sigh of relief and sank deep down beneath the grateful water, leaving
just the tip of her muzzle and furry ears above the surface. The black
flies, which had stung her until she was nearly mad, left her burning
flesh and arose in a scum upon the water. So relieved and full of
content was the mother moose that she almost forgot about the little
furry fellow whom she had left back there in the secret covert. And so
it chanced that a lumberman and his boy, who had been following a
forest trail, came upon the covert and found the little moose. Lonely,
and no doubt wanting its mother, it had stolen out into the forest upon
its long awkward legs, and stood exactly on the trail when the man spied
it.
Thus it happened that when the mother moose came shambling hastily back
to her baby, uttering little rumbling calls deep down inside, just to
let it know she was on the way back to it, she found the secret covert
quite empty. For weeks she crashed wildly through the forest, calling it
vainly; only her own lonely bellow echoed back to her straining ears,
while afar off, in quite another direction, in the distant lumber camp
the boy was learning to love the little moose, and had built it a rough
shelter and yard not far from the lumbermen’s shacks, lest it stray
away, and he lose his pet.
In early autumn the mother finally gave up her fruitless search for the
calf. Soon the herding time would be at hand, snows would fly, and then
each family would seek the “yard” once more, and herd there through the
winter. Overcome now with sudden loneliness--for already the hills were
red with autumn tints; very soon after, up in the North Country, the
first snow flies--the mother moose began to long for companionship, and
so she began to haunt the old moose trails once more, and often send out
her long-drawn, pleading call for her lost mate.
“Ugh-ugh-waugh, o-o-o” she bellowed, racing through the dark aisles of
the tall spruces, whose far-away tops seemed to touch the blue sky.
One day, when she had almost given up her search, a loud, booming
challenge, an answer to her call, came from a long distance away. Even
then Monsall, the old King, was on his way to her and she was glad.
Now when the King Moose hears the pleading call of his lost mate, and
makes up his mind that he will join her, should anything interfere with
his plans, or hinder him in his travels to her, he is instantly on the
war-path, and a most dangerous, terrifying foe for any one to meet. So
when the old King Moose had raised his great antlered head, and after
listening patiently, thought he had located the call of his mate, he was
soon on his way to join her. Again came to him her welcoming call, oh,
miles across the country, through forest and over mountain; but in spite
of the long distance, Monsall had recognized her call, and he was
coming.
Just as he had drawn in his breath to send out a mighty answering call,
even before the echoes of his mate’s cry had fairly died out from afar
off, in quite another direction, came the unmistakable answer of a rival
moose. Instantly the old King was angry and alert. What rival was trying
to call his mate away from him? Whirling indignantly about in his
tracks, his great antlers thrown well back upon his black, bristling
mane, Monsall charged madly off in the direction of the rival call.
Time after time his mate wailed forth her call to him, and each time a
reply came from the rival moose. The great lumbering hulk of the King
tore wildly through the forest, felling saplings, and racing over giant
tree trunks with no effort whatever, so wild with jealousy and full of
rage was he, and at every new call of the strange moose his anger
increased. His small eyes gleamed redly, and his heavy breath rushed
like steam from an engine through his great distended nostrils, while
his heavy jaws crashed together like the fall of a woodman’s axe, as he
ran blindly on.
Hours he ran; he would find and settle with this stranger who still sent
his hateful bellow from afar, this rival who dared signal his own mate.
His great antlers were now so terribly strong that he feared no other
moose in the forest. Gradually he drew nearer the rival’s hiding-place,
or haunts; for the bellow was nearer and nearer. It was night when the
King Moose reached the end of the trail, which led him into the lumber
camps; but he had no fear of man now, so keen was he after revenge, and
to lock antlers with his rival; only, somehow, that rival’s bellow did
not sound as loud or as challenging as his own. Surely his foe would be
an easy one to rout.
The lumbermen had long ago gone to sleep in their shacks; they retire
early, for their work begins at sunrise, and so the camp-fires
smoldered, and it seemed like a deserted village, as Monsall halted
right outside the slash or clearing, and stood stock-still to get his
bearings, trying to gain sight of his rival. But no proud, antlered form
rushed forth to do battle with Monsall. All was still; even the boy had
been asleep for hours. He had given his pet moose its supper inside the
yard, where he always fed it, had stroked and fondled its long furry
ears, and the little moose had rubbed its clumsy, velvety muzzle
affectionately over the boy’s body, and allowed him to fit a rough sort
of harness over its body; for the boy was planning to train the young
moose to carry him upon its back. The creature had now become so tame
that it readily followed the boy all about camp, and was a great pet.
So wrapped in sleep was the camp they paid no attention whatever to the
strange noises and calls of the young moose through the night. In fact
they had become quite accustomed to his rather queer attempts to bellow,
so were not disturbed by the sound. For hours the young moose had been
restless, sending out call after call from his yard, each call becoming
more sustained and carrying wider as the young moose gained experience
with his new gift.
So, while the fires burned low and red, into the camp came a great,
shambling, hulking black figure; it left the fringe of protecting spruce
bush somewhat warily; its great nostrils puffed across the smoldering
fires, and sent the floating ashes whirling. Then it began to circle
about the camp, drawing steadily nearer and nearer the moose pen.
“Ugh-ugh, waugh, oo,” called the young moose, not very loudly or
clearly, and as the sound came to Monsall he stood a second, then
charged with raised antlers for the yard. Again the call, and this time
the old King strained his great ears, perhaps catching a familiar note
in the little moose call. Somehow it seemed to him not to be the loud,
insolent bellow which he had followed and longed to do battle with its
owner the moment he met. Then a strange thing occurred; instead of
replying in his usual savage roar when he met an enemy, Monsall dropped
his antlers gently and gave a gentle, unexpected low, which rumbled
kindly, deep down inside his giant hulk, and meant only peace and
reassurance to the little moose.
Then, through the darkness a great antlered head lifted itself over the
high board enclosure where the young moose stood, timidly waiting he
knew not what. Two velvety muzzles met over the barrier, the old King
found and recognized one of his kindred; his own stray calf.
The lumbermen still slept on, and so they failed to hear the disturbance
in camp and the crash which followed when the sharp, impatient hoofs of
the King Moose tore down the board prison which separated him from his
lost one, and gave it freedom--the freedom of the woods.
The old King and the little furry moose stood hesitatingly close to the
dying camp-fires, Monsall to get his lost bearings, the little one
waiting. Just then from far off came another long, pleading call, the
mother moose calling again for her mate. Then the old moose lifted his
antlers proudly, and a great and mighty challenge echoed through the
camp and rang its way far over the pine trees to his mate. The great
shambling figure of Monsall the moose took the trail once more, while
close behind, right through the way which the old King blazed for him,
followed the little one; they had heard and were following the call of
the moose back into the forest.
[Illustration: THE LAST WOLF OF THE PACK]
VIII
THE LAST WOLF OF THE PACK
Gray Coat, leader of the great Timber Wolf Pack, originally came from
the wilds of Northern Canada, where the dense forests form safe shelter
and cover for deer, bear, the red fox, and all the wild kindred who seek
the silent places of the woods, far away from man. But one year
lumbermen entered the forest with their whirring saws, and felling the
tall pines, let in light into the dark places and uncovered their
trails. The wolf pack was tracked and gradually thinned out and
scattered, and Gray Coat, the big, brave leader of the pack, one day
realized that he was just one solitary, lonely old wolf roaming the
forests alone.
Gray Coat always seemed to lead a charmed sort of life, for no matter
how skilfully traps were laid for him he never ventured into one of
them, no matter how pressing his hunger might be. Often, nowadays, he
would starve for days because he hated the whine of the lumbermen’s
saws, and they had frightened away the young deer, so that no longer
did they come in early morning and at dew-fall to water at the old pool.
Already ferns grew rank and untrodden over the old deer trails, and
although Gray Coat watched and prowled about their old haunts, he never
caught sight of even one red coat or flashing white tail.
At last the sides of Gray Coat began to show hollowly, gaunt and thin,
and his coat became rough and shabby, a starved, baffled look gleamed in
his sullen, green eyes, and his long, usually fleet legs were weak from
fasting and often played him strange tricks; for sometimes when he
chased a cottontail, because he had become reduced to such small fare,
instead of the coveted tidbit, his lean, cruel jaws clicked together
upon emptiness; he had somehow just missed the rabbit. Then Gray Coat
instinctively knew that something strange and unusual had happened to
him.
One night, too weak and lonely and disheartened to even start off
trailing game, he sat solitary and unhappy just in the edge of a pine
slash and lifting up his voice he howled and howled at the moon which
looked coldly down upon his misery. It is during the winter that the
wolves herd together, traveling in packs, but in spring they separate
and mate. But although Gray Coat longed for companionship, there seemed
to be no mate for him, for all his kindred had been hunted away from the
old haunts. Had Gray Coat only been human, he would have wept bitterly;
as he was only a wolf, he just sat all hunched up together, his lean
snout low between his haunches, only lifting up his head to send his
long howl through the woods.
Then somewhere, after a little silence, a very welcome sound came
through the moonlit woods, the long, familiar cry of a wolf.
“Ah-h-o-o-o-oo, Ah-h-o-o-o-oo,” it wailed through the long dusky
corridors of the pines. And the next instant Gray Coat forgot all his
troubles and, leaping to his feet, with all his strength he sent back a
loud-quavering howl of command and pleading.
“Ah-h-o-o-o-oo!” To his joy, back came an answering cry, followed by a
series of short, reassuring calls which sounded like sweetest music to
poor, lonely Gray Coat. Each time the calls sounded a trifle nearer, and
soon his sharp ears caught the swift sound of a “pat, pat, pat” upon the
bedded pine-needles, and through the moonbeams came swiftly a welcome
gray shadow. Gray Coat had found a mate. After they had nosed each
other over, dog-fashion, and snarled together with snapping jaws, as is
the wolf way of introduction, the two gray wolves, last of a great pack
which had once roamed through the Canadian forests, trotted off
together.
Silver Sides, the young wolf, was not starved looking or shabby of coat
as her mate, and instinctively sensing his hunger, she led him to the
remains of a deer carcass, and snarling together, they finished it.
Then, with all his old, strong courage come back to him, Gray Coat took
the lead, as he always had done, and together they ran on and on through
the woods. For days and nights the pair traveled, just two fleet gray
shadows, slipping through the silent places of the forest; skulking
warily, they avoided the man scent, but always keeping together, for, by
common consent, they were now making for a strange, new country and
fresh hunting grounds.
But in one thing they had erred; instead of striking off farther north
into the well-nigh impassable wild forests, where the lumbermen had not
entered, and where they might have found plenty of game, and others of
their kindred, they were traveling south, each day drawing nearer and
nearer civilization, and, if they kept on, they would soon reach the
Green Mountain country. Finally they came to the edge of a great swamp;
its dense growth of dark balsams and spruces promised them a safe
retreat, and surely, in such a wilderness, game would be plentiful once
more, for not a trace of man could they detect. Little cottontail
rabbits they saw in plenty, but, as time wore on, both the appetites of
Gray Coat and his mate demanded wilder fare than mere rabbits. In vain
they ranged together over the deer passes; the hunters had frightened
away most of the wilder game. So, in desperation, the two wolves each
day began to grow bolder and bolder, and even ventured down into the
valleys beneath the mountains, forgetting their fear of man; soon they
commenced to raid the farmers’ sheep pens, and dragged away young calves
to their retreat in the swamp. Then, as they were unmolested, they
actually crossed the traveled highways at night, and often sent their
long, wailing yells through the forests, until the villagers began to
wonder what it all meant, because the wolf cry had not been heard in
that section for years and years.
One farmer finally lost so many sheep he sat up nights to watch. And
one moonlight night he saw the pair, Gray Coat and Silver Sides, come
skulking like shadows from behind the granary. Quickly the farmer blazed
away with his old flint-lock rifle, but he had not killed, only wounded
one of the wolves and it got away, leaving a bloody trail of footprints
behind.
Gray Coat had been hit and so badly lamed in one leg that he just
managed to crawl back to the swamp before sunrise, and seeking shelter
among the friendly spruces he lay there helplessly licking his wound.
As soon as the farmer realized that wolves were actually prowling around
nights, he immediately set to work to trap them. But no trap could he
find that would hold a wolf, so he invented a great drop trap, using the
strong door of the granary for a fall. He then baited the trap with
tempting fresh meat and waited for the wolves to come again.
Down in the swamp Gray Coat, sullen and ugly because of his lame leg,
saw Silver Sides go off alone in the moonlight, night after night. He
tried to follow her, for pangs of hunger were gnawing him, but his leg
remained far too lame and stiff to travel upon, and so with a snarl of
baffled rage he watched his mate slip off through the dark pines.
Finally one night Gray Coat watched and waited impatiently for her to
return. Would she find game, and perhaps bring him back a bone, as she
sometimes did? At the mere thought his hunger seemed every instant to
become more and more pressing, and the fever of his wound made him mad
with thirst. Finally he dragged himself to a water hole, down in between
the swamp tussocks, and lapped and lapped the green, scum-covered water.
Then crawling wearily back to his retreat beneath a sheltering spruce,
he waited and longed for Silver Sides to come back to him. All that
night and the next day Gray Coat waited, but in vain; she did not return
to him. Again the moon rose over the dark mountains, and filtered down
into the swamp, and then, much to his relief, he tried his lame leg and
found it stronger and better, so that he managed to spring out and catch
an unsuspecting rabbit. Making a hasty meal, for he was so hungry he
couldn’t very well do anything else, he then struck off through the
thick spruces, following eagerly the trail of his mate.
Once or twice, in his haste, he lost the scent, then he would run hither
and thither with little baffled whines, his muzzle close to the ground
as he made wide détours, circling ever wider and wider, round in a
circle, until he struck the lost trail once more. It led him through
devious ways down into the valley, straight to the farmer’s sheep pen.
Skulking warily in and out among the buildings, Gray Coat soon struck a
keener scent, which led him straight to the trap. Strangely enough, the
trap was not set, and as Gray Coat came creeping nearer and nearer, he
found the heavy door dropped down. Baffled by this, he began to scratch
frantically, digging and tearing around and beneath the trap with his
sharp nails at the heavy door, for he certainly thought, by the strong
scent, that Silver Sides must be back of the door. He gave little,
whimpering, reassuring whines to her as he dug, just to let her know he
was there, but received no reply from her. At last when his nails were
nearly worn down to the quick, he stopped his furious digging. He was
completely baffled; because, if she were back of the dropped door, she
would surely have answered him. Then, suddenly, his miserable green eyes
chanced to light upon a tuft of familiar looking gray fur; he sniffed at
it eagerly. Yes, it surely belonged to his mate. Gray Coat tossed about
this bit of fur, playing with it as a kitten does a feather, but he
gained no response from the tuft of fur. Next instant he began to act
like a crazy creature, racing madly in and out between the barns, for he
had all at once caught a fresh, new clue. Following the new scent, it
led him out behind a great red barn, and there it ended, for nailed
against the barn door his despairing eyes saw and recognized the
well-known but empty pelt of Silver Sides, his mate. Its plumy gray
brush waved softly back and forth over the red barn door as if sending
him greeting.
Gray Coat stood upon his long hind legs and tried to reach it with his
snout. In vain; he received no welcoming snap from the empty jaws of the
familiar pelt. Then, sitting down upon his lean haunches, Gray Coat
lifted his head and sent such a long, wailing cry of despair and
loneliness through the night that the farmer awoke and, grabbing his
gun, started to hunt for the wolf.
But Gray Coat, having gained no response from the limp pelt upon the
barn door, had left the barn-yard before the farmer got there.
Back on a great bare hill he sat, overlooking the now hateful valley,
and trying to reason out in wolf fashion what it all meant. Soon,
however, he had made up his mind--a time for action had come to Gray
Coat; and lifting his head once more to the moon, he gave one last long
cry, because of his lost mate. Then swiftly, like a gray shadow, he
leaped away--for he had a long road to travel, because this time his
instinct headed him in the right way, straight for the North Lands,
where he would strike old familiar trails, fresh hunting grounds, and
his kindred.
[Illustration: HOW UNK-WUNK THE PORCUPINE MET HIS MATCH]
IX
HOW UNK-WUNK THE PORCUPINE MET HIS MATCH
In the thick cover of the spruces, down in a natural hollow, where it
was dark and still, and the fragrant boughs swept the ground, forming a
perfect little bower, or tent, lived a very interesting family, Father
and Mother Porcupine and their three young ones. So very young were the
little porcupines, or hedgehogs, as they are sometimes called, that they
resembled neither cubs nor kittens, but at first sight looked not unlike
homely young crows before the pin-feather age; for when the little
hedgehog is born, he is strange looking enough, his quilly armor being
covered with a transparent skin; and besides, he is totally deaf and
blind, and very helpless.
It did not take long, however, for quills to poke through the skin
covering, and then sight came to the small, piggy eyes, and the little
ones began to look more like porcupines. One fine day the wanderlust
seized Father Porcupine, and off he strolled into the deep woods, and
was never seen again. He had deliberately deserted his little family
beneath the green tent, which is not at all an uncommon occurrence in
hedgehog circles.
The little ones were quite often left alone now to shift for themselves,
for their mother also took to wandering, and so one night when she had
been gone all day, upon her return she found two of them missing. In the
early twilight a stealthy, sinuous stranger had entered her home; just
two little protesting squeaks came from beneath the hedgehog tent, and
when the weasel left, only Unk-Wunk, the largest of the little ones, was
left.
“Unk-Wunk, Unk-Wunk,” grunted the lonely little hedgehog to his mother,
as she peered in at him with her little dull eyes through the curtain of
balsams, her cold manner showing no emotion whatever, for such is the
nature of the hedgehog tribe that they rarely show much feeling over
anything, no matter how tragic.
Now Unk-Wunk would never have escaped from the sharp teeth of the sly
weasel had not his quills been longer and sharper than his unfortunate
brothers. He had heard their terrified squeaks, and when the weasel made
for him, he simply backed away, and for the first time in his life made
use of his quill armor.
“Unk-Wunk, Unk-Wunk,” he grunted fiercely, while the weasel glared at
him savagely with its hateful, little red eyes. The weasel thought to
himself, no doubt, what a silly, helpless thing you are to grunt at me
so boldly. Who’s afraid of your stupid “Unk-Wunk?” But the weasel soon
found out his mistake, and backed out in haste from the hedgehog tent,
his sly, pointed snout stuck full of cruel barbs, which it took him days
to rub out, and taught him such a lesson that, ever after that, he never
cared to cross the track of a hedgehog, and would frequently make a long
détour whenever he chanced to spy one along the forest trails.
Unk-Wunk being of a particularly bold, independent nature, his mother
soon left him, and went off to live with a colony of hedgehogs who had
located their camp on a distant ledge. But somehow Unk-Wunk tarried in
the old tent, for he loved the fragrant balsam scent, where overhead,
when autumn came, the beech leaves turned golden yellow, and the brown
nuts came rattling down in showers to his very door. Besides, just a
short stroll away lay the marsh pools, threaded thick with succulent
lily roots, considered, by the hedgehog tribe, the very daintiest eating
to be had. All this lay close at hand, and as Unk-Wunk was naturally a
lazy, indolent fellow, and did not care to hurry, or take unnecessarily
long journeys, no wonder the place suited him.
Never, perhaps, had there been such an absolutely fearless hedgehog as
young Unk-Wunk, because his first great success in driving off the sly
old weasel had taught him the use of his quills, and made him unafraid
of anything in the forest, whether it wore fur or feathers. He actually
never bothered himself to get out of their very tracks, but would just
stand looking very stupid indeed, and stare at them coldly with his
little, dull eyes; if they presumed to come too near he would raise his
armor and utter threatening grunts at them, so that usually they passed
him by.
At twilight, when the old hoot owl, who nested above him in the beech
tree, came out upon a limb and began to send out his weird call, and the
hermit thrushes called to each other across the marsh-lands, then
Unk-Wunk would lazily uncurl himself from an all day snooze, and
leisurely stroll off through the silent places of the forest looking
for a meal. When it began to grow frosty in the lowlands, and the nights
were cooler, he covered longer distances in his raids, and even ventured
into the lumber camps, gnawing his way through intervening boards of the
shacks and sampling fat bacon, which he found so good that he would
travel long distances to taste it. He stole eggs, too, and would manage
one so deftly that he rarely spilled a drop of the golden contents, for
he had a nice way of cracking a small place in the shell at the top, and
inserting his tongue, or small paw, and never losing a morsel, leaving
behind him just a pile of empty shells.