glided up to the wagon. The horse it paid no heed to. It circled the
wagon a couple of times in a nervous, jerky run, its head darting this
way and that, till its nose assured it beyond question that the fish it
scented were in the wagon itself. Thereupon--for the mink lacks the
fox's hair-splitting astuteness, and does not take long to make up its
mind--it clambered nimbly up through one of the wheels and fell
straightway upon the fish-basket.
Now, the tramp, courteous in his depredations, had taken thought to
refasten the basket. The mink was puzzled. The hole in the top of the
basket, though he might have squeezed his head through it, was not large
enough to let him reach the fish. He began jerking the basket and
pulling it about savagely. The back of the wagon consisted of a hinged
flap, and the fishermen had left it hanging down. The basket, dragged
this way and that, came presently to the edge, toppled over, and fell
heavily to the ground on its bulging side. The fastening came undone,
and the cover flopped half open. The mink dropped down beside it, flung
himself upon it furiously, and began jerking forth and scattering the
contents, tearing mouthfuls out of one fish after another in a paroxysm
of greed, as if he feared they were still alive and might get away from
him.
The basket emptied and his first rage glutted, the mink now fell to the
business of making a serious meal. Selecting a fish to his taste, he ate
it at great leisure, leaving the head and the tail upon the grass. Then
he picked out a larger one, as if he regarded the first as merely an
appetizer.
As he gnawed luxuriously at the silver-and-buff, vermilion-spotted
tit-bit, an immense shadow floated between him and the sun. He did not
take time to look up and see what it was. It was as if the touch of that
shadow had loosed a powerful spring. He simply shot from his place, at
such speed that the eye could not distinguish how he did it, and in the
minutest fraction of a second was curled within the empty
fishing-basket, which still lay on its side, half open. A pair of long,
black, sickle-curved talons, surmounted by thickly feathered gray
shanks, clutched at the place where he had stood.
Furious at having missed her strike, the great horned owl, that tigress
of the air, flapped up again on her soundless, downy wings, and swooped
suddenly at the basket, as if trying to turn it over. As her talons
clawed at the wickerwork, feeling for a hold, the head of the mink, on
its long, snaky neck, darted forth, reached up, and struck its fine
white fangs into her thigh.
But the great owl's armor of feathers, though it looked so soft and
fluffy, was in fact amazingly resistant. The mink's long teeth reached
the flesh and drew blood, but he gained no grip. That steel-muscled
thigh was wrenched from his jaws, leaving him with an embarrassing
mouthful of down. He jerked his head into cover again, just as the bird
made another lightning clutch at him.
For all his rage, the mink kept his wits about him. He knew the owl for
one of his most dangerous rivals and adversaries. He knew that he could
kill her if once he could reach her throat or get his grip fixed on one
of her mighty wings close to the base. But that _if_ kept him prudent.
He was too well aware that in an open combat he was more than likely to
get his neck or his back into the clutch of those inexorable talons, and
that would be the end of him. Discreetly, therefore, he kept himself
well within the basket, which was large enough to hold him comfortably.
He snarled shrilly through the little square hole in the cover, while
his assailant, balked of her prey and furious with the smart of her
wound, pounced once more upon the basket and strove to claw an entrance.
A chance blow of one of her pounding wings drove the lid--the basket
being still on its side--completely to. The sorrel horse under the
birch-tree swung round on his tether and rolled his eyes and snorted,
deeply scandalized at such goings-on about his familiar wagon.
It was just at this point in the mink's adventure that the fox returned
to the clearing. He had had rather poor luck with the wood-mice, and his
chaps watered with the memory of those trout in the wagon. Something of
an expert in dealing with traps, he made up his mind that he would try
to circumvent this one.
The sight that met his shrewd eyes, as he emerged warily from the cover
of the fir woods, amazed him. He halted to take it in thoroughly. He saw
the basket lying on the ground, and the angry owl clawing at it. The
fish he did not see. He concluded that they were still in the basket,
and that the owl was trying to get at them. This particular kind of owl,
as he knew, was a most formidable antagonist; but with his substantial
weight and his long, punishing jaws, he felt himself much more than a
match for her. His eyes flamed green with indignation as he watched her
trying to steal the prize which he had already marked down for his own.
He darted forward on tip-toe--noiselessly, as he thought--and made a
long leap at the flapping, dusky wings.
But the ears of an owl are a very miracle of sensitiveness. They can
catch the squeak of a mouse at a distance which, for ordinary ears,
would make the sharp clucking of a chipmunk inaudible. To the bird on
the basket the coming of those velvet footsteps were like the scamper of
a frightened sheep. She sprang into the air without an effort, hung for
a moment to glare down upon the fox with her hard, round, moon-pale
eyes, and then sailed off without a sound, having no mind to try
conclusions with the long-jawed red stranger.
The fox was surprised to find the trout lying scattered about the grass,
some of them bitten and mangled. What, then, was in the basket? What was
the great owl trying to get at, when the precious fish were all spread
out before her? Curiosity dominating his hunger, he stepped up to the
basket and sniffed at the hole in the lid. Instantly there was a
shrill, vicious snarl from within, and a wide-open, triangular mouth,
set with white teeth, darted at his nose. He drew back hastily and sat
down on his tail, ears cocked and head tilted to one side, to consider.
It puzzled him greatly that there should be a mink in the basket.
Tip-toeing cautiously around it, he saw that the lid was slightly open,
so that the mink could come out if he wished. But the fox did not want
him to come out. What the fox wanted was fish, not a fight with an
adversary who would give him a lot of trouble. By all means, let the
mink stay in there.
Keeping a sharp watch on the lid of the basket, the fox backed away
cautiously several feet, lay down, and fell to devouring the trout. But
never for an instant did he take his eyes off that slightly moving lid.
He lay with his feet gathered under him, every muscle ready for action,
expecting each moment to find himself involved in a desperate battle for
the prize he was enjoying. He could not imagine a fiery-tempered
personage like the mink tamely submitting to the rape of his banquet. He
felt sure that in the next second or two a snaky black shape, all teeth
and springs and venom, would dart from the basket and be at his throat.
He was ready for it, but he was not hankering after it.
Meanwhile, there behind the basket lid, the mink was raging
irresolutely. It galled him to the marrow to watch his big, arrogant,
bush-tailed rival complacently gulping down those fine fat trout.
But--well, he had himself already eaten one of the trout and a good part
of another. His hunger was blunted. He could rage within reason, and his
reason admonished him to keep out of this fight if it could be managed.
He knew the whipcord muscle underlying that soft red fur, the deadly
grip of those long, narrow jaws. There is no peace counsellor like a
contented belly. So he snarled softly to himself and waited.
The fox, having swallowed as much as he could hold, stood up, stretched
himself, and licked his chaps. The look which he kept upon the basket
was no less vigilant than before, but there was now a tinge of scorn in
it. There were still some trout left, but he wanted to get away. He
snatched up the two biggest fish in his jaws and trotted off with them
to the woods, glancing back over his shoulder as he went.
Before he had gained the cover of the fir trees, the mink glided forth,
planted his forepaws on the remaining fish, and stood staring after him
in an attitude of challenge. Had the fox returned, the mink would now
have fought. But the fox had no thought of returning. There was nothing
to fight about. He had got what he wanted. He had no rooted objection to
the mink having what was left. He trotted away nonchalantly toward his
burrow under the roots of an old birch tree on the hill.
The mink stuffed himself till he could not get another mouthful down.
There were still a couple of trout untouched. He eyed them regretfully,
but he had not the fox's wit or providence to carry them off and hide
them for future use. He left them, therefore, with a collection of
neatly severed heads and tails, to mock the fishermen when they should
return at sunset. He was feeling very drowsy. At a deliberate pace,
quite unlike his usual eager and darting movements, he made off down the
clearing toward the water. Beneath the bank was an old musquash hole
which he was well acquainted with. Only the other day, indeed, he had
cleared out its inhabitants, devouring their litter of young. He crawled
into the hole, curled up on the soft, dead grass of the devastated nest,
and cosily went to sleep.
Brannigan's Mary
Brannigan was wanting fresh meat, red meat. Both he and his partner,
Long Jackson, were sick to death of trout, stewed apples, and tea. Even
fat bacon, that faithful stand-by, was beginning to lose its charm, and
to sizzle at them with an unsympathetic note when the trout were frying
in it. And when a backwoodsman gets at odds with his bacon, then
something has got to be done.
Going noiselessly as a cat in his cowhide larrigans, Brannigan made his
way down the narrow trail between the stiff dark ranks of the spruce
timber toward the lake. As the trail dipped to the shore he caught a
sound of splashing, and stopped abruptly, motionless as a stump, to
listen. His trained ears interpreted the sound at once.
"Moose pullin' up water-lily roots!" he muttered to himself with
satisfaction. Edging in among the trunks beside the trail to be the
better hidden, he crept forward with redoubled caution.
A few moments more and a sparkle of sunlight flashed into his eyes, and
through the screening spruce branches he caught sight of the quiet
water. There, straight before him, was a dark young moose cow, with a
two-months calf at her side, wading ashore through the shadows.
Brannigan raised his rifle and waited till the pair should come within
easier range. Cartridges are precious when one lives a five-days' tramp
from the nearest settlement; and he was not going to risk the wasting of
a single shot. The game was coming his way, and it was the pot, not
sport, that he was considering.
Now, no one knew better than Brannigan that it was against the law of
New Brunswick to shoot a moose at this season, or a cow moose at any
season. He knew, also, that to shoot a cow moose was not only illegal,
but apt to be extremely expensive. For New Brunswick enforces her game
laws with a brusque and uncompromising rigor; and she values a cow moose
at something like five hundred dollars. Brannigan had no stomach for a
steak at such price. But he had every reason to believe that at this
moment there was not a game-warden within at least a hundred miles of
this unimportant and lonely lake at the head of the Ottanoonsis. He was
prepared to gamble on this supposition. Without any serious misgivings,
he drew a bead on the ungainly animal, as she emerged with streaming
flanks from the water and strode up toward the thickets which fringed
the white beach. But the calf by her side kept getting in the way, and
Brannigan's finger lingered on the trigger, awaiting a clearer shot.
Suddenly a dense thicket, half-a-dozen yards or so distant from the
leisurely cow, burst open as with an explosion, and a towering black
form shot out from the heart of it. It seemed to overhang the cow for a
fraction of a second, and then fell forward as if to crush her to the
earth. Brannigan lowered his gun, a look of humorous satisfaction
flitting over his craggy features.
"Thank you, kindly, Mr. B'ar," he muttered. "Ther ain't no game-warden
on 'arth as kin blame me for that!"
But the matter was not yet as near conclusion as he imagined. The cow,
apparently so heedless, had been wideawake enough, and had caught sight
of her assailant from the tail of her eye, just in time to avoid the
full force of the attack. She leapt aside, and the blow of those armed
paws, instead of breaking her back, merely ripped a long scarlet furrow
down her flank.
At the same instant she wheeled and struck out savagely with one
razor-edged fore-hoof. The stroke caught the bear glancingly on the
shoulder, laying it open to the bone.
Had the bear been a young one, the battle thus inauspiciously begun
might have gone against him, and those lightning hooves, with their
far-reaching stroke, might have drawn him in blood and ignominy to
refuge in a tree. But this bear was old and of ripe experience. As if
daunted by the terrific buffet he drew back, upon his haunches, seeming
to shrink to half his size.
The outraged cow came on again furious and triumphant, thinking to end
the matter with a rush. The bear, a wily boxer, parried her next stroke
with a blow that broke her leg at the hock. Then his long body shot out
again and upward, to its full height, and crashed down upon her neck,
with a sick twist that snapped the vertebrae like chalk. She collapsed
like a sack of shavings, her long dark muzzle, with red tongue
protruding, turned upward and backward, as if she stared in horror at
her doom.
The bear set his teeth into her throat with a windy grunt of
satisfaction.
At that moment Brannigan fired. The heavy soft-nosed bullet crashed
home. The bear lifted himself straight up on his hind legs, convulsively
pawing at the air, then dropped on all fours, ran round in a circle with
his head bent inwards, and fell over on his side. The calf, which had
stood watching the fight in petrified amazement, had recovered the use
of its legs with a bound at the shock of the report, and shambled off
into the woods with a hoarse bleat of terror.
Hugely satisfied with himself, Brannigan strode forth from his hiding
and examined his double prize. The bear being an old one, he had no use
for it as food, now that he was assured of a supply of choice
moose-venison; for he knew by experience the coarseness and rankness of
bear-meat, except when taken young.
Touching up the edge of his hunting knife on the sole of his larrigan,
he skinned the bear deftly, rolled up the heavy pelt, and tied it with
osier-withes for convenience in the lugging. Then, after a wash in the
lake, he turned back to fetch his partner and the drag, that they might
haul the dead moose to the camp and cut it up conveniently at home.
Glancing back as he vanished up the trail, he saw the orphaned calf
stick its head out from behind a bush and stare after him pathetically.
"Mebbe I'd oughter shoot the little beggar too," he mused, "or the bears
'll jest get it!" But being rather tender-hearted where all young things
were concerned, he decided that it might be big enough to look after
itself, and so should have its chance.
A half hour later, when Brannigan and his partner, hauling the drag
behind them briskly, got back to the lake, they found the calf standing
with drooped head beside the body of its mother. At their approach it
backed off a dozen yards or so to the edge of the bushes, and stood
gazing at them with soft, anxious eyes.
"Best knock the ca'f on the head, too, while we're about it," said Long
Jackson practically. "It looks fat an' juicy."
But Brannigan, his own first impulse in regard to the poor youngster now
quite forgotten, protested with fervor.
"Hell!" he grunted, good-naturedly. "Ain't yer got enough fresh meat in
this 'ere cow I've foraged fer ye? I've kinder promised that there
unfortunate orphant she shouldn't be bothered none."
"She's too young yet to fend fer herself. The b'ars 'll git her, if we
don't," argued Long Jackson.
But Brannigan's sympathies, warm if illogical, had begun to assert
themselves with emphasis.
"This 'ere's _my_ shindy, Long," he answered doggedly. "An' I say the
poor little critter 'd oughter have her chance. She _may_ pull through.
An' good luck to her, ses I! We got all the fresh meat we want."
"Oh, if ye're feeling _that_ way about the orphant, Tom, I ain't kickin'
none," answered Jackson, spitting accurate tobacco-juice upon a small
white boulder some ten or twelve feet distant. "I was only thinkin' we'd
save the youngster a heap of trouble if we'd jest help her go the way of
her ma right now."
"You ax her fer _her_ opinion on that p'int!" grunted Brannigan, tugging
the carcass of the moose on to the drag.
Long Jackson turned gravely to the calf.
"Do ye want to be left to the b'ars and the h'a'nts, in the big black
woods, all by yer lonesome?" he demanded.
The calf, thus pointedly addressed, backed further into the bush and
stared in mournful bewilderment.
"Or would ye rather be et, good an' decent, an' save ye a heap o'
frettin'?" continued Long Jackson persuasively.
A bar-winged moose-fly, that vicious biter, chancing to alight at that
moment on the calf's ear, she shook her lank head vehemently.
"What did I tell ye?" demanded Brannigan dryly. "She knows what she
wants!"
"Kinder guess that settles it," agreed Long Jackson with a grin,
spitting once more on the inviting white boulder. Then the two men set
the rope traces of the drag over the homespun shoulders, and, grunting
at the first tug, started up the trail with their load.
The calf took several steps forward from the thicket, and stared in
distraction after them. She could not understand this strange departure
of her mother. She bleated several times, hoarsely, appealingly; but all
to no effect. Then, just as the drag, with its dark, pathetic burden,
was disappearing around a turn of the trail, she started after it, and
quickly overtook it with her ungainly, shambling run. All the way to the
cabin she followed closely, nosing from time to time at the unresponsive
figure on the drag.
Brannigan, glancing back over his shoulder from time to time, concluded
that the calf was hungry. Unconsciously, he had come to accept the
responsibility for its orphaned helplessness, though he might easily
have put all the blame upon the bear. But Brannigan was no shirker. He
would have scorned any such sophistry. He was worrying now over the
question of what he could give the inconveniently confiding little
animal to eat. He decided, at length, upon a thin, lukewarm gruel of
corn-meal, slightly salted, and trusted that the sturdiness of the moose
stomach might survive such a violent change of diet. His shaggy eyebrows
knitted themselves over the problem till Long Jackson, trudging at his
side, demanded to know if he'd "got the bellyache."
This being just the affliction which he was dreading for the calf,
Brannigan felt a pang of guilt and vouchsafed no reply.
Arriving at the cabin, Jackson got out his knife, and was for setting to
work at once on the skinning and cutting up. But Brannigan intervened
with prompt decision.
"Don't ye be so brash, Long," said he. "This 'ere's _Mary_. Hain't yer
got no consideration for Mary's feelings? She's comin' to stop with us;
an' it wouldn't be decent to go cuttin' up her ma right afore her eyes!
You wait till I git her tied up 'round behind the camp. Then I'll go an'
fix her some corn-meal gruel, seein's we haven't got no proper milk for
her." And he proceeded to unhitch the rope from the drag.
Jackson heaved a sigh of resignation, seated himself on the body of the
slain cow, and fished up his stumpy black clay pipe from the depths of
his breeches pocket.
"So ye're goin' to be Mary's ma, eh?" he drawled, with amiable sarcasm.
"If ye'd jest shave that long Irish lip o' yourn, Tom, she'd take ye fer
one o' family right enough."
He ducked his head and hoisted an elbow to ward off the expected retort;
but Brannigan was too busy just then for any fooling. Having rubbed his
hands and sleeves across the hide of the dead mother, he was gently
approaching the calf, with soft words of caress and reassurance. It is
improbable that the calf had any clear comprehension of the English
tongue, or even of Brannigan's backwoods variant of it. But she seemed
to feel that his tones, at least, were not hostile. She slightly backed
away, shrinking and snorting, but at length allowed Brannigan's
outstretched fingers to approach her dewy muzzle. The smell of her
mother on those fingers reassured her mightily. Being very hungry, she
seized them in her mouth and fell to sucking them as hard as she could.
"Pore little eejut," said Brannigan, much moved by this mark of
confidence, "ye shall have some gruel quick as I kin make it." With two
fingers between her greedy lips and a firm hand on the back of her neck,
he had no difficulty in leading her around behind the cabin, where he
tied her up securely, out of sight of the work of Long Jackson's
industrious knife.
* * * * *
On Brannigan's gruel Mary made shift to survive, and even to grow, and
soon she was able to discard it in favor of her natural forage of leaves
and twigs. From the first she took Brannigan _in loco parentis_, and,
except when tied up, was ever dutifully at his heels. But she had a
friendly spirit toward all the world, and met Long Jackson's advances
graciously. By the end of autumn she was amazingly long-legged, and
lank, and awkward, with an unmatched talent for getting in the way and
knocking things over. But she was on a secure footing as member of the
household, petted extravagantly by Brannigan and cordially accepted by
Long Jackson as an all-round good partner. As Jackson was wont to say,
she was not beautiful, but she had a great head when it came to
choosing her friends.
As would naturally be supposed, Mary, being a member of the firm, had
the free run of the cabin, and spent much of her time therein,
especially at meals or in bad weather. But she was not allowed to sleep
indoors, because Brannigan was convinced that such a practice would not
be good for her health. At the same time she could not be left outdoors
at night, the night air of the wilderness being sometimes infected with
bears, lynxes, and wild-cats. A strong pen, therefore, was built for her
against the end wall of the cabin, very open and airy, but roofed
against the rain and impervious to predatory claws. In this pen she was
safe, but not always quite happy; for sometimes in the still dark of the
night, when Brannigan and Long Jackson were snoring in their hot bunks
within the cabin, she would see an obscure black shape prowling
stealthily around the pen, and hungry eyes would glare in upon her
through the bars. Then she would bawl frantically in her terror.
Brannigan would tumble from his bunk and rush out to the rescue. And
the dread black shadow would fade away into the gloom.
When winter settled down upon the wilderness, it did so with a rigor
intended to make up for several mild seasons.
The snow came down, and drove, and drifted, till Mary's pen was buried
so deep that a tunnel had to be dug to her doorway. Then set in the
long, steady, dry cold, tonic and sparkling, but so intense that the
great trees would crack under it with reports like pistol shots upon the
death-like stillness of the night. But all was warmth and plenty at the
snow-draped cabin; and Mary, though she had no means of knowing it, was
without doubt the most comfortable and contented young moose in all
Eastern Canada. She was sometimes a bit lonely, to be sure, when
Brannigan and Jackson were away on their snow-shoes, tending their wide
circuit of traps, and she was shut up in her pen. At such times,
doubtless, her inherited instincts hankered after the companionship of
the trodden mazes of the "moose yard." But when her partners were at
home, and she was admitted to the cabin with them, such faint stirrings
of ancestral memory were clean forgotten. There was no companionship for
Mary like that of Brannigan and Long Jackson, who knew so consummately
how to scratch her long, waggling ears.