"Because you're a friend of the wolves, and you're sent here to betray
us to them. We saw you come in the grove of Silver Birches with a big
wolf, and then say farewell to her. We knew it was all a trap. You
nearly had me killed that day when--"
"No, no," interrupted Washer, "I saved your life when the cubs had you
treed. If it hadn't been for me they'd caught you."
"No wolf can catch me when I'm up a tree," growled the raccoon.
"No, but they would have watched and waited at the foot of the tree
until you were starved out," replied Washer. "You don't know how
patient a wolf can be."
"I don't, eh?" snapped the raccoon. "I was treed by one once, and he
kept me there for nearly a week, but he got hungry before I did and
went away."
"What are you going to do to me?" Washer asked more interested in this
question than what happened to the big raccoon one day.
"We're going to punish you, and then drive you back to your
friends--the wolves."
"The wolves are not my friends any more," pleaded Washer.
"Wasn't that wolf who came here with you a friend?"
"Why, yes, that was Mother Wolf," stammered Washer.
"What did I tell you?" cried the big raccoon. "He admits it. If you're
a friend of a wolf you're the enemy to all raccoons."
"No!" interrupted Washer. "Let me explain!"
"Now we've got him!" interrupted the raccoon, who had been creeping
nearer. "Shake him off the branch! If the fall doesn't kill him our
people will catch him. He can't escape."
The three raccoons sprang toward the swaying branch and began shaking
it. Washer clung to it desperately, and it was impossible to dislodge
him.
"Bite it! Gnaw it off!" cried the leader of the raccoons.
To Washer's horror, they began biting and gnawing at the branch, which
soon sagged lower and lower. It snapped under his weight and the next
moment broke off close to the trunk. Washer felt himself going down,
down, down!
He let out a little squeak of fear as he felt himself falling through
space. His head struck a lower branch, and his feet got entangled in
a few small twigs, but they could not check his fall. He went down,
down, down until he landed with a loud plump on the soft earth. When
he got up to run he found himself surrounded by a circle of raccoons,
each one swishing his tail and gnashing his teeth. In the next story
Washer saves his people from a terrible death.
STORY FIFTEEN
THE CUBS LISTEN TO WASHER'S PLEA
Washer was severely bruised by his fall from the tree, but fortunately
no bones were broken. He limped a little, and felt a peculiar
sensation in one of his front paws; but these small pains were nothing
to the fear that possessed him when he saw the angry circle of
raccoons.
They were facing him on all sides so there was no chance for him to
escape. He turned around several times to find an opening, but his
only hope was to jump over the backs of his enemies, which was
something he felt unequal to. Even so they would catch him, for he
could not expect to jump higher in the air than the others.
He felt the best way out of the difficulty was not to fight, but to
stand his ground and try to explain. "Wait!" he cried in a trembly
voice. "Please do not touch me until you've listened to my story. I'm
a raccoon myself, and I've come--"
"Don't listen to him!" cried the big raccoon up the tree. "Catch him
and bite him!"
There was a sound of gnashing teeth all around which made Washer
shiver. One of the raccoons sprang forward and snapped at his tail.
"I'm your friend!" cried Washer, drawing his tail up under him.
"He's a friend of the wolves!" shouted the one from the branches of
the tree. "Don't believe him! He came here with a wolf, and he said
the wolf was his friend. Therefore, he's no friend of the raccoons."
"No! No!" cried several. "He deserves death."
Washer knew they would not listen to him. They were so excited that in
their anger they might kill him before he could tell his story.
Clearly then he had to make a desperate effort to escape. If Mother
Wolf was only near, she would protect him. In his desperation, he
cried:
"O, Mother Wolf, help me! Help me!"
"Listen to him!" said several. "He's calling to the wolves to help
him. Now we know he's a traitor."
And with that they made a rush for him. They all seemed to spring
forward at once. Instead of trying to leap over their heads, Washer
ducked down low as if to hide.
This was the only thing that saved him. The circle of raccoons
springing toward a common center came together with a plump, and some
of them were knocked over by their own weight. They bit and scratched
at each other, supposing that they had Washer, and before they could
recover from their surprise Washer was crawling stealthily between
their legs to the outskirts of the crowd. No one noticed him until he
was clear of the mass of wriggling, fighting animals.
Washer started on a run for the woods, hoping to get away in the
darkness and hide. But the big raccoon dropping out of the tree saw
him, and started in pursuit.
"There he goes!" he shouted. "Don't let him escape! Run after him!"
In a few moments the whole colony of raccoons were after him. Now
Washer felt he had an even change in a race to escape. His long
training with the wolf cubs had taught him to run with great speed.
The way he stretched his legs made even the big raccoon wonder if he
could ever overtake him.
Out of the grove of Silver Birches he ran, and when he reached the
thick woods beyond he plunged desperately into them. Big trees were
all around him, but he dared not climb one, for his pursuers would
then corner him. They could climb trees as well as he. No, he had to
escape by running and hiding.
The race was going to be a long one, for Washer was fleet of foot and
strong of muscle, and he was running for his life. But his pursuers
were equally determined to catch him, and they came after him in a
straggling line, the bigger and stronger ones leading the way.
Gradually the weaker ones were left behind, and not more than half a
dozen were in sight.
Suddenly Washer came to a clearing in the woods. In the center of this
was a pile of rocks. The thought that he might find a hole under them
where he could hide induced him to leave the woods and cross the open
space.
But the pursuing raccoons saw him, and ran pell mell into the opening.
Washer reached the rocks first, but to his dismay there was no hole
under them--not even a tiny crevice in which he could hide. It looked
as if the race was ended, and he was cornered. In a last desperate
effort he scrambled on top of the rocks, and waited.
The other raccoons followed him up there, and the leader shouted
triumphantly: "Now we've got him!"
Washer squealed as one of them nipped at his tail and another at his
front paws. "Please, please--" he began, whimpering with pain.
Now whether it was his cry, or the loud noise made by the scampering
raccoons, it is impossible to say, but there were other eyes and ears
in the woods that had been drawn to the scene, and Washer's words were
hardly out of his mouth before several dark forms shot out of the
woods and crossed the open space. At the same moment the hunting cry
of the wolf pack startled the raccoons and made them crouch in terror
on top of the rock. They forgot Washer, and turned their attention to
the wolves.
To their dismay there seemed no chance of escape. The wolves had them
surrounded on all sides as they broke from the cover of the bushes on
four sides.
That terrible, blood-thirsty hunting cry of the pack terrified the
cornered raccoons so they could not move. They flattened down on the
rock and waited for the end.
But Washer had recognized the familiar hunting cry. He knew those
voices. They came from his own foster brothers--Mother Wolf's cubs.
Fortunately Sneaky wasn't with them. Neither was there any other
member of the pack.
Washer took courage, and raised himself on the top of the rock.
"Brothers," he called as loudly as he could, "please don't hurt me or
any of my people."
The cubs stopped short at the foot of the rock, and looked up. "Why,
it's Little Brother!" they cried in a chorus.
"Yes," answered Washer, "I'm up here with my people. When the pack
said they would kill me, Mother Wolf and Black Wolf took me home. Then
I asked Mother Wolf to bring me back to my people. I knew I couldn't
live with the wolves any longer, and Mother Wolf knew she couldn't
protect me forever from them. So she said she'd bring me to my own
people. I came to Silver Birch grove, and she left me there."
"And you found your people?" asked the cubs.
"Yes, they're here with me now."
"And do they treat you well, Little Brother?" asked the oldest of the
cubs. "We thought we heard you crying for help. If they don't treat
you well, we'll kill them and eat them. We're very hungry."
"Oh, they're going to treat me well, Brothers," replied Washer. "If
you promise to go away, and not hurt them they will treat me well."
The cubs were silent for a moment. Then one of them spoke for all. "If
what you say is true, Little Brother, we won't kill them. We'll go
away, and leave them this time."
"Please do," pleaded Washer.
And the cubs, because they loved Little Brother, nodded their heads
and trotted off in the woods. In the next story Washer finds his real
brothers and mother.
STORY SIXTEEN
WASHER FINDS HIS MOTHER AND BROTHERS
When the wolf cubs had disappeared in the woods, leaving the raccoons
in possession of the rock, a long silence followed. Every little ear
was strained to catch the slightest sound of a foot-fall, for the
raccoons were still suspicious, and were ready for a trap.
But the padded feet of the wolves grew fainter and fainter, and
finally died away completely. Slowly then one after another of the
raccoons raised his head and sniffed the air. They could tell whether
there was any wolf smell near, and if one of the cubs was lying in the
bushes near they could detect it.
"You needn't be afraid," Washer said finally. "The cubs never deceived
me. They've gone away for good, and there's no danger."
"Why did they do that?" asked one of the raccoons.
"Because I was brought up in the den with them as their brother, and
we always played together and loved each other until the wolf pack
drove me away. I cannot go back to the den, for the price of death is
on my head. I have no friends among them, except Mother Wolf who
raised me, and the cubs, who are too young yet to want to kill me. But
in time they will forget their Little Brother, and hunt me like all
the others."
"What were you doing in the wolf's den in the first place?" asked one
of the raccoons.
"I was lost, and Sneaky picked me up to feed the cubs. He carried me
to his cave, but Mother Wolf took pity on me because I was only a
baby. She saved me from Sneaky and raised me with her own children."
"Why were you lost when only a baby?" queried another.
"Alas! I fell in the river one day when I was playing with my two
brothers, and I was carried over the falls. I couldn't swim, but I
clung to a board, and that saved me. I thought I was killed a dozen
times, but I wasn't, and below the falls I found a landing on the
shore. It was there that Sneaky found me and carried me away to kill
for his young."
Now one of the raccoons, who had been listening silently to Washer's
words, suddenly jumped to his feet, and ran up and peered into his
face. He looked at him so long and intently that Washer was
embarrassed.
"How many brothers had you?" he asked.
"Two," replied Washer sadly. "They were both dear to me, but I never
saw them again."
"Where was it that you fell in the river?" added the excited raccoon.
"Where the big pine lies in the river just above the falls. It was
where mother took us to play on pleasant days."
"What did your mother call you?" went on the speaker excitedly.
"Washer!"
The raccoon who had been asking these questions suddenly sprang toward
Washer as if he intended to bite him; but instead of doing that he
flung both front paws around his neck and hugged him.
"Don't you know me, Washer?" he cried. "Don't you know your own
brother? I was with you that day, and heard you cry. I thought you
were joking, and I didn't reply. Then mother heard you, and she ran
down to the river just in time to see you go over the falls. You're my
long lost brother?"
Washer was so surprised and overcome by this announcement that for a
moment he could not speak. Tears of joy started from his eyes.
"You're my own real brother?" he said in awe.
"Yes, see this scar on my paw. You remember how I got it the day I
tumbled out of my nest on the rocks?"
"Yes, yes," cried Washer excitedly. "And you remember how I broke off
the tip of my tail. See, it's gone yet. It never grew on again."
"Now, I know you, Washer," added the other, examining the end of the
tail. "Of course, you're my long lost brother."
Before the surprised raccoons they began embracing each other.
Washer's joy was so great that his heart beat like a trip-hammer.
After a while, he asked.
"And my other brother--is he alive?"
"Yes, he was with us, but didn't reach the rock. He's probably hiding
up some tree, expecting we'll all be killed by the wolves."
"Then I must go to him, too. I want to see him. And mother--is she
still alive?"
"Yes, Washer, she's alive, too, but so old and feeble, she can't hunt
with us. We have to carry food home to her. She's never forgiven
herself for losing you. She blames herself for letting you fall in the
river. It made her whole life sad. I think the joy of seeing you again
will make her young again."
"Then I must go to her at once! You will show me the way?"
"Yes, we'll all go now."
It was then that the big raccoon, who had led the others in the chase,
and who had driven Washer out of the tree, stepped forward and spoke.
He was so big and fierce looking that Washer knew he was the leader:
of the colony.
"Let me say a word before you go," he interrupted. "If this is Washer
I am glad to welcome him home again. But first I want to ask his
forgiveness. He's twice saved my life. That day when I was treed by
the wolves, and he sent them off until I could escape, I thought it
was only a trick to get me out of the tree. I bit him severely and
called him a traitor."
"But you didn't understand," interrupted Washer.
"No, I didn't understand. And again tonight when you came into Silver
Birch grove, I thought it was a trick to trap us. I saw you had a wolf
for a friend, and I thought you intended to trick all of my people.
Now, after chasing you, and threatening to kill you, you saved all our
lives again by calling off the cubs. That was a noble thing to do,
Washer. I shall never forget it--none of us shall ever forget it."
"Why, what else could I do?" stammered Washer. "I couldn't see my own
people killed."
"Not if they drove you away and refused to recognize you?" asked the
leader.
"No, not if they killed me," replied Washer.
The leader was greatly affected by these words, and his voice trembled
a little when he spoke again. "I shall never forget those words,
Washer. You have made me your friend forever. Come now, we must go to
your mother. I shall tell her the whole story, and it will gladden her
heart, and lift the sorrow that has long made it heavy."
You can imagine how happy Washer was to come back to his people and be
welcomed by them, but his joy was still greater to find that his old
mother was waiting to receive him, and that his two brothers were
ready to do anything for him to show their love. And so the great
adventure down Rocky Falls ended happily. Mothered by a wolf, Washer
had learned ways of hunting that would be of great value to him in the
future, and long after he returned to his own people he taught them
little tricks that saved many of them from the jaws of the wolf pack.
They became so shrewd and wise that the wolves found their hunting so
poor that they drew further and further away from the grove of Silver
Birches, and life was made happier and happier for the colony of
raccoons.
Washer lived a long and useful life in the woods, and perhaps you
will hear more of him and his friends in the book of
"Sandy the Crane."
Sandy is the first of the series of "Twilight Bird Stories," which
include interesting adventures of "Scarlet the Ibis," "Pintail the
Wild Duck," "Plover the Golden," and "Skinner the Tern."
If you read one you will want to read all, for all these bird friends
of the woods and swamps had many wonderful adventures.