MAZAMA THE MYSTERIOUS
Sometimes in the black of night, the cubs would be awakened by a weird,
unearthly screech, but peer as they might from the mouth of their den
into the shadowy woods they could never see what manner of creature it
could be. When they asked Mother Brown Bear, she said it would be better
for them to watch and find out for themselves. Mother Brown Bear wanted
them to learn to use their wits for they were going to need them, in
their life of hunting and being hunted.
Sometimes the cubs thought they saw two great round eyes gleaming at
them in the moonlight, high up in the branches of a tree. Weird voice
and gleaming eyes, that was their first impression of Mazama the
Mysterious, whose hunting call startled every mouse till its trembling
set the grasses waving and showed Mazama where it was hiding.
One night Mother Brown Bear decided to take Snookie and Chinook on a
mousing expedition. Now the mice which were her favorite game were the
stupid burrow mice who live in tunnels underground and often destroy
whole crops for the farmers. The forest floor is threaded with these
tunnels, whose entrances are hidden beneath stumps and fallen logs, or
come out beneath overhanging rocks; and the moment danger threatens,
into one of these tunnels they will pop, and run and run, away down
underneath the sod. But a bear’s sharp nose can smell a mouse even when
it is hiding underground, and if he cannot catch it in the open, he can
sometimes dig it out, though he has to be pretty spry, because while he
is digging at one point, the mouse may be running to some other branch
of his tunnel. That night Mother Brown Bear wasn’t so anxious to catch
mice herself as she was to teach the cubs. But though Snookie and
Chinook raced joyously after every red-backed burrow mouse they saw,
till they had chased them all into their secret tunnels, they caught not
one of the fleet-footed fellows.
By and by the great, round, yellow moon peeped into the pine woods.
Suddenly a weird, unearthly cry shivered through the air, and the cubs
shrank trembling against their mother. It was Mazama the Mysterious.
“Watch, now!” whispered Mother Brown Bear. “You’ll soon find out what
you’ve been afraid of.” Then across the opening between the tall tree
trunks swept a gray shape as soundlessly as a shadow. It was nothing but
a bird, a round-eyed barn-owl, though with a beak as sharp as a scimitar
and great curved claws like swords. A mouse came to the door of his
tunnel right beneath the huge gray bird, and feeling as if the great
eyes were upon him, made a dash for a better hiding place, but with one
swift dart the owl had set his beak in him and was winging his silent
way to the limb of a tree, where he held the mouse down with one talon
while he ate him alive, and at the despairing squeak of his victim,
every burrow mouse within earshot told himself: “Thank goodness, I’m not
in _his_ skin!” But because they had very little brains, they started
right out into the open again to hunt their suppers, and the next thing
they knew, Mazama had caught another of them. While the three bears
watched, he swooped again and again on his silent wings at the mice he
could see so plainly with his great round eyes. So this, thought
Chinook, was what had frightened him,—only a bird! There is nothing like
looking a terror straight in the face.
Just as Mother Brown Bear was ready to start for home, another
terrifying sound pierced the stillness, and it was startlingly near. The
sound came from behind them, and the breeze was in the wrong direction
to tell them what it was. It was the screeching, catlike voice that
betrayed its owner. “Is it Cougar?” trembled Snookie.
“No, come and I’ll show you who it is,” and Mother Brown Bear began
circling till they could approach the newcomer with the wind in their
faces, Chinook wriggled his nose inquiringly. “It’s a cat, even if it
isn’t Cougar,” he decided.
“Yes, it’s a cat, but no one we need be afraid of. It’s Paddy-paws, the
bobcat. He’s a great mouser. Better watch him: you can learn a lot from
the way he goes about it,” Mother Brown Bear told them softly.
“He might catch us too,” shivered Snookie, clutching at her mother with
both arms.
“Not now that you’ve grown as big as he is.”
“Is he a good fighter, Mother?” asked Chinook.
“He can put up one of the best fights of any animal of his size, if his
life or his kittens are in danger. But he never courts trouble, and he
will leave you alone if you leave him alone.”
“Huh!” sniffed Chinook. “I’ll bet he isn’t any better mouser than I’m
going to be.”
“Don’t boast,” said Mother Brown Bear. “It would be better to watch and
see how he does it.”
“Is he a better mouser than Mazama?”
“Watch and see,” was all Mother Brown Bear would tell them.
Once when the Ranger’s Boy had caught a glimpse of Paddy-paws crouched
along the limb of a tree, he had at first taken him for merely the
largest and handsomest tiger cat he had ever seen. “Pussy, pussy!” he
had called ingratiatingly, wondering how a house cat came to be in the
woods.
“_P-f-f-f!_” had hissed Paddy-paws, leaping away to another tree. Then
the Boy had seen how his tail was bobbed, and his ears pointed, and how
large his paws were, and how wildly his yellow eyes gleamed.
“You’re certainly not very friendly,” thought the Boy, “but I suppose
it’s because you’re afraid. You are trying to frighten me with all that
hissing.”
At first the cubs could only see that something moved stealthily, body
held close to the ground, through the shadows of the tree trunks. Then
as the big cat pounced on a mouse, they could see that he was a
handsome, tawny fellow with spots on his sides. Then Mazama gave another
screech.
The bobcat answered with an angry yowl. “Keep out of my hunting
grounds!” he yelled at Mazama, and began sniffing about till he
discovered a big mouse hole. Crouched there ready to pounce the minute
its tenant showed his face, his attention was distracted by another
mouse, who ran across the open, and with one leap he was upon it with a
pitiless barbed paw. But Mazama had also been after that mouse, and the
same instant Paddy caught it by the tail, the great owl snapped his beak
in the mouse’s neck.
“_Pht-t-t!_” warned Paddy-paws. “That’s my mouse. Let go!” and he
slapped with his free paw at the bird. Mazama gave a hoot of rage and
slashed at the bobcat with one foot as he raised his wings and sailed
away, bearing the bone of contention in his beak. The cat had a red
scratch down one ear. That punishing claw had come very near his face.
But he also clutched a handful of owl feathers.
“How much better,” pointed out Mother Brown Bear, “not to have scrapped
over one miserable mouse. Now they’re both hurt. And there are a million
mice left to catch.”
Paddy-paws ran away into the shadows, perhaps to massage, with moistened
paw, the stinging scratch on his ear.
“He’s feeling real scrappy tonight,” laughed Chinook. “But he sure is
‘some mouser.’”