The Haunters of the Silences Part 9

I

In the ancient wild there were three great silences that held their habitations una.s.sailed. They were the silence of the deep of the lake, the silence of the dark heart of the cedar swamp, and the silence of the upper air, high above the splintered peak of the mountain.

To this immeasurable quiet of upper air but one of all the earth sounds could come. That one sound was of such quality that it seemed rather to intensify the silence than disturb it. It was so absolutely alone, so naked of all that murmurous background which sustains yet obscures the individual sounds of earth's surface, that it served merely as an accent to the silence. It was the fine, vibrant hiss of the smitten air against the tense feathers of the soaring eagle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HIS COURSE TOOK HIM FAR OUT OVER THE SOUNDLESS s.p.a.cES."]

Through the immense, unclouded solitude the eagle swung majestically in a great circle. At one point in the vast, deliberate swing he was directly above the bald, deep-riven peak of granite upthrust from its mantling forest of firs,--directly above it, at a height of not more than a few hundred feet. The rest of his course took him far out over the soundless s.p.a.ces of the landscape, which formed an enormous bowl rimmed by the turquoise horizon. The bowl was all a many-shaded green, stains of the light green of birch and poplar blending with the austere green-black of fir, cedar, and hemlock. Here and there through the dense colour gleamed sharply the loops and coils of three watercourses and at the centre of the bowl, glowing in the transparent brilliancy of the northern day, shone the clear mirror of the lake. At that point of his aerial path when the eagle swung farthest from the peak, he hung straight over the middle of the lake and looked down into its depths.

Though no lightest breath was astir far down on the lake surface and not a tree-top swayed in the forest, up here where the eagle was soaring streamed a viewless and soundless wind. So it came about that at some portions of his swing the eagle's wide, apparently moveless wings would tilt a little, careening ever so slightly, and their tense-webbed feathers would set themselves at a delicately different angle to the air-current. When this took place, there would be a different note in that strange whisper. The vibrant hiss would change to a faint, ghostly humming, which again would fade away as the rigid feathers readjusted themselves to another point of the gigantic curve.

Over the soaring black wings the intense sapphire of the zenith thrilled and melted; but the eyes of the eagle were not directed upward, since there was nothing above him but sky, and air, and the infinitude of silence. As he swung, his gleaming, snow-white head and neck were stretched downward toward the earth. His fierce yellow eyes, unwavering, brilliant, and clear like crystal, deep set beneath straight, overhanging brows, searched the far panorama with an incredibly piercing gaze. At such a distance that the most penetrating human eye--the eye of a sailor, a plains' ranger, a backwoods' huntsman, or an enumerator of the stars--could not discern him in his soundless alt.i.tude, he could mark the fall of a leaf or the scurry of a mouse in the sedge-gra.s.s.

Though the range of his marvellous vision was so vast, the eagle could not see beneath the surfaces of the lake except when he soared straight over it. At one point in his course the baffling reflections of the surface vanished, and his gaze pierced to the bottom. But from all other points the lake presented to him either a mirror of stainless blue, or a dazzling s.h.i.+eld of bright steel.

For an hour or more, on wide, untiring wings, the great bird sailed and watched. The furtive life of the wilderness, all unaware of that high impending doom, revealed itself to him, yet he saw nothing to draw him down out of his realm of silence.

Except for that mysterious whisper of the smitten air in his own wings, it was to the eagle as if all the action and movement of earth had been struck dumb. Once he saw a black cow moose, tormented with flies, lurch out madly from the thickets and plunge wallowing into the lake. High splashed and flashed the water about her floundering bulk; but not a whisper of it came up to him. Once he saw a pair of swimming loons stretching their necks alternately as high as they could above the water, and opening wide their straight, sharp beaks. He well knew the strident, wild cries with which they were answering each other, setting loose a rout of crazy echoes all up and down the sh.o.r.es. But not a ghost of an echo reached him. It was all dumb show. And once, on the lower slope of the mountain, an ancient fir-tree, its foothold on the rocks worn away by frost and flood of countless seasons, fell into the ravine. He saw the mighty downward sweep and plunge, the convulsion of branches below; but of the sullen roar that startled the mountainside no faintest sound arose to him.

At last, as he was wheeling over the centre of the lake, his inescapable eye saw something which interested him. His great wings flapped heavily, checking his course. He tipped suddenly, half-shut his wings, and shot straight downward perhaps a thousand feet. Here he stopped his descent with a sharp upward turn which made the wind whistle harshly in his wings. And here he hung, hovering, watching, waiting for the opportunity that now seemed close at hand.

II

In the heart of the cedar swamp the silence was thick, brooding, and imperishable. One felt that if ever any wandering sound, any lost bird-cry or call of wayfaring beast, should drop into it, the intruding voice would be straightway engulfed, smothered, and forgotten.

The ground beneath the stiff branches and between the gray, ragged, twisted trunks was grotesquely humped with moss-grown roots and pitted with pools of black water. Here and there amid the heavy moss fat fungoid growths thrust up their heads, dead white, or cold red, or pink, or spotted orange. The few scattered herbs that flourished among the humped and dangerous pools were solitary in habit, broad of leaf, tall and succulent of stalk. Not one of them bore any gay or perfumed blossom, to lure into the swamp the brightness of a b.u.t.terfly or the homely humming of wild bees.

The only bird that habitually endured the stillness and the gloom of the cedar swamp was a shadowy, silent, elusive little nuthatch, which spent its time slipping up and down the ragged trunks, uttering at wide intervals its faint, brief note. So furtive a being, and so shy and rare a voice, only made the silence more impressive, the solitude more profound.

A great black bulk, moving noiselessly as a shadow hither and thither among the shadows, seemed the spirit of the swamp made palpable. The old bear, having learned that certain of the big toadstools growing in the swamp were very good to eat, had taken to haunting the silence of the glooms in the season when the fungoids flourished. The solitude and the stillness suited his morose temper; and for all his seeming awkwardness he moved as delicately as a cat. His great sharp-clawed feet seemed shod with velvet, and never a twig snapped under his stealthy tread. It was not through fear that he went thus softly, for he feared no creature of the wilderness. But the heavy silence was attuned to his mood; and besides, he never knew when he might surprise some mouse, water-rat, or mink that would furnish variety to his toadstool diet.

Such a fortunate surprise, however, could befall him but seldom in the empty solitude of the swamp. So it happened that, one day when he tired of the fat, insipid fungoids, his thought turned to the lake, on whose sh.o.r.es he had sometimes found dead fish. He remembered, with watering chops, that he had even once or twice been able to catch live fish, close in sh.o.r.e, by lying in wait for them with exhaustless patience and scooping them up at last with a lightning sweep of the paw.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "FOR ALL HIS SEEMING AWKWARDNESS HE MOVED AS DELICATELY AS A CAT."]

Ignoring the toadstools, he turned straight south, and made his way toward the lake. He travelled swiftly, winding this way and that between the green, humped roots, the gray trunks, and the black water-pits. But swiftly as he went, his movement left no trail of sound behind it. A shadow could not have moved more noiselessly. It was as if the age-old silence simply seized and folded away for ever the impact of his great footfalls on the moss. When at length he caught the flash of the bright water ahead of him through the trees, he moved even more cautiously, so extreme was his circ.u.mspection. Reaching the edge of the cedar growth, he slipped unseen into a thicket of red willows which afforded a convenient ambush, and peered out warily to a.s.sure himself as to what might be going on around the sh.o.r.es. For a long while he crouched there as moveless as a stone, that if by mischance his coming had given alarm to any of the wilderness folk, suspicion might have time to die away.

III

In the mid-deep of the lake the silence was absolute. There was no hiss of tense feathers to accentuate it, as in the upper vast of air. There was no fading and elusive bird-note to measure it by, as in the gloom of the cedar swamp. Down in the gold-brown glimmer the fine silt lay unstirred on the stones. There was no movement, except the delicate, almost imperceptible waving of the great trout's coloured fins.

In the shallower water along the edges of the lake there was always a faint confusion of small sounds. The slow breathing of the lake, as it were, kept up a rhythmic, almost invisible motion among the smaller pebbles, making a crisp whisper which the water carried far beneath the surface while it could not be heard at all in the air above. But none of this stir reached the silent deeps where the big trout, morose and enamoured of his solitude, lay lazily opening and shutting his crimson gills.

Because the water of the lake was dark,--amber-tinted from the swamps about its sh.o.r.es,--the colours of the trout were dark, strong, and vivid. His strangely patterned back was almost black, yet brilliant, like some kinds of damascened steel. His belly was bright pink. His sides had a purplish hue, on which the rows of intense vermilion spots stood out almost incongruously. His fins were as gaudy as the petals of some red-and-white flower.

The trout was staring upward with his blank, lidless eyes. He was hungry, and he felt that it was from that direction that food was like to come to him most easily. Smaller fish had learned, from the fate of so many of their fellows, to shun the haunted stillness of this mid-lake depth; and the big trout was growing tired of caddis bait and such small game.

The surface of the lake, as he looked up at it, presented to him a sort of semitransparent mirror, thronged with reflections, yet allowing the sky overhead, and the shadows of many dreaming insects, to show through.

If a swallow, for instance, or a low-winged snipe, flew over, the trout could see not only the bird itself, and the shadow of the bird on the bottom, but also a dim, swift-moving reflection of the shadow, on the silvery mirror above. If a swallow's wing-tip flicked the surface, sending down a bright little jet of bubbles, these bubbles also would double themselves in reflections as they darted up again and vanished in the mirroring ripples.

All this, however, was of little interest to the hungry trout, till he caught sight of a large b.u.t.terfly zigzagging languidly close above the water. Its flight was so feeble that the big fish's expectations were aroused. Slowly he started upwards, to be on hand for whatever favour fortune might have in store for him.

As he swam up out of the gloom, the b.u.t.terfly flickered above him, and its big shadow danced along the bottom beside his own. A small beetle, its wings all outspread, struck the surface violently close by, shattering the mirror for a second, then starting a series of tiny ripples. The big trout paid no heed to the convulsive gyrations of the beetle. He was wholly intent upon the b.u.t.terfly, whose faltering flight drooped ever nearer and nearer to the s.h.i.+ning flood. At last, the splendid painted wings failed to flutter; and lightly, softly, like a leaf, the gorgeous insect sank upon the water, hardly marring the surface. Without a struggle, without even a quiver. They rested,--for perhaps a second. Then, there was a heavy boil in the water immediately beneath. A pair of black jaws opened. The dead b.u.t.terfly was sucked down. With a wanton flick of his broad, powerful tail, just above the surface, the big trout turned to sink back into the watery silence with his spoils.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE WATER SPLASHED HIGH AND WHITE ABOUT HIM."]

IV

There was a harsh, strong hissing in the air, and a dark body fell out of the sky. Fell? Rather it seemed to have been shot downward from a catapult. No mere falling could be so swift as that sheer yet governed descent. Just at the surface of the water the wedge of the eagle's body turned, his snow-white head and neck bent upwards, his broad wings spread, and beat heavily. In spite of the terrific force of his descent, his body did not go wholly under water, but the water splashed high and white about him. The next instant he rose clear, flapping ponderously.

In the iron clutch of his talons writhed the great trout, gripped behind the head and by the middle of the back, its tail thras.h.i.+ng spasmodically.

Never before had this fierce and majestic visitant from the upper silence fallen upon so difficult a prey. Its weight, alone, was all that his mighty wings could lift; and its vehement writhings were so full of energy that it was all he could do to hold it. With his most strenuous flapping, he could hardly lift the victim clear of the water. To bear it off to his lonely rock-ledge on the peak was manifestly impossible.

After a few moments of laborious indecision he beat his way heavily toward sh.o.r.e. Nowhere, up and down the beach, in the thickets, or in the dark corridors of the forest, could his piercing eyes detect any foe.

The nearest point of land was an arrow ribbon of clean white rock with a screen of Indian willow close behind it. This point he made for. A few feet above the water's edge he alighted. For a moment he stood haughtily, his hard, implacable yellow eyes challenging the wilderness.

Then, his snake-like white head stooped quickly forward, and his powerful beak bit clear through to the victim's backbone, a little behind the spot where it joined the neck. The trout's body stiffened straight out, with a strong shudder, then lay limp and still. Very deliberately, as if scorning to display his hunger, the royal bird began to make his meal.

But one palpitating morsel had gone down his outstretched, snowy throat, when it seemed to him that a leaf whispered in the willow thicket behind him. There was no air stirring, so why should a leaf whisper? His claws relaxed their grip upon the prey; his wings shot out and gave one powerful flap; he bounced lightly upward and aside. At the same moment a black bulk burst out from the willow thicket, and a great black paw smote at him savagely.

The eagle had sprung aside just in time. Had that terrific buffet fairly reached him, never again would he have mounted to his aerial haunts of silence. But as it was, the sweep of the black paw just touched the bird's tail. Two or three dark, regal feathers fluttered to the ground.

His s.p.a.cious pinions caught the air and winnowed out a few feet over the water. The bear, content at having captured the prize, paid no more attention to him, but greedily fell upon the prey.

Ordinarily, an eagle would no more think of interfering with a bear than of a.s.sailing a granite boulder. But in this case the aggravation was unprecedented. Never before had the "King of the Air" known what it was to have his lawful prey and hard-won spoils s.n.a.t.c.hed from him. With a sudden sharp yelp of rage he whirled, shot upward, and swooped, with a tw.a.n.g of stiff-set feathers, straight at his adversary's head. Totally unprepared for such a daring a.s.sault, the bear could not ward it off.

Several sudden red gashes on his head showed where those knife-like talons had struck. "_Wah!_" he bawled, half-rising on his haunches and throwing up a great forearm in defence. The eagle, swooping upward out of reach, swung round and hovered as if about to repeat the attack.

As the bear crouched, half-sitting, one paw on the mangled prey, the other uplifted in readiness for stroke or parry, the furious bird hesitated. He knew the full menace of that ma.s.sive upraised paw, which, clumsy though it looked, could strike as swiftly as the darting head of a snake. For all his rage, he had no mind to risk a maimed wing. In a second or two he swooped again, this time as if to catch the foe in the back; but he took care not to come too close. The bear whirled on his haunches, and struck viciously; but his claws met nothing but empty air, while a stiff wing-tip brushed smartingly across his eyes.

Again, and yet again, the eagle swooped, never coming quite within reach. Again and yet again the bear, boiling with embarra.s.sed fury, whirled and struck, but in vain. He struck nothing more tangible than air. The sharp indignant yelps of the great bird flapping close above him were a defiance which he could not answer. He had the prize, but he could not enjoy it. For a few moments he hesitated. Then doggedly he crouched down, with his head partly s.h.i.+elded between his fore paws, and fell to eating hurriedly. Before he could fairly swallow one mouthful, the air again hissed ominously in his ears, and those clutching talons tore at his neck. With a roar of pain, and wrath, and discomfiture, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the prey up in his jaws, and plunged into the thicket with his head well down between his legs. As he vanished the implacable talons struck once more, ripping red furrows in the black fur of his rump.

Smarting, and grumbling heavily, the bear lay down in the heart of the willow thicket, and finished devouring the great trout. Still yelping, the eagle circled above the thicket. Through the leafy branches he could see the black form of his adversary; but into the thicket he dared not swoop lest he should be caught at a disadvantage there. For a long time he circled, hoping that his enemy would come out and give him another opportunity of vengeance. Then, seeing that the bear lay motionless, apparently asleep, his rage wore itself out. Higher he whirled, and yet higher, while the wary beast in the thicket watched patiently for his going. Then suddenly he changed his course. With long, splendid sweep of wing he made off in direct flight, slanting swiftly upward toward the blue silence above the peak.

On the Night Trail

The radiant, blue-white, midwinter moonlight, flooding the little open s.p.a.ce of white in the blackness of the spruce forest, revealed the frozen fragments of a big lake trout scattered over the snow. They stood out sharply, so that no midnight forager of the wilds, prowling in the fringes of the shadow and peering forth in the watch for prey or foe, could by any possibility fail to sight them.

The stillness of the solitude was intense, breathless, as if sealed to perpetual silence by the bitter cold. At last, at one corner of the open, a spruce branch that leaned upon the snow stirred ever so slightly; and from its shelter a little gray-brown nose, surmounted by a pair of tiny eyes like black beads, anxiously surveyed the perilous s.p.a.ce of illumination. For perhaps half a minute there was not another movement. Then the shrew-mouse, well aware that death might be watching him from under every tree, plucked up a desperate valour and darted out into the light. The goad of his winter hunger driving him, he seized the nearest bit of fish that was small enough for him to handle, and scurried back with it to his safe hole under a fir-root. It was brave adventure, and deserved its success.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE SHREW-MOUSE ... DARTED OUT INTO THE LIGHT."]

For ten minutes more nothing happened to break the stillness. Then again the little shrew-mouse peered from the covert of his hanging branch.

This time, however, he drew back instantly. He had caught sight of a pointed black head and snake-like neck stealthily reconnoitring from the opposite side of the open. A hungry mink was making ready to appropriate some of the fish; but since he knew that a forest glade, far from the water, was not a customary resort of fish, alive or frozen, he was inclined to be suspicious of some kind of trap or ambuscade. Instead of looking at the delicious morsels, there in plain, alluring view, he scanned piercingly the shadows and drooping branches which encircled the glade. Suddenly he seemed to detect something to his distaste. A red gleam of anger and ferocity flared into his eyes, and he sank back noiselessly into covert.