woods, had never met a bear, and said he never wanted to. After hearing
plenty of bear stories, he was mortally afraid of the brutes. One
afternoon, just as he approached the tethered cow, he ran head-on to a
bear, and had the shock of his life. His first bulgy-eyed glance told
him that it was a big bear, a black bear, a ferocious bear with red
eyes; his next, that the fearsome beast was creeping over a windfall
in his direction. With a yell he turned and streaked for camp. At his
first jump he lost his hat, and he maintains that it was no bush but
his own rising hair that lifted it off. A few more jumps and he had
ripped off most of his buttons, with some of his clothes, as he tore
his way through fir or moosewood thickets.
The lucky man had compelling reason for his haste. Even as he turned
he heard a loud, unearthly bawling; which sent him up in the air in
a convulsive way, as if thrown by a spring. Then came a terrifying
_woof-woof!_ a cry with teeth and claws in it. On the heels of that
sounded a furious crashing of brush, coming nearer and nearer.
Cookee never turned to look; he had no time. He had started to run,
being light shod with moccasins; but now he flew. Great pine logs
lay across his trail, with rows of little spruces growing out of
their mossy tops; he sailed over them without touching a thing. Till
that moment he had not dreamed how he could jump. Where the trail
corkscrewed to avoid a thicket, he drove straight through with the
directness of a startled grouse, leaving here a bit of skin or there
a shred of raiment to mark his course. Every time he broke into open
traveling he loosed another yell.
At first he felt himself going like the wind, and no deer ever took
the jumps as he took them; but presently, though he was moving faster
than ever, his heart sank, his spirit groaned, his legs became leaden
legs, and his pace a snail’s pace. With all his striving, which was
supermannish, he was not gaining an inch. However he jumped or however
he ran, he could not shake off that ferocious thing at his heels. It
stuck to him like a leech. No sooner did he hit the ground after one
of his kangaroo springs than he heard behind him a thump and a grunt
as the creature cleared the same log. Hardly was he out of a thicket
with a despairing, “Save me, O Lord, from this bear!” on his lips,
than there would follow a nerve-shattering crash as the pursuing beast
plunged through the same bushes.
So, wild-eyed and hatless, but thrilling with a new hope, Cookee burst
out of the woods, and just below him lay the camp, smoke curling out
of its chimney most peacefully. Down the rough trail he came, hurdling
stumps like a grasshopper, and almost scared the life out of the
cook as he dove with a final yell of “Bear! Bear!” into the kitchen.
Clear across the floor he slid, upsetting everything but the stove,
and bringing a big dishpan down on the wreck with a mighty clatter.
The scared cook had mind enough left to slam the door on the instant.
Grabbing one the poker, the other a butcher knife, they rushed to the
window to meet the enemy like men. And there, wheezing, stood the old
cow with her nose against the door, trying to follow Cookee the rest of
the way to safety. He had made that heart-bursting run with the notion
that it was the bear making all the noise behind him.
So much of the story we heard from Cookee when we tumbled hastily out
of tent or cabin at his wild yelling. The remainder I read from the
trail or pieced together from my imagination.
That bear was a young bear, as the trail showed, and he had probably
never seen a cow nor a man in his life before. Roaming with him were
two others, a yearling and big she-bear; but they were luckily on the
farther side of the beaver meadow, where Cookee could not see them.
Had he met three bears, no one knows what miracle of jumping might have
followed. He says that he would not have run any faster had he met a
whole flock of bears, because no man could.
As Mooween came shuffling along, nosing about for grubs and other
kickshaws that bears like, a new odor poured suddenly into his
nostrils, a startling odor, rich and strong, which made him halt and
sniff for possible trouble. Rising on his hind legs to peek over a
windfall, he saw a strange beast, big and red and very smelly. Though
its head was out of sight in the grass, two pointed horns were thrust
about in alarming fashion; though its legs and most of its body were
hidden, there was still bulk enough in sight to shame any bear, and
it flirted a tail such as no bear ever dreamed of. A most astonishing
beast, surely; but was it dangerous? Very cautiously, like any other
suspicious bear, Mooween crept over the windfall for a better look and
sniff at the monster.
It was at this psychological moment that Cookee appeared and fled.
Startled by his yell, the cow threw up her head; and before her was
a strange black beast, such as _she_ had never encountered. It was a
day of surprises for everybody. The cow was staring in heavy, bovine
wonder when a wisp of wind eddied round the meadow; it brought to her
nose the rank bear smell, which electrified her like a yelping dog and
a swarm of hornets all at once. Though that powerful, wet-doggy odor
had never before entered her nostrils, there were ages of memory behind
it, dead but not lost ages, during which countless of her ancestors had
always curled their tails and fled from unseen bears. Her nerves first
and then her heels flew off in a panic. With a bawl that shocked even
herself she surged away on her rope, heading straight for camp, giving
no heed to obstacles. Suddenly she had the legs of deer, the strength
of giants.
The rope was tied to an overturned stump, to which clung a tangle of
weathered roots; and it proved light anchorage for heavy weather. For
a dozen yards the crazy thing whirled through grass or bushes, waving
all its crooked arms like a devilfish. Then it caught fast; the rope
snapped, and the cow went tearing up the trail on the heels of Cookee,
following her protector jump for jump, as close as she could get
without stepping on him.
Meanwhile the bear was running for his life, going twice as fast as any
cow or cookee ever went, in the opposite direction. The first human
yell had scared him stiff; but the bovine bawl galvanized him into
action. Then came the bounding root, whirling mad arms, tearing up the
grass, and that petrified him once more. With a _woof-woof!_ which
sounded like an explosion, but which only said, “I’m a goner if I don’t
light out of here!” he plunged headlong into the windfall over which he
had just crept like a shadow, cracking a deal of dead branches as he
went through. No more cat-footing for him; the world was too full of
strange monsters. Across the meadow and into the big woods he rushed
with great smashing of brush, making so much racket himself that he
scarcely heard the sound of another flight. Behind him lay an amazing
trail: here a hole in a wet spot with mud spattered all about; there a
bunch of moss or a sliver of bark ripped from the top of a log; yonder,
where the bear struck rising ground, a volley of dirt or chips flung
out as he dug his toes into the hillside in frantic haste to get over
the horizon.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
WHEN BEAVER MEETS OTTER
One rainy day, while crossing a northern lake, I saw a commotion in
the water and drove my canoe up to it, so quietly that I was alongside
a pair of fighting beasts before they noticed me. And then, to my
astonishment, they went on with their fighting.
They were a beaver and an otter, both uncommonly large, and therefore
uncommonly shy by all familiar standards. Not by carelessness does any
creature come to unwonted size or years in the wilderness. Ordinarily
these alert beasts would have vanished before I had even a glimpse of
them. Now they were intent on the business in hand, at times locked
jowl to throat, again circling for an opening and watching each other
so warily that they had eyes for nothing else.
The otter did most of the sparring; at times he made the water boil as
he whirled with nervous strokes about his enemy or dove like a flash
to get beneath him. The beaver, larger but more clumsy, seemed content
with defensive tactics, turning within his own length so as to face
the attack. His beady eyes showed a gleam of red; his great cutting
teeth were bared in a ferocious grin. Every time the otter flashed
under like a dipper duck, the beaver would go down with the oily roll
of a porpoise to meet him under water. A violent swirling, a stream of
bubbles gurgling and plopping; then the two animals would wabble up to
the surface, their teeth fastened in each other’s neck. Down or up,
they paid no attention to the huge object floating near them; if they
were aware of the canoe, it was but vaguely, their senses being blunted
by their battle fury.
As they went down for the third or fourth time I noticed the water
reddening around them, showing that it was time for some blessed
peacemaker to interfere. Not knowing who started the fight, I pushed
the canoe over them impartially. When they came up I splashed them
with the paddle, and they seemed to realize for the first time that a
stranger, an enemy, was watching them. In a wink they were themselves
once more; their native alertness returned; their lunacy was shed like
a garment. The beaver sounded on the instant, giving the alarm signal
of his tribe as he went down. He is a sociable creature, living by
choice with a colony of his fellows, and in him the thought of his own
safety is always associated with the safety of others. But the otter,
accustomed to roaming alone, whirled without a sound and forged away
on the surface, heading for the nearest shore. There I watched him
twisting about uneasily, mewing over his wounds, dressing his rumpled
fur like a sick cat.
That was the first time I ever learned of the grudge which seems to
stand unsettled between beaver and otter. Had it been the last, I
would have thought no more of it than of any other odd incident; but
several times in later years I found signs of the same incomprehensible
feud. Once the evidence took the form of two dead bodies, beaver and
otter, floating together in a cove at the mouth of a brook, where the
water circled aimlessly round and round. They had killed each other,
I judged, since both were badly bitten about the neck. In a grip that
neither had the will to break they sank to the bottom and died. There
they rested awhile, till with lightened bodies they rose to the surface
and went bumping each other around the eddy, as if their quarrel were
still on.
Whether the feud were general among all otters and beavers of that
region, or whether it was a private animosity kindled by a personal
grievance, I had no means of knowing. Occasionally I would hear of a
similar quarrel in other places, and every new indication of it puzzled
me afresh. Fights being rarely exceptional between animals of different
species, I could imagine no reason why a beaver, most inoffensive of
the wood folk, should go out of his way to force a quarrel on an animal
with whom he has no dealing from one year’s end to another. The two are
not what we call natural enemies, meaning by the thoughtless expression
that one does not eat the other as food. They belong to different
tribes that have nothing in common, not even a cause of enmity. They
cannot interfere with each other in the matter of food, since the
otter lives on fish, the beaver on bark or water plants, according to
season. Moreover, every wild animal avoids meddling with creatures that
do not appeal to him momentarily when he is looking for something to
eat, and the beaver is exemplary in minding his own business. He lives
a secluded kind of life, wandering up or down the wilderness streams
with his family all summer, shutting himself up in a narrow prison all
winter; and, aside from wolves or lynxes, which gladly eat beaver meat
when they have a rare chance, he has not an enemy in his quiet world so
long as man keeps out of it.
The otter, also, unlike most of his weasel tribe, is a peaceable and
highly interesting beast. He is a fisherman, a very expert fisherman,
and finds plenty to eat without interfering with any other. So he is
always in good condition, and as full of capers as a kitten. Most
animals are fat and playful when they are young, growing lean and
sober as they grow old; but an otter is just the opposite, having
leanness and sobriety as his portion in infancy. As a kit he spends
an uncommonly long time in his dark den; when he comes out he passes
many an hour asleep in the water, where he lies comfortably on his back
with nose in the air and paws folded on his chest. As he grows older
he plays more, thickens up till he is in perfect condition, and ends
by becoming the most sportive of all wild creatures. He makes one of
the most affectionate of pets; and what with his constant good fare and
good humor he has no more reason to quarrel with a beaver than with the
man in the moon. Remember that there are no “savage” beasts except in
our yards and our imagination; that the wild or natural animal does not
fight unless he has a compelling motive, and not even then if he can
avoid it. Why then, one must ask, do these two peaceable beasts fall
upon each other whenever their trails cross?
[Illustration: “_He is a very expert fisherman, and finds plenty to eat
without interfering with any other._”]
We know so little of an animal (the real animal which you meet in
the woods, not the labeled skin-and-bones which you find in a book
or a museum) that any answer must be guesswork, and the guess varies
with the woodsman who makes it. When I put the question to a trapper I
know, a silent, observant man who follows his solitary trap line every
winter, he answered confidently that the otter carries a grudge around
with him, and always begins the quarrel. An otter likes to have his
fishing waters to himself; he is intolerant of trespassers, and in this
he is like the loon, the kingfisher, the sheldrake, and other natural
fishermen, all of whom seem to have definite portions of lake or river
which they regard as their own.
Now the beaver is not a fisherman; but at times he interferes sadly
with those who must follow that craft for a living. When he builds his
dam on a trout stream, for example, it means an end of fishing in that
neighborhood. The trout cannot stand his commotions, his towing of logs
and alder brush, his perpetual digging of mud or roiling of water. So
when an otter, coming to dine where he has caught many a good dinner,
finds his favorite pool occupied or spoiled, he is in a mood to pick a
bone with the offender. In a word, the otter fights because he has a
grudge to settle, and the beaver fights to defend himself. Such is the
trapper’s explanation.
When I asked Simmo the Indian about the matter, he said that beaver and
otter both have grievances, and that when they meet unexpectedly (they
avoid each other for the most part) one is quite as likely to begin
hostilities as the other. An otter does not like a beaver because the
latter may steal an otter kit and bring it up in his lodge as a drudge
or slave. “Otter he _mitcheego_, very cross, ’cause beaver steal-um
baby an’ make-um work,” was the way Simmo put it. The beaver is more
_mitcheego_, because he often finds an otter monkeying with his dam or
spillway. The dam is the danger-point in a beaver’s winter quarters.
Any disturbance of it threatens calamity, and a break may be the herald
of death; yet a roving otter can never pass a dam without raising a
commotion, splashing about in a way to bring the whole beaver family
rushing out of their lodge in wild alarm at the fancied danger.
Simmo is right in his facts, his observation of game or fur animals
being microscopic in its accuracy; but whether he has the right
explanation of the beaver-otter feud is another matter. It is true that
occasionally you may find a young otter sharing the summer wanderings
of a family of beaver, apparently content with the life and knowing no
other. That he was brought up with the beaver kits is evident from his
continued association with them; but whether the beavers stole him,
as Simmo thinks; or whether he was left motherless and followed them,
which is quite natural; or whether some mother beaver sought him out
and suckled him, as many mother animals adopt a stranger when deprived
of their young,--these are questions which no man can answer. One can
observe with his eyes an otter in a beaver lodge; but only imagination
can follow the trail by which he came there.
It is true also, on the other side of the feud, that the otter
raises a terrible pother at a beaver dam in winter; but he does it
unconsciously, I think, and for a natural reason. He is a lover of
open water, and in summer he lives largely in the lakes and streams.
In winter, the waters being sealed, he must wander over the vast,
inhospitable expanse of ice, unable to enter his favorite pools save by
some fortunate air hole. At such times he has the habit (which trappers
know too well for his safety) of using every little runlet for his
amusement. He may be hungry or on a journey or heading for a distant
stream with a man on his trail; but he can never pass near a bit of
open water without having a plunge in it. In trailing an otter I have
repeatedly found where he went out of his way for no other purpose,
apparently, than to play a moment in a spring or little brook that
was clear of ice, after which he headed diagonally back to his former
course and resumed his journey.
So it happens in winter, when an otter passes a beaver dam that has a
run of water beneath it or through the spillway, that he always raises
a whillilew there, splashing merrily about in the enjoyment of his
own sensations. To the beaver, living in his lodge nearby, any sudden
splashing of that kind means just one thing, and a fearful thing,--a
break in the dam. In the autumn, or while waters are open, a broken dam
is easily mended; but in midwinter even a small break may be hopeless,
since the beavers cannot get through the ice of their pond to repair
the damage. It means that the little opening will soon become a big
opening with a flood pouring through it; that the precious store of
food-wood will be frozen into a solid mass. Then the beaver family
must die of starvation in their lodge, their tunnel and food pile
being blocked by ice; or else, if perchance they can find or dig a way
through the frozen pond, that they will probably be caught by wolves
or lynxes when they forage in the snow-filled woods, where their short
legs and heavy bodies make weary traveling.
One can understand, therefore, the beaver’s alarm at any disturbance of
water in his spillway. Day after day he listens to its musical flow
as to a quiet tune; when he falls asleep his ears drink in the melody
as a sweet lullaby, telling him that all is well. Suddenly comes a
pause, a break in the tune, and then a violent splashing. Down under
the ice he comes, his family following at his heels, to go rushing up
and down the length of the dam, peering about in the underwater gloom,
trying to locate the danger. Remember that the beaver is on the upper
or pond-side of the dam, while the splashing comes from the lower side,
whither he cannot come because of the roof of ice over his head. And
when, after much searching and tribulation, he learns that the alarm is
needless, that the disturbance is caused by a careless otter amusing
himself or monkeying with matters that may become dangerous--well,
then he is as mad as anybody else would be; and he will remember his
grievance when next he meets the cause of it.
Such is Simmo’s explanation of one little comedy of errors among the
wood folk. A dog or an Indian never forgets an injury, and why should
not a beaver be like a dog at least? So he reasons, and I cannot answer
him. He knows more about wild animals than I shall ever learn.
I have a notion, however, that there may be a better reason for the
standing quarrel, a reason suggested by one lucky find in a beaver
lodge after I had searched for it many years. Briefly, the notion
is (and it looks odd when one puts it in cold ink) that the otter
sometimes makes mockery of the beaver’s housekeeping by leaving a
smelly mess of fish in a lodge that is wonderfully clean, under the
noses of animals that abominate all evil smells. To appreciate the
humor of such an explanation we must know how the two animals live
during the long northern winter.
* * * * *
For five or six months every year, from November to April, the beaver
is virtually a prisoner in his winter lodge. It is a small domicile,
and as six or eight beavers may occupy the one, low living room, it
is fortunate that they instinctively keep it very clean, and that
the aroma of musk or castor fills it at all times with penetrating,
antiseptic odors.
It is early autumn when a beaver family begins to think of the lodge as
of a home; not an old home, but a new one, for Hamoosabik is strangely
typical of America in that he is forever moving somewhere else or
building a new house. All summer long the beavers lead a nomad life,
wandering up or down the wilderness streams on endless exploration;
but when nights have a warning chill, and days grow mellow as ripened
fruit, then the heads of the family begin to look about for a place to
spend the winter. There is nothing haphazard in the location; a beaver
never settles on a place for winter quarters until by examination he is
assured of three things: an ample food supply, a storehouse in which
to keep it, and a dry lodge in which to live in comfort and security.
Because he must have all these, with solitude or remoteness, you may
search long in beaver land before you find where the animals have
settled.
The first need of the family will be plenty of good food, and to
secure that they explore the neighboring woods until they find a grove
of poplars, of young poplars with tender bark. One might think that,
having found their food, they would begin at once to cut and gather
it; but such is not the beaver’s way. With him all things must be done
not only decently, but in order. Before a beaver touches his selected
trees, he examines the stream carefully to decide where he will put
them; and when that matter is settled he will pick out a convenient
spot for his house. As he intends to raise the water in the stream,
which is too low for his purpose, and as rising water must overflow its
banks, he commonly locates his house some distance back from the shore.
Then, as he will be working here many days before his house is ready,
or even begun, he proceeds quickly to dig three or four refuge burrows.
And very cunning burrows they are, starting in hidden places near the
bottom of the stream, slanting upward through the bank, and ending in a
den under a tree’s roots above the flood level. He will sleep in these
dens while preparing his permanent quarters; in winter he will use them
as hiding places should he be driven out of his lodge.
The next important matter is a storehouse beyond reach of frost, and
the only sure place for that is under water. The stream is shallow;
it might easily be frozen to the bottom; but the beaver overcomes the
difficulty by going downstream a little way and building a dam of
logs, brush, stones and miscellaneous litter. The dam is intended to
provide an artificial pond; the double object of the pond is to furnish
a playground and a pool for storage, the one wide enough for winter
exercise, the other deep enough to give assurance that ice can never
form to the bottom of it and grip the food which is to be kept there.
So we think, viewing the finished dam and seeing it serve its purpose;
what the beaver thinks when he builds it, only a beaver might tell.