THE EDUCATION OF BA-REE
Robbed once of the joys of parenthood by the murder on the Sun Rock,
both Gray Wolf and Kazan were different from what they would have been
had the big gray lynx not come into their lives at that time. As if it
were but yesterday they remembered the moonlit night when the lynx
brought blindness to Gray Wolf and destroyed her young, and when Kazan
had avenged himself and his mate in his terrible fight to the death with
their enemy. And now, with that soft little handful of life snuggling
close up against her, Gray Wolf saw through her blind eyes the tragic
picture of that night more vividly than ever and she quivered at every
sound, ready to leap in the face of an unseen foe, to rend all flesh
that was not the flesh of Kazan. And ceaselessly, the slightest sound
bringing him to his feet, Kazan watched and guarded. He mistrusted the
moving shadows. The snapping of a twig drew back his upper lip. His
fangs gleamed menacingly when the soft air brought a strange scent. In
him, too, the memory of the Sun Rock, the death of their first young and
the blinding of Gray Wolf, had given birth to a new instinct. Not for an
instant was he off his guard. As surely as one expects the sun to rise
so did he expect that sooner or later their deadly enemy would creep on
them from out of the forest. In another hour such as this the lynx had
brought death. The lynx had brought blindness. And so day and night he
waited and watched for the lynx to come again. And woe unto any other
creature of flesh and blood that dared approach the windfall in these
first days of Gray Wolf's motherhood!
But peace had spread its wings of sunshine and plenty over the swamp.
There were no intruders, unless the noisy whisky-jacks, the big-eyed
moose-birds, the chattering bush sparrows, and the wood-mice and ermine
could be called such. After the first day or two Kazan went more
frequently into the windfall, and though more than once he nosed
searchingly about Gray Wolf he could find only the one little pup. A
little farther west the Dog-Ribs would have called the pup Ba-ree for
two reasons--because he had no brothers or sisters, and because he was a
mixture of dog and wolf. He was a sleek and lively little fellow from
the beginning, for there was no division of mother strength and
attention. He developed with the true swiftness of the wolf-whelp, and
not with the slowness of the dog-pup.
For three days he was satisfied to cuddle close against his mother,
feeding when he was hungry, sleeping a great deal and preened and
laundered almost constantly by Gray Wolf's affectionate tongue. From the
fourth day he grew busier and more inquisitive with every hour. He found
his mother's blind face, with tremendous effort he tumbled over her
paws, and once he lost himself completely and sniffled for help when he
rolled fifteen or eighteen inches away from her. It was not long after
this that he began to recognize Kazan as a part of his mother, and he
was scarcely more than a week old when he rolled himself up contentedly
between Kazan's forelegs and went to sleep. Kazan was puzzled. Then
with a deep sigh Gray Wolf laid her head across one of her mate's
forelegs, with her nose touching her runaway baby, and seemed vastly
contented. For half an hour Kazan did not move.
When he was ten days old Ba-ree discovered there was great sport in
tussling with a bit of rabbit fur. It was a little later when he made
his second exciting discovery--light and sunshine. The sun had now
reached a point where in the middle of the afternoon a bright gleam of
it found its way through an overhead opening in the windfall. At first
Ba-ree would only stare at the golden streak. Then came the time when he
tried to play with it as he played with the rabbit fur. Each day
thereafter he went a little nearer the opening through which Kazan
passed from the windfall into the big world outside. Finally came the
time when he reached the opening and crouched there, blinking and
frightened at what he saw, and now Gray Wolf no longer tried to hold him
back but went out into the sunshine and tried to call him to her. It was
three days before his weak eyes had grown strong enough to permit his
following her, and very quickly after that Ba-ree learned to love the
sun, the warm air, and the sweetness of life, and to dread the darkness
of the closed-in den where he had been born.
That this world was not altogether so nice as it at first appeared he
was very soon to learn. At the darkening signs of an approaching storm
one day Gray Wolf tried to lure him back under the windfall. It was her
first warning to Ba-ree and he did not understand. Where Gray Wolf
failed, nature came to teach a first lesson. Ba-ree was caught in a
sudden deluge of rain. It flattened him out in pure terror and he was
drenched and half drowned before Gray Wolf caught him between her jaws
and carried him into shelter. One by one after this the first strange
experiences of life came to him, and one by one his instincts received
their birth. Greatest for him of the days to follow was that on which
his inquisitive nose touched the raw flesh of a freshly killed and
bleeding rabbit. It was his first taste of blood. It was sweet. It
filled him with a strange excitement and thereafter he knew what it
meant when Kazan brought in something between his jaws. He soon began
to battle with sticks in place of the soft fur and his teeth grew as
hard and as sharp as little needles.
The Great Mystery was bared to him at last when Kazan brought in between
his jaws, a big rabbit that was still alive but so badly crushed that it
could not run when dropped to the ground. Ba-ree had learned to know
what rabbits and partridges meant--the sweet warm blood that he loved
better even than he had ever loved his mother's milk. But they had come
to him dead. He had never seen one of the monsters alive. And now the
rabbit that Kazan dropped to the ground, kicking and struggling with a
broken back, sent Ba-ree back appalled. For a few moments he wonderingly
watched the dying throes of Kazan's prey. Both Kazan and Gray Wolf
seemed to understand that this was to be Ba-ree's first lesson in his
education as a slaying and flesh-eating creature, and they stood close
over the rabbit, making no effort to end its struggles. Half a dozen
times Gray Wolf sniffed at the rabbit and then turned her blind face
toward Ba-ree. After the third or fourth time Kazan stretched himself
out on his belly a few feet away and watched the proceedings
attentively. Each time that Gray Wolf lowered her head to muzzle the
rabbit Ba-ree's little ears shot up expectantly. When he saw that
nothing happened and that his mother was not hurt he came a little
nearer. Soon he could reach out, stiff-legged and cautious, and touch
the furry thing that was not yet dead.
In a last spasmodic convulsion the big rabbit doubled up its rear legs
and gave a kick that sent Ba-ree sprawling back, yelping in terror. He
regained his feet and then, for the first time, anger and the desire to
retaliate took possession of him. The kick had completed his first
education. He came back with less caution, but stiffer-legged, and a
moment later had dug his tiny teeth in the rabbit's neck. He could feel
the throb of life in the soft body, the muscles of the dying rabbit
twitched convulsively under him, and he hung with his teeth until there
was no longer a tremor of life in his first kill. Gray Wolf was
delighted. She caressed Ba-ree with her tongue, and even Kazan
condescended to sniff approvingly of his son when he returned to the
rabbit. And never before had warm sweet blood tasted so good to Ba-ree
as it did to-day.
Swiftly Ba-ree developed from a blood-tasting into a flesh-eating
animal. One by one the mysteries of life were unfolded to him--the
mating-night chortle of the gray owl, the crash of a falling tree, the
roll of thunder, the rush of running water, the scream of a fisher-cat,
the mooing of the cow moose, and the distant call of his tribe. But
chief of all these mysteries that were already becoming a part of his
instinct was the mystery of scent. One day he wandered fifty yards away
from the windfall and his little nose touched the warm scent of a
rabbit. Instantly, without reasoning or further process of education, he
knew that to get at the sweet flesh and blood which he loved he must
follow the scent. He wriggled slowly along the trail until he came to a
big log, over which the rabbit had vaulted in a long leap, and from this
log he turned back. Each day after this he went on adventures of his
own. At first he was like an explorer without a compass in a vast and
unknown world. Each day he encountered something new, always wonderful,
frequently terrifying. But his terrors grew less and less and his
confidence correspondingly greater. As he found that none of the things
he feared did him any harm he became more and more bold in his
investigations. And his appearance was changing, as well as his view of
things. His round roly-poly body was taking a different form. He became
lithe and quick. The yellow of his coat darkened, and there was a
whitish-gray streak along his back like that along Kazan's. He had his
mother's under-throat and her beautiful grace of head. Otherwise he was
a true son of Kazan. His limbs gave signs of future strength and
massiveness. He was broad across the chest. His eyes were wide apart,
with a little red in the lower corners. The forest people know what to
expect of husky pups who early develop that drop of red. It is a warning
that they are born of the wild and that their mothers, or fathers, are
of the savage hunt-packs. In Ba-ree that tinge of red was so pronounced
that it could mean but one thing. While he was almost half dog, the wild
had claimed him forever.
Not until the day of his first real battle with a living creature did
Ba-ree come fully into his inheritance. He had gone farther than usual
from the windfall--fully a hundred yards. Here he found a new wonder. It
was the creek. He had heard it before and he had looked down on it from
afar--from a distance of fifty yards at least. But to-day he ventured
going to the edge of it, and there he stood for a long time, with the
water rippling and singing at his feet, gazing across it into the new
world that he saw. Then he moved cautiously along the stream. He had not
gone a dozen steps when there was a furious fluttering close to him, and
one of the fierce big-eyed jays of the Northland was directly in his
path. It could not fly. One of its wings dragged, probably broken in a
struggle with some one of the smaller preying beasts. But for an instant
it was a most startling and defiant bit of life to Ba-ree.
Then the grayish crest along his back stiffened and he advanced. The
wounded jay remained motionless until Ba-ree was within three feet of
it. In short quick hops it began to retreat. Instantly Ba-ree's
indecision had flown to the four winds. With one sharp excited yelp he
flew at the defiant bird. For a few moments there was a thrilling race,
and Ba-ree's sharp little teeth buried themselves in the jay's feathers.
Swift as a flash the bird's beak began to strike. The jay was the king
of the smaller birds. In nesting season it killed the brush sparrows,
the mild-eyed moose-birds, and the tree-sappers. Again and again it
struck Ba-ree with its powerful beak, but the son of Kazan had now
reached the age of battle and the pain of the blows only made his own
teeth sink deeper. At last he found the flesh; and a puppyish snarl rose
in his throat. Fortunately he had gained a hold under the wing and after
the first dozen blows the jay's resistance grew weaker. Five minutes
later Ba-ree loosened his teeth and drew back a step to look at the
crumpled and motionless creature before him. The jay was dead. He had
won his first battle. And with victory came the wonderful dawning of
that greatest instinct of all, which told him that no longer was he a
drone in the marvelous mechanism of wilderness life--but a part of it
from this time forth. _For he had killed_.
Half an hour later Gray Wolf came down over his trail. The jay was torn
into bits. Its feathers were scattered about and Ba-ree's little nose
was bloody. Ba-ree was lying in triumph beside his victim. Swiftly Gray
Wolf understood and caressed him joyously. When they returned to the
windfall Ba-ree carried in his jaws what was left of the jay.
From that hour of his first kill hunting became the chief passion of
Ba-ree's life. When he was not sleeping in the sun, or under the
windfall at night, he was seeking life that he could destroy. He
slaughtered an entire family of wood-mice. Moose-birds were at first the
easiest for him to stalk, and he killed three. Then he encountered an
ermine and the fierce little white outlaw of the forests gave him his
first defeat. Defeat cooled his ardor for a few days, but taught him the
great lesson that there were other fanged and flesh-eating animals
besides himself and that nature had so schemed things that fang must not
prey upon fang--_for food_. Many things had been born in him.
Instinctively he shunned the porcupine without experiencing the torture
of its quills. He came face to face with a fisher-cat one day, a
fortnight after his fight with the ermine. Both were seeking food, and
as there was no food between them to fight over, each went his own way.
Farther and farther Ba-ree ventured from the windfall, always following
the creek. Sometimes he was gone for hours. At first Gray Wolf was
restless when he was away, but she seldom went with him and after a time
her restlessness left her. Nature was working swiftly. It was Kazan who
was restless now. Moonlight nights had come and the wanderlust was
growing more and more insistent in his veins. And Gray Wolf, too, was
filled with the strange longing to roam at large out into the big world.
Came then the afternoon when Ba-ree went on his longest hunt. Half a
mile away he killed his first rabbit. He remained beside it until dusk.
The moon rose, big and golden, flooding the forests and plains and
ridges with a light almost like that of day. It was a glorious night.
And Ba-ree found the moon, and left his kill. And the direction in
which he traveled _was away from the windfall_.
All that night Gray Wolf watched and waited. And when at last the moon
was sinking into the south and west she settled back on her haunches,
turned her blind face to the sky and sent forth her first howl since the
day Ba-ree was born. Nature had come into her own. Far away Ba-ree
heard, but he did not answer. A new world was his. He had said good-by
to the windfall--and home.