Quah-Davic panther. He and his mother were lying in the sun by the
meadow's edge, comfortably chewing the cud, when the long, tawny
beast, following their trail with more curiosity than hunger, came
upon them suddenly, and stopped short about twenty paces distant. The
little red cow, recognizing the most dangerous of all her possible
enemies, had sprung to her feet with a bellow and lowered her defiant
horns. Thereupon, the panther had slunk off with a whipped look and a
drooping tail; and the little black bull conceived a poor opinion of
panthers. But it was the sudden _tonk-tonking_ of the bell, not the
challenge of his redoubtable mother, that had put the fierce-eyed
prowler to flight.
It was much the same with the bears, who were numerous about the
Quah-Davic. They regarded the noisy bell with hatred and invincible
suspicion. But for that, they would probably have put the red cow's
horns to the test, and in all likelihood the career of the lonely
alien would have come to an end ere the snow fell. As it was, however,
the black bull-calf never saw a bear in any attitude save that of
sulkily slinking away from his mother's neighbourhood; and therefore,
in that first summer of his life, he conceived a very dangerous
contempt for bears. As for the lynxes,--those soundless-footed, gray
shadows of the wild,--neither he nor his mother ever saw them, so
fearful were they of the voice of the bell. But their screeches and
harsh caterwaulings often filled his heart with wonder. Fear he had as
yet had no occasion to learn; and therefore he had little real part in
the ever-watchful life of the wilderness.
The next winter was a hard one for all the beasts of the Quah-Davic;
and, ere it went by, the lair under the hemlocks was surrounded by
many lynx tracks. But to neither red cow nor black calf did tracks
carry much significance, and they had no thought for the perils that
begirt them. Once, indeed, even the two panthers came, and turned upon
them pale, bright, evil eyes. But they did not come very near. The cow
shook her horns at them defiantly; and the calf shook his broadening,
curly forehead at them; and wild were the clamours of the vigilant
bell. The hearts of the hunting beasts turned to water at these
incomprehensible voices. In their chagrin they shifted their range
farther east; and for several years they came no more to the
water-meadows of the Quah-Davic.
Late in the following summer, when the fireweed was beginning to
crimson the open spaces on the hillside, fate came to the
water-meadows in a form which the bell was powerless to avert. An
Indian, paddling down the Quah-Davic to the sea, caught sight of the
red cow drinking by the waterside. He knew there was no settlement
within leagues. He knew the cow was a stray, and therefore no man's
property. He knew he wanted fresh meat, to say nothing of cowhide for
moccasins and thongs. Up went his big smooth-bore muzzle-loader. There
was a deafening, clattering report, unlike the smart detonation of a
rifle. The little red cow fell on her knees, with a cough and a wild
clamour of the bell, then rolled over in the shallow, shimmering
water. With a whoop of exultation, the Indian thrust ashore; and, as
he did so, the black yearling, taught terror at last by the report and
by the human voice, broke from his covert in a willow thicket and
dashed wildly into the woods.
When he came back, hours later, the Indian had vanished, and, with
that strident bellow of his, from which the calf-bleat was not yet
quite gone, he trotted down the bank to look for his mother. But the
smell of fresh blood, and the red spectacle which he saw on the
pebbles of the river-beach, struck a new and madder terror into his
heart. With stiffly uplifted tail and staring eyes, he dashed away
again into the woods.
From that day he never again went near that particular meadow;
neither, though for days he called to her in his loneliness, did he
search any more for the mother who had so suddenly disappeared out of
his life. Standing on the edge of a bluff, in the fading sunset, he
would thrust his head and neck out straight and bellow his sonorous
appeal. Then he would stop and listen long for an answer. And as he
called, evening after evening in vain, a deeper, surer tone came into
his voice, a more self-reliant, masterful look into the lonely but
fearless eyes with which he surveyed the solitude.
Again came autumn to the Quah-Davic, with the pale blue smoke of
asters along the meadow-ledges, the pale gold glimmer of birches on
the slopes, and the wax-vermilion bunches of the rowan-berries
reflected in each brown pool. By this time the black bull was of the
stature of a well-grown two-year-old, massive in the shoulder, lean
and fine in limb and flank, with a cushion of dense, close, inky curls
between his horns. The horns themselves--very short, thick,
keen-pointed spikes of horns--were not set forward, but stood out
absolutely straight on either side of his broad black head. Young
though he was, he was an ominous figure to all the furtive eyes that
watched him, as he stood and bellowed from his bluff in the fading
sunset.
[Illustration: "BUT THEY DID NOT COME VERY NEAR."]
About this time it was that the young bull began to find the solitude
more populous. Since the voice of the bronze bell was hushed, the wild
creatures were no longer held aloof. Hitherto the red squirrels and
the indifferent, arrogant porcupines were the only animals he had
noticed. But now he saw an occasional slim and snaky mink at its
fishing; or a red fox stealing down upon the duck asleep in the lily
patch; or a weasel craftily trailing one of the brown hares which
had of a sudden grown so numerous. All these strange little beasts
excited his curiosity. At first he would sniff, and snort, and
approach to investigate, which would lead, of course, to an immediate
and discouraging disappearance. Only the fox was too haughty to
disappear. He would maintain a judicious distance, but otherwise
seemed to regard the inquisitive bull with utter unconcern. This
unconcern, together with the musky smell of the bush-tailed red
stranger, at last so aggravated the bull that he charged furiously
again and again. But the fox eluded him with mocking ease, till the
bull at last sulkily ignored him.
The bull's next important acquaintance was the lynx. He was lying
under a scarlet maple, chewing his cud, and lazily watching a rabbit
scratching its ears some dozen paces distant. Suddenly a soundless
gray shadow shot from a thicket and dropped upon the rabbit. There was
a squeak, a feeble scuffle; and then a big lynx, setting the claws of
one paw into the prey, turned with a snarl and eyed venomously the
still, dark form under the maple. This seemed like a challenge. With a
mixture of curiosity and indignation, the young bull got up, grunted,
pawed the earth once or twice by way of ceremony, and emerged to the
encounter. But the lynx had no stomach to meet the charge of that
sturdy front. He snatched up the rabbit in his jaws and bounded away
into the underbrush.
A few days later, as the bull again lay under the scarlet maple and
looked out contemplatively over his yellow autumn world, a large bear
lumbered past, taking his own well-beaten trail to the waterside. The
bull lurched to his feet, and stood on guard, for this was a
formidable-looking stranger. But the bear, fed fat with autumn
berries, was at peace with all the world. He gave the black bull a
shrewd glance out of his little cunning eyes, and paid no further
attention; and the bull, seeing no incentive to a quarrel, snorted
doubtfully and lay down again. After this he saw several more bears,
but, being well fed and lazy, they made no effort to molest him. Then,
one unfortunate day, as he came up dripping from his favourite pool,
he met one face to face.
The bear was surprised, and halted. He half-settled back upon his
haunches, as if to turn aside and yield the path. Then he thought
better of it and held his ground, being at the moment good-natured
enough, but careful of his dignity, as a bear is apt to be. The young
bull, however, was enraged at this obstinate intrusion upon his trail.
He was unlucky enough to remember how often he had seen bears slink
off to avoid his mother's charge. With an angry bellow, he lifted his
tail, lowered his head, and launched himself upon the intruder.
The bear, poising himself upon three legs, gracefully and lightly
avoided the attack, and at the same instant delivered a terrific
buffet upon the young bull's neck. The blow struck low, where the
muscles were corded and massive, or the neck would have been broken.
As it was, the bull went staggering to his knees at one side of the
trail, the blood spurting from his wounds. In that moment he realized
that he was not yet a match for a full-grown bear. Smarting with pain
and wrath, he rushed on up the trail, and hid himself in the old lair
under the hemlock. When again, some days later, he met another bear,
he made haste to yield the right of way.
In the wild, as in the world, to be once beaten is to invite the fist
of fate. While the young bull's wounds were still red and raw, there
came a big-antlered, high-shouldered bull-moose to the bluff
overlooking the Quah-Davic. The moose was surprised at sight of the
short-legged, black animal on the bluff. But it was rutting season,
and his surprise soon gave way to indignation. The black bull, whose
careless eyes had not yet noticed the visitor, began to bellow as was
his evening wont. The moose responded with a hoarse, bleating roar,
thrashed the bushes defiantly with his antlers, and shambled up to the
attack. The bull, astonished and outraged, stood his ground boldly,
and at the first charge got in a daunting blow between the enemy's
antlers. But he was not yet strong enough or heavy enough to hold so
tough an antagonist, and, after a very few minutes of fierce grunting
and pushing, he was thrust clear over the bank and sent rolling down
into the river. All next day he sulked, but when night came he
returned to the bluff, his eyes red with rage. He found the moose
before him, but not alone. A tall, dingy-coloured, antlerless cow was
there, fondling her mate's neck and ears with her long, flexible
muzzle. This sight gave the young bull a new and uncomprehended fury,
under the impulse of which he would have attacked an elephant. But the
moose, thus interrupted in his wooing, was far more dangerous than he
had been the night before. Like a whirlwind of devastation he rushed
to meet the intruder; and the young bull was hopelessly overmatched.
Within five minutes he was gored, beaten down, pounded from the field,
and driven bellowing through the bushes. For several weeks he hardly
showed himself in the open meadows, but lurked all day in the
thickets, nursing his wounds and his humiliation.
The next winter set in early and severe, driving the drowsy bears into
their winter quarters and their long, snow-comforted sleep before they
had time to get hungry and dangerous. The lynxes, no longer mystified
by the voice of the bell, came prowling about the lair beneath the
hemlock, but the sullen front and angry, lonely eyes of the black bull
held them in awe. Not even in the worst of the cold, when they had
taken to hunting together in a loosely organized pack, did they dare
to trouble the bull. When spring came, it found him a big, burly
three-year-old, his temper beginning to sour with an unhappiness which
he did not understand; and by the time the bears came hungry from
their winter sleep he was quite too formidable to be meddled with.
Stung by humiliating memories, he attacked with fury every bear he
saw; and they soon learned to give him a wide berth.
As the summer wore along, his loneliness grew more bitter and
distracting. He would spend sometimes a full hour upon the bluff, when
the yellow day was fading into dusk, bellowing his calls across the
stillness, and waiting for he knew not what reply. He was now a huge
and daunting figure. When, at last, came round again the full October
moon, and the spirit of mating went abroad on the crisp air, he grew
more restless than ever. Then, one night, on a clear white stretch of
sand some distance down the shore, he saw a cow-moose standing close
by the water. He was much interested, and half unconsciously began to
move in her direction. When she stretched out her long, ungainly head
and uttered her harsh call, he answered with a soft, caressing bellow.
But at almost the same instant her call was answered by another and a
very different voice; and a tall bull-moose strode out arrogantly upon
the sand.
The black bull's heart swelled with wrath and longing. With a roar he
charged down from the bluff; and the moose, diverted from his wooing,
turned to meet the assault. But he was no match for this dreadful
black bulk that descended upon him with the resistlessness of doom. He
went down at the first crash, a pathetic sprawl of long limbs and
long, ineffective, beautiful antlers; and barely escaping with his
life, he fled away into the thickets. Then, satisfied with his
victory, the black bull lifted his head and turned to the watching
cow.
The cow, after the manner of her kind appreciating a conqueror,
awaited somewhat doubtfully his approach. But when he was within a
few feet of her, wonder and interest gave way to terror. His bulk, his
blackness, his square, mighty head, his big, blazing eyes, and short,
thick muzzle filled her with repulsion and amazement. His voice, too,
though unmistakably caressing and persuasive, was too daunting in its
strangeness. With a wild snort, she turned and fled into the woods
with a speed that he could not hope to match.
After this experience the black bull's loneliness grew almost
intolerable, and his temper so bad that he would go raging up and down
the woods in search of bears to chase. The winter cooled him down
somewhat, and in the spring his temper was not so raw. But he was now
troubled with a spirit of wandering, and kept ranging the woods in
every direction, only returning to the young green of the water-meadow
once or twice a day.
One afternoon, however, there came a change. He was browsing irritably
near the bank when he heard voices that made him look up sharply. A
canoe was passing up-stream, poled by two men. It passed slowly,
surging against the current. As he looked at the men, a dreadful
memory stirred within him. He recalled the loud report which had
driven him mad with fear on that day when the red cow disappeared. He
remembered an appalling sight on the beach of that lower meadow which
he had never visited since. His eyes went red. With a grunt of fury,
he thundered down the bank and out knee-deep into the current.
The men in the canoe were astonished, and hastily pushed over toward
the other shore. The one in the bow laid down his pole and reached
back for his rifle. But the man in the stern intervened.
"What's the good o' shootin' him?" said he. "He can't git at us here,
an' we ain't a-wantin' for grub. Let him be!"
"That's so!" said the other, picking up his pole again. "But ain't he
handsome? An' mad, eh? How do you suppose he come here, anyways?"
"Strayed!" grunted the man in the stern, bending to his pole as the
canoe met a heavier rush of the current.
As the two voyagers pursued their strenuous way up-stream, rock and
eddy and "rip" consuming all their attention, the furious bull kept
abreast of them along the shore, splashing in the shallows and
bellowing his challenge, till at length a deep insetting of the
current compelled him to mount the bank, along which he continued his
vain pursuit for several miles. At last a stretch of dense swamp
headed him off, and the canoe vanished from his sight.
He was now in unknown territory, miles away from his meadows. His rage
against the men had all died out, but some faint stirring of inherited
instincts impelled him to follow for companionship. Had they suddenly
reappeared, close at hand, doubtless his rage would have burst forth
anew. But when they were gone, he had to follow. A dim intuition told
him that where they were going dwelt some kind of relief for his
loneliness. He skirted the swamp, rejoined the river, and kept slowly
on his way up-stream, pasturing as he went. He had turned his back for
ever on the water-meadows and the life of which he could not be a
part, and was off on the quest for that unknown which he felt to be
his own.
After two days of leisurely journeying he passed through a belt of
burnt lands, and had his curiosity mildly excited by a blackened
chimney rising from a heap of ruins near the water. Through this burnt
land he travelled swiftly; and about dawn of the fourth day of his
quest he came out upon the pasture-lands skirting the rear of the
settlement.
Here he found a rude but strong snake fence, at which he sniffed with
wonder. Then, beyond the fence, a creature shaped something like
himself, but red and white in colour, got up from among the misty
hillocks and stared at him. But for the colour, he might have thought
it was the little red mother who had vanished two years before. _This_
was what he had come for. This was the object of his quest. Two or
three other cows, and some young steers, presently arose and fell to
feeding. He lowed to them softly through the rails, and they eyed him
with amiable interest. With a burst of joy, he reared his bulk against
the fence, bore it down, trotted in confidently, and took command of
the little herd. There was no protesting. Cows and steers alike
recognized at once the right of this dominant black stranger to rule;
and soon he fell to pasturing among them quietly, his heart healed at
last of its loneliness.
The two canoemen, meanwhile, on their arrival at the settlement, had
told of their encounter with the wild black bull. As they described
the adventure to a little circle gathered in the back room of the
grocery, the old woodsman whose cabin had been burned in the great
fires was one of their most interested listeners.
[Illustration: "A LORDLY BLACK BEAST IN COMMAND OF THE HERD."]
"I'll bet he's mine! I'll bet he's out of the little red cow I bought
just afore the fire!" he exclaimed at last. And his theory, duly
expounded, met with general credence.
When, therefore, a couple of mornings later, the old woodsman, on
going to the pasture to fetch in his cows for the milking, found a
lordly black beast in command of the herd, he understood at once.
Fortunately for him, he understood so well that he took certain
precautions, instead of walking straight into the middle of the
pasture as usual to get the cows. With judgment born of intuitive
understanding, he let down the pasture bars unnoticed, then went over
near the stable door and called. At the familiar summons the cows
lifted their heads, and came filing lazily toward the open bars, which
lay a little to one side of the direct way to the house. But the black
bull was of another mind. He saw the man; and straight his eyes saw
red. He pawed the earth, roared angrily, gave one uncertain glance at
the cows sauntering away from him, and then charged straight for the
unknown foe. The works of man might, indeed, have some strange
inherited attraction for him; but man, the individual, he hated with
destructive hate.
The woodsman noticed that the bull was not heading for the bars.
"The fence'll stop him!" he said to himself, confidently.
But not so. The wild bull had no conception of the sanctity and
authority of fences. The stout rails went down before him like
corn-stalks. The old woodsman shook his head deprecatingly, stepped
into the stable, and latched the door.
The bull, much puzzled at the unaccountable disappearance of his foe,
stopped for a moment, snorting, then dashed around the barn to see if
the enemy were hiding on the other side. Twice he circled it, his rage
increasing instead of diminishing; and then he caught sight of the
man's face eyeing him calmly through the little square stable window.
He stopped again to paw the earth, bellowing his heavy challenge; and
the old woodsman wondered what to do. He wanted the splendid black
bull for his little herd, but he was beginning to have serious
misgivings. Moreover, he wanted to get into the house. He threw open
the stable door; and as the bull dashed in he scrambled through a
manger, swung himself into the loft, dropped from the hay window, and
darted for the house at top speed. He had had an idea of shutting the
stable door, and imprisoning his unmanageable visitor; but the bull
was too quick for him. He got the heavy kitchen door slammed to just
in time. Thoughtfully he rubbed his grizzled chin as he glanced out
and saw the black beast raging up and down before the window.
"Can't do nothin' with that, I'm afeared!" he muttered.
Just then the bull stopped his ravings, turned his head, and stared
away up the road. There came a clamour of gay young voices; and the
old woodsman, following the beast's eyes, saw a little group of
children approaching on their way to school. Among them he noticed a
girl in a bright scarlet waist. This the bull noted also. He forgot
his enemy in the house. He grunted savagely, gave his tail a vicious
twist, and trotted down the lane toward the road.
The old woodsman saw that the time had come for prompt action. He
snatched up his loaded rifle from the corner where it stood always
ready, ran out upon the steps, and shouted at the bull. The great
black animal stopped and looked around, mumbling deep in his throat.
He wheeled half-about to return to the old enemy. Then he paused
irresolutely and eyed the gay bevy of children. Which foe should he
obliterate first?
While he hesitated, the rifle rang out, and the heavy bullet found
its mark just back of his fore-shoulder. He sank forward upon his
outstretched muzzle and his knees, his tail stiffening straight up,
and quivering. Then he rolled over on his side.
The old woodsman strode down the lane, and stood over the great black
form. His shrewd gray eyes were filled with regret and sympathetic
comprehension.
"Spiled!" said he. "Clean spiled all 'round! The woods, they wa'n't no
place fer you, so ye had to quit 'em. But they spiled you fer the
habitations o' man. It's a born stranger and an alien you was, an'
there wa'n't no place fer ye neither here nor there!"
The Silver Frost
In the heart of an almost impenetrable thicket of young firs the
rabbit had crouched all night, sometimes sleeping the light sleep of
the woodsfolk, sometimes listening to the swish of the winter rain on
his roof of branches. In spite of the storm, he had been warm and dry
all night, only a big drop coming through from time to time to make
him shift his couch. Hearing the rain, he was vaguely puzzled because
he felt so little of it; for he knew that even the densest of fir
thickets were not proof against a prolonged and steady rainfall. He
was glad to profit, however, by a phenomenon which he could not
comprehend, so he lay close, and restrained his impatient appetite,
and kept his white fur dry and warmly fluffy. Had the night been fine,
he would have been leaping gaily hither and thither over the deep,
midwinter snow, and browsing on the tender, aromatic shoots of the
young birches which dotted the little woodland valley.
Early in the night, soon after the rain began, the lower air had
turned cold, and every wet branch and twig had found itself on a
sudden encased with ice. Meanwhile, in the upper dark a warm and
moisture-laden current had kept drifting up from the southwest, and
ceaselessly spilling its burden on the hushed world. Had this fine
rain been less warm, or had the wrapping of cold air next to the earth
been deeper, the drops would have frozen in their descent, and fallen
as sleet; but as it was, they waited till they fell, and then froze
instantly. Thus every limb, and branch, and twig, and every delicate,
perennial frondage of fir and hemlock, gathered an ever-increasing
adornment of clearest crystal. And thus it was that the rabbit in the
fir thicket slept dry through the storm, the branches above him having
been transformed into a roof of ice.
The rain had stopped a little before dawn, and just as the sunrise
colours began to spread down the valley, the rabbit came hopping out
from his snug retreat. He stopped in surprise, sat up, and waved his
long ears to and fro, while his large, bulging eyes surveyed the world
in wonder. He was a young rabbit, born the spring before, and his
world had changed in the night to something he had never dreamed of.
He hopped back beneath the firs for a moment, and sniffed about to
reassure himself, then came out and stared again.