Chapter III: Part 3

Evidently the girl took him for one who could be easily influenced by the right person, for she kept up the argument, and in the end she won her case. The trout was tossed back into the stream, where he gave himself a shake or two, to get rid of the sand, and then swam away, apparently as well as ever. But girls don't always know what is good for trout. It would really have been kinder if the angler had hit him over the head with the butt of his fishing-rod, and then carried him home and put him in the frying-pan. In his struggles a part of the mucus had been rubbed from his body, and that always means trouble for a fish. A few days later our friend met him again, and noticed that a curious growth had appeared on his back and sides--a growth which bore a faint resemblance to the bloom on a peach, and which had taken the exact shape of the prints of the angler's fingers. The fungus had got him. He was dying, slowly but surely, and within a week he turned over on his back and drifted away down the stream. A black bear found him whirling round and round in a little eddy under the bank, and that was the end of him.

And so our friend became the King of the Trout Stream.

You are not to suppose, however, that he paid very much attention to his subjects, or that he was particularly fond of having them about him and giving them orders. On the contrary, he had become very hermit-like in his habits. In his youth he had been fond of society, and he and his companions had often roamed the stream in little schools and bands, but of late years his tastes seemed to have undergone a change, and he kept to himself and lurked in the shady, sunless places till his skin grew darker and darker, and he more and more resembled the shadows in which he lived. His great delight was to watch from the depths of some cave-like hollow under an overhanging bank until a star-gazer, or a herring, or a minnow, or some other baby-eater came in sight, and then to rush out and swallow him head first. He took ample revenge on all those pesky little fishes for all that they had done and tried to do to him and his brethren in the early days. The truth is that every brook trout is an Ishmaelite. The hand of every creature is against him, from that of the dragon-fly larva to that of the man with the latest invention in the way of patent fishing-tackle. It is no wonder if he turns the tables on his enemies whenever he has a chance, or even if he sometimes goes so far, in his general ruthlessness, as to eat his own offspring.

Yet, in spite of our friend's moroseness and solitary habits, there were certain times and seasons when he did come more or less in contact with his inferiors. In late spring and early summer he liked to sport for a while in the swift rapids--perhaps to stretch his muscles after the dull, quiet life of the winter-time, or possibly to free himself from certain little insects which sometimes fastened themselves to his body, and which, for lack of hands, it was rather difficult to get rid of. Here he often met some of his subjects, and later, when the hot weather came on, they all went to the spring-holes which formed their summer resorts. And at such times he never hesitated to take advantage of his superior size and strength. He always picked out the coolest and most comfortable places in the pools, and helped himself to the choicest morsels of food; and the others took what was left, without question. And when the summer was gone, and the water grew cold and invigorating, and once more he put on his wedding-garment and hurried away to the gravelly shallows, how different was his conduct from what it had been when he was a yearling! Then he was only a hanger-on; now he selected his nest and his mate to suit himself; and nobody ever dared to interfere. Whether he ever again chose that beautiful little fish from the hatchery, whom he had been so fond of when he was a three-year-old, is a question which I would rather not try to answer. Among all the vicissitudes, dangers, and rivalries of life in a trout stream, a permanent marriage seems to be almost an impossibility; and I fear that the affections of a fish are not remarkable for depth or constancy.

The Trout had altered in many ways besides his relations to his fellows. The curving lines of his body were not quite as graceful as they had once been, and sometimes he wore a rather lean and dilapidated look, especially in the six months from November to May. His tail was not as handsomely forked as when he was young, but was nearly square across the end, and was beginning to be a little frayed at the corners. His lower jaw had grown out beyond the upper, and its extremity was turned up in a wicked-looking hook which was almost a disfigurement, but which he often found very useful in hustling a younger trout out of the way. Even his complexion had grown darker, as we have already seen. Altogether he was less prepossessing than of old, but of a much more formidable appearance, and the very look of him was enough to scare a minnow out of a year's growth.

But, notwithstanding all changes, the two great interests of his every-day life continued to be just what they had always been--namely, to get enough to eat, and to keep out of the way of his enemies; for enemies he still had, and would have as long as he lived. The fly-fishermen, with their feather-weight rods and their scientific tackle, came every spring and summer; and only the wisdom born of experience kept him from falling into their hands. Several times he met with an otter, and had to run for his life. Once, a black bear, fishing for suckers, came near catching a brook trout. And perhaps the very closest of all his close calls came one day when some river-drivers exploded a stick of dynamite in the water to break up a log-jam. The trout was some distance up the stream at the time, but the concussion stunned him so that he floated at the surface, wrong side up, for several minutes before his senses gradually came back. That is a fish's way of fainting.

His luck stayed by him, however, and none of these things ever did him any serious harm. His reign proved a long one, and as the years went by he came to exercise a more and more autocratic sway over the smaller fry. For in spite of his age he was still growing. A trout has an advantage over a land animal in this, that he is not obliged to use any of his food as fuel for keeping himself warm. He can't keep warm anyhow--not as long as he lives in the water--and so he doesn't try, but devotes everything he eats to enlarging his body and repairing wear and tear. If nothing happens to put a stop to the process, he seems to be able to keep it up almost indefinitely. But the size of the stream in which he lives appears to limit him to a certain extent. Probably the largest trout stream in the world is the Nepigon, and they say that seventeen-pounders were caught there in the early days. Our friend's native river was a rather small one. In the course of time, however, he attained a weight of very nearly three pounds, and I doubt if he would ever have been much larger. Perhaps it was fitting that his reign should end there.

But it seems a great pity that it could not have ended in a more imposing manner. The last act of the drama was so inglorious that I am almost ashamed to tell it. He was the King of the Trout Stream; over and over he had run Fate's gauntlet, and escaped with his body unharmed and his wits sharper than ever; he knew the wiles of the fly-fishermen better than any other trout in the river; and yet, alas! he fell a victim to a little Indian boy with a piece of edging for a rod, coarse string for a line, and salt pork for bait.

I'm sure it wouldn't have happened if he had stayed at home; but one spring he took it into his head to go on an exploring expedition out into Lake Superior. I understand that his cousins in the streams of eastern Canada sometimes visit salt water in somewhat the same manner, and that they thereupon lose the bright trimmings of their coats and become a plain silver-gray. Superior did not affect our friend in that way, but something worse happened to him--he lost his common-sense. Perhaps his interest in his new surroundings was so great that he forgot the lessons of wisdom and experience which it had cost him so much to learn.

In the course of his wanderings he came to where a school of perch were loafing in the shadow of a wharf; and just as he pushed his way in among them, that little white piece of fat pork sank slowly down through the green water. It was something new to the trout; he didn't quite know what to make of it. But the perch seemed to think it was good, and they would be sure to eat it if he didn't; and so, although the string was in plain sight and ought to have been a sufficient warning, he exercised his royal prerogative, shouldered those yellow-barred plebeians out of the way, and took the tid-bit for himself. It is too humiliating; let us draw a veil over that closing scene.

The King of the Trout Stream had gone the way of his fathers, and another reigned in his stead.

THE STRENUOUS LIFE OF A CANADA LYNX

THE Canada lynx came down the runway that follows the high bank along the northern shore of the Glimmerglass, his keen, silvery eyes watching the woods for foe or prey, and his big feet padding softly on the dead leaves. He was old, was the Canada lynx, and he had grown very tall and gaunt, but this afternoon his years sat lightly on him. And in a moment more they had vanished entirely, and he was as young as ever he was in his life, for, as he stepped cautiously around a little spruce, he came upon another lynx, nearly as tall as he, and quite as handsome in her early winter coat. They both stopped short and stared. And no wonder. Each of them was decidedly worth looking at, especially if the one who did the looking happened to be another lynx of the opposite sex.

He was some twenty-odd inches in height and about three and a half feet in length, and had a most villanous cast of countenance, a very wicked-looking set of teeth, and claws that were two inches long and so heavy and strong and sharp that you could sometimes hear them crunch into the bark when he climbed a tree. His long hind legs, heavy buttocks, thick fore-limbs, and big, clumsy-looking paws told of a magnificent set of muscles pulling and sliding and hauling under his cloak. She was nearly as large as he, and very much like him in general appearance. Both of them wore long, thick fur, of a lustrous steel-gray color, with paler shades underneath, and darker trimmings along their back-bones and up and down their legs. Their paws were big and broad and furry, their tails were stubby and short, and they wore heavy, grizzled whiskers on the sides of their jaws and mustachios under their noses, while from the tips of their ears rose tassels of stiff, dark hairs that had an uncommonly jaunty effect. Altogether they looked very fierce and imposing and war-like--perhaps rather more so than was justified by their actual prowess. So it was not surprising that they took to each other. Perhaps he wasn't really quite as heroic as he appeared, but that's not uncommon among other lovers besides those belonging to the lynx tribe, and what difference did it make, anyhow, as long as she didn't know it?

That winter was a hard one. The cold was intense, the snow was very deep, and the storms came often. Spruce hens and partridges were scarce, even rabbits were hard to find, and sometimes it seemed to the two lynxes as if they were the only animals left in the woods. Except the deer. There were always plenty of deer down in the cedar swamp, and their tracks were as plain as a lumberman's logging road. But although the lynxes sometimes killed and ate young fawns in the summertime, they seldom tasted venison in the winter. It was well for them that they had each other, for when one failed in the hunt the other sometimes succeeded, yet I cannot help thinking that the old male, especially, might perhaps have been of more use to his mate if he had not confined his hunting so entirely to the smaller animals. More than once he sat on a branch of a tree and watched a buck or doe go by, and his claws twitched and his eyes blazed, and he fairly trembled with eagerness and excitement as he saw the big gray creature pass, all unconscious, beneath his perch. Splendidly armed as he was, it would seem as though he must have succeeded if only he had jumped and risked a tussle. But he never tried it. I suppose he was afraid. And yet--such were the contradictions of his nature--one dark night he trotted half a mile after a shanty-boy who was going home with a haunch of venison over his shoulder, and was just gathering himself for a spring, intending to leap on him from behind, when another man appeared. Two against one was not fair, he thought, and he gave it up and beat a retreat without either of them seeing him. They found his footprints the next morning in their snow-shoe tracks, and wondered how far behind them he had been. I don't know whether it was a vein of real courage that nerved him up to doing such a foolhardy thing as to follow a man with the intention of attacking him, or whether it was simply a case of recklessness. The probability is, however, that he was hungrier than usual, and that the smell of the warm blood made him forget everything else. Anyhow, he had a pretty close call, for the shanty-boy had a revolver in his pocket.

Aside from any question of heroism, I am afraid that he was not really as wise and discriminating as he looked. I have an idea that when Nature manufactured him she thought he did not need as much wisdom or as many wits as some of the other people of the woods, inasmuch as he was larger and stronger and better armed than most of them. Except possibly the bear, who was altogether too easy-going to molest him, there was not one of the animals that could thrash him, and they all knew it and let him alone. You can often manage very well without brains if only you have the necessary teeth and muscle and claws; and the old lynx had them, without a doubt. But I fear that Nature, in adapting a wild animal to his environment, now and then forgets to allow for the human element in the problem. Brains are a good thing to have, after all. Even to a lynx the time is pretty sure to come, sooner or later, when he needs them in his business. Your fellow-citizens of the woods may treat you with all due respect, but the trapper won't, and he'll get you if you don't watch out.

One day he found some more snow-shoe tracks, just like those that the shanty-boy had left, and instead of running away, as he ought to have done, and as most of the animals would have had sense enough to do, he followed them up to see where they led. He wasn't particularly hungry that day, and there was absolutely no excuse for what he did. It certainly wasn't bravery that inspired him, for he had not the least idea of attacking anyone. It was simply a case of foolish curiosity. He followed the trail a long way, not walking directly in it, but keeping just a little to one side, wallowing heavily as he went, for a foot and a half of light, fluffy snow had fallen the day before, and the walking was very bad. Presently he caught sight of a little piece of scarlet cloth fastened to a stick that stood upright in a drift. It ought to have been another warning to him, but it only roused his curiosity to a still higher pitch, as the trapper knew it would. He sat down in the snow and considered. The thing didn't really look as if it were good to eat, and yet it might be. The only way to find out would be to go up to it and taste it. But, eatable or not, such a bright bit of color was certainly very attractive to the eye. You would think so yourself if you hadn't seen anything scarlet since last summer's wild-flowers faded. Finally, he got up and walked slowly toward it, and the first thing he knew a steel trap had him by the right foreleg.

The way of the foolish is sometimes as hard as that of the transgressor. For a few minutes he was the very maddest cat in all the Great Tahquamenon Swamp, and he yelled and howled and caterwauled at the top of his voice, and jumped and tore around as if he was crazy. But, of course, that sort of thing did him no good, and after a while he quieted down and took things a little more calmly. Instead of being made fast to a tree, the trap was bound by a short chain to a heavy wooden clog, and he found that by pulling with all his might he could drag it at a snail's pace through the snow. So off he went on three legs, hauling the trap and clog by the fourth, with the blood oozing out around the steel jaws and leaving a line of bright crimson stains behind him. The strain on his foot hurt him cruelly, but a great fear was in his heart, and he knew that he must go away or die. So he pushed on, hour after hour, stopping now and then to rest for a few minutes in a thicket of cedar or hemlock, but soon gathering his strength for another effort. How he growled and snarled with rage and pain, and how his great eyes flamed as he looked ahead to see what was before him, or back along his trail to know if the trapper was coming!

It was a terrible journey that he made that night, and the hours dragged by slow as his pace and heavy as his clog. He was heading toward the hollow tree by the Glimmerglass that he and his mate called home, but he had not made more than half the distance, and his strength was nearly gone. Half-way between midnight and dawn he reached the edge of a steep and narrow gully that lay straight across his path. The moon had risen some time before, and the white slopes gleamed and shone in the frosty light, all the whiter by contrast with the few bushes and trees that were scattered up and down the little valley. The lynx stood on the brink and studied the proposition before him. It would be hard, hard work to climb the farther side, dragging that heavy clog, but at least it ought to be easy going down. He scrambled over the edge, hauling the clog after him till it began to roll of its own accord. The chain slackened, and he leaped forward. It was good to be able to jump again. But he jumped too far, or tried to, and the chain tightened with a jerk that brought him down head-first in the snow. Before he could recover himself the clog shot past him, and the chain jerked again and sent him heels over head. And then cat, trap, and clog all went rolling over and over down the slope, and landed in a heap at the bottom. All the breath and the spirit were knocked out of him, and for a long time he could do nothing but lie still in the snow, trembling with weakness and pain, and moaning miserably. It must have been half an hour before he could pull himself together again, and then, just as he was about to begin the climb up the far side of the gully, he suddenly discovered that he was no longer alone. Off to the left, among some thick bushes, he saw the lurking form of a timber-wolf. He looked to the right, and there was another. Behind him was a third, and he thought he saw several others still farther away, slinking from bush to bush, and gradually drawing nearer. Ordinarily they would hardly have dreamed of tackling him, and, if they had mustered up sufficient courage to attempt to overpower him by mere force of numbers, he would simply have climbed a tree and laughed at them. But now it was different.

The lynx cowered down in the snow and seemed to shrink to half his normal size; and then, as all the horror and the hopelessness of it came over him, he lifted up his voice in such a cry of abject fear, such a wail of utter agony and despair, as even the Great Tahquamenon Swamp had very seldom heard. I suppose that he had killed and eaten hundreds of smaller animals in his time, but I doubt if any of his victims ever suffered as he did. Most of them were taken unawares, and were killed and eaten almost before they knew what was coming; but he had to lie still and see his enemies slowly closing in upon him, knowing all the time that he could not fight to any advantage, and that to fly was utterly impossible. But when the last moment arrived he must have braced up and given a good account of himself. At least that was what the trapper decided when he came a few hours later to look for his trap. The lynx was gone--not even a broken bone of him was left--but there in the trodden and blood-stained snow was the record of an awful struggle. There must have been something heroic about him, after all.

For the rest of the winter his widow had to hunt alone. This was not such a great hardship in itself, for they had frequently gone out separately on their marauding expeditions--more often, perhaps, than they had gone together. But now there was never anyone to curl up beside her in the hollow tree and help her keep warm, or to share his kill with her when her own was unsuccessful. And when the spring should come and bring her a family of kittens, she would have to take on her own shoulders the whole burden of parental responsibility. Or, rather, the burden was already there, for if she did not find enough meat to keep herself in good health the babies would be weak and wizened and unpromising, with small chance of growing up to be a credit to her or a satisfaction to themselves. So she hunted night and day, and, on the whole, with very good results. To tell the truth, I think she was rather more skilful in the chase than her mate had been, and this seems to be a not uncommon state of things in cat families. Perhaps feminine fineness of instinct and lightness of tread are better adapted to the still-hunt than the greater clumsiness and awkwardness of masculinity. Or, is there something deeper than that? Has something whispered to these savage mothers that on their success depends more than their own lives, and that it is their sacred duty to kill, kill, kill? However that may be, she proved herself a mighty huntress before the Lord. Her eye was keen, and her foot was sure, and she made terrible havoc among the rabbits and partridges.

And yet there were times when even she was hungry and tired and disheartened. Once, on a clear, keen, cold winter night when all the great white world seemed frozen to death, she serenaded a land-looker who had made his bed in a deserted lumber-camp and was trying to sleep. She had eaten almost nothing for several days, and she knew that her strength was ebbing. That very evening she had fallen short in a flying leap at a rabbit, and had seen him dive head-first into his burrow, safe by the merest fraction of an inch. She had fairly screeched with rage and disappointment, and as the hours went by and she found no other game, she grew so blue and discouraged that she really couldn't contain herself any longer. Perhaps it did her good to have a cry. For two hours the land-looker lay in his bunk and listened to a wailing that made his heart fairly sink within him. Now it was a piercing scream, now it was a sob, and now it died away in a low moan, only to rise again, wilder and more agonized than ever. He knew without a doubt that it was only some kind of a cat--knew it just as well as he knew that his compass needle pointed north. Yet there had been times in his land-looking experience when he had been ready to swear that the needle was pointing south-southeast; and to-night, in spite of his certain knowledge that the voice he heard was that of a lynx or a wild-cat or cougar, he couldn't help being almost dead sure that it came from a woman in distress, there was in it such a note of human anguish and despair. Twice he got half-way out of bed to go to her assistance, and then lay down again and called himself a fool. At last he could stand it no longer, and taking a burning brand from the broken stove that stood in the centre of the room, he went to the door and looked out. The great arc-light of the moon had checkered the snow-crust with inky shadows, and patches of dazzling white. The cold air struck him like needles, and he said to himself that it was no wonder that either a cat or a woman should cry if she had to stay out in the snow on such a night. The moaning and wailing ceased as he opened the door, but now two round spots of flame shone out of a black shadow and stared at him unwinkingly. The lynx's pupils were wide open, and the golden-yellow tapeta in the backs of her eyeballs were glowing like incandescent lamps. It was no woman. No human eyes could ever shine like that. The land-looker threw the brand with all his might; an ugly snarl came from the shadow, and he saw a big gray animal go tearing away across the hard, smooth crust in a curious kind of gallop, taking three or four yards at a bound, coming down on all four feet at once, and spring forward again as if she was made of rubber. He shut the door and went back to bed.

That was the end of the concert, and, as it turned out, it was also the end of the lynx's troubles, at least for the time being. Half an hour later, as she was loping along in the moonlight, she thought she heard a faint sound from beneath her feet. She stood still to listen, and the next minute she was sure. During the last heavy snow-storm three partridges had dived into a drift for shelter from the wind and the cold, and such a thick, hard crust had formed over their heads that they had not been able to get out again. She resurrected them in short order and reinterred them after a fashion of her own, and then she went home to her hollow tree and slept the sleep of those who have done what Nature tells them to, and whose consciences are clear and whose stomachs full.

That was her nearest approach to starvation. She never was quite so hungry again, and in the early spring she had a great piece of luck. Not very far from her hollow tree she met a buck that had been mortally wounded by a hunter. He had had strength enough to run away, and to throw his pursuer off his track, but there was very little fight left in him. In such a case as this she was quite ready to attack, and it did not take her long to finish him. Probably it was a merciful release, for he had suffered greatly in the last few days. Fortunately no wolves or other large animals found him, and he gave her meat till after the kittens had come and she had begun to grow well and strong again.

The kittens were a great success--two of the finest she had ever had, and she had had many. But at first, of course, they were rather insignificant-looking--just two little balls of reddish-brown fur that turned over once in a while and mewed for their dinner. Some of the scientific men say that a new-born baby has no mind, but only a blank something that appears to be capable of receiving and retaining impressions, and that may in certain cases have tendencies. There is reason for thinking that the baby lynxes had tendencies. But imagine, if you can, what their first impressions were like. And remember that they were blind, and that if their ears heard sounds they certainly did not comprehend them. Sometimes they were cold and hungry and lonesome, and that was an impression of the wrong sort. They did not know what the trouble was, but something was the matter, that was certain, and they cried about it, like other babies. Then would come a great, warm, comforting presence, and all would be right again; and that was a very pleasant impression, indeed. I don't suppose they knew exactly what had been done to them. Probably they were not definitely aware that their empty stomachs had been filled, or that their shrinking, shivering little bodies were snuggled down in somebody's thick fur coat, or that somebody's warm red tongue was licking and stroking and caressing them. Much less could they have known how that big, strong, comforting somebody came to be there, or how many harmless and guiltless little lives had been snuffed out to give her life and to enable her to give it to them. But they knew that all was well with them, and that everything was just as it should be--and they took another nap.

By and by they began to look about for impressions, and were no longer content with lying still and taking only what came to them. They seemed to acquire a mental appetite for impressions that was almost as ravenous as their stomachs' appetite for milk, and their weak little legs were forced to lift their squat little bodies and carry them on exploring expeditions around the inside of the hollow tree, where they bumped their heads against the walls, and stumbled and fell down over the inequalities of the floor. They got a good many impressions during these excursions, and some of them were mental and some were physical. And sometimes they explored their mother, and went scrambling and sprawling all over her, probably getting about as well acquainted with her as it is possible to be with a person whom one has never seen. For their eyes were still closed, and they must have known her only as a big, kind, loving, furry thing, that fed them, and warmed them, and licked them, and made them feel good, and yet was almost as vague and indefinite as something in a dream. But the hour came at last when for the first time they saw the light of day shining in through the hole in the side of their tree. And while they were looking at it--and probably blinking at it--a footstep sounded outside, the hole was suddenly darkened, and a round, hairy face looked in--a face with big, unwinking eyes, pointed, tufted ears, and a thick whisker brushed back from under its chin. Do you suppose they recognized their mother? I don't believe they did. But when she jumped in beside them, then they knew her, and the impression they gained that day was one of the most wonderful of all.

In looks, these kittens of the woods were not so very different from those of the backyard, except that they were bigger and perhaps a little clumsier, and that their paws were very large, and their tails very short and stubby. They grew stronger as the days went on, and their legs did not wobble quite so much when they went travelling around the inside of the tree. And they learned to use their ears as well as their eyes. They knew what their mother's step meant at the entrance, and they liked to hear her purr.

Other sounds there were which they did not understand so well, and to most of which they gave little heed--the scream of the rabbit when the big gray cat leaps on him from behind a bush; the scolding of the red squirrel, disturbed and angry at the sight, and fearful that he may be the next victim; the bark of the fox; the rasping of the porcupine's teeth; and oftenest of all the pleasant rustling and whispering of the trees, for by this time the sun and the south wind had come back and done their work, and the voice of the leaves was heard in the land. All these noises of the woods, and many others besides, came to them from outside the walls of the tree, from a vast, mysterious region of which as yet they knew nothing except that their mother often went there. She was beginning to think that they were big enough and old enough to learn something more about it, and so one day she led them out of the hole, and they saw the sunshine, and the blue of the sky, and the green of the trees, and the whiteness of the sailing clouds, and the beauty of the Glimmerglass. But I don't think they appreciated the wonder and the glory of it all, or paid as much attention to it as they ought. They were too much interested in making their legs work properly, for their knees were still rather weak, and were apt to give out all of a sudden, and to let a fellow sit down when he didn't want to. And the dry leaves and little sticks kept sliding around under one's feet so that one never knew what was going to happen next. It was very different from the hollow tree, and they were glad when their mother picked them up one at a time by the back of the neck, carried them home, gave them their supper, and told them to lie still and take a nap while she went after another rabbit.

But they had really done very well, considering that it was their first day out. One of them in particular was very smart and precocious, and she had taken much pleasure in watching the independent way in which he went staggering about, looking for impressions. And the other was not far behind him. Her long hours of still-hunting had brought their rich reward, and her babies were all that she could ask.

She was in the habit of occasionally bringing something home for them to play with--a wood-mouse, perhaps, or a squirrel, or a partridge, or even a larger animal; and they played with it with a vengeance, shaking and worrying it, and spitting and growling and snarling over it in the most approved fashion. And you should have seen them the first time they saw their mother catch a rabbit. They did not try to help her, for she had told them not to, but they watched her as if it was a matter of life and death--as, indeed, it was, but not to them. The rabbit was nibbling some tender young sprouts. The old lynx crept up behind him very quietly and stealthily, and the kittens' eyes stuck out farther and farther as they saw her gradually work up within leaping distance. They nearly jumped out of their skins with excitement when at last she gave a bound and landed with both forepaws on the middle of his back. And when the rabbit screamed out in his fright and pain, they could not contain themselves any longer, but rushed in and helped finish him. They seemed to understand the game as perfectly as if they had been practising it for years. I suppose that was where their tendencies came in.

A few days later they had another experience--or at least one of them did. Their mother happened to see two little wood-mice run under a small, half-decayed log, and she put her forefeet against it and rolled it half-way over; and then, while she held it there, the larger Kitten--the one who had made the better record the day they first left the den--thrust his paw under and grabbed one of them. The other mouse got away, but I don't think the Kitten cared very much. He had made his first kill, and that was glory enough for one day.

From wood-mice the kittens progressed to chipmunks, and from them to larger game. With use and exercise their soft baby muscles grew hard and strong, and it was not long before they were able to follow the old lynx almost anywhere, to the tops of the tallest trees, over the roughest ground, and through the densest thickets. And they learned other things besides how to walk and climb and hunt. Their mother was a good teacher and a rather rigid disciplinarian, and very early in life they were taught that they must obey promptly and without question, and that on certain occasions it was absolutely necessary to keep perfectly still and not make the slightest sound. For instance, there was the time when the whole family lay sprawled out on a limb of a tree, fifteen or twenty feet up from the ground, and watched the land-looker go by with his half-axe over his shoulder, his compass in his hand, and a note-book sticking out of his pocket. They were so motionless, and the grayish color of their fur matched so well with the bark of the tree, that he never saw them, although for a moment they were right over his head, and could have leaped to his shoulders as easily as not.

In short, the kittens were learning to take care of themselves, and it was well that they were, for one day their mother was taken from them in a strange, sad way, and there was nothing they could do but cry, and try to follow her, and at last see her pass out of sight, still looking back and calling to them pitifully. It was the river that carried her off, and it was a floating saw-log that she rode upon, an unwilling passenger. The trouble began with a steel trap, just as it did in their father's case. Traps are not nearly as much to be feared in summer or early fall as in winter, for the simple reason that one's fur is not as valuable in warm weather as in cold. The lynx's, for instance, was considerably shorter and thinner than it had been in the preceding December, when she and her mate first met, and it had taken on a reddish tinge, as if the steel had begun to rust a trifle. But the killing machines are to be found occasionally at all seasons of the year, and somebody had set this one down by the edge of the water--not the Glimmerglass, but a branch of the Tahquamenon River--and had chained it to a log that had been hung up in last spring's drive. When she first felt its grip on her leg she yelled and tore around just as her mate had done, while the kittens looked on in wonder and amazement. They had seen their mother in many moods, but never in one like this. But by and by she grew weary, and a little later it began to rain. She was soon soaking wet, and as the hours dragged on every ounce of courage and gumption seemed to ooze out of her. If the trapper had come then he would have found her very meek and limp. Possibly she would have been ready to fight him for her children's sakes, but nothing else could have nerved her to it. But she was not put to any such test; the trapper did not come.

It rained very hard, and it rained very long. In fact it had been raining most of the time for two or three days before the lynx found the trap, and in a few more hours the Great Tahquamenon Swamp was as full of water as a soaked sponge, and the river was rising rapidly. The lynx was soon lying in a puddle, and to get out of it she climbed upon the log and stretched herself out on the wet, brown bark. Still the river rose, and by and by the log began to stir in its bed, as if it were thinking of renewing its voyage. At last, when she had been there nearly twenty-four hours, and was faint with hunger, as well as cold and wet, it quietly swung out into the current and drifted away down the stream. She was an excellent swimmer, and she promptly jumped overboard and tried to reach the shore, but of course the chain put a stop to that. Weakened by fasting, and borne down by the weight of the trap, she came very near drowning before she could scramble up again over the end of the log and seat herself amidships.

The kittens were foraging among the bushes, but she called to them in a tone which told them plainly enough that some new trouble had befallen her, and they hurried down to the water's edge, and stood there, mewing piteously. She implored them to follow her, and after much persuasion the bigger and bolder of the two plunged bravely in. But he didn't get very far. It was very cold and very wet, and he wasn't used to swimming. Besides, the water got into his nose and made him sneeze, which distracted his attention so that for a moment he forgot all about his mother, and just turned around and hustled back to the shore as fast as he could go. After that he, contented himself with following along the bank and keeping as near her as he could. Once the log drifted in so close that she thought she could jump ashore, and the Kitten watched eagerly as she gathered herself for the spring. But the chain was too short, and she fell into the water. Her forepaw just grazed the grass-tuft where the Kitten was standing, and for an instant she felt the blades slipping between her toes; but the next moment she was swimming for the log again, and the Kitten was mewing his sympathy at the top of his voice.

They journeyed on for nearly an hour longer, she on her prison-ship, and he on land; and then, before either of them knew just what had happened, the little tributary had emptied itself into the main stream of the Tahquamenon, and they suddenly realized that they were much farther apart than they had been at any time before. This new river was several times as broad as the one on which the voyage had begun, and the wind was steadily carrying her away from the shore, while the current bore her resistlessly on in its long, slow voyage to Lake Superior. She was still calling to him, but her voice was growing fainter and fainter in the distance, and so, at last, she passed out of his sight and hearing forever.

And then, for the first time, he missed his brother. The other kitten had always been a trifle the slower of the two, and in some way he had dropped behind. Our friend was alone in the world.

But the same river that had carried his mother away brought him a little comfort in his desolation, for down by the water's edge, cast up on the sand by a circling eddy, he found a dead sucker. He ate it with relish, and felt better in spite of himself. It made a very large meal for a lynx of his size, and by the time he had finished it he began to be drowsy, so he picked out the driest spot he could find, under the thick branches of a large hemlock, and curled himself up on the brown needles and went to sleep.

The next day he had to hustle for a living, and the next it was the same, and the next, and the next. As the weeks and the months went by there was every indication that life would be little else than one long hustle--or perhaps a short one--and in spite of all he could do there were times when he was very near the end of the chapter. But his mother's lessons stood him in good stead, and he was exceedingly well armed for the chase. It would have been hard to find in all the woods any teeth better adapted than his to the work of pulling a fellow-creature to pieces. In front, on both the upper and lower jaws, were the chisel-shaped incisors. Flanking them were the canines, very long and slender, and very sharply pointed, thrusting themselves into the meat like the tines of a carving-fork, and tearing it away in great shreds. And back of the canines were other teeth that were still larger, but shorter and broader, and shaped more like notched knife-blades. Those of the lower jaw worked inside those of the upper, like shears, and they were very handy for cutting the large chunks into pieces small enough to go down his throat. By the time he got through with a partridge there was not much left of it but a puddle of brown feathers. His claws, too, were very long and white, and very wickedly curved; and before starting out on a hunt he would often get up on his hind legs and sharpen those of his forefeet on a tree-trunk, just as your house-cat sharpens hers on the leg of the kitchen-table. When he wasn't using them he kept them hidden between his toes, so that they would not be constantly catching and breaking on roots and things; but all he had to do when he wanted them was to pull certain muscles, and out they came, ready to scratch and tear to his heart's content. They were not by any means full grown as yet, but they bade fair to equal his father's some day. He was warmly and comfortably clothed, of course, and along his sides and flanks the hair hung especially thick and long, to protect his body when he was obliged to wade through light, fluffy snow. When there was a crust he didn't need it, for his paws were so big and broad and hairy that at such times they bore him up almost as well as if they had been two pairs of snow-shoes.

But, well armed, well clad, and well shod though he was, it was fortunate for the Kitten that his first winter was a mild one--mild, that is, for the Glimmerglass country. Otherwise things might have gone very hard with him, and they were none too easy as it was. There were days when he was even hungrier than his mother had been the night she serenaded the land-looker, and it was on one of these occasions that he found a porcupine in a tree and tried to make a meal of him. That was a memorable experience. The porky was sitting in a crotch, doing nothing in particular, and when the Kitten approached he simply put his nose down and his quills up. The Kitten spat at him contemptuously, but without any apparent effect. Then he put out a big forepaw and tapped him lightly on the forehead. The porcupine flipped his tail, and the Kitten jumped back, and spat and hissed harder than ever. He didn't quite know what to make of this singular-looking creature, but he was young and rash, besides being awfully, awfully hungry, and in another minute he pitched in.

The next thing they knew, the porcupine had dropped to the ground, where he lit in a snow-bank, and presently picked himself up and waddled off to another tree, while the Kitten--well, the Kitten just sat in the crotch and cried as hard as ever he could cry. There were quills in his nose, and quills in his side, and quills in both his forepaws; and every motion was agony. He himself never knew exactly how he got rid of them all, so of course I can't tell you. A few of those that were caught only by their very tips may possibly have dropped out, but it is probable that most of them broke off and left their points to work deeper and deeper into the flesh until the skin finally closed over them and they disappeared. I have no doubt that pieces of those quills are still wandering about in various parts of his anatomy, like the quart of lead that "Little Bobs" carries around with him, according to Mr. Kipling. It was weeks before he ceased to feel the pain of them.

For several days after this mishap it was impossible for him to hunt, and he would certainly have starved to death if it had not been for a cougar who providentially came to the Glimmerglass on a short visit. The Kitten found his tracks in the snow the very next day, and cautiously followed them up, limping as he went, to see what the big fellow had been doing. For a mile or more the large, round, shapeless footprints--very much like his own, but on a bigger scale--were spaced so regularly that it was evident the cougar had been simply walking along at a very leisurely gait, with nothing to disturb his frame of mind. But after a while the record showed a remarkable change. The footprints were only a few inches apart, and his cougarship had carried himself so low that his body had dragged in the snow and left a deep furrow behind. The Kitten knew what that meant. He had been there himself, though not after the same kind of prey. And then the trail stopped entirely, and for a space the snow lay fresh and virgin and untrodden. But twenty feet away was the spot where the cougar had come down on all-fours, only to leap forward again like a ricochetting cannon-ball; and twenty-five feet farther lay the greater part of the carcass of a deer.

The Kitten stuffed himself as full as he could hold, and then climbed a tree and watched. About midnight the cougar appeared, and after he had eaten his fill and gone away again the Kitten slipped down and ate some more. He was making up for lost time. For four successive nights the cougar came and feasted on venison, but after that the Kitten never saw him or heard of him again. There was still a goodly quantity of meat left, and it seems somewhat curious that he did not return for it, but he was a stranger in those parts, and it is probable that he went back to his old haunts, up toward Whitefish Point, perhaps, or the Grand Sable. Anyhow, it was very nice for the Kitten, for that deer kept him in provisions until he was able to take up hunting once more.