The deep, slow-gathering snows of mid-February had buried away every
stump in the pasture lot and muffled from sight all the zigzag fences
of the little lonely clearing. The Settlement road was simply smoothed
out of existence. The log cabin, with its low roof and one chimney,
seemed half sunken in the snow which piled itself over the lower panes
of its three tiny windows.
The log barn, and the lean-to, which served as wood-shed and
wagon-house, showed little more than the black edges of their
snow-covered roofs over the glittering and gently billowing white
expanse.
In the middle of the yard the little well-house, shaped like the top
of a "grandfather's clock," carried a thick, white, crusted cap, and
was encircled with a streaky, irregular mass of ice, which had
gradually accumulated almost up to the brim of the watering-trough.
From the cabin door to the door of the barn, and over most of the yard
space, but particularly in front of the sunward-facing lean-to, the
snow was trodden down and littered with chips and straw.
Here in the mocking sunshine huddled four white sheep, while half a
dozen hens and a red Shanghai cock scratched in the litter beside
them. The low door of the barn was tightly closed to protect the cow
and horse from the bitter cold--which the sheep, with their great
fleeces, did not seem to mind.
Inside the cabin, where an old-fashioned, high-ovened kitchen stove,
heated to the point where a dull red glow began to show itself in
spots, kept the close air at summer temperature, a slim girl with
fluffy, light hair and pale complexion stood by the table, vigorously
mixing a batter of buckwheat flour for pancakes. Her slender young
arms were streaked with flour, as was her forehead also, from her
frequent efforts to brush her hair out of her eyes by quick upward
dashes of her forearm.
On the other side of the stove, so close to it that her rugged face
was reddened by the heat, sat a massive old woman in a heavy
rocking-chair, knitting. She knitted impetuously, impatiently, as if
resenting the employment of her vigorous old fingers upon so mild a
task.
Through a clear space in one pane of the window beside her--a space
where the heat within had triumphed over the frost without--she cast
restless, keen eyes out across the yard to the place where the road,
the one link between the cabin and the settlement, lay smothered from
sight.
"It's one week to-day, Melindy," she announced in a voice of accusing
indignation, "since there's been a team got through; and it's going to
be another before they'll get the road broke out!"
"Like as not, Granny," responded the girl, beating the batter with an
impatience that belied the cheerfulness of her tone. "But what does it
matter, anyway? We're all right here for a month!"
As she spoke, however, her eyes, too, gazed out wistfully over the
buried road. She was wearying for the sound of bells and for a drive
into the Settlement.
Meanwhile, from the edge of the woods on the other side of the cabin,
hidden from the keen eyes within by the roofs of the barn and the
shed, came two great, grey, catlike beasts, creeping belly to the
snow.
Their broad, soft-padded paws were like snow shoes, bearing them up on
the wind-packed surface. Their tufted ears stood straight up, alert
for any unwonted sound. Their absurd stub tails, not four inches long,
and looking as if they had been bitten off, twitched with eagerness.
Their big round eyes, of a pale greenish yellow, and with the pupils
narrowed to upright, threadlike black slits by the blinding glare,
glanced warily from side to side with every step they took.
The lynxes had the keenest dislike to crossing the open pasture in
this broad daylight, but they had been driven by hunger to the point
where the customs and cautions of their wary kind are recklessly
thrown aside. Hunger had driven the pair to hunt together, in the hope
of together pulling down game too powerful for one to master alone.
Hunger had overcome their savage aversion to the neighbourhood of man,
and brought them out in the dark of night to prowl about the barn and
sniff longingly the warm smell of the sheep, steaming through the
cracks of the clumsy door.
Watching from under the snow-draped branches, they had observed that
only in the daytime were the sheep let out from their safe shelter
behind the clumsy door. And now, forgetting everything but the fierce
pangs that urged them, the two savage beasts came straight down the
rolling slope of the pasture towards the barn.
A few minutes later there came from the yard a wild screeching and
cackling of the hens, followed by a trampling rush and agonized
bleating. The old woman half rose from her chair, but sank back
instantly, her face creased with a spasm of pain, for she was crippled
by rheumatism. The girl dropped her big wooden spoon on the floor and
rushed to the window that looked out upon the yard. Her pale face went
paler with horror, then flushed with wrath and pity; and a fierce
light flashed into her wide blue eyes.
"It's lynxes!" she cried, snatching up the wooden spoon and darting
for the door. "And they've got one of the sheep! Oh, oh, they're
tearing it!"
"Melindy!" shouted the old woman, in a voice of strident command--such
a compelling voice that the girl stopped short in spite of herself.
"Drop that fool spoon and get the gun!"
The girl dropped the spoon as if it had burned her fingers, and looked
irresolutely at the big duck-gun hanging on the log wall. "I can't
fire it!" she exclaimed, shaking her head. "I'd be scared to death of
it!"
But even as the words left her mouth, there came another outburst of
trampling and frantic clamour from the yard. She snatched up the
little, long-handled axe which leaned beside the door-post, threw the
door wide open, and with a pitying cry of "Oh! oh!" flew forth to the
rescue of her beloved sheep.
"Did you ever see the like of that?" muttered the old woman, her harsh
face working with excitement and high approbation. "Scairt to death of
a gun--and goes out to fight lynxes all by herself!"
And with painful effort she began hitching herself and the big chair
across the floor, seeking a position where she could both reach the
gun and command a view through the wide-open door.
When Melindy, her heart aflame with pity for the helpless ewes, rushed
out into the yard, she saw one woolly victim down, kicking silently on
the bloodstained snow, while a big lynx, crouched upon its body,
turned upon her a pair of pale eyes that blazed with fury at the
interruption to his feast.
The other sheep were foundered helplessly in the deep snow back of the
well--except one. This one, which had evidently been headed off from
the flock, and driven round to the near side of the watering-trough
before its savage enemy overtook it, was not half a dozen paces from
the cabin door. It was just stumbling forward upon its nose, with a
despairing _baa-a-a!_ while the second and larger lynx, clinging upon
its back, clutched hungrily for its throat through the thick,
protecting wool.
On ordinary occasions the girl was as timid as her small, pale face
and gentle blue eyes made her look. At this crisis, however, a sort of
fury of compassion swept all fear from her heart.
Like the swoop of some strange bird, her skirts streaming behind her,
she flung herself upon the great cat, and aimed a lightning blow at
his head with her axe. In her frail grip the axe turned, so that the
brute caught the flat of it instead of the edge.
Half-stunned, he lost his hold and fell with a startled _pfiff_ on the
snow, while his victim, bleeding, but not mortally hurt, ran bleating
towards the rest of the flock, where they floundered, stupidly
helpless, in three feet of soft snow.
The next moment the baffled lynx recovered himself, and faced the girl
with so menacing a snarl that she hesitated to follow up her
advantage, but paused, holding the axe in readiness to repel attack.
For a few seconds they faced each other so, the girl and the beast.
Then the pale, beast eyes shifted under the steady, dominating gaze of
the blue human ones; and at last, with a spitting growl, which ended
in a hoarse screech of rage, the big cat bounded aside and whisked
behind the well-house. The next moment it was again among the sheep,
where they huddled incapable of a struggle.
Again the girl sprang to the rescue; and now, because of that one
flash of fear which had deprived her of her first advantage, her
avenging wrath was fiercer and more resolute than before. This time,
as she darted upon the enemy, she gave an involuntary cry of rage,
piercing and unnatural. At this unexpected sound the lynx, desperate
though he was with rage and hunger, lost his courage.
Seeing the girl towering almost over him, he doubled back with a
mighty leap, just avoiding the vengeful sweep of the axe, and darted
back to the front of the shed, where his mate was now ravenously
feasting on her easy prey.
Although the first victim was now past all suffering, being no more a
motive for heroism than so much mutton, the girl's blood was too hot
with triumphant indignation to let her think of such an unimportant
point as that. She was victor. She had outfaced and routed the foe.
She had saved one victim. She would avenge the other.
With the high audacity of those who have overcome fear, she now, with
a hysterical cry of menace, ran at the two lynxes, to drive them from
their prey.
The situation which she now confronted, however, was altogether
changed from what had gone before. The two lynxes were together,
strong in that alliance which they had formed for purpose of battle.
They were fairly mad with famine--or, indeed, they would never have
ventured on the perilous domains of man.
Moreover, they were in possession of what they held to be their lawful
prey--a position in defence of which all the hunting tribes of the
wild will fight against almost any odds. As they saw their strange
adversary approaching, the hair stood straight up along their backs,
their little tails puffed to bottle brushes, their ears lay flat back
on their heads, and they screeched defiance in harsh unison. Then, as
if by one impulse, they turned from their prey and crept stealthily
towards her.
They did not like that steady light in her blue eyes, but they felt by
some instinct that she was young and unstable of nerve. At this
unexpected move on their part the girl stopped short, suddenly
undecided whether to fight or flee.
At once the lynxes stopped also, and crouched flat, tensely watching,
their claws dug deep into the hard-trodden snow so as to give them
purchase for an instant, powerful spring in any direction.
In the meantime, however, the crippled old woman within doors had
not been idle. Great of spirit, and still mighty of sinew for all her
ailment, she had managed to work the weight of the heavy chair and her
own solid bulk all the way across the cabin floor. Being straight
in front of the door, she had seen almost all that happened; and her
brave old berserk heart was bursting with pride in the courage of
this frail child, whom she had hitherto regarded with a kind of
affectionate scorn.
The Griffises of Nackawick and Little River had always been sizable
men, men of sinew and bulk, and women tall and ruddy; and this small,
blue-eyed girl had seemed to her, in a way, to wrong the stock. But
she was quick to understand that the stature of the spirit is what
counts most of all.
Now, in this moment of breathless suspense, when she saw Melindy and
the two great beasts thus holding each other eye to eye in a life and
death struggle of wills, her heart was convulsed with a wild fear. In
the spasm of it she succeeded in lifting herself almost erect, and so
gained possession of the big duck-gun, which her son Jake, now away in
the lumber woods, always kept loaded and ready for use. As she cocked
it and settled back into her chair, she called in a piercing voice--
"Don't stir one step, Melindy! I'm going to shoot!"
The girl never stirred a muscle, although she turned pale with terror
of the loud noise which was about to shock her ears. The two lynxes,
however, turned their heads, and fixed the pale glare of their eyes
upon the figure seated in the doorway.
The next moment came a spurt of red flame, a belch of smoke, a
tremendous report that seemed as if it must have shattered every pane
of glass in the cabin windows. The bigger of the two lynxes turned
straight over backward and lay without a quiver, smashed by the heavy
charge of buckshot with which Jake had loaded the gun. The other,
grazed by a scattering pellet, sprang into the air with a screech,
then turned and ran for her life across the snow, stretching out like
a terrified cat.
With a proud smile the old woman stood the smoking gun against the
wall and straightened her cap. For perhaps half a minute Melindy stood
rigid, staring at the dead lynx. Then, dropping her axe, she fled to
the cabin, flung herself down with her face in her grandmother's lap,
and broke into a storm of sobs.
The old woman gazed down upon her with some surprise, and stroked the
fair, fluffy head lovingly as she murmured: "There, there! There's
nothing to take on about! Though you be such a little mite of a
towhead, you've got the grit, you've got the grit, Melindy Griffis.
It's proud of you I am, and it's proud your father'll be when I tell
him about it."
Then, as the girl's weeping continued, and her slender shoulders
continued to twist with her sobs, the rugged old face that bent above
her grew tenderly solicitous.
"There, there!" she murmured again. "'Tain't good for you to take on
so, deary. Hadn't you better finish beating up the pancakes before the
batter spiles?"
Thus potently adjured, although she knew as well as her grandmother
that there was no immediate danger of the batter spoiling, the girl
got up, dashed the back of her hand across her eyes with a little
laugh, closed the door, got out another spoon from the table drawer,
and cheerfully resumed her interrupted task of mixing pancakes. And
the sheep, having slowly extricated themselves from the deep snow
behind the well-house, huddled together, with heads down, in the
middle of the yard, fearfully eyeing the limp body which lay before
the shed.