"BALTOOK" THE SILVER FOX
News upon the prairie travels fast and far. That of the disappearance of
Dusty Star and his wolf into the West, was no exception. After
travelling many leagues, it reached at last the people of the Yellow
Dogs, whose hunting-grounds extend from the Comanache Country to the
great lakes in the north.
It was the famous spy Double Runner who carried the news. Double Runner
was a true Yellow Dog; very fast and cunning. Also like all other true
Yellow Dogs he hated the Comanaches with a bitter hatred. The Comanaches
and the Yellow Dogs had been enemies so long that nobody knew what the
original quarrel had been about. However, that didn't matter in the
least so long as the hatred, which was older than history, wasn't
allowed to die down.
When the Yellow Dogs heard Double Runner's news, they put their heads
together in a great Pow-wow. If it were true what rumour and Double
Runner said, that Dusty Star and his wolf had a strong medicine, it
would be a splendid thing if they could capture or kill them, and get
the medicine for themselves. And even if they failed in that, at least
Dusty Star belonged to their ancient enemies, and it would be one more
Comanache out of the way.
Now many moons before, a band of Yellow Dogs had gone into the West, and
settled down by the river that flowed out of the Chetawa lake. If Double
Runner could find their camp and carry his news, it might happen that
they could put him in the way of finding a trail. And if Double Runner
found a trail, many buffalo robes and ponies would be his on his return.
So that was how it came about that, one shining morning, in the Moon of
Roses, Double Runner disappeared into the West.
At the foot of a great boulder, high up on Carboona, Baltook, the Silver
Fox, had his den. It was a wonderful look-out place from which to
observe the world, and Baltook was a first-class observer. What his
piercing eyes didn't see, or his sharp ears detect, was caught by the
amazing keenness of his nose. When the forest people glided softly from
the good green gloom of the trees, Baltook marked them the moment they
appeared. Below the level of his den went the runways of half the lower
world. Deer, badger, mink, hare, opossum, took their ways delicately
along the trails, and, all unconsciously to themselves, were instantly
noted by Baltook's gleaming eyes. But whatever fine housings of hair or
fur they wore, they paled before the splendour of Baltook in his
wonderful black robe powdered with silver hairs.
No other fox on all Carboona had such a coat as he. Even in shadow it
was beautiful; and when the fine machinery of his muscles moved beneath
it in the sun, it rippled silver lights. And Baltook was as splendid as
his coat. Certainly, his mate, Boola; the Cunning One, was convinced
that he was lord of all the foxes; and as for the cubs, _they_ would
have been equally convinced, if it had not been for a drawback which
they couldn't help, and that was, they were too young to have any views
about it at all. Besides, up to the present, they had had to do chiefly
with their mother, and it was only recently that their father had
appeared to be a person of great importance as the bringer of choice
food, which they were allowed to worry and chew and swallow like the
shameless little Greedinesses they were. And when they had finished a
meal, they simply went to sleep, and slept and slept and slept, till
they seemed to be furry lumps of warm fat sleep, all neatly rolled up
with their noses under their tails.
One day, Baltook was sitting on his favourite look-out place on Carboona
about a dozen yards from his den, gazing down into the green and golden
depths of the drowsy afternoon.
To all outward appearances, the world looked pretty much as it had done
for the last ten thousand years. So had the hemlocks looked, so had the
spruces, ever since the first fox had made his earth upon Carboona, and
the world of the foxes had clashed with, that of the lynxes, and the old
hatred began. But Baltook was not thinking of lynxes today, not indeed
of anything else in particular. He had just feasted off a very plump
rabbit, and inside the den, the family was busy wrangling over the
bones. So the possibilities of other game did not tickle his brain,
although his nose kept up a series of fine wrinklings, just from force
of habit, to find what sort of folk might be walking down the wind.
Yet in spite of everything looking so thousands-of-years-the-same,
something very important _was_ happening, after which Carboona would be
never quite the same.
_There were strangers walking in the wind!_
If Baltook did not scent them, that was no fault of his nose. If you sit
very high up you cannot expect your nose to tell you what is happening
very far down. It is along the level of the runways that the nose does
its business; and Baltook's nose forgot to be very busy, even where he
sat.
Down, down, down, through the vast forests of spruce and fir, with here
and there a sycamore, or some huge hemlock that seemed to have hugged
five hundred winters to its old black heart, the strange folk came
journeying on scarcely-sounding feet. The forest was so thick, and the
ground so springy with fir-needles, that Baltook's eyes and ears gave
him no more warning than his nose. Yet a vague murmur of softly-padding
feet was audible,--to ears near enough to catch it--the ears of the
little peoples that live close along the ground.
At the doorways of little underground dwellings between the twisted
fir-roots, small furry bodies, with long tails, and eyes like sparkles
of black dew, crouched quivering with expectancy, as the murmuring sound
went by. To them, it was like the boom of walking thunder, far away, but
drawing nearer. And the tiny eyes brightened, and the tiny whiskers
twitched as two enormous shapes went glimmering past their doors. And
for a long, long time afterwards, the little under-root dwellings were
stuffy with uneasy people who comforted themselves together in the good
grey gloom.
Immediately below the spot where Baltook sat, the lowest fringe of
forest ended in a dried stream-course, filled with boulders. From a
spring on the nearer bank, a narrow thread of water trickled into a
pool. Above the spring the ground was rocky and clear of trees; and
between the rocks the grass was short and fine, showing that deer and
rabbits found it good grazing ground. (Baltook could have told you all
about the rabbits, but he did not dare to meddle with the deer.) Within
this open space, as the silver fox looked dreamily down, there appeared,
to his utter amazement, two unexpected shapes.
The one, though unexpected, was not altogether strange, being that of a
large timber wolf; and in his life on Carboona, Baltook knew all about
wolves. But the other shape was as unfamiliar as it was unexpected--that
of a human being.
To say that Baltook sat up on seeing this unusual sight would not give
the right impression, for the single reason that Baltook was already
sitting up. But if you were to say that inside his springy body every
sense he had sat up so violently that he almost jumped, you would be
very nearly correct.
These astonishing visitors being so very far down in the world below him
did not make much difference to Baltook's cunning sight. But it did make
a difference to his nose. Before he could make up his mind about them
fully, he must get them put into _smell_; so when, presently the
strangers disappeared from view, Baltook got up softly and melted down
the hill.
That evening a great news began to travel in Carboona. Newcomers had
arrived. There was a strange wolf of enormous size: there was a human
creature, stranger than the wolf. They were aliens, interlopers,
interferers with the ancient habits of Carboona which people had got
used to since the beginning of the world. The human creature had broken
trees and made itself a lair of boughs. The wolf guarded it, spending
his time in going up and down the valley as if he were its lord. If once
he made that the centre of his range, things would happen upon Carboona:
nothing would ever be the same.
Not content with bringing themselves into the borders of Carboona, the
intruders had brought a third thing with them--Fire! The human creature
had collected sticks and made a pile. And out of the pile had come
strong-smelling mist that stung your nose; and, presently, an awful
shining, like the sun and moon gone mad!
The great news travelled far and wide. It penetrated even into the damp
dullness of the tamarack swamp where old Goshmeelee, the black bear,
lived with her precious cubs. The little peoples of fur and feather
caught the scatterings of it in the air and went uneasy in their minds.
But the person who could have given you more information than anybody
else, was one who started the news travelling--Baltook, the Silver Fox.