formed the fringe of the woods. Unaccustomed to vigilance, neither their
eyes nor their ears were on the alert. A lynx crept up behind them,
within a dozen paces, glared at them vindictively with its pale,
malignant moon-eyes, and then ran up a tree to get a better look at
these mighty intruders upon his hunting-ground. His claws made a loud
rattling on the bark as he climbed, but neither of the oxen paid any
attention whatever to the sound. Of course, a lynx could not, under any
circumstances, be anything more than an object of mild curiosity to
them, but had it been a pair of hungry panthers, they would have been
equally unconscious and unwarned. They lay with their backs to the
forest, looking out across the open, chewing lazily, and from time to
time heaving windy breaths of deep content. Not a score of yards before
their noses a trailing weasel ran down and killed a hare. At the cry of
the victim Buck opened his half-closed eyes and gave a snort of
disapproval. But Star paid no attention whatever to the little tragedy.
All his faculties were engrossed upon his comfort and his cud.
A little later a prowling fox came suddenly upon them. He was surprised
to find the pair so far from their pasture, where he had several times
observed them in the course of his wide wanderings. His shrewd mind
jumped to the idea that perhaps the settler, their master, was out with
them; and while he had no objection whatever to the oxen--stupid,
harmless hulks in his eyes--he had the most profound objection to their
master and his gun. He slipped back into cover, encircled the whole
glade stealthily till he picked up their trail, and satisfied himself
that they had come alone. Then he returned and sat down on his tail
deliberately in front of them, cocking his head to one side, as if
inviting them to explain their presence.
Star returned his gaze with placid indifference, but Buck was annoyed.
In his eyes the fox was a little sharp-nosed dog with a bushy tail and
an exasperating smell. He hated all dogs, but especially little ones,
because they were so elusive when they yapped at his heels. He heaved
himself up with an angry snort, and charged upon the intruder. The fox,
without losing his dignity at all, seemed to drift easily out of reach,
to this side or that, till the ox grew tired of the futile chase.
Moreover, as the fox made no sound and no demonstration of
heel-snapping, Buck's anger presently faded out, and he returned to his
partner's side and lay down again. And the fox, his curiosity satisfied,
trotted away.
A little later there came a stealthy crashing through the darkness of
the underbush in the rear. But the two oxen never turned their heads. To
them the ominous sound had no significance whatever. A few paces behind
them the crashing came to a sudden stop. A bear, lumbering down toward
the brook-side, to grub in the soft earth for edible roots, had caught
the sound of their breathing and chewing. He knew the sound, for he,
too, like the fox, had prowled about the pasture fence at night. As
noiselessly as a shadow he crept nearer, till he could make out the
contented pair. He knew they belonged to the man, and it made him uneasy
to see them there, so far from where they belonged. He sniffed the air
cautiously, to see if the man was with them. No, the man was not there,
that was soon obvious. He had no thought of attacking them; they were
much too formidable to be meddled with. But why were they there? The
circumstance was, therefore, dangerous. Perhaps the man was designing
some sort of trap for him. He drew back cautiously, and made off by the
way he had come. He had a wholesome respect for the man, and for all his
works and belongings.
In the first, mysterious, glassy grey of dawn, when thin wisps of vapour
clung curling among the grass-tops, the two wanderers got up and fell to
grazing. Then Star, who was beginning to feel homesick for old pasture
fields, strayed away irresolutely toward the road for home. Buck,
however, would have none of it. He marched off toward the brook,
splashed through, and fell to pasturing again on the farther side. Star,
not enduring to be left alone, immediately joined him.
That day the pair pressed onward, deeper and deeper into the wilds, Buck
ever eager on the unknown quest, Star ever reluctant, but persuaded. As
a matter of fact, had Star been resolute enough in his reluctance, had
he had the independence to lie down and refuse to go farther, he would
have gained the day, for Buck would never have forsaken him. But
initiative ruled inertia, as is usually the case, and Buck's adventuring
spirit had its way.
It was a rugged land, but hospitable enough to the wanderers in this
affluent late June weather, through which Buck so confidently led the
way. The giant tangle of the forest was broken by frequent wild meadows,
and foaming streams, and lonely little granite-bordered lakes, and
stretches of sun-steeped barren, all bronze green with blueberry scrub.
There was plenty to eat, plenty to drink, and when the flies and the
heat grew troublesome, it was pleasant to wallow in the cold,
amber-brown pools. Even Star began to forget the home pasture, and
content himself with the freedom which he had never craved.
How far and to what goal the urge in Buck's untamed heart would have
carried them before exhausting itself, there is no telling. But he had
challenged without knowledge the old, implacable sphinx of the
wilderness. And suddenly, to his undoing, the challenge was accepted.
On the third day of their wanderings the pair came out upon a river too
deep and wide for even Buck's daring to attempt to cross. The banks were
steep--a succession of rocky bluffs, broken by deep lateral bayous, and
strips of interval meadows where brooks came in through a fringe of
reeds and alders. Buck turned northward, following the bank up stream,
sometimes close to the edge, sometimes a little way back, wheresoever
the easier path or the most tempting patches of pasturage might seem to
lead. He was searching always for some feasible crossing, for his
instinct led him always to get over any barrier. That his path toward
the west had been barred only confirmed him in his impulse to work
westward.
Late that afternoon, as they burst out, through thick bushes, into a
little grassy glade, they surprised a bear-cub playing with a big yellow
fungus, which he boxed and cuffed about--carefully, so as not to break
his plaything--as a kitten boxes a ball. To Buck, of course, the playful
cub was only another dog, which might be expected to come yapping and
snapping at his heels. With an indignant snort he charged it.
The cub, at that ominous sound, looked up in astonishment. But when he
saw the terrible red form dashing down upon him across the grass, he
gave a squeal of terror and fled for the shelter of the trees. He was
too young, however, for any great speed or agility, and he had none of
the dog's artfulness in dodging. Before he could gain cover he was
overtaken. Buck's massive front caught him on his haunches, smashing
him into the ground. He gave one agonized squall, and then the life was
crushed out of him.
Amazed at this easy success--the first of the kind he had ever had--but
immensely proud of himself, the great red ox drew off and eyed his
victim for a second or two, his tail lashing his sides in angry triumph.
Then he fell to goring the small black body, and tossing it into the
air, and battering it again with his forehead as it came down. He was
taking deep vengeance for all the yelping curs which had worried and
eluded him in the past.
In the midst of this congenial exercise he caught sight, out of the
corner of his eye, of a big black shape just hurling itself upon him.
The mother bear, a giant of her kind, had come to the cry of her little
one.
Buck whirled with amazing nimbleness to meet the attack. He was in time
to escape the blow which would have cracked even his mighty neck, but
the long, steel-hard claws of his assailant fairly raked off one side of
his face, destroying one eye completely. At the same time, with a
shrill bellow, he lunged forward, driving a short, punishing horn deep
into the bear's chest and hurling her back upon her haunches.
Dreadful as was his own injury, this fortunate thrust gave him the
advantage for the moment. But, being unlearned in battle, he did not
know enough to follow it up. He drew back to prepare for another charge,
and paused to stamp the ground, and bellow, and shake his horribly
wounded head.
The mother, heedless of her own deep wound, turned to sniff, whimpering,
at the body of her cub. Seeing at once that it was quite dead, she
wheeled like a flash and hurled herself again upon the slayer. As she
wheeled she came upon Buck's blinded side. He lunged forward once again,
mad for the struggle. But this time, half blind as he was, he was easily
eluded, for the old bear was a skilled fighter. A monstrous weight
crashed down upon his neck, just behind the ears, and the bright green
world grew black before him. He stumbled heavily forward on knees and
muzzle, with a choking bellow. The bear struck again, and with the other
paw tore out his throat, falling upon him and mauling him with silent
fury as he rolled over upon his side.
Star, meanwhile, being ever slow of wit and of purpose, had been
watching with startled eyes, unable to take in the situation, although a
strange heat was beginning to stretch his veins. But when he saw his
yoke-mate stumble forward on his muzzle, when he heard that choking
bellow of anguish, then the unaccustomed fire found its way up into his
brain. He saw red, and, with a nimbleness far beyond that of Buck at his
swiftest, he launched himself into the battle.
[Illustration: He launched himself into the battle.]
The bear, absorbed in the fulness of her vengeance, was taken absolutely
by surprise. It was as if a ton of rock had been hurled against her
flank, rolling her over and crushing her at the same time. In his rage
the great red ox seemed suddenly to develop an aptitude for the battle.
Twisting his head, he buried one horn deep in his adversary's belly,
where he ripped and tore with the all-destructive fury of a mad
rhinoceros. The bear's legs closed convulsively about his head and
shoulders, but in the next instant they relaxed again, falling away
loosely as that ploughing horn reached and pierced the heart. Then Star
drew back, and stood shaking his head to clear the blood out of his
eyes.
For two days and nights Star stood over his yoke-mate's body, leaving
his post only for a few yards and for a few minutes, at long intervals,
to crop a mouthful of grass or to drink at that cold stream which ran
past the edge of the tragic glade. On the third day two woodsmen,
passing down the river in a canoe, were surprised to hear the lowing of
an ox in that desolate place, far from even the remotest settler's
cabin. The lowing was persistent and appealing. They went ashore and
investigated.
At the scene which they came upon in the sunny little glade they stood
marvelling. After a time their shrewd conjectures, initiated as they
were in all the mysteries of the wild, arrived at a fairly accurate
interpretation of it all.
"It was sure some scrap, anyhow," was the final conclusion of one
grizzled investigator; and "Wish't we could 'a' seen it," of the other.
Then, the big red ox, with blood caked over head and horns, being too
admired as well as too valuable to be left behind, they decided that one
of them should stop on shore and drive him, while the other followed
slowly in the canoe.
At first Star refused stolidly to budge from his dead comrade's side.
But the woodsman was in winter a teamster, and what he did not know
about driving oxen was not worth knowing. He cut a long white stick like
an ox-goad, took his place at Star's side, gave him a firm prod in the
flank, and cried in a voice of authority: "Haw, Bright!"
At the old command, although "Bright" was not the right name, Star
seemed once more to feel the familiar, and to him not unpleasant,
pressure of the yoke upon his neck. He swerved obediently to the left,
lowering his head and throwing his weight forward to start the
imaginary load, and moved away as his new master ordered. And gradually,
as he went, directed this way or that by the sharp commands of "Gee!" or
"Haw!" and the light reminder of the goad, his grief for his yoke-fellow
began to dull its edge. It was comforting to be once more controlled, to
be snatched back into servitude from a freedom which had proved so
strenuous and so terrible.
The Trailers
Young Stan Murray turned on his heel and went into the house for his
gun. His breast boiled with pity and indignation. The hired man, coming
down from the Upper Field, had just told him that two more of his sheep
had been killed by the bears. The sheep were of fine stock, only lately
introduced to the out-settlements, and they were Stan's special charge.
These two last made seven that the bears had taken within six weeks.
Stan Murray, with the robust confidence of his eighteen years, vowed
that the marauder, or marauders, should be brought to an accounting
without more ado, though it should take him a week to trail them down.
He stuffed some hardtack biscuits and a generous lump of cheese into his
pockets, saw that his Winchester repeater was duly charged, buckled on
his cartridge-belt, and started for the Upper Field.
The hired man led him to the scene of the tragedy. The two victims--both
full-grown sheep--had been struck down close to the edge of the field,
within a dozen yards of each other. Nothing was left of them there but
their woolly skins and big sploshes of darkened blood on the stiff turf
of the pasture. The carcases had evidently been dragged or carried off
into the dark seclusion of the fir woods which bordered the top and
farther side of the field. It was now just after midday, and Stan and
the hired man agreed, after examination of all the signs, that the
killing must have taken place early the previous night.
"It's a long ways from here them b'ar'll be by this time, I'm thinkin',"
said the hired man. Not a native of the backwoods, he was little versed
in wilderness lore.
"Not at all," corrected Murray. "Like as not they're within a half mile
or so of us now. They wouldn't lug those fat sheep far. They'd just eat
what they wanted an' hide the rest in the bushes. And they'd come back
an' finish it up when they'd slept off the first feed. What would they
want to travel for, when they'd got such a dead easy thing right here?"
"Um-m-m!" grunted the hired man grudgingly. "Mebbe you're right. But I'd
like to know who's been here afore us, an' _rolled up_ this here skin so
tidy-like? T'other skin's left all of a heap, mebbe because it's so torn
'tain't no good to nobody."
The young woodsman laughed, for all his vexation of spirit.
"Lot you know about bears, Tom," said he. "You see, there's been _two_
bears here on this job, curse their dirty hides! One's a youngster, an'
don't know much about skinning a sheep. He's just clawed off the skin
any old way, an' made a mess of it, as you see. But the other's an old
hand, evidently, an' knows what he's about--an old she, likely, an'
perhaps mother of the young one. _She's_ known how to _peel_ off the
skin, rolling it up that way quite as a man might do. Now, Tom, you get
along back home, an' take the skins with you. I'm going after those two,
an' I'm not coming home till I've squared up with 'em over this here
deal."
For half a mile or more back into the woods the trail of the marauders
was a plain one to follow. Then Murray found the remnants of the two
victims hidden in a mass of thick underbush, several yards apart. The
tracks of the two bears encircled the spot, a plain proclamation of
ownership to any other of the wild creatures which might be inclined to
trespass on that domain. And on the trunk of a tall spruce, standing
close beside the hiding-place, the initiated eyes of young Murray
detected another warning to intruders. The bark at a considerable height
was scored by the marks of mighty claws. The larger bear, after her
meal, had stretched herself like a cat, rearing herself and digging in
her claws against the trunk. And the great height of her reach was a
pointed announcement that her displeasure would be a perilous thing to
reckon with. As Stan Murray stood, estimating the stature of his foe,
his eyes began to sparkle. This would be a trophy worth winning, the
hide and head of such a bear. His wrath against the slayers of his sheep
died away into the emulous zest of the hunter.
The bears, their hunger satisfied, had gone on straight back into the
wilderness, instead of hanging about the scene of their triumph or
crawling into a neighbouring thicket, as Murray had expected, to sleep
off their heavy feast. Murray thought he knew all about bears. As a
matter of fact, he did know a lot about them. What he did _not_ know was
that no one, however experienced and sympathetic an observer, ever does
achieve to know _all_ about them. The bear is at the opposite pole from
the sheep. He is an individualist. He does not care to do as his
neighbour does. He is ever ready to adapt his habits, as well as his
diet, to the varying of circumstance. He loves to depart from his rules
and confound the naturalists. When you think you've got him, he turns
out to be an old black stump, and laughs in his shaggy sleeve from some
other hidden post of observation. He makes all the other kindred of the
wild, except, perhaps, the shrewd fox, seem like foolish children beside
him.
For a good hour Murray followed the trail of the two bears, at times
with some difficulty, as the forest gave way in places to breadths of
hard and stony barren, where the great pads left smaller trace. At last,
to his annoyance, in a patch of swamp, where the trail was very clear,
he realized that he was now following one bear only, and that the
smaller of the two. He cast assiduously from side to side, but in vain.
He harked back along the trail for several hundred yards, but he could
find no sign of the other bear, nor of where she had branched off. And
it was just that other that he wanted. However, he decided that as the
two were working together, he would probably find the second by keeping
on after the first, rather than by questing at large for a lost trail.
In any case, as he now reminded himself, it was not a trophy, but
vengeance for his slaughtered sheep that he was out for.
The trail he had been following hitherto had been hours old. Now, of a
sudden, he noticed with a start that it had become amazingly fresh--so
fresh, indeed, that he felt he might come upon his quarry at any
instant. How did it happen that the trail had thus grown fresh all at
once? Decidedly puzzled, he halted abruptly and sat down upon a stump to
consider the problem.
At last he came to the conclusion that, somewhere to his rear, the
quarry must have swerved off to one side or the other, either lain down
for a brief siesta, or made a wide detour, then circled back into the
old trail just a little way in advance of him. Again, it seemed, he had
overshot the important and revealing point of the trail. He was nettled,
disappointed in himself. His first impulse was to retrace his steps
minutely, and try to verify this conclusion. Then he reflected that,
after all, he had better content himself with the fact that he was now
close on the heels of the fugitive, and vengeance, perhaps, almost
within his grasp. To go back, for the mere sake of proving a theory,
would be to lose his advantage. Moreover, the afternoon was getting on.
He decided to push forward.
But now he went warily, peering to this side and to that, and
scrutinizing every thicket, every stump and massive bole. He felt that
he had been too confident, and made too much noise in his going. It was
pretty certain that the quarry would by now be aware of the pursuit, and
cunningly _on_ guard. Twice he had been worsted in woodcraft. He was
determined that the marauders should not score off him a third time.
For another half-hour he kept on, moving now as noiselessly as a mink,
and watchfully as a wood-mouse. Yet the trail went on as before, and he
could detect no sign that he was gaining on the elusive quarry. At last,
grown suddenly conscious of hunger, he sat down upon a mossy stone and
proceeded to munch his crackers and cheese. He was getting rather out of
conceit with himself, and the meal, hungry though he was, seemed
tasteless.
As he sat there, gnawing discontentedly at his dry fare, he began to
feel conscious of being watched. The short hairs on the back of his neck
tingled and rose. He looked around sharply, but he could see nothing.
Very softly he rose to his feet. With minutest scrutiny his eyes
searched every object within view. The mingled shadows of the forest
were confusing, of course, but his trained eyes knew how to
differentiate them. Nevertheless, neither behind, nor before, nor on
either side could he make out any living thing, except a little
black-and-white woodpecker, which peered at him with unwinking curiosity
from a gnarled trunk a dozen feet away. From the woodpecker his glance
wandered upwards and interrogated the lower branches of the surrounding
trees. At last he made out the gleam of a pair of pale, malevolent eyes
glaring down upon him from a high branch. Then he made out the shadowy
shape, flattened close to the branch, of a large wild-cat.
Murray disliked the whole tribe of the wild-cats, as voracious
destroyers of game and cunning depredators upon his poultry, and his
rifle went instantly to his shoulder. But he lowered it again with a
short laugh. He was not bothering just then with wild-cats. He cursed
himself softly as "getting nervous," and sat down again to resume his
meal, satisfied that the sensation at the back of his neck was now
explained.
But he had not found the true explanation, by any means. In fact, he was
fooled yet again.
From less than fifty yards ahead of him a little pair of red-rimmed
eyes, half angry and half curious, were watching his every movement.
Crouching behind two great trunks, his quarry was keeping him under wary
observation, ready to slip onward like a shadow, keeping to the shelter
of the thicket and bole and rock, the moment he should show the least
sign of taking up the trail again.
Moreover, from a slightly greater distance to his rear, another pair of
little red-rimmed eyes, less curious and more angry, also held him under
observation. For an hour or more, at least, the older bear had been
trailing him in her turn with practised cunning. For all her immense
bulk, she had never betrayed herself by so much as the crackling of a
twig; and the unconscious, complacent hunter was being hunted with a
woodcraft far beyond his own. Whenever he stopped, or paused for the
least moment, she came to a stop herself as instantly as if worked by
the same nerve impulse, and stiffened into such stony immobility that
she seemed at once to melt into her surroundings, and became invisible
in the sense of being indistinguishable from them. Among mossy rocks she
seemed to become a rock, among stumps a stump, among thickets a portion
of the dark, shaggy undergrowth.
Having finished his crackers and cheese, Murray got up, brushed the
crumbs from his jacket, flicked a hard flake of bark contemptuously at
the wild-cat--which darted farther up the tree with an angry growl--and
once more took up the trail. He was beginning now to wonder if he was
going to accomplish anything before the light should fail him, and he
hurried on at a swifter pace. A few hundred yards farther, to his
considerable gratification, the trail swept around in a wide curve
towards the right, and made back towards the Settlement. "Perhaps," he
thought, "that fool of a bear does not know, after all, that I am on his
track, and is going back for the remainder of his supper."
Encouraged by this idea, he pushed on faster still.
Then, some ten minutes later, he had reason to regret his haste.
Crossing a patch of soft, open ground, his attention was caught by the
fact that the footprints he was following had miraculously increased in
size. Examination proved that this was no illusion. And now, for the
first time, an unpleasant feeling crept over him. Apparently he was
being played with. The second bear, it was evident, had slipped in and
taken the place of the first, copying an old game of the hunted foxes.