Pale, shimmering green, and soaked in sun, the miles of sedge-flats lay
outspread from the edges of the slow bright water to the foot of the far,
dark-wooded, purple hills. Winding through the quiet green levels came a
tranquil little stream. Where its sleepy current joined the great parent
river, a narrow tongue of bare sand jutted out into the golden-glowing
water. At the extreme tip of the sand-spit towered, sentry-like, a
long-legged gray-blue bird, as motionless as if he had been transplanted
thither from the panel of a Japanese screen.
The flat narrow head of the great heron, with its long, javelin-like,
yellow beak and two slender black crest-feathers, was drawn far back by a
curious undulation of the immensely long neck, till it rested between the
humped blue wing-shoulders. From the lower part of the neck hung a fine
fringe of vaporous rusty-gray plumes, which lightly veiled the
chestnut-colored breast. The bird might have seemed asleep, like the
drowsy expanses of green sedge, silver-blue water, and opalescent
turquoise sky, but for its eyes. Those eyes, round, unwinking, of a hard,
glassy gold with intense black pupils, were unmistakably and savagely
wide awake.
Over the tops of the sedges, fluttering and zigzagging waywardly, came a
big butterfly, its gorgeous red-brown wings pencilled with strange
hieroglyphs in black and purple. It danced out a little way over the
water; and then, as if suddenly terrified by the shining peril beneath,
came wavering back toward shore. A stone’s throw up the channel of the
little stream lay a patch of vivid green, the leaves of the arrow-weed,
with its delicate, pallid blooms dreaming in the still air above them.
The butterfly saw these blossoms, or perhaps smelt them, and fluttered in
their direction to see if those pure chalices held honey. But on his way
he noted the moveless figure of the heron, conspicuous above the ranks of
the sedge. Perhaps he took the curious shape for a post or a stump. In
any case, it seemed to offer an alluring place of rest, where he might
pause for a moment and flaunt his glowing wings in the sun before dancing
onward to the honey-blossoms. He flickered nearer. To him those unwinking
jewels of eyes had no menace. He hovered an instant about two feet above
them. In that instant, like a flash of light, the long, pale neck and
straight yellow beak shot out; and the butterfly was caught neatly.
Twisting his head shoreward, without shifting his feet, the heron struck
the glowing velvet wings of the insect sharply on the sand. Then, having
swallowed the morsel leisurely, he drew his head down again between his
shoulders, and resumed his moveless waiting.
The next matter of interest to come within the vision of those
inscrutable eyes was a dragon-fly chase. Hurtling low over the
sedge-tops, and flashing in the sunlight like a lace-pin of rubies, came
a small rose-colored dragon-fly, fleeing for its life before a monster of
its species which blazed in emerald and amethyst. The chase could have
but one ending, for the giant had the speed as well as the voracious
hunger. The glistening films of his wings rustled crisply as he overtook
the shining fugitive and caught its slender body in his jaws. The silver
wings of the victim vibrated wildly. The chase came to a hovering pause
just before that immobile shape on the point of the sand-spit. Again the
long yellow beak darted forth. And the radiant flies, captive and captor
together, disappeared.
But such flimsy fare as even the biggest of butterflies and dragon-flies
was not contenting to the sharp appetite of the heron. He took one
stiff-legged stride forward, and stood in about six inches of water. Here
he settled himself in a somewhat altered position, his back more
awkwardly hunched, his head held lower, and his dagger of a bill pointing
downward. His wicked golden eyes were not indifferent to the
possibilities of the air above him, but they were now concerning
themselves more particularly with the water which flowed about his feet.
If any one stands at the brink of a quiet summer stream, and keeps still
enough, and watches intently enough, however deserted the landscape may
appear, he will see life in many furtive forms go by. The great blue
heron kept still enough. The water at this point went softly over a shoal
half sand, half mud, and in the faint movement of the clear amber-brown
current the sunlight wove a shimmering network on the bottom. Across this
darted a shadow. The heron’s beak shot downward with an almost inaudible
splash, transfixing the shadow, and emerged with a glittering green and
silver perch, perhaps five inches in length. The quivering body of the
fish had its knife-edged gills wide open, and every spine of its
formidable, armed fins threateningly erect. But the triumphant fisherman
strode ashore with it and proceeded to hammer it into unconsciousness on
the hard sand. Then he swallowed it head first, thus effectually
disarming every weapon of fin and gill-cover. The progress of this
substantial mouthful could be traced clearly down the bird’s slim length
of gullet, accompanied as it was by several seconds of contortions so
violent that they made the round yellow eyes wink gravely. As soon as the
morsel was fairly down the bird stretched its neck to its full length,
with a curious hitch of the base as if to assure himself the process was
completed. Then he resumed his post of watching. He had no more than
taken his place than a huge black tadpole wriggled by over the
gold-meshed bottom. It was speared and swallowed in an eye-wink. Soft,
slippery, and spineless, it made but a moment’s incident.
A little after, on the smooth surface of the smaller stream, some fifty
feet up-channel, a tiny ripple appeared. Swiftly it drew near. It was
pointed, and with a long fine curve of oily ripple trailing back from it
on either side, like the outline of a comet’s tail. As it approached, in
the apex of the parabola could be seen a minute black nose, with two
bright, dark little eyes just behind it. It was a small water-rat,
voyaging adventurously out from its narrow inland haunts among the
lilies.
The great heron eyed its approach. To the swimmer, no doubt, the
blue-gray, immobile shape at the extremity of the sand-spit looked like
some weather-beaten post, placed there by man for his inexplicable
convenience in regard to hitching boats. But presently, something strange
in the shape of the post seemed to strike the little voyager’s attention.
He stopped. Perhaps he saw the menacing glitter of that yellow, unwinking
stare. After a moment of wavering irresolution, he changed his course,
swam straight across channel, scrambled out upon the wet mud of the
farther shore, and vanished among the pale root-stalks of the sedge. The
heron was savage with disappointment; but no slightest movement betrayed
his anger, save that the pinkish film of the lower lid blinked up once,
as it were with a snap, over each implacable eye. His time would
come—which faith is that which supports all those who know how to wait.
He peered upstream for the coming of another and less wary water-rat.
Instead of the expected ripple, however, he now caught sight of a shadow
which flickered across the surface of the water and in an instant had
vanished over the pale sea of the grass-tops. He looked up. In the blue
above hung poised, his journeying flight just at that moment arrested, a
wide-winged duck-hawk, boldest marauder of the air. The heron threw his
head far back, till his beak pointed straight skyward. At the same time
he half lifted his strong wings, poising himself to deliver a thrust with
all the strength that was in him. On the instant the hawk dropped like a
wedge of steel out of the sky, his rigid, half-closed pinions hissing
with the speed of his descent. The heron never flinched. But within ten
feet of him the hawk, having no mind to impale himself on that waiting
spear-point, opened his wings, swerved upward, and went past with a harsh
hum of wing-feathers. Wheeling again, almost instantly, he swooped back
to the attack, buffeting the air just above the heron’s head, but taking
care not to come within range of the deadly beak. The heron refused to be
drawn from his position of effective defence, and made no movement except
to keep the point of his lance ever toward the foe. And presently the
hawk, seeing the futility of his assaults, winged off sullenly to hunt
for some unwary duck or gosling.
As he went the heron stretched himself to his full gaunt height and
stared after him in triumph. Then, turning his head slowly, he scanned
the whole expanse of windless grass and sunlit water. One sight fixed his
attention. Far up the windings of the lesser stream he marked a man in a
boat. The man was not rowing, but sitting in the stern and propelling the
boat noiselessly with an Indian paddle. From time to time he halted and
examined the shore minutely. Once in a while, after such an examination,
he would get out, kneel down, and be occupied for several minutes among
the weeds of the shallows along the stream’s edge. He was looking at the
musquash holes in the bank, and setting traps before those which showed
signs of present occupancy. The heron watched the process, unstirring as
a dead stump, till he thought the man was coming too near. Then,
spreading a vast, dark pair of wings, he rose indignantly and flapped
heavily away up river, trailing his length of black legs just over the
sedge-tops.
Not far above the mouth of the stream the man set the last of his
musquash traps. Then he paddled back leisurely by the way he had come,
his dingy yellow straw hat appearing to sail close over the grass as the
boat followed the windings of the stream. When the yellow hat had at
length been swallowed up in the violet haze along the base of the
uplands, the great blue heron reappeared, winging low along the river
shore. Arriving at the sand-spit he dropped his feet to the shallow
water, closed his wings, and settled abruptly into a rigid pose of
watching, with his neck outstretched and his head held high in the air.
The most searching scrutiny revealed nothing in all the tranquil summer
landscape to disturb him. Nevertheless, he seemed to have lost conceit of
his sentry post on the tip of the sand-spit. Instead of settling down to
watch for what might come to him, he decided to go and look for what he
wanted. With long, ungainly, precise, but absolutely noiseless strides,
he took his slow way up along the shore of the little river, walking on
the narrow margin of mud between the grass-roots and the water. As he
went his long neck undulated sinuously at each stride, his head was held
low, and his eyes glared under every drooping leaf. The river margin,
both in the water and out of it, was populous with insect life and the
darting bill took toll of it at every step. But the most important game
was frogs. There were plenty of them, small, greenish ochre fellows, who
sat on the lily leaves and stared with foolish goggle-eyes till that
stalking blue doom was almost upon them. Then they would dive
head-foremost into the water, quick almost as the fleeting of a shadow.
But quicker still was the stroke of the yellow beak—and the captive,
pounded into limpness, would vanish down his captor’s insatiable throat.
This was better hunting than he had had upon the sand-spit, and he
followed it up with great satisfaction. He even had the triumph of
capturing a small water-rat, which had darted out of the grass-roots just
as he came by. The little beast was tenacious of life, and had to be well
hammered on the mud before it would consent to lie still enough to be
swallowed comfortably. This pleasant task, however, was presently
accomplished; and the great bird, as he stretched his head upward to give
his neck that final hitch which drove the big mouthful home, took a
careless step backward into the shallow water. There was a small sinister
sound, and something closed relentlessly on his leg. He had stepped into
a steel trap.
Stung by the sharp pain, astounded by the strangeness of the attack, and
panic-stricken, as all wild creatures are by the sudden forfeit of their
freedom, the great bird lost all his dignified self-possession. First he
nearly broke his beak with mad jabs at the inexplicable horror that had
clutched him. Then, with a hoarse squawk of terror, he went quite wild.
His huge wings flapped frantically, beating down the sedges and the
blossoms of the arrow-weed, as he struggled to wrench himself free. He
did succeed in lifting the trap above water; but it was securely
anchored, and after a minute or two of insane, convulsive effort, it
dragged him down again. Again and again he lifted it; again and yet again
it dragged him down inexorably. And so the blind battle went on, with
splashing of water and heavy buffeting of wings, till at last the bird
fell back utterly beaten. In the last bout the trap had turned and got
itself wedged in a slanting position, so that it was impossible for the
captive to hold himself upright. He lay sprawling on his thighs, one wing
outspread over the mud and leaves, the other on the water. His deadly
beak was half open, from exhaustion. Only his indomitable eyes, still
round, gold-and-black, glittering like gems, showed no sign of his
weakness or his fear.
For a long time he lay there motionless, half numbed by the sense of
defeat and by that gnawing anguish in his leg. Unheeded, the gleaming
dragon-flies hurtled and darted, flashed and poised quivering, just above
his head. Unheeded, the yellow butterflies, and the pale blue
butterflies, alighted near him on the blooms of the arrow-weed. A big
green bull-frog swam up and clambered out upon the mud close before
him—to catch sight at once of that bright, terrible eye and fall back
into the water almost paralyzed with fright; but still he made no
movement. His world had fallen about him, and there was nothing for him
to do but wait and see what would happen next—what shape his doom would
take.
Meanwhile, down along the margin mud, still hidden from view by a bend of
the stream, another stealthy hunter was approaching. The big brown mink,
who lived far upstream in a muskrat hole whose occupants he had cornered
and devoured, was out on one of his foraging expeditions. Nothing in the
shape of flesh, fish, or insect came amiss to him; but having ever the
blood-lust in his ferocious veins, so that he loved to slaughter even
when his appetite was well sated, he preferred, of course, big
game—something that could struggle, and suffer, and give him the sense of
killing. A nesting duck or plover, for example, or a family of
musquash—that was something worth while. On this day he had caught
nothing but insects and a few dull frogs. He was savage for red blood.
Very short in the legs, but extraordinarily long in the body, lithe,
snake-like in his swift darting movements, every inch of him a bundle of
tough elastic muscles, with a sharp triangular head and incredibly
malevolent eyes, the mink was a figure to be dreaded by creatures many
times his size. As he came round the bend of the stream, and saw the
great blue bird lying at the water’s edge with wings outstretched, the
picture of helplessness, his eyes glowed suddenly like live coals blown
upon. He ran forward without an instant’s hesitation, and made as if to
spring straight at the captive’s throat.
This move, however, was but a feint; for the big mink, though his
knowledge of herons was by no means complete, knew nevertheless that the
heron’s beak was a weapon to beware of. He swerved suddenly, sprang
lightly to one side, and tried to close in from the rear. But he didn’t
know the flexibility of the heron’s neck. The lightning rapidity of his
attack almost carried it through; but not quite. He was met by a darting
stroke of the great yellow beak, which hurled him backward and ploughed a
deep red furrow across his shoulder. Before he could recover himself the
bird’s neck was coiled again like a set spring, the javelin beak poised
for another blow.
Most of the wild creatures would have been discouraged by such a
reception, and slunk away to look for easier hunting. But not so the
mink. His fighting blood now well up, for him it was a battle to the
death. But for all his rage he did not lose his cunning. Making as if to
run away, he doubled upon himself with incredible swiftness and flew at
his adversary’s neck. Quick as he was, however, he could not be so quick
as that miracle of speed, which the eye can scarcely follow, the heron’s
thrust. The blow caught him this time on the flank, but slantingly,
leaving a terrible gash, and at the same time a lucky buffet from the
elbow of one great wing dashed him into the water. With this success the
heron strove to rise to his feet—a position from which he could have
fought to greater advantage. But the lay of the trap pulled him down
again irresistibly. As he sank back the mink clambered out upon the shore
and crouched straight in front of him, just a little beyond the reach of
his stroke.
The mink was now a picture of battle fury, every muscle quivering, blood
pulsing from his gashes, his white teeth showing in a soundless snarl,
his eyes seeming to throb with crimson fire. The heron, on the other
hand, seemed absolutely composed. His head, immobile, alert, in perfect
readiness, was drawn back between his shoulders. His eyes were as wide,
and fixed, and clear, and glassily staring, as the jewelled eyes of an
idol.
For some seconds the mink crouched, as if trying to stare his adversary
out of countenance. Then he launched himself straight at the bird’s back.
The movement had all the impetuosity of a genuine attack, but with
marvellous control it was checked on the instant. It had been enough,
however, to draw the heron’s counterstroke, which fell just short of its
object. With the bird’s recovery the mink shot in to close quarters. He
received a second blow, which laid open the side of his face, but it was
a short stroke, with not enough force behind it to repulse him. Ignoring
it, he closed, fixed his teeth in the bird’s neck, and flung his lithe
length over the back, where it would be out of reach of the buffeting
wings.
The battle was over; for the mink’s teeth were long and strong. They cut
deep, straight into the life; and, undisturbed by the windy flopping of
the great, helpless wings, the victor lay drinking the life-blood which
he craved. A black whirling shadow sailed over the scene, but it passed a
little behind the mink’s tail and was not noticed. It paused, seeming to
hover over a patch of lily leaves. A moment more, and it vanished. There
was a hiss; and the great duck-hawk, the same one whom the heron had
driven off earlier in the day, dropped out of the zenith. The mink had
just time to raise his snarling and dripping muzzle in angry surprise
when the hawk’s talons closed upon him. One set fastened upon his throat,
cutting straight through windpipe and jugular; the other set gripped and
pierced his tender loins. The next moment he was jerked from the body of
his prey, and carried—head, legs, and tail limply hanging—away far over
the green wastes of the sedge to the great hawk’s eyrie, in the heart of
the cedar-swamp beyond the purple uplands.
Some ten minutes later a splendid butterfly, all glowing orange and
maroon, came and settled on the back of the dead heron, and waved its
radiant wings in the tranquil light.