master, at any rate, had read him a great deal of poetry. And much of
the poetry had been of a nature to discourage hunting; which was just
what the doggie's master liked to do. He was thoroughly in sympathy
with his pet, who couldn't endure a gun, either the sight or the sound
of it. But, much as the gentleman knew about the fields and the woods,
he would have known more could he have understood what Collie Dog
would have loved to tell him. For that gentle dog was on the best of
terms with every living creature for miles around. His early morning
expeditions were always but so many rounds of visits.
Consequently, the newcomer, this eager and noisy young setter, was to
make many new acquaintances on this daybreak excursion with Collie Dog.
Down the lane from the barn to the pasture they romped, the dew
drenching their flanks as they brushed the tall weeds and bushes.
Setter Pup, with his ears flapping in excitement, was plunging
heedlessly ahead when Collie Dog called him back.
"Go easy here! We are sure to hear something," Collie Dog whispered.
And suddenly, while they walked almost on tip-toe, there came from the
very edge of the field, a clear, ringing call:
"_Bob! Bob! Bob!_"
"Why, who can be down here in the hayfield at this time of the
morning?" Setter Pup asked in surprise.
"Just wait!" laughed Collie Dog, delighted.
"_Bob, Bob, Bob-White!_"
The voice was as clear as a boy's.
"That's my best friend out here," Collie Dog explained. "It's little
Mr. Partridge."
Then very quickly the beautiful, trim little Mr. Partridge hopped clear
of the tangled grass and stood gaily on the fence-rail. He was speckled
and shapely and his eyes were full of wonderful humor. But he caught
sight of the strange dog, and was gone in a second. Then, to Setter
Pup's great astonishment, there were many little voices, and wild
scuttlings in the very path ahead of him. And two beautiful partridges,
their wings apparently broken, were hobbling along almost before his
very nose. They were dying, as it seemed.
Setter Pup was all for seizing them. Two such crippled creatures were
easy prey. But his instincts were, after all, of another sort; for,
although he had never done it before, he stood stock still and pointed
his nose straight at the birds, his tail stretched out like a long
plume behind him.
Collie Dog shook with laughter.
"Well, that gun shooting master of yours would be proud of you if he
could see you now," he said. "You're pointing straight as a weather
vane. But we're not out hunting birds this morning. Come here, and I'll
show you something."
Setter Pup dropped his tail and stepped back. Then Collie Dog came
softly up to the little birds that were cowering in the path. They knew
him well enough. Even if he was a dog, he was a friend; and if there is
a creature who knows a friend and would be on terms of friendship with
the whole world it is Mr. Bob-White.
They were even pleased to meet young Setter Pup, when they found
out that he was staying at the farm. They could not believe that a
personal friend of their wonderful Collie Dog could be ill-disposed to
such as the partridge family.
And Mr. Bob-White talked about "our farm" exactly as though it were his
own. He said that he and his family could surely keep down the potato
bugs that year; and that if it could only be known what his intentions
were in this matter of eating up the pests that canker and destroy, he
was sure no one would want to kill him.
"You always say that, poor Mr. Bob-White, and how I pity you," the
gentle Collie Dog replied. For he was as quick to weep as to laugh,
being so refined a dog. "And it's a shame. My master reads to me all
about you. And we get very indignant when we think of how you are the
one thing that these farmers can depend upon to eat up more bugs than
anybody else could ever devour. You're so much better than poison and
all the rest of the truck they sprinkle around."
"Yes; the poison just washes off in the rain. My family, if only we
could be let alone, would do it all. Didn't you tell me that my cousin
down in Texas ate up all the boll weevils in a county full of cotton?"
"That's the truth," answered Collie Dog. "Master read it to me. But
you're safe enough on this farm anyway. You know that. My friend
Setter Pup is not going to hunt here at all."
"And I shall never hunt partridges--never!" declared Setter Pup, who
was sadly distressed. "I wish I had never been born"--he was crying
now--"if I have to hunt down such folks as Mr. Partridge." For poor
Setter Pup had found that he possessed a heart; and that discovery is
the most distressing one in the world.
"Oh, you'll get over that," Collie Dog comforted him. "You'll have to.
Your master will attend to you. But I'm sorry for you. And just look at
these baby partridges."
One by one, as Mrs. Partridge had clucked to them, in a little voice
like the ticking of a tiny clock, they had crept up to her. Ten little
chicks there were, of a light brown, and nothing but fluffy down and
beady eyes. One of them hopped right out from in front of Setter Pup,
where it had hidden under a leaf.
"Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "There was that chicken, and I never saw
it at all!"
"No," Collie Dog replied; "you would never guess where they go to when
their mother gives the alarm. And then she runs off and tempts you to
kill her. She hobbles and cries and lies down to die right at your
feet. My own mother, who was a Scottish noblewoman, being an Argyle,
used to say that she never saw such a wonderfully devoted mother as
Mrs. Bob-White."
With a gay farewell to Mr. Partridge, the sprightly dog was off. And
Setter Pup went racing after him. For there was much to see, and the
sun was already clear and golden. The grass shone in waves of green,
and as the dew dried there came the loveliest odors of wild honeysuckle
and clover. It was a time to be gay, and Collie Dog did not want to
have his young friend depressed. There were some wonderful mud-holes to
visit, where they could get just as cool and as dirty as they pleased.
"And when the mud dries off," Collie Dog explained, as they plunged
through the bushes, "your coat will shine as though it had been
brushed."
It was a wonderful romp that they had in the mud-hole, deep in the
swampy meadow, under the blackberry vines. And when they came out,
disgracefully dirty, to dry themselves under a China-berry tree, they
were rolling over and over on the grass, when a funny little voice
called out from the branches overhead:
"Hello, Mr. Dog!"
Setter Pup jumped to his feet; but Collie Dog only looked up into the
tree.
"'Morning, friend 'Possum; and how's your family to-day?"
"Oh, they're doing fine. Twelve of them and all getting plump. We like
your turnip patch very much."
Then he laughed; a squeaky little laugh it was; and Collie Dog seemed
to enjoy the joke too, for he sat up with a smile.
"Come on down and let's see you die," he requested. "My friend has
never seen a 'possum play dead."
"No, indeed, Mr. Collie. I don't know your friend--and I don't think I
care to. He's a hunting dog. But I'll die right here on this branch, if
that will amuse you."
So Mr. 'Possum threw himself into a wonderful attitude and looked as
dead as dead could be. His head hung over the branch and his mouth
lolled open, and his little paws were all curled up.
"How queer!" Setter Pup exclaimed. "I suppose he's satisfied that
nobody but a buzzard would touch him now. What a dandy trick!"
"It fools 'em, all right," said Collie Dog, who always delighted in
this performance.
Then Mr. 'Possum winked a sly wink and slid like a big rat along the
branch to a hollow place in the tree.
"He's gone in. Probably his wife wanted him."
And then Collie Dog was off again, bounding and racing across the
field, with Setter Pup keeping beside him.
Miles they went, through the country. Young Setter Pup saw more than
he ever had guessed could be seen. There was Mr. Blacksnake, who raced
like mad over the leaves, making an astonishing noise. He carried his
head very high and went such a zigzag course that the dogs lost sight
of him.
"He's an ugly fellow, too, but he can't hurt you. He makes a funny
noise with his tail, rattling it on the leaves if you corner him. He
wants you to think he's a rattlesnake. But it's only a clever trick,"
said Collie Dog. "Sometimes on that sandy piece of road we've just
passed, we'll come across Mr. Hognose. He's a queer little snake. He
can scare you terribly by puffing and blowing, so that you would think
he was very dangerous. But he can't bite at all, nor hurt you as much
as a cat. He plays off at being dead too, just like Mr. 'Possum. But he
never crawls out till the sun is high. He likes the heat. I've met him
a great many times, but always when it was hot."
By this time it was a glorious morning, and as the two dogs trotted
down the wood road and along the river bank, the birds were calling
from every side.
"I like to come this way," Collie Dog went on. "There's a redbird, a
very aristocratic cardinal, who flies ahead of me every time. He's had
a whole story written about himself. Master's read it aloud to me. Does
your master read aloud to you?"
Setter Pup was somewhat embarrassed.
"We read about guns and cartridges and Canadian guides, and fishing
tackle," he admitted.
"H'm!" mused his companion. "Destructive, of course. Right in your
line. But not my style. We prefer the other kind, my master and I. But
not everybody can be a poet, of course."
Just then the cardinal-bird darted out of the honeysuckle and flew
ahead of them, and in an instant a brilliant bluebird followed him.
"They fly together just that way. Master says they must like each
other's color. Aren't they beautiful?"
And then, before they knew it, the birds were gone; and Setter Pup was
surprised to see that this river path had been the way home, for they
were almost at the farm door.
"If I could only go hunting with you instead of with those guides and
guns," Setter Pup began; for evidently there was something on his mind
and he wanted to talk.
But Collie Dog just wagged his tail. He understood. There was nothing
to be said, for a dog owes everything to his master, and there are many
kinds of masters. Besides, the door was open and there were voices
upstairs. Setter Pup's owner was calling across the hall to his host.
"He ought to make a fine pointer. His mother was a prize bird dog, you
know."
Poor Setter Pup looked wistfully at Collie Dog as they flopped down on
the floor.
And Collie was truly distressed. But, then, as he often asked himself:
"What could a poor dog do?"
XXIV
MRS. POLAR BEAR'S ADVENTURE
The long, dark winter was on the wane. Months of cold starlight and
terrific winds, with numberless storms of heavy snow, had gone by.
Little by little the streak of light on the horizon, the thin shadows
which it cast over the snowfields, and the gentler quality of the
air increased; so that every one who lived in this far Arctic region
stirred in his winter sleep and there was preparation for a short and
very busy summer.
Some of the animals had been abroad, indeed, throughout the whole dark
night of the polar winter; such of them for instance as the lovely
white fox and the great polar bear. For it was not their custom to
crawl away, as many did, into the deep snow-banks, there to sleep it
out; for they knew that even this season of blackness and appalling
cold had plenty of food for them, and they were always insatiably
hungry.
But Mr. Bear's wife was of a different turn of mind, and although she
knew that her husband would not provide for her quite as she would
like to be fed, she was willing to go deep into the snow and dig out
for herself a warm bed away beneath the surface. There she had stayed,
never so much as venturing to the opening after the real night had set
in.
And there her cubs were born. Two of them there were. The good Mrs.
Bear was so delighted with their beauty that she was impatient for the
warm days to come when she could take them out and show them to her
relatives and friends.
"Perhaps, too, their father will be back by the time summer comes," she
thought.
And then she was suddenly glad that he was not around just now; for
he was very quick-tempered, and if the babies annoyed him at all, he
would be pretty sure to cuff them. And one blow of Mr. Bear's paw would
finish the career of any baby bear in the world.
So the two little creatures, clad in the whitest of fur from head to
foot, their claws as black as ebony, and their wide eyes as yellow as
amber, lay snuggled against the great warm body of their mother for all
the weeks of the departing winter.
Suddenly, as they rolled over and looked upward through the snow
cavern, they saw for the first time what seemed to them a great big eye
staring down at them.
"That's only the hole in the roof," Mrs. Bear explained. "And pretty
soon you will see that it is all blue and beautiful above that
window--and then we will go out and away."
What that meant they did not know; for life so far as they had known it
consisted of meals and sleep and endless playtime on the icy floor of
their cavern. But they were to know more about it very soon. A white
wing flashed by one morning, and a land voice called down the depths of
their cave.
It was Mr. Burgomaster, the good-natured gull. He had come purposely
to call on Mrs. Bear, for he had two stirring pieces of information to
give her.
He perched by the edge of her skylight, and wasted no words in relating
the news.
"There's a whale being driven ashore; and the mists have hidden the
birds."
He was gone before Mrs. Bear could so much as thank him for coming; and
she was, indeed, deeply obliged. No one but good Mr. Burgomaster would
ever have taken such pains.
What he said sounded strange enough, but it meant everything to Mrs.
Bear. When a whale was disabled in the far depths of the sea, or had
been caught in the currents and gales in such a way that he must surely
drift to shore, he was as good as dead and devoured. For in shallow
water he would be helpless and once his enormous bulk was stranded on
the rocks or the jagged capes of ice he could only give himself up to
his enemies.
Mrs. Bear, however, would have been very cautious about venturing to
the scene of the banquet, if the great flocks of birds, which were sure
to be on hand, were not hidden from view as they hovered above it.
Clouds of excited gulls that came nearer and nearer to the shore were a
signal of what was about to happen. And the bears, the foxes, and the
wolves were not the only ones who knew it. Men, with their ferocious
packs of dogs, their long lassos of walrus hide, and their terrible
spears, knew well enough what the noisy birds were announcing.
But all would be well if the fogs hung low, and the gathering flocks of
sea-birds were thereby hidden.
Mrs. Bear explained the situation to her cubs.
"Of course, your mother would not have built her nursery here," she
ended, "if she thought those terrible creatures with the wolfish
dogs and the ropes were within miles and miles of the spot. But you
can never tell when they may turn up. They come with their dogs over
endless tracks of snow and ice to find us, and they travel fast. You
must lie as quietly as you can while I am gone. Amuse yourselves in
only the quietest way. Don't call out at all; and go to sleep again,
like good children."
With that Mrs. Bear rose to her hind feet and reached upward along the
snow walls of her house. Then, balancing herself on a ridge of the ice
which was for all the world like a side shelf, she made a ponderous
leap through the opening into broad daylight. For at last it was the
real day, and a glorious glimmer of sunlight behind the fogs showed
that summer was coming.
It was good to breathe the free air, and Mrs. Bear shook herself
violently to straighten out the creases of her heavy coat. She would
have liked to roar, loud and long, but she was trained by experience
never to speak in a fog.
"You can't tell who's hearing you," her own mother used to say.
So she only trundled her mighty bulk downward across the ice and
snow, to its very edge, where it suddenly broke off and formed an
embankment. Below this there was a narrow beach, or what appeared to
be one--a strip of confused and tumbled blocks of ice and jagged rocks.
There was a sudden whizzing of wings above her head, and the wailing
cries of a hundred little gulls and the many crowds of birds that were
hurrying to eat of whale fat. Mrs. Bear broke off in their direction;
and soon the sound of snarling voices, the yelps of the quarrelsome
foxes, and the vicious bark of the wolves met her ears. Yes, she
was none too early, for evidently the assemblage of animals, all as
famished as herself, were fighting over the repast.
They were not so polite to Mrs. Bear as they might have been, for
they begrudged her any share of the whale's body. But she paid little
attention to any one, and went to work lustily on her first meal of the
season.
After the first mouthfuls, however, she felt wonderfully good-humored;
for such is the effect of a meal, and it is pleasant to stop and talk a
bit when you know there is more to follow.
"I must thank you, Mr. Burgomaster," was her first remark. "You were
kind to call me in time. This is a good beginning to the summer."
The white-winged gull, largest of all the birds that were present, and
by far the best mannered, only begged Mrs. Bear to remember that they
had been friends for many years.
"And I propose to name my children," Mrs. Bear announced, as this
delicious dinner began to increase her fine spirits, "I propose to name
the babies after you and your wife: _Odin_ and _Olga_. That's what they
shall be."
Mr. Burgomaster was at a loss how to express his gratitude for this
compliment. But he needed to say little, for such a generous tribute is
not repaid in words.
Something he said later on, however, in which he quoted Dr. Penguin,
brought forth her assent on the subject of eating too much, for she
added, "True, true, it is not wise to overeat at your first meal of the
year. A relative of mine did that once, and was unable to climb over
the path to his door."
So, taking as goodly an amount of provender with her as she could
carry away, Mrs. Bear went home to feed her babies. They were far more
interested in this new and appetizing breakfast than in the names which
she gave them, you may be sure; and from then until the whale was used
up and only his bones were left to dry in the winds, Mrs. Bear was
continually carrying meals to her cave.
By this time the winter was gone, and the roof of the snowhouse fell
in. The melting drifts drenched every ledge and cranny of their home,
and it was time to be wandering.
"You must do exactly as I tell you," Mrs. Bear kept saying, "and you
must never stray from me a minute. For we are going to start on our
journey, and there will be a great many dangers to guard against."
When little Odin and Olga trotted along beside their mother, with the
whole world before them, and a keen appetite with them, they were as
alert and excited as any two bears in the world could be.
The great rolling, blue water, the ice that floated on its surface
and shone like white ivory in the sun, the patches of green grass on
the sides of the hills, and the rocks black with snow water, made a
dazzling scene.
Their long day began with a wonderful feat on the part of Mother Bear.
After they had swum to a low, wide ice floe, which was a little way
from shore, and Odin and Olga were just learning to use the hairy pads
of their feet in climbing the sides of the small iceberg, Mrs. Bear
gave a sudden plunge into the water, and disappeared from view. She
swam far out, her nose barely coming to the surface, and the rest of
her body entirely concealed. Then, rising to the surface, she brought
back with her a huge fish which she had stunned with a blow of her
mighty paw.
"It's all in the way you slide into the water," she said; and then, as
they ate greedily of this morsel, she told them of diving for sea-lions
and of capturing them by coming up from under the prey.
"You will swim under water great distances, as soon as you learn to
hunt," she said, "and you will learn to make no noise about it."
This was the truth, as not only the seals and the sea-lions, but plenty
of the great fish, could bear witness.
But, as events of the day were to turn, little Odin and Olga were near
to never growing up at all; for the very danger which their mother most
dreaded was speedily approaching. While they were playing first on the
ice cakes and then on the shore, and Mrs. Bear had about made up her
mind that they would stay that night at a point not far distant, where
she saw many sea-birds fluttering, and where, she reasoned, the fishing
and seal hunting might be good, the hunters with their trained dogs
were fast approaching the very spot.
For your Eskimos have their own way of reading the signs; and as many
birds had been flocking in this direction, the men had steadily pursued
the trail. Day after day they had traveled, and they felt sure that
they were coming upon at least a herd of seals or of walruses. And they
hoped, of course, to bag a great white bear.
But Odin's mother had assured herself that there was no danger, or it
would have been revealed during the time that the whale had attracted
such crowds of her brother animals. She did not perceive that her
enemies knew exactly how prone the well-fed bear is to linger near the
spot of her recent feedings.
"That is just the place to spend the night, out there," she said; "for
on those points that reach out into the sea, you can escape by land or
by water, as you have to. Remember that, too, children."
Little Olga stopped to rub her head at this. She was trying to remember
so many things! Mrs. Bear told her it was nothing, and that learning
things was the whole of life anyway.
When Mrs. Bear and her twins reached the icy point, there were the
friendly Penguins to meet them and to exclaim over the children. They
were having a fine visit when suddenly a dull roar far below them on
the shore made every one sit up and listen.
It came again and lasted longer. It was a new sound to the children,
but Mrs. Bear recognized it.
"That's an iceberg breaking up," she said at last. "Not a pleasing
sound, but one you'll soon get used to."
Night came and they curled up, all three, in a snug corner under the
ice shelves of the point. The wind was high and the sea was noisy, but
they were too well tucked away to care.
And they little dreamed of what was going on around them.
For scarcely had the sun gone down, when the Eskimos with their teams
of wolfish dogs were on the spot. Little by little they had crept to
the end of the point, and one by one they stationed themselves at
intervals to wait, like so many sentinels, for the morning.
Mrs. Bear would never reach the water alive; and escape back to the
mainland was impossible. There were enough dogs and men on hand to
cover the avenues of escape.
Before little Odin and Olga were awake sufficiently to see anything at
all, Mrs. Bear had faced her first ambushed enemies. From where the
cubs cowered in their corner, they saw their mother rear on her hind
legs and then drop with a terrible force, hitting the dogs right and
left as she landed among them. There were thunderous noises, and her
own mighty roars were almost drowned by the snarling of the dogs and
the shouting of the men, who were fast closing in. She was bleeding
already and several of the dogs were lying dead around her.
Mrs. Bear stood truly at bay. One man, more courageous than the rest,
came running up with his pointed spear, ready to take aim. A terrific
noise arrested him--a noise in which all else was nothing. The land
seemed to reel and topple; the great ice shelves came crashing down.
Men and dogs ran for their lives; and to save themselves they plunged
bodily into the sea. For the whole point of ice had broken from the
mainland and, like a ship that is rocking and righting itself, it was
sending up mighty waves and eddies on every side.
The motions were less gigantic after a while, and the new iceberg had
found itself. Already it was moving forward, and the wind was driving
it foot by foot into the outgoing tide.
Mrs. Bear knew precisely what to do. Twice in her life she had traveled
on ice floes, though never on so large a one as this.
"Here we are, and here we stay," she said. "By and by we'll come to
islands, or so close to shore that we can swim back to land. It will be
a long time before we are carried out beyond this gulf, and we're sure
to escape before then."
She was a little too cheerful, perhaps, for some of her own kin had
gone that way so far into the great southerly current that they were
never seen again. But Mrs. Bear was one of those happy beings who
always look for the best, not the worst; and she was too joyous over
this sudden deliverance to heed any new perplexity.