When the frost is on the barrens,
And the popple-leaves are thinned,
And the caribou are drifting
Down the wind,——
So writes one who knows all about how autumn comes to the Tobique
barrens, and who claims to know as much as most men about the caribou.
But the caribou do not always drift, by any means. They are rather an
incalculable folk, these caribou,—and even in their name one notes their
inclination to be contrary; for the herds which frequent the high, watery
barrens of northern New Brunswick are not, as one might suppose, the
“caribou of the barren grounds,” but the larger and warier “woodland
caribou.” The faithful observer of the manners and customs of this tribe
may spend much time one year in learning what he will be constrained to
unlearn with humility the next.
The lonely lake, smooth as a mirror between its flat, desolate shores,
spread pink, amber, and gold toward the cloudless pink and orange sky,
where the sun had just sunk below the wooded horizon. All the way up the
lake, on one side, the shore was an unbroken stretch of treeless barren.
On the other side the low, dark, serried ranks of the fir forest advanced
almost to the water’s edge, their tops like embattled spear-points
against the colored sky. From this shore a spit of sand jutted straight
out into the lake. On its extremity, his magnificent bulk and lofty head
black against the pellucid orange glow, stood a giant bull-moose,
motionless as if modelled in bronze. His huge muzzle was thrust straight
out before him, as if he was about to roar a challenge. His wide,
palmated antlers were laid back over his shoulders.
Far down the lake a solitary huntsman lay beside a dying camp-fire, and
gazed at the splendid silhouette. A faint puff of the aromatic
wood-smoke, breathing across his nostrils at that moment, bit the picture
into his memory so ineffaceably, that never after could he sniff the
smell of wood-smoke on evening air without the desolate splendor of that
spacious and shining scene leaping into his brain. But he was a hunter,
and the great bull was his quarry. Where he lay he was invisible against
the dark background of tree and brush. Presently he reached for his rifle
and for a trumpet-like roll of birch bark which lay close by. Noiselessly
as a snake he crawled to the shelter of a thicket of young firs. Then he
arose to his feet and slipped into the forest.
At the same instant the moose, as if some warning of his unseen foe had
been flashed into his consciousness, turned and strode off, without a
sound, into the woods.
Soon the tiny camp-fire had died to a few white ashes, and the half-dark
of a cloudless night had fallen—still, and chill, and faintly sweet with
damp, tonic scents of spruce, bayberry, and bracken. There was that in
the air which spoke of frost before morning. It wanted nearly an hour of
moonrise. The wide, vague world of the night, that seemed so empty, so
unstirring, grew populous with unseen, furtive life—life hunting and
hunted; loving, fearing, trembling; enjoying or avenging. But there was
no sound, except now and then the inexplicable rustle of a dead leaf, or
an elvish gurgle of water from somewhere in the shadows along shore.
At last the hunter, threading his way through the forest as noiselessly
as the craftiest of the prowling kindreds, arrived in the heart of a
covert of young fir-trees, from beneath whose sweeping branches he could
command a near and clear view of the sand-spit. Disappointed he was, but
not surprised, to find that the great moose-bull had disappeared. Seating
himself with his back to a small tree, his rifle and the birch-bark
trumpet, or “moose call,” across his knees, he settled down to wait—to
wait with that exhaustless patience, that alert yet immobile vigilance,
which are, perhaps, hardest to acquire of all the essentials of
woodcraft. In the stillness the wood-mice came out and resumed their
play, with fairy-thin squeaks and almost inaudible patterings and
rustlings over the dry carpet of the fir needles.
At last, above the flat, black horizon beyond the lower end of the lake,
came the first pale glow of moonrise. At sight of it the hunter lifted
the birch-bark horn to his lips and breathed through it a deep, bleating
call, grotesque and wild, yet carrying an indescribable appeal, as if it
were the voice of all the longing of the wilderness. Twice he sounded the
uncouth call. Then he waited, listening, thrilled with exquisite
expectancy.
He knew that, when one called a moose, one never knew what might come. It
might, of course, be the expected bull, his lofty, antlered head
thrusting out over the dark screen of the bushes, while his burning eyes
stared about in search of the mate to whose longing call he had hastened.
In that case he might perhaps feel vaguely that he had been deceived, and
fall back soundlessly into the darkness; or, taking it into his head that
another bull had forestalled him, he might burst out into the open,
shaking his antlers, thrashing the bushes, and roaring savage challenge.
But, on the other hand, it might not be a bull at all that would come to
the lying summons. It might be an ungainly moose-cow, mad with jealousy
and frantically resolved to trample her rival beneath her knife-edged
hoofs. Or it might be something dangerously different. It might be a
bear, a powerful old male, who had learned to spring upon a cow-moose and
break her neck with one stroke of his armed paw. In such a contingency
there was apt to be excitement; for when a bear undertakes to stalk a
cow-moose, he gives no notice of his intentions. The first warning, then,
of his approach, would be his final savage rush upon the utterer of the
lying call. For such a contingency the hunter held his rifle always
ready.
But, on the other hand, there might well be nothing at all—no answer, all
through the long, cold, moon-silvered night, summon the birch horn never
so craftily.
And this was what the hunter thought had been so far the result of his
calling. Had he chanced to look over his shoulder, he might have known
better. He might have seen the shadows take substance, condensing into a
gigantic and solid bulk just behind the little tree against which he
leaned his back. He might have seen the spread of vast and shadowy
antlers, the long, sullen head, and drooping muzzle, the little eyes, in
which, as they detected him in his ambush, a sudden flame of rage was
quenched by the timely wisdom of fear. But the giant shape dissolved back
into shadow, and the hunter never knew that he himself had been stalked
and considered.
After a long silence, the birch-bark horn again sent forth its appeal.
Loud and long it called; then it murmured a series of caressingly
desirous notes, impatient and importunate. When it stopped, from the
thick dark just below the sand-spit came a light snapping of twigs and
brushing of branches, which seemed to be moving toward the open point.
The hunter was puzzled; for a moose-bull, coming in answer to the call,
would either come with a defiant rush, and make a much louder noise, or
he would come secretively and make no noise whatever. With pounding
pulses he leaned forward to see what would emerge upon the sand-spit.
To his surprise, it was no moose, but a small gray caribou cow, looking
almost white in the level rays of the now half-risen moon. She was
followed by another cow, larger and darker than the first, and then by a
fine caribou bull. Softly, alluringly, the hunter sounded his call again,
but not one of the caribou paid any attention to it whatever. To the bull
of the caribou it mattered not what lovelorn cow-moose should voice her
hoarse appeals to the moon. He and his followers were on their own
affairs intent.
He was a noble specimen of his kind, as to stature, with a very light
grayish head, neck, and shoulders, showing white in contrast to the dull
brown of the rest of his coat. But his antlers, though large, were
unevenly developed, so obviously imperfect that the hunter, who wanted
heads, not hides or meat, hesitated to shoot. He chose rather to bide his
time, and hope for a more perfect specimen, the law of New Brunswick
allowing him only one.
For several minutes the bull stood staring across the lake, as though
half minded to swim it, and his two cows—antlered like himself, though
much less imposingly—watched him with dutiful attention. Whatever his
purpose, however, it was never declared; for suddenly there came a new
and more impetuous crashing among the undergrowth, and the eyes of the
little herd turned to see what was approaching. An instant later a second
bull, about the size of the first, but very much darker in coloring,
broke furiously through the bushes. He rushed about half-way down the
sand-spit, then stopped, snorting and blowing defiance.
The new-comer had a magnificent set of antlers, but the hunter forgot to
shoot.
The white bull, surprised by the unexpected challenge, stood for an
instant staring stupidly, waving his great ears. Then all at once the hot
blood of arrogant possession and jealous mastery seemed to rush to his
head. Thrusting aside the two cows, who stood huddled in his path, with a
furious booing grunt, he lurched forward to meet the challenger.
With lowered heads, noses between their knees, and the branching spikes
of their antlers presented straight to the front, they came together with
a shock and a snort. The hard horn clashed with the dry resonance of
seasoned wood. Being of about equal size, both withstood the shock. Both
staggered; but, recovering themselves instantly, they stood pushing with
all the strength of their straining, heaving bodies, their hoofs digging
deep into the sand.
Then, on a sudden, as if the same idea had at the same instant flashed
into both their seething brains, they disengaged and jumped backward,
like wary fencers.
For several tense seconds they stood eying each other, antlers down,
while the big-eyed cows, with ears slowly waving, looked on placidly, and
the moon, now full risen, flooded the whole scene with lavish radiance.
The only concern of the cows was that the best bull should win, with
proved mastery compelling their allegiance.
Suddenly the new-comer, the dark bull, as if to get around his
adversary’s guard, feinted to the right, and then lunged straight
forward. But the white bull was too experienced to be caught by such a
well-worn ruse. He met the attack fairly. Again the antlers clashed.
Again those monstrous pantings and savage gruntings arose on the
stillness, as the matched antagonists heaved and pushed, their hind legs
straddled awkwardly and their hoofs ploughing the sand.
At length the white bull put one of his hind feet in a hole. Giving way
for a second, he was forced backwards almost to the water’s edge. With a
furious effort, however, he recovered himself, and even, by some special
good fortune or momentary slackness of his adversary, regained his lost
ground. Both paused for breath. The fight hung exactly in the balance.
To judge from his antlers, the white bull was the older, and therefore,
one may suppose, the craftier duellist. It occurred to him now, perhaps,
that against a foe so nearly his equal in strength he must seek some
advantage in strategy. He made a sudden movement to disengage his antlers
and jump aside. To the trained eyes of the hunter, watching from the
thicket, the intention was obvious. But it failed curiously. At the very
instant of the effort to disengage, the dark bull had surged forward with
violence. Not meeting the resistance expected, he was taken by surprise
and stumbled to his knees. The white bull, quick to feel his advantage,
instantly changed his purpose and surged forward with all his force. For
a moment the dark bull seemed to crumple up as his rival’s heaving
shoulders towered above him.
Now, this was the white bull’s chance. It was for him to roll his enemy
over, disengage, rip the dark bull’s unfortunate flank, and tread him
down into the sand. But he did nothing of the sort. He himself staggered
forward with the fall of his adversary. Then he drew back again, but
slowly. With the motion his adversary regained his feet. Once more the
two stood, armed front to front, grunting, straining, sweating, heaving,
but neither giving ground an inch.
“Locked!” said the hunter, under his breath.
That, indeed, was the fact. The two pairs of antlers were interlaced. But
the sinister truth was not yet realized by the combatants themselves,
because, when either tried to back free, so as to renew the attack more
advantageously, it seemed to him quite natural that the other should
furiously follow him up. In the confused struggle that now followed, they
more than once pivoted completely around; and the two cows, perceiving
something unusual in the combat, drew off with a disapproving air to the
extremity of the sand-spit. Little by little the white bull appeared to
be getting a shade the better of the duel; for at length, regaining his
first position, he began forcing his rival steadily, though slowly, back
toward the woods. Then all at once, during a pause for breath, both at
the same moment awoke to knowledge of the plight they had got themselves
into. Both had sought to back away at the same instant. In the next they
were tugging frantically to break apart.
But struggle as they might their efforts were utterly in vain. The tough,
strong horn of their new antlers was ever so slightly elastic. It had
yielded, under the impact of their last charge, just far enough for a
perfect locking. But in the opposite direction there was no yielding.
They were inextricably and inexorably fixed together, and in a horrid
attitude, in which it was impossible to feed, or even to straighten up
their bowed necks.
In the agonized pulling match which now began, the white bull had the
best of it. He had slightly the advantage in weight. Little by little he
dragged his grunting rival out along the sand-spit, till the two cows,
almost crowded off, bounced past with indignant snorts and vanished down
the shore. A moment more, and he had backed off the sand into a couple of
feet of water.
The shock of the plunge seemed to startle the white bull into new rage.
He laid the blame of it upon his foe. As if with all his strength
renewed, he recovered himself, and thrust the dark bull backward with
such tempestuous force that the latter had all he could do to keep his
footing. Presently he felt himself at the edge of the woods, his hind
feet in a tangle of bushes instead of on the sand. Then, exhausted and
cowed, his legs gave way, and he sank back upon his haunches. Frantic
with despair, he struggled to butt and strike with his fettered prongs,
and in this futile struggle he fell over on his side. The white bull, his
paroxysm of new vigor come suddenly to an end, was dragged down with him,
and the two lay with heaving flanks, panting noisily.
The hunter had laid down his roll of birch bark. He was just about to
step forth from his ambush and mercifully end the matter with his knife.
But there came a brusque intervention. He had not been the only spectator
of the strange combat.
Out from the thickets at the lower edge of the point came plunging an
enormous black bear. With one huge paw uplifted, he fell upon the
exhausted duellists. One blow smashed the neck of the white bull. Turning
to the other, who glared up at him with rolling, hopeless eyes, he fell
to biting at him with slow, luxurious cruelty.
In that instant the hunter’s rifle blazed from the thicket. The bear,
shot through the spine with an explosive bullet, dropped in a sprawling
heap across the bent forelegs of his victim. Stepping forth into the
moonlight, the hunter drew his knife with precision across the throat of
the wounded bull.
Straightening himself up, he stared for a few moments at the three great
lifeless carcasses on the sand. Then he let his glance sweep out over the
glassy waters and level, desolate shores. How strange was the sudden
silence, the still white peace of the moonlight, after all that madness
and tumult and rage which had just been so abruptly stilled! A curious
revulsion of feeling all at once blotted out his triumph, and there came
over him a sense of repugnance to the bulk of so much death. Stepping
around it, he sat down with his back to it all, on a stranded log, and
proceeded to fill his pipe.