restlessly impatient of the unchanging solitude, before anything new
took place. A vividly conspicuous object in his gleaming whiteness as he
roamed the marshes, pasturing or galloping up and down the shore with
streaming mane and tail, he had been seen and watched and wondered at by
all the wild kindreds who had their habitations in the woods about the
lake. But they had all kept carefully out of his sight, regarding him
with no less terror than wonder; and he imagined himself utterly alone,
except for the fish-hawks, and the southward journeying ducks, which
would drop with loud quacking and splashing into the shallows after
sunset, and the owls, the sombre hooting of which disturbed him every
night. Several times, too, from the extreme head of the lake he heard a
discordant call, a great braying bellow, which puzzled him, and brought
him instantly to his feet by a note of challenge in it; but the issuer
of this hoarse defiance never revealed himself. Sometimes he heard a
similar call, with a difference--a longer, less harshly blatant cry, the
under note of which was one of appeal rather than of challenge. Over
both he puzzled in vain; for the moose, bulls and cows alike, had no
wish to try the qualities of the great white stranger who seemed to have
usurped the lordship of the lake.
At last, one violet evening in the close of the sunset, as he stood
fetlock-deep in the chill water, drinking, a light sound of many feet
caught his alert ear. Lifting his head quickly, he saw a herd of
strange-looking, heavy-antlered, whitish-brown deer emerging in long
line from the woods and crossing the open toward the foot of the lake.
The leader of the caribou herd, a massive bull, nearly white, with
antlers almost equal to those of a moose, returned the stallion's
inquiring stare with a glance of mild curiosity, but did not halt an
instant. It was plain that he considered his business urgent; for the
caribou, as a rule, are nothing if not curious when confronted by any
strange sight. But at present the whole herd, which journeyed, in the
main, in single file, seemed to be in a kind of orderly haste. They
turned questioning eyes upon the white stallion as they passed, then
looked away indifferently, intent only upon following their leader on
his quest. The stallion stood watching, his head high and his nostrils
wide, till the very last of the herd had disappeared into the woods
across the lake. Then the loneliness of his spacious pasture all at once
quite overwhelmed him. He did not want the company of the caribou, by
any means, or he might have followed them as they turned their backs
toward the sunset; but it was the dwellings of men he wanted, the human
hand on his mane, the provendered stall, the voice of kindly command,
and the fellowship of his kindred of the uncleft hoof. In some way he
had got it into his head that men might be found most readily by
travelling toward the southwest. Toward the head of the lake, therefore,
and just a little south of the sunset's deepest glow, he now took his
way. He was done with the lake and the empty marshes.
From the head of the lake he followed up a narrow still-water for
perhaps half a mile, crashing his way through a difficult tangle of
fallen, rotting trunks and dense underbrush, till he came out upon
another and much smaller lake, very different from the one he had just
left. Here were no meadowy margins; but the shores were steep and
thick-wooded to the water's edge. Diagonally thrust out across the
outlet, and about a hundred yards above it, ran a low, bare spit of
white sand, evidently covered at high water. Over the black line of the
woods hung a yellow crescent moon, only a few nights old and near
setting.
Coming suddenly from the difficult gloom of the woods, where the noise
of his own movements kept his senses occupied to the exclusion of all
else, the wanderer stopped and stood quite still for a long time under
the shadow of a thick hemlock, investigating this new world with ear and
eye and nostril. Presently, a few hundred yards around the lake shore,
to his left, almost opposite the jutting sand-spit, arose a noisy
crashing and thrashing of the bushes. As he listened in wonder, his ears
erect and eagerly interrogative, the noise stopped, and again the
intense silence settled down upon the forest. A minute or two later a
big, high-shouldered, shambling, hornless creature came out upon the
sand-spit, stood blackly silhouetted against the moonlight, stretched
its ungainly neck, and sent across the water that harsh, bleating cry
of appeal which he had been hearing night after night. It was the cow
moose calling for her mate. And in almost instant answer arose again
that great crashing among the underbrush on the opposite shore.
[Illustration: "IT WAS THE COW MOOSE CALLING FOR HER MATE."]
With a certain nervousness added to his curiosity, the white stallion
listened as the crashing noise drew near. At the same time something in
his blood began to tingle with the lust of combat. There was menace in
the approaching sounds, and his courage arose to meet it. All at once,
within about fifty yards of him, and just across the outlet, the noise
ceased absolutely. For perhaps ten minutes there was not a sound,--not
the snap of a twig or the splash of a ripple,--except that twice again
came the call of the solitary cow standing out against the moon. Then,
so suddenly that he gave an involuntary snort of amazement at the
apparition, the wanderer grew aware of a tall, black bulk with enormous
antlers which took shape among the undergrowth not ten paces distant.
The wanderer's mane rose along his arched neck, his lips drew back
savagely over his great white teeth, fire flamed into his eyes, and for
a score of seconds he stared into the wicked, little, gleaming eyes of
the bull moose. He was eager for the fight, but waiting for the enemy to
begin. Then, as noiselessly and miraculously as he had come, the great
moose disappeared, simply fading into the darkness, and leaving the
stallion all a-tremble with apprehension. For some minutes he peered
anxiously into every black thicket within reach of his eyes, expecting a
rushing assault from some unexpected quarter. Then, glancing out again
across the lake, he saw that the cow had vanished from the moonlit
point. Bewildered, and in the grasp of an inexplicable trepidation, he
waded out into the lake belly-deep, skirted around the south shore,
climbed the steep slope, and plunged straight into the dark of the
woods. His impulse was to get away at once from the mysteries of that
little, lonely lake.
The deep woods, of course, for him were just as lonely as the lake, for
his heedless trampling and conspicuous colouring made a solitude all
about him as he went. At last, however, he stumbled upon a trail. This
he adopted gladly as his path, for it led away from the lake and in a
direction which his whim had elected to follow.
Moving now on the deep turf, with little sound save the occasional swish
of branches that brushed his flanks, he began to realize that the woods
were not as empty as he had thought. On each side, in the soft dark, he
heard little squeaks and rustlings and scurryings. Rabbits went bounding
across the trail, just under his nose. Once a fox trotted ahead of him,
looking back coolly at the great, white stranger. Once a small,
stripe-backed animal passed leisurely before him, and a whiff of pungent
smell annoyed his sensitive nose. Wide wings winnowed over him now and
then, making him jump nervously; and once a pouncing sound, followed by
a snarl, a squeal, and a scuffle, moved him to so keen an excitement
that he swerved a few steps from the trail in his anxiety to see what it
was all about. He failed to see anything, however, and after much
stumbling was relieved to get back to the easy trail again. With all
these unusual interests the miles and the hours seemed short to him; and
when the gray of dawn came filtering down among the trees, he saw before
him a clearing with two low-roofed cabins in the middle of it. Wild with
delight at this evidence of man's presence, he neighed shrilly, and
tore, up to the door of the nearest cabin at full gallop, his hoofs
clattering on the old chips which strewed the open.
To his bitter disappointment, he found the cabin, which was simply an
old lumber-camp, deserted. The door being ajar, he nosed it open and
entered. The damp, cheerless interior, with no furnishing but a rusty
stove, a long bench hewn from a log, and a tier of bunks along one side,
disheartened him. The smell of human occupation still lingered about the
bunks, but all else savoured of desertion and decay. With drooping head
he emerged, and crossed over to the log stable. That horses had occupied
it once, though not recently, was plain to him through various
unmistakable signs; but it was more in the hope of sniffing the scent of
his own kind than from any expectation of finding the stable occupied
that he poked his nose in through the open doorway.
It was no scent of horses, however, which now greeted his startled
nostrils. It was a scent quite unfamiliar to him, but one which,
nevertheless, filled him with instinctive apprehension. At the first
whiff of it he started back. Then, impelled by his curiosity, he again
looked in, peering into the gloom. The next instant he was aware of a
huge black shape leaping straight at him. Springing back with a loud
snort, he wheeled like lightning, and lashed out madly with his heels.
The bear caught the blow full in the ribs, and staggered against the
door-post with a loud, grunting cough, while the stallion trotted off
some twenty yards across the chips and paused, wondering. The blow, in
all probability, had broken several of the bear's ribs, but without
greatly impairing his capacity for a fight; and now, in a blind rage, he
rushed again upon the intruder who had dealt him so rude a buffet. The
stallion, however, was in no fighting mood. Depressed as he was by the
desolation of the cabin, and daunted by the mysterious character of this
attack from the dark of the stable, he was now like a child frightened
of ghosts. Not the bear alone, but the whole place, terrified him. Away
he went at full gallop across the clearing, by good fortune struck the
continuation of the loggers' road, and plunged onward into the shadowy
forest.
For a couple of miles he ran, then he slowed down to a trot, and at last
dropped into a leisurely walk. This trail was much broader and clearer
than the one which had led him to the camp, and a short, sweet grass
grew along it, so that he pastured comfortably without much loss of
time. The spirit of his quest, however, was now so strong upon him that
he would not rest after feeding. Mile after mile he pressed on, till the
sun was high in the clear, blue heavens, and the shadows of the ancient
firs were short and luminous. Then suddenly the woods broke away before
him.
Far below he saw the blue sea sparkling. But it was not the beauty of
the sea that held his eyes. From his very feet the road dropped down
through open, half-cleared burnt lands, a stretch of rough
pasture-fields, and a belt of sloping meadow, to a little white village
clustering about an inlet. The clutter of roofs was homelike to his
eyes, hungry with long loneliness; the little white church, with shining
spire and cross, was very homelike. But nearer, in the very first
pasture-field, just across the burnt land, was a sight that came yet
nearer to his heart. There, in a corner of the crooked snake-fence,
stood two bay mares and a foal, their heads over the fence as they gazed
up the hill in his direction. Up went mane and tail, and loud and long
he neighed to them his greeting. Their answer was a whinny of welcome,
and down across the fields he dashed at a wild gallop that took no heed
of fences. When, a little later in the day, a swarthy French-Canadian
farmer came up from the village to lead his mares down to water, he was
bewildered with delight to find himself the apparent master of a
splendid white stallion, which insisted on claiming him, nosing him
joyously, and following at his heels like a dog.
When the Logs Come Down
It was April, and the time of freshet, when
"Again the last thin ice had gone
To join the swinging sea."
After the ice was all away the river had risen rapidly, flooding the
intervale meadows, till in some places the banks, deep under water, were
marked only by the tops of the alder and willow bushes, and by a line of
elms growing, apparently, in the middle of a lake. Behind these elms the
water was as still as a lake; but in front of them it rushed in heavy
swirls, swaying the alders and willows, and boiling with swish and
gurgle around the resolutely opposing trunks.
Above the swollen flood of water,--the hurried retreat of the last snow
from a thousand forest valleys converging around the river's far-off
source,--washed softly the benign and illimitable flood of the April
air. This air seemed to carry with reluctance a certain fluctuating
chill, caught from the icy water. But in the main its burden was the
breath of willows catkin and sprouting grass and the first shy bloom on
the open edges of the uplands. It was the characteristic smell of the
northern spring, tender and elusive, yet keenly penetrating. If gems had
perfumes, just so might the opal smell.
Besides the fragrance and the faint chill, the air carried an April
music, a confusion of delicate sounds that seemed striving to weave a
tissue of light melody over the steady, muffled murmur of the freshet.
In this melody the ear could differentiate certain notes,--the hum of
bees and flies in the willow bloom, the staccato _chirr_, _chirr_ of the
blackbirds in the elm-tops, the vibrant yet liquid _kong-kla-lee_ of the
redwings in the alders, the intermittent ecstasy of a stray
song-sparrow, the occasional long flute-call of a yellowhammer across
the flood, and, once in awhile, a sudden clamour of crows, a jangle of
irrelevant, broken chords. From time to time, as if at points in a great
rhythm too wide for the ear to grasp, all these sounds would cease for a
second or two, leaving the murmur of the flood strangely conspicuous.
The colours of the world of freshet were as delicately thrilling as its
scents and sounds. The veiled blue pallor of the sky and the milky,
blue-gray pallor of the water served as neutral background to
innumerable thin washes and stains of tint. Over the alders a bloom of
lavender and faint russet, over the willows a lacing of pale yellow,
over the maples a veiling of rose-pink, over the open patches on the
uplands a mist that hinted of green, and over the further hills of the
forest, broad, smoky smudges of indigo. Here and there, just above the
reach of the freshet, a pine or spruce interrupted the picture
emphatically with an intrusion of firm green-black.
Into this opalescent scene, some days before the freshet reached its
height, the logs began to come down. In the upper country every
tributary stream was pouring them out in shoals,--heavy, blind, butting,
and blundering shoals,--to be carried by the great river down to the
booms and saws above its mouth. Some, caught in eddies, were thrust
aside up the bank to lie and slowly rot among the living trees. But
most, darting and wallowing through mad rapids, or shooting falls, or
whirling and circling dully down the more tranquil reaches of the tide,
made shift to accomplish their voyage. They would blacken the broad
river for acres at a time; and then again straggle along singly, or by
twos and threes. It was a good run of logs and the scattered dwellers
along the river forgave the unusual excesses of the freshet, because to
them it was chiefly important that all the logs of the winter's chopping
should be got out.
On a single log, at a most daunting distance from either shore, came
voyaging a lonely and bedraggled little traveller. This particular red
squirrel had been chattering gaily in the top of an old tree on the
river-bank, when misfortune took him unawares. The tree was on a bluff
just where a small but very turbulent and overswollen stream flowed in.
The flood had stealthily undermined the bluff. Suddenly the squirrel had
felt the tree sway ominously beneath him. He had leaped for safety, but
too late! The whole bank had melted into the current. By great luck, the
squirrel had managed to swim to a passing log. Breathless and all but
drowned, he had clambered upon it. Before he could recover his wits
enough to make a venture for shore, the vehement lesser stream had swept
his log clean out into mid-channel. Though a bold enough swimmer, he had
seen that he could not face that boiling tide with any hope of success;
so he had clung to his unstable refuge and waited upon fate.
For perhaps an hour the squirrel journeyed thus without incident or
further adventure. Then, in a wide, comparatively sluggish reach of the
river, some whimsical cross-current had borne his log over to the
neighbourhood of a whole, voyaging fleet of brown timbers. Unable to see
how far this group extended, the squirrel inferred that it might
possibly afford him passage to the shore. With a tremendous leap he
gained the nearest of the timber. Thence he went skipping joyously, now
up river and now down, skirting wide spaces of clear water, and twice
swimming open lanes too broad to jump, till he was not more than a
hundred yards from the line of trees that marked the flooded bank. Some
thirty feet beyond, and that much nearer safety, one more log floated
alone. The plucky little animal jumped as far as he could, landed with a
splash, and swam vigorously for this last log. He gained it, and was
just dragging himself out upon it, when there was a rush and heavy break
in the water, and a pair of big jaws snapped close behind him. An
agonized spring saved him, and he clung flat, quivering, on the top of
the log. But the hungry pickerel had captured nearly half his tail.
[Illustration: "THE PLUCKY LITTLE ANIMAL JUMPED AS FAR AS HE COULD."]
A minute or two later he had recovered from this shock; and thereupon
he sat up and chattered shrill indignation, twitching defiantly the sore
and bleeding stump. This outburst perhaps relieved his feelings a
little; for apparently the red squirrel needs to give his emotions vent
more than any other member of the wild kindreds. But he had learned a
lesson. He would not again try swimming in a water which pickerel
inhabited. Then, a little later, he learned another. A fish-hawk passed
overhead. The fish-hawk would not have harmed him under any
circumstances. But the squirrel thought of other hawks, less
gentle-mannered; and he realized that the loud volubility which in the
security of his native trees he might indulge would never do out here on
his shelterless log. He stopped his complaints, crouched flat, and
scanned the sky anxiously for sign of other hawks. He had suddenly
realized that he was now naked to the eyes of all his enemies.
Presently a new terror came to sap his courage. A little way ahead the
banks were high and the channel narrow; and the river, no longer able to
relieve the freshet strain by spreading itself over wide meadows, became
a roaring rapid. The squirrel heard that terrifying roar. He noted how
swiftly it was approaching. In a half-panic he stared about, almost
ready to dare the pickerel and make a try for shore, rather than be
carried through those rapids.
In this extremity of terror he saw what, at other times, would have
frightened him almost as much as hawk or pickerel. A rowboat slowly drew
near, picking its way through the logs. The one rower, a grizzled old
river-man, was surging vigorously, to avoid being swept down into the
thunderous narrows. But as he approached, he noticed the trembling
squirrel on the log. In a flash he took in the situation. With a
sheepish grin, as if ashamed of himself for troubling about a "blame
squirrel," he thrust out the tip of an oar toward the log, with a sort
of shy invitation.
The squirrel, fortunately for himself, was one of those animals which
are sometimes open to a new idea. He did not trust the man, to be sure.
But he trusted him more than he did the rapids ahead, and feared him
less than he feared the pickerel. Promptly he skipped aboard the boat,
and perched himself on the bow, as far away as possible from his
rescuer. The man wasted no time on sentimentalizing, but pulled as hard
as he could for shore. When near the bank, however, and out of the
stress of the current, he permitted himself what he considered a piece
of foolishness. He turned the boat about, and backed in till the stern
touched land. He wanted to see what the squirrel, up there in the bow,
was going to do about it.
The little animal made up his mind quickly. Scared but resolute, he
darted along the gunwale. The rower, with both arms outspread, was
directly in his way. He hesitated, gave a nervous chirrup, then launched
himself high into the air. His little feet struck smartly on the top of
the man's head. Then he was off up the bank as if hawk and pickerel and
rapids were all after him together. A moment later from the thick top of
a fir-tree came his shrill chatter of triumph and defiance.
"Sassy little varmint!" muttered the old river-man, looking up at him
with indulgent eyes.
A Duel in the Deep
Though there was no wind, the wide surface of the estuary was curiously
disturbed. In from the open sea came swiftly as it were a wedge of
roughness, its edges lightly dancing, sparkling with blue-and-silver
flashes. The strange disturbance kept on straight up the channel,
leaving the placid shoals along-shore to shine unruffled in the low,
level-glancing Arctic sun.
Down along the flat, interminable shore, picking his way watchfully
among the ragged ice-cakes of the tempestuous spring, came a huge white
bear. His small, snaky, cruel head was bent downwards, while his fierce
little eyes peered among the tumbled ice blocks for possible dead fish.
His long, loose-jointed body twisted sinuously as he moved--the only
living creature to be seen up and down the level desolation of those
bleak shores.
The white bear was an old male, restless, and of savage temper. Like
many of his fellows among the older males, he had not been so fortunate
as to slumber away the long, terrific, Arctic winter in the shelter of a
snow-buried rock. All through the months of dark and tempest, of ghostly
auroras and cold unspeakable, he had roamed the dead world and fought
his fight with hunger. His craft, his strength, his fierce desperation
in attack, had pulled him through. Lean and savage, he sniffed the
oncoming of spring, and watched the ice go grinding out.
Presently his keen ears noted a faint sound, which seemed to blow in
from the sea. As there was no wind, this was worthy of note. Lifting his
black nose high above the ice-cakes, he sniffed and peered intently at
the inrushing wedge of tumbled water. His uncertainty was not for long.
The salmon were returning. This was the vanguard of the spring run.
For a few seconds the great white shape stood as if turned to stone,
watching the radiant confusion. Here and there he saw a slender body
flash forth for an instant, half its length above the sparkling water,
as if striving to escape some unseen enemy. The school was making for
the main channel, which ran between two low, naked islets of rock,
perhaps half a mile apart. The nearest of these was about three hundred
yards from the shore. As soon as the bear made sure that the salmon were
taking this course, he galloped at top speed--a long, loose, shambling,
but rapid pace--down along the shore till just abreast of the islet.
Then he plunged in and swam for it, his sharp black muzzle and narrow
white head cleaving the smooth flood with almost incredible swiftness,
and throwing off an oily, trailing ripple on either side. When he
reached the islet the front of the salmon school was still some forty or
fifty paces distant. He crossed the rocks, slipped smoothly down into
the water again, and waited for the shining turmoil to break upon him.
For some reason known only to the hosts of the salmon themselves,
however, the shining turmoil swerved as it approached the islet,
crowding over toward the other side of the channel. The bear's hungry
little eyes blazed savagely at this. He imagined the hordes had taken
alarm at his dread presence,--a natural imagining on his part, since he
knew of nothing but the old bull walrus that dared ever await his
approach. But as a matter of fact the eager myriads of the salmon,
thrilling with life and vigour and the mating fire of spring, were no
more conscious of the savage animal than if he had been a rock or an
ice-floe. The joy of the incoming rush was in their splendid sinews, and
the lure of the shallow, singing rapids in their veins. To that exultant
host an enemy, however formidable, was but an incident. The exhaustless
fertility of their race derided fate.