VI

Good fathers are rare in the grouse world. The mother-grouse builds her

nest and hatches out her young without help. She even hides the place

of the nest from the father and meets him only at the drum-log and the

feeding-ground, or perhaps the dusting-place, which is the club-house of

the grouse kind.

When Brownie's little ones came out they had filled her every thought,

even to the forgetting of their splendid father. But on the third

day, when they were strong enough, she had taken them with her at the

father's call.

Some fathers take no interest in their little ones, but Redruff joined

at once to help Brownie in the task of rearing the brood. They had

learned to eat and drink just as their father had learned long ago, and

could toddle along, with their mother leading the way, while the father

ranged near by or followed far behind.

The very next day, as they went from the hill-side down toward the creek

in a somewhat drawn-out string, like beads with a big one at each end,

a red squirrel, peeping around a pine-trunk, watched the procession of

downlings with the Runtie straggling far in the rear. Redruff, yards

behind, preening his feathers on a high log, had escaped the eye of the

squirrel, whose strange perverted thirst for birdling blood was roused

at what seemed so fair a chance. With murderous intent to cut off the

hindmost straggler, he made a dash. Brownie could not have seen him

until too late, but Redruff did. He flew for that red-haired cutthroat;

his weapons were his fists, that is, the knob-joints of the wings, and

what a blow he could strike! At the first onset he struck the squirrel

square on the end of the nose, his weakest spot, and sent him reeling;

he staggered and wriggled into a brush-pile, where he had expected to

carry the little grouse, and there lay gasping with red drops trickling

down his wicked snout. The partridges left him lying there, and what

became of him they never knew, but he troubled them no more.

The family went on toward the water, but a cow had left deep tracks in

the sandy loam, and into one of these fell one of the chicks and peeped

in dire distress when he found he could not get out.

This was a fix. Neither old one seemed to know what to do, but as they

trampled vainly round the edge, the sandy bank caved in, and, running

down, formed a long slope, up which the young one ran and rejoined his

brothers under the broad veranda of their mother's tail.

Brownie was a bright little mother, of small stature, but keen of wit

and sense, and was, night and day, alert to care for her darling chicks.

How proudly she stepped and clucked through the arching woods with her

dainty brood behind her; how she strained her little brown tail almost

to a half-circle to give them a broader shade, and never flinched at

sight of any foe, but held ready to fight or fly, whichever seemed the

best for her little ones.

Before the chicks could fly they had a meeting with old Cuddy; though

it was June, he was out with his gun. Up the third ravine he went, and

Tike, his dog, ranging ahead, came so dangerously near the Brownie brood

that Redruff ran to meet him, and by the old but never failing trick led

him on a foolish chase away back down the valley of the Don.

But Cuddy, as it chanced, came right along, straight for the brood, and

Brownie, giving the signal to the children, 'Krrr, krrr' (Hide, hide),

ran to lead the man away just as her mate had led the dog. Full of a

mother's devoted love, and skilled in the learning of the woods, she ran

in silence till quite near, then sprang with a roar of wings right in

his face, and tumbling on the leaves she shammed a lameness that for a

moment deceived the poacher. But when she dragged one wing and

whined about his feet, then slowly crawled away, he knew just what it

meant--that it was all a trick to lead him from her brood, and he struck

at her a savage blow; but little Brownie was quick, she avoided the blow

and limped behind a sapling, there to beat herself upon the leaves again

in sore distress, and seem so lame that Cuddy made another try to strike

her down with a stick. But she moved in time to balk him, and bravely,

steadfast still to lead him from her helpless little ones, she flung

herself before him and beat her gentle breast upon the ground, and

moaned as though begging for mercy. And Cuddy, failing again to strike

her, raised his gun and firing charge enough to kill a bear, he blew

poor brave, devoted Brownie into quivering, bloody rags.

This gunner brute knew the young must be hiding near, so looked about to

find them. But no one moved or peeped. He saw not one, but as he tramped

about with heedless, hateful feet, he crossed and crossed again their

hiding-ground, and more than one of the silent little sufferers he

trampled to death, and neither knew nor cared.

Redruff had taken the yellow brute away off downstream, and now returned

to where he left his mate. The murderer had gone, taking her remains,

to be thrown to the dog. Redruff sought about and found the bloody spot

with feathers, Brownie's feathers, scattered around, and now he knew the

meaning of that shot.

Who can tell what his horror and his mourning were? The outward signs

were few, some minutes dumbly gazing at the place with downcast,

draggled look, and then a change at the thought of their helpless brood.

Back to the hiding-place he went, and called the well-known 'kreet,

kreet.' Did every grave give up its little inmate at the magic word? No,

barely more than half; six little balls of down unveiled their lustrous

eyes, and, rising, ran to meet him, but four feathered little bodies had

found their graves indeed. Redruff called again and again, till he

was sure that all who could respond had come, and led them from that

dreadful place, far, far away up-stream, where barb-wire fences and

bramble thickets were found to offer a less grateful, but more reliable,

shelter.

Here the brood grew and were trained by their father just as his mother

had trained him; though wider knowledge and experience gave him

many advantages. He knew so well the country round and all the

feeding-grounds, and how to meet the ills that harass partridge-life,

that the summer passed and not a chick was lost. They grew and

flourished, and when the Gunner Moon arrived they were a fine family

of six grown-up grouse with Redruff, splendid in his gleaming copper

feathers, at their head. He had ceased to drum during the summer after

the loss of Brownie, but drumming is to the partridge what singing is

to the lark; while it is his lovesong, it is also an expression of

exuberance born of health, and when the molt was over and September food

and weather had renewed his splendid plumes and braced himself up again,

his spirits revived, and finding himself one day near the old log he

mounted impulsively, and drummed again and again.

From that time he often drummed, while his children sat around, or one

who showed his father's blood would mount some nearby stump or stone,

and beat the air in the loud tattoo.

The black grapes and the Mad Moon now came on. But Redruff's brood were

of a vigorous stock; their robust health meant robust wits, and though

they got the craze, it passed within a week, and only three had flown

away for good.

Redruff, with his remaining three, was living in the glen when the snow

came. It was light, flaky snow, and as the weather was not very cold,

the family squatted for the night under the low, flat boughs of a

cedar-tree. But next day the storm continued, it grew colder, and the

drifts piled up all day. At night, the snow-fall ceased, but the frost

grew harder still, so Redruff, leading the family to a birch-tree above

a deep drift, dived into the snow, and the others did the same.

Then into the holes the wind blew the loose snow--their pure white

bed-clothes, and thus tucked in they slept in comfort, for the snow is

a warm wrap, and the air passes through it easily enough for breathing.

Next morning each partridge found a solid wall of ice before him from

his frozen breath, but easily turned to one side and rose on the wing at

Redruff's morning 'Kreet, kreet, kwit,' (Come children, come children,

fly.)

This was the first night for them in a snow-drift, though it was an old

story to Redruff, and next night they merrily dived again into bed, and

the north wind tucked them in as before. But a change of weather was

brewing. The night wind veered to the east. A fall of heavy flakes gave

place to sleet, and that to silver rain.

The whole wide world was sheathed in ice, and when the grouse awoke to

quit their beds, they found themselves sealed in with a great cruel

sheet of edgeless ice. The deeper snow was still quite soft, and Redruff

bored his way to the top, but there the hard, white sheet defied his

strength. Hammer and struggle as he might he could make no impression,

and only bruised his wings and head. His life had been made up of keen

joys and dull hardships, with frequent sudden desperate straits, but

this seemed the hardest brunt of all, as the slow hours wore on and

found him weakening with his struggles, but no nearer to freedom. He

could hear the struggling of his family, too, or sometimes heard

them calling to him for help with their long-drawn plaintive

'p-e-e-e-e-e-t-e, p-e-e-e-e-e-t-e.'

They were hidden from many of their enemies, but not from the pangs of

hunger, and when the night came down the weary prisoners, worn out with

hunger and useless toil, grew quiet in despair. At first they had been

afraid the fox would come and find them imprisoned there at his mercy,

but as the second night went slowly by they no longer cared, and even

wished he would come and break the crusted snow, and so give them at

least a fighting chance for life.

But when the fox really did come padding over the frozen drift, the

deep-laid love of life revived, and they crouched in utter stillness

till he passed. The second day was one of driving storm. The north

wind sent his snow-horses, hissing and careering over the white earth,

tossing and curling their white manes and kicking up more snow as they

dashed on. The long, hard grinding of the granular snow seemed to be

thinning the snow-crust, for though far from dark below, it kept on

growing lighter. Redruff had pecked and pecked at the under side all

day, till his head ached and his bill was wearing blunt, but when the

sun went down he seemed as far as ever from escape. The night passed

like the others, except no fox went trotting overhead. In the morning he

renewed his pecking, though now with scarcely any force, and the voices

or struggles of the others were no more heard. As the daylight grew

stronger he could see that his long efforts had made a brighter spot

above him in the snow, and he continued feebly pecking. Outside, the

storm-horses kept on trampling all day, the crust was really growing

thin under their heels, and late that afternoon his bill went through

into the open air. New life came with this gain, and he pecked away,

till just before the sun went down he had made a hole that his head, his

neck, and his ever-beautiful ruffs could pass. His great broad shoulders

were too large, but he could now strike downward, which gave him

fourfold force; the snow-crust crumbled quickly, and in a little while

he sprang from his icy prison once more free.

But the young ones! Redruff flew to the nearest bank, hastily gathered

a few red hips to stay his gnawing hunger, then returned to the

prison-drift and clucked and stamped. He got only one reply, a feeble

'peete, peete,' and scratching with his sharp claws on the thinned

granular sheet he soon broke through, and Graytail feebly crawled out

of the hole. But that was all; the others, scattered he could not tell

where in the drift, made no reply, gave no sign of life, and he was

forced to leave them. When the snow melted in the spring their bodies

came to view, skin, bones, and feathers--nothing more.