it except on the east, where it stretched away toward the fields and
scattered farmsteads of the settlement. It had once been cleared, but
young seedlings of birch and poplar and maple, with willows along the
course of a hidden stream, had been suffered to partly reclaim it.
Here and there a group of dark fir or hemlock stood out among the
slenderer saplings. Now, all this valley was transmuted to crystal.
The soft white surface of the snow was overlaid with a sheet of
transparent silver, flashing white light and cold but coloured fire.
Every bush and tree was a miracle of frostwork, lavish, inexhaustible,
infinitely varied, and of an unspeakable purity wherever it failed to
catch the young light. But that light, spreading pink and yellow and
rose from the growing radiance upon the eastern horizon, seemed to
penetrate everywhere, reflected and re-reflected from innumerable
facets; and every ray seemed to come from the live heart of a jewel.
Each icy tree and bush emitted thin threadlike flames, high and aerial
in tone, but of a piercing intensity. It was as if the quiet valley
had been flooded all at once with dust of emerald and opal, of
sapphire and amethyst and diamond. And as the light grew the miracle
changed slowly, one keen gleam dying out as another flashed into life.
Having convinced himself that this dazzling and mysterious world was
really the world he knew, the rabbit thought no more about it, but
went leaping gaily over the radiant crust (which was just strong
enough to support him) toward some young birches, where he proposed to
nibble a breakfast. As he went, suddenly a curious sound just under
his feet made him jump wildly aside. Trembling, but consumed with
curiosity, he stared down at the glassy surface. In a moment the sound
was repeated. It was a sharp, impatient tapping against the under side
of the crust. To the rabbit's ears the sound conveyed no threat, so he
hopped nearer to investigate. What he saw beneath the clear shell of
ice was a cock-partridge, his wings half-spread, his head thrown back
in the struggle to break from his snowy grave. His curiosity
satisfied, the rabbit bounded away again, and fell to nibbling the
young birch-twigs. Of small concern to him was the doom of the
imprisoned bird.
At dusk of the preceding evening, when the cock-partridge went to
roost, there had been no suggestion of rain, but a bitter air from
the northwest searching through the woods. The wise old bird, finding
cold comfort on his perch, had bethought him of a trick which many a
time before had served his turn. In the open, where the snow was deep,
he had rocketed down, head foremost, with such force that he was
fairly buried in the light, feathery mass. A little kicking, a little
awkward burrowing, and he had worked his way to a depth of perhaps two
feet. Turning about and lifting his wings gently, he had made himself
a snug nest, where neither wind nor cold could reach him, and where
there was small likelihood that any night marauder would smell him
out. Here in the fluffy stillness he got no word of the change of the
wind, no hint of the soft rain sifting over him. When he woke and
started to revisit the outer world, he found a wall of glass above
him, which his sturdy beak could not break through. A fate that
overtakes many of his kindred had caught him unawares.
While the partridge was resting after his struggles with the
inexorable ice, through which he could look out dimly on the jewelled
world of freedom, a red fox appeared on the edge of the wood. His
crafty eyes fell on the rabbit, and crouching flat, he crept
noiselessly forward. But the crust, strong enough to support the
rabbit, was not strong enough to quite support the heavier animal.
With light, crackling sound one foot broke through, and the rabbit,
with a frightened glance at the most dreaded of all his foes, went
sailing away in long bounds. Soundless though his padded footfalls
were, his flight was accompanied and heralded by a crisp rattling of
icicles as the frozen twigs snapped at his passing.
Laboriously the fox followed, breaking through at every other stride,
but hungry and obstinate, and unwilling to acknowledge himself
baffled. Halfway across the valley, however, he gave up. After pausing
a moment to consider, he retraced his steps, having apparently had
some scheme in mind when diverted by the sight of the rabbit. The
latter, being young and properly harebrained, and aware of his present
advantage, now came back by a great circle, and fell to browsing again
on the birch-twigs. As he fed, however, he kept a sharp eye on the
enemy.
The fox, meanwhile, was growing more and more exasperated. He was
happening upon every weak spot in the crust, and floundering at almost
every step. All at once, as the surface broke there came to his
nostrils the familiar smell of a partridge. It was a fresh scent. The
fox forgot his indignation. He poked his narrow snout into the snow,
sniffed sharply, and began to dig with all his might.
Now it chanced that the imprisoned bird, in his search for an exit,
had worked away from the spot where he had slept. The fox was puzzled.
That alluring scent was all about him, and most tantalizingly fresh.
He understood this partridge trick, and had several times made his
knowledge supply him with a meal. But hitherto he had always found the
partridge asleep; and he had no idea what the bird would do in such a
case as the present. He dug furiously in one direction, then fiercely
in another, but all in vain. Then he lifted his head, panting, his
pointed ears and ruddy face grotesquely patched with snow. At this
moment a great puff of the white powder was flapped into his eyes, a
feathery dark body jumped up from under his very nose, and the crafty
old bird went whirring off triumphantly to the nearest tree. With his
tongue hanging out, the fox stared foolishly after him, then slunk
away into the woods. And the white rabbit, nibbling at his
birch-twigs, was left in undisputed possession of the scintillating
rainbow world.
By the Winter Tide
Behind the long, slow-winding barrier of the dyke the marshes of
Tantramar lay secure, mile on mile of blue-white radiance under the
unclouded moon. Outside the dyke it was different. Mile on mile of
tumbled, mud-stained ice-cakes, strewn thickly over the Tantramar
flats, waited motionless under the moon for the incoming tide. Twice
in each day the far-wandering tide of Fundy would come in, to lift,
and toss, and grind, and roll the ice-cakes, then return again to its
deep channels; and with every tide certain of the floes would go forth
to be lost in the open sea, while the rest would sink back to their
tumbled stillness on the mud. Just now the flood was coming in. From
all along the outer fringes of the flats came a hoarse, desolate roar;
and in the steady light the edges of the ice-field began to turn and
flash, the strange motion creeping gradually inland toward that
impassive bulwark of the dyke. Had it been daylight, the chaotic
ice-field would have shown small beauty, every wave-beaten floe being
soiled and streaked with rust-coloured Tantramar mud. But under the
transfiguring touch of the moon the unsightly levels changed to plains
of infinite mystery--expanses of shattered, white granite, as it were,
fretted and scrawled with blackness--reaches of loneliness older than
time. So well is the mask of eternity assumed by the mutable moonlight
and the ephemeral ice.
Nearer and nearer across the waste drew the movement that marked the
incoming flood. Then from over the dyke-top floated a noiseless,
winnowing, sinister shape which seemed the very embodiment of the
desolation. The great white owl of the north, driven down from his
Arctic hunting-grounds by hunger, came questing over the ragged
levels. His long, soft-feathered wings moved lightly as a ghost, and
almost touched the ice-cakes now and then as his round, yellow eyes,
savagely hard and brilliant, searched the dark crevices for prey. With
his black beak, his black talons protruding from the mass of snowy
feathers which swathed his legs, and the dark bars on his plumage, one
might have fancied him a being just breathed into menacing and
furtive life by the sorcery of the scene.
Suddenly, with a motion almost as swift as light, the great owl
swooped and struck. Swift as he was, however, this time he struck just
too late. A spot of dark on the edge of an ice-cake vanished. It was a
foraging muskrat who had seen the approaching doom in time and slipped
into a deep and narrow crevice. Here, on the wet mud, he crouched
trembling, while the baffled bird reached down for him with vainly
clutching claws.
On either side of the two ice-cakes which had given the muskrat
refuge, was a space of open mud which he knew it would be death to
cross. Each time those deadly black talons clutched at him, he
flattened himself to the ground in panic; but there were several
inches to spare between his throat and death. The owl glared down with
fixed and flaming eyes, then gave up his useless efforts. But he
showed no inclination to go away. He knew that the muskrat could not
stay for ever down in that muddy crevice. So he perched himself bolt
upright on the very edge, where he could keep secure watch upon his
intended victim, while at the same time his wide, round eyes might
detect any movement of life among the surrounding ice-cakes.
The great flood-tides of Fundy, when once they have brimmed the steep
channels and begun to invade the vast reaches of the flats, lose
little time. When the baffled owl, hungry and obstinate, perched
himself on the edge of the ice-cake to wait for the muskrat to come
out, the roar of the incoming water and the line of tossing, gleaming
floes were half a mile away. In about four minutes the fringe of
tumult was not three hundred yards distant,--and at the same time the
vanguards of the flood, thin, frothy rivulets of chill water, were
trickling in through the crevice where the little prisoner crouched.
As the water touched his feet, the muskrat took heart anew,
anticipating a way of escape. As it deepened he stood upright,--and
instantly the white destruction cruelly watching struck again. This
time the muskrat felt those deadly talons graze the long, loose fur of
his back; and again he cowered down, inviting the flood to cover him.
As much at home under water as on dry land, he counted on easy escape
when the tide came in.
It happens, however, that the little kindreds of the wild are usually
more wise in the general than in the particular. The furry prisoner at
the bottom of the crevice knew about such regular phenomena as the
tides. He knew, too, that presently there would be water enough for
him to dive and swim beneath it, where his dreadful adversary could
neither reach him nor detect him. What he did not take into account
was the way the ice-cakes would grind and batter each other as soon as
the tide was deep enough to float them. Now, submerged till his furry
back and spiky tail were just even with the surface, his little, dark
eyes glanced up with mingled defiance and appeal at the savage, yellow
glare of the wide orbs staring down upon him. If only the water would
come, he would be safe. For a moment his eyes turned longingly toward
the dyke, and he thought of the narrow, safe hole, the long, ascending
burrow, and the warm, soft-lined chamber which was his nest, far up in
the heart of the dyke, high above the reach of the highest tides and
hidden from all enemies. But here in the hostile water, with a cruel
death hanging just above him, his valorous little heart ached with
homesickness for that nest in the heart of the dyke; and though the
water had no chill for his hardy blood, he shivered.
Meanwhile, the long line of clamour was rushing steadily inland. The
roar suddenly crashed into thunder on the prisoner's ears and a rush
of water swept him up. The white owl spread his wings and balanced
himself on tiptoe, as the ice-cake on which he was perching lurched
and rolled. Through all the clamour his ears, miraculously keen beyond
those of other birds, caught an agonized squeak from below. The
jostling ice had nipped the muskrat's hind quarters.
Though desperately hurt, so desperately that his strong hind legs were
almost useless, the brave little animal was not swerved from his
purpose. Straight from his prison, no longer now a refuge, he dived
and swam for home through the loud uproar. But the muskrat's small
forelegs are of little use in swimming, so much so that as a rule he
carries them folded under his chin while in the water. Now, therefore,
he was at a piteous disadvantage. His progress was slow, as in a
nightmare,--such a nightmare as must often come to muskrats if their
small, careless brains know how to dream. And in spite of his frantic
efforts, he found that he could not hold himself down in the water. He
kept rising toward the surface every other second.
Balancing had by this time grown too difficult for the great, white
owl, and he had softly lifted himself on hovering wings. But not for
an instant had he forgotten the object of his hunt. What were floods
and cataclysms to him in the face of his hunger? Swiftly his shining
eyes searched the foamy, swirling water. Then, some ten feet away,
beside a pitching floe, a furry back appeared for an instant. In that
instant he swooped. The back had vanished,--but unerringly his talons
struck beneath the surface--struck and gripped their prey. The next
moment the wide, white wings beat upward heavily, and the muskrat was
lifted from the water.
As he rose into the air, though near blind with the anguish of that
iron grip, the little victim writhed upward and bit furiously at his
enemy's leg. His jaws got nothing but a bunch of fluffy feathers,
which came away and floated down the moonlight air. Then the life sank
out of his brain, and he hung limply; and the broad wings bore him
inland over the dyke-top--straight over the warm and hidden nest where
he had longed to be.
The Rivals of Ringwaak
I.
A white flood, still and wonderful, the moonlight lay on the naked
rampikes and dense thickets of Ringwaak Hill. Beneath its magic the
very rocks, harsh bulks of granite, seemed almost afloat; and every
branch, spray and leaf, swam liquidly. The rampikes, towering trunks
of pine, fire-blasted and time-bleached, lifted lonely spires of
silver over the enchanted solitude.
Apparently, there was neither sound nor motion over all Ringwaak, or
over the wide wilderness spread out below its ken. But along the
secret trails, threading the thicket, and skirting the granite
boulders, life went on with an intensity all the deeper and more
stringent for the seal of silence laid upon it. The small, fugitive
kindreds moved noiselessly about their affairs, foraging, mating,
sometimes even playing, but ever watchful, a sleepless vigilance the
price of each hour's breath; while even more furtive, but more
intermittent in their watchfulness, the hunting and blood-loving
kindreds followed the trails.
Gliding swiftly from bush to rock, from rock to thicket, now for an
instant clear and terrible in a patch of moonlight, now ghost-gray and
still more terrible in the sharp-cut shadows, came a round-eyed,
crouching shape. It was somewhere about the size of a large spaniel,
but shorter in the body, and longer in the legs; and its hind legs, in
particular, though kept partly gathered beneath the body, in readiness
for a lightning spring, were so disproportionately long as to give a
high, humped-up, rabbity look to the powerful hind quarters. This
combined suggestion of the rabbit and the tiger was peculiarly
daunting in its effect. The strange beast's head was round and
cat-like, but with high, tufted ears, and a curious, back-brushed
muffle of whiskers under the throat. Its eyes, wide and pale, shone
with a cold ferocity and unconquerable wildness. Its legs, singularly
large for the bulk of its body, and ending in broad, razor-clawed,
furry pads of feet, would have seemed clumsy, but for the impression
of tense steel springs and limitless power which they gave in every
movement. In weight, this stealthy and terrifying figure would have
gone perhaps forty pounds--but forty pounds of destroying energy and
tireless swiftness.
As he crept through a spruce thicket, his savage eyes turning from
side to side, the lynx came upon a strange trail, and stopped short,
crouching. His stub of a tail twitched, his ears flattened back
angrily, his long, white fangs bared themselves in a soundless snarl.
A green flame seemed to flicker in his eyes, as he subjected every
bush, every stone, every stump within his view to the most piercing
scrutiny. Detecting no hostile presence, he bent his attention to the
strange trail, sniffing at it with minute consideration.
The scent of the trail was that of a wildcat; but its size was too
great for that of any wildcat this big lynx had ever known. Wildcats
he viewed with utter scorn. For three years he had ruled all Ringwaak
Hill; and no wildcat, in those three years, had dared to hunt upon his
range. But this newcomer, with the wildcat smell, seemed about as big
as three wildcats. The impression of its foot on a patch of moist
mould was almost as large as that of the lynx himself--and the lynx
well knew that the wildcats were a small-footed tribe. Like most of
the hunting beasts, he was well-schooled in the lore of the trails,
and all the signs were to him a clear speech. From the depth and
definiteness of that footprint, he felt that both weight and strength
had stamped it. His long claws protruded from their hidden sheaths, as
he pondered the significance of this message from the unknown. Was the
stranger a deliberate invader of his range, or a mere ignorant
trespasser? And would he fight, or would he run? The angry lynx was
determined to put these questions to the test with the least possible
delay.
The trail was comparatively fresh, and the lynx began to follow it,
forgetful of his hunger and of the hunt on which he had set out. He
moved now more warily than ever, crouching flat, gliding smoothly as a
snake, and hoping to score the first point against his rival by
catching him unawares. So noiselessly did he go, indeed, that a
weasel, running hard upon the trail of a rabbit, actually brushed
against him, to bound away in a paroxysm of fear and rush off in
another direction, wondering how he had escaped those lightning claws.
In fact the lynx, intent only upon the hunting of his unknown foe, was
almost as astonished as the weasel, and quite unprepared to seize the
sudden opportunity for a meal. He eyed the vanishing weasel malignly
for a moment, then resumed his stealthy advance. A white-footed mouse,
sitting up daintily at the door of her burrow, fell over backwards,
and nearly died of fright, as the ghost-gray shape of doom sped up and
passed. But the lynx had just then no mind for mice, and never saw
her.
The strange trail, for some hundreds of yards, kept carefully to the
thickets and the shadows. In one place the marks of a scuffle, with a
heap of speckled feathers and a pair of slim claws, showed that the
intruder had captured and devoured an unwary partridge mothering her
brood. At this evidence of poaching on his preserves, the big lynx's
anger swelled hotly. He paused to sniff at the remnants, and then
stole on with added caution. The blood of the victim was not yet dry,
or even clotted, on the leaves.
A little further on, the trail touched the foot of a clean-stemmed
young maple. Here the trespasser had paused to stretch himself,
setting his claws deep into the bark. These claw-marks the lynx
appeared to take as a challenge or a defiance. Rearing himself against
the tree, he stretched himself to his utmost. But his highest scratch
was two inches below the mark of the stranger. This still further
enraged him. Possibly, it might also have daunted him a little but for
the fact that his own claw-marks were both deeper and wider apart
than those of his rival.
From the clawed tree, the trail now led to the very edge of the open
and thence to the top of an overhanging rock, white and sharply
chiseled in the moonlight. The lynx was just about to climb the rock,
when there beneath it, in the revealing radiance, he saw a sight which
flattened him in his tracks. The torn carcass of a young doe lay a few
feet from the base of the rock; and on top of the prey, glaring savage
challenge, crouched such a wildcat as the lynx had never even dreamed
of.
II.
A few days before this night of the white full moon, a gigantic
wildcat living some fifteen miles from Ringwaak had decided to change
his hunting-grounds. His range, over which he had ruled for years, was
a dark, thick-wooded slope overlooking the brown pools and loud chutes
of the Guimic stream. Here he had prospered hunting with continual
success, and enjoying life as only the few overlords among the wild
kindreds can hope to enjoy it. He had nothing to fear, as long as he
avoided quarrel with a bear or a bull moose. And a narrow escape when
young had taught him to shun trap and snare, and everything that
savoured of the hated works of man.
Now, the lumbermen had found their way to his shadowy domain. Loud
axe-strokes, the crash of falling trees, the hard clank of ox-chains,
jarred the solemn stillness. But far more intolerable to the great
cat's ears was the noise of laughter and shouting, the masterful
insolence of the human voice unabashed in the face of the solitude.
The men had built a camp near each end of his range. No retreat was
safe from their incursions. And they had cut down the great pine-tree
whose base shielded the entrance of his favourite lair. All through
the winter the angry cat had spent the greater portion of his time
slinking aside from these boisterous invaders or glaring fierce hate
upon them from his densest coverts. Thus occupied, he had too little
time for his hunting, and, moreover, the troubled game had become shy.
His temper grew worse and worse as his ribs grew more and more obvious
under his brownish, speckled fur. Nevertheless, for all his swelling
indignation, he had as yet no thought of forsaking his range. He kept
expecting that the men would go away.
When spring came, and the Guimic roared white between its tortuous
shores, some of the loud-mouthed men did go away. Nevertheless, the
big cat's rage waxed hotter than ever. Far worse than the men who went
were three portable steam sawmills which came in their place. At three
separate points these mills were set up--and straightway the long,
intolerable shriek of the circulars was ripping the air. In spite of
himself, the amazed cat screeched in unison when that sound first
smote his ears. He slunk away and hid for hours in his remotest lair,
wondering if it would follow him. When, in the course of weeks, he
grew so far accustomed to the fiendish sound that he could go about
his hunting within half a mile of it, he found that the saws had
worked him an unspeakable injury. They had fouled his beloved
fishing-pools with sawdust.
[Illustration: "HIS ROUND FACE BENT CLOSE DOWN TO THE GLASSY
SURFACE."]