Love of the Wild
BY
ARCHIE P. McKISHNIE
M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
CHICAGO NEW YORK
Copyright, 1910, by
Desmond FitzGerald, Inc.
_All Right Reserved_
Made in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE WORLD OF THE UNTAMED 1
II. GLOW AND GLOSS 10
III. THE BABES IN THE WOOD 18
IV. BUSHWHACKERS’ PLACE 26
V. COMRADES OF THE HARDWOODS 35
VI. THE GO-BETWEEN 44
VII. WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET 53
VIII. THROUGH THE DEEP WOOD 64
IX. AND THE TWILIGHT 75
X. COLONEL HALLIBUT 82
XI. THE WILD OF THE WILD 95
XII. INJUN NOAH 107
XIII. ON THE CREEK PATH 115
XIV. PAISLEY RECONNOITERS 122
XV. WAR TACTICS 132
XVI. PREPARING FOR THE LOGGIN’ 145
XVII. THE LOGGIN’-BEE 155
XVIII. OLD BETSY 170
XIX. OF THE TRIBE OF BROADCROOK 183
XX. MR. SMYTHE VISITS THE COLONEL 196
XXI. WIDOW ROSS BACKSLIDES 209
XXII. THE SHOT IN THE DARK 222
XXIII. IN THE FIRE CIRCLE 232
XXIV. THE NIGHT ATTACK 240
XXV. AND THE DAY AFTER 254
XXVI. IN THE MANACLES OF WINTER 267
XXVII. WHILE THE RAIN FELL 277
XXVIII. A CLEAR TRAIL 285
XXIX. BLUE SKIES AND A CLOUD 295
XXX. THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY 310
XXXI. A MATING TIME 318
LOVE OF THE WILD
CHAPTER I
The World of the Untamed
The hazy October sunlight sifted through the trees and lay, here and
there, golden bits of carpet on the mossy woodland. A glossy black
squirrel paused on one of these splashes of sunlight, and, sitting
erect, preened his long fur; then as the harsh scolding of a red
squirrel fell on his ears he sank on all fours again, and bounded into
the heavy shadows of the wood. A pair of pursuing red squirrels sprang
from an opposite grove and with shrill chidings crossed the open to the
snake fence. By taking this fence they might intercept the quarry’s
flight, their object being to make short work of the black, whom they
hated with an hereditary hatred harking back to the dim past.
In and out they flashed, their yellow-red bodies painting zigzag streaks
of gold upon the forest background of green. Suddenly they halted and
with tails slashing angrily poured out a tirade of abuse upon the human
frustrator of their designs.
He stood leaning against the fence, his young face moody, his eyes
focused somberly on the new schoolhouse with its unpainted boards,
hanging to the face of the hill across the creek. He turned now, his
tall form erect, accusation in his glance. Nineteen years among the wild
of the wild had schooled him in the knowledge of signs such as that
which confronted him, and which were forerunners of the tragedies so
numerous in the wooded fastness. “So you would, eh?” he grated, “you
little murderers, you.”
At the sound of his voice the male squirrel, less courageous than his
mate, sprang to earth and scurried up a scraggy beech. The female, not
to be cheated out of her wicked pleasure, attempted the old ruse of
dropping to the bottom rail of the fence and darting past the boy in
this way. But the boy had learned the ways of squirrels as he had
learned the ways of all the things of the wild, and as the little animal
sprang forward his tall body bent earthward. A muffled squeal came from
the buckskin cap he held in his hand, and when he arose his brown
fingers nipped the animal securely by the back of its neck.
“So it’s you who’ve been drivin’ the black squirrels out of the bush?”
he said. “Well, you won’t drive any more out, I guess. You’ve had your
last run except the one me and pup’ll give you, and that won’t be a very
long one. Here, Joe,” he called, “come here, old feller; I’ve got
something for you.”
From the far end of a long fallow came loping a gaunt Irish setter. He
hurled his shaggy form upward, but the boy held the prize out of his
reach.
“Come into the clearin’ and we’ll have a chase, pup,” he said. They
passed over to an open spot in the wood and the boy turned the captive
about so that it faced him.
“Now, Joe,” he said, “I’ll just——” He broke off and stood gazing at
the animal which had ceased to struggle and now hung passive, its little
heart throbbing under its white breast-fur.
“Joe,” whispered the boy, “she’s got young ’uns somewhere.”
The dog sprawled on the warm moss and rolled over and over.
“I reckon some little codgers’ll be missin’ their mammy, pup.”
Joe cocked his ears and looked up at his master.
“They’ll be lookin’ to see her maybe by now,—but,” savagely, “ain’t
never goin’ to see her no more.”
The squirrel twisted and attempted to dig its long yellow teeth into the
hand that held it prisoner.
“She’s just like everythin’ else that has babies,” frowned the lad,
“savage and foolish. Here, you,” he called to the dog, “where are you
goin’, Joe?”
The setter was trotting slowly away.
“What’s got into him, I wonder,” muttered the young man; “never knowed
Joe to run away from sport before, unless it was that time the old
she-’coon slashed his nose, after we’d cut down her tree and found her
babies.”
Once more he turned the animal about and looked into its big soft eyes.
“I’m goin’ to give you another chance,” he said. “Pup don’t seem to
hanker for your life, and I guess if a dog thinks that way about it I
ought to think the same way. It’s a mighty good thing for you that
you’ve got young ’uns. And now, you thievin’, murderin’ little
devil—get.”
He tossed the squirrel on the moss. The frantic thing crouched for a
second, then sprang away and sought the sheltering branches of a nearby
tree. From this secure refuge she cursed the boy viciously in squirrel
language. The boy nodded, then scowled.
“You’re quite welcome, I’m sure,” he said, and cramming his hands deep
into the pockets of his buckskin trousers he walked thoughtfully back to
his old post.
Slowly he climbed the fence and perched himself on its topmost rail, his
knees drawn up, his chin sunk in his hands. Once more he gazed somberly
across the stumpy clearing to the new schoolhouse on the hill. He hated
it; hated the brazen sound of its bell. Mentally he combated it as he
combated other elements of civilization. All the young soul of him
rebelled against what he considered the defacing of Nature. Those wide
swaths which man had mowed through the forest to him meant no
advancement. They were scars made by interlopers upon the face of a
great sweet mother. Nature had endowed the boy’s spirit with her own
moods. His soul held the shadows of her quiet places as it retained the
records of her swishing songs of trees and waterfalls. He knew no order
save that of the great Brotherhood of the Untamed. His was a broad
kingdom. It was being usurped and would soon be a toppling power.
Moody and unmoving be sat until the gold splashes crept from the open
spaces of the wood and the patches of the yellow-tops of the slashing
turned from yellow to bronze-brown and from bronze-brown to gray. A
covey of brown quail scurried from a tangled patch of rag-weed to a dry
water-run, to scuttle, a long animated line, to the thicket of sumach.
Far down in the corner of the fallow another scattered brood were
voicing the shrill, mellow call of retreat, and all throughout the
darkening wood there sounded the medley of harmonious voices of wild
things in twilight song. Only in the soul of the boy was there a discord
that rose and fell and disturbed an old-time restfulness that had been
his for nineteen years. Perhaps the indefinable something that whispered
to him pitied him also, for resentment and combativeness sank away from
his heart with the hazy glow of day. Like his great Wild that nestled in
the peace of twilight, his soul threw off its struggles and seemed to
rest. When darkness came he climbed down from the fence. Through the
forest-trees murmured the low song of early night-breezes, and to him
they voiced a prophecy. Something brushed against him, and the boy bent
down and drew the shaggy head of a dog over against his breast.
“Damn ’em,” he cried chokingly, and shook a clenched fist toward the
swaths of civilization. Then slowly he passed out into the darkness, the
dog at his heels.
At the edge of the hill he halted and gazed down the long dark hollow of
the creek-bed to where a white splash of water slept beneath the rising
moon. All along the wooded vista whip-poor-wills piped their wakeful
joy-notes, and the musical whistle of migrating woodcock made a shrill
treble note to the harsher wing-song of incoming wild ducks. Dew-mists,
laden with the scent of dead leaves and moldy woods, crept to him, and
he breathed the sweetness in long, sensuous breaths. But all the while
the boy looked toward the bay and the golden trail of moonlight across
it, to the uneven, scrag-line of Point aux Pins Forest, and wondered
vaguely at the savagery of civilization that sought, as it was seeking,
to destroy God’s life and beauty.
A pair of woodcock arose from a swale and passed between him and the
water. Against the moonlight their bronze breasts flashed out for a
second and faded, and their mellow wing-notes reverberated dyingly from
the shadow. Right across their track a flock of ducks came speeding,
their goal the reedy ponds of Rond Eau Bay.
“Joe,” the young man said wistfully, “it’s funny, isn’t it, now? Some
goin’ and some comin’. Woodcock flyin’ south ’cause they hate the cold;
ducks flyin’ north ’cause they love it.”
They passed on, the dog taking the lead. At the edge of a wide clearing
they paused alert. The dim outline of a log-house lay before them. From
the windows streamed the glow of candlelight. Across the open from the
house a figure was advancing, and to the dog’s low growl the boy chided
a whispered, “Be still, Joe.” When the figure came close to where they
waited the boy stepped out and stood before it. His arms were folded
tight across his breast and his mouth narrowed to a thin line.
“Did you tell her?” he questioned quietly. The tall man thus accosted
stepped back with a startled exclamation.
“Well, Boy McTavish, is it you?”
Young McTavish half crouched, then quickly drew himself up again.
“Yes, it’s me, teacher,” he said. “What I want to know is, did you tell
her?”
“Yes, I told her.”
“All right, get out of my way, then.”
“Wait a moment, Boy,” returned the man. “You understand, don’t you, that
it is my duty to report all pupils who do not attend school regularly?”
The boy changed his position so that the moonlight would fall full upon
the face of the man before him.
“Do you suppose I care for your reportin’ me?”
The tone was wondering, contemptuous.
“Why, teacher, you can’t hurt me, and you know it. Do you suppose I was
thinkin’ of myself when I asked you not to tell her? And do you suppose
any _man_ would have done what you’ve done?”
“Hush,” warned the other, “I can’t let you talk to me in this way, Boy.
Remember who I am. I won’t have it, I say.”
“Well, I can’t see how you’re goin’ to help it. I want to tell you
somethin’, Mr. Simpson, and you’ve got to listen. Don’t you move or by
God I’ll sic Joe on to you. I’m goin’ to tell you again what I told you
before. Ma’s sick in bed and maybe she ain’t never goin’ to get up no
more. I told you that, remember?”
“Yes, you told me that—well?”
“Well, she’s been thinkin’ that I’ve been to school and you and me know
I haven’t. I couldn’t stay in your school and live, but I was willin’ to
take the hick’ry or anythin’ you said, if you wouldn’t tell her.”
The teacher was silent.
“Pup,” said the boy, “see that he answers up better.”
The dog growled, and the man spoke quickly.
“I was only doing my duty.”
“And it’s your duty to tell a dyin’ mother that her boy’s goin’ to
hell—I say goin’ to hell, and her so near the other place? Do you call
that duty?” demanded the boy bitterly.
The moon floated further into the open, lighting up the two; the boy
erect and accusing with the shaggy dog beside him, and the tall man
before them in an attitude half defiant, half ashamed.
“I didn’t quite understand, Boy,” apologized Simpson. “I am sorry;
believe me, I am. No, I didn’t understand.”
“And you never will understand. You’re maybe all right in your own
world, teacher, but you ain’t at home in ours. You don’t fit this place,
and there ain’t no use of your ever tryin’ to understand it or us.
Teacher, you take my advice—go back to the clearin’.”
The boy spoke slowly, weighing each word and closely watching the face
upon which the white moonlight fell. It was a young face, not many years
older than his own. But it was weak and conceited. It grew sullen now,
as the significance of young McTavish’s words became apparent.
The man turned toward the path to the creek, and the boy stood tall and
straight before him.
“Of course, you understand why us Bushwhackers can’t just be friends
with you, teacher,” said the boy. “It’s because you are one of
_them_—and they are doin’ all they can to break into our little world.”
He pointed toward the open.
“Out there is where they belong; them and you. Go back there, teacher,
and tell _them_ to go. It’s best, I tell you—best for everybody.”
Away down across the clearing on the far bank of the creek, a burst of
yellow-red light fluctuated against the skies, and the metallic ring of
a saw twanged out, silencing the whip-poor-will’s call. Colonel
Hallibut’s mill was running overtime. All this stimulated that
restlessness that had lately been born in the soul of the young
Bushwhacker. He stepped out from the shadow and shook his fist at the
red glow.
“Damn ’em,” he cried. And paying no heed to the figure which stood, with
bowed head, on the path, he stepped away across the clearing toward the
pale light streaming from the log-house window.