The House in the Water Part 7

"We'll hev to call off this deal atween you an' me, I reckon. An'

there ain't goin' to be no more shooting over _this_ range, if I kin help it--an' I guess I kin!--till I kin git that ther' white-slashed bull drove away back over on to the Upsalquitch, where the hunters won't fall foul of him! But I'll git ye another guide, jest as good as me, or better, what ain't got no particular friends runnin' loose in the woods to bother 'im. An' I'll send ye 'way down on to the Sevogle, where ther's as big heads to be shot as ever have been. I can't do more."

"Yes, you can!" declared the Famous Hunter, who had quite recovered his self-possession.

"What is it?" asked Jabe doubtfully.

"You can pardon me for losing my temper and swearing at you!" answered the Famous Hunter, holding out his hand. "I'm glad I didn't knock over your magnificent friend. It's good for the breed that he got off. But you'll have to find me something peculiarly special now, down on that Sevogle."

WHEN THE BLUEBERRIES ARE RIPE

THE steep, rounded, rock-scarred face of Bald Mountain, for all its naked grimness, looked very cheerful in the last of the warm-coloured sunset. There were no trees; but every little hollow, every tiny plateau, every bit of slope that was not too steep for clinging roots to find hold, was clothed with a mat of blueberry bushes. The berries, of an opaque violet-blue tone (much more vivid and higher in key than the same berries can show when picked and brought to market) were so large and so thickly crowded as to almost hide the leaves. They gave the austere steeps of "Old Baldy" the effect of having been dyed with a wash of cobalt.

Far below, where the lonely wilderness valley was already forsaken by the sun, a flock of ducks could be seen, with long, outstretched necks rigid and short wings swiftly beating, lined out over a breadth of wild meadow. Above the lake which washed the foot of the mountain,--high above the water, but below the line of shadow creeping up the mountain's face,--a single fish-hawk circled slowly, waiting for the twilight coolness to bring the big trout to the surface to feed. The smooth water glimmered pallidly, and here and there a spreading, circular ripple showed that the hungry fish were beginning to rise.

Up in the flood of the sunset, the blueberries basked and glowed, some looking like gems, some like blossoms, according to the fall of the light. Around the shoulder of the mountain toward the east, where the direct rays of the sun could not reach, the light was yet abundant, but cool and tender,--and here the vivid berries were beginning to lose their colour, as a curved moon, just rising over the far, ragged rim of the forest, touched them with phantom silver. Everywhere jutting rocks and sharp crevices broke the soft mantle of the blueberry thickets; and on the southerly slope, where sunset and moonrise mingled with intricate shadows, everything looked ghostlike and unreal. On the utmost summit of the mountain a rounded peak of white granite, smoothed by ages of storm, shone like a beacon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AN OLD SHE-BEAR WITH TWO HALF-GROWN CUBS."]

The only berry-pickers that came to these high slopes of Bald Mountain were the wild kindreds, furred and feathered. Of them all, none were more enthusiastic and a.s.siduous than the bears; and just now, climbing up eagerly from the darkening woods below, came an old she-bear with two half-grown cubs. They came up by easy paths, zigzagging past boulder and crevice, through the ghostly, noiseless contention of sunlight and moonlight. Now their moving shadows lay one way, now the other; and now their shadows were suddenly wiped out, as the two lights for a moment held an even balance. At length having reached a little plateau where the berries were particularly large and close-cl.u.s.tered, the old bear stopped, and they fell joyously to their feeding.

On these open heights there were no enemies to keep watch against, and there was no reason to be wary or silent. The bears fed noisily, therefore, stripping the plump fruit cleverly by the pawful, and munching with little, greedy grunts of delight. There was no other food quite so to their taste as these berries, unless, perhaps, a well-filled honey-comb. And this was their season for eating, eating, eating, all the time, in order to lay up abundant fat against the long severity of winter.

As the bushes about them were stripped of the best fruit, the s.h.a.ggy feasters moved around the shoulder of the mountain from the gold of the sun into the silver of the moon. Soon the sunset had faded, and the moon had it all her own way except for a broad expanse of sea-green sky in the west, deepening through violet to a narrow streak of copper on the horizon. By this time the shadows, especially on the eastern slope, were very sharp and black, and the open s.p.a.ces very white and radiant, with a strange transparency borrowed from that high, pure atmosphere.

It chanced that the little hollow on which the bears were just now revelling,--a hollow where the blueberries were unbelievably large and abundant--was bounded on its upper side, toward the steep, by a narrow and deep crevice. At one end of the cleft, from a rocky and shallow roothold, a gnarled birch grew slantingly. From its unusual situation, and from the fact that the bushes grew thick to its very edge, this crevice const.i.tuted nothing less than a most insidious trap.

One of the cubs, born with the instinct of caution, kept far away from the dangerous brink without having more than half realized that there was any danger there whatever. The other cub was one of those blundering fellows, to be found among the wild kindreds no less than among the kindreds of men, who only get caution hammered into them by experience. He saw a narrow break, indeed, between the berry patch and the bare steep above,--but what was a little crevice in a position like this, where it could not amount to anything? Had it been on the other side of the hollow, he would have feared a precipice, and would have been on his guard. But, as it was, he never gave the matter a second thought, because it did not look dangerous! He found the best berries growing very near the edge of the crevice; and in his satisfaction he turned his back to the height and settled himself solidly upon his haunches to enjoy them. As he did so the bushes gave way behind him, he pitched abruptly backwards, and vanished with a squeal of terror into the narrow cleft of darkness.

The crevice was perhaps twelve feet deep, and from five to eight in width all the way to the bottom. The bottom held a layer of earth and dead leaves, which served to ease the cub's fall; but when he landed the wind was so b.u.mped out of him that for a minute or two he could not utter a sound. As soon as he recovered his voice, however, he began to squeal and whine piteously for his mother.

The old bear, at the sound of his cry as he fell, had rushed so hastily to his aid that she barely escaped falling in after him.

Checking herself just in time, by digging all her mighty claws into the roots of the blueberries, she crouched at the brink, thrust her head as far over as she could, and peered down with anxious cries. But when the cub's voice came back to her from the darkness she knew he was not killed, and she also knew that he was very near,--and her whinings changed at once to a guttural murmur that must have been intended for encouragement. The other cub, meanwhile, had come lumbering up with ears wisely c.o.c.ked, taken a very hasty and careful glance over the edge, and returned to his blueberries with an air of disapproval. It was as if he said he always knew that blundering brother of his would get himself into trouble.

For some minutes the old bear crouched where she was, straining her eyes to make out the form of her little one. Becoming accustomed to the gloom at last, she could discern him. She could see that he was moving about, and standing on his hind legs, and striving valiantly to claw his way up the perpendicular surface of smooth rock. She began to reach downwards first one big forepaw and then the other, testing the rock beneath her for some ledge or crack that might give her foothold by which to climb down to his aid. Finding none, she again set up her uneasy whining, and moved slowly along the brink, trying every inch of the way for some place rough enough to give her strong claws a chance to take hold. In the full, unclouded light of the white moon she was a pathetic figure, bending and crouching and straining, and reaching down longingly, then stopping to listen to the complaints of pain and terror that came up out of the dark.

At last she came to the end of the crevice where grew the solitary birch tree,--the frightened captive following exactly below her and stretching up toward her against the rock. At this point, close beside the tree, some roots and tough turf overhung the edge, and the old bear's paws detected a roughness on the face of the rock just below.

This was enough for her brave and devoted heart. She turned around and let her hind quarters carefully over the brink, intending to climb down backwards as bears do. But beyond the first unevenness there was absolutely nothing that her claws could take hold of. Her great body was half way over, when she felt herself on the point of falling.

Making a sudden startled effort to recover herself, she clutched desperately at the trunk of the birch tree with one arm, at the roots of the berry-bushes with the other,--and just managed to regain the level.

For herself, this mighty effort was just enough. But for the birch-tree it was just too much. The shallow earth by which it held gave way; and the next moment, with a clatter of loosened stones and a swish of leafy branches, it crashed majestically down into the crevice, closing one end of it with a ma.s.s of boughs and foliage, and once more frightening the imprisoned cub almost out of his senses.

At the first sound of this cataclysm, at the first rattle of loose earth about his ears, the cub had bounced madly to the other end of the crevice, where he crouched, whimpering. The old bear, too, was daunted for some seconds; but then, seeing that the cub was not hurt, she was quick to perceive the advantage of the accident. Standing at the upturned roots of the tree, she called eagerly and encouragingly to the cub, pointing out the path of escape thus offered to him. For some minutes he was too terrified to approach. At last she set her own weight on the trunk, testing it, and prepared to climb down and lead him out. At this, however, the youngster's nerve revived. With a joyful and understanding squeal, he rushed forward, sprawled and clawed his way over the tangle of branches, gained the firm trunk,--and presently found himself again beside his mother among the pleasant, moonlit berry-bushes. Here he was fondled and nosed and licked and nursed by the delighted mother, till his bruised little body forgot its hurts and his shaken little heart its fears. His cautious brother, too, came up with a wise look and sniffed at him patronizingly; but went away again with his nose in the air, as if to say that here was much fuss being made over a very small matter.

THE GLUTTON OF THE GREAT SNOW

I

NORTHWARD interminably, and beneath a whitish, desolate sky, stretched the white, empty leagues of snow, unbroken by rock or tree or hill, to the straight, menacing horizon. Green-black, and splotched with snow that clung here and there upon their branches, along the southward limits of the barren crowded down the serried ranks of the ancient fir forest. Endlessly baffled, but endlessly unconquered, the hosts of the firs thrust out their grim spire-topped vanguards, at intervals, into the hostile vacancy of the barren. Between these dark vanguards, long, silent aisles of whiteness led back and gently upward into the heart of the forest.

Out across one of these pale corridors of silence came moving very deliberately a dark, squat shape with blunt muzzle close to the snow.

Its keen, fierce eyes and keener nostrils were scrutinizing the white surface for the scent or trail of some other forest wanderer.

Conscious of power, in spite of its comparatively small stature--much less than that of wolf or lynx, or even of the fox--it made no effort to conceal its movements, disguise its track or keep watch for possible enemies. Stronger than any other beast of thrice its size, as cunning as the wisest of the foxes, and of a dogged, savage temper well known to all the kindred of the wild, it seemed to feel secure from ill-considered interference.

Less than three feet in length, but of peculiarly ma.s.sive build, this dark, ominous-looking animal walked flat-footed, like a bear, and with a surly heaviness worthy of a bear's stature. Its fur, coa.r.s.e and long, was of a sooty gray-brown, streaked coa.r.s.ely down each flank with a broad yellowish splash meeting over the hind quarters. Its powerful, heavy-clawed feet were black. Its short muzzle and ma.s.sive jaw, and its broad face up to just above the eyes, where the fur came down thickly, were black also. The eyes themselves, peering out beneath overhanging brows, gleamed with a mixture of sullen intelligence and implacable savagery. In its slow, forbidding strength, and in its tameless reserve, which yet held the capacity for outbursts of ungovernable rage, this strange beast seemed to incarnate the very spirit of the bitter and indomitable North. Its name was various, for hunters called it sometimes wolverene, sometimes carcajou, but oftener "Glutton," or "Injun Devil."

Through the voiceless desolation the carcajou--it was a female--continued her leisurely way. Presently, just upon the edge of the forest-growth, she came upon the fresh track of a huge lynx. The prints of the lynx's great pads were several times broader than her own, but she stopped and began to examine them without the slightest trace of apprehension. For some reason best known to herself, she at length made up her mind to pursue the stranger's back trail, concerning herself rather with what he had been doing than with what he was about to do.

Plunging into the gloom of the firs, where the trail led over a snow-covered chaos of boulders and tangled windfalls, she came presently to a spot where the snow was disturbed and scratched. Her eyes sparkled greedily. There were spatters of blood about the place, and she realized that here the lynx had buried, for a future meal, the remnant of his kill.

Her keen nose speedily told her just where the treasure was hidden, and she fell to digging furiously with her short, powerful fore paws.

It was a bitter and lean season, and the lynx, after eating his fill, had taken care to bury the remnant deep. The carcajou burrowed down till only the tip of her dingy tail was visible before she found the object of her search. It proved to be nothing but one hind quarter of a little blue fox. Angrily she dragged it forth and bolted it in a twinkling, crunching the slim bone between her powerful jaws. It was but a morsel to such a hunger as hers. Licking her chops, and pa.s.sing her black paws hurriedly over her face, as a cat does, she forsook the trail of the lynx and wandered on deeper into the soundless gloom.

Several rabbit-tracks she crossed, and here and there the dainty trail of a ptarmigan, or the small, sequential dots of a weasel's foot. But a single glance or pa.s.sing twitch of her nostril told her these were all old, and she vouchsafed them no attention. It was not till she had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile through the fir-glooms that she came upon a trail which caused her to halt.

It was the one trail, this, among all the tracks that traversed the great snow, which could cause her a moment's perturbation. For the trail of the wolf-pack she had small concern--for the hungriest wolves could never climb a tree. But this was the broad snowshoe trail, which she knew was made by a creature even more crafty than herself. She glanced about keenly, peering under the trees--because one could never judge, merely by the direction of the trail, where one of those dangerous creatures was going. She stood almost erect on her haunches and sniffed the air for the slightest taint of danger. Then she sniffed at the tracks. The man-smell was strong upon them, and comparatively, but not dangerously, fresh. Rea.s.sured on this point, she decided to follow the man and find out what he was doing. It was only when she did not know what he was about that she so dreaded him.

Given the opportunity to watch him unseen, she was willing enough to pit her cunning against his, and to rob him as audaciously as she would rob any of the wilderness kindreds.

Hunting over a wide range as she did, the carcajou was unaware till now that a man had come upon her range that winter. To her experience a man meant a hunter--and--trapper, with emphasis distinctly upon the trapper. The man's gun she feared--but his traps she feared not at all. Indeed, she regarded them rather with distinct favour, and was ready to profit by them at the first opportunity. Having only strength and cunning, but no speed to rely upon, she had learned that traps could catch all kinds of swift creatures, and hold them inexorably.

She had learned, too, that there was usually a succession of traps and snares set along a man's trail. It was with some exciting expectation, now, that she applied herself to following this trail.

Within a short distance the track brought her to a patch of trampled snow, with tiny bits of frozen fish scattered about. She knew at once that somewhere in this disturbed area a trap was hidden, close to the surface. Stepping warily, in a circle, she picked up and devoured the smallest sc.r.a.ps. Near the centre lay a fragment of tempting size; but she cunningly guessed that close beside that morsel would be the hiding-place of the trap. Slowly she closed in upon it, her nose close to the snow, sniffing with cautious discrimination. Suddenly she stopped short. Through the snow she had detected the man-smell, and the smell of steel, mingling with the savour of the dried fish. Here, but a little to one side, she began to dig, and promptly uncovered a light chain. Following this she came presently to the trap itself, which she cautiously laid bare. Then, without misgiving, she ate the big piece of fish. Both her curiosity and her hunger, however, were still far from satisfied, so she again took up the trail.

The next trap she came to was an open snare--a noose of bright wire suspended near the head of a cunningly constructed alley of fir branches, leading up to the foot of a big hemlock. Just behind this noose, and hardly to be reached save through the noose, the bait had evidently been fixed. But the carcajou saw that some one little less cunning than herself had been before her. Such a snare would have caught the fierce, but rather stupid, lynx; but a fox had been the first arrival. She saw his tracks. He had carefully investigated the alley of fir branches from the outside. Then he had broken through it behind the noose, and safely made off with the bait. Rather contemptuously the old wolverene went on. She did not understand this kind of trap, so she discreetly refrained from meddling with it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "CREPT SLOWLY AROUND THE RAGING AND SNARLING CAPTIVE."]

Fully a quarter mile she had to go before she came to another; but here she found things altogether different and more interesting. As she came softly around a great snow-draped boulder there was a snarl, a sharp rattle of steel, and a thud. She shrank back swiftly, just beyond reach of the claws of a big lynx. The lynx had been ahead of her in discovering the trap, and with the stupidity of his tribe had got caught in it. The inexorable steel jaws had him fast by the left fore leg. He had heard the almost soundless approach of the strange prowler, and, mad with pain and rage, had sprung to the attack without waiting to see the nature of his antagonist.

Keeping just beyond the range of his hampered leap, the carcajou now crept slowly around the raging and snarling captive, who kept pouncing at her in futile fury every other moment. Though his superior in sheer strength, she was much smaller and lighter than he, and less murderously armed for combat; and she dreaded the raking, eviscerating clutch of his terrible hinder claws. In defence of her burrow and her litter, she would have tackled him without hesitation; but her sharp teeth and bulldog jaw, however efficient, would not avail, in such a combat, to save her from getting ripped almost to ribbons. She was far too sagacious to enter upon any such struggle unnecessarily. Prowling slowly and tirelessly, without effort, around and around the excited prisoner, she trusted to wear him out and then take him at some deadly disadvantage.

Weighted with the trap, and not wise enough to refrain from wasting his strength in vain struggles, the lynx was strenuously playing his cunning antagonist's game, when a sound came floating on the still air which made them both instantly rigid. It was a long, thin, wavering cry that died off with indescribable melancholy in its cadence. The lynx crouched, with eyes dilating, and listened with terrible intentness. The carcajou, equally interested but not terrified, stood erect, ears, eyes and nose alike directed to finding out more about that ominous voice. Again and again it was repeated, swiftly coming nearer; and presently it resolved itself into a chorus of voices. The lynx made several convulsive bounds, wrenching desperately to free his imprisoned limb; then, recognizing the inevitable, he crouched again, shuddering but dangerous, his tufted ears flattened upon his back, his eyes flickering green, every tooth and claw bared for the last battle. But the carcajou merely stiffened up her fur, in a rage at the prospective interruption of her hunting. She knew well that the dreadful, melancholy cry was the voice of the wolf-pack. But the wolves were not on _her_ trail, that she was sure of; and possibly they might pa.s.s at a harmless distance, and not discover her or her quarry.

The listeners were not kept long in suspense. The pack, as it chanced, was on the trail of a moose which, labouring heavily in the deep snow, had pa.s.sed, at a distance of some thirty or forty yards, a few minutes before the carcajou's arrival. The wolves swept into view through the tall fir trunks--five in number, and running so close that a table-cloth might have covered them. They knew by the trail that the quarry must be near, and, urged on by the fierce thrust of their hunger, they were not looking to right or left. They were almost past, and the lynx was beginning to take heart again, when, out of the tail of his eye, the pack-leader detected something unusual on the snow near the foot of the big rock. One fair look explained it all to him.

With an exultant yelp he turned, and the pack swept down upon the prisoner; while the carcajou, bursting with indignation, slipped up the nearest tree.

The captive was not abject, but game to the last tough fibre. All fangs and rending claws, with a screech and a bound he met the onslaught of the pack; and, for all the hideous handicap of that thing of iron on his leg, he gave a good account of himself. For a minute or two the wolves and their victim formed one yelling, yelping heap. When it disentangled itself, three of the wolves were badly torn, and one had the whole side of his face laid open. But in a few minutes there was nothing left of the unfortunate lynx but a few of the heavier bones--to which the pack might return later--and the sc.r.a.p of fur and flesh that was held in the jaws of the trap.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SNAPPED BACK AT HIM WITH A VICIOUS GROWL."]

As the carcajou saw her prospective meal disappearing, her rage became almost uncontrollable, and she crept down the tree-trunk as if she would fling herself upon the pack. The leader sprang at her, leaping as high as he could against the trunk; and she, barely out of reach of his clas.h.i.+ng, b.l.o.o.d.y fangs, snapped back at him with a vicious growl, trying to catch the tip of his nose. Failing in this, she struck at him like lightning with her powerful claws, raking his muzzle so severely that he fell back with a startled yelp. A moment later the whole pack, their famine still unsatisfied, swept off again upon the trail of the moose. The carcajou came down, sniffed angrily at the clean bones which had been cracked for their marrow, then hurried off on the track of the wolves.