Chapter III (3)

As he hung there pondering, held but a bare half-inch above drowning, the desperateness of the situation presented itself to him in appalling clearness. How sunny and warm and safe, to his woods-familiar eyes, looked the green forest world about him. No sound broke the mild tranquillity of the solitude, except, now and then, an elfish gurgle of the slow current, or the sweetly cheerful _tsic-a-dee-dee_ of an unseen chicadee, or, from the intense blue overhead, the abrupt, thin whistle of a soaring fish-hawk. To Barnes it all seemed such a safe, friendly world, his well-understood intimate since small boyhood. Yet here it was, apparently, turned smooth traitor at last, and about to destroy him as pitilessly as might the most scorching desert or blizzard-scourged ice-field. A silent rage burned suddenly through all his veins--which was well, since the cold of that spring-fed river had already begun to finger stealthily about his heart. A delicate little pale-blue butterfly, like a periwinkle-petal come to life, fluttered over Barnes's grim, upturned face, and went dancing gaily out across the shining water, joyous in the sun. In its dancing it chanced to dip a hair's-breadth too low. The treacherous, bright surface caught it, held it; and away it swept, struggling in helpless consternation against this unexpected doom. Before it passed out of Barnes's vision a great trout rose and gulped it down. Its swift fate, to Barnes's haggard eyes, seemed an analogue in little to his own.

But it was not in the woodsman's fibre to acknowledge himself actually beaten, either by man or fate, so long as there remained a spark in his brain to keep his will alive. He presently began searching with his eyes among the branches of the poplar sapling for one stout enough to serve him as a lever. With the right kind of a stick in his hand, he told himself, he might manage to pry apart the jaws of the trap and get his foot free. At last his choice settled upon a branch that he thought would serve his turn. He was just about to reach up and break it off, when a slight crackling in the underbrush across the stream caught his ear.

His woodsman's instinct kept him motionless as he turned his eyes to the spot. In the thick leafage there was a swaying, which moved down along the bank, but he could not see what was causing it. Softly he drew over a leafy branch of the sapling till it made him a perfect screen, then he peered up the channel to find out what the unseen wayfarer was following.

A huge salmon, battered and gashed from a vain struggle to leap the falls, was floating, belly-upward, down the current, close to Barnes's side of the stream. A gentle eddy caught it, and drew it into the pool. Sluggishly it came drifting down toward Barnes's hidden face. In the twigs of the poplar sapling it came to a halt, its great scarlet gills barely moving as the last of life flickered out of it.

Barnes now understood quite well that unseen commotion which had followed, along shore, the course of the dying salmon. It was no surprise to him whatever when he saw a huge black bear emerge upon the yellow sandspit and stand staring across the current. Apparently, it was staring straight at Barnes's face, upturned upon the surface of the water. But Barnes knew it was staring at the dead salmon. His heart jumped sickeningly with sudden hope, as an extravagant notion flashed into his brain. Here was his rescuer--a perilous one, to be sure--vouchsafed to him by some whim of the inscrutable forest-fates.

He drew down another branchy twig before his face, fearful lest his concealment should not be adequate. But in his excitement he disturbed his balance, and with the effort of his recovery the water swirled noticeably all about him. His heart sank. Assuredly, the bear would take alarm at this and be afraid to come for the fish.

But to his surprise the great beast, which had seemed to hesitate, plunged impetuously into the stream. Nothing, according to a bear's knowledge of life, could have made that sudden disturbance in the pool but some fish-loving otter or mink, intent upon seizing the booty. Indignant at the prospect of being forestalled by any such furtive marauder, the bear hurled himself forward with such force that the spray flew high into the branches, and the noise of his splashing was a clear notification that trespassers and meddlers had better keep off. That salmon was his, by right of discovery; and he was going to have it.

The bear, for all the seeming clumsiness of his bulk, was a redoubtable swimmer; and almost before Barnes had decided clearly on his proper course of action those heavy, grunting snorts and vast expulsions of breath were at his ear. Enormously loud they sounded, shot thus close along the surface of the water. Perforce, Barnes made up his mind on the instant.

The bunch of twigs which had arrested the progress of the floating salmon lay just about an arm's length from Barnes's face. Swimming high, his mighty shoulders thrusting up a wave before him which buried Barnes's head safely from view, the bear reached the salmon. Grabbing it triumphantly in his jaws, he turned to make for shore again.

This was Barnes's moment. Both arms shot out before him. Through the suffocating confusion his clutching fingers encountered the bear's haunches. Sinking into the long fur, they closed upon it with a grip of steel. Then, instinctively, Barnes shut his eyes and clenched his teeth, and waited for the shock, while his lungs felt as if they would burst in another moment.

But it was no long time he had to wait--perhaps two seconds, while amazement in the bear's brain translated itself through panic into action. Utterly horrified by this inexplicable attack, from the rear and from the depths, the bear threw himself shoulder high from the water, and hurled himself forward with all his strength. Barnes felt those tremendous haunches heaving irresistibly beneath his clutching fingers. He felt himself drawn out straight, and dragged ahead till he thought his ankle would snap. Almost he came to letting go, to save the ankle. But he held, on, as much with his will as with his grip. Then, the slimy thing in the depths gave way. He felt himself being jerked through the water--free. His fingers relaxed their clutch on the bear's fur--and he came to the surface, gasping, blinking, and coughing.

For a moment or two he paddled softly, recovering his breath and shaking the water from nostrils and eyes. He had an instant of apprehensiveness, lest the bear should turn upon him and attack him at a disadvantage; and by way of precaution he gave forth the most savage and piercing yell that his labouring lungs were capable of. But he saw at once that on this score he had nothing to fear. It was a well-frightened bear, there swimming frantically for the sandspit; while the dead salmon, quite forgotten, was drifting slowly away on the sullen current.

Barnes's foot was hurting fiercely, but his heart was light. Swimming at leisure, so as to just keep head against the stream, he watched the bear scuttle out upon the sand. Once safe on dry land, the great beast turned and glanced back with a timid air to see what manner of being it was that had so astoundingly assailed him. Man he had seen before--but never man swimming like an otter; and the sight was nothing to reassure him. One longing look he cast upon the salmon, now floating some distance away; but that, to his startled mind, was just a lure of this same terrifying and perfidious creature whose bright grey eyes were staring at him so steadily from the surface of the water. He turned quickly and made off into the woods, followed by a loud, daunting laugh which spurred his pace to a panicky gallop.

When he was gone, Barnes swam to the sandspit. There he wrung out his dripping clothes, and lay down in the hot sand to let the sun soak deep into his chilled veins.

The Nest of the Mallard

When the spring freshet went down, and the rushes sprang green all about the edges of the shallow, marshy lagoons, a pair of mallards took possession of a tiny, bushy island in the centre of the broadest pond. Moved by one of those inexplicable caprices which keep most of the wild kindreds from too perilous an enslavement to routine, this pair had been attracted by the vast, empty levels of marsh and mere, and had dropped out from the ranks of their northward-journeying comrades. Why should they beat on through the raw, blustering spring winds to Labrador, when here below them was such a nesting-place as they desired, with solitude and security and plenty. The flock went on, obeying an ancestral summons. With heads straight out before, and rigid, level necks--with web feet folded like fans and stretched straight out behind, rigid and level--they sped through the air on short, powerful, swift-beating wings at the rate of sixty or seventy miles an hour. Their flight, indeed, and their terrific speed were not unlike those of some strange missile. The pair who had dropped behind paid no heed to their going; and in two minutes they had faded out against the pale saffron morning sky.

These two were the only mallards in this whole wide expanse of grass and water. Other kinds of ducks there were, in plenty, but the mallards at this season kept to themselves. The little island which they selected for their peculiar domain was so small that no other mating couples intruded upon its privacy. It was only about ten feet across; but it bore a favourable thicket of osier-willow, and all around it the sedge and bulrush reared an impenetrable screen. Its highest point was about two feet above average water level; and on this highest point the mallard duck established her nest.

The nest was a mere shallow pile of dead leaves and twigs and dry sedges, scraped carelessly together. But the inside was not careless. It was a round smooth hollow, most softly lined with down from the duck's own breast. When the first pale, greenish-tinted egg was laid in the nest, there was only a little of this down; but the delicate and warm lining accumulated as the pale green eggs increased in number.

In the construction of the nest and the accumulation of the eggs no interest whatever was displayed by the splendid drake. He never, unless by chance, went near it. But as a lover the lordly fellow was most gallant and ardent. While his mate was on the nest laying, he was usually to be seen floating on the open mere beyond the reed-fringe, pruning his plumage in the cold pink rays of the first of the sunrise.

It was plumage well worth pruning, this of his, and fully justified his pride in it. The shining, silken, iridescent dark green of the head and neck; the snowy, sharply defined, narrow collar of white, dividing the green of the neck from the brownish ash of the back and the gorgeous chestnut of the breast; the delicate pure grey of the belly finely pencilled with black lines; the rich, glossy purple of the broad wing-bars shot with green reflections; the jaunty, recurved black feathers of the tail; the smart, citron-yellow of the bill and feet;--all these charms were ample excuse for his coxcombry and continual posings. They were ample excuse, too, for the admiration bestowed upon him by his mottled brown mate, whose colours were obviously designed not for show but for concealment. When sitting on her nest, she was practically indistinguishable from the twigs and dead leaves that surrounded her.

Having laid her egg, the brown duck would cover the precious contents of the nest with twigs and leaves, that they might not be betrayed by their conspicuous colour. Then she would steal, silently as a shadow, through the willow stems to the water's edge, and paddle cautiously out through the rushes to the open water. On reaching her mate all this caution would be laid aside, and the two would set up an animated and confidential quacking. They would sometimes sail around each other slowly in circles, with much arching of necks and quaint stiff bowing of heads; and sometimes they would chase each other in scurrying, napping rushes along the bright surface of the water. Both before and after these gay exercises they would feed quietly in the shallows, pulling up water-weed sprouts and tender roots, or sifting insects and little shellfish from the mud by means of the sensitive tips and guttered edges of their bills. The mallard pair had few enemies to dread, their island being so far from shore that no four-footed marauder, not even the semi-amphibious mink himself, ever visited it. And the region was one too remote for the visits of the pot-hunter. In fact, there was only one foe against whom it behoved them to be on ceaseless guard. This was that bloodthirsty and tireless slayer, the goshawk, or great grey henhawk. Where that grim peril was concerned, the brown duck would take no risks. For the sake of those eggs among the willow stems, she held her life very dear, never flying more than a short circle around the island to stretch her wings, never swimming or feeding any distance from the safe covert of the rushes.

But with the glowing drake it was different. High spirited, bold for all his wariness, and magnificently strong of wing, from sheer restlessness he occasionally flew high above the ponds. And one day, when some distance from home, the great hawk saw him and swooped down upon him from aërial heights.

The impending doom caught the drake's eye in time for him to avoid the stroke of that irresistible descent. His short wings, with their muscles of steel, winnowed the air with sudden, tremendous force, and he shot ahead at a speed which must have reached the rate of a hundred miles an hour. When the swooping hawk had rushed down to his level, he was nearly fifty yards in the lead.

In such a case most of the larger hawks would have given up the chase, and soared again to abide the chance for a more fortunate swoop. But not so the implacable goshawk. His great pinions were capable not only of soaring and sailing and swooping, but of the rapid and violent flapping of the short-winged birds; and he had at his command a speed even greater than that of the rushing fugitive. As he pursued, his wings tore the air with a strident, hissing noise; and the speed of the drake seemed as nothing before that savage, inescapable onrush. Had the drake been above open water, he would have hurled himself straight downward, and seized the one chance of escape by diving; but beneath him at this moment there was nothing but naked swamp and sloppy flats. In less than two minutes the hiss of the pursuing wings was close behind him. He gave a hoarse squawk, as he realized that doom had overtaken him. Then one set of piercing talons clutched his outstretched neck, cutting clean through his wind-pipe; and another set bit deep into the glossy chestnut of his breast.

For several days the widowed duck kept calling loudly up and down the edges of the reeds--but at a safe distance from the nest. When she went to lay, she stayed ever longer and longer on the eggs, brooding them. Three more eggs she laid after the disappearance of her mate, and then, having nine in the nest, she began to sit; and the open water beyond the reed fringes saw her no more.

At first she would slip off the nest for a few minutes every day, very stealthily, to feed and stretch and take a noiseless dip in the shallow water among the reeds; but as time went on she left the eggs only once in two days. Twice a day she would turn the eggs over carefully, and at the same time change their respective positions in the nest, so that those which had been for some hours in the centre, close to her hot and almost naked breast, might take their turn in the cooler space just under her wings. By this means each egg got its fair share of heat, properly distributed, and the little life taking shape within escaped the distortion which might have been caused by lying too long in one position. Whenever the wary brown mother left the nest, she covered the eggs with down, now, which kept the warmth in better than leaves could. And whenever she came back from her brief swim, her dripping feathers supplied the eggs with needed moisture.

It is a general law that the older an egg is the longer it takes to hatch. The eggs of the mallard mother, of course, varied in age from fifteen days to one before she began to sit. This being the case, at the end of the long month of incubation they would have hatched at intervals covering in all, perhaps, a full day and a half; and complications would have arisen. But the wise mother had counteracted the working of the law by sitting a little while every day. Therefore, as a matter of fact, the older eggs got the larger share of the brooding, in exact proportion; and the building of the little lives within the shells went on with almost perfect uniformity.

During the long, silent month of her patient brooding, spring had wandered away and summer had spread thick green and yellow lily blooms all over the lonely meres. A bland but heavy heat came down through the willow tops, so that the brown duck sometimes panted at her task, and sat with open bill, or with wings half raised from the eggs. Then, one night, she heard faint tappings and peepings beneath her. Sturdy young bills began chipping at the inside of the shells, speedily breaking them. Each duckling, as he chipped the shell just before the tip of his beak, would turn a little way around in his narrow quarters; till presently the shell would fall apart, neatly divided into halves; and the wet duckling, tumbling forth, would snuggle up against the mother's hot breast and thighs to dry. Whenever this happened, the wise mother would reach her head beneath, and fit the two halves of shell one within the other, or else thrust them out of the nest entirely, lest they should get slipped over another egg and smother the occupant. Sometimes she fitted several sets of the empty shells together, that they might take up less room; and altogether she showed that she perfectly understood her business. Then, late in the morning, when the green world among the willows and rushes was still and warm and sweet, she led her fluffy, sturdy brood straight down to the water, and taught them to feed on the insects that clung to the bulrush stalks.

Mrs. Gammit and the Porcupines

"I hain't come to borry yer gun, Mr. Barron, but to ax yer advice."

Mrs. Gammit's rare appearances were always abrupt, like her speech; and it was without surprise--though he had not seen her for a month or more--that Joe Barron turned to greet her.

"It's at yer sarvice, jest as the gun would be ef ye wanted it, Mrs. Gammit--_an'_ welcome! But come in an' set down an' git cooled off a mite. 'Tain't no place to talk, out here in the bilin' sun."

Mrs. Gammit seated herself on the end of the bench, just inside the kitchen door, twitched off her limp, pink cotton sunbonnet, and wiped her flushed face with the sleeve of her calico waist. Quite unsubdued by the heat and moisture of the noonday sun, under which she had tramped nine miles through the forest, her short, stiff, grey hair stood up in irregular tufts above her weather-beaten forehead. Her host, sitting sidewise on the edge of the table so that he could swing one leg freely and spit cleanly through the open window, bit off a contemplative quid of "blackjack" tobacco, and waited for her to unfold the problems that troubled her.

Mrs. Gammit's rugged features were modelled to fit an expression of vigorous, if not belligerent, self-confidence. She knew her capabilities, well-tried in some sixty odd years of unprotected spinsterhood. Merit alone, not matrimony, it was, that had crowned this unsullied spinsterhood with the honorary title of "Mrs." Her massive and energetic nose was usually carried somewhat high, in a not unjustifiable scorn of such foolish circumstance as might seek to thwart her will.

But to-day these strenuous features found themselves surprised by an expression of doubt, of bewilderment, almost one might say of humility. At her little clearing in the heart of the great wilderness things had been happening which, to her amazement, she could not understand. Hitherto she had found an explanation, clear at least to herself, for everything that befell her in these silent backwoods which other folks seemed to find so absurdly mysterious. Armed with her self-confidence she had been able, hitherto, to deal with every situation that had challenged her, and in a manner quite satisfactory to herself, however the eternal verities may have smiled at it. But now, at last, she was finding herself baffled.

Joe Barron waited with the patience of the backwoodsman and the Indian, to whom, as to Nature herself, time seems no object, though they always somehow manage to be on time. Mrs. Gammit continued to fan her hot face with her sunbonnet, and to ponder her problems, while the lines deepened between her eyes. A big black and yellow wasp buzzed angrily against the window-pane, bewildered because it could not get through the transparent barrier. A little grey hen, with large, drooping comb vividly scarlet, hopped on to the doorsill, eyed Mrs. Gammit with surprise and disapprobation, and ran away to warn the rest of the flock that there was a woman round the place. That, as they all knew by inheritance from the "shooings" which their forefathers had suffered, meant that they would no longer be allowed in the kitchen to pick up crumbs.

At last Mrs. Gammit spoke--but with difficulty, for it came hard to her to ask advice of any one.

"I sp'ose now, mebbe, Mr. Barron, you know more about the woods critters'n what I do?" she inquired, hopefully but doubtfully.

The woodsman lifted his eyebrows in some surprise at the question.

"Well, now, if I don't I'd _oughter_," said he, "seein' as how I've kinder lived round amongst 'em all my life. If I know _anything_, it's the backwoods an' all what pertains to that same!"

"Yes, you'd _oughter_ know more about them than I do!" assented Mrs. Gammit, with a touch of severity which seemed to add "and see that you do!" Then she shut her mouth firmly and fell to fanning herself again, her thoughts apparently far away.

"I hope 'tain't no _serious_ trouble ye're in!" ventured her host presently, with the amiable intention of helping her to deliver her soul of its burden.

But, manlike, he struck the wrong note.

"Do you suppose," snapped Mrs. Gammit, "I'd be traipsin' over here nine mile thro' the hot woods to ax yer advice, Mr. Barron, if _'twarn't_ serious?" And she began to regret that she had come. Men never did understand anything, anyway.

At this sudden acerbity the woodsman stroked his chin with his hand, to hide the ghost of a smile which flickered over his lean mouth.

"Jest like a woman, to git riled over nawthin'!" he thought. "Sounds kinder nice an' homey, too!" But aloud, being always patient with the sex, he said coaxingly--

"Then it's right proud I am that ye should come to me about it, Mrs. Gammit. I reckon I kin help you out, mebbe. What's wrong?"

With a burst of relief Mrs. Gammit declared her sorrow.

"It's the aigs," said she, passionately. "Fer nigh on to a month, now, I've been alosin' of 'em as fast as the hens kin git 'em laid. An' all I kin do, I cain't find out what's atakin' 'em."

Having reached the point of asking advice, an expression of pathetic hopefulness came into her weather-beaten face. Under quite other conditions it might almost have been possible for Mrs. Gammit to learn to lean on a man, if he were careful not to disagree with her.

"Oh! Aigs!" said the woodsman, relaxing slightly the tension of his sympathy. "Well, now, let's try an' git right to the root of the trouble. Air ye plumb sure, in the first place, that the hens is really _layin'_ them aigs what ye don't git?"

Mrs. Gammit stiffened.

"Do I look like an eejut?" she demanded.

"Not one leetle mite, you don't!" assented her host, promptly and cordially.

"I was beginning to think mebbe I did!" persisted the injured lady.

"Everybody knows," protested the woodsman, "as how what you don't know, Mrs. Gammit, ain't hardly wuth knowin'."

"O' course, that's puttin' it a leetle too strong, Mr. Barron," she answered, much mollified. "But I do reckon as how I've got _some_ horse sense. Well, I _thought_ as how them 'ere hens _might_ 'ave stopped layin' on the suddint; so I up an' watched 'em. Land's sakes, but they was alayin' fine. Whenever I kin take time to stan' right by an' _watch_ 'em lay, I git all the aigs I know what to do with. But when I _don't_ watch 'em, _clost_--nary an aig. Ye ain't agoin' to persuade me a hen kin jest quit layin' when she's a mind ter, waitin' tell ye pass her the compliment o' holdin' out yer hand fer the aig!"

"There's lots o' hens that pervarted they'll turn round an' _eat_ their own aigs!" suggested the woodsman, spitting thoughtfully through the open window. The cat, coiled in the sun on a log outside, sprang up angrily, glared with green eyes at the offending window, and scurried away to cleanse her defiled coat.

"Them's not _my_ poultry!" said Mrs. Gammit with decision. "I thought o' that, too. An' I watched 'em on the sly. But they hain't a one of 'em got no sech onnateral tricks. When they're through layin', they jest hop off an' run away acacklin', as they should." And she shook her head heavily, as one almost despairing of enlightenment. "No, ef ye ain't got no more idees to suggest than that, I might as well be goin'."

"Oh, I was jest kinder clearin' out the underbrush, so's to git a square good look at the situation," explained Barron. "Now, I kin till ye somethin' about it. Firstly, it's a weasel, bein' so sly, an' quick, an' audashus! Ten to one, it's a weasel; an' ye've got to trap it. Secondly, if 'tain't a weasel, it's a fox, an' a _mighty_ cute fox, as ye're goin' to have some trouble in aketchin'. An' thirdly--an' lastly--if 'tain't neither weasel nor fox, it's jest bound to be an extra cunnin' skunk, what's takin' the trouble to be keerful. Generally speakin', skunks ain't keerful, because they don't have to be, nobody wantin' much to fool with 'em. But onc't in a while ye'll come across't one that's as sly as a weasel."

"Oh, 'tain't none o' them!" said Mrs. Gammit, in a tone which conveyed a poor opinion of her host's sagacity and woodcraft. "I've suspicioned the weasels, an' the foxes, an' the woodchucks, but hain't found a sign o' any one of 'em round the place. An' _as_ fer _skunks_--well, I reckon, I've got a nose on my face." And to emphasize the fact, she sniffed scornfully.

"To be sure! An' a fine, handsome nose it is, Mrs. Gammit!" replied the woodsman, diplomatically. "But what you _don't_ appear to know about skunks is that when they're up to mischief is jest the time when you don't smell 'em. Ye got to bear that in mind!"

Mrs. Gammit looked at him with suspicion.

"Be that reelly so?" demanded she, sternly.

"True's gospel!" answered Barron. "A skunk ain't got no smell unless he's a mind to."

"Well," said she, "I guess it ain't no skunk, anyhow. I kind o' feel it in my bones 'tain't no skunk, smell or no smell."

The woodsman looked puzzled. He had not imagined her capable of such unreasoning obstinacy. He began to wonder if he had overrated her intelligence.

"Then I give it up, Mrs. Gammit," said he, with an air of having lost all interest in the problem.

But that did not suit his visitor at all. Her manner became more conciliatory. Leaning forward, with an almost coaxing look on her face, she murmured--

"I've had an _idee_ as how it _might_ be--mind, I don't say it is, but jest it _might_ be----" and she paused dramatically.

"Might be what?" inquired Barron, with reviving interest.

"Porkypines!" propounded Mrs. Gammit, with a sudden smile of triumph.

Joe Barron neither spoke nor smiled. But in his silence there was something that made Mrs. Gammit uneasy.

"Why _not_ porkypines?" she demanded, her face once more growing severe.

"It _might_ be porkypines as took them aigs o' yourn, Mrs. Gammit, an' it _might be bumbly-bees_!" responded Barron. "But 'tain't likely!"

Mrs. Gammit snorted at the sarcasm.

"Mebbe," she sneered, "ye kin tell me _why_ it's so impossible it could be porkypines. I seen a big porkypine back o' the barn, only yestiddy. An' that's more'n kin be said o' yer weasels, an' foxes, an' skunks, what ye're so sure about, Mr. Barron."

"A porkypine ain't necess_ar_ily after aigs jest because he's back of a barn," said the woodsman. "An' anyways, a porkypine don't eat aigs. He hain't got the right kind o' teeth fer them kind o' vittles. He's _got_ to have something he kin gnaw on, somethin' substantial an' solid--the which he prefers a young branch o' good tough spruce, though it _do_ make his meat kinder strong. No, Mrs. Gammit, it ain't no porkypine what's stealin' yer aigs, take my word fer it. An' the more I think o' it the surer I be that it's a weasel. When a weasel learns to suck aigs, he gits powerful cute. Ye'll have to be right smart, I'm telling ye, to trap him."

During this argument of Barron's his obstinate and offended listener had become quite convinced of the justice of her own conclusions. The sarcasm had settled it. She _knew_, now, that she had been right all along in her suspicion of the porcupines. And with this certainty her indignation suddenly disappeared. It is _such_ a comfort to be certain. So now, instead of flinging his ignorance in his face, she pretended to be convinced--remembering that she needed his advice as to how to trap the presumptuous porcupine.

"Well, Mr. Barron," said she, with the air of one who would take defeat gracefully, "supposin' ye're right--an' ye'd _oughter_ know--how would ye go about _ketchin'_ them weasels?"

Pleased at this sudden return to sweet reasonableness, the woodsman once more grew interested.

"I reckon we kin fix _that_!" said he, confidently and cordially. "I'll give ye three of my little mink traps. There's holes, I reckon, under the back an' sides o' the shed, or barn, or wherever it is that the hens have their nests?"

"Nat'rally!" responded Mrs. Gammit. "The thieves ain't agoin' to come in by the front doors, right under my nose, be they?"

"Of course," assented the woodsman. "Well, you jest set them 'ere traps in three o' them holes, well under the sills an' out o' the way. Don't go fer to bait'em, mind, or Mr. Weasel'll git to suspicionin' somethin', right off. Jest sprinkle bits of straw, an' hayseed, an' sech rubbish over 'em, so it all looks no ways out o' the ordinary. You do this right, Mrs. Gammit; an' first thing ye know ye'll have yer thief. I'll git the traps right now, an' show ye how to set 'em."

And as Mrs. Gammit walked away with the three steel traps under her arm, she muttered to herself--

"Yes, Joe Barron, an' I'll show ye the thief. An' he'll have quills on him, sech as no _weasel_ ain't never had on him, I reckon."

On her return, Mrs. Gammit was greeted by the sound of high excitement among the poultry. They were all cackling wildly, and craning their necks to stare into the shed as if they had just seen a ghost there. Mrs. Gammit ran in to discover what all the fuss was about. The place was empty; but a smashed egg lay just outside one of the nests, and a generous tuft of fresh feathers showed her that there had been a tussle of some kind. Indignant but curious, Mrs. Gammit picked up the feathers, and examined them with discriminating eyes to see which hen had suffered the loss.

"Lands sakes!" she exclaimed presently, "ef 'tain't the old rooster! He's made a fight fer that 'ere aig! Lucky he didn't git stuck full o' quills!"

Then, for perhaps the hundredth time, she ran fiercely and noisily behind the barn, in the hope of surprising the enemy. Of course she surprised nothing which Nature had endowed with even the merest apology for eyes and ears; and a cat-bird in the choke-cherry bushes squawked at her derisively. Stealth was one of the things which Mrs. Gammit did not easily achieve. Staring defiantly about her, her eyes fell upon a dark, bunchy creature in the top of an old hemlock at the other side of the fence. Seemingly quite indifferent to her vehement existence, and engrossed in its own affairs, it was crawling out upon a high branch and gnawing, in a casual way, at the young twigs as it went.

"Ah, ha! What did I tell ye? I knowed all along as how it was a porkypine!" exclaimed Mrs. Gammit, triumphantly, as if Joe Barron could hear her across eight miles of woods. Then, as she eyed the imperturbable animal on the limb above her, her face flushed with quick rage, and snatching up a stone about the size of her fist she hurled it at him with all her strength.

In a calmer moment she would never have done this--not because it was rude, but because she had a conviction, based on her own experience, that a stone would hit anything rather than what it was aimed at. And in the present instance she found no reason to change her views on the subject. The stone did not hit the porcupine. It did not, even for one moment, distract his attention from the hemlock twigs. Instead of that, it struck a low branch, on the other side of the tree, and bounced back briskly upon Mrs. Gammit's toes.

With a hoarse squeak of surprise and pain the good lady jumped backwards, and hopped for some seconds on one foot while she gripped the other with both hands. It was a sharp and disconcerting blow. As the pain subsided a concentrated fury took its place. The porcupine was now staring down at her, in mild wonder at her inexplicable gyrations. She glared up at him, and the tufts of grey hair about her sunbonnet seemed to rise and stand rigid.

"Ye think ye're smart!" she muttered through her set teeth. "But I'll fix ye fer that! Jest you wait!" And turning on her heel she stalked back to the house. The big, brown teapot was on the back of the stove, where it had stood since breakfast, with a brew rust-red and bitter-strong enough to tan a moose-hide. Not until she had reheated it and consumed five cups, sweetened with molasses, did she recover any measure of self-complacency.

That same evening, when the last of the sunset was fading in pale violet over the stump pasture and her two cow-bells were _tonk-tonking_ softly along the edge of the dim alder swamp, Mrs. Gammit stealthily placed the traps according to the woodsman's directions. Between the massive logs which formed the foundations of the barn and shed, there were openings numerous enough, and some of them spacious enough, almost, to admit a bear--a very small, emaciated bear. Selecting three of these, which somehow seemed to her fancy particularly adapted to catch a porcupine's taste, she set the traps, tied them, and covered them lightly with fine rubbish so that, as she murmured to herself when all was done, "everythin' looked as nat'ral as nawthin'." Then, when her evening chores were finished, she betook herself to her slumbers, in calm confidence that in the morning she would find one or more porcupines in the trap.

Having a clear conscience and a fine appetite, in spite of the potency of her tea Mrs. Gammit slept soundly. Nevertheless, along toward dawn, in that hour when dream and fact confuse themselves, her nightcapped ears became aware of a strange sound in the yard. She snorted impatiently and sat up in bed. Could some beneficent creature of the night be out there sawing wood for her? It sounded like it. But she rejected the idea at once. Rubbing her eyes with both fists, she crept to the window and looked out.

There was a round moon in the sky, shining over the roof of the barn, and the yard was full of a white, witchy radiance. In the middle of it crouched two big porcupines, gnawing assiduously at a small wooden tub. The noise of their busy teeth on the hard wood rang loud upon the stillness, and a low _tonk-a-tonk_ of cow-bells came from the pasture as the cows lifted their heads to listen.

The tub was a perfectly good tub, and Mrs. Gammit was indignant at seeing it eaten. It had contained salt herrings; and she intended, after getting the flavour of fish scoured out of it, to use it for packing her winter's butter. She did not know that it was for the sake of its salty flavour that the porcupines were gnawing at it, but leaped to the conclusion that their sole object was to annoy and persecute herself.

"Shoo! Shoo!" she cried, snatching off her nightcap and flapping it at them frantically. But the animals were too busy to even look up at her. The only sign they gave of having heard her was to raise their quills straight on end so that their size apparently doubled itself all at once.

Mrs. Gammit felt herself wronged. As she turned and ran downstairs she muttered, "First it's me aigs--an' now it's me little tub--an' Lordy knows what it's goin' to be next!" Then her dauntless spirit flamed up again, and she snapped, "But there ain't agoin' to be no next!" and cast her eyes about her for the broom.

Of course, at this moment, when it was most needed, that usually exemplary article was not where it ought to have been--standing beside the dresser. Having no time to look for it, Mrs. Gammit snatched up the potato-masher, and rushed forth into the moonlight with a gurgling yell, resolved to save the tub.

She was a formidable figure as she charged down the yard, and at ordinary times the porcupines might have given way. But when a porcupine has found something it really likes to eat, its courage is superb. These two porcupines found the herring-tub delicious beyond anything they had ever tasted. Reluctantly they stopped gnawing for a moment, and turned their little twinkling eyes upon Mrs. Gammit in sullen defiance.

Now this was by no means what she had expected, and the ferocity of her attack slackened. Had it been a lynx, or even a bear, her courage would probably not have failed her. Had it been a man, a desperado with knife in hand and murder in his eyes, she would have flown upon him in contemptuous fury. But porcupines were different. They were mysterious to her. She believed firmly that they could shoot their quills, like arrows, to a distance of ten feet. She had a swift vision of herself stuck full of quills, like a pincushion. At a distance of eleven feet she stopped abruptly, and hurled the potato-masher with a deadly energy which carried it clean over the barn. Then the porcupines resumed their feasting, while she stared at them helplessly. Two large tears of rage brimmed her eyes, and rolled down her battered cheeks; and backing off a few paces she sat down upon the saw-horse to consider the situation.

But never would Mrs. Gammit have been what she was had she been capable of acknowledging defeat. In a very few moments her resourceful wits reasserted themselves.

"Queer!" she mused. "One don't never kinder seem to hit what one aims at! But one always hits _somethin'_! Leastways, I do! If I jest fling enough things, an' keep on aflingin', I might hit a porkypine jest as well as anything else. There ain't nawthin' onnateral about a porkypine, to keep one from hitt'n' him, I reckon."

The wood-pile was close by; and the wood, which she had sawed and split for the kitchen stove, was of just the handy size. She was careful, now, not to take aim, but imagined herself anxious to establish a new wood-pile, in haste, just about where that sound of insolent gnawing was disturbing the night. In a moment a shower of sizable firewood was dropping all about the herring-tub.

The effect was instantaneous. The gnawing stopped, and the porcupines glanced about uneasily. A stick fell plump upon the bottom of the tub, staving it in. The porcupines backed away and eyed it with grieved suspicion. Another stick struck it on the side, so that it bounced like a jumping, live thing, and hit one of the porcupines sharply, rolling him over on his back. Instantly his valiant quills went down quite flat; and as he wriggled to his feet with a squeak of alarm, he looked all at once little and lean and dark, like a wet hen. Mrs. Gammit smiled grimly.

"Ye ain't feelin' quite so sassy now, be ye?" she muttered; and the sticks flew the faster from her energetic hands. Not many of them, to be sure, went at all in the direction she wished, but enough were dropping about the herring-tub to make the porcupines remember that they had business elsewhere. The one that had been struck had no longer any regard for his dignity, but made himself as small as possible and scurried off like a scared rat. The other, unvanquished but indignant, withdrew slowly, with every quill on end. The sticks fell all about him; but Mrs. Gammit, in the excitement of her triumph, was now forgetting herself so far as to take aim, therefore never a missile touched him. And presently, without haste, he disappeared behind the barn.

With something almost like admiration Mrs. Gammit eyed his departure.

"Well, seein' as I hain't scairt ye _much_," she muttered dryly, "mebbe ye'll obleege me by coming back an' gittin' into my trap. But ye ain't agoin' to hev no more o' my good herrin'-tub, ye ain't." And she strode down the yard to get the tub. It was no longer a good tub, for the porcupines had gnawed two big holes in the sides, and Mrs. Gammit's own missiles had broken in the bottom. But she obstinately bore the poor relics into the kitchen. Firewood they might become, but not food for the enemy.

No more that night was the good woman's sleep disturbed, and she slept later than usual. As she was getting up, conscience-stricken at the sound of the cows in the pasture lowing to be milked, she heard a squawking and fluttering under the barn, and rushed out half dressed to see what was the matter. She had no doubt that one of the audacious porcupines had got himself into a trap.

But no, it was neither porcupine, fox, nor weasel. To her consternation, it was her old red top-knot hen, which now lay flat upon the trap, with outstretched wings, exhausted by its convulsive floppings. She picked it up, loosed the deadly grip upon its leg, and slammed the offending trap across the barn with such violence that it bounced up and fell into the swill-barrel. Her feelings thus a little relieved, she examined Red Top-knot's leg with care. It was hopelessly shattered and mangled.

"Ye cain't never scratch with _that_ ag'in, ye cain't!" muttered Mrs. Gammit, compassionately. "Poor dear, ther ain't nawthin' fer it but to make vittles of ye now! Too bad! Too bad! Ye was always sech a fine layer an' a right smart setter!" And carrying the victim to the block on which she was wont to split kindling wood, she gently but firmly chopped her head off.

Half an hour later, as Mrs. Gammit returned from the pasture with a brimming pail of milk, again she heard a commotion under the barn. But she would not hurry, lest she should spill the milk. "Whatever it be, it'll be there when I git there!" she muttered philosophically; and kept on to the cool cellar with her milk. But as soon as she had deposited the pail she turned and fairly ran in her eagerness. The speckled hen was cackling vain-gloriously; and as Mrs. Gammit passed the row of nests in the shed she saw a white egg shining. But she did not stop to secure it.

As she entered the barn, a little yellowish brown animal, with a sharp, triangular nose and savage eyes like drops of fire, ran at her with such fury that for an instant she drew back. Then, with a roar of indignation at its audacity, she rushed forward and kicked at it. The kick struck empty air; but the substantial dimensions of the foot seemed to daunt the daring little beast, and it slipped away like a darting flame beneath the sill of the barn. The next moment, as she stooped to look at the nearest of the two traps, another slim yellow creature, larger than the first, leaped up, with a vicious cry, and almost reached her face. But, fortunately for her, it was held fast by both hind legs in the trap, and fell back impotent.

Startled and enraged, Mrs. Gammit kicked at it, where it lay darting and twisting like a snake. Naturally, she missed it; but it did not miss her. With unerring aim it caught the toe of her heavy cowhide shoe, and fixed its teeth in the tough leather. Utterly taken by surprise, Mrs. Gammit tried to jump backwards. But instead of that, she fell flat on her back, with a yell. Her sturdy heels flew up in the air, while her petticoats flopped back in her face, bewildering her. The weasel, however, had maintained his dogged grip upon the toe of her shoe; so something _had_ to give. That something was the cord which anchored the trap. It broke under the sudden strain. Trap and weasel together went flying over Mrs. Gammit's prostrate head. They brought up with a stupefying slam against the wall of the pig-pen, making the pig squeal apprehensively.

Disconcerted and mortified, Mrs. Gammit scrambled to her feet, shook her petticoats into shape, and glanced about to see if the wilderness in general had observed her indiscretion. Apparently, nothing had noticed it. Then, with an air of relief, she glanced down at her vicious little antagonist. The weasel lay stunned, apparently dead. But she was not going to trust appearances. Picking trap and victim up together, on the end of a pitchfork, she carried them out and dropped them into the barrel of rain water at the corner of the house. Half-revived by the shock, the yellow body wriggled for a moment or two at the bottom of the barrel. As she watched it, a doubt passed through Mrs. Gammit's mind. Could Joe Barron have been right? _Was_ it weasels, after all, that were taking her eggs? But she dismissed the idea at once. Joe Barron didn't know everything! And there, indisputably, were the porcupines, bothering her all the time, with unheard-of impudence. Weasels, indeed!

"'Twa'n't _you_ I was after," she muttered obstinately, apostrophizing the now motionless form in the rain-barrel. "It was them dratted porkypines, as comes after my aigs. But _ye're_ a bad lot, too, an' I'm right glad to have got ye where ye won't be up to no mischief."

All athrill with excitement, Mrs. Gammit hurried through her morning's chores, and allowed herself no breakfast except half a dozen violent cups of tea "with sweetenin'." Then, satisfied that the weasel in the rain-barrel was by this time securely and permanently dead, she fished it out, and reset the trap in its place under the barn. The other trap she discovered in the swill-barrel, after a long search. Relieved to find it unbroken, she cleaned it carefully and put it away to be returned, in due time, to its owner. She would not set it again--and, indeed, she would have liked to smash it to bits, as a sacrifice to the memory of poor Red Top-knot.

"I hain't got no manner o' use fer a porkypine trap what'll go out o' its way to ketch hens," she grumbled.

The silent summer forenoon, after this, wore away without event. Mrs. Gammit, working in her garden behind the house, with the hot, sweet scent of the flowering buckwheat-field in her nostrils and the drowsy hum of bees in her ears, would throw down her hoe about once in every half-hour and run into the barn to look hopefully at the traps. But nothing came to disturb them. Neither did anything come to disturb the hens, who attended so well to business that at noon Mrs. Gammit had seven fresh eggs to carry in. When night came, and neither weasels nor porcupines had given any further sign of their existence, Mrs. Gammit was puzzled. She was one of those impetuous women who expect everything to happen all at once. When milking was over, and her solitary, congenial supper, she sat down on the kitchen doorstep and considered the situation very carefully.

What she had set herself out to do, after the interview with Joe Barron, was to catch a porcupine in one of his traps, and thus, according to her peculiar method of reasoning, convince the confident woodsman that porcupines _did_ eat eggs! As for the episode of the weasel, she resolved that she would not say anything to him about it, lest he should twist it into a confirmation of his own views. As for those seven eggs, so happily spared to her, she argued that the capture of the weasel, with all its attendant excitement, had served as a warning to the porcupines and put them on their guard. Well, she would give them something else to think about. She was now all impatience, and felt unwilling to await the developments of the morrow, which, after all, might refuse to develop! With a sudden resolution she arose, fetched the gnawed and battered remains of the herring-tub from their concealment behind the kitchen door, and propped them up against the side of the house, directly beneath her bedroom window.

At first her purpose in this was not quite clear to herself. But the memory of her triumph of the previous night was tingling in her veins, and she only knew she wanted to lure the porcupines back, that she might do _something_ to them. And first, being a woman, that something occurred to her in connexion with hot water. How conclusive it would be to wait till the porcupines were absorbed in their consumption of the herring-tub, and then pour scalding water down upon them. After all, it was more important that she should vanquish her enemies than prove to a mere man that they really were her enemies. What did she care, anyway, what that Joe Barron thought? Then, once more, a doubt assailed her. What if he were right? Not that she would admit it, for one moment. But just supposing! Was she going to pour hot water on those porcupines, and scald all the bristles off their backs, if they really _didn't_ come after her eggs? Mrs. Gammit was essentially just and kind-hearted, and she came to the conclusion that the scheme might be too cruel.

"Ef it be you uns as takes the aigs," she murmured thoughtfully, "a kittle o' bilin' water to yer backs ain't none too bad fer ye! But ef it be _only_ my old herrin'-tub ye're after, then bilin' water's too ha'sh!"

In the end, the weapon she decided upon was the big tin pepper-pot, well loaded.