ponderous shape of the bear launched out over the top of the rock and
seemed to shoot through the air.
Magnificent as the leap was, however, it just fell short of its mark;
for the moose, taking instinctive alarm before any cause was actually
perceptible, had swerved a yard aside from the place of ambush. Instead
of falling directly upon him, therefore, and bearing him to the ground
with a broken back, the bear landed at his side, just close enough to
strike him a savage blow on the neck.
Powerful as the neck of a bull moose is, had that blow struck true it
would have ended the fight. But it fell rakingly, rending hide and
muscle but breaking no bones. Brave as he was cautious, the moose
wheeled to strike back.
Jumping aside with the agility of a red buck, he gained room to lower
his antlers, and lunged forward upon the foe with all the force of his
seven hundred pounds behind these formidable weapons. The bear, skilful
as a boxer at parrying, with his big fore paw turned aside the direct
thrust; but owing to the spread of the antlers, one long, keen spike
caught him right under the shoulder and drove home.
Then began a terrific uproar of crashing and growling and coughing and
grunting, while the underbrush was beaten flat beneath the ponderous
combatants. The bear clung to the antlers, wrenching and twisting, now
trying to pull his antagonist to the ground, now striving to reach past
his pronged defences and rend his throat.
For a time the moose succeeded in keeping his feet, struggling to force
his assailant backward and pierce his flank. Then he was lucky enough
to tear himself free. Instantly he reared like a mad horse, and brought
down his sharp hoofs on the enemy's shoulder.
It was a terrific blow, battering like a sledge-hammer and cutting like
an axe, and the bear roared under it. But it was not a finishing blow,
and it let the foe reach close quarters. The bear got the bull's neck
into the grip of his mighty forearms, and pulled him down. The moose
struggled valiantly, thrashing backward with jagged antlers, and tearing
up the ground in desperate efforts to regain his feet. But victory was
now, beyond peradventure, within the clutch of the bear.
At the first sound of the battle the cow had come trotting inland to see
what was going on, under the impression that her mate had fallen foul of
a rival. At the inner extremity of the meadow, however, she caught sight
of the woodsman running in the same direction, whereupon her discretion
overcame all other emotions, and she made haste to escape from a
neighbourhood so full of the unexpected.
The woodsman never gave her a glance, but ran on at a swift lope, a
spark of excitement in his quiet gray eyes. When he reached the scene
of combat the bear had just got his brave antagonist down.
The hunter paused for a few seconds, to take in the situation
thoroughly. Then he raised his rifle. His sympathies were altogether
with the moose. He waited till he got the chance he wanted, then he sent
a heavy 45-70 expanding bullet through the bear's heart.
The great black form collapsed in a limp heap upon his adversary; and
the latter, struggling to his feet, threw the burden disdainfully aside.
At first he paid no attention to the woodsman, who, taking it for
granted that his injuries were hopeless, stood waiting compassionately
to end his sufferings. But this young bull was made of astonishingly
tough stuff. In his rage he had apparently not heard the sound of the
rifle. As soon as he had fairly regained his feet, he reared to his full
height, came down upon the bear's unresisting form, and trampled madly
for several seconds.
The woodsman stood watching with a grin of sympathetic approval, and
muttered, "Chuck full of ginger yet!"
At last the panting beast turned his head, and saw the man. The sight
sobered him. For a moment he stood staring and shaking his head, drunk
with his imagined triumph. Then discretion whispered in his ear. He
turned away sullenly, with one last, regretful look at his foe's
battered body, and trotted off into the mystic confusion of shine and
shadow.
The Prisoners of the Pitcher-plant
At the edge of a rough piece of open, where the scrubby bushes which
clothed the plain gave space a little to the weeds and harsh grasses,
stood the clustering pitchers of a fine young sarracenia. These
pitchers, which were its leaves, were of a light, cool green, vividly
veined with crimson and shading into a bronzy red about the lip and
throat. They were of all sizes, being at all stages of growth; and the
largest, which had now, on the edge of summer, but barely attained
maturity, were about six inches in length and an inch and a quarter in
extreme diameter. Down in the very heart of the cluster, hardly to be
discerned, was a tiny red-tipped bud, destined to shoot up, later in the
season, into a sturdy flower-stalk.
[Illustration: "AT THIS MOMENT A PASSING SHRIKE SWOOPED DOWN."]
Against the fresh, warm green of the sunlit world surrounding it, the
sarracenia's peculiar colouring stood out conspicuously, its streaks
and splashes of red having the effect of blossoms. This effect, at a
season when bright-hued blooms were scarce, made the plant very
attractive to any insects that chanced within view of it. There was
nearly always some flutterer or hummer poising above it, or touching it
eagerly to dart away again in disappointment. But every once in awhile
some little wasp, or fly, or shining-winged beetle, or gauzy ichneumon,
would alight on the alluring lip, pause, and peer down into the pitcher.
As a rule the small investigator would venture farther and farther, till
it disappeared. Then it never came out again.
On a leaf of a huckleberry bush, overhanging the pitcher-plant, a little
black ant was running about with the nimble curiosity of her kind. An
orange and black butterfly, fluttering lazily in the sun, came close
beside the leaf. At this moment a passing shrike swooped down and caught
the butterfly in his beak. One of his long wings, chancing to strike the
leaf, sent it whirling from its stem; and the ant fell directly upon one
of the pitchers below.
It was far down upon the red, shining lip of the pitcher that she fell;
and there she clung resolutely, her feet sinking into a sort of fur of
smooth, whitish hairs. When she had quite recovered her equanimity she
started to explore her new surroundings; and, because that was the
easiest way to go, she went in the direction toward which the hairs all
pointed. In a moment, therefore, she found herself just on the edge of
the precipitous slope from the lip to the throat of the pitcher. Here,
finding the slope strangely slippery, she thought it best to stop and
retrace her steps. But when she attempted this she found it impossible.
The little, innocent-looking hairs all pressed against her, thrusting
her downward. The more she struggled, the more energetically and
elastically they pushed back at her; till all at once she was forced
over the round, smooth edge, and fell.
To her terrified amazement, it was water she fell into. The pitcher was
about half full of the chilly fluid. In her kickings and twistings she
brought herself to the walls of her green prison, and tried to clamber
out,--but here, again, were those cruel hairs on guard to foil her. She
tried to evade them, to break them down, to bite them off with her
strong, sharp mandibles. At last, by a supreme effort, she managed to
drag herself almost clear,--but only to be at once hurled back, and far
out into the water, by the sharp recoil of her tormentors.
Though pretty well exhausted by now, she would not give up the struggle;
and presently her convulsive efforts brought her alongside of a refuge.
It was only the floating body of a dead moth, but to the ant it was a
safe and ample raft. Eagerly she crept out upon it, and lay very still
for awhile, recovering her strength. More fortunate than most
shipwrecked voyagers, she had an edible raft and was therefore in no
imminent peril of starvation.
The light that came through the veined, translucent walls of this watery
prison was of an exquisite cool beryl, very different from the warm
daylight overhead. The ant had never been in any such surroundings
before, and was bewildered by the strangeness of them. After a brief
rest she investigated minutely every corner of her queer retreat, and
then, finding that there was nothing she could do to better the
situation, she resumed her attitude of repose, with only the slight
waving of her antennae to show that she was awake.
For a long time nothing happened. No winds were astir that day, and no
sounds came down into the pitcher save the shrill, happy chirping of
birds in the surrounding bushes. But suddenly the pitcher began to tip
and rock slightly, and the water to wash within its coloured walls.
Something had alighted on the pitcher's lip.
It was something comparatively heavy, that was evident. A moment or two
later it came sliding down those treacherous hairs, and fell into the
water with a great splash which nearly swept the ant from her refuge.
The new arrival was a bee. And now began a tremendous turmoil within the
narrow prison. The bee struggled, whirled around on the surface with
thrashing wings, and sent the water swashing in every direction, till
the ant was nearly drowned. She hung to her raft, however, and waited
philosophically for the hubbub to subside. At length the bee too, after
half a dozen vain and exhausting struggles to climb out against the
opposing array of hairs, encountered the body of the dead moth.
Instantly she tried to raise herself upon it, so as to escape the chill
of the water and dry her wings for flight. But she was too heavy. The
moth sank, and rolled over, at the same time being thrust against the
wall of the pitcher. The ant, in high indignation clutched a bundle of
the hostile hairs in her mandibles, and held herself at anchor against
the wall.
Thoroughly used up, and stupid with panic and chill, the bee kept on
futilely grappling with the moth's body, which, in its turn, kept on
sinking and rolling beneath her. A very few minutes of such disastrous
folly sufficed to end the struggle, and soon the bee was floating,
drowned and motionless, beside the moth. Then the ant, with
satisfaction, returned to her refuge.
When things get started happening, they are quite apt to keep it up for
awhile, as if events invited events. A large hunting spider, creeping
among the grass and weeds, discovered the handsome cluster of the
sarracenia. She was one of the few creatures who had learned the secret
of the pitcher-plant and knew how to turn it to account. More than once
had she found easy prey in some trapped insect struggling near the top
of a well-filled pitcher.
Selecting the largest pitcher as the one most likely to yield results,
the spider climbed its stem. Then she mounted the bright swell of the
pitcher itself, whose smooth outer surface offered no obstacle to such
visitors. The pitcher swayed and bowed. The water within washed heavily.
And the ant, with new alarm, marked the big, black shadow of the spider
creeping up the outside of her prison.
Having reached the lip of the leaf and cautiously crawled over upon it,
the spider took no risks with those traitor hairs. She threw two or
three stout cables of web across the lip; and then, with this secure
anchorage by which to pull herself back, she ventured fearlessly down
the steep of that perilous throat. One hooked claw, outstretched behind
her, held aloft the cable which exuded from her spinnerets as she moved.
On the extreme of the slope she stopped, and her red, jewelled cluster
of eyes glared fiercely down upon the little black ant. The latter
shrank and crouched, and tried to hide herself under the side of the
dead moth to escape the light of those baleful eyes. This new peril was
one which appalled her far more than all the others she had encountered.
At this most critical of all crises in the destiny of the little black
ant, the fickle Fortune of the Wild was seized with another whim. An
overwhelming cataclysm descended suddenly upon the tiny world of the
pitcher-plant. The soft, furry feet of some bounding monster--rabbit,
fox, or wildcat--came down amongst the clustered pitchers, crushing
several to bits and scattering wide the contents of all the rest. Among
these latter was that which contained the little black ant. Drenched,
astonished, but unhurt, she found herself lying in a tuft of splashed
grass, once more free. Above her, on a grass-top, clung the bewildered
spider. As it hung there, conspicuous to all the foraging world, a great
black-and-yellow wasp pounced upon it, stung it into helplessness, and
carried it off on heavily humming wing.
The Prowlers
Heeling under a stiff breeze, the sloop rose joyously to the long
Caribbean rollers. Soon after midnight Mahoney awoke. He went to the
tiller at once, and let the stalwart Jamaican nigger, who constituted
his crew, take a turn of sleep. The wind was steady, the sea was clear,
there was no island, reef, or shoal between himself and Cuba, and
Mahoney had little to do but hold the tiller and dream. Presently clouds
gathered, obscuring the moon, and thickened till the light which
filtered through them was rather a deceit than an illumination. Far-off
waves seemed close at hand, and waves so near they were about to break
over the bow appeared remote. Strange shapes made and unmade themselves
among the shifting surfaces, dark, solid forms which melted into
flowing, hissing water. Mahoney's eyes amused themselves with these
fantastic wave-shadows and phantoms of the fluent deep. Then, suddenly,
one of the dark, submerged shapes broke the rules of the game. It
refused to melt and flow. With a gasp Mahoney jammed his helm hard
round, and let go his sheet on the run. There was a shuddering shock.
The boat reared, like a frightened horse struggling to climb a bank.
Then, with a kind of sickening deliberation, she turned clean over.
There was a choking yell from the rudely awakened darky; and Mahoney
found himself plunged into the smother of the broken waves.
When he came to the surface and shook the water out of his eyes, Mahoney
clutched the stern and pulled himself up to see what had happened. He
had run upon a huge fragment of a broken-up wreck. From the heavy,
steady motion, he concluded that the boat was caught on a sunken portion
of the wreck. Some fifteen feet away a space of deck, with a few feet of
bulwarks, rose just clear of the waves. This seemed to offer a less
precarious refuge than the keel to which he was clinging. He slipped
back into the waves, struck out hurriedly, and dragged himself up to the
highest point of the wet deck. Here, holding to the broken bulwarks, he
peered about for his assistant. Taking for granted that the negro, whom
he knew to be a magnificent swimmer, was clinging to the other side of
the boat, he shouted to him, with angry solicitude, but got no answer.
It was incomprehensible. Starting to his feet he was about to plunge
again into the smother and swim around the boat. Then he checked
himself. Such a step was obviously futile. If the negro had been there,
he would have lost no time in clambering out upon the bottom of the
boat. There was a mystery in that sudden and complete disappearance.
With a shiver Mahoney crouched down again and clutched the lurching
bulwarks.
He had plenty of time now to think. He cursed himself bitterly for the
rash impatience which had driven him to attempt the journey from
Kingston to Santiago in a little sloop, instead of waiting for the
regular steamer, just because he feared the rebellion might fizzle out
before he could get there to make a story of it. His folly had cost the
nigger's life, at least; and the account was not yet closed! Well, the
nigger was gone, poor beggar. His black hide had enclosed a man, all
right; but there was no use worrying over him. The question was, how
soon would a ship come along? This was a frequented sea, more or less.
But the wreck was almost level with the water, and lamentably
inconspicuous. Mahoney knew that unless he were picked up right soon the
tropic sun would drive him mad with thirst. He knew, too, that if any
sort of a wind should blow up, he would promptly have forced upon him
that knowledge of the other world which he was not yet ready to acquire.
It was clear that he must find some means of flying a signal. He decided
that when daylight came he would dive under the upturned boat, cut away
either the gaff or the boom, lash it to the bulwarks, and hoist his
shirt upon it as a flag of distress.
Just before dawn the breeze died away. By the time the east had begun to
flame, and thin washes of red-orange to mottle the sky fantastically,
the long swells were as smooth as glass. Mahoney was impatient to get up
his flagstaff, but he wanted plenty of light. He waited until the sky
was blue, the sun clear of the horizon. Then he stood up, set the hilt
of his knife between his teeth, and prepared to plunge in. Before doing
so, however, he instinctively scanned the water all about him. Then he
removed the knife from his mouth and stared.
"That accounts for it!" he muttered, his teeth baring themselves with a
snarl of loathing as he thrust the knife back into his belt and sat down
again. Just behind him, and not a dozen feet away, a gigantic,
triangular black fin was slowly cleaving the swells.
There being nothing else to do, Mahoney occupied himself in watching
that great dorsal, as it prowled slowly this way and that. Such a fin,
he calculated, must mean a bigger shark than any that had hitherto come
within his range of observation. He had a righteous hatred of all
sharks, but this one in particular sickened him with vindictive
loathing. He knew how lately, and how horridly, it had fed; yet here it
was as ravenous as ever. Presently it sank out of sight, and was gone
for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. Then, on a sudden, there was the
devilish black fin again, vigilant and deliberate.
[Illustration: "LAY MOTIONLESS BUT FOR THE EASY WAVING OF ITS FINS."]
As the sun rose, and the light fell more steeply, the dazzling
reflections disappeared and Mahoney could look down into the transparent
blue-green depths. He saw that the wreck on which he had taken refuge
was an old one, long adrift in the teeming tropic seas. Its under edges
carried a dense, waving fringe of barnacles and coloured weed,
swarming with sea-creatures. In its shadow life crowded riotously, and
death held easy revel. Among the looser fringes of the barnacle growth
swam fish of the smaller species, many of them flashing with the
radiance of sapphire and topaz, or shooting like pink flames. Hither and
thither darted a small school of blue and gold bonito, insatiable and
swift, snatching down their prey from among the tips of the barnacles.
About six feet below the barnacles a cavernous-jawed barracouta, perhaps
five feet long, lay motionless but for the easy waving of its fins. It
must have been gorged, for Mahoney, in all his seafaring, had never
before seen one of these ravenous and ferocious fish thus at rest. It
must even have, for once, lapsed into something like sleep,--a perilous
lapse in the strenuous life of the sea, for anything less formidable
than a sperm whale or an orca, and not without its dangers even for
them. Its wide-set, staring eyes seemed to command a view in every
direction. Yet they did not see a huge, spectral form rise smoothly from
below, turning belly upward with a sudden green-white gleam. Then, the
barracouta's powerful tail twisted with a violence that sent the water
swirling as from a screw. But it was too late. The shark's triangular
jaws snapped upon their prey, biting the big fish in halves. The two
pieces were bolted instantly, as a hungry man bolts a "bluepoint." And
the shark--the biggest "man-eater" that Mahoney had ever seen--sank
slowly out of sight, to reappear at the surface again in five minutes as
ravenous as ever.
By this time it was beginning to get hot, there on the shelterless
wreck. A small steamer passed in the distance. Mahoney tore off his
shirt and waved it wildly, on the chance that some one on the steamer
might at that moment have a telescope pointed in his direction. The
steamer went its way. Mahoney put on his shirt again, and wished he had
not lost his hat. He had a handkerchief, however, and this he wound upon
the top of his head like a turban. By wetting it frequently he kept his
head and neck cool. As the morning wore on, no fewer than five sails
appeared on the horizon, but none came near enough even to excite a
thrill of hope. Since there was nothing better to do, Mahoney was wise
enough to keep as still as possible, watching the strange life that went
on beneath his refuge, and splashing water over himself from time to
time that his skin might absorb some of the liquid, and so the dreaded
torment of thirst be a little postponed.
The blazing sun dragged slowly past the zenith, indifferent to Mahoney's
maledictions. Along in the afternoon a three-masted schooner hove in
sight. There was not enough wind, now, to ruffle the tops of the swells;
but there was some breeze up aloft, apparently, and the schooner, with
all her canvas spread, was catching it, for she moved along at a brisk
pace. Her course brought her so near that Mahoney tore off his shirt in
trembling anxiety and waved it at arm's length, jumping as high as he
could in the struggle to make himself conspicuous. Finding this
fruitless, he then tied the shirt to the sleeves of his white duck coat,
making a long streamer, which he thought the lookout could not fail to
see. Notwithstanding all this frantic effort the schooner sailed on
unheeding. From its decks the waving white streamer, if seen at all,
would have looked like nothing more than an agitated streak of foam. But
to Mahoney it seemed that he was being wantonly and brutally ignored.
With a pang he realized that his excitement and his effort had
accomplished but one thing. They had brought on the thirst! His throat
was parching. He had an impulse to break out into a volley of
hysterical curses against the retreating ship. But his self-respect
withheld him. Leaning over the bulwarks, he murmured to the great green
prowling shape of his submarine jailer:
"You're no worse than lots of men, you ain't, damn you!"
As if in answer to this equivocal compliment the shark sailed in to
within a little more than arm's length of the bulwark, and looked up at
Mahoney with cold, malignant eyes. Mahoney kicked at him hysterically,
then turned away and drenched himself where the little waves ran up
shallow over the slope of the deck. The cool of the water on his skin,
particularly on his throat and wrists, did actually, though slightly,
ease his thirst.
[Illustration: "ONLY THAT SHARP BLACK FIN, THAT PROWLED AND PROWLED,
KEPT ALWAYS IN SIGHT"]
The night fell windless and clear; and for a time, so black were the
shifting reflections on the swells, so confusing the phosphorescent
gleams that shot up through the waters, that Mahoney could no longer see
the stealthy prowling of the great black fin. Lashing himself to the
bulwark by the sleeves of his shirt, he snatched an hour or two of
troubled sleep. Once he woke with a shock of disappointment from a dream
that the bottom had fallen out of a jug of water which he was just
raising to his lips. Again he started up shouting, and struggling
fiercely with the bonds that held him safely to the bulwark. He had
dreamed that a glittering white steam-yacht was speeding close past his
refuge,--so close that he had to look up at her rail,--yet the people on
her deck most unaccountably failing to see him. From this waking he fell
back weak and hopeless, and it was some minutes before he could get his
nerves under their wonted cool control. He had no longer any desire for
sleep, so he devoted himself again to soaking his wrists in the water
and letting the lambent phosphorescence stream through his fingers.