CHAPTER VIII

The Saving of Boy's Pond

WHEN, early in the winter, the lumbermen moved into these woods which

Jabe had cruised over, establishing their camp about two miles

down-stream from the spot where the Boy and the woodsman had had their

lean-to, Jabe came with them as boss of a gang. He had for the time

grown out of the mood for trapping. Furs were low, and there was a

"sight" more money for him in lumbering that winter. Popular with the

rest of the lumbermen--who most of them knew of the Boy and his

"queer" notions--Jabe had no difficulty in pledging them to respect

the sanctity of Boy's Pond and its inhabitants. In fact, in the

evenings around the red-hot stove, Jabe told such interesting stories

of what he and the Boy had seen together a few months before, that the

reckless, big-hearted, boisterously profane but sentimental woodsmen

were more than half inclined to declare the whole series of ponds

under the special protection of the camp. As for Boy's Pond, that

should be safe at any cost.

Not long after Christmas the Boy, taking advantage of the fact that

some fresh supplies were being sent out from the Settlement by team,

came to visit the camp. The head of the big lumber company which owned

these woods was a friend of the Boy's father, and the Boy himself was

welcome in any of the camps. His special purpose in coming now was to

see how his beavers got on in winter, and to assure himself that Jabe

had been able to protect them.

The morning after his arrival in camp he set out to visit the pond. He

went on snowshoes, of course, and carried his little Winchester as he

always did in the woods, holding tenaciously that the true lover of

peace should be ever prepared for war. The lumbermen had gone off to

work with the first of dawn; and far away to his right he heard the

axes ringing, faintly but crisply, on the biting morning air. For half

a mile he followed a solitary snowshoe trail, which he knew to be

Jabe's by the peculiar broad toe and long, trailing heel which Jabe

affected in snowshoes; and he wondered what his friend was doing in

this direction, so far from the rest of the choppers. Then Jabe's

track swerved off to the left, crossing the brook; and the Boy tramped

on over the unbroken snow.

The sound of the distant choppers soon died away, and he was alone in

the unearthly silence. The sun, not yet risen quite clear of the

hilltops, sent spectral, level, far-reaching gleams of thin

pink-and-saffron light down the alleys of the sheeted trees. The low

crunching of his snowshoes on the crisp snow sounded almost blatant in

the Boy's tensely listening ears. In spite of himself he began to

tread stealthily, as if the sound of his steps might bring some

ghostly enemy upon him from out of the whiteness.

Suddenly the sound of an axe came faintly to his ears from straight

ahead, where he knew no choppers were at work. He stopped short. That

axe was not striking wood. It was striking ice. It was chopping the

ice of Boy's Pond! What could it mean? There were no fish in that pond

to chop the ice for!

As he realized that some one was preparing to trap his beavers his

face flushed with anger, and he started forward at a run. That it was

no one from the camp he knew very well. It must be some strange

trapper who did not know that this pond was under protection. He

thought this out as he ran on; and his anger calmed down. Trappers

were a decent, understanding folk; and a word of explanation would

make things all right. There were plenty of other beaver ponds in that

neighbourhood.

Pressing through the white-draped ranks of the young fir-trees, he

came out suddenly upon the edge of the pond, and halted an instant in

irresolution. Two dark-visaged men--his quick eye knew them for

half-breeds--were busy on the snow about twenty paces above the low

mound which marked the main beaver house. They had a number of stakes

with them; and they were cutting a series of holes in a circle. From

what Jabe had told him of the Indian methods, he saw at once that

these were not regular trappers, but poachers, who were violating the

game laws and planning to annihilate the whole beaver colony by

fencing in its brush pile.

The Boy realized now that the situation was a delicate if not a

dangerous one. For an instant he thought of going back to camp for

help; but one of the men was on his knees, fixing the stakes, and the

other was already chopping what appeared to be the last hole. Delay

might mean the death of several of his precious beavers. Indignation

and compassion together urged him on, and his young face hardened in

unaccustomed lines.

Walking out upon the snow a little way, he halted, at a distance of

perhaps thirty paces from the poachers. At the sound of his snowshoes

the two men looked up scowling and apprehensive; and the kneeling one

sprang to his feet. They wanted no witnesses of their illegal work.

"Good morning," said the Boy politely.

At the sound of his soft young voice, the sight of his slender figure

and youthful face, their apprehensions vanished; but not their anger

at being discovered.

"Mornin'!" growled one, in a surly voice; while the other never opened

his mouth. Then they looked at each other with meaning question in

their eyes. How were they going to keep this unwelcome visitor from

betraying them?

"I'm going to ask you," said the Boy sweetly, "to be so kind as to

stop trapping on this pond. Of course you didn't know it, but this is

my pond, and there is no trapping allowed on it. It is reserved, you

know; and I don't want a single one of my beavers killed."

The man with the axe scowled fiercely and said nothing. But the other,

the one who had been driving the stakes, laughed in harsh derision.

"You don't, hey, sonny?" he answered. "Well, you just wait an' watch

us. We'll show ye whose beaver they be!" And turning his back in scorn

of his interlocutor's youth, he knelt down again to drive another

stake. The man who had not spoken, however, stood leaning on his axe,

eying the Boy with an ugly expression of menace.

The Boy's usually quiet blood was now pounding and tingling with

anger. His alert eyes had measured the whole situation, and noted that

the men had no firearms but their rifles, which were leaning against a

tree on the shore fully fifty yards behind them.

"Stop!" he cried, with so confident a tone of authority that the

kneeling man looked up, though with a sneer on his face. "Unless you

go away from this pond at once, I'll get the men from the camp, and

they'll make you go. They'll not be so polite as I am. You're just

poachers, anyway. And the boys will like as not just run you clean out

of the country. Will you do as I ask you, or shall I go and get

them?"

The man with the axe spat out some French curse which the Boy didn't

understand very clearly. But the man at the stakes jumped up again

with a dangerous grin.

"You'll stay right where you are, sonny, till we're done with you," he

snarled. "You understand? You're a-goin' to git hurt ef ye gits in our

way any! See?"

The Boy was now in a white rage; but he kept his wits cool and his

eyes watchful. He realized at this moment that he was in great danger;

but, his mettle being sound, this only made him the more resolute.

"All right. You've decided!" he said slowly. "We'll see what the boys

will have to say about it."

As he spoke he made a movement as if to turn, but without taking his

eyes from the enemy. The movement just served to swing his little

Winchester into a readier position.

At his first move the man with the axe took a step forward, and swung

up his axe with a peculiar gesture which the Boy understood. He had

seen the woodsmen throw their axes. He knew well their quickness and

their deadly precision. But quickness and precision with the little

Winchester were his own especial pride,--and, after all, he had not

turned any further than was just right for a good shot. Even as the

axe was on the verge of leaving the poacher's hand, the rifle cracked

sharply. The poacher yelled a curse, and his arm dropped. The axe flew

wide, landing nowhere near its aim. On the instant both the

half-breeds turned, and raced for their rifles on the shore.

"Stop, or I'll shoot you both!" shouted the Boy, now with embarrassment

added to his wrath. In their wild fury at being so balked by a boy,

both men trusted to his missing his aim--or to the hope that his gun

was not a repeater. They ignored his command, and rushed on. The Boy

was just going to shoot again, aiming at their legs; when, to his

amazement and inconceivable relief, out from behind the tree where the

poachers' rifles leaned, came Jabe.

Snatching up one of the guns, he echoed the Boy's command.

"Stop _right_ there!" he ordered curtly. "An' up with your hands,

too! Mebbe youse kin fling a knife slick ez ye kin an axe."

The half-breeds stood like stones. One held up both hands; but the

other only held up his left, his right being helpless. They knew there

was nothing to say. They were fairly caught. They were poaching. The

tall lumberman had seen the axe flung. Their case was a black one; and

any attempt to explain could do no less than make it worse. They did

not even dare to look at each other, but kept their narrow, beady eyes

fixed on Jabe's face.

The Boy came swiftly to Jabe's side.

"Neat shot!" said the woodsman; but the note of astonished admiration

in his tone was the most thrilling compliment the Boy had ever

received.

"What are you going to do with them, Jabe?" he inquired, mildly.

"That's fer you to say! They're yourn!" answered Jabe, keeping his

eyes on the prisoners.

The Boy looked the two culprits over carefully, with his calm, boyish

gaze. He was overwhelmingly elated, but would have died rather than

show it. His air was that of one who is quite used to capturing two

outlaws,--and having axes hurled at his head,--and putting bullets

through men's shoulders. He could not help feeling sorry for the man

with the bullet through his shoulder.

"Well, Jabe," he said presently, "we can't let them go with their

guns, because they're such sneaking brutes, they'd shoot us from

behind a tree. And we can't let them go without their guns, because we

can't be sure they wouldn't starve before they got to their own homes.

And we don't want to take them into camp, for the fellows would

probably treat them as they deserve,--and I don't want them to get

anything so bad as that!"

"Maybe it _might_ be better not to let the hands git hold of 'em!"

agreed Jabe. "They'd be rough!"

A gleam of hope came into the prisoners' eyes. The unwounded one

spoke. And he had the perspicacity to address himself to the Boy

rather than to Jabe, thereby conciliating the Boy appreciably.

"Let us go!" he petitioned, choking down his rage. "We'll swear to

quit, right now an' fer good; an' not to try to git back at yez!"

"Ye'll have to leave yer guns!" said Jabe sternly.

"They're the only guns we got; an' they're our livin', fer the

winter!" protested the half-breed, still looking at the Boy.

"If we take away their guns, what's the good of making them swear?"

demanded the Boy, stepping up and gazing into their eyes. "No, I

reckon if they give their oath, they'll stick to it. Where's your

camp, men?"

"Over yonder, about three mile!" answered the spokesman, nodding

toward the northeast.

"If we give you back your guns," went on the Boy gently, "will you

both give us your oath to clear right out of this country altogether,

and not trap at all this side of the line? And will you take oath,

also, that you will never, in any way, try to get even with either him

or me for having downed you this way?"

"Sartain!" responded the spokesman, with obvious sincerity. "I'll

swear to all that! An' I won't never _want_ to git even, if you use us

so gentlemanlike!"

"And will you swear, too?" inquired the Boy, turning to the silent one

who had thrown the axe at him. The fellow glared at him defiantly for

a moment, then glanced at his wounded arm, which hung limp at his

side. At last he answered with a sullen growl:

"Yes, I'll swear! Got to! Curse you!"

"Good!" said the Boy. "That's the best way for all of us. Jabe, will

you take their oaths. You know how better than I do!"

"All right!" responded the latter, shrugging his shoulders in a way

which said--"it's your idee, not mine!" Then he proceeded to bind each

man separately by an oath which left no loophole, and which was sealed

by all that their souls held sacred. This done, he handed back the

rifles,--and the two poachers, without a word, turned their backs and

made off at a swift lope straight up the open pond. The Boy and Jabe

watched them till they vanished among the trees. Then, with a shy

little laugh, the Boy picked up the axe which had been hurled at his

head.

"I'm glad he left me this," he murmured, "to kind of remember him

by!"

"The sneakin' skunk!" growled Jabe. "If I'd had my way, it'd be the

penitentiary for the both of 'em!"

That evening, when the whole story was told, the woodsmen were

indignant, for a time, because the half-breeds had been let go; but at

last they gave heed to Jabe's representations, and acknowledged that

the Boy's plan had saved a "sight of bother." To guard against future

difficulties, however, they took a big piece of smooth board, and

painted the following sign, to be nailed up on a conspicuous tree

beside the pond.

NOTICE

THIS IS BOY'S POND. NO TRAPPING HERE.

IF ANYBODY WANTS TO SAY, WHY NOT? LAWLER'S

CAMP WILL LET HIM KNOW.

THE WHITE-SLASHED BULL

HER back crushed beneath the massive weight of a "deadfall," the

mother moose lay slowly sobbing her life out on the sweet spring air.

The villainous log, weighted cunningly with rocks, had caught her just

above the withers, bearing her forward so that her forelegs were

doubled under her, and her neck outstretched so that she could not

lift her muzzle from the wet moss. Though her eyes were already

glazing, and her nostrils full of a blown and blood-streaked froth,

from time to time she would struggle desperately to raise her head,

for she yearned to lick the sprawling, wobbling legs of the ungainly

calf which stood close beside her, bewildered because she would not

rise and suckle him.

The dying animal lay in the middle of the trail, which was an old,

half-obliterated logger's road, running straight east into the glow of

the spring sunrise. The young birches and poplars, filmed with the

first of the green, crowded close upon the trail, with, here and

there, a rose-blooming maple, here and there, a sombre, black-green

hemlock, towering over the thick second growth. The early air was

fresh, but soft; fragrant with the breath of opening buds. Faint mists

streamed up into the sunlight along the mossy line of the trail, and

the only sounds breaking the silence of the wilderness were the

sweetly plaintive calls of two rain-birds, answering each other slowly

over the treetops. Everything in the scene--the tenderness of the

colour and the air, the responses of the mating birds, the hope and

the expectancy of all the waking world--seemed piteously at variance

with the anguish of the stricken mother and her young, down there in

the solitude of the trail.

Presently, in the undergrowth beside the trail, a few paces beyond the

deadfall, a twig snapped sharply. Admonished by that experience of a

thousand ancestral generations which is instinct, the calf lifted his

big awkward ears apprehensively, and with a shiver drew closer to his

mother's crushed body. A moment later a gaunt black bear thrust his

head and shoulders forth from the undergrowth, and surveyed the scene

with savage, but shrewd, little eyes. He was hungry, and to his

palate no other delicacy the spring wilderness could ever afford was

equal to a young moose calf. But the situation gave him pause. The

mother moose was evidently in a trap; and the bear was wary of all

traps. He sank back into the undergrowth, and crept noiselessly nearer

to reconnoitre. In his suspicious eyes even a calf might be dangerous

to tamper with, under such unusual conditions as these. As he vanished

the calf shuddered violently, and tried to climb upon his mother's

mangled body.

In a few seconds the bear's head appeared again, close by the base of

the deadfall. With crafty nose he sniffed at the great timber which

held the moose cow down. The calf was now almost within reach of the

deadly sweep of his paw; but the man-smell was strong on the deadfall,

and the bear was still suspicious. While he hesitated, from behind a

bend in the trail came a sound of footsteps. The bear knew the sound.

A man was coming. Yes, certainly there was some trick about it. With a

grunt of indignant disgust he shrank back again into the thicket and

fled stealthily from so dangerous a neighbourhood. Hungry as he was,

he had no wish to try conclusions with man.

The woodsman came striding down the trail hurriedly, rounded the turn,

and stopped abruptly. He understood at a glance the evil work of the

game poachers. With indignant pity, he stepped forward and drew a

merciful knife across the throat of the suffering beast. The calf

shrank away and stood staring at him anxiously, wavering between

terror and trust.

For a moment or two the man hesitated. Of one thing he was certain:

the poachers who had set the deadfall must not profit by their

success. Moreover, fresh moose-meat would not be unappreciated in his

backwoods cabin. He turned and retraced his steps at a run, fearing

lest some hungry spring marauders should arrive in his absence. And

the calf, more than ever terrified by his mother's unresponsiveness,

stared after him uneasily as he vanished.

For half an hour nothing happened. The early chill passed from the

air, a comforting warmth glowed down the trail, the two rain-birds

kept whistling to each other their long, persuasive, melancholy call,

and the calf stood motionless, waiting, with the patience of the wild,

for he knew not what. Then there came a clanking of chains, a

trampling of heavy feet, and around the turn appeared the man again,

with a pair of big brown horses harnessed to a drag-sled. The calf

backed away as the man approached, and watched with dull wonder as the

great log was rolled aside and his mother's limp, crushed form was

hoisted laboriously upon the sled. This accomplished, the man turned

and came to him gently, with hand outstretched. To run away would have

been to run away from the shelter of his mother's presence; so, with a

snort of apprehension, he submitted to being stroked and rubbed about

the ears and neck and throat. The sensation was curiously comforting,

and suddenly his fear vanished. With his long, mobile muzzle he began

to tug appealingly at a convenient fold of the man's woollen sleeve.

Smiling complacently at this sign of confidence, the man left him, and

started the team at a slow walk up the trail. With a hoarse bleat of

alarm, thinking he was about to be deserted, the calf followed after

the sled, his long legs wobbling awkwardly.

From the first moment that she set eyes upon him, shambling awkwardly

into the yard at her husband's heels, Jabe Smith's wife was

inhospitable toward the ungainly youngling of the wild. She

declared that he would take all the milk. And he did. For the next

two months she was unable to make any butter, and her opinions on

the subject were expressed without reserve. But Jabe was inflexible,

in his taciturn, backwoods way, and the calf, till he was old enough

to pasture, got all the milk he wanted. He grew and throve so

astonishingly that Jabe began to wonder if there was not some

mistake in the scheme of things, making cows' milk the proper

nutriment for moose calves. By autumn the youngster was so big and

sleek that he might almost have passed for a yearling.

Jabe Smith, lumberman, pioneer and guide, loved all animals, even

those which in the fierce joy of the hunt he loved to kill. The young

moose bull, however, was his peculiar favourite--partly, perhaps,

because of Mrs. Smith's relentless hostility to it. And the ungainly

youngster repaid his love with a devotion that promised to become

embarrassing. All around the farm he was for ever at his heels, like a

dog; and if, by any chance, he became separated from his idol, he

would make for him in a straight line, regardless of currant bushes,

bean rows, cabbage patches or clothes-lines. This strenuous directness

did not further endear him to Mrs. Smith. That good lady used to lie

awake at night, angrily devising schemes for getting rid of the "ugly

brute." These schemes of vengeance were such a safety-valve to her

injured feelings that she would at last make up her mind to content

herself with "takin' it out on the hide o' the critter" next day, with

a sound hickory stick. When next day came, however, and she went out

to milk, the youngster would shamble up to greet her with such amiable

trust in his eyes that her wrath would be, for the moment, disarmed,

and her fell purpose would fritter out in a futile "Scat, you brute!"

Then she would condone her weakness by thinking of what she would do

to the animal "some day."

That "some day," as luck would have it, came rather sooner than

she expected. From the first, the little moose had evinced a

determination to take up his abode in the kitchen, in his dread of

being separated from Jabe. Being a just man, Jabe had conceded at

once that his wife should have the choosing of her kitchen guests;

and, to avoid complications, he had rigged up a hinged bar across

the kitchen doorway, so that the door could safely stand open. When

the little bull was not at Jabe's heels, and did not know where to

find him, his favourite attitude was standing in front of the

kitchen door, his long nose thrust in as far as the bar would permit,

his long ears waving hopefully, his eyes intently on the mysterious

operations of Mrs. Jabe's housework. Though she would not have

acknowledged it for worlds, even to her inmost heart, the good woman

took much satisfaction out of that awkward, patient presence in the

doorway. When things went wrong with her, in that perverse way so

trying to the careful housewife, she could ease her feelings

wonderfully by expressing them without reserve to the young moose, who

never looked amused or attempted to answer back.

But one day, as it chanced, her feelings claimed a more violent

easement--and got it. She was scrubbing the kitchen floor. Just in the

doorway stood the scrubbing-pail, full of dirty suds. On a chair close

by stood a dish of eggs. The moose calf was nowhere in sight, and the

bar was down. Tired and hot, she got up from her aching knees and went

over to the stove to see if the pot was boiling, ready to make fresh

suds.

At this moment the young bull, who had been searching in vain all over

the farm for Jabe, came up to the door with a silent, shambling rush.

The bar was down. Surely, then, Jabe was inside! Overjoyed at the

opportunity he lurched his long legs over the threshold. Instantly his

great, loose hoofs slid on the slippery floor, and he came down

sprawling, striking the pail of dirty suds as he fell. With a seething

souse the slops went abroad, all over the floor. At the same time the

bouncing pail struck the chair, turned it over, and sent the dish of

eggs crashing in every direction.

For one second Mrs. Jabe stared rigidly at the mess of eggs, suds and

broken china, at the startled calf struggling to his feet. Then, with

a hysterical scream, she turned, snatched the boiling pot from the

stove, and hurled it blindly at the author of all mischief.

Happily for the blunderer, Mrs. Jabe's rage was so unbridled that she

really tried to hit the object of it. Therefore, she missed. The pot

went crashing through the leg of a table and shivered to atoms against

the log wall, contributing its full share to the discouraging mess on

the floor. But, as it whirled past, a great wedge of the boiling water

leaped out over the rim, flew off at a tangent, and caught the

floundering calf full in the side, in a long flare down from the tip

of the left shoulder. The scalding fluid seemed to cling in the

short, fine hair almost like an oil. With a loud bleat of pain the

calf shot to his feet and went galloping around the yard. Mrs. Jabe

rushed to the door, and stared at him wide-eyed. In a moment her

senses came back to her, and she realized what a hideous thing she had

done. Next she remembered Jabe--and what he would think of it!

Then, indeed, her conscience awoke in earnest, and a wholesome dread

enlivened her remorse. Forgetting altogether the state of her kitchen,

she rushed through the slop to the flour-barrel. Flour, she had always

heard, was the thing for burns and scalds. The pesky calf should be

treated right, if it took the whole barrel. Scooping up an extravagant

dishpanful of the white, powdery stuff, and recklessly spilling a lot

of it to add to the mixture on the floor, she rushed out into the yard

to apply her treatment, and, if possible, poultice her conscience.

The young moose, anguished and bewildered, had at last taken refuge in

the darkest corner of the stable. As Mrs. Jabe approached with her pan

of flour, he stood staring and shaking, but made no effort to avoid

her, which touched the over-impetuous dame to a fresh pang of

penitence. She did not know that the stupid youngster had quite failed

to associate her in any way with his suffering. It was only the

pot--the big, black thing which had so inexplicably come bounding at

him--that he blamed. From Mrs. Jabe's hands he expected some kind of

consolation.

In the gloom of the stall Mrs. Jabe could not see the extent of the

calf's injury. "Mebbe the water wasn't _quite_ bilin'!" she murmured

hopefully, coaxing and dragging the youngster forth into the light.

The hope, however, proved vain as brief. In a long streak down behind

the shoulder the hair was already slipping off.

"Sarved ye right!" she grumbled remorsefully, as with gentle fingers

she began sifting the flour up and down over the wound. The light

stuff seemed to soothe the anguish for the moment, and the sufferer

stood quite still till the scald was thoroughly covered with a

tenacious white cake. Then a fresh and fiercer pang seized the wound.

With a bleat he tore himself away, and rushed off, tail in air, across

the stump-pasture and into the woods.

"Mebbe he won't come back, and then Jabe won't never need to know!"

soliloquized Mrs. Jabe, returning to clean up her kitchen.

The sufferer returned, however, early in the afternoon, and was in his

customary attitude before the door when Jabe, a little later, came

back also. The long white slash down his favourite's side caught the

woodsman's eye at once. He looked at it critically, touched the flour

with tentative finger-tips, then turned on his wife a look of poignant

interrogation. But Mrs. Jabe was ready for him. Her nerve had

recovered. The fact that her victim showed no fear of her had

gradually reassured her. What Jabe didn't know would never hurt him,

she mused.

"Yes, yer pesky brat come stumblin' into the kitchen when the bar was

down, a-lookin' for ye. An' he upset the bilin' water I was goin' to

scrub with, an' broke the pot. An' I've got to have a new pot right

off, Jabe Smith--mind that!"

"Scalded himself pretty bad!" remarked Jabe. "Poor little beggar!"

"I done the best _I_ know'd how fer him!" said his wife with an

injured air. "Wasted most a quart o' good flour on his worthless hide!

Wish't he'd broke his neck 'stead of the only pot I got that's big

enough to bile the pig's feed in!"

"Well, you done jest about right, I reckon, Mandy," replied Jabe,

ashamed of his suspicions. "I'll go in to the Cross Roads an' git ye a

new pot to-morrer, an' some tar for the scald. The tar'll be better'n

flour, an' keep the flies off."

"I s'pose some men _ain't_ got nothin' better to do than be doctorin'

up a fool moose calf!" assented Mrs. Jabe promptly, with a snort of

censorious resignation.

Whether because the flour and the tar had virtues, or because the

clean flesh of the wild kindreds makes all haste to purge itself of

ills, it was not long before the scald was perfectly healed. But the

reminder of it remained ineffaceable--a long, white slash down across

the brown hide of the young bull, from the tip of the left fore

shoulder.

Throughout the winter the young moose contentedly occupied the

cow-stable, with the two cows and the yoke of red oxen. He throve on

the fare Jabe provided for him--good meadow hay with armfuls of

"browse" cut from the birch, poplar and cherry thickets. Jabe trained

him to haul a pung, finding him slower to learn than a horse, but

making up for his dulness by his docility. He had to be driven with a

snaffle, refusing absolutely to admit a bit between his teeth; and,

with the best good-will in the world, he could never be taught to

allow for the pung or sled to which he was harnessed. If left alone

for a moment he would walk over fences with it, or through the most

tangled thickets, if thereby seemed the most direct way to reach Jabe;

and once, when Jabe, vaingloriously and at great speed, drove him in

to the Cross Roads, he smashed the vehicle to kindling-wood in the

amiable determination to follow his master into the Cross Roads store.

On this occasion also he made himself respected, but unpopular, by

killing, with one lightning stroke of a great fore hoof, a huge

mongrel mastiff belonging to the storekeeper. The mastiff had sprung

out at him wantonly, resenting his peculiar appearance. But the

storekeeper had been so aggrieved that Jabe had felt constrained to

mollify him with a five-dollar bill. He decided, therefore, that his

favourite's value was as a luxury, rather than a utility; and the

young bull was put no more to the practices of a horse. Jabe had

driven a bull moose in harness, and all the settlement could swear to

it. The glory was all his.

By early summer the young bull was a tremendous, long-legged,

high-shouldered beast, so big, so awkward, so friendly, and so sure

of everybody's good-will that everybody but Jabe was terribly afraid

of him. He had no conception of the purposes of a fence; and he could

not be taught that a garden was not meant for him to lie down in. As

the summer advanced, and the young bull's stature with it, Jabe Smith

began to realize that his favourite was an expensive and sometimes

embarrassing luxury. Nevertheless, when September brought budding

spikes of horns and a strange new restlessness to the stalwart

youngster, and the first full moon of October lured him one night away

from the farm on a quest which he could but blindly follow, Jabe was

inconsolable.

"He ain't no more'n a calf yet, big as he is!" fretted Jabe. "He'll be

gittin' himself shot, the fool. Or mebbe some old bull'll be after

givin' him a lickin' fer interferin', and he'll come home to us!"

To which his wife retorted with calm superiority: "Ye're a bigger

fool'n even I took ye fer, Jabe Smith."

But the young bull did not come back that winter, nor the following

summer, nor the next year, nor the next. Neither did any Indian or

hunter or lumberman have anything to report as to a bull moose of

great stature, with a long white slash down his side. Either his quest

had carried him far to other and alien ranges, or some fatal mischance

of the wild had overtaken his inexperience. The latter was Jabe's

belief, and he concluded that his ungainly favourite had too soon

taken the long trail for the Red Men's land of ghosts.

Though Jabe Smith was primarily a lumberman and backwoods farmer, he

was also a hunter's guide, so expert that his services in this

direction were not to be obtained without very special inducement. At

"calling" moose he was acknowledged to have no rival. When he laid his

grimly-humourous lips to the long tube of birch-bark, which is the

"caller's" instrument of illusion, there would come from it a strange

sound, great and grotesque, harsh yet appealing, rude yet subtle, and

mysterious as if the uncomprehended wilderness had itself found voice.

Old hunters, wise in all woodcraft, had been deceived by the

sound--and much more easily the impetuous bull, waiting, high-antlered

and eager, for the love-call of his mate to summon him down the shore

of the still and moon-tranced lake.

When a certain Famous Hunter, whose heart took pride in horns and

heads and hides--the trophies won by his unerring rifle in all four

corners of earth--found his way at last to the tumbled wilderness that

lies about the headwaters of the Quah Davic, it was naturally one of

the great New Brunswick moose that he was after. Nothing but the

noblest antlers that New Brunswick forests bred could seem to him

worthy of a place on those walls of his, whence the surly front of a

musk-ox of the Barren Grounds glared stolid defiance to the snarl of

an Orinoco jaguar, and the black, colossal head of a Kadiak bear was

eyed derisively by the monstrous and malignant mask of a two-horned

rhinoceros. With such a quest upon him, the Famous Hunter came, and

naturally sought the guidance of Jabe Smith, whom he lured from the

tamer distractions of a "timber cruise" by double pay and the pledge

of an extravagant bonus if the quest should be successful.

The lake, lying low between its wooded hills, was like a glimmering

mirror in the misty October twilight when Jabe and the Famous Hunter

crept stealthily down to it. In a dense covert beside the water's edge

they hid themselves. Beside them stretched the open ribbon of a narrow

water-meadow, through which a slim brook, tinkling faintly over its

pebbles, slipped out into the stillness. Just beyond the mouth of the

brook a low, bare spit of sand jutted forth darkly upon the pale

surface of the lake.

[Illustration: "IT WAS NOT UNTIL THE MOON APPEARED ... THAT JABE BEGAN TO

CALL."]

It was not until the moon appeared--a red, ominous segment of a

disk--over the black and rugged ridge of the hills across the lake,

that Jabe began to call. Three times he set the hollow birch-bark to

his mouth, and sent the hoarse, appealing summons echoing over the

water. And the man, crouching invisible in the thick shadow beside

him, felt a thrill in his nerves, a prickling in his cheeks, at that

mysterious cry, which seemed to him to have something almost of menace

in its lure. Even so, he thought, might Pan have summoned his

followers, shaggy and dangerous, yet half divine, to some symbolic

revel.

The call evoked no answer of any kind. Jabe waited till the moon,

still red and distorted, had risen almost clear of the ridge. Then he

called again, and yet again, and again waited. From straight across

the strangely-shadowed water came a sudden sharp crashing of

underbrush, as if some one had fallen to beating the bushes furiously

with sticks.

"That's him!" whispered Jabe. "An' he's a big one, sure!"

The words were not yet out of his mouth when there arose a most

startling commotion in the thicket close behind them, and both men

swung around like lightning, jerking up their rifles. At the same

instant came an elusive whiff of pungency on the chill.

"Pooh! only a bear!" muttered Jabe, as the commotion retreated in

haste.

"Why, he was close upon us!" remarked the visitor. "I could have poked

him with my gun! Had he any special business with us, do you

suppose?"

"Took me for a cow moose, an' was jest a-goin' to swipe me!" answered

Jabe, rather elated at the compliment which the bear had paid to his

counterfeit.

The Famous Hunter drew a breath of profound satisfaction.

"I'll be hanged," he whispered, "if your amiable New Brunswick

backwoods can't get up a thrill quite worthy of the African jungle!"

"St!" admonished Jabe. "He's a-comin'. An' mad, too! Thinks that

racket was another bull, gittin' ahead of 'im. Don't ye _breathe_ now,

no more!" And raising the long bark, he called through it again, this

time more softly, more enticingly, but always with that indescribable

wildness, shyness and roughness rasping strangely through the note.

The hurried approach of the bull could be followed clearly around the

head of the lake. It stopped, and Jabe called again. In a minute or

two there came a brief, explosive, grunting reply--this time from a

point much nearer. The great bull had stopped his crashing progress

and was slipping his vast, impetuous bulk through the underbrush as

noiselessly as a weasel. The stillness was so perfect after that one

echoing response that the Famous Hunter turned a look of interrogation

upon Jabe's shadowy face. The latter breathed almost inaudibly: "He's

a-comin'. He's nigh here!" And the hunter clutched his rifle with that

fine, final thrill of unparalleled anticipation.

The moon was now well up, clear of the treetops and the discolouring

mists, hanging round and honey-yellow over the hump of the ridge. The

magic of the night deepened swiftly. The sandspit and the little

water-meadow stood forth unshadowed in the spectral glare. Far out in

the shine of the lake a fish jumped, splashing sharply. Then a twig

snapped in the dense growth beyond the water-meadow. Jabe furtively

lifted the bark, and mumbled in it caressingly. The next moment--so

suddenly and silently that it seemed as if he had taken instant shape

in the moonlight--appeared a gigantic moose, standing in the meadow,

his head held high, his nostrils sniffing arrogant inquiry. The

broadly-palmated antlers crowning his mighty head were of a spread and

symmetry such as Jabe had never even imagined.

Almost imperceptibly the Hunter raised his rifle--a slender shadow

moving in paler shadows. The great bull, gazing about expectantly for

the mate who had called, stood superb and indomitable, ghost-gray in

the moonlight, a mark no tyro could miss. A cherry branch intervened,

obscuring the foresight of the Hunter's rifle. The Hunter shifted his

position furtively. His crooked finger was just about to tighten on

the trigger. At this moment, when the very night hung stiller as if

with a sense of crisis, the giant bull turned, exposing his left flank

to the full glare of the moonlight. Something gleamed silver down his

side, as if it were a shining belt thrown across his shoulder.

[Illustration: "SOMETHING GLEAMED SILVER DOWN HIS SIDE."]

With a sort of hiss from between his teeth Jabe shot out his long arm

and knocked up the barrel of the rifle. In the same instant the

Hunter's finger had closed on the trigger. The report rang out,

shattering the night; the bullet whined away high over the treetops,

and the great bull, springing at one bound far back into the thickets,

vanished like an hallucination.

Jabe stood forth into the open, his gaunt face working with suppressed

excitement. The Hunter followed, speechless for a moment between

amazement, wrath and disappointment. At last he found voice, and quite

forgot his wonted courtesy.

"D--n you!" he stammered. "What do you mean by that? What in----"

But Jabe, suddenly calm, turned and eyed him with a steadying gaze.

"Quit all that, now!" he retorted crisply. "I knowed _jest_ what I was

doin'! I knowed that bull when he were a leetle, awkward staggerer. I

brung him up on a bottle; an' I loved him. He skun out four years ago.

I'd most ruther 'ave seen _you_ shot than that ther' bull, I tell

ye!"

The Famous Hunter looked sour; but he was beginning to understand the

situation, and his anger died down. As he considered, Jabe, too,

began to see the other side of the situation.

"I'm right sorry to disapp'int ye so!" he went on apologetically.

"We'll hev to call off this deal atween you an' me, I reckon. An'

there ain't goin' to be no more shooting over _this_ range, if I kin

help it--an' I guess I kin!--till I kin git that ther' white-slashed

bull drove away back over on to the Upsalquitch, where the hunters

won't fall foul of him! But I'll git ye another guide, jest as good as

me, or better, what ain't got no particular friends runnin' loose in

the woods to bother 'im. An' I'll send ye 'way down on to the Sevogle,

where ther's as big heads to be shot as ever have been. I can't do

more."

"Yes, you can!" declared the Famous Hunter, who had quite recovered

his self-possession.

"What is it?" asked Jabe doubtfully.

"You can pardon me for losing my temper and swearing at you!" answered

the Famous Hunter, holding out his hand. "I'm glad I didn't knock over

your magnificent friend. It's good for the breed that he got off. But

you'll have to find me something peculiarly special now, down on that

Sevogle."

WHEN THE BLUEBERRIES ARE RIPE

THE steep, rounded, rock-scarred face of Bald Mountain, for all its

naked grimness, looked very cheerful in the last of the warm-coloured

sunset. There were no trees; but every little hollow, every tiny

plateau, every bit of slope that was not too steep for clinging roots

to find hold, was clothed with a mat of blueberry bushes. The berries,

of an opaque violet-blue tone (much more vivid and higher in key than

the same berries can show when picked and brought to market) were so

large and so thickly crowded as to almost hide the leaves. They gave

the austere steeps of "Old Baldy" the effect of having been dyed with

a wash of cobalt.

Far below, where the lonely wilderness valley was already forsaken

by the sun, a flock of ducks could be seen, with long, outstretched

necks rigid and short wings swiftly beating, lined out over a

breadth of wild meadow. Above the lake which washed the foot of

the mountain,--high above the water, but below the line of shadow

creeping up the mountain's face,--a single fish-hawk circled

slowly, waiting for the twilight coolness to bring the big trout to

the surface to feed. The smooth water glimmered pallidly, and here

and there a spreading, circular ripple showed that the hungry fish

were beginning to rise.

Up in the flood of the sunset, the blueberries basked and glowed, some

looking like gems, some like blossoms, according to the fall of the

light. Around the shoulder of the mountain toward the east, where the

direct rays of the sun could not reach, the light was yet abundant,

but cool and tender,--and here the vivid berries were beginning to

lose their colour, as a curved moon, just rising over the far, ragged

rim of the forest, touched them with phantom silver. Everywhere

jutting rocks and sharp crevices broke the soft mantle of the

blueberry thickets; and on the southerly slope, where sunset and

moonrise mingled with intricate shadows, everything looked ghostlike

and unreal. On the utmost summit of the mountain a rounded peak of

white granite, smoothed by ages of storm, shone like a beacon.

[Illustration: "AN OLD SHE-BEAR WITH TWO HALF-GROWN CUBS."]

The only berry-pickers that came to these high slopes of Bald Mountain

were the wild kindreds, furred and feathered. Of them all, none were

more enthusiastic and assiduous than the bears; and just now, climbing

up eagerly from the darkening woods below, came an old she-bear with

two half-grown cubs. They came up by easy paths, zigzagging past

boulder and crevice, through the ghostly, noiseless contention of

sunlight and moonlight. Now their moving shadows lay one way, now the

other; and now their shadows were suddenly wiped out, as the two

lights for a moment held an even balance. At length having reached a

little plateau where the berries were particularly large and

close-clustered, the old bear stopped, and they fell joyously to their

feeding.

On these open heights there were no enemies to keep watch against, and

there was no reason to be wary or silent. The bears fed noisily,

therefore, stripping the plump fruit cleverly by the pawful, and

munching with little, greedy grunts of delight. There was no other

food quite so to their taste as these berries, unless, perhaps, a

well-filled honey-comb. And this was their season for eating, eating,

eating, all the time, in order to lay up abundant fat against the long

severity of winter.

As the bushes about them were stripped of the best fruit, the shaggy

feasters moved around the shoulder of the mountain from the gold of

the sun into the silver of the moon. Soon the sunset had faded, and

the moon had it all her own way except for a broad expanse of

sea-green sky in the west, deepening through violet to a narrow streak

of copper on the horizon. By this time the shadows, especially on the

eastern slope, were very sharp and black, and the open spaces very

white and radiant, with a strange transparency borrowed from that

high, pure atmosphere.

It chanced that the little hollow on which the bears were just now

revelling,--a hollow where the blueberries were unbelievably large and

abundant--was bounded on its upper side, toward the steep, by a narrow

and deep crevice. At one end of the cleft, from a rocky and shallow

roothold, a gnarled birch grew slantingly. From its unusual situation,

and from the fact that the bushes grew thick to its very edge, this

crevice constituted nothing less than a most insidious trap.

One of the cubs, born with the instinct of caution, kept far away from

the dangerous brink without having more than half realized that there

was any danger there whatever. The other cub was one of those

blundering fellows, to be found among the wild kindreds no less than

among the kindreds of men, who only get caution hammered into them by

experience. He saw a narrow break, indeed, between the berry patch and

the bare steep above,--but what was a little crevice in a position

like this, where it could not amount to anything? Had it been on the

other side of the hollow, he would have feared a precipice, and would

have been on his guard. But, as it was, he never gave the matter a

second thought, because it did not look dangerous! He found the best

berries growing very near the edge of the crevice; and in his

satisfaction he turned his back to the height and settled himself

solidly upon his haunches to enjoy them. As he did so the bushes gave

way behind him, he pitched abruptly backwards, and vanished with a

squeal of terror into the narrow cleft of darkness.

The crevice was perhaps twelve feet deep, and from five to eight in

width all the way to the bottom. The bottom held a layer of earth and

dead leaves, which served to ease the cub's fall; but when he landed

the wind was so bumped out of him that for a minute or two he could

not utter a sound. As soon as he recovered his voice, however, he

began to squeal and whine piteously for his mother.

The old bear, at the sound of his cry as he fell, had rushed so

hastily to his aid that she barely escaped falling in after him.

Checking herself just in time, by digging all her mighty claws into

the roots of the blueberries, she crouched at the brink, thrust her

head as far over as she could, and peered down with anxious cries. But

when the cub's voice came back to her from the darkness she knew he

was not killed, and she also knew that he was very near,--and her

whinings changed at once to a guttural murmur that must have been

intended for encouragement. The other cub, meanwhile, had come

lumbering up with ears wisely cocked, taken a very hasty and careful

glance over the edge, and returned to his blueberries with an air of

disapproval. It was as if he said he always knew that blundering

brother of his would get himself into trouble.

For some minutes the old bear crouched where she was, straining her

eyes to make out the form of her little one. Becoming accustomed to

the gloom at last, she could discern him. She could see that he was

moving about, and standing on his hind legs, and striving valiantly to

claw his way up the perpendicular surface of smooth rock. She began to

reach downwards first one big forepaw and then the other, testing the

rock beneath her for some ledge or crack that might give her foothold

by which to climb down to his aid. Finding none, she again set up her

uneasy whining, and moved slowly along the brink, trying every inch of

the way for some place rough enough to give her strong claws a chance

to take hold. In the full, unclouded light of the white moon she was a

pathetic figure, bending and crouching and straining, and reaching

down longingly, then stopping to listen to the complaints of pain and

terror that came up out of the dark.

At last she came to the end of the crevice where grew the solitary

birch tree,--the frightened captive following exactly below her and

stretching up toward her against the rock. At this point, close beside

the tree, some roots and tough turf overhung the edge, and the old

bear's paws detected a roughness on the face of the rock just below.

This was enough for her brave and devoted heart. She turned around and

let her hind quarters carefully over the brink, intending to climb

down backwards as bears do. But beyond the first unevenness there was

absolutely nothing that her claws could take hold of. Her great body

was half way over, when she felt herself on the point of falling.

Making a sudden startled effort to recover herself, she clutched

desperately at the trunk of the birch tree with one arm, at the roots

of the berry-bushes with the other,--and just managed to regain the

level.

For herself, this mighty effort was just enough. But for the

birch-tree it was just too much. The shallow earth by which it held

gave way; and the next moment, with a clatter of loosened stones and a

swish of leafy branches, it crashed majestically down into the

crevice, closing one end of it with a mass of boughs and foliage, and

once more frightening the imprisoned cub almost out of his senses.

At the first sound of this cataclysm, at the first rattle of loose

earth about his ears, the cub had bounced madly to the other end of

the crevice, where he crouched, whimpering. The old bear, too, was

daunted for some seconds; but then, seeing that the cub was not hurt,

she was quick to perceive the advantage of the accident. Standing at

the upturned roots of the tree, she called eagerly and encouragingly

to the cub, pointing out the path of escape thus offered to him. For

some minutes he was too terrified to approach. At last she set her own

weight on the trunk, testing it, and prepared to climb down and lead

him out. At this, however, the youngster's nerve revived. With a

joyful and understanding squeal, he rushed forward, sprawled and

clawed his way over the tangle of branches, gained the firm

trunk,--and presently found himself again beside his mother among the

pleasant, moonlit berry-bushes. Here he was fondled and nosed and

licked and nursed by the delighted mother, till his bruised little

body forgot its hurts and his shaken little heart its fears. His

cautious brother, too, came up with a wise look and sniffed at him

patronizingly; but went away again with his nose in the air, as if to

say that here was much fuss being made over a very small matter.

THE GLUTTON OF THE GREAT SNOW

I

NORTHWARD interminably, and beneath a whitish, desolate sky, stretched

the white, empty leagues of snow, unbroken by rock or tree or hill, to

the straight, menacing horizon. Green-black, and splotched with snow

that clung here and there upon their branches, along the southward

limits of the barren crowded down the serried ranks of the ancient fir

forest. Endlessly baffled, but endlessly unconquered, the hosts of the

firs thrust out their grim spire-topped vanguards, at intervals, into

the hostile vacancy of the barren. Between these dark vanguards, long,

silent aisles of whiteness led back and gently upward into the heart

of the forest.

Out across one of these pale corridors of silence came moving very

deliberately a dark, squat shape with blunt muzzle close to the snow.

Its keen, fierce eyes and keener nostrils were scrutinizing the white

surface for the scent or trail of some other forest wanderer.

Conscious of power, in spite of its comparatively small stature--much

less than that of wolf or lynx, or even of the fox--it made no effort

to conceal its movements, disguise its track or keep watch for

possible enemies. Stronger than any other beast of thrice its size, as

cunning as the wisest of the foxes, and of a dogged, savage temper

well known to all the kindred of the wild, it seemed to feel secure

from ill-considered interference.

Less than three feet in length, but of peculiarly massive build, this

dark, ominous-looking animal walked flat-footed, like a bear, and with

a surly heaviness worthy of a bear's stature. Its fur, coarse and

long, was of a sooty gray-brown, streaked coarsely down each flank

with a broad yellowish splash meeting over the hind quarters. Its

powerful, heavy-clawed feet were black. Its short muzzle and massive

jaw, and its broad face up to just above the eyes, where the fur came

down thickly, were black also. The eyes themselves, peering out

beneath overhanging brows, gleamed with a mixture of sullen

intelligence and implacable savagery. In its slow, forbidding

strength, and in its tameless reserve, which yet held the capacity for

outbursts of ungovernable rage, this strange beast seemed to incarnate

the very spirit of the bitter and indomitable North. Its name was

various, for hunters called it sometimes wolverene, sometimes

carcajou, but oftener "Glutton," or "Injun Devil."

Through the voiceless desolation the carcajou--it was a female--continued

her leisurely way. Presently, just upon the edge of the forest-growth,

she came upon the fresh track of a huge lynx. The prints of the lynx's

great pads were several times broader than her own, but she stopped

and began to examine them without the slightest trace of apprehension. For

some reason best known to herself, she at length made up her mind to

pursue the stranger's back trail, concerning herself rather with what

he had been doing than with what he was about to do.

Plunging into the gloom of the firs, where the trail led over a

snow-covered chaos of boulders and tangled windfalls, she came

presently to a spot where the snow was disturbed and scratched. Her

eyes sparkled greedily. There were spatters of blood about the place,

and she realized that here the lynx had buried, for a future meal,

the remnant of his kill.

Her keen nose speedily told her just where the treasure was hidden,

and she fell to digging furiously with her short, powerful fore paws.

It was a bitter and lean season, and the lynx, after eating his fill,

had taken care to bury the remnant deep. The carcajou burrowed down

till only the tip of her dingy tail was visible before she found the

object of her search. It proved to be nothing but one hind quarter of

a little blue fox. Angrily she dragged it forth and bolted it in a

twinkling, crunching the slim bone between her powerful jaws. It was

but a morsel to such a hunger as hers. Licking her chops, and passing

her black paws hurriedly over her face, as a cat does, she forsook the

trail of the lynx and wandered on deeper into the soundless gloom.

Several rabbit-tracks she crossed, and here and there the dainty trail

of a ptarmigan, or the small, sequential dots of a weasel's foot. But

a single glance or passing twitch of her nostril told her these were

all old, and she vouchsafed them no attention. It was not till she had

gone perhaps a quarter of a mile through the fir-glooms that she came

upon a trail which caused her to halt.

It was the one trail, this, among all the tracks that traversed the

great snow, which could cause her a moment's perturbation. For the

trail of the wolf-pack she had small concern--for the hungriest wolves

could never climb a tree. But this was the broad snowshoe trail, which

she knew was made by a creature even more crafty than herself. She

glanced about keenly, peering under the trees--because one could never

judge, merely by the direction of the trail, where one of those

dangerous creatures was going. She stood almost erect on her haunches

and sniffed the air for the slightest taint of danger. Then she

sniffed at the tracks. The man-smell was strong upon them, and

comparatively, but not dangerously, fresh. Reassured on this point,

she decided to follow the man and find out what he was doing. It was

only when she did not know what he was about that she so dreaded him.

Given the opportunity to watch him unseen, she was willing enough to

pit her cunning against his, and to rob him as audaciously as she

would rob any of the wilderness kindreds.

Hunting over a wide range as she did, the carcajou was unaware till

now that a man had come upon her range that winter. To her experience

a man meant a hunter--and--trapper, with emphasis distinctly upon the

trapper. The man's gun she feared--but his traps she feared not at

all. Indeed, she regarded them rather with distinct favour, and was

ready to profit by them at the first opportunity. Having only strength

and cunning, but no speed to rely upon, she had learned that traps

could catch all kinds of swift creatures, and hold them inexorably.

She had learned, too, that there was usually a succession of traps and

snares set along a man's trail. It was with some exciting expectation,

now, that she applied herself to following this trail.

Within a short distance the track brought her to a patch of trampled

snow, with tiny bits of frozen fish scattered about. She knew at once

that somewhere in this disturbed area a trap was hidden, close to the

surface. Stepping warily, in a circle, she picked up and devoured the

smallest scraps. Near the centre lay a fragment of tempting size; but

she cunningly guessed that close beside that morsel would be the

hiding-place of the trap. Slowly she closed in upon it, her nose close

to the snow, sniffing with cautious discrimination. Suddenly she

stopped short. Through the snow she had detected the man-smell, and

the smell of steel, mingling with the savour of the dried fish. Here,

but a little to one side, she began to dig, and promptly uncovered a

light chain. Following this she came presently to the trap itself,

which she cautiously laid bare. Then, without misgiving, she ate the

big piece of fish. Both her curiosity and her hunger, however, were

still far from satisfied, so she again took up the trail.

The next trap she came to was an open snare--a noose of bright wire

suspended near the head of a cunningly constructed alley of fir

branches, leading up to the foot of a big hemlock. Just behind this

noose, and hardly to be reached save through the noose, the bait had

evidently been fixed. But the carcajou saw that some one little less

cunning than herself had been before her. Such a snare would have

caught the fierce, but rather stupid, lynx; but a fox had been the

first arrival. She saw his tracks. He had carefully investigated the

alley of fir branches from the outside. Then he had broken through it

behind the noose, and safely made off with the bait. Rather

contemptuously the old wolverene went on. She did not understand this

kind of trap, so she discreetly refrained from meddling with it.

[Illustration: "CREPT SLOWLY AROUND THE RAGING AND SNARLING CAPTIVE."]

Fully a quarter mile she had to go before she came to another; but

here she found things altogether different and more interesting. As

she came softly around a great snow-draped boulder there was a snarl,

a sharp rattle of steel, and a thud. She shrank back swiftly, just

beyond reach of the claws of a big lynx. The lynx had been ahead of

her in discovering the trap, and with the stupidity of his tribe had

got caught in it. The inexorable steel jaws had him fast by the left

fore leg. He had heard the almost soundless approach of the strange

prowler, and, mad with pain and rage, had sprung to the attack without

waiting to see the nature of his antagonist.

Keeping just beyond the range of his hampered leap, the carcajou now

crept slowly around the raging and snarling captive, who kept pouncing

at her in futile fury every other moment. Though his superior in sheer

strength, she was much smaller and lighter than he, and less

murderously armed for combat; and she dreaded the raking, eviscerating

clutch of his terrible hinder claws. In defence of her burrow and her

litter, she would have tackled him without hesitation; but her sharp

teeth and bulldog jaw, however efficient, would not avail, in such a

combat, to save her from getting ripped almost to ribbons. She was far

too sagacious to enter upon any such struggle unnecessarily. Prowling

slowly and tirelessly, without effort, around and around the excited

prisoner, she trusted to wear him out and then take him at some deadly

disadvantage.

Weighted with the trap, and not wise enough to refrain from wasting

his strength in vain struggles, the lynx was strenuously playing his

cunning antagonist's game, when a sound came floating on the still air

which made them both instantly rigid. It was a long, thin, wavering

cry that died off with indescribable melancholy in its cadence. The

lynx crouched, with eyes dilating, and listened with terrible

intentness. The carcajou, equally interested but not terrified, stood

erect, ears, eyes and nose alike directed to finding out more about

that ominous voice. Again and again it was repeated, swiftly coming

nearer; and presently it resolved itself into a chorus of voices. The

lynx made several convulsive bounds, wrenching desperately to free his

imprisoned limb; then, recognizing the inevitable, he crouched again,

shuddering but dangerous, his tufted ears flattened upon his back,

his eyes flickering green, every tooth and claw bared for the last

battle. But the carcajou merely stiffened up her fur, in a rage at the

prospective interruption of her hunting. She knew well that the

dreadful, melancholy cry was the voice of the wolf-pack. But the

wolves were not on _her_ trail, that she was sure of; and possibly

they might pass at a harmless distance, and not discover her or her

quarry.

The listeners were not kept long in suspense. The pack, as it chanced,

was on the trail of a moose which, labouring heavily in the deep snow,

had passed, at a distance of some thirty or forty yards, a few minutes

before the carcajou's arrival. The wolves swept into view through the

tall fir trunks--five in number, and running so close that a

table-cloth might have covered them. They knew by the trail that the

quarry must be near, and, urged on by the fierce thrust of their

hunger, they were not looking to right or left. They were almost past,

and the lynx was beginning to take heart again, when, out of the tail

of his eye, the pack-leader detected something unusual on the snow

near the foot of the big rock. One fair look explained it all to him.

With an exultant yelp he turned, and the pack swept down upon the

prisoner; while the carcajou, bursting with indignation, slipped up

the nearest tree.

The captive was not abject, but game to the last tough fibre. All

fangs and rending claws, with a screech and a bound he met the

onslaught of the pack; and, for all the hideous handicap of that thing

of iron on his leg, he gave a good account of himself. For a minute or

two the wolves and their victim formed one yelling, yelping heap. When

it disentangled itself, three of the wolves were badly torn, and one

had the whole side of his face laid open. But in a few minutes there

was nothing left of the unfortunate lynx but a few of the heavier

bones--to which the pack might return later--and the scrap of fur and

flesh that was held in the jaws of the trap.

[Illustration: "SNAPPED BACK AT HIM WITH A VICIOUS GROWL."]

As the carcajou saw her prospective meal disappearing, her rage became

almost uncontrollable, and she crept down the tree-trunk as if she

would fling herself upon the pack. The leader sprang at her, leaping

as high as he could against the trunk; and she, barely out of reach of

his clashing, bloody fangs, snapped back at him with a vicious growl,

trying to catch the tip of his nose. Failing in this, she struck at

him like lightning with her powerful claws, raking his muzzle so

severely that he fell back with a startled yelp. A moment later the

whole pack, their famine still unsatisfied, swept off again upon the

trail of the moose. The carcajou came down, sniffed angrily at the

clean bones which had been cracked for their marrow, then hurried off

on the track of the wolves.

II

Meanwhile, it had chanced that the man on snowshoes, fetching a wide

circle that would bring the end of his line of traps back nearly to

his cabin, had come suddenly face to face with the fleeing moose. Worn

out with the terror of his flight and the heart-breaking effort of

floundering through the heavy snow--which was, nevertheless, hard

enough, on the surface, to bear up his light-footed pursuers--the

great beast was near his last gasp. At sight of the man before him,

more to be dreaded even than the savage foe behind him, he snorted

wildly and plunged off to one side. But the man, borne up upon his

snowshoes, overtook him in a moment, and, suddenly stooping forward,

drew his long hunting-knife across the gasping throat. The snow about

grew crimson instantly, and the huge beast sank with a shudder.

The trapper knew that a moose so driven must have had enemies on

its trail, and he knew also that no enemies but wolves, or another

hunter, could have driven the moose to such a flight. There was no

other hunter ranging within twenty miles of him. Therefore, it was

wolves. He had no weapon with him but his knife and his light axe,

because his rifle was apt to be a useless burden in winter, when he

had always traps or pelts to carry. And it was rash for one man,

without his gun, to rob a wolf-pack of its kill! But the trapper

wanted fresh moose-meat. Hastily and skilfully he began to cut

from the carcass the choicest portions of haunch and loin. He had no

more than fairly got to work when the far-off cry of the pack

sounded on his expectant ears. He laboured furiously as the voices

drew nearer. The interruption of the lynx he understood, in a

measure, by the noises that reached him; but when the pack came

hot on the trail again he knew it was time to get away. He must

retreat promptly, but not be seen retreating. Bearing with him such

cuts as he had been able to secure, he made off in the direction of

his cabin. But at a distance of about two hundred yards he stepped

into a thicket at the base of a huge hemlock, and turned to see

what the wolves would do when they found they had been forestalled. As

he turned, the wolves appeared, and swept down upon the body of the

moose. But within a couple of paces of it they stopped short, with a

snarl of suspicion, and drew back hastily. The tracks and the

scent of their arch-enemy, man, were all about the carcass. His

handiwork--his clean cutting--was evident upon it. Their first

impulse was toward caution. Suspecting a trap, they circled warily

about the body. Then, reassured, their rage blazed up. Their own

quarry had been killed before them, their own hunting insolently

crossed. However, it was man, the ever-insolent overlord, who had

done it. He had taken toll as he would, and withdrawn when he would.

They did not quite dare to follow and seek vengeance. So in a few

moments their wrath had simmered down; and they fell savagely upon the

yet warm feast.

The trapper watched them from his hiding-place, not wishing to risk

attracting their attention before they had quite gorged themselves. He

knew there would be plenty of good meat left, even then; and that

they would at length proceed to bury it for future use. Then he could

dig it up again, take what remained clean and unmauled, and leave the

rest to its lawful owners; and all without unnecessary trouble.

As he watched the banqueting pack, he was suddenly conscious of a

movement in the branches of a fir a little beyond them. Then his quick

eye, keener in discrimination than that of any wolf, detected the

sturdy figure of a large wolverene making its way from tree to tree at

a safe distance above the snow, intent upon the wolves. What one

carcajou--"Glutton," he called it--could hope, for all its cunning, to

accomplish against five big timber-wolves, he could not imagine.

Hating the "Glutton," as all trappers do, he wished most earnestly

that it might slip on its branch and fall down before the fangs of the

pack.

There was no smallest danger of the wary carcajou doing anything of

the sort. Every faculty was on the alert to avenge herself on the

wolves who had robbed her of her destined prey. Most of the other

creatures of the wild she despised, but the wolves she also hated,

because she felt herself constrained to yield them way. She crawled

carefully from tree to tree, till at last she gained one whose lower

branches spread directly over the carcass of the moose. Creeping

out upon one of those branches, she glared down maliciously upon

her foes. Observing her, two of the wolves desisted long enough from

their feasting to leap up at her with fiercely gnashing teeth. But

finding her out of reach, and scornfully unmoved by their futile

demonstrations, they gave it up and fell again to their ravenous

feasting.

The wolverene is a big cousin to the weasel, and also to the skunk.

The ferocity of the weasel it shares, and the weasel's dauntless

courage. Its kinship to the skunk is attested by the possession of a

gland which secretes an oil of peculiarly potent malodour. The smell

of this oil is not so overpowering, so pungently strangulating, as

that emitted by the skunk; but all the wild creatures find it

irresistibly disgusting. No matter how pinched and racked by famine

they may be, not one of them will touch a morsel of meat which a

wolverene has defiled ever so slightly. The wolverene itself, however,

by no means shares this general prejudice.

When the carcajou had glared down upon the wolves for several minutes,

she ejected the contents of her oil-gland all over the body of the

moose, impartially treating her foes to a portion of the nauseating

fluid. With coughing, and sneezing, and furious yelping, the wolves

bounded away, and began rolling and burrowing in the snow. They could

not rid themselves at once of the dreadful odour; but, presently

recovering their self-possession, and resolutely ignoring the polluted

meat, they ranged themselves in a circle around the tree at a safe

distance, and snapped their long jaws vengefully at their adversary.

They seemed prepared to stay there indefinitely, in the hope of

starving out the carcajou and tearing her to pieces. Perceiving this,

the carcajou turned her back upon them, climbed farther up the tree to

a comfortable crotch, and settled herself indifferently for a nap. For

all her voracious appetite, she knew she could go hungry longer than

any wolf, and quite wear out the pack in a waiting game. Then the

trapper, indignant at seeing so much good meat spoiled, but his

sporting instincts stirred to sympathy by the triumph of one beast

like the carcajou over a whole wolf-pack, turned his back upon the

scene and resumed his tramp. The wolves had lost prestige in his

eyes, and he now felt ready to fight them all with his single axe.

III

From that day on the wolf-pack cherished a sleepless grudge against

the carcajou, and wasted precious hours, from time to time, striving

to catch her off her guard. The wolf's memory is a long one, and the

feud lost nothing in its bitterness as the winter weeks, loud with

storm or still with deadly cold, dragged by. For a time the crafty old

carcajou fed fat on the flesh which none but she could touch, while

all the other beasts but the bear, safe asleep in his den, and the

porcupine, browsing contentedly on hemlock and spruce, went lean with

famine. During this period, since she had all that even her great

appetite could dispose of, the carcajou robbed neither the hunter's

traps nor the scant stores of the other animals. But at last her

larder was bare. Then, turning her attention to the traps again, she

speedily drew upon her the trapper's wrath, and found herself obliged

to keep watch against two foes at once, and they the most powerful in

the wilderness--namely, the man and the wolf-pack. Even the magnitude

of this feud, however, did not daunt her greedy but fearless spirit,

and she continued to rob the traps, elude the wolves, and evade the

hunter's craftiest efforts, till the approach of spring not only eased

the famine of the forest but put an end to the man's trapping. When

the furs of the wild kindred began to lose their gloss and vitality,

the trapper loaded his pelts upon a big hand-sledge, sealed up his

cabin securely, and set out for the settlements before the snow should

all be gone. Once assured of his absence, the carcajou devoted all her

strength and cunning to making her way into the closed cabin. At last,

after infinite patience and endeavour, she managed to get in, through

the roof. There were supplies--flour, and bacon, and dried apples, all

very much to her distinctly catholic taste--and she enjoyed herself

immensely till private duties summoned her reluctantly away.

Spring comes late to the great snows, but when it does come it is

swift and not to be denied. Then summer, with much to do and little

time to do it in, rushes ardently down upon the plains and the

fir-forests. About three miles back from the cabin, on a dry knoll in

the heart of a tangled swamp, the old wolverene dug herself a

commodious and secret burrow. Here she gave birth to a litter of tiny

young ones, much like herself in miniature, only of a paler colour and

softer, silkier fur. In her ardent, unflagging devotion to these

little ones she undertook no hunting that would take her far from

home, but satisfied her appetite with mice, slugs, worms and beetles.

Living in such seclusion as she did, her enemies the wolves lost all

track of her for the time. The pack had broken up, as a formal

organization, according to the custom of wolf-packs in summer. But

there was still more or less cohesion, of a sort, between its

scattered members; and the leader and his mate had a cave not many

miles from the wolverene's retreat.

As luck would have it, the gray old leader, returning to the cave one

day with the body of a rabbit between his gaunt jaws, took a short cut

across the swamp, and came upon the trail of his long-lost enemy. In

fact, he came upon several of her trails; and he understood very well

what it meant. He had no time, or inclination, to stop and look into

the matter then; but his sagacious eyes gleamed with vengeful

intention as he continued his journey.

About this time--the time being a little past midsummer--the man came

back to his cabin, bringing supplies. It was a long journey between

the cabin and the settlements, and he had to make it several times

during the brief summer, in order to accumulate stores enough to last

through the long, merciless season of the great snows. When he reached

the cabin and found that, in spite of all his precautions, the greedy

carcajou had outwitted him and broken in, and pillaged his stores, his

indignation knew no bounds.

The carcajou had become an enemy more dangerous to him than all the

other beasts of the wild together. She must be hunted down and

destroyed before he could go on with his business of laying in stores

for the winter.

For several days the man prowled in ever-widening circles around his

cabin, seeking to pick up his enemy's fresh trail. At last, late one

afternoon, he found it, on the outskirts of the swamp. It was too late

to follow it up then. But the next day he set out betimes with rifle,

axe and spade, vowed to the extermination of the whole carcajou

family, for he knew, as well as the old wolf did, why the carcajou had

taken up her quarters in the swamp.

It chanced that this very morning was the morning when the wolves had

undertaken to settle their ancient grudge. The old leader--his mate

being occupied with her cubs--had managed to get hold of two other

members of the pack, with memories as long as his. The unravelling of

the trails in the swamp was an easy task for their keen noses. They

found the burrow on the dry, warm knoll, prowled stealthily all about

it for a few minutes, then set themselves to digging it open. When the

man, whose wary, moccasined feet went noiselessly as a fox's, came in

eyeshot of the knoll, the sight he caught through the dark jumble of

tree-trunks brought him to a stop. He slunk behind a screen of

branches and peered forth with eager interest. What he saw was three

big, gray wolves, starting to dig furiously. He knew they were digging

at the carcajou's burrow.

When the wolves fell to digging their noses told them that there were

young carcajous in the burrow, but they could not be sure whether the

old one was at home or not. On this point, however, they were

presently informed. As the dry earth flew from beneath their furious

claws, a dark, blunt snout shot forth, to be as swiftly withdrawn.

Its appearance was followed by a yelp of pain, and one of the younger

wolves drew back, walking on three legs. One fore paw had been bitten

clean through, and he lay down whining, to lick and cherish it. That

paw, at least, would do no more digging for some time.

The man, in his hiding-place behind the screen, saw what had happened,

and felt a twinge of sympathetic admiration for his enemy, the savage

little fighter in the burrow. The remaining two wolves now grew more

cautious, keeping back from the entrance as well as they could, and

undermining its edges. Again and again the dark muzzle shot forth, but

the wolves always sprang away in time to escape punishment. This went

on till the wolves had made such an excavation that the man thought

they must be nearing the bottom of the den. He waited breathlessly for

the denouement, which he knew would be exciting.

He had not long to wait.

On a sudden, as if jerked from a catapult, the old carcajou sprang

clear out, snatching at the muzzle of the nearest wolf. He dodged, but

not quite far enough; and she caught him fairly in the side of the

throat, just behind the jaw. It was a deadly grip, and the wolf rose

on his hind legs, struggling frantically to shake her off. But with

her great strength and powerful, clutching claws, which she used

almost as a bear might, she pulled him down on top of her, striving to

use his bulk as a shield against the fangs of the other wolf; and the

two rolled over and over to the foot of the knoll.

It was the second young wolf, unfortunately for her, that she had

fastened upon, or the victory, even against such odds, might have been

hers. But the old leader was wary. He saw that his comrade was done

for; so he stood watchful, biding his chance to get just the grip he

wanted. At length, as he saw the younger wolf's struggles growing

feebler, he darted in and slashed the carcajou frightfully across the

loins. But this was not the hold that he wanted. As she dropped her

victim and turned upon him valiantly, he caught her high up on the

back, and held her fast between his bone-crushing jaws. It was a final

and fatal grip; but she was not beaten until she was dead. With her

fierce eyes already glazing she writhed about and succeeded in fixing

her death-grip upon the victor's lean fore leg. With the last ounce

of her strength, the last impulses of her courage and her hate, she

clinched her jaws till her teeth met through flesh, sinew and the

cracking bone itself. Then her lifeless body went limp, and with a

swing of his massive neck the old wolf flung her from him.

Having satisfied himself that she was quite dead, the old wolf now

slunk off on three legs into the swamp, holding his maimed and

bleeding limb as high as he could. Then the man stepped out from his

hiding-place and came forward. The wolf who had been first bitten got

up and limped away with surprising agility; but the one in whose

throat the old carcajou had fixed her teeth lay motionless where he

had fallen, a couple of paces from his dead slayer. Wolf-pelts were no

good at this season, so the man thrust the body carelessly aside with

his foot. But he stood for a minute or two looking down with whimsical

respect on the dead form of the carcajou.

"Y' ain't nawthin' but a thief an' stinkin' Glutton," he muttered

presently, "an' the whole kit an' bilin' of ye's got to be wiped out!

But, when it comes to grit, clean through, I takes off my cap to ye!"

WHEN THE TRUCE OF THE WILD IS DONE

BY day it was still high summer in the woods, with slumbrous heat at

noon, and the murmur of insects under the thick foliage. But to the

initiated sense there was a difference. A tang in the forest scents

told the nostrils that autumn had arrived. A crispness in the feel of

the air, elusive but persistent, hinted of approaching frost. The

still warmth was haunted, every now and then, by a passing ghost of

chill. Here and there the pale green of the birches was thinly webbed

with gold. Here and there a maple hung out amid its rich verdure a

branch prematurely turned, glowing like a banner of aerial rose. Along

the edges of the little wild meadows which bordered the loitering

brooks the first thin blooms of the asters began to show, like a veil

of blown smoke. In open patches, on the hillsides the goldenrod burned

orange and the fireweed spread its washes of violet pink. Somewhere

in the top of a tall poplar, crowning the summit of a glaring white

bluff, a locust twanged incessantly its strident string. Mysteriously,

imperceptibly, without sound and without warning, the change had

come.

Hardly longer ago than yesterday, the wild creatures had been unwary

and confident, showing themselves everywhere. The partridge coveys had

whirred up noisily in full view of the passing woodsman, and craned

their necks to watch him from the near-by branches. On every shallow

mere and tranquil river-reach the flocks of wild ducks had fed boldly,

suffering canoe or punt to come within easy gunshot. In the heavy

grass of the wild meadows, or among the long, washing sedges of the

lakeside, the red deer had pastured openly in the broad daylight, with

tramplings and splashings, and had lifted large bright eyes of

unterrified curiosity if a boat or canoe happened by. The security of

that great truce, which men called "close season" had rested sweetly

on the forest.

Then suddenly, when the sunrise was pink on the mists, a gunshot had

sent the echoes clamouring across the still lake waters, and a flock

of ducks, flapping up and fleeing with frightened cries, had left one

of its members sprawling motionless among the flattened sedge, a heap

of bright feathers spattered with blood. Later in the morning a rifle

had cracked sharply on the hillside, and a little puff of white smoke

had blown across the dark front of the fir groves. The truce had come

to an end.

All summer long men had kept the truce with strictness, and the

hunter's fierce instinct, curbed alike by law and foresight, had

slumbered. But now the young coveys were full-fledged and strong of

wing, well able to care for themselves. The young ducks were full

grown, and no longer needed their mother's guardianship and teaching.

The young deer were learning to shift for themselves, and finding, to

their wonder and indignation, that their mothers grew day by day more

indifferent to them, more inclined to wander off in search of new

interests. The time had come when the young of the wilderness stood no

longer in need of protection. Then the hand of the law was lifted.

Instantly in the hearts of men the hunter's fever flamed up, and, with

eager eyes, they went forth to kill. Where they had yesterday walked

openly, hardly heeding the wild creatures about them, they now crept

stealthily, following the trails, or lying in ambush, waiting for the

unsuspicious flock to wing past. And when they found that the game,

yesterday so abundant and unwatchful, had to-day almost wholly

disappeared, they were indignant, and wished that they had anticipated

the season by a few hours.

As a matter of fact, the time of the ending of the truce was not the

same for all the wild creatures which had profited by its protection

through the spring and summer. Certain of the tribes, according to the

law's provisions, were secure for some weeks longer yet. But this they

never seemed to realize. As far as they could observe, when the truce

was broken for one it was broken for all, and all took alarm together.

In some unexplained way, perhaps by the mere transmission of a general

fear, word went around that the time had come for invisibility and

craft. All at once, therefore, as it seemed to men, the wilderness had

become empty.

Down a green, rough wood-road, leading from the Settlement to one of

the wild meadows by the river, came a young man in homespun carrying a

long, old-fashioned, muzzle-loading duck-gun. Two days before this he

had seen a fine buck, with antlers perfect and new-shining from the

velvet, feeding on the edge of this meadow. The young woodsman had

his gun loaded with buckshot. He wanted both venison and a pair of

horns; and, knowing the fancy of the deer for certain favourite

pastures, he had great hopes of finding the buck somewhere about the

place where he had last seen him. With flexible "larrigans" of oiled

cowhide on his feet, the hunter moved noiselessly and swiftly as a

panther, his keen pale-blue eyes peering from side to side through the

shadowy undergrowth. Not three steps aside from the path, moveless as

a stone and invisible among the spotted weeds and twigs, a crafty old

cock-partridge stood with head erect and unwinking eyes and watched

the dangerous intruder stride by.

Approaching the edge of the open, the young hunter kept himself

carefully hidden behind the fringing leafage and looked forth upon the

little meadow. No creature being in sight, he cut straight across the

grass to the water's edge, and scanned the muddy margin for

foot-prints. These he presently found in abundance, along between

grass and sedge. Most of the marks were old; but others were so fresh

that he knew the buck must have been there and departed within the

last ten minutes. Into some deep hoof-prints the water was still

oozing, while from others the trodden stems of sedge were slowly

struggling upright.

A smile of keen satisfaction passed over the young woodsman's face at

these signs. He prided himself on his skill in trailing, and the

primeval predatory elation thrilled his nerves. At a swift but easy

lope he took up that clear trail, and followed it back through the

grass toward the woods. It entered the woods not ten paces from the

point where the hunter himself had emerged, ran parallel with the old

wood-road for a dozen yards, and came to a plain halt in the heart of

a dense thicket of hemlock. From the thicket it went off in great

leaps in a direction at right angles to the path. There was not a

breath of wind stirring, to carry a scent. So the hunter realized that

his intended victim had been watching him from the thicket, and that

it was now a case of craft against craft. He tightened his belt for a

long chase, and set his lean jaws doggedly as he resumed the trail.

The buck, who was wise with the wisdom of experience, and apprised by

the echoes of the first gunshot of the fact that the truce was over,

had indeed been watching the hunter very sagaciously. The moment he

was satisfied that it was his trail the hunter was following, he had

set out at top speed, anxious to get as far as possible from so

dangerous a neighbourhood. At first his fear grew with his flight, so

that his great, soft eyes stared wildly and his nostrils dilated as he

went bounding over all obstacles. Then little by little the triumphant

exercise of his powers, and a realization of how far his speed

surpassed that of his pursuer, reassured him somewhat. He decided to

rest, and find out what his foe was doing. He doubled back parallel

with his own trail for about fifty yards, then lay down in a thicket

to watch the enemy go by.

In an incredibly short time he did go by, at that long, steady swing

which ate up the distance so amazingly. As soon as he was well past,

the buck sprang up and was off again at full speed, his heart once

more thumping with terror.

This time, however, instead of running straight ahead, he made a wide,

sweeping curve, tending back toward the river and the lakes. As

before, only somewhat sooner, his alarm subsided and his confidence,

along with his curiosity, returned. He repeated his former manoeuvre

of doubling back a little way upon his trail, then again lay down to

wait for the passing of his foe.

When the hunter came to that first abrupt turn of the trail he

realized that it was a cunning and experienced buck with which he had

to deal. He smiled confidently, however, feeling sure of his own

skill, and ran at full speed to the point where the animal had lain

down to watch him pass. From this point he followed the trail just far

enough to catch its curve. Then he left it and ran in a straight line

shrewdly calculated to form the chord to his quarry's section of a

circle. His plan was to intercept and pick up the trail again about

three quarters of a mile further on. In nine cases out of ten his

calculation would have worked out as he wished; but in this case he

had not made allowance for this particular buck's individuality. While

he imagined his quarry to be yet far ahead, he ran past a leafy clump

of mingled Indian pear and thick spruce seedlings. Half a minute later

he heard a crash of underbrush behind him. As he turned he caught a

tantalizing glimpse of tawny haunches vanishing through the green, and

he knew that once again he had been outplayed.

This time the wise buck was distinctly more terrified than before. The

appearance of his enemy at this unexpected point, so speedily, and not

upon the trail, struck a panic to his heart. Plainly, this was no

common foe, to be evaded by familiar stratagems. His curiosity and his

confidence disappeared completely.

[Illustration: "RUNNING IN THE SHALLOW WATER TO COVER HIS SCENT"]

The buck set off in a straight line for the river, now perhaps a

half-mile distant. Reaching it, he turned down the shore, running in

the shallow water to cover his scent. It never occurred to him that

his enemy was trailing him by sight, not by scent; so he followed the

same tactics he would have employed had the pursuer been a wolf or a

dog. A hundred yards further on he rounded a sharp bend of the stream.

Here he took to deep water, swam swiftly to the opposite shore, and

vanished into the thick woods.

Two or three minutes later the man came out upon the river's edge. The

direction his quarry had taken was plainly visible by the splashes of

water on the rocks, and he smiled grimly at the precaution which the

animal had taken to cover his secret. But when he reached the point

where the buck had taken to deep water the smile faded. He stopped,

leaning on his gun and staring across the river, and a baffled look

came over his face. Realizing, after a few moments, that he was beaten

in this game, he drew out his charge of buckshot, reloaded his gun

with small duckshot, and hid himself in a waterside covert of young

willows, in the hope that a flock of mallard or teal might presently

come by.

THE WINDOW IN THE SHACK

THE attitude in which the plump baby hung limply over the woman's left

arm looked most uncomfortable. The baby, however, seemed highly

content. Both his sticky fists clutched firmly a generous "chunk" of

new maple-sugar, which he mumbled with his toothless gums, while his

big eyes, widening like an owl's, stared about through the dusk with a

placid intentness.

From the woman's left hand dangled an old tin lantern containing a

scrap of tallow candle, whose meagre gleam flickered hither and

thither apprehensively among the huge shadows of the darkening wood.

In her right hand the woman carried a large tin bucket, half filled

with fresh-run maple-sap. By the glimmer of the ineffectual candle,

she moved wearily from one great maple to another, emptying the

birch-bark cups that hung from the little wooden taps driven into the

trunks. The night air was raw with the chill of thawing snow, and

carried no sound but the soft tinkle of the sap as it dript swiftly

into the birchen cups. The faint, sweet smell of the sap seemed to

cling upon the darkness. The candle flared up for an instant,

revealing black, mysterious aisles among the ponderous tree-trunks,

then guttered down and almost went out, the darkness seeming to swoop

in upon its defeat. The woman examined it, found that it was all but

done, and glanced nervously over her shoulder. Then she made anxious

haste to empty and replace the last of the birchen cups before she

should be left in darkness to grope her way back to the cabin.

The sap was running freely that spring, and the promise of a great

sugar-harvest was not to be ignored. Dave Stone's house and farm lay

about three miles distant, across the valley of the "Tin Kittle," from

the maple-clad ridge of forest wherein he had his sugar-camp. The camp

consisted of a little cabin or "shack" of rough boards and an open

shed with a rude but spacious fireplace and chimney to accommodate the

great iron pot in which the sap was boiled down into sugar. While the

sap was running freely, the pot had to be kept boiling uniformly and

the thickening sap kept skimmed clean of the creaming scum; and

therefore, during the season, some one had to be always living in the

camp.

Dave Stone had built his camp at an opening in the woods, in such a

position that, from its own little window in the rear, he could look

out across the wide valley of the "Tin Kittle" to a rigid grove of

firs behind which, shielded from the nor'easters, lay his low frame

house, and red-doored barn, and wide, liberal sheds. The distance was

only about three miles, or less, from the house to the sugar-camp. But

Dave Stone was terribly proud of the prosperous little homestead which

he had carved for himself out of the unbroken wilderness on the upper

"Tin Kittle," and more than proud of the slim, gray-eyed wife and

three sturdy youngsters to whom that homestead gave happy shelter. On

the spring nights when he had to stay over at the camp, he liked to be

able to see the grove that hid his home.

It chanced one afternoon, just in the height of the sap-running, that

Dave Stone was called suddenly in to the settlement on a piece of

business that could not wait overnight. A note which he had endorsed

for a friend had been allowed to go to protest, and Dave was excited.

"Ther' ain't nothin' fer it, Mandy," said he, "but fer ye to take the

baby an' go right over to the camp fer the night, an' keep an eye on

this bilin'."

"But, father," protested his wife, in a doubtful voice, "how kin I

leave Lidy an' Joe here alone?"

"Oh, there ain't nothin' goin' to bother _them_, an' Lidy 'most ten

year old!" insisted Dave, who was in a hurry. "Don't fret, mother.

I'll be back long afore mornin'!"

As the children had no objection to being left, Mrs. Stone suffered

herself to be persuaded. In fact, she went to her new duty with a

certain zest, as a break in the monotony of her days. She had lent a

hand often enough at the sugar-making to be familiar with the task

awaiting her, and it was with an unwonted gaiety that she set out on

what appeared to her almost in the light of a little adventure.

But it was later than she had intended when she actually got away, the

baby crowing joyously on her arm, and the children calling gay

good-byes to her from the open door. Jake, the big brown retriever,

tried to follow her; and when she ordered him back to stay with the

children, he obeyed with a whimpering reluctance that came near

rebellion. As she descended the valley, her feet sinking in the snow

of the thawing trail, she wondered why the dog, which had always

preferred the children, should have grown so anxious to be with her.

When she reached the camp, she was already tired, but the pleasant

excitement was still upon her. When she had skimmed the big,

slow-bubbling pot of syrup, tested a ladleful of it in the snow,

poured in some fresh sap, and replenished the sluggish fire, dusk was

already stealing upon the forest. In her haste she did not notice that

the candle in the old lantern was almost burned out. Snatching up the

lantern, which it was not yet necessary to light, and the big tin

sap-bucket, and giving the baby, who had begun to fret, a lump of hard

sugar to keep him quiet on her arm, she hurried off to tend the

farthest trees before the darkness should close down upon the

silences.

* * * * *

When the last birch cup had been emptied into the bucket, the candle

flickered out; and for a moment or two the sudden blackness seemed to

flap in her face, daunting her. She stood perfectly still till her

eyes readjusted themselves. She was dead tired, the baby and the

brimming bucket were heavy, and the adventurous flavour had quite gone

out of her task.

In part because of her fatigue, she grew suddenly timorous. Her ears

began to listen with terrible intentness till they imagined stealthy

footsteps in the silken shrinkings of the damp snow. At last her eyes

mastered the gloom till she could make out the glimmering pathway, the

dim, black trunks shouldering up on either side of it, the clumps of

bushes obstructing it here and there. Trembling--clutching tightly at

the baby, the lantern, and the sap-bucket--she started back with

furtive but hurried footsteps, afraid to make any noise lest she

attract the notice of some mysterious powers of the wilderness.

As the woman went, her fears grew with her haste till only the

difficulties of the path, with the weight of her burdens, prevented

her from breaking into a run of panic. The baby, meanwhile, kept on

sucking his maple-sugar and staring into the novel darkness. The

woman's breath began to come too fast, her knees began to feel as if

they might turn to water at any moment. At last, when within perhaps

fifty paces of the shack, to her infinite relief she saw a dark, tall

figure take shape just over the top of a bush, at the turn of the

trail. She had room for but one thought. It was Dave, back earlier

than he had expected. She did not stop to wonder how or why. With a

little, breathless cry, she exclaimed: "Oh, Dave, I'm so glad! Take

the baby!" and reached forward to place the little one in his arms.

Even as she did so, however, something in the tall, dim shape rising

over the bush struck her as unfamiliar. And why didn't Dave speak? She

paused, she half drew back, while a chill fear made her cheeks

prickle; and as she slightly changed her position, the dark form grew

more definite. She saw the massive bulk of the shoulders. She caught a

glint of white teeth, of fierce, wild eyes.

With a screech of intolerable horror, she shrank back, clutching the

baby to her bosom, swung the brimming bucket of sap full into the

monster's face, and fled with the speed of a deer down another trail

toward the shack. She was at the door before her appalled brain

realized that the being to which she had tried to hand over the child

was a huge bear.

Bewildered and abashed for a few seconds by the deluge of liquid and

the clatter of the tin vessel in his face, the animal had not

instantly pursued. But he was just out of the den after his long

winter sleep and savage with hunger. Moreover, he had been allowed to

realize that the dreaded man-creature which he had met so unexpectedly

was afraid of him! He came crashing over the bushes, and was so close

at the woman's heels that she had barely time to slam the shack door

in his face.