious that in the
water, too, this would be the most convenient way to handle such
material. The beavers were not the kind of people to waste their
strength in misdirected effort.
[Illustration: "TWISTED IT ACROSS HIS SHOULDERS, AND LET IT DRAG BEHIND
HIM."]
While all this cutting and hauling was going on, the big beaver down
at the head of the canal was attending strictly to his task, running
his lines straight, digging the turf and clay, shoving his loads up
the slope and out upon the edge of the ditch. The process was all in
clear, easy view of the watchers, their place of hiding being not more
than eight or ten paces distant.
They had grown altogether absorbed in watching the little canal-builder,
when a cracking sound made them turn their eyes. The tree was toppling
slowly. Every beaver now made a mad rush for the canal, not caring
how much noise he made--and plunged into the water. Slowly,
reluctantly, majestically, the tall birch swung forward straight down
the slope, its top describing a great arc against the sky and
gathering the air in its branches with a low but terrifying roar. The
final crash was unexpectedly gentle,--or rather, would have seemed so
to one unfamiliar with tree-felling. Some branches snapped, some
sticks flew up and dropped, there was a shuddering confusion in the
crystal air for a few seconds, then the stillness fell once more.
But now there was not a beaver to be seen. Jabe wondered if they had
been scared by the results of their own work; or if one of their
sentinels had come and peered into the thicket from the rear. As
minute after minute dragged by, and nothing happened, he began to
realize that his muscles were aching savagely from their long
restraint. He was on the point of moving, of whispering to ask the Boy
what it meant, when the latter, divining his unrest, stealthily laid a
restraining hand upon his arm. He guessed that the beavers were on the
alert, hiding, and watching to see if any of their enemies should be
attracted by the noise.
[Illustration: "EVERY BEAVER NOW MADE A MAD RUSH FOR THE CANAL."]
Not five seconds later, however, he forgot his aches. Appearing with
uncanny and inexplicable suddenness, there was the big pioneer again,
sitting up by the edge of the canal. As before, he sat absolutely
motionless for a minute or two, sniffing and listening. Then,
satisfied once more that all was well, he moved lazily up the slope to
examine the tree; and in half a minute all were at work again, except
that there was no more tree-felling. The great business of the hour
was cutting brush.
For some time longer the watchers lay motionless, noting every detail
of the work, till at last the Boy began to think it was time to
release Jabe from his long and severe restraint and break up the
beaver "chopping-bee." Before he had quite made up his mind, however,
his eyes chanced to wander a little way up the slope, and to rest,
without any conscious purpose, on a short gray bit of log. Presently
he began to wonder what a piece of log so short and thick--not much
more than three feet long--would be doing there. No beavers would
waste time cutting up a twelve-inch log into lengths like that. And
there had been no lumberman in the neighbourhood. Then, in a flash,
his eyes cleared themselves of their illusion. The log had moved, ever
so slightly. It was no longer a log, but a big gray lynx, creeping
slowly, inexorably, down upon the unsuspecting people of the pond.
For perhaps ten seconds the Boy stared in uncertainty. Then he saw the
lynx gather his muscles for the final, fatal rush. Without a whisper
or a warning to the astonished Jabe, he whipped up his rifle, and
fired.
The sharp report seemed to shatter the whole scene. Its echoes were
mixed with the scattering of the horrified beavers as they rushed for
the water--with the short screech of the lynx, as it bounced into the
air and fell back on its side, dead--with an exclamation of
astonishment from Jabe--and with a crashing of branches just behind
the thicket. The Boy looked around, triumphant--to see that Jabe's
exclamation was not at all the result of his clever shot. The woodsman
was on his hands and knees, his back turned, and staring at the form
of a big black bear as it lumbered off in a panic through the bushes.
Like the unfortunate lynx, the bear had been stalking the beavers on
his own account, and had almost stepped upon the silent watchers in
the thicket.
[Illustration: "IT WAS NO LONGER A LOG, BUT A BIG GRAY LYNX."]