South Branch. Without hesitation he turned up that turbulent but
shrunken stream, knowing it for his own; and he made no stop till he
reached the deep, green, foamy pool at the foot of the Falls. Being
still comparatively fresh, and very restless, he swam all round the
pool, and took a crafty survey of the terrific obstacle before him. But
among the sojourners in the pool were many fish with bleeding sides, who
had essayed the leap in vain and were waiting to recuperate their
energies for another effort. So he, too, paused a little, gathering his
young strength.
[Illustration: "VANQUISHED IN THEIR OWN ELEMENT BY THE MINK."]
The Falls of the Big South were about twelve feet in total height. There
were two leaps, the upper one, of about three feet, rolling down into a
hollow shelf of sandstone some six or eight feet in width, and the
lower, dropping nine feet sheer into the pool. Most of the face of
fall, at this stage of the water, was lashed into foam by fissures and
projecting angles of rock, but on the right the main volume of the
stream fell in a clear, green column. Up the front of this column the
grilse presently flung himself, striking the water about a foot from the
top. As he struck, the impetus of his leap not yet exhausted, his
powerful fins and tail took firm hold of the solid water and urged him
upward. Over the lip he shot, into the boiling turmoil of the shelf,
then onward over the great surge of the upper dip. He had triumphed
easily, and the way was clear before him to the shining gravel bars
whereon he had been spawned. There were still some tough
rapids--shallow, and tortuous, and grid-ironed with slaty rocks--to be
climbed; but there were quiet pools to sojourn in, and no perils that
his craft could not evade. One by one his fellow voyagershad dropped
away, betrayed by the fisherman's luring fly, clutched by the skilful
paw of wildcat or bear, or vanquished in their own element by the mink
or the otter. But when he reached the wide spawning-beds he was still
comraded by a fair remnant of the host which had entered the river with
him; and the shallow run that swept the bars were noisy with their
splashings through the twilight of evening and dawn.
Every day there were new arrivals at the spawning-beds, and among them
the strong and wary grilse soon found a mate. She was considerably
larger than he, a trim young salmon of the second year and perhaps nine
pounds in weight. But his radiant colouring, his strength and his
activity, as he swam around her and displayed his charms, appeared to
content her. With his bony nose he dug her a circular nest in the
gravel, where the current ran clear but not too strong; and in this nest
she laid her countless eggs, while he rubbed his side caressingly
against her shining flanks. When her eggs were all laid and fertilized
he drifted away from her, dropped down to the nearest pool, and lay
there sluggish and uninterested for awhile, until, seized once more by
the longing for the great salt tide, he joined a returning company of
"slinks" and hurried back down-river to the sea.
III
When he reached the deep sea once more, and regained his appetite among
the sweeping tides, he once more began to grow. His fins became smaller
in proportion to his bulk, and he was no longer a grilse, but a salmon.
His life, however, underwent no great change; his adventures, perils,
interests, appetites, were all much the same as during his first season
in the sea. Only he now swam with a certain majesty, ignoring the grilse
and smaller salmon who swam and fed beside him; for he was of splendid,
constantly growing stature, of the lords of his kind.
This time he let nearly the whole round of the year go by, feeding at
leisure and lazily dodging the seals, among the icy but populous tides
that swung beyond the mouth of Hudson Straits. Then, late the following
winter, long before the dark earth had any word of spring, spring
stirred secretly in his veins, and he remembered the sunny gravel bars
of the Great South Branch. The sudden urge of his desire turned him
about, and he began to swim tirelessly southward, companioned by an
ardent, silvery host into whose veins at the same time the same
compelling summons had been flashed.
It was late May when the returning salmon, having successfully eluded
the snares of the nets and the assaults of harbour seal and dogfish,
came again to the mouth of his native river and fanned his gills once
more in its sweet, amber current. He was now a good forty pounds in
weight, and his clean blue-and-silver body was adorned with fine
markings of extraordinary brilliancy. His vigorous, wholesome, seasoned
muscles propelled him irresistibly against the current of the river,
which was now fierce with freshet; and being urged by a stronger and
more insistent desire than that which had swayed him on his former
visit, as a grilse, he now made more haste in his journeying, with
briefer halts in the pools. The pools, at this season, were some of them
indistinguishable in the flood, and others turbulent and difficult of
access, so the fly-fishermen were not yet out in force. Only once, in
the great pool below the Quahdavic mouth, did he see the bright fly
whose treacherous lure he knew so well go dancing over his head. He rose
lazily and slapped it with his tail in angry contempt, then returned to
the bottom of the pool and watched it lazily, while for nearly an hour
it went through its futile antics. Then it vanished suddenly.
Perhaps ten minutes after the gaudy fly had disappeared, the big salmon
saw a brown furry shape, more like a very young squirrel than anything
else, go floating down the current. Other salmon, who, like himself,
had ignored the fly, observed this furry shape with interest, and half
started to investigate. But when the big salmon rose to it they turned
away with resignation. As for him, though he had not been once really
hungry since entering the fresh water, he felt that that strange object
was the very thing he wanted. Gliding up to the surface on a long slant,
very slowly, he opened his great jaws just below the object, sucked it
in, and with a heavy splash turned back toward the bottom. The next
instant there was a jerk, a prick, a fierce tug at his jaw which swerved
him from his course; and he realized that he had been fooled. The furry
shape was but the old treason of the fly in another form.
His first impulse was to rush madly across the pool in an effort to
escape the small tormentor. But memory and experience, added to that
native cunning which had brought him safely through so many perils, now
came to his rescue. Instead of rushing to the surface and performing
wild feats which would have soon worn him out while delighting the soul
of his enemy, he turned resolutely back to his course and bored his way
to the bottom against the exasperating pressure of rod and reel. Here
he set himself to nosing vigorously among the stones, in the hope of
rubbing off this troublesome thing on his jaw. The thing tugged, and
tugged, and pricked, and worried, as the fisherman at the other end of
the line strove to rouse him into a lively and spectacular struggle. But
for some minutes he refused to be diverted from his nosing among the
stones, till the fisherman began to fear that the hook had got fast to a
log.
Presently, however, the great salmon decided to change his tactics.
Though he did not know it, he had already loosened the hook appreciably,
tearing the cartilage of his jaw. Now, having craftily eyed for some
seconds the fine, taut, almost invisible line of gut as it slanted off
through the water, he made a long, swift rush straight in the direction
in which the line was striving to pull him. Instantly the pull ceased,
the line fell slack. But he felt the hook, with its furry attachment,
still clinging at the side of his mouth. He passed straight under the
dark shape of the canoe, and heard a sharp, vibrant sound above him,
something like the song of a locust, which was the noise of the big
salmon reel as the fisherman made wild haste to take in the slack of the
line. As he swam he shook his head savagely; but the hook still held.
Then, near the farther edge of the pool, he darted between the limbs of
a sunken windfall, and back again on the other side, effectually fouling
the line a few feet from his nose. The next moment there was a violent
jerk at his jaw. The hook tore out, and he swam free.
In tremendous indignation and trepidation the great salmon now darted
from the pool and up against the wild current of the Quahdavic. In the
next pool he delayed for but a few minutes, not resting, but swimming
about restlessly and stirring up the other salmon with his excitement.
Then, accompanied by three or four of those whom his nervous activity
had aroused, he pressed onward. Through rapid and chute and pool, and
white-churned trough where rocks scored the bed of the river, he darted
tirelessly, and up the clear torrent of the Great South Branch; and he
never halted till he found himself in the boiling basin of green and
foam at the foot of the Falls.
The basin was a very different place now from that which he had visited
as a grilse. Into its vexed deeps the flood fell with the heavy
trampling of thunder, which was echoed back and forth between the high
broken rocks enclosing the basin. But what was of most importance to
the great salmon was a fact which, if he realized it at all, he realized
but vaguely. The Falls themselves had changed since his last visit.
At the very first of spring there had been a landslide. The great,
partly overhanging rock, seamed and split by the wedges of countless
frosts, had all at once crumbled down beneath the tireless pressure of
the cataract. The lower fall, thus retreating, had become one with the
upper. The straight descent was now nearly five feet higher than
before,--a barrier which no voyager those waters ever knew could hope to
overcome.
The great salmon did not understand what had happened. He knew that he
had passed the barrier before, and had come to those bright, gravelled
reaches of which he was desirous. He knew that a summons which he could
not disobey was urging him on up-stream. He had no thought but to obey.
After a short rest in the deepest part of the pool,--he was alone there,
being the first of the returning migrants,--he suddenly aroused himself,
darted like a flash of silver through the green flood, and shot straight
up the face of the fall. Within three feet of the crest he came, hung
curved like a bow for a fraction of a second, glittering and splendid,
then fell back into the white smother. Again, and yet again, he essayed
the leap, gaining perhaps a foot on the second trial, but falling far
short on the third. Then, exhausted and beaten by the great impact of
the waters as he fell back defenceless, he retired to the quietest depth
of the pool to recover his strength. He felt bewildered by his failure,
and half stunned by the buffeting of the air-charged flood, which
affected him somewhat as a tornado might affect a man who was fighting
to make head against it. Moreover, there was a long crimson gash
slanting down his flank, where he had been driven against a jagged rock
as he fell.
Of all these things, however, he thought little, as he lay there in the
green deep which seethed from the turmoil passing above it. Through the
turmoil he saw the wide, clean-glittering, shallow-rippled gravel-bars
of the upper stream, golden under the sun and blue-white under the moon.
These he saw as he remembered them, and he saw the loud barrier to be
passed before he could reach them. As he brooded, his courage summoned
back his strength. Again he flashed up, with a power and swiftness that
seemed irresistible, and again he shot into the spray-thick air on the
face of the fall. Again he hung there for a half a heart-beat, spent, to
fall back baffled and confused. Again and again, however, he flashed
back to the trial, undaunted in spirit though at each effort his
strength grew less: again and again the rock teeth hidden in the foam
caught and tore him as he fell. At last, all but stunned and altogether
bewildered, he swam feebly into an eddy close to shore and half turned
upon his side, his gills opening and closing violently.
[Illustration: "AGAIN HE SHOT INTO THE SPRAY-THICK AIR ON THE FACE OF
THE FALL."]
Just about this time a visitor from the hills had come shambling down to
the river-edge,--one of the great black bears of the Quahdavic valley.
Sitting contemplatively on her haunches, her little, cunning eyes had
watched the vain leaps of the salmon. She knew a good deal about salmon
and her watching was not mere curiosity. As the efforts of the brave
fish grew feebler and feebler she drew down closer and closer to the
edge of the water, till it frothed about her feet. When, at last, the
salmon came blindly into the eddy and turned upon his side, the bear was
but a few feet distant. She crept forward like a cat, crouched,--and a
great black paw shot around with a clutching sweep. Gasping and
quivering, the salmon was thrown up upon the rocks. Then white teeth,
savage but merciful, bit through the back of his neck; and unstruggling
he was carried to a thicket above the Falls.
Answerers to the Call
The little lake, long and narrow, and set in a cleft of the deep forest,
led off like a pathway of light to the full October moon. The surface of
the lake was as still as glass, and the woods, rising from each shore in
dense waves, billowy where the hardwoods crowded thick, or serrated and
pinnacled where the fir and spruce and hemlock drew their ordered ranks,
were as motionless as if an enchantment had been laid upon them. The air
was magically clear, almost pungent with suggestion of frost, and tonic
with autumn scents.
In sharp contrast to the radiance of the open, the deep of the forest
was filled with an extraordinarily liquid and transparent darkness,
pierced with hard white lines and spots of light where the moon broke
through. Down along the shores of the lake, under the ragged fringe of
mixed growths where forest and open met, ran a tangle of grotesque,
exaggerated shadows, so solid of outline as to seem almost palpable.
All these shadows were as motionless as if frozen--except one, a long,
angular shadow, which projected itself spasmodically but noiselessly
through the bushes, occasionally darting out upon the naked beach, but
withdrawing again instantly, as if in dread of the exposure. The source
of this erratic shadow was a lean backwoodsman, who, rifle in hand,
was stealing on moccasined feet down the lake shore under cover of the
fringing branches.
Suddenly across the water came a sound as if some one were thrashing the
underbrush with a stick. The hunter stopped short, and listened intently
from his place of concealment. Very well he knew that sound. It was a
bull moose eager for fight, thrashing the bushes with his great antlers
as a challenge to any rival who might be within hearing.
The woodsman's grizzled lips parted in a smile of satisfaction, and
after a glance at his rifle to see that the cartridge was in place, he
crept onward down the lake, well under cover and as soundless as his own
shadow. He expected to come upon the challenger somewhere near the foot
of the lake. He might, of course, have adopted a surer and lazier
method of hunting by staying where he was and imitating the call of the
big moose's mate; but this seemed to him gross treachery, and little
short of murder. He would almost as willingly have condescended to snare
the noble beast whom he gloried in overcoming in fair chase.
The hunter had not gone far, however, when another strange sound
disturbed the enchanted silence. It was harsh, wild, yet appealing, and
seemed in some way the very voice of the untamed wilderness. It was the
call of the shy cow moose.
The woodsman crept down to the shore and peered cautiously through the
screening boughs, to see whether the call was an authentic one or the
cheat of some other hunter less scrupulous than himself.
About a quarter of a mile down the shore a bare sand spit jutted out
into the sheen of the lake; and near its point, an ungainly black
silhouette against the bright water, stood the cow, calling, listening,
and calling again.
The hunter stood for a few moments, watching her with that deliberation
which marks the man of the woods. As he watched, suddenly the cow
wheeled half-round, as if startled, then dashed into the water, swam in
haste to the next point, and vanished among the trees.
The woodsman, much surprised, waited motionless where he was for a
couple of minutes, to see if the cause of her alarm would reveal itself.
Then, as no sign of life appeared on the brilliantly lighted sand spit,
he pressed on stealthily down the shore to investigate for himself.
In a few minutes--forest and lake meanwhile as still as if no living
thing breathed within the borders--the hunter found himself at the head
of the sand spit. Keeping within the deep shadow, he examined the ground
carefully, but could detect no trail, except that of the cow which had
been calling. Puzzled, and nettled to find his woodcraft at fault, he
continued his furtive progress toward the foot of the lake.
He had gone not more than two or three hundred yards when, just as he
was about to step out upon a little lighted glade, that subtle and
unnamed sixth sense which the men of the woods sometimes develop warned
him that something alive and hostile was hidden in the thicket just
ahead. He stiffened in his tracks and waited, eyes and nostrils intently
alert.
He was so close to the edge of the thicket that his own concealment was
very imperfect. In the thicket, just across the lighted space, nothing
stirred; but he was sure that something was there. For fully five
minutes he waited. Then, just to see what would happen, he gave, very
softly and alluringly, the call of the cow moose.
What happened was something no previous experience had taught him to
expect. No moose responded to the supposed voice of its mate; but a huge
black bear fairly bounced into the open, and came at him in terrific
leaps, evidently purposing to catch the cow before she could get started
running. Annoyed, because he was not hunting bear and did not want to
scare the game he was seeking, the woodsman stepped out into the full
light as he raised his rifle.
But he did not have to shoot. If he was not hunting bear, neither was
the bear hunting man. At this unlooked-for apparition of a man with a
voice like a cow moose, the bear almost stopped in mid-jump, as if
struck by an explosive bullet. Fairly falling over in his desperate
haste to stop himself, he clawed the turf wildly, wheeled about, and
scuttled off into the woods like a frightened woodchuck. The hunter
smiled grimly, and went on. He knew now what had startled the cow
moose.
[Illustration: "SCUTTLED OFF INTO THE WOODS LIKE A FRIGHTENED
WOODCHUCK."]
For nearly half an hour the great white moon seemed to possess the world
alone. At the foot of the lake the hunter had to appear in the shining
open for a second or two, while crossing the shallow but wide brook
which formed the outlet. But he drifted across from stone to stone like
a shadow, marked, as he knew well enough, by vigilant eyes, but not, he
trusted, by the moose.
On this point he was presently quite assured, for he had little more
than reached cover again when he saw the cow reappear on the open beach
a short distance up the lake. She walked out till her fore hoofs were at
the very edge of the water, then called again and again. She knew that
somewhere in these illimitable shades, bold but crafty, her mate was
watching and listening.
In answer to her call he was likely to come rushing up noisily, defying
all peril, and flinging his challenge abroad for all whom it might
interest. But to-night there was a vague suspicion in the air. It was
probable that he would come silently, and give no hint of his coming
until he stood beside her on the beach.
The point of beach whereon the cow was standing was carefully chosen
with reference to the scare which she had received a half-hour earlier.
It was where a little stream flowed in through a space of wild meadow,
so that there was ample open all about her, and no enemy could get
nearer than forty or fifty yards without revealing himself.
From the foot of the lake the woodsman approached with a stealth that
none of the wild kindred themselves could surpass. Skirting the back of
the meadow, he drew near from the upper side, expecting that any
response the call might bring would come from that direction. Then he
hid himself in a dense thicket of willows near the water.
Meanwhile there were others besides the woodsman for whom the calling of
the lonely cow had interest. The great black bear, having recovered from
his panic and put what he thought a safe distance between himself and
the dangerous stranger, had slipped his huge bulk through the underbrush
without a sound, and glared out savagely over the meadow to the solitary
figure on the beach.
He knew that he was no match in speed for a frightened cow moose, and he
saw that the distance across the open was too great for him to carry the
matter by a rush. That cow was not for him, apparently. His mouth
watered, but he held himself firmly under cover, waiting in the hope
that some whimsical fortune of the woods might throw opportunity in his
way.
Suddenly his ears caught a tiny but suggestive sound. Somewhere far up
the course of the little brook a twig snapped sharply. He turned his
attention away from the cow, and listened. That chance sound, so
conspicuous on the expectant silence, might signify the coming of the
antlered bull.
The bear would much rather have spared himself exertion by hunting the
cow; but a bull, although apt to prove a dangerous adversary to an
inexperienced bear, was well enough for one who knew how to manage such
matters. He slipped over to the edge of the brook, and crouched behind a
huge stump which was veiled by a growth of vines.
Immediately before him was the narrow, grassy clearway occupied by the
brook at high water, and now threaded by a winding, loitering rivulet.
So narrow was the space that in one lunge of his long body and mighty
forearm he could reach almost all the way across it. This white-lit path
was fretted with black traceries of branch and leaf, but the shadow
behind the rock was so thick that even the furry bulk of the bear was
completely engulfed in it.
The lonely figure out by the lake-side kept repeating its harsh calls
from time to time, but neither the bear behind his brook-side rock nor
the woodsman in his willow thicket up the shore any longer heeded her.
Both were waiting for a third to answer her summons.
The third, indeed, was coming to answer; but with unwonted
circumspection. He was a small but sturdy young bull, his antlers not
yet perfect. It was he whom the hunter had heard thrashing the bushes in
challenge; and when his mate first sent her call across the lake, he had
stood silent behind the sheltering trees and watched her. But just as he
was about to start on the long detour round the foot of the lake to join
her, he had seen her sudden alarm and been puzzled by it.
Like the woodsman, he had rested for some time, motionless and watchful,
looking for what else might happen. The absence of happening had left
him vaguely apprehensive. When, therefore, he saw her reappear long
afterward on his own side of the lake and begin her calls again, he was
cautious about replying. Instead of hurrying straight down the shore
to meet her, he sank softly back, deeper and deeper, into the woods,
till her voice could scarcely reach his ears.
[Illustration: "THE MOOSE CAME IN SIGHT UP THE BROOK CHANNEL."]
Then he made a wide swing round, and came stealthily down the channel of
the little brook. In spite of his bulk, his spread of antlers, his broad
and loose-hung hoofs, no mink or weasel could have come more silently
than he.
As the moose came in sight up the brook channel, a moving shadow, the
muscles of the watching bear behind the rock grew tense, and a luminous
green film seemed to come over his small eyes. One powerful hind leg
lifted itself till its claws took firm grip on a projection near the top
of the rock. He was like a catapult, bent and ready.