Mooswa & Others of the Boundaries Part 25

What's broken?" he screamed, when the pail met with its downfall. The blankets dried the floor a bit after industrious little Wolverine had hauled them up and down a few times. This evidently gave him satisfaction, for he worked most energetically.

Two sides of fat bacon reclined sleepily under the bed--a mouthful filled Carcajou with joy. Great Eating! but if he had that much food in his Burrow he needn't do a stroke of work all Winter. He tried to carry a side up the chimney; and got started with it all right, for an iron bar had been built across the mud fire-place to hang pots on, which gave him a foothold; a little higher up he slipped, and clattered down, bacon and all, burning his feet in coals that lingered from the morning's fire. The sight of disturbed cinders floating from the chimney-top intimated to Jack what had happened, and he whistled with joy.

This was an excuse for another round of demolition. "If I could only open the Shack," thought Wolverine. Though a dweller in caves, yet he knew which was the door, for over its ill-fitting threshold came a strong glint of light; also up and down its length ran two cracks through which came more light. Most certainly it was the door, he decided, sniffing at the fresh air that whistled through the openings.

Close by stood a box on end, holding a wash-bowl. Carcajou climbed up on this, and examined a little iron thing that seemed to bear on the subject. It was somewhat like a Trap; if he could spring this thing, perhaps it had something to do with opening the door. As he fumbled at it, suddenly the wind blew a big square hole in the Shack's side; he had lifted the latch, only he didn't know it was a latch, of course--it was like a Trap, something to be sprung, that was all.

"By all the Loons!" screamed Jay; "now you're all right--what's inside?

You have had your revenge, Carey, old Boy," he added, as he caught sight of his coffee-coloured friend.

Carcajou paid no attention to his volatile Comrade, for he was busily engaged in gutting the place. "My fingers are still sore from the Man's Trap," he muttered, "but I think I can cache this Fat-eating."

"Francois will trail you," declared the Bird.

"He may do that," admitted Wolverine, "but he'll not find the Eating.

Has he a scent-nose of the Woods to see it through many covers of snow?"

"This is just lovely!" piped Jack, hopping about in the dough; "it's like the mud at White Clay River. b.u.t.ter!" he screamed in delight, perching on the edge of a wooden firkin, off which his friend had knocked the top. "I just love this stuff--it puts a gloss on one's feathers. We are having our revenge, aren't we, old Plaster-coat?"

"I am--Whe-e-e-cugh!" cried the fat little desperado, coughing much flour from his clogged lungs.

"I say, Hunchback, wouldn't you like to be a Man, and have all these things to eat, without the eternal worry of stealing them? I should--I'd be eating b.u.t.ter all the time;" and Jack drove his beak with great rapidity into the firkin's yellow contents.

"I'll return in a minute after I've cached this," said Wolverine, as he backed out of the Shack dragging a big piece of bacon.

"Oh, my strong Friend of much Brain, please cache this wooden-thing of Yellow-eating for me," pleaded Jay, when Carcajou reappeared. "By the Year of Famine! but it's delicious--it must be great for a Singer's throat. Did I ever tell you how I was sold once at Wapiscaw over a bit of b.u.t.ter?"

"No, my guzzling Friend--nor would you now, if you didn't want me to do a favour," grunted the industrious toiler, rolling Whisky-Jack's tub of b.u.t.ter off into the Forest.

"Well, it was this way--I saw a cake of this Yellow-eating in the Factor's Shack; you know the square holes they leave for light--it was in one of those. I swooped down and tried to drive my beak into it--"

"Like the hot pork," interrupted the tub-roller.

"Never mind, Carey, old Boy,--let by-gones be by-gones--I dove my beak fair at the Yellow Thing, and, would you believe it, nearly broke my neck against something hard which was between me and the Eating--I couldn't see it, though."

"Ha, ha, he-e-e-e-!" laughed Carcajou. "You bone-headed Bird--that was gla.s.s--Man's gla.s.s--they put it in those holes to keep the frost, Whisky-Jacks, and other evil things out--I know what it is. There! now your Yellow-eating is safe--Francois won't find it," he added, pus.h.i.+ng snow against the log under which lay the hidden firkin. "I wish you would fly and bring Rof and some of the other Fellows--tell them I'm giving a Feast-dance; make them hurry up, for the Men will be back before long."

"Oh, Carey, they'll guzzle my b.u.t.ter," replied the Bird.

"They won't find it. Tell the Red Widow to come and get a piece of this Fat-eating for the King. Fly like the wind. I'll have everything out of the Shack, and you must tell Blue Wolf and the others to come and help me carry it to the Meeting Place."

"Look here, Giver-of-the-Feast," said Jack, struck by a new thought, "what about The Boy? If you take all the food, he'll starve before they get to the Landing for more. We must remember our promise to Mooswa."

"That's so," replied Carcajou; "I'll leave enough Fish and Dry-eating to carry them out of the Boundaries; strange, though, that _you_ should have thought of The Boy--hast forgotten the hot pork?"

"Neither have I forgotten my word to Mooswa," said the Bird, as he flew swiftly to summon the others to the feast.

Wolverine rounded up his day's work by caching the granite-ware dishes and rolling an iron pot down the bank, and into the water hole. At Carcajou's pot-latch there was rare hilarity.

"I'm proud of you, old Cunning," Blue Wolf said, patronizingly, as he sat with distended stomach licking the fat from his wire-haired mustache. "If anything should happen Black King, which Wiesahkechack forbid! we could not do better than make you our next Ruler. I have made a few good steals in my time, but never anything like this. To be able to give a Tea Dance of this sort! Ghur-r-r!" he gurgled in satisfaction, and rubbed his head and neck along Wolverine's plump side affectionately, as a dog caresses a man's leg.

"Not only wise, but so generous!" Lynx said, oilily, for he too had eaten of the salted fat. "To remember one's Friends in the Day of Plenty is truly n.o.ble; I shall never forget this kind invitation."

"Cheek!" muttered Jack, for he had not invited Pisew at all--had purposely left him out of the general call; but Lynx, always craftily suspicious, seeing a movement on among some of the Animals, had followed up and discovered the barbecue.

"I haven't eaten a meal like this since the year before the Big Fire,"

murmured the Red Widow, reminiscently. "Easy Catching! but the Birds were thick that year--and fat and lazy. 'Crouk, Crouk!' they'd say, when one walked politely with gentle tread amongst them, stretch their heads up, and patter a little out of the way with their short, feathered legs--actually not attempt to fly. But I never expect to see a year like that again," she sighed, regretfully. "Excuse me for mentioning it; but this fulness in my stomach has suggested the general condition of that time. The King will be delighted to have this nice, fat back-piece that I'm taking home to him. He did well to make you Lieutenant, Carcajou--you are a brainy Boundary Dweller. By my family crest, the White Spot at the end of my Tail, I'll never forget this kindness."

"Hear, hear!" cried Whisky-Jack; "you make the snub-nosed Robber blush.

I had no idea how popular you were, Crop-ear. I've a notion to bring out the--Goodness!" he muttered to himself; "I nearly gave it away.

Friends.h.i.+p is friends.h.i.+p, but b.u.t.ter is b.u.t.ter, and harder to get."

"Bring out what?" asked Pisew.

"The Castoreum, Prying-Cat," glibly answered Jay, c.o.c.king his head down and sticking out his tongue at Lynx.

"I remember the year you speak of, Good Widow; I also was fat that Fall," said Marten.

"So was I," declared Wuchak, the Fisher--"never had to climb a tree to get my dinner for months."

"It was the Fifth Year of the Wapoos," enjoined Pisew, "and we Animal Eaters were all fat. Why, my paw was the size of Panther's--I took great pride in the trail I left."

"Extraordinary taste!" remarked Jack, "to feel proud of your big feet.

Now, if in the Year of Plenty you had run a little to brain--"

"Never mind, Jack," interrupted Blue Wolf, good-humouredly, for the feast-fulness made him well disposed toward all creatures, "we can't all be as smart as you are, you know. Tired jaws! I believe I don't care for any dessert," he continued, sniffing superciliously at a rib-bone Wolverine pushed toward him. But he picked it up, broke it in two with one clamp of his vise-like teeth, and swallowed the knuckle end. "Even if one is full," he remarked, giving a little gulp as it hitched in his throat, "a morsel of bone or something at the finish of the meal seems to top it off, and aids digestion."

"I take mine just as it comes, bone and meat together," declared Otter.

"So do I," affirmed Mink, for they had been given a great ration of Fish as their share of the banquet. Carcajou had purloined it from the Shack with his other loot.

"I must say that I like fresh Fish better than dried," declared Nekik to his companion, Mink; "but with the streams almost frozen to the bottom, and the stupid Tail-swimmers buried in the mud, one cannot be too thankful for anything in the way of Eating. The wealthiest one in all the Boundaries is old Umisk, the Beaver; he's got miles on miles of food that can't run away from him."

"Oh, I never could stand a vegetarian diet," grunted Carcajou. "I do eat Berries and Roots when Meat is scarce, but, taking it all round, you'll find that the brainiest, cleverest, most active Fellows in the Boundaries are the Flesh-eaters. Look at old Mooswa--good enough Chap; big and strong, too, in a way, but Safe-trails! what can he do? Nothing but trot, trot, trot, and try to rustle that big head-gear of his through the bush. Did you ever see a Flesh-eater have to run around with a small horn-forest on his head in the way of protection? Never!

they don't run to horns--they run to brains."

"And teeth," added Blue Wolf, curling his upper lip and baring ivory fangs the length of a man's finger to the admiring gaze of his friends.

"I eat Meat," chirped Whisky-Jack, "and I don't run to horns or teeth either, so it must all go to brains, I suppose. Lucky for you fellows, too."

"No, Wise Bird," began Lynx, "you don't need horns or teeth to defend yourself; your tongue, like Sikak's tail, keeps everybody away."

"Let's go home," grunted Wolverine; "I'm so full I can hardly walk."

"I'll give you a ride on my back, generous Benefactor," smirked Pisew.

"He thinks you have cached some of the bacon," sneered Jack; "he'll be full of grat.i.tude while the pork lasts."

Soon the Boundaries were silent, for full-stomached animals sleep well.