The Haunters of the Silences Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BAFFLED SHREW JUMPED STRAIGHT INTO THE AIR."]

Since his return to the green upper world ill luck had persistently followed his ventures, and now his thoughts turned back to the burrows under the gra.s.s-roots. He remembered, also, that mole which had so inexplicably evaded him. Keeping close to the fence, he hurried back to the stone heap, on the other side of which lay the entrance to the burrows. He was just about to make a hurried and final investigation of the pile, on the chance that it might conceal something to his taste, when his nose caught a strong scent which made him stop short and seem to shrink into his skin. At the same instant a slim, long, yellow-brown animal emerged from the stones, cast a quick, s.h.i.+fting glance this way and that, then darted at him as smoothly as a snake. With a frantic leap he shot through the air, alighting just beside the mouth of the burrow.

The next instant he had vanished; and the weasel, arriving just a second too late, thrust his fierce, triangular face into the hole, but made no attempt to squeeze himself down a pa.s.sage so restricted.

The shrew had been terrified, indeed; but his dogged spirit was by no means cowed or given over to panic. He felt fairly confident that the weasel was too big to pursue him down the burrow, but presently he stopped, sc.r.a.ped away the earth on one side, and turned around to face the menace. Small though he was, the weasel would have found him a troublesome and daring antagonist in such narrow quarters. When he saw a glimmer of light reappear at the entrance of the burrow, he understood that his big enemy was not going to attempt the impossible. Rea.s.sured, but still hot with wrath, he turned again, and went racing through the black tunnel in search of something whereon to wreak his emotions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WITH A FRANTIC LEAP HE SHOT THROUGH THE AIR."]

Now as the fates of the underworld would have it, at this moment the lazy old mole who owned these burrows was returning from his tour of investigation. He came to the fork where the shrew had gone by an hour before. The strong, disagreeable, musky smell of the intruder arrested him. His keen nose sniffed at it with resentment and alarm, and told him the whole story, there in the dark, more plainly than if it had pa.s.sed in daylight before his purblind eyes. It told him that some time had gone by since the intruder's pa.s.sing. But what it could not tell him was that the intruder was just now on his way back. After some moments of hesitation the long, cylindrical, limp body of the mole scuffled out into the main tunnel, and turned toward the exit. Its movement was rather slow and awkward, owing to the fact that the fore legs were set on each side of the body, like flippers, which was an excellent arrangement for digging, but a very bad one for plain walking.

The mole had not advanced more than a yard or so along the main tunnel when again that strong, musky smell smote his nostrils. This time it was fresh and warm. Indeed, it was startlingly imminent. Elongating his soft body till it was not more than half its usual thickness, the mole doubled in his tracks, intent upon the speediest possible retreat. In that very instant, while he was in the midst of this awkward effort to turn, the shrew fell upon him, gripping and tearing his soft, unprotected flank.

The mole was not altogether deficient in character; and he was larger and heavier than his a.s.sailant. Seeing that escape was impossible, and stung by the pain of his wounds, he flung himself with energy into the struggle, biting desperately and striving to bear down his lighter opponent. It was a blind smother of a fight, there in that pitch-black narrow tunnel whose walls pressed ceaselessly upon it and hemmed it in.

From the smother came no sound but an occasional squeak of rage or pain, barely audible to the lurking spiders among the gra.s.s-stems just overhead. The thin turf heaved vaguely, and the gra.s.s-blades vibrated to the unseen struggle; but not even the low-flying marsh-hawk could guess the cause of these mysterious disturbances.

For several minutes the mole made a good fight. Then the indomitable savagery of his enemy's attack suddenly cowed him. He shrank and tried to draw away; and in that moment the enemy had him by the throat. In that moment the fight was ended; and in the next the invader was satisfying his ravenous appet.i.te on the warm flesh which he craved.

When this redoubtable little warrior had eaten his fill, he felt a pleasant sense of drowsiness. First he moved a few feet farther along the tunnel, till he reached the point where it was joined by the smaller gallery of his own digging. At this point of vantage, with exits open both ways, he hastily dug himself a little pocket or side chamber where he could curl himself up in comfort. Here he licked his wounds for a minute or two, and carefully washed his face with his clever, hand-like fore paws. Then with a sense of perfect security he went to sleep, his watchful nose, most trusty of sentinels, on guard at the threshold of his bedchamber.

While he slept in this unseen retreat, among the short gra.s.ses just above his sleep went on the busy mingling of comedy and tragedy, of mirth and birth and death, which makes the sum of life on a summer day in the pastures. Everywhere the gra.s.s, and the air above the gra.s.s, were thronged with insects. Through the gra.s.s came gliding soundlessly a long, smooth, sinuous brown shape with a quick-darting head and a forked, amber-coloured, flickering tongue. The snake's body was about the thickness of a man's thumb, and his back was un.o.btrusively but exquisitely marked with a reticulation of fine lines. He seemed to be travelling rather aimlessly, doubtless on the watch for any small quarry he might catch sight of; but when he chanced upon the fresh-dug hole where the shrew had begun his burrowing, he stopped abruptly. His fixed, opaque-looking eyes grew strangely intent. With his head poised immediately over the hole he remained perfectly rigid for some seconds.

Then he glided slowly into the burrow.

The black snake--for such he was called, in spite of his colour being brown--had an undiscriminating appet.i.te for moles and shrews alike. It was of no concern to him that the flesh of the shrew was rank and tough; for his sense of taste was, to say the least of it, rudimentary, and to digestion so invincible as his, tough and tender were all one. He had learned, of course, that shrews were averse to being swallowed, and that they both could and would put up a stiff fight against such consummation. But he had never yet captured one in such a position that he could not get his coils around and crush it. What he expected to find in the burrow which he entered so confidently was a satisfying meal, followed by a long, safe sleep to companion digestion.

As he trailed along the winding of the tunnel, his motion made a faint, dry, whispering sound. This delicate sound, together with his peculiar, sickly, elusive scent, travelled just before him, and reached the doorway of the little chamber where the shrew was sleeping. The sleeper awoke,--wide awake all at once, as it behoves the wild kindreds to be.

Instantly, too, he understood the whole peril, and that it was even now upon him. There was no time for flight. To do him justice, it was not flight he thought of, but fight. His little heart swelled with rage at this invasion of his rest. Experienced fighter that he was, he fully understood the advantages of his situation. As the head of the invader stole past his doorway, he sprang, and sank his long, punis.h.i.+ng teeth deep into the back of the snake's neck.

With this hold the advantage was all his, so long as he could maintain it; and he hung to the grip like a bulldog, biting deeper and deeper every minute. Fettered completely by the narrowness of the tunnel, unable to lash or coil or strike, the snake could only writhe impotently and struggle to drag his adversary farther down the burrow toward some roomier spot where his own tactics would have a chance. But the shrew was not to be dislodged from his point of vantage. He clung to his doorway no less doggedly than he clung to his hold; and all the while his deadly teeth were biting deeper in. At last, they found the backbone,--and bit it through. With a quiver the writhing of the big snake stopped.

Victor though he was, the shrew was slow to accept conviction of his victory over so mighty an antagonist. Though all resistance had ceased, he kept on gnawing and worrying, till he had succeeded in completely severing the head from the trunk. Then, feeling that his triumph was secured, he turned back into his chamber and curled up again to resume his rudely interrupted siesta.

Having thus effectually established his lords.h.i.+p of the burrows, this small champion might have reasonably expected to enjoy an undisturbed and unanxious slumber. But Fate is pitilessly whimsical in its dealings with the wild kindreds. It chanced at this time that a red fox came trotting down along the pasture fence. He seemed to have a very vague idea of where he was going or what he wanted to do. Presently he took it into his head that he wanted to cross the pasture, so he forsook the fence and started off over the gra.s.s; and as luck would have it, his keen, investigating nose sniffed the sod just at the point whereunder the sleeping shrew lay hidden. The turf that formed the little fighter's ceiling was not more than half an inch in thickness.

The smell that came up through the gra.s.s-roots was strong, and not particularly savoury. But the red fox was not overparticular just then.

He would have chosen rabbit or partridge had Mother Nature consulted his wishes more minutely. But as it was he saw no reason to turn up his sharp nose at shrew. After a few hasty but discreet sniffings, which enabled him to locate the careless slumberer, he pounced upon the exact spot and fell to clawing the sod ferociously. His long nails and powerful fore paws tore off the thin covering of turf in less time than it takes to tell of it, and the next instant the shrew was hurled out into the sunlight, dazzled and half stunned. Almost before he touched the gra.s.s a pair of narrow jaws snapped him up. Without a moment's delay the fox turned and trotted off up the pasture with his prey, toward his den on the other side of the hill; and as the discriminating sunlight peered down into the uncovered tunnel, in a few minutes flies came to investigate, and many industrious beetles. The body of the dead snake was soon a centre of teeming, hungry, busy life, toiling to remove all traces of what had happened. For Nature, though she works out almost all her ends by tragedy, is ceaselessly attentive to conceal the red marks of her violence.

The Ringwaak Buck

Down through the leafy tangle the sunlight fell in little irregular splotches, flecking the ruddy-brown floor of a thicket on the southward slope of Ringwaak. In the very heart of the thicket, curled close and with its soft, fine muzzle resting flat on its upgathered hind legs, lay a young fawn.

The ground, covered with a deep, elastic carpet of dead spruce and hemlock needles, was much the same colour as the little animal's coat.

The latter, however, was diversified with spots of a lighter hue, which matched marvellously with the scattered splotches of sunlight--so marvellously, indeed, that only an eye that was initiated, as well as discriminating, could tell the patches of s.h.i.+ne from the patches of colour or distinguish the outlines of the fawn's figure against the blending background. There was neither sound nor movement in the thicket. A tiny greenish-yellow worm, which had let itself down from a branch on a yard or more of delicate filament, hung motionless and crinkled, seeming to have forgotten the purpose of its descent. Not a breath of wind disturbed the clear, balsamy fragrance of the shadowed air, and the fawn appeared to sleep, though its great liquid eyes were wide open.

During the brief absence of its mild-eyed mother the little animal was accustomed to maintaining this voiceless and unwavering stillness, which, combined with its colouring, made its most effective concealment.

Enemies, hungry and savage, were all about it, searching coverts and pursuing trails. But the eyes of the hunting beasts seem to be less keen than we are wont to imagine them--certainly less keen than the eyes of skilled woodsmen--and an unwinking stillness may deceive the craftiest of them. Whether because its mother had taught it to be thus motionless, or because it was coerced by instincts inherited from ten thousand cautious ancestors, the fawn obeyed so absolutely that even its long, sensitive ears were not permitted to twitch. Its great eyes kept staring out in vague apprehension at the wide, shadowy, unknown world.

Suddenly into the limpid deeps of the little watcher's eyes came a flash of fear, like a sharp contraction in the back of the pupils. A stealthy-footed, moon-faced, fierce-eyed beast came soundlessly to the edge of the thicket and glared in searchingly. The fawn knew in some dim way that this was a deadly danger that confronted him. But he never winked or moved an anxious ear. He hardly dared to breathe. It was almost as if a hand of ice had clutched him and held him still beyond even the possibility of a tremor. For perhaps a full minute the huge lynx stood there half crouching, with one big, padded fore paw upheld, piercing the gloom with his implacable stare. He could discern nothing, however, except s.p.a.ces of reddish-brown shadow, scored with the slim, perpendicular trunks of saplings, and spattered thicket with spots of infiltering sunlight. But the fawn, though in full view, was perfectly concealed--for he had that gift of fern-seed which, as the old romancers feign, makes its possessor invisible. No wandering puff of wind came by to tell the lynx's nose that his eyes were playing him false. At last the uplifted fore paw came softly to the ground and he crept off like a terrible gray shadow. For two or three seconds the fawn's sides moved violently. Then he was once more as still as a stone.

It chanced that on this particular occasion the mother doe was long away. The fawn got very hungry, as well as lonely, which strained his patience to the utmost. Nevertheless, he remained obedient to the law which s.h.i.+elded him, while the forest, which seems so empty, but is in reality so populous, sent its furtive kindreds past his hiding-place.

From time to time a dainty, bead-eyed wood-mouse scurried by; or a brooding partridge, unwilling to be long absent from her eggs, ran hither and thither to peck her hasty meal; or a red squirrel, with fluffy tail afloat, would dart swiftly and silently over the ground, dash up a tree, and from the top chatter shrill defiance to the perils which had lain wait for him below. All these things the fawn's wide eyes observed, unconsciously laying the foundations for that wisdom of the woods upon which his success in the merciless game of life would depend.

Once a large red fox, wary, but self-confident, trotted quietly across one end of the thicket, within ten feet of the fawn's nose; and once more that inward spasm which meant fear contracted the depths of the little watcher's eyes. But the fox was sniffing with his narrow, inquisitive snout at the places where the partridge hen had scratched, and he never saw the fawn.

With all its advantages, however, this invisibility had certain defects of its own. About five minutes after the fox had gone there came a swis.h.i.+ng of branches, a pounding of soft feet, a mysterious sound of haste and terror, at the back of the thicket where the fawn could not see. He did not dare to lift his head and look, but waited, quivering with apprehension. The next moment a furry bulk landed plump upon his flank, to bounce off again with a squeal of terror. In an uncontrollable panic the fawn bounded to his feet, and stood trembling, while a large hare, elongated to a straight line in the desperation of his flight, shot cras.h.i.+ng through the screen of branches and disappeared. As the fawn shrank away from this incomprehensible apparition--which, as far as he knew, might return at any instant and thump him again--a thin, snarling, peculiarly malignant cry made him turn his head, and as he did so a small, dark-furred beast, the hare's pursuer, sprang upon him furiously and bore him down. For the first time he experienced the pang of physical anguish, as fierce teeth, small, but sharp, tore at the tender hide of his neck, feeling the way to his throat. He lay helplessly kicking under this onslaught, and bleated piteously for his mother.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "TURN HIS NARROW, SNARLING FACE TO SEE WHAT THREATENED."]

At that same moment, and just in time, the mother arrived. Her eyes, usually so gentle, were aflame with rage. Before the fisher--for such the daring little a.s.sailant was--could do more than turn his narrow, snarling face to see what threatened, and while yet the first sweet trickle of blood was in his throat, a knife-edged hoof came down upon his back, smas.h.i.+ng the spine. He squirmed aside and made one futile effort to drag himself away. A second later he was pounded and trampled into a shapeless ma.s.s.

The fisher being small and his fangs not very long, the fawn's wounds were not serious. He picked himself up and crowded close against his mother's flank. Tenderly the doe licked him over as he nursed, and then, when his slim legs had stopped trembling she led him away to another hiding-place.

This experience so jarred the little animal's nerves that for a week or more his mother could not leave him alone, but had to s.n.a.t.c.h such pasturage as she could get near his hiding-place. His confidence in the tactics of invisibility had been so shaken that whenever his mother tried to leave him he would jump up and run after her. The patient old doe got thin under these conditions; but by the time her little one had recovered his nerves he was strong enough to follow her to her favoured feeding-grounds, and thereafter her problems grew daily less difficult.

The summer pa.s.sed with comparatively little event, and by autumn, when his mother began to develop other instincts, and occasionally, in the companions.h.i.+p of a tall, wide-antlered buck, seemed to forget him altogether, he was a very st.u.r.dy, self-reliant youngster, in many ways equipped to take care of himself. Ignored by the tall buck, whom he eyed with vague disfavour, he still hung about his mother, pasturing with her usually, and always sleeping near her in the thickets. But his first summer had supplied him with the most important elements of that knowledge which a red deer's life in the wilderness of the north demands.

The courses of the varied knowledge which the wild creatures must carry in their brains in order to survive in the struggle would seem to be threefold. The first, and most important, source is doubtless inherited instinct, which supplies the constant quant.i.ty, so to speak, or the knowledge common to all the individuals of a species. The second appears to be experience, which teaches varying lore, according to variation in circ.u.mstance and surrounding. In the amount of such knowledge which they possess the individuals of a species will be found to differ widely.

But, after instinct and experience have accounted for everything that can reasonably be credited to them, there remains a considerable and well authenticated residuum of instances where wild creatures have displayed a knowledge which neither instinct nor experience could well furnish them with. In such cases observation and inference seem to agree in ascribing the knowledge to parental teaching.

Among the lessons learned that summer by the little red buck one of the most vital was how to keep out of the way of the bears. All the forests about Ringwaak Hill abounded in bears; for the slopes of Ringwaak were rich in blueberries, and bears and blueberries go together when the wishes of the bears are at all considered. But the season of blueberries is short, and before the blueberries are ready there are few things more delicious to a bear's taste than a fawn or a moose calf. The bear, however, is not a very pertinacious trailer, nor does he excel in running long distances at top speed. When it is young moose or deer he is wanting, his way is to lie hidden behind some brush-screened stump or boulder till the victim comes by, then dart out a huge paw and settle the matter at one stroke. Such might well have been the fate of the little red buck that summer but that he learned to look with wary eye on every ambush that might hide a bear. To all these perilous places he gave wide berth, sometimes avoiding them altogether and sometimes circling about at safe distances till he could get the wind of them and find out whether they held a menace or not.

Another important truth borne in upon him that first summer was that man, the most to be dreaded of all creatures, was, notwithstanding, capable of being most useful to the deer people. To the west of Ringwaak lay a line of scattered settlements and lonely upland farms. Along the edge of the forest were open fields, where the men had roots and grains which the deer found very good to eat. Often the little red buck and his mother would break into one of these fields and feast riotously on the succulent crops. But at the first glimpse, smell, or sound of man, or of the noisy dogs who served man and dwelt with him, they would be off like swift shadows to their remotest retreats. The wise old doe knew a lot about man; and so, however it came about, the little red buck had a lot of useful information upon the same subject. At the same time, through some inexplicable caprice of his mother's, he acquired a dangerous habit that was in no way consistent with his prudent att.i.tude toward man. The old doe had a whimsical liking for cows, and would sometimes lead her fawn into one of the remoter back-lot cow-pastures to feed among the cattle. She neither permitted nor offered any familiarities whatever to these heavy, alien beasts, but for some reason she liked to be among them. The little red buck, therefore, although he knew the cattle were a.s.sociated with man and cared for by him, got into the way of visiting the cow-pastures occasionally and feeding on the sweet, close-cropped gra.s.ses. Fortunately, he learned from the first that milking-time was a time when the pastures were to be avoided.

Yet another lesson the little buck learned that fall one day when he and his mother were crossing the road near the settlement. Two of the village dogs--mongrels neither very keen of nose nor very resolute of temper--caught sight of them, and gave chase with noisy cry. Away through the woods went doe and fawn together, bounding lightly, at a pace that soon left their pursuers far behind. For these pursuers the old doe had no very great respect--at a pinch, indeed, she would have faced them and fought them with her nimble fore hoofs, and she did not want to tire the fawn unnecessarily. When the yelping of the dogs grew faint in the distance she wheeled around a half-circle of perhaps fifty feet in diameter, ran back a little way, and lay down with the fawn beside her to watch the trail. By the time they were both thoroughly rested the dogs came panting by, noses to the ground. As soon as they were well past the two fugitives jumped up and made off again at full speed in another direction. After one repet.i.tion of this familiar manoeuvre the dogs gave up the game in disgust. The little red buck had learned a handy trick, but he had learned, at the same time, to take dogs too lightly.

That winter the doe and fawn, with another doe, were in a manner taken in charge by the tall, wide-antlered buck, who, when the snow began to get deep, selected a sunny slope where groves of thick spruce were interspersed with clumps of young poplar and birch. Hither he led his little herd, and here he established his winter quarters, treading out paths from grove to grove and from thicket to thicket, so that even when the snow lay from four to five feet deep the herd could move about freely from one feeding-place to another. The memory of all this fixed itself securely in the recesses of the little buck's brain, to serve him in good stead in later winters.

When at last the snow vanished and the hillside brooks ran full and loud, and spring, with her cool colours and fresh scents, was in full possession of Ringwaak, the little herd scattered. The old doe stole off by herself one day when he was not noticing, and the yearling found himself left solitary. For a few days he was lonely and spent much of his time looking for his mother. Then, being of self-reliant disposition and very large and vigorous for his age, and well endowed with the joy of life, he forgot his loss and became pleasantly absorbed in the wilderness world of Ringwaak, with its elations, and satisfactions, and breathless adventures, and thrilling escapes. That autumn he grew pugnacious, and get more than one thras.h.i.+ng from full-grown bucks whom he was so foolhardy as to offend. But his defeats were the best kind of instruction, and he was growing both in strength and stature beyond the ordinary custom of his kind. By the time another winter and another summer had gone over him he was ready to wipe out all past humiliations.

When he stopped to drink at the gla.s.sy pool which lies in a granite pocket half-way up the western slope of Ringwaak he saw a reflection of the most redoubtable buck on all that range, and when the other bucks responded to his challenge they one after another met defeat. That winter, when he established his yard and trod out his range of paths among the birch and poplar thickets, he had three does and two fawns under his leaders.h.i.+p.

During the next two years he became famous throughout the settlements.

Every one had heard of the big buck who was so bold about showing himself when no one was ready for him, but so crafty in eluding the hunters. He was seen from time to time in the pastures with the cattle, but never when there was a gun within reach. On many a field of earing grain he stamped the broad defiance of his ravages, till for miles about every backwoods sportsman began to dream of winning those n.o.ble antlers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHEN HE STOPPED TO DRINK AT THE GLa.s.sY POOL."]

The last farm of the settlement toward the northwest, where the road leads off over wooded dips and rises to the valley of the turbulent Ottanoonsis, belonged to an old bachelor farmer named Ramsay. This farm the red buck seemed to have selected for his special and distinguished attention. He loved Ramsay's bean-fields and his corn-patch. He loved his long, sea-green turnip rows. He loved even the little garden before the kitchen window, where he easily learned to like cabbages and cuc.u.mbers and tried vainly to acquire a taste for onions and peppergra.s.s. The visits to the garden were invariably paid when Ramsay was away at the crossroads store or during the dark hours of those particular nights when Ramsay slept soundest. The gaunt old farmer vowed vengeance, and kept his long-barrelled duck gun loaded with buckshot, and wasted many days lying in wait for the marauder or following his trail through the tumbled, sweet-smelling autumn woods of Ringwaak. At last, however, though his desire for vengeance had by no means slackened, the grim old farmer woodsman began to take a certain pride in his adversary's prowess, along with a certain jealous apprehension lest those daring antlers should fall a trophy to some other gun than his.

When the buck would perpetrate some particularly audacious depredation on the corn or cabbages, Ramsay's first burst of wrath would be succeeded by something akin to respectful appreciation. He would pull his scraggy and grizzled chin with his gnarled fingers contemplatively, and a twinkle of understanding humour would supplant the anger in his shrewd, blue, woods-wise eyes as he stood surveying the damage. Such an antagonist was worth while, and Ramsay registered a vow that that fine hide should keep him warm in winter, those ill.u.s.trious antlers adorn no other walls but his.

But there were many others who had similar views as to the destiny of the great Ringwaak buck, whose fame by the opening of his fourth season had spread far beyond the limits of the Ringwaak settlements. Late in the fourth autumn a couple of new settlers on the lower river decided to make a trip up to Ringwaak and try their luck. They had heard of the big buck's craft in foiling the trailers, of his almost inspired sagacity in avoiding ambuscade. But they were prepared to play an entirely new card against him. They brought with them two splendid dogs of mixed Scotch deerhound and collie blood who were not only fierce but intelligent, not only tireless but swift.

When these two long-legged, long-jawed, iron gray dogs were loosed upon his trail the big buck chanced to be watching them from the heart of a thicket on a knoll less than one hundred yards away. At least, as the crow flies, it was about that distance, but by the windings of the trail it was fully a mile. It was with equanimity, therefore, that the buck gazed down upon these two strange arrivals, till he perceived by their actions that it was his own trail they were following. Then a spark of anger came into his great liquid eyes, and he stamped his sharp hoofs, as if he would like to wait and give battle. But these were antagonists too formidable for even so hardy a fighter as he; so he decided to get away in good time. He was only half in earnest about it, however, for after all, big as they were, these were only dogs, and dogs were easy to elude. He amused himself with three or four mighty leaps, first in one direction, then in another, to give his pursuers something to puzzle over. Then he went bounding lightly away along the skirts of the mountains, northwestward, toward the more familiar and favoured section of his range. When he came to a brook he would run a little way up or down the channel before resuming his flight. And at last, when his velvet sides were beginning to heave from so much exercise, he made his accustomed loop in the trail and lay down, well satisfied to wait for the pursuers to go by.

There was only one thing that made him a little nervous as he waited in the covert overlooking his back tracks. These dogs were so silent, compared with the curs he was used to. An occasional sharp yelp, just enough to let their masters know where they were, was all the noise they made. They attended strictly to business. The buck did not expect to hear anything of them for some time, but he had hardly been lying in his covert more than five minutes when those staccato yelps came faintly to his ears. He was startled. How had the creatures so quickly solved the complexities of his trail? He had no apprehension of the sure cunning with which those dogs could cut across curves and pick up the trail anew. Still less did he realize their appalling speed. When next their voices struck upon his ear they were so close that for an instant his heart stood still. But his craft did not fail him. Without waiting to see the lean, long shapes flash by, he arose and noiselessly faded back through the covert, moving as softly as a shadow till he felt himself out of ear-shot. Then he dashed away at top speed, determined to put a safe distance between himself and these disconcerting adversaries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NOISELESSLY FADED BACK THROUGH THE COVERT."]

He kept on now till his heart was near bursting, and when at last he made his strategic loop and lay down to rest and watch he felt that he must have secured ample time to recover. But not so. Before he had half got his wind, and while his flanks were yet heaving painfully, those meagre but terrible cries again drew near. This time, perforce, he let the pursuers run by, and saw that they seemed as fresh as ever. Then he sprang up and resumed the flight, shaken by the first chill of real terror that he had known since that forgotten day in the thicket when the hare and the fisher jumped upon him.