uncertain, ghostly light lay upon the land, for the moon was at its
full, though hidden by the driving wrack. Directly in the mouth of
Devil’s Gorge, where it debouched upon the low-lying pastures of the
hill-farmers, a gaunt figure was standing. It was neither fox, nor
wild-cat, nor dog, for it was bigger than any of these. In the fantastic
shadows which the wild night cast the figure seemed monstrous, grisly.
Its eyes burned with a basilisk glare; its head was broad, with a long,
tapering muzzle; its shoulders were strong, and its lean legs stood
firmly upon the earth. Moment by moment the storm grew fiercer. It
rushed among the great trees on the knob-side, and tore the leaves
hissing from the tossing branches. A blinding flash of lightning
corkscrewed the gloom, followed by a terrible peal of thunder.
Immediately there was a crash from far up the slope. An oak tree had
fallen before the wind. The figure standing in the mouth of Devil’s
Gorge crouched as under a blow, turned its head and glared in the
direction of the sound, then glided out into the open with lowered
muzzle and drooping tail.
The gray wolf knew his mind and his business well. Depending largely on
guile for success in his hunting, yet there were times when wit and
fleetness were of no avail, and his great strength alone had won him
through. His ribbed sides bore many a scar, black and hairless, where a
dog’s tooth had furrowed its way through his hide. So, with added craft
on account of his many battles, he had come to skulk more, holding meat
won by stealth equally as good as that fought for, and realizing as he
grew older that in time he would be overcome. This was new territory he
was treading now; a virgin field wherein he hoped to find rich harvest.
Nor was disappointment in store for him.
Guided by that precious instinct which is the eternal heritage of all
the wood-kind, the spectre-like shape moved briskly across some gullied
foot-hills, climbing, slipping, leaping, and crept through a brush-fence
just as the lowering clouds opened, and the rain began to pour in
driving torrents. As the water beat upon his back and plastered the hair
to his lean sides, the old forager began to move faster and with less
desire for concealment, for well he knew that human beings would not
dare thrust their noses out on such a night. It was all his own, and he
could work his will unhampered. Through coarse clumps of wire-grass and
stray patches of clover he went, casting his sharp eyes neither to right
nor left, for he was fully aware that his gentle prey would never wander
around in an open field on such a night as this. Near a corner in the
farther end of the pasture rose a great black bulk; when the lightning
flashed the gray wolf could see it, and something white at its base
besides. It was a straw rick, the result of last year’s wheat harvest,
and it afforded some protection from the wrath of the elements. Towards
this the marauder went, relentlessly, steadily. Some two rods from it he
stopped, crouched, and waited. Presently a vivid glare lit up the
drenched landscape, and there, huddling in the lee of the rick, was a
flock of sheep, crowded together and shivering from the wet. Dense
darkness followed the lightning’s flash, and under its cover the robber
drew nearer, nearer, nearer. Now, through the gloom and the sheets of
rain he could make out the cowering forms—for they had already scented
danger, though powerless to resist it. Closer yet crept the shape of
death, his empty stomach dragging the ground so low had his body sunk.
The sheep pressed with short, jerky movements against their straw
shelter, wild-eyed, helpless. They felt the danger, but did not know how
to combat it. Then the climax came, as swiftly as a bolt from the sky. A
dim shape was projected through the night; there was a bleat choked
short off and a wild scurry of feet flying blindly from danger. One ewe
alone remained, prostrate upon the ground, while at her soft throat keen
fangs tore, and a curved red tongue lapped up the warm blood as it
flowed. The gray wolf was skilled in strategy. He knew that when a
sheep-dog turned traitor and began to harry the flocks, he never went
beyond the throats of his victims, and took only one a night. So the
killer lay and drank the rich life-current as it came; drank until even
his ravenous hunger was appeased. Then gnawing tentatively at the
draggled wound he had made, he arose and turned his besmeared visage
towards the dark line of knobs which was his hiding-place and his home.
A short time later, when the summer storm was dying away in the east and
the thunder was but a growling echo, a gaunt figure entered the mouth of
Devil’s Gorge and became engulfed in the black shadows which hung over
it.
Five hours later the sun came up into a sky of purest blue. With it
arose the hill-farmers, strong from their long night’s rest for the day
of toil. One there was who mounted his piebald saddle mare, with a
bucket balanced on his saddle-bow, and went to salt his sheep. At the
bars one was missing; an unusual thing. He called and called again, the
cry which had never failed to bring her before. But there was no answer.
Then the farmer urged his horse forward and began the search. Around the
field he went, and at last drew up at the straw rick. There lay the lost
one, dead. He dismounted and made an examination. Her throat was wofully
mangled and torn, but there was no other hurt upon her. “A sheep-dog’s
gone wrong!” was the man’s audible comment, as he arose and mounted his
horse again to summon his fellow-farmers.
They came to the scene of the slaughter, one and all, for sheep-raising
was their most paying industry, and sheep-murder was a crime to which
there was attached one penalty and one only—death. The ewe lay as the
killer had left her, limbs straight and stiffened, head back, and that
awful, damning wound in her white throat. One by one they came and
looked, those rugged, gnarled, horny-handed hill-men. One by one they
shook their heads. “A sheep-dog done it,” was the one remark; “an’ be he
mine, I’ll kill ’im myself!” Then arose the question, how to detect the
culprit? Each dog had followed his master and each was called up and
examined, but nothing was proven. Every mouth was clean and fresh; there
were no clots of wool nor blood-stained noses. And each man breathed a
sigh of relief when his favorite was exonerated, for “Love me, love my
dog” is never more exemplified than in the sheep-raising districts,
where, with almost human intelligence, the four-footed retainers care
for the flocks entrusted to their care. The meeting was preparing to
break up when some one discovered a track in the rain-soaked ground. It
was fully four inches across, and the claw to each toe was plainly
marked. It was useless to fit a dog’s foot to that colossal track. Some
strange animal had assaulted the flock, and there was not a heart but
beat easier when they found this out. For a farmer to kill his dog
required a sacrifice almost as great as that which Abraham made when he
prepared to offer up Isaac.
So, amid wild conjectures and impossible theories, the farmers
dispersed. That very night another flock was visited and one taken from
it. The raider left no clue. He came, slew one sheep and drained its
blood, then went his way and the darkness hid him. The farmers met again
and held council. It must be a dog, they said, for it killed like a dog.
Anything else would do away with half a dozen sheep, or more. But the
meeting resulted in nothing, because there was nothing to do except keep
a sharp lookout. The next night the same thing happened, and the next,
and the next, and so on for a week. Always a different flock, but always
one sheep was claimed, one only. Then it was the farmers took to sitting
up of nights and gathering their flocks under shelter. This invisible
scourge bade fair to devastate their folds, and strenuous action must
needs be taken. That first night of watching one went to sleep at his
post along towards morning, and when the call of a neighboring cock
awakened him at sunrise, it was to find one of his yearlings dead not
ten feet from him. The destroyer had crept in while he slept and laughed
at the loaded gun across his knees, while proceeding to feast on the
choicest of his flock. Then alarm changed to terror. What was this
dreadful thing which came at night and which left no trace behind? No
one could answer, and the deeper the mystery grew, the more the farmers
quaked and wondered.
But later, upon a night when the moon was waning, another had seen a
huge gray object gliding towards the lot in which his sheep were
corralled. Then haste got the better of judgment, and the man fired
before the marauder got within good range. The result was only a handful
of coarse drab hair found upon the ground the next morning. Then hounds
were brought and put upon the trail. They followed it, mouthing, to the
entrance of Devil’s Gorge, and there lost the scent on the boulders and
the pebbly soil. But this gave a clue to the men. Their enemy dwelt
somewhere within the gloomy recesses of that mighty cleft in the hills.
So thither they came, night by night, and watched the entrance of that
dismal place. But when they returned, unsuccessful, to their homes in
the morning, it was to discover that one of their unguarded flocks had
been entered, and a member of it lifeless. So dismay seized them, for it
seemed that they were helpless before the subtlety of this mysterious
assassin. Their nicest plans were frustrated, and their schemes brought
to naught.
Then traps were laid, cunning devices of wood, and pitfalls, screened
with leaves and dry limbs. Sometimes these were found sprung, sometimes
unmolested, but sprung or set, they never claimed a prey. Whatever it
was that worried their sheep seemed proof against all their wiles. Still
the nightly visits continued, and dead mutton lay everywhere, and the
buzzards darkened the sky in their circling flight. It was as though a
plague had come upon the land. Driven to desperation, the farmers took
their guns and fell to patrolling the dark ravines, especially Devil’s
Gorge, whither it was surely known the destroyer had at one time gone.
They found nothing, though day by day they went in numbers and scoured
the defiles of the knobs. That for which they sought remained in hiding,
and came forth only when the generous mantle of night covered his
movements.
Among the many who had suffered from the nocturnal prowler’s
depredations was one of sterner mould than his fellows. A tall,
bony-faced, austere man, who talked little and thought much. And his
thinking led him to this. When, in the ceaseless round of slaying, three
of his sheep had been taken, he mounted his horse one day without a word
to any one, and rode into town. When he came back after nightfall, he
brought with him a huge steel trap, big enough to hold a bear. The next
morning he arose while the stars were yet shining, whistled his dog, and
started on foot to Devil’s Gorge, taking the trap with him. The dog went
in advance and after him the man, struggling through the damp hollow
with his heavy burden over his shoulder. Day dawned on the peaks above
them, and filtered faintly down into the depths through which they
toiled. Suddenly the dog came rushing back to his master, his bushy tail
between his legs and his whole body a-quiver from fright. The man
quickened his pace and pushed forward grimly, drawing a large revolver
from his pocket at the same time. Rounding a bend in the gorge, he came
upon that which had sent the shepherd dog cowering back. Perched upon a
large boulder was a monstrous wolf, gray and grim in the half light.
Raising his arm the man fired, but the wolf leaped just before the flash
and ran in the other direction. The man followed as quickly as he could,
and presently saw the big form disappear in a hole up the sloping side
of the cliff. The entrance of this den was worn as by the constant
passing of feet, and the man felt that he had found the home of his
enemy. So he set his trap, right under the lip of the crevice, cunningly
hiding it with dead leaves and the rubbish of the woods, and securing
the strong chain to the trunk of a dwarfed black oak. The first step the
monster took on his next raid would make him a prisoner; the steel gyves
would hold him fast until his foes came and killed him.
In the dead of night, when the moon had climbed the towering peak of
Bald Knob, and the hill-farmers below kept silent watch for the coming
of the raider, a face appeared in the cleft on the side of Devil’s
Gorge. There was the craft of a lifetime in the burning eyes as they
suspiciously swept the ground immediately in front of his den. There was
nothing to awaken distrust except the tumbled condition of the earth,
but the old wolf hesitated. Then hunger, the one law which the wood-folk
know not how to disobey, drove him out. He rested one foot gingerly upon
a bed of leaves, leant a little more weight to it as he prepared to draw
the other one forward, and just then two bands of steel arose up out of
the ground and gripped him nearly to the knee. With a deep howl of wrath
and terror the old warrior fought for his freedom. Around and around he
tore, gnashing with impotent teeth at that awful thing which held him
like a vise. For the space of an hour he wrenched and struggled, then
suddenly realizing the futility of his efforts, he crouched upon his
belly to rest. It was near morning when he accepted the last resort, and
began the heroic task of freeing himself.
Before sunup, the man who had set the trap came with exultation on his
face, confident of victory. He found the trampled ground, the sprung
trap, and fastened in it the fore foot of a large wolf with part of the
leg, which had been gnawed in two just below the knee. The spoiler of
the folds had baffled them to the end, but the flocks were never more
disturbed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FIGHT ON THE TREE-BRIDGE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FIGHT ON THE TREE-BRIDGE
THE forest lay black in the close embrace of the odorous young night.
Soft, balsamic waves of air rose strata above strata, stealing between
roughly corrugated boles and smooth trunks, and the satin-soft stems of
the young saplings who had yet to win their spurs as knights of the wood
against the mighty winds; permeating every dell and dingle, every copse
and tangled covert. The nostrils which these air-waves touched tingled
with delight, and the lungs which were bathed and invigorated by this
life-giving essence from nature’s laboratory expanded with a conscious
strength, and sent the red blood bounding from them on its ceaseless
errand. The season was early summer. Beneath the interlacing boughs it
was black—black as the night of Egypt’s curse. A solid bank of gloom
which bore no outline and no shape. So might it have been just before
God uttered his first command to things terrestrial. Here and there a
tree arose above its army of fellows, and the delicate tracery of
spreading branch, and even of tapering leaf, was etched upon the
vastness overhead. In the sky the faithful stars were burning. Not the
smallest speck of cloud veiled their earnest faces, and the mellow
radiance which their united power shed fell like a blessing upon the
glad earth. But the forest baffled the star rays—those gentle messengers
which came so timidly upon their missions of light. The leaves at the
tops of the trees gleamed glossy and green, but they were a numberless
multitude of shields to the solitude below.
The forest went off to the gullied hills in one direction; in another it
sloped sharply down a bluff to the river, with an accompaniment of
running briers and rotting, lichen-covered stumps and an occasional
fallen warrior of the wood which some storm had overcome. The river was
not wide—a half-grown rabbit might have swum it with ease had the water
been stagnant—but here it ran swift and deep between its high,
rock-bound banks. It flowed silently, though, except for a low purling
where a drift had formed and a sucking gurgle where a ledge let down the
bed.
This river was a source of much worry and concern to the wood-people.
All of them could swim, some well and some very badly, but more than one
family circle had been bereft by reason of the treacherous stream, for
in addition to the velocity with which it wound its way through the
wood, shifting whirlpools lurked within it, against which the strongest
swimmer’s power was as naught. There was a second forest across the
river, not as large as the first, it is true, but still wide enough to
shelter many a tiny dweller, as well as give him food. So when friend
wanted to visit friend, or cousin to call upon cousin, there was this
black, whispering barrier stretching between, mocking them with its
insinuating murmurs, and seeking to lure them to its faithless and fatal
bosom with low cooings and shining, siren arms. And on certain moonlit
nights in spring there had been those who heard the mating call wafted
through the stillness. Coming in answer, they had suddenly found
themselves standing on the brink of that taunting river, while from the
other shore the cry would come again, tender and appealing. Then hot
blood and the madness of the season would have their way, and the young
buck, belong to what family he may, would put discretion behind him and
glide out into the stream with the echo of his mistress’ call as a
beacon and a guide. On rare occasions one would make the passage safely.
More often, as he battled with the current, snaky fingers would shoot up
from beneath and grip him, whirl him around and around in maddening
circles, and finally drag him down with a hiss of victory, and his
lifeless carcass might have been seen afloat the next day, miles away.
All this was before the great storm. After that had come and gone things
were different with the forest-people.
It was at the close of a day in mid-summer. For weeks there had been no
rain. Day after day the sun had come up, had scorched and burned and
seared, and had gone down. The leaves curled upon the trees; the grass
blades became brittle; the rabbit runs were so hot at midday that they
hurt the pads of the cottontails, and they lay panting in their burrows,
waiting for night. Then it was that the wood-people blessed the river,
for there was no water anywhere else. The river sank foot by foot,
leaving cracked, baked stretches of yellow clay as it receded. Still it
ran doggedly, and breathed defiance. It would take more than one dry
summer to rob it of its terror and strength. At last there came a day
which was born with portents of some awful thing to come. The sun rose
hazy, like a ball of blood. The air, which had been hot, became
stifling. It pressed on the chest and burned in the throat. The
chipmunks and the squirrels sought their nests wildly; the birds went
deeper into the forest. By noon all of the little people who had a home
were in it. But so far nothing had happened. Mid-afternoon a growl of
wrath came from the west, and a long, leaden band pushed its edge over
the horizon. A terrible silence hung over the forest; the unnatural calm
which precedes some great calamity. Then a chill breath stirred the
upper leaves, followed by gusts of wind almost icy. Night came long
before its time, and the sky which for weeks had been a shining surface
of blinding light became a seething, tossing caldron of billowy clouds
and murky vapors, and threading through all the tumbled mass was a vivid
network of flame. The chariots of the storm came thundering down the
slopes of the sky, and the forest shivered, and bent, and tossed its
thousands of arms in agony. Thick limbs were rent from writhing,
groaning bodies, and cast furiously down. Some veteran giants, weakened
by the natural decay of years, mingled their death-cry with the hoarse
bellow of the destroying wind and fell crashing and quivering to the
earth. Then came rain, and a cessation of the demoniac fury.
It was a night which the wood-dwellers never forgot. Birds were killed
by the dozens, and the lives of many of the four-footed kind were given
up as well. The secret trails were obliterated and blocked, and the
runways of the weasel and the rabbit became a trackless wilderness.
Long before the sun arose the next morning, an old raccoon cautiously
poked his black nose out of a hole in a maple tree, near the first fork.
This raccoon was the oldest and the wiliest of the wood-folk that lived
in the forest. An old boar coon was he, and many years had passed over
his wise little head. Once before, in his youth, such a storm as this
had swept over the forest. His mother had him out teaching him how to
stalk ground sparrows, and the storm came so suddenly that they had no
time to reach home, so had taken shelter under a shelving rock on the
bluff by the river. He had weathered that storm successfully, and in
later years had paid scant heed to nature’s bursts of anger. A raccoon,
of all things, was surely smart enough to keep out of the way of a
falling limb. The whiskers about the muzzle of the old coon were gray;
his eyes were black and beady, and some wonderment was expressed in them
as he rolled them around on the once familiar scene. He had not slept
the night before, for his house had shook and creaked its warnings hour
after hour, and the hungry voice of the wind had howled down at him from
the hole above his head. Everything was changed outside. A neighbor tree
lay prostrate at the foot of his own; a broken limb sagged at the side
of his door, and everywhere was disorder and destruction. A trifle dazed
by it all in spite of his superior wisdom, the old fellow slid back into
his den and fell to crunching the bones of a chicken he had captured two
nights before.
Though the storm had hopelessly tangled the secret ways which had been
nosed out and trodden with so much care, and had been the death of many
of their kind, yet it had brought its blessing, too, in that it had
conquered for the people of the wild their enemy, the river. It was in
this way.
At a certain point on the southern bank of the river an old elm tree
grew, quite near the edge of the water. The bank had crumbled and the
tree had leaned, until at length its top hung almost over the center of
the stream. Nothing but its great roots twined about hidden rocks kept
it from falling. Directly across from the elm, close to the shore on the
other bank, an ancient sycamore had stood, leaning very slightly towards
the river. Now when the storm came down from the north the sycamore’s
roots gave way and it swayed and fell, its top, by some strange freak,
lodging in the fork of the elm, and the force of its fall wedged it in
firmly and snugly. And behold! here was a bridge for the feet of the
wood-folk, and they could pass high and dry and laugh down at their
baffled foe.
There was but one passageway for the many members of the many tribes,
and naturally trouble arose sometimes, and there were nights when the
river smiled placidly and opened its arms and waited. Sometimes one
victim came; sometimes two, for the bridge became the scene of many a
midnight tragedy and moonlighted fray, and in the end it was the river
which was the victor, after all. It did not have to seek its prey. It
simply waited, and took its tribute very much as of old, though in a
different manner.
So the years went by. Mates were chosen; families were born; battles
were fought. The strong devoured the weak, much as the human folks do in
another way. The old raccoon still lived in his maple. Though others of
his kind often harbored by threes, fours, or even sixes in a single
tree, this aristocrat was not sociable, and preferred a hermit existence
except once a year, when the sap of spring renewed his youth and sent
him a-courting. Then a sleek, mild-eyed little mate would come and keep
house for him until the children were old enough to hear a dog running
half a mile away. Then quite abruptly, upon the return of mother and
offspring some day, they would be met by a white-fanged visage and
ordered to go elsewhere for a bed.