THE MYSTERIOUS PROWLER
One fall there were queer happenings in the dune country. The story is
nearly twelve miles long, the details extending all along the shore,
from Happy Cal’s shanty to a point away north of where old Sipes sweeps
the horizon through his little “spotter.”
The tracks of some strange and unknown animal began to appear on the
sand at different places along the beach. They were about three inches
long, and nearly round, with irregular edges. The impressions were not
very deep. They had not been made with hoofs. They were too large for
the imprints of a dog or wolf, and were too small, and not of the right
shape for a bear.
No bird or beast could have made these tracks, that had ever been seen
or heard of by anybody who inspected them. The denizens of the
sandhills, who had hunted and trapped among them for many years, were
utterly amazed and dumfounded. Some marvelous thing had come into the
country. All conjecture seemed futile, and there appeared to be no
possible or plausible theory that would in any way explain the enigma.
The mystery became more and more impenetrable. Many superstitious
speculations and surmises were indulged in by the old derelicts. They
were deeply perplexed and completely at a loss to understand a situation
that was becoming uncanny, and began to suggest some kind of witchcraft.
Extended search and diligent watch failed to locate the four-footed
thing in the daytime. It seemed only to travel at night. Like the
wondrous “Questing Beast” in the Arthurian legend, and the fabled
ferocious white whale of the antarctic seas, it became the object of
vain and anxious pursuit. It seemed to elude miraculously all of the
snares and stratagems devised for its capture. Evidences of its recent
presence were apparent at the most unexpected times and places.
Attempts to trail it through the woods resulted in failure, as there
seemed to be no scent that a dog could distinguish. The only tracks that
could be followed were those that were visible on the smooth sand of the
shore. They always eventually led into the woods on the bluffs and were
lost. The unsolved riddle became more puzzling with the discovery of
each new depredation, committed by the unknown marauder, and the fresh
undecipherable imprints were seen somewhere on the beach almost every
morning.
Once a half-devoured woodchuck was found near the mouth of a little
creek that emptied into the lake, and a large fish, that had been cast
in by the waves, was discovered, partially eaten, a little farther on.
Catfish John left half a pailful of dead minnows, which he intended to
use for bait, under an old box. When he returned the next morning, he
found the box overturned, and the pail empty. His little smoke-house was
invaded, the half-cured fish were gone, and the tell-tale tracks were
all over the sand.
Late, one dark night, Sipes landed his rowboat on the beach. From some
unknown source he had obtained a side of bacon, which he left, with some
other things, in the boat, while he went over to his shanty to get a
lantern. He puttered around for awhile, getting his lantern ready, and
looking for some tobacco. When he went back to the boat with his light,
he discovered that the bacon and the remains of some lunch that he had
taken with him, had disappeared. The round tracks of the mysterious
thief were around the end of the boat, and the trail led straight across
the beach into the ravine. Three nights later a couple of dead rabbits,
that he had hung up on the side of the shanty, were missing.
With this fresh outrage, Sipes went on the war-path. He loaded up his
old shotgun, with double charges of powder, and some lead slugs, and
lurked along the edges of the bluffs all night. He was beside himself
with curiosity and rage, and it would have gone hard with almost any
live thing that he might have seen silhouetted between him and the dim
light on the lake during his vigil. The baffling mystery was getting
entirely too serious, and was affecting him too much personally, to
admit of further temporizing.
[Illustration:
HE WAS “GOIN’ TO
BUTCHER IT ON SIGHT”]
He went on several of these nocturnal expeditions, all of which were
fruitless, and his sulphurous comments on his failures to find what he
was looking for, indicated the intensity of his eagerness to meet and
annihilate “that cussed thing that ’ad rained down, or come in offen the
lake, an’ done all this.” He “didn’t care whether it ’ad scales, wings
er tusks.” He was “goin’ to butcher it on sight.”
“He was cert’nly dead sore,” said Catfish John, in relating Sipes’s part
in the drama. “After ’e’d hunted it awhile, ’e thought ’e’d try an’ trap
this varmint. He got an old net an’ spread it up over some sticks. Then
’e put some meat on a long stick under the middle of it, an’ fixed it so
the net ’ud fall down over anything that tried to pull away the meat.
The net was to tangle the varmint all up, when it fell on ’im, an’ ’e
tried to git loose.
“The next day ’e went thar an’ found them tracks all ’round an’ the meat
gone. Somehow the contraption hadn’t worked. He set it agin, an’ in
about a week there was a big skunk in it, all messed up an’ hostile, an’
after that Sipes quit. He said that them fellers that wanted to trap
that varmint could go ahead an’ do it. He didn’t want nothin’ to do
with no more traps. He was goin’ to wait ’till ’e saw it, whatever it
was, an’ plug it with ’is gun.
“He hunted ’round a whole lot at night, an’ once ’e saw sumpen black,
movin’ along under the bluff. It was bright moonlight, but this thing
was in the shadow. He took a couple o’ pops at it, but it got away up in
the brush. Sometimes ’e’d hear queer sounds outside ’is house in the
night. He’d git up quick an’ sneak out with ’is gun, but ’e didn’t never
find nothin’. The next mornin’ ’e’d look for them funny tracks an’ most
always found some. Next ’e was goin’ to put out some pizen, but ’e
couldn’t git none.
“Afterward the whole thing come out. It was Cal’s dog that done it. He
come ’long the beach one day when I was fixin’ my boat. I had it up on
the sand, an’ ’ad poured a lot o’ tar in it. I was tippin’ it an’
flowin’ the tar ’round in it to catch all the little leaks in the
bottom. I left it fer a minute, an’ the dog got in the boat an’ puddled
all ’round in the tar. What ’e done it fer I don’t know. Then ’e hopped
out on the sand an’ caked ’is feet all up, an’ that’s the reason ’e
made them funny tracks, an’ that’s why them fellers with the dogs
couldn’t follow the scent. He didn’t leave no animal scent. The tar an’
the sand killed it. He probly didn’t like the way ’is feet felt, an’
when ’e skipped out from ’ere ’e was prob’ly scart an’ didn’t go back to
Cal’s. He must ’av spent his time hidin’ ’round in the woods in the
daytime, an’ at night ’e’d come out ’long the beach to git sumpen to
eat.
“I didn’t think of all this ’till some feller come ’long ’ere an’ said
’e’d followed them tracks down to Cal’s place an’ found ’im settin’
outside rubbin’ ’is dog’s paws with grease, an’ tryin’ to git big lumps
o’ tar an’ sand off ’em. The dog ’ad bin gone about two weeks, an’ Cal
thought ’e’d gone off fer good. I’ll bet Cal was glad to git ’im back.
“I’d oughter thought it out before, fer Cal come up ’ere one day an’
asked me if I’d seen ’is dog, but I’d forgot all about ’is gittin in the
tar, an’ s’posed ’e’d gone off home when ’e left ’ere.”
Pete’s adventures had been varied and exciting while they lasted. He had
added variety and interest to the community in which he lived, and had
really done but very little actual harm during his absence from home.
Sipes philosophically remarked that “everythin’ comes to an end in this
world, an’ this ’ere dog ’ll come to one, if ’e ever gits this way agin.
I s’pose it’s all sweet an’ proper fer me to git a bunch o’ bacon an’
two rabbits stole, an’ I s’pose I’m the only one that cares about them
things I lost, but all the same, I ain’t runnin’ no animile restaurant,
an’ some day there’ll be some dog tracks on this beach that’ll all point
the same way, if that thievin’ quadrypeed ever comes skulpin’ ’round
’ere.”
[Illustration: “J. Ledyard Symington”]