Chapter III (1)

When he reached the deep sea once more, and regained his appetite among the sweeping tides, he once more began to grow. His fins became smaller in proportion to his bulk, and he was no longer a grilse, but a salmon. His life, however, underwent no great change; his adventures, perils, interests, appetites, were all much the same as during his first season in the sea. Only he now swam with a certain majesty, ignoring the grilse and smaller salmon who swam and fed beside him; for he was of splendid, constantly growing stature, of the lords of his kind.

This time he let nearly the whole round of the year go by, feeding at leisure and lazily dodging the seals, among the icy but populous tides that swung beyond the mouth of Hudson Straits. Then, late the following winter, long before the dark earth had any word of spring, spring stirred secretly in his veins, and he remembered the sunny gravel bars of the Great South Branch. The sudden urge of his desire turned him about, and he began to swim tirelessly southward, companioned by an ardent, silvery host into whose veins at the same time the same compelling summons had been flashed.

It was late May when the returning salmon, having successfully eluded the snares of the nets and the assaults of harbour seal and dogfish, came again to the mouth of his native river and fanned his gills once more in its sweet, amber current. He was now a good forty pounds in weight, and his clean blue-and-silver body was adorned with fine markings of extraordinary brilliancy. His vigorous, wholesome, seasoned muscles propelled him irresistibly against the current of the river, which was now fierce with freshet; and being urged by a stronger and more insistent desire than that which had swayed him on his former visit, as a grilse, he now made more haste in his journeying, with briefer halts in the pools. The pools, at this season, were some of them indistinguishable in the flood, and others turbulent and difficult of access, so the fly-fishermen were not yet out in force. Only once, in the great pool below the Quahdavic mouth, did he see the bright fly whose treacherous lure he knew so well go dancing over his head. He rose lazily and slapped it with his tail in angry contempt, then returned to the bottom of the pool and watched it lazily, while for nearly an hour it went through its futile antics. Then it vanished suddenly.

Perhaps ten minutes after the gaudy fly had disappeared, the big salmon saw a brown furry shape, more like a very young squirrel than anything else, go floating down the current. Other salmon, who, like himself, had ignored the fly, observed this furry shape with interest, and half started to investigate. But when the big salmon rose to it they turned away with resignation. As for him, though he had not been once really hungry since entering the fresh water, he felt that that strange object was the very thing he wanted. Gliding up to the surface on a long slant, very slowly, he opened his great jaws just below the object, sucked it in, and with a heavy splash turned back toward the bottom. The next instant there was a jerk, a prick, a fierce tug at his jaw which swerved him from his course; and he realized that he had been fooled. The furry shape was but the old treason of the fly in another form.

His first impulse was to rush madly across the pool in an effort to escape the small tormentor. But memory and experience, added to that native cunning which had brought him safely through so many perils, now came to his rescue. Instead of rushing to the surface and performing wild feats which would have soon worn him out while delighting the soul of his enemy, he turned resolutely back to his course and bored his way to the bottom against the exasperating pressure of rod and reel. Here he set himself to nosing vigorously among the stones, in the hope of rubbing off this troublesome thing on his jaw. The thing tugged, and tugged, and pricked, and worried, as the fisherman at the other end of the line strove to rouse him into a lively and spectacular struggle. But for some minutes he refused to be diverted from his nosing among the stones, till the fisherman began to fear that the hook had got fast to a log.

Presently, however, the great salmon decided to change his tactics. Though he did not know it, he had already loosened the hook appreciably, tearing the cartilage of his jaw. Now, having craftily eyed for some seconds the fine, taut, almost invisible line of gut as it slanted off through the water, he made a long, swift rush straight in the direction in which the line was striving to pull him. Instantly the pull ceased, the line fell slack. But he felt the hook, with its furry attachment, still clinging at the side of his mouth. He passed straight under the dark shape of the canoe, and heard a sharp, vibrant sound above him, something like the song of a locust, which was the noise of the big salmon reel as the fisherman made wild haste to take in the slack of the line. As he swam he shook his head savagely; but the hook still held. Then, near the farther edge of the pool, he darted between the limbs of a sunken windfall, and back again on the other side, effectually fouling the line a few feet from his nose. The next moment there was a violent jerk at his jaw. The hook tore out, and he swam free.

In tremendous indignation and trepidation the great salmon now darted from the pool and up against the wild current of the Quahdavic. In the next pool he delayed for but a few minutes, not resting, but swimming about restlessly and stirring up the other salmon with his excitement. Then, accompanied by three or four of those whom his nervous activity had aroused, he pressed onward. Through rapid and chute and pool, and white-churned trough where rocks scored the bed of the river, he darted tirelessly, and up the clear torrent of the Great South Branch; and he never halted till he found himself in the boiling basin of green and foam at the foot of the Falls.

The basin was a very different place now from that which he had visited as a grilse. Into its vexed deeps the flood fell with the heavy trampling of thunder, which was echoed back and forth between the high broken rocks enclosing the basin. But what was of most importance to the great salmon was a fact which, if he realized it at all, he realized but vaguely. The Falls themselves had changed since his last visit.

At the very first of spring there had been a landslide. The great, partly overhanging rock, seamed and split by the wedges of countless frosts, had all at once crumbled down beneath the tireless pressure of the cataract. The lower fall, thus retreating, had become one with the upper. The straight descent was now nearly five feet higher than before,--a barrier which no voyager those waters ever knew could hope to overcome.

The great salmon did not understand what had happened. He knew that he had passed the barrier before, and had come to those bright, gravelled reaches of which he was desirous. He knew that a summons which he could not disobey was urging him on up-stream. He had no thought but to obey. After a short rest in the deepest part of the pool,--he was alone there, being the first of the returning migrants,--he suddenly aroused himself, darted like a flash of silver through the green flood, and shot straight up the face of the fall. Within three feet of the crest he came, hung curved like a bow for a fraction of a second, glittering and splendid, then fell back into the white smother. Again, and yet again, he essayed the leap, gaining perhaps a foot on the second trial, but falling far short on the third. Then, exhausted and beaten by the great impact of the waters as he fell back defenceless, he retired to the quietest depth of the pool to recover his strength. He felt bewildered by his failure, and half stunned by the buffeting of the air-charged flood, which affected him somewhat as a tornado might affect a man who was fighting to make head against it. Moreover, there was a long crimson gash slanting down his flank, where he had been driven against a jagged rock as he fell.

Of all these things, however, he thought little, as he lay there in the green deep which seethed from the turmoil passing above it. Through the turmoil he saw the wide, clean-glittering, shallow-rippled gravel-bars of the upper stream, golden under the sun and blue-white under the moon. These he saw as he remembered them, and he saw the loud barrier to be passed before he could reach them. As he brooded, his courage summoned back his strength. Again he flashed up, with a power and swiftness that seemed irresistible, and again he shot into the spray-thick air on the face of the fall. Again he hung there for a half a heart-beat, spent, to fall back baffled and confused. Again and again, however, he flashed back to the trial, undaunted in spirit though at each effort his strength grew less: again and again the rock teeth hidden in the foam caught and tore him as he fell. At last, all but stunned and altogether bewildered, he swam feebly into an eddy close to shore and half turned upon his side, his gills opening and closing violently.

Just about this time a visitor from the hills had come shambling down to the river-edge,--one of the great black bears of the Quahdavic valley. Sitting contemplatively on her haunches, her little, cunning eyes had watched the vain leaps of the salmon. She knew a good deal about salmon and her watching was not mere curiosity. As the efforts of the brave fish grew feebler and feebler she drew down closer and closer to the edge of the water, till it frothed about her feet. When, at last, the salmon came blindly into the eddy and turned upon his side, the bear was but a few feet distant. She crept forward like a cat, crouched,--and a great black paw shot around with a clutching sweep. Gasping and quivering, the salmon was thrown up upon the rocks. Then white teeth, savage but merciful, bit through the back of his neck; and unstruggling he was carried to a thicket above the Falls.

Answerers to the Call

The little lake, long and narrow, and set in a cleft of the deep forest, led off like a pathway of light to the full October moon. The surface of the lake was as still as glass, and the woods, rising from each shore in dense waves, billowy where the hardwoods crowded thick, or serrated and pinnacled where the fir and spruce and hemlock drew their ordered ranks, were as motionless as if an enchantment had been laid upon them. The air was magically clear, almost pungent with suggestion of frost, and tonic with autumn scents.

In sharp contrast to the radiance of the open, the deep of the forest was filled with an extraordinarily liquid and transparent darkness, pierced with hard white lines and spots of light where the moon broke through. Down along the shores of the lake, under the ragged fringe of mixed growths where forest and open met, ran a tangle of grotesque, exaggerated shadows, so solid of outline as to seem almost palpable.

All these shadows were as motionless as if frozen--except one, a long, angular shadow, which projected itself spasmodically but noiselessly through the bushes, occasionally darting out upon the naked beach, but withdrawing again instantly, as if in dread of the exposure. The source of this erratic shadow was a lean backwoodsman, who, rifle in hand, was stealing on moccasined feet down the lake shore under cover of the fringing branches.

Suddenly across the water came a sound as if some one were thrashing the underbrush with a stick. The hunter stopped short, and listened intently from his place of concealment. Very well he knew that sound. It was a bull moose eager for fight, thrashing the bushes with his great antlers as a challenge to any rival who might be within hearing.

The woodsman's grizzled lips parted in a smile of satisfaction, and after a glance at his rifle to see that the cartridge was in place, he crept onward down the lake, well under cover and as soundless as his own shadow. He expected to come upon the challenger somewhere near the foot of the lake. He might, of course, have adopted a surer and lazier method of hunting by staying where he was and imitating the call of the big moose's mate; but this seemed to him gross treachery, and little short of murder. He would almost as willingly have condescended to snare the noble beast whom he gloried in overcoming in fair chase.

The hunter had not gone far, however, when another strange sound disturbed the enchanted silence. It was harsh, wild, yet appealing, and seemed in some way the very voice of the untamed wilderness. It was the call of the shy cow moose.

The woodsman crept down to the shore and peered cautiously through the screening boughs, to see whether the call was an authentic one or the cheat of some other hunter less scrupulous than himself.

About a quarter of a mile down the shore a bare sand spit jutted out into the sheen of the lake; and near its point, an ungainly black silhouette against the bright water, stood the cow, calling, listening, and calling again.

The hunter stood for a few moments, watching her with that deliberation which marks the man of the woods. As he watched, suddenly the cow wheeled half-round, as if startled, then dashed into the water, swam in haste to the next point, and vanished among the trees.

The woodsman, much surprised, waited motionless where he was for a couple of minutes, to see if the cause of her alarm would reveal itself. Then, as no sign of life appeared on the brilliantly lighted sand spit, he pressed on stealthily down the shore to investigate for himself.

In a few minutes--forest and lake meanwhile as still as if no living thing breathed within the borders--the hunter found himself at the head of the sand spit. Keeping within the deep shadow, he examined the ground carefully, but could detect no trail, except that of the cow which had been calling. Puzzled, and nettled to find his woodcraft at fault, he continued his furtive progress toward the foot of the lake.

He had gone not more than two or three hundred yards when, just as he was about to step out upon a little lighted glade, that subtle and unnamed sixth sense which the men of the woods sometimes develop warned him that something alive and hostile was hidden in the thicket just ahead. He stiffened in his tracks and waited, eyes and nostrils intently alert.

He was so close to the edge of the thicket that his own concealment was very imperfect. In the thicket, just across the lighted space, nothing stirred; but he was sure that something was there. For fully five minutes he waited. Then, just to see what would happen, he gave, very softly and alluringly, the call of the cow moose.

What happened was something no previous experience had taught him to expect. No moose responded to the supposed voice of its mate; but a huge black bear fairly bounced into the open, and came at him in terrific leaps, evidently purposing to catch the cow before she could get started running. Annoyed, because he was not hunting bear and did not want to scare the game he was seeking, the woodsman stepped out into the full light as he raised his rifle.

But he did not have to shoot. If he was not hunting bear, neither was the bear hunting man. At this unlooked-for apparition of a man with a voice like a cow moose, the bear almost stopped in mid-jump, as if struck by an explosive bullet. Fairly falling over in his desperate haste to stop himself, he clawed the turf wildly, wheeled about, and scuttled off into the woods like a frightened woodchuck. The hunter smiled grimly, and went on. He knew now what had startled the cow moose.

For nearly half an hour the great white moon seemed to possess the world alone. At the foot of the lake the hunter had to appear in the shining open for a second or two, while crossing the shallow but wide brook which formed the outlet. But he drifted across from stone to stone like a shadow, marked, as he knew well enough, by vigilant eyes, but not, he trusted, by the moose.

On this point he was presently quite assured, for he had little more than reached cover again when he saw the cow reappear on the open beach a short distance up the lake. She walked out till her fore hoofs were at the very edge of the water, then called again and again. She knew that somewhere in these illimitable shades, bold but crafty, her mate was watching and listening.

In answer to her call he was likely to come rushing up noisily, defying all peril, and flinging his challenge abroad for all whom it might interest. But to-night there was a vague suspicion in the air. It was probable that he would come silently, and give no hint of his coming until he stood beside her on the beach.

The point of beach whereon the cow was standing was carefully chosen with reference to the scare which she had received a half-hour earlier. It was where a little stream flowed in through a space of wild meadow, so that there was ample open all about her, and no enemy could get nearer than forty or fifty yards without revealing himself.

From the foot of the lake the woodsman approached with a stealth that none of the wild kindred themselves could surpass. Skirting the back of the meadow, he drew near from the upper side, expecting that any response the call might bring would come from that direction. Then he hid himself in a dense thicket of willows near the water.

Meanwhile there were others besides the woodsman for whom the calling of the lonely cow had interest. The great black bear, having recovered from his panic and put what he thought a safe distance between himself and the dangerous stranger, had slipped his huge bulk through the underbrush without a sound, and glared out savagely over the meadow to the solitary figure on the beach.

He knew that he was no match in speed for a frightened cow moose, and he saw that the distance across the open was too great for him to carry the matter by a rush. That cow was not for him, apparently. His mouth watered, but he held himself firmly under cover, waiting in the hope that some whimsical fortune of the woods might throw opportunity in his way.

Suddenly his ears caught a tiny but suggestive sound. Somewhere far up the course of the little brook a twig snapped sharply. He turned his attention away from the cow, and listened. That chance sound, so conspicuous on the expectant silence, might signify the coming of the antlered bull.

The bear would much rather have spared himself exertion by hunting the cow; but a bull, although apt to prove a dangerous adversary to an inexperienced bear, was well enough for one who knew how to manage such matters. He slipped over to the edge of the brook, and crouched behind a huge stump which was veiled by a growth of vines.

Immediately before him was the narrow, grassy clearway occupied by the brook at high water, and now threaded by a winding, loitering rivulet. So narrow was the space that in one lunge of his long body and mighty forearm he could reach almost all the way across it. This white-lit path was fretted with black traceries of branch and leaf, but the shadow behind the rock was so thick that even the furry bulk of the bear was completely engulfed in it.

The lonely figure out by the lake-side kept repeating its harsh calls from time to time, but neither the bear behind his brook-side rock nor the woodsman in his willow thicket up the shore any longer heeded her. Both were waiting for a third to answer her summons.

The third, indeed, was coming to answer; but with unwonted circumspection. He was a small but sturdy young bull, his antlers not yet perfect. It was he whom the hunter had heard thrashing the bushes in challenge; and when his mate first sent her call across the lake, he had stood silent behind the sheltering trees and watched her. But just as he was about to start on the long detour round the foot of the lake to join her, he had seen her sudden alarm and been puzzled by it.

Like the woodsman, he had rested for some time, motionless and watchful, looking for what else might happen. The absence of happening had left him vaguely apprehensive. When, therefore, he saw her reappear long afterward on his own side of the lake and begin her calls again, he was cautious about replying. Instead of hurrying straight down the shore to meet her, he sank softly back, deeper and deeper, into the woods, till her voice could scarcely reach his ears.

Then he made a wide swing round, and came stealthily down the channel of the little brook. In spite of his bulk, his spread of antlers, his broad and loose-hung hoofs, no mink or weasel could have come more silently than he.

As the moose came in sight up the brook channel, a moving shadow, the muscles of the watching bear behind the rock grew tense, and a luminous green film seemed to come over his small eyes. One powerful hind leg lifted itself till its claws took firm grip on a projection near the top of the rock. He was like a catapult, bent and ready.

When the moose came just opposite, the giant spring was loosed. The ponderous shape of the bear launched out over the top of the rock and seemed to shoot through the air.

Magnificent as the leap was, however, it just fell short of its mark; for the moose, taking instinctive alarm before any cause was actually perceptible, had swerved a yard aside from the place of ambush. Instead of falling directly upon him, therefore, and bearing him to the ground with a broken back, the bear landed at his side, just close enough to strike him a savage blow on the neck.

Powerful as the neck of a bull moose is, had that blow struck true it would have ended the fight. But it fell rakingly, rending hide and muscle but breaking no bones. Brave as he was cautious, the moose wheeled to strike back.

Jumping aside with the agility of a red buck, he gained room to lower his antlers, and lunged forward upon the foe with all the force of his seven hundred pounds behind these formidable weapons. The bear, skilful as a boxer at parrying, with his big fore paw turned aside the direct thrust; but owing to the spread of the antlers, one long, keen spike caught him right under the shoulder and drove home.

Then began a terrific uproar of crashing and growling and coughing and grunting, while the underbrush was beaten flat beneath the ponderous combatants. The bear clung to the antlers, wrenching and twisting, now trying to pull his antagonist to the ground, now striving to reach past his pronged defences and rend his throat.

For a time the moose succeeded in keeping his feet, struggling to force his assailant backward and pierce his flank. Then he was lucky enough to tear himself free. Instantly he reared like a mad horse, and brought down his sharp hoofs on the enemy's shoulder.

It was a terrific blow, battering like a sledge-hammer and cutting like an axe, and the bear roared under it. But it was not a finishing blow, and it let the foe reach close quarters. The bear got the bull's neck into the grip of his mighty forearms, and pulled him down. The moose struggled valiantly, thrashing backward with jagged antlers, and tearing up the ground in desperate efforts to regain his feet. But victory was now, beyond peradventure, within the clutch of the bear.

At the first sound of the battle the cow had come trotting inland to see what was going on, under the impression that her mate had fallen foul of a rival. At the inner extremity of the meadow, however, she caught sight of the woodsman running in the same direction, whereupon her discretion overcame all other emotions, and she made haste to escape from a neighbourhood so full of the unexpected.

The woodsman never gave her a glance, but ran on at a swift lope, a spark of excitement in his quiet gray eyes. When he reached the scene of combat the bear had just got his brave antagonist down.

The hunter paused for a few seconds, to take in the situation thoroughly. Then he raised his rifle. His sympathies were altogether with the moose. He waited till he got the chance he wanted, then he sent a heavy 45-70 expanding bullet through the bear's heart.

The great black form collapsed in a limp heap upon his adversary; and the latter, struggling to his feet, threw the burden disdainfully aside. At first he paid no attention to the woodsman, who, taking it for granted that his injuries were hopeless, stood waiting compassionately to end his sufferings. But this young bull was made of astonishingly tough stuff. In his rage he had apparently not heard the sound of the rifle. As soon as he had fairly regained his feet, he reared to his full height, came down upon the bear's unresisting form, and trampled madly for several seconds.

The woodsman stood watching with a grin of sympathetic approval, and muttered, "Chuck full of ginger yet!"

At last the panting beast turned his head, and saw the man. The sight sobered him. For a moment he stood staring and shaking his head, drunk with his imagined triumph. Then discretion whispered in his ear. He turned away sullenly, with one last, regretful look at his foe's battered body, and trotted off into the mystic confusion of shine and shadow.

The Prisoners of the Pitcher-plant

At the edge of a rough piece of open, where the scrubby bushes which clothed the plain gave space a little to the weeds and harsh grasses, stood the clustering pitchers of a fine young sarracenia. These pitchers, which were its leaves, were of a light, cool green, vividly veined with crimson and shading into a bronzy red about the lip and throat. They were of all sizes, being at all stages of growth; and the largest, which had now, on the edge of summer, but barely attained maturity, were about six inches in length and an inch and a quarter in extreme diameter. Down in the very heart of the cluster, hardly to be discerned, was a tiny red-tipped bud, destined to shoot up, later in the season, into a sturdy flower-stalk.

Against the fresh, warm green of the sunlit world surrounding it, the sarracenia's peculiar colouring stood out conspicuously, its streaks and splashes of red having the effect of blossoms. This effect, at a season when bright-hued blooms were scarce, made the plant very attractive to any insects that chanced within view of it. There was nearly always some flutterer or hummer poising above it, or touching it eagerly to dart away again in disappointment. But every once in awhile some little wasp, or fly, or shining-winged beetle, or gauzy ichneumon, would alight on the alluring lip, pause, and peer down into the pitcher. As a rule the small investigator would venture farther and farther, till it disappeared. Then it never came out again.

On a leaf of a huckleberry bush, overhanging the pitcher-plant, a little black ant was running about with the nimble curiosity of her kind. An orange and black butterfly, fluttering lazily in the sun, came close beside the leaf. At this moment a passing shrike swooped down and caught the butterfly in his beak. One of his long wings, chancing to strike the leaf, sent it whirling from its stem; and the ant fell directly upon one of the pitchers below.

It was far down upon the red, shining lip of the pitcher that she fell; and there she clung resolutely, her feet sinking into a sort of fur of smooth, whitish hairs. When she had quite recovered her equanimity she started to explore her new surroundings; and, because that was the easiest way to go, she went in the direction toward which the hairs all pointed. In a moment, therefore, she found herself just on the edge of the precipitous slope from the lip to the throat of the pitcher. Here, finding the slope strangely slippery, she thought it best to stop and retrace her steps. But when she attempted this she found it impossible. The little, innocent-looking hairs all pressed against her, thrusting her downward. The more she struggled, the more energetically and elastically they pushed back at her; till all at once she was forced over the round, smooth edge, and fell.

To her terrified amazement, it was water she fell into. The pitcher was about half full of the chilly fluid. In her kickings and twistings she brought herself to the walls of her green prison, and tried to clamber out,--but here, again, were those cruel hairs on guard to foil her. She tried to evade them, to break them down, to bite them off with her strong, sharp mandibles. At last, by a supreme effort, she managed to drag herself almost clear,--but only to be at once hurled back, and far out into the water, by the sharp recoil of her tormentors.

Though pretty well exhausted by now, she would not give up the struggle; and presently her convulsive efforts brought her alongside of a refuge. It was only the floating body of a dead moth, but to the ant it was a safe and ample raft. Eagerly she crept out upon it, and lay very still for awhile, recovering her strength. More fortunate than most shipwrecked voyagers, she had an edible raft and was therefore in no imminent peril of starvation.

The light that came through the veined, translucent walls of this watery prison was of an exquisite cool beryl, very different from the warm daylight overhead. The ant had never been in any such surroundings before, and was bewildered by the strangeness of them. After a brief rest she investigated minutely every corner of her queer retreat, and then, finding that there was nothing she could do to better the situation, she resumed her attitude of repose, with only the slight waving of her antennae to show that she was awake.

For a long time nothing happened. No winds were astir that day, and no sounds came down into the pitcher save the shrill, happy chirping of birds in the surrounding bushes. But suddenly the pitcher began to tip and rock slightly, and the water to wash within its coloured walls. Something had alighted on the pitcher's lip.

It was something comparatively heavy, that was evident. A moment or two later it came sliding down those treacherous hairs, and fell into the water with a great splash which nearly swept the ant from her refuge.

The new arrival was a bee. And now began a tremendous turmoil within the narrow prison. The bee struggled, whirled around on the surface with thrashing wings, and sent the water swashing in every direction, till the ant was nearly drowned. She hung to her raft, however, and waited philosophically for the hubbub to subside. At length the bee too, after half a dozen vain and exhausting struggles to climb out against the opposing array of hairs, encountered the body of the dead moth. Instantly she tried to raise herself upon it, so as to escape the chill of the water and dry her wings for flight. But she was too heavy. The moth sank, and rolled over, at the same time being thrust against the wall of the pitcher. The ant, in high indignation clutched a bundle of the hostile hairs in her mandibles, and held herself at anchor against the wall.

Thoroughly used up, and stupid with panic and chill, the bee kept on futilely grappling with the moth's body, which, in its turn, kept on sinking and rolling beneath her. A very few minutes of such disastrous folly sufficed to end the struggle, and soon the bee was floating, drowned and motionless, beside the moth. Then the ant, with satisfaction, returned to her refuge.

When things get started happening, they are quite apt to keep it up for awhile, as if events invited events. A large hunting spider, creeping among the grass and weeds, discovered the handsome cluster of the sarracenia. She was one of the few creatures who had learned the secret of the pitcher-plant and knew how to turn it to account. More than once had she found easy prey in some trapped insect struggling near the top of a well-filled pitcher.

Selecting the largest pitcher as the one most likely to yield results, the spider climbed its stem. Then she mounted the bright swell of the pitcher itself, whose smooth outer surface offered no obstacle to such visitors. The pitcher swayed and bowed. The water within washed heavily. And the ant, with new alarm, marked the big, black shadow of the spider creeping up the outside of her prison.

Having reached the lip of the leaf and cautiously crawled over upon it, the spider took no risks with those traitor hairs. She threw two or three stout cables of web across the lip; and then, with this secure anchorage by which to pull herself back, she ventured fearlessly down the steep of that perilous throat. One hooked claw, outstretched behind her, held aloft the cable which exuded from her spinnerets as she moved.

On the extreme of the slope she stopped, and her red, jewelled cluster of eyes glared fiercely down upon the little black ant. The latter shrank and crouched, and tried to hide herself under the side of the dead moth to escape the light of those baleful eyes. This new peril was one which appalled her far more than all the others she had encountered.

At this most critical of all crises in the destiny of the little black ant, the fickle Fortune of the Wild was seized with another whim. An overwhelming cataclysm descended suddenly upon the tiny world of the pitcher-plant. The soft, furry feet of some bounding monster--rabbit, fox, or wildcat--came down amongst the clustered pitchers, crushing several to bits and scattering wide the contents of all the rest. Among these latter was that which contained the little black ant. Drenched, astonished, but unhurt, she found herself lying in a tuft of splashed grass, once more free. Above her, on a grass-top, clung the bewildered spider. As it hung there, conspicuous to all the foraging world, a great black-and-yellow wasp pounced upon it, stung it into helplessness, and carried it off on heavily humming wing.

The Prowlers

Heeling under a stiff breeze, the sloop rose joyously to the long Caribbean rollers. Soon after midnight Mahoney awoke. He went to the tiller at once, and let the stalwart Jamaican nigger, who constituted his crew, take a turn of sleep. The wind was steady, the sea was clear, there was no island, reef, or shoal between himself and Cuba, and Mahoney had little to do but hold the tiller and dream. Presently clouds gathered, obscuring the moon, and thickened till the light which filtered through them was rather a deceit than an illumination. Far-off waves seemed close at hand, and waves so near they were about to break over the bow appeared remote. Strange shapes made and unmade themselves among the shifting surfaces, dark, solid forms which melted into flowing, hissing water. Mahoney's eyes amused themselves with these fantastic wave-shadows and phantoms of the fluent deep. Then, suddenly, one of the dark, submerged shapes broke the rules of the game. It refused to melt and flow. With a gasp Mahoney jammed his helm hard round, and let go his sheet on the run. There was a shuddering shock. The boat reared, like a frightened horse struggling to climb a bank. Then, with a kind of sickening deliberation, she turned clean over. There was a choking yell from the rudely awakened darky; and Mahoney found himself plunged into the smother of the broken waves.

When he came to the surface and shook the water out of his eyes, Mahoney clutched the stern and pulled himself up to see what had happened. He had run upon a huge fragment of a broken-up wreck. From the heavy, steady motion, he concluded that the boat was caught on a sunken portion of the wreck. Some fifteen feet away a space of deck, with a few feet of bulwarks, rose just clear of the waves. This seemed to offer a less precarious refuge than the keel to which he was clinging. He slipped back into the waves, struck out hurriedly, and dragged himself up to the highest point of the wet deck. Here, holding to the broken bulwarks, he peered about for his assistant. Taking for granted that the negro, whom he knew to be a magnificent swimmer, was clinging to the other side of the boat, he shouted to him, with angry solicitude, but got no answer. It was incomprehensible. Starting to his feet he was about to plunge again into the smother and swim around the boat. Then he checked himself. Such a step was obviously futile. If the negro had been there, he would have lost no time in clambering out upon the bottom of the boat. There was a mystery in that sudden and complete disappearance. With a shiver Mahoney crouched down again and clutched the lurching bulwarks.

He had plenty of time now to think. He cursed himself bitterly for the rash impatience which had driven him to attempt the journey from Kingston to Santiago in a little sloop, instead of waiting for the regular steamer, just because he feared the rebellion might fizzle out before he could get there to make a story of it. His folly had cost the nigger's life, at least; and the account was not yet closed! Well, the nigger was gone, poor beggar. His black hide had enclosed a man, all right; but there was no use worrying over him. The question was, how soon would a ship come along? This was a frequented sea, more or less. But the wreck was almost level with the water, and lamentably inconspicuous. Mahoney knew that unless he were picked up right soon the tropic sun would drive him mad with thirst. He knew, too, that if any sort of a wind should blow up, he would promptly have forced upon him that knowledge of the other world which he was not yet ready to acquire. It was clear that he must find some means of flying a signal. He decided that when daylight came he would dive under the upturned boat, cut away either the gaff or the boom, lash it to the bulwarks, and hoist his shirt upon it as a flag of distress.

Just before dawn the breeze died away. By the time the east had begun to flame, and thin washes of red-orange to mottle the sky fantastically, the long swells were as smooth as glass. Mahoney was impatient to get up his flagstaff, but he wanted plenty of light. He waited until the sky was blue, the sun clear of the horizon. Then he stood up, set the hilt of his knife between his teeth, and prepared to plunge in. Before doing so, however, he instinctively scanned the water all about him. Then he removed the knife from his mouth and stared.

"That accounts for it!" he muttered, his teeth baring themselves with a snarl of loathing as he thrust the knife back into his belt and sat down again. Just behind him, and not a dozen feet away, a gigantic, triangular black fin was slowly cleaving the swells.

There being nothing else to do, Mahoney occupied himself in watching that great dorsal, as it prowled slowly this way and that. Such a fin, he calculated, must mean a bigger shark than any that had hitherto come within his range of observation. He had a righteous hatred of all sharks, but this one in particular sickened him with vindictive loathing. He knew how lately, and how horridly, it had fed; yet here it was as ravenous as ever. Presently it sank out of sight, and was gone for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. Then, on a sudden, there was the devilish black fin again, vigilant and deliberate.

As the sun rose, and the light fell more steeply, the dazzling reflections disappeared and Mahoney could look down into the transparent blue-green depths. He saw that the wreck on which he had taken refuge was an old one, long adrift in the teeming tropic seas. Its under edges carried a dense, waving fringe of barnacles and coloured weed, swarming with sea-creatures. In its shadow life crowded riotously, and death held easy revel. Among the looser fringes of the barnacle growth swam fish of the smaller species, many of them flashing with the radiance of sapphire and topaz, or shooting like pink flames. Hither and thither darted a small school of blue and gold bonito, insatiable and swift, snatching down their prey from among the tips of the barnacles. About six feet below the barnacles a cavernous-jawed barracouta, perhaps five feet long, lay motionless but for the easy waving of its fins. It must have been gorged, for Mahoney, in all his seafaring, had never before seen one of these ravenous and ferocious fish thus at rest. It must even have, for once, lapsed into something like sleep,--a perilous lapse in the strenuous life of the sea, for anything less formidable than a sperm whale or an orca, and not without its dangers even for them. Its wide-set, staring eyes seemed to command a view in every direction. Yet they did not see a huge, spectral form rise smoothly from below, turning belly upward with a sudden green-white gleam. Then, the barracouta's powerful tail twisted with a violence that sent the water swirling as from a screw. But it was too late. The shark's triangular jaws snapped upon their prey, biting the big fish in halves. The two pieces were bolted instantly, as a hungry man bolts a "bluepoint." And the shark--the biggest "man-eater" that Mahoney had ever seen--sank slowly out of sight, to reappear at the surface again in five minutes as ravenous as ever.

By this time it was beginning to get hot, there on the shelterless wreck. A small steamer passed in the distance. Mahoney tore off his shirt and waved it wildly, on the chance that some one on the steamer might at that moment have a telescope pointed in his direction. The steamer went its way. Mahoney put on his shirt again, and wished he had not lost his hat. He had a handkerchief, however, and this he wound upon the top of his head like a turban. By wetting it frequently he kept his head and neck cool. As the morning wore on, no fewer than five sails appeared on the horizon, but none came near enough even to excite a thrill of hope. Since there was nothing better to do, Mahoney was wise enough to keep as still as possible, watching the strange life that went on beneath his refuge, and splashing water over himself from time to time that his skin might absorb some of the liquid, and so the dreaded torment of thirst be a little postponed.

The blazing sun dragged slowly past the zenith, indifferent to Mahoney's maledictions. Along in the afternoon a three-masted schooner hove in sight. There was not enough wind, now, to ruffle the tops of the swells; but there was some breeze up aloft, apparently, and the schooner, with all her canvas spread, was catching it, for she moved along at a brisk pace. Her course brought her so near that Mahoney tore off his shirt in trembling anxiety and waved it at arm's length, jumping as high as he could in the struggle to make himself conspicuous. Finding this fruitless, he then tied the shirt to the sleeves of his white duck coat, making a long streamer, which he thought the lookout could not fail to see. Notwithstanding all this frantic effort the schooner sailed on unheeding. From its decks the waving white streamer, if seen at all, would have looked like nothing more than an agitated streak of foam. But to Mahoney it seemed that he was being wantonly and brutally ignored. With a pang he realized that his excitement and his effort had accomplished but one thing. They had brought on the thirst! His throat was parching. He had an impulse to break out into a volley of hysterical curses against the retreating ship. But his self-respect withheld him. Leaning over the bulwarks, he murmured to the great green prowling shape of his submarine jailer:

"You're no worse than lots of men, you ain't, damn you!"

As if in answer to this equivocal compliment the shark sailed in to within a little more than arm's length of the bulwark, and looked up at Mahoney with cold, malignant eyes. Mahoney kicked at him hysterically, then turned away and drenched himself where the little waves ran up shallow over the slope of the deck. The cool of the water on his skin, particularly on his throat and wrists, did actually, though slightly, ease his thirst.

The night fell windless and clear; and for a time, so black were the shifting reflections on the swells, so confusing the phosphorescent gleams that shot up through the waters, that Mahoney could no longer see the stealthy prowling of the great black fin. Lashing himself to the bulwark by the sleeves of his shirt, he snatched an hour or two of troubled sleep. Once he woke with a shock of disappointment from a dream that the bottom had fallen out of a jug of water which he was just raising to his lips. Again he started up shouting, and struggling fiercely with the bonds that held him safely to the bulwark. He had dreamed that a glittering white steam-yacht was speeding close past his refuge,--so close that he had to look up at her rail,--yet the people on her deck most unaccountably failing to see him. From this waking he fell back weak and hopeless, and it was some minutes before he could get his nerves under their wonted cool control. He had no longer any desire for sleep, so he devoted himself again to soaking his wrists in the water and letting the lambent phosphorescence stream through his fingers.

At last the moon rose over the waste of sea. Across the shimmering silver pathway of its light sailed a far-off ship, small and black. Mahoney gazed at it with longing. An hour or two later another ship crossed the radiant pathway. But none came near the wreck. Only that sharp black fin, that prowled and prowled, kept always in sight, always near, till Mahoney began to wonder if it were really possible that the tireless monster would get him in the end. He registered a vow that if he should find himself growing delirious with thirst he would lash himself so securely to the bulwark that, come what might, the shark should never get his body. Comforted by this resolve, and the torment of his thirst mitigated a trifle by a drenching in the brine, Mahoney fell asleep again, and did not wake till the sun was streaming savagely on his face.

Untying himself from the bulwark, Mahoney stared about him wildly. A tall-masted brig, with royal and topgallant sails drawing full, was retreating in the distance. Apparently, it had passed not far from the wreck. Mahoney cursed himself wildly for having allowed himself to fall asleep. This had been perhaps, his one chance. No other sail was in sight. There was nothing but a wisp of smoke on the horizon, betraying the passage of an unseen steamer. Mahoney found that he was babbling to himself about it, and the realization shocked him. He shook himself, pulled his courage and his nerve together sharply, then took off his clothes and splashed himself with water from head to foot. It was certain that his thirsty skin must absorb a good share of the liquid so generously applied to it; and thus assuring himself, his thirst became, or seemed to become less intolerable. When he had dressed again,--leaving off his shirt, which he kept tied to the bulwark ready for instant use,--he leaned over and peered down into the smooth water to look for the shark.

Grim and spectral, the great shape was just in sight, rising with strange indolence toward the surface. Evidently, some good-sized victim had just been devoured. The shark came to rest within a few inches of the surface, where the sun could warm its rough back through the thin barrier of the water. There it lay, apparently basking, with the content of one that has well dined. The complacent malignity of its eyes, which seemed to meet the man's eyes with a peculiarly confident menace, filled Mahoney with rage. He tore savagely at the bulwarks, in a foolish attempt to provide himself with a missile.

In the midst of this futile effort, Mahoney chanced to drop his glance into the depths. There he caught sight of something that arrested him, making him forget for the moment even the tortures of his thirst. In the deepest green, at the very confines of his vision, a gigantic shape came faintly into view. It stirred, and grew more distinct. Motionless he peered down upon it, striving to make out what it was. His sea lore, more abundant than exact, did not inform him as to whether or not the shark had any enemies to fear; but his imagination, always finding free play in the mysteries of the deep sea, was hospitably ready for any marvel. With fantastic expectancy he watched the sinister form of the strange creature, as it slowly, and stealthily floated upward.

Presently he recognized it, having caught glimpse of its like once before in a deep lagoon of the Ladrones. It was not altogether dissimilar to the great shark basking above it, but slenderer in build, and with a pair of curious lateral fins outspread like broad, blunt wings. The most conspicuous difference was in its head, which was broad and blunt like the fins, and armed with a kind of two-edged saw, perhaps eight inches in width, projecting from its snout to a length of about four feet. The tip of the saw looked as if it had been chopped off square. Down both edges ran a series of keen, raking teeth. It was the mysterious and dreadful sawfish, perpetrator of fabulous horrors.

Mahoney was afraid to move a muscle, lest he should arouse the shark and put it on its guard. The eyes of the stranger stared up with a dead coldness at the bulk of the sleeping monster on the surface. More rapidly now, but still almost without movement of fin or tail, the ominous form rose through the transparent flood, till Mahoney could fairly count the teeth on its awkward-looking but hideous weapon. Directly beneath the shark the stranger came, till at last there was no more than the space of a few feet between the two giant shapes. And still the shark slumbered. Mahoney held his breath. Then the sawfish rolled over on its side, turning one edge of the saw toward the surface. For an instant it hung so, poised and still. Then the fins and flukes heaved together, the long bulk shot forward and upward, and the living saw cut straight across the belly of the shark, deeply and cleanly, under the urge of that tremendous thrust.

Mahoney cried out, shuddering at the horrible and unexpected sight. The shark was completely disembowelled. With a gigantic convulsion it sprang almost clear of the water, which was instantly dyed with blood. Mahoney now looked for a battle of Titans to follow. But in truth the battle was already over. The victim made no attempt at retaliation. It did not even seem to see its foe, or to know what had stricken it. For a few seconds it lashed the surface convulsively. Then it dived, plunging straight downward to die unseen in some rayless cavern of the deeps.