ON WILD LIFE TRAILS
A skunk passed by me going down the trail. In sight was a black bear
coming up. Which of these wilderness fellows would give or be forced
to give the right-of-way? There must be trail rights. I sat near the
trail an innocent and concealed by-stander--a bump on a log--wondering
about the wilderness etiquette for the occasion.
The black bear is happy-go-lucky. This one was pre-occupied until
within two lengths of the skunk. A three-length side-leap and he stood
watchful and ready to escape. The solemn, slow-moving skunk held the
right-of-way and passed by without a turn of his head toward the
curious and watching black bear. The skunk ever has his own way. His
influence is most far reaching.
The wilderness has a web of wild life trails. Many of these are dim.
The unobserved of all observers, I often sat in hiding close to a
worn, much-trampled wild life trail--a highway--where it crossed a
high point.
Before me just at sunrise a grizzly and a mountain lion met. The
grizzly--the dignified master of the wilds--was shuffling along, going
somewhere. He saw the lion afar but shuffled indifferently on. Within
fifty feet the lion bristled and, growling, edged unwillingly from the
trail. At the point of passing he was thirty feet from his
trail-treading foe. With spitting, threatening demonstration he dashed
by; while the unmoved, interested grizzly saw everything as he
shuffled on, except that he did not look back at the lion which turned
to show teeth and to watch him disappear.
It was different the day the grizzly met a skunk. This grizzly, as I
knew from tracking him, was something of an adventurer. His home
territory was more than forty miles to the southeast. He had travelled
this trail a number of times. On mere notion sometimes he turned back
and ambled homeward.
But this day the grizzly saw the slow-walking skunk coming long
minutes before the black and white toddler with shiny plume arrived.
The skunk is known and deferred to by wild folk big and little.
Regardless of his trail rights the grizzly went on to a siding to
wait. This siding which he voluntarily took was some fifty feet from
the trail. Here the grizzly finally sat down. He waited and waited for
the easy-going skunk to arrive and pass.
The approaching presence of the solemn, slow-going skunk was too much
and the grizzly just could not help playing the clown. He threw a
somersault; he rolled over. Then, like a young puppy, he sat on an
awkwardly held body to watch the skunk pass. He pivoted his head to
follow this unhastening fellow who was as dead to humour as the log by
the trail.
Along the trail friend meets friend, foe meets enemy, stranger meets
stranger, they linger, strangers not again. The meetings may be
climaxes, produce clashes, or friendly contact; and in the passing
high-brows and common folks rub elbows. To meet or not to meet ever is
the question with them.
One old trail which I many times watched was on a ridge between two
deep cañons. At the west the ridge expanded into the Continental
Divide and the trail divided into dimmer footways. The east end
terraced and the trail divided. Stretches of the trail were pine
shadowed, spaces were in sunlight.
Where the trail went over a summit among the scattered trees
travellers commonly paused for a peep ahead. Often, too, they waited
and congested, trampling a wide stretch bare and often to dust. On
this summit were scoutings, lingerings, and fighting. Lowlanders and
highlanders, singly, in pairs and in strings, stamped the dust with
feet shod in hoofs or in claws and pads.
One of the meetings of two grizzlies which I witnessed was on this
ridge trail. A steady rain was falling. Each saw the other coming in
the distance and each gave the right-of-way as though accidentally, by
showing interest in fallen logs and boulder piles away from the trail.
Each ludicrously pretending not to see the other, finally a passing
was achieved, the trail regained without a salute.
A meeting of two other grizzlies revealed a different though a common
form. Each saw the other coming but each held to the trail. At less
than a length apart both rose and roared--feigned surprise--and
soundly blamed the other for the narrowly averted and well-nigh
terrible collision. But no delay for the last word. Each well pleased
with the meeting hastened on, too wise to look back.
One day nothing came along this highway and I looked at the tracks in
the wide, dusty trail. The multitude of tracks in it overlapped and
overlaid each other. A grizzly track, like the footprint of a shoeless
primitive man, was stamped with deer tracks, stitched and threaded
with mice tails and tracks and scalloped with wolf toes. But its
individuality was there.
For three days I had been a bump on a log by this place and no big
travellers had passed. The birds, chipmunks, and a squirrel were
entertaining as ever, but I had hoped for something else. I had just
started for camp when dimly through the trees I saw something coming
down the trail.
[Illustration:
_Photo. by E. R. Warren_
_The Prairie Dog_]
[Illustration:
_Photo. by E. R. Warren_
_The Cony_]
[Illustration:
_Drawing by Will James_
_Looking for Small Favours_]
A dignified grizzly and a number of pompous, stiff-necked rams met and
were so filled with curiosity that everyone forgot reserve and good
form. They stopped and turned for looks at one another and thus merged
a rude, serious affair into a slowly passing, successful meeting.
I sometimes sat at a point on this ridge trail so that the passing
animal was in silhouette. The background was a lone black spruce
against the shifting sky scenery. Horns and whiskers, coats of many
colours, and exhibits of leg action went by. Horned heads,
short-arched necks, and held-in chins abundantly told of pride and
pomposity. But the character topography was in each back line. From
nose tip to tail, plateau, cañon, hill, and slope stories stood
against the sky.
The tail, though last, was the character clue to the passing figure.
Regardless of curve, kink, or incline, it ever was story revealing:
sometimes long and flowing, but the short tail attitude incited most
imaginative interest in the attached individual.
From treetop I watched one trail where it was crossed by a stream.
Generally deer and sheep went through the stream without a stop. In
it bears often rolled. Sometimes they used the wilderness bridge--the
beaver dam, and occasionally they splashed through the pond. Coyotes,
porcupine, squirrels, rabbits, and lynx used the dam. A porcupine
backed a lynx off this into the water, the lynx threatening and
spitting. But the lynx met a rabbit near the other end and the rabbit
went back with the lynx.
A grizzly was about to cross when three fun-loving grizzly cubs
appeared. He stood aside and watched, perhaps enjoyed, their pranks in
the water before coming across. On the bank the cubs hesitated for a
moment before passing a sputtering squirrel who was denouncing them
for youthful pranks. A few inches of the first snow was on the ground.
I went back along the trail and examined tracks. At one point a lion
had come out of the woods and given the cubs a scare; and still
farther back they had stood on hind feet one behind the other,
evidently watching a black bear go well around them.
Two flocks of bighorn mountain sheep passed by in single file like two
lines of proud, set wooden figures. One of these flocks was down from
the heights to visit a far-off salt lick. The other evidently was
returning to its local territory on the high range by a circuitous
route after being driven off by hunters. A few days later I saw these
flocks meet on a high plateau. They stopped to visit. Then one flock
turned back with the other and both edged over to an outlook rim of
the plateau where I left them, racing and playing in the on-coming
darkness.
In numberless places I saw a single wild fellow meet his species. Two
coyotes advanced bristling and passed snarling. Another time two
coyotes met, eyed, and then turned off in the woods together. Two wild
cats advanced with declaration of war, made the forest aisles hideous
with whoops and threats, struck attitudes which go with blood and
gore--but nothing happened. Two squirrels approached, each loudly
demanding the right-of-way. They blustered, backed-up, threatened,
raced tempestuously up and down trees, and finally boastingly passed.
Many a time two rabbits speeded silently by without a slowing, a
signal, or a look. Others kicked as they passed. One mid-winter day
two rabbits leaped to meet mid-air; then like bucking bronchos they
leaped high for action and like miniature mules turned here and there
to kick at the target with two feet. If this was fight or frolic only
rabbits know.
It often happened that the breeze was favourable and I watched the
passing processions from my camp. Near camp two otters met and turned
aside and later I followed their trail to otter slide. Two woodchucks
met by a boulder on which I sat quietly. They counter-marched in half
war-like half circles. A pause, then with apparently friendly
negotiations progressing, they discovered a coyote slipping toward
them.
Many times through the years I waited for odd hours, and days, at a
promising place on a trail a few miles from my cabin. The tracks along
this showed it to be in constant use, but never have I seen a
traveller pass along it. My being at many a meeting elsewhere was just
a coincidence. Years of wilderness wanderings often made me almost by
chance an uninvited guest--I was among those present.
Dull fellows well met were skunk and porcupine. These dull-brained but
efficiently armed fellows are conceded the right-of-way by
conventional wilderness folk. They blundered to head-on clash. Never
before had this occurred. Each was surprised and wrathy. There was a
gritting of teeth. Each pushed and became furious. Then the skunk
received several quills in the side and in turn the porcupine a dash
of skunk spray. Both abandoned the trail, sadder but not wiser.
Deer, bear, beavers, and wolves travel because they need to do so, or
for the fun of it. Deer shift for miles from a summer to a winter
range, travelling a regular migration route. A number of enemy wolves
may follow this moving food supply. Beavers may be seeking a home in
new scenes and a bear may be off on an adventure.
Wild life trails were worn by generation after generation of wild
animals using the same route, the line of least resistance long
followed from one territory to another. Trampling feet assisted by
wind and water maintained a plain trail. Indian trails often were wild
life trails. Stretches of buffalo trails on the plains and bear trails
in Alaska were abandoned because so deeply worn and washed.
From a low cliff by a mountain stream I watched the wild life along
the trail on the other side of the stream. The cañon was wooded but
the trail immediately opposite was in the open.
Two packs of wolves met on the trail across the river. The leaders
rushed to grips and a general mix-up was on. But this was surprisingly
brief. There was an outburst of snarling and the gangs passed with but
little loss of time and with but one limping.
Often as these travellers passed out of sight after a meeting I
wondered what and when would be their next adventure. Around a turn
of the trail within five minutes after the black bear met the skunk he
clashed with a lion, so tracks by the trail showed.
I often wondered, too, what experience an animal had been through
immediately before he trailed into my sight. The peevish lion was just
from her fat, safe, happy kittens. One of the two cross grizzlies was
from a row with another grizzly, while the other had been playing
along the trail and was on good terms with himself and the world.
When skunk and mink--the more offensive of the smelly family--meet in
contest, then smells to heaven their meeting. Driven into a corner,
the mink will spread high-power musk in the only avenue of advance. He
then is in an impregnable position--no fellow has nose sufficiently
strong to pass. Or, if the mink place a guarding circle of musk around
a prize kill this makes a time lock and will hold his prize for hours
against all comers.
A skunk and mink clashed by the trail across the river. The skunk was
leisurely advancing to seize a flopping, misguided trout on the bank
when a mink rushed as though to close with the skunk. The skunk
hesitated--and lost the fish. The mink in the delay of action made
musk screen near the trout. The skunk went into action and drove the
mink off with vile skunk spray. The musk of mink caused his advance to
pause, he edged around to the other side, but too much, gave up the
fish, and walked off gritting his teeth.
Beavers commonly leave stuffy house and spend summer vacation miles up
or down stream. They travel by water. The swift water of a rapids
forced two companies of beaver travellers to use the trail of
land-lubbers on the bank. Here the company going up visited with
another company going down. They mingled, smelled, and rubbed noses.
The company going up turned back and both went off to frolic in a
beaver pond. Later one company went on down and the other up the
stream. Tracks showed that ten left the pond going down; this company
had numbered twelve when it met the other company. The up-bound
company numbered fourteen at the meeting. Late that day I counted
those going up stream as they left the trail and took to the water at
the head of the rapids. They had increased their number to sixteen.
Two droves of deer met one October on the trail by stream and a beaver
pond. They stopped, mingled, visited, and then laid down together. One
drove was migrating from summer range on the peaks and high plateaus
to winter range miles below. It was following along a trail
generations old. The other drove was home-seeking. A forest fire with
smoke still in the sky had laid barren their home territory.
From my treetop observation tower I saw a single coyote coming, and
wondered what would be his attitude concerning the blockading of the
trail by superior numbers, and also how these superior numbers would
receive a single ancient enemy. But the deer were indifferent to the
lone little wolf. They utterly ignored him.
The coyote walked leisurely around the vast assemblage with an air of
ownership. Then he sat down before them and eyed them with a display
of cynical satisfaction. He turned from this inspection and with a
leisurely, contented air walked by with, “I haven’t time to-day--but I
should worry.”
I had my camp by a cliff a short distance up stream and of mornings
birds were numerous. A waterfall was at its best in the night. I had
planned to watch this place another day or two but the wind was from
the wrong quarter--it would carry my scent and warn travellers that a
possible killer was in ambush. So I travelled away on this trail.
Many a time in the wilds I “met up” unexpectedly with wild life. And
as I recall these meetings I plan again to be among those present.
Unexpected meetings and near meetings were had with most large and
leading species of animals on the Continent. The alert grizzly,
realizing I was one of the super-killer species, generally avoided me.
I travelled alone and unarmed, and before I had satisfied myself that
the grizzly is not a ferocious animal I most unexpectedly met one. I
was his bogie--both acted on the impulse.
In the wilds one may meet a skunk or a bear. Either gives
concentration--one’s every-day faculties take a vacation, and the
Imagination has the stage. A bear adventure is telling. You meet the
bear, he escapes, and eager listeners hear your graphic story.
The skunk is a good fellow--a good mixer. His policy is to meet or be
met--the other fellow will attend to the running. The war-filled
wilderness of tooth and claw ceases to be aggressive in the pacifying
process of the little black and white skunk. When a skunk goes into
reverse thus runs the world away. From the met skunk you absorb story
material--local colour, carry off enduring evidence; your friends
scent the story, they shrink from you; from registered fragments their
creative faculties have restored a movie scene.