Chapter II: Part 2

This little song of praise which the thrush sang every night meant a great deal to Dame Woodchuck, for she knew when the thrush came to the edge of the clearing and sang, then there could be no dangers lurking about, because the Hermit Thrush is so shy he would never sing his lullaby so near the pasture when there chanced to be a spy at hand. So you see what a safe spot the Dame had selected, and also many others, who lived in the edge of the woods close by, the gray rabbit, and the chipmunks.

Now far across the clover field in the distance might be seen a long, dusty highway, which ran up over the hill, and from the top of the rock the Dame and Twins used to watch the farmer’s teams as they crept slowly over the hill. They were curious about them, but then they never left the road, so of course there could be nothing to fear from them.

But one day instead of the slow-going farmer’s wagon, quite a different looking thing came tearing madly over the long road. The Dame and the Twins were almost paralyzed with fear when they saw it, and sat up straight and watched it with bulging eyes and chattering teeth. It had great yellow eyes, which blazed in the sun; its body was bright red, and when it came just opposite the clover field it gave a loud “honk, honk,” and then the woodchuck family waited to see no more, but bolted straight for their door and inside, as quickly as possible, so that actually the Dame, in her mad haste, managed to scrape off quite a patch of deep brown fur from her back.

Very shortly after this, when the woodchuck family were taking a moonlight stroll to the bean field, the same monster came rushing madly over the road with its yellow eyes agleam, almost the size of the moon. At which awful sight the Dame and the Twins gave up their bean feast and tore home as fast as they could, going in by the back door.

In time, all the little wild dwellers of the forest near by came to know about the great red monster with its yellow eyes, its awful screech, and the odor of its fetid breath, which poisoned all the balsam, woodsy scents of the forest, and made them cough. What awful thing had come into their forest home and disturbed their quiet, peaceful homes? Even the Hermit Thrush no longer dared come to the edge of the clearing to sing her lullaby at twilight.

One morning, before the woodchuck family were astir, they heard a great commotion over their heads.

“Click, click, click, rattle, rattle,” it sounded. And the Dame poked her nose out of the hole cautiously, and looked and stared in dismay at the sight before her scared eyes. A great red monster was being dragged over the clover field by the farmer’s horses; the creature had sharp, cruel teeth, a long, shining row of them, and they bit and bit through the tall clover, so that it fell all over the field and lay flat. In a panic the Dame rushed to tell the Twins, and there they all stayed, deep down inside the burrow all day long, while the red monster rattled and bit its way through the clover over their heads. At night all was still, and the woodchucks, gaining courage, crawled forth into the field because they were very hungry. But what a sight met their gaze! The monster was no longer there, and the clover was no longer there; the field was quite bare.

So the Dame and the Twins held counsel that night, and stealing forth, they left their old home, and traveled far beneath the moon. Over swamps, and through unknown forests they went, until they finally reached a wild, lonely place beneath a mountain. Then they all set to work with a will and dug out a new burrow for themselves. To their joy they discovered that many of their neighbors had followed them, the gray rabbit, and the chipmunk family. And the very next evening as Dame Woodchuck came out to seek her supper, right overhead in a thick pine came the Hermit Thrush.

“O-h, holy, holy.
O-h, spheral, spheral.
O-h, clear up, clear up,”

sang the thrush joyfully, for he was no longer afraid; all the little wild things of the forest had sought safety, far away from monsters, in the deep wildness of the woods. And there the Dame and the Twins lived together happily for many years.

VI

TRACKED BY A CATAMOUNT

Tom and Fred Kinney were driving back from the little mountain village, where they had been sent from the lumber station, up in the “Slash” on Mount Horrid, to buy supplies for the camp. They took this trip every week, their father, overseer of the camp, trusting them to drive Ted and Tot, the mule team, down the mountain alone.

Mount Horrid, rightly named, is a wild spot, and the mountain roads leading up to the camp are steep and rough. One drives over this trail for about fourteen miles, then arrives at a plateau, and just above, on the ridge, are the lumbermen’s shacks.

Darkness comes very early in these northern mountain regions, for the sun sets beyond the taller mountain crags at a little after four in the afternoon and it is twilight almost before one is aware of it. Suddenly the sides of the mountains take on a deeper purple hue, then in the dense forests of balsam and spruce the shadows grow black and blacker, and already night has come down in the valleys between the ridges.

The night bade fair to be very dark and early, but the boys were not afraid, for the two small mules knew the road well without guidance. They let the lines fall slack across their rough coats, while they munched sweet crackers, and talked together about the best places to set their new muskrat traps, which they had purchased in the village.

The mules crawled leisurely up the steep road, stopping, as they usually did, at a steep pitch to get breath, then plodding on again. All of a sudden, without warning, they began to act very strangely, rearing and plunging about in the strangest fashion, and snorting with fear.

“Say, they act funny, don’t they? Wonder what scared ’em,” remarked Tom, clutching the reins which had almost slipped from his grasp.

“Gee,” replied Fred, “do you know it’s gettin’ awful dark; wish we were back in camp. We ought to have started back sooner, not stayed to see that ball game,” he grumbled. For, to tell the truth, Fred Kinney was the more timid and cowardly of the two.

“Oh, don’t be a fraid-cat, Fred. It wasn’t anything much that scared the mules; perhaps a fox or even a porcupine crossed the road ahead of ’em, that’s all,” commented Tom, easily. “Look, it’s going to be moonlight the rest of the way. Who’s afraid? I ain’t. Have another cracker.”

The mules steadied down to their usual gait once more, and the boys shortly forgot their fears and were soon chatting away about their snares once again.

But if they had only known, and could have peered through a thick fringe of spruces, right on the very edge of a long, rocky ledge, just above the mountain road, crouched a great, tawny, supple, fur-clad cat; the very largest catamount, or, as it is sometimes called, the American panther, which had ever been seen in those parts. The catamount had started out to forage as soon as the first, long purple shadows began to climb the mountains. He was a magnificent specimen of the cat family, a male, and back in his dark den, which he had made beneath an almost inaccessible ledge of rocks, high up in the wildest part of the mountain, he had left a fierce, tawny mate and three kitten cubs.

The catamount was gaunt and half-starved looking, but he was also a good provider for his family, and when his mate stayed with the small cubs he carried her food; but his nature was so fierce and ugly that, whenever he chanced to bring home a supply of food to the den, he and his mate always had a fierce, snarling battle over the choicest morsels, and their savage howls and yells at such times were so fearful that all the other smaller wild things of the forest slunk back timidly into their homes, lest they encounter the dreaded catamount in one of his fits of rage.

Now, had there simply been one small boy on foot, or a deer, perhaps, walking up through that dusky mountain road, the catamount would in all probability, driven by his intense hunger and a desire to feed his young, surely sprung upon him. But somehow the sight of the sturdy little mule team and the two figures in the wagon disconcerted him, so that he merely stretched himself out over the ledge and peered curiously at them as they drove beneath him. It was this of course which had frightened the mules; they had caught the wild, strong scent of the catamount in passing.

The great tawny wildcat lashed its tail impatiently, and licked its lean chops hungrily, at the mere thought of what had escaped him; and then from sheer ill-temper and disappointment, because it had not been a deer, or something he could manage, he raised his angry, yellow eyes to the rising moon and gave a wild, blood-curdling yell of rage, a yell which cannot be described in mere words. It rose and rose, echoing through the dense forests of spruce, to be repeated back again from the other side of the dark mountain, ending in a horrid, whimpering wail, which reached the ears of the boys, and sent a chill to their very marrow; at the same time the mules broke into a wild, shambling canter, never stopping for steep pitches even, but keeping up the wild gait until they had reached the plateau, and finally the camp.

“Say, it was an awful yell. Didn’t you folks hear it?” questioned the boys breathlessly, as they rushed pell-mell into camp, full of their story.

“And the mules were scared stiff, too, so they just put for camp on a dead run. Say, father, it must have been something pretty bad to yell like that and scare the mules so.”

“Catamount,” spoke up old Uncle Peter Kinney from the chimney corner, where he was patching a pair of moccasins. “Pair of ’em over Deer Pass way. Heard about ’em last week; guess they got hungry an’ came over the Ridge after deer. Good thing you boys was in the team, I guess. Pesky varmints, catamounts; used to be pretty considerable plenty up North here when I was a boy; but lumberin’ scared ’em off some, I guess. Good bounty on ’em, an’ good money in a pelt, too, if it’s right, son.”

“Well, father, one thing; now there’s catamounts round here, you’ve got to let me take the rifle into the woods when I want to,” spoke Tom. “Why, if we only get the catamount, then I guess I could buy a rifle; couldn’t I, Uncle Peter?”

“Guess ye could, son; but, first of all, sight your catamount,” he chuckled.

Winter passed away, and gradually the boys forgot their sudden terror of the catamount, although farmers down in the valley reported that a pair of them had visited their barn-yards during winter and carried off sheep and even small calves, but had always got away; so plainly the catamounts were still lurking in the mountains.

One day Tom and Fred went off on the other side of the mountain to hunt for rabbits. The old yellow hound accompanied them, for although lame and decrepit, he was still keen after the scent of rabbits. A certain dense thicket of spruces on the edge of a plateau was the destination of the boys, because there the rabbits were always plentiful, the thick undergrowth forming a splendid cover. Although it was now early spring, snow still covered the ground, and the boys saw plenty of fresh fox and rabbit tracks. Tom shouldered the coveted rifle, proud in the assurance that he could handle it as expertly, almost, as his father. The boys examined the different tracks with keen interest, noting mink, deer, and the trail of other familiar wild things, for which they were always upon the lookout, being well up in wood lore.

“What’s that track, Tom?” asked Fred, curiously, pointing to a light, skipping track in the snow.

“Deer. Say, can’t you tell a deer’s track, Fred? Oh, look! Somethin’s been chasing that deer. See those deep, round holes right behind? The deer was running hard, too; he was being chased, all right, and knew it, too. Wonder what it was. I don’t seem to know those deep, round tracks.”

“Say, s’pose it was a bear, Tom?”

“Nope. Too far apart. Whatever it was, it wasn’t shuffling along stirring up the snow in long tracks, like a bear does. It took great, long leaps. Look there,” and Tom pointed to the strange tracks in the snow.

“Say, Tom, perhaps it was a catamount,” announced Fred, suddenly.

“Why, I never thought about a catamount; perhaps it was,” and then Tom clutched the gun a trifle closer at the mere thought of that awful, wild yell, which he had never forgotten.

It was growing late in the afternoon when the boys bagged their last brown cottontail rabbit, but Tom had scared up a covey of partridges, and eager to bag a few, the boys pressed back again, following the tracks of their old trail back through the spruces.

“Say, Fred, did you notice our old tracks back there in the spruces where we branched off?” asked Tom, suddenly. “Well, look here. Here they are again; and say, that thing, whatever it is, is following _us_ now. See its tracks right here again. Say, Fred, we’re being tracked, and I believe by a catamount,” exclaimed Tom, excitedly.

“What’ll we do now, Tom Kinney? Look, it’s almost past sunset now,” and Fred pointed with slightly shaky hand at the yellow glow of the sunset and the fast darkening mountainsides. Soon darkness would be down upon them, and they could not possibly go back over the Ridge and into camp before dark. Already they had tarried too long, and they knew it. For, as if scenting an approaching peril, the yellow hound suddenly lifted his muzzle and gave a long, dismal bay while his yellow hide arose in deep ridges upon his back.

“Tell you what let’s do,” suggested Tom. “We won’t try for camp; we’ll strike for Uncle Peter’s old, abandoned shack. It’s straight around the ledge here. We shan’t be long reaching it; we can make it before dark. I guess we don’t want to be out on the mountain to-night with a catamount or two loose, and chasing us. Why, he might jump down on us any minute from a ledge. Canada Joe said he saw one jump off a terrible steep ledge once and land on a deer’s back, and he says they never miss anything they jump for, either.”

Accordingly the boys made tracks for the shack as fast as they could travel. And sure enough, the catamount was not very far behind them, but was surely tracking them. Stealthily following their trail without showing itself, creeping warily in and out between the dark spruces, never losing its sight of them, the soft “pad, pad, pad” of its round feet muffled by the snow, its hateful yellow eyes gleaming and watchful, pausing when the boys halted, and loping on after them as soon as they started again.

The boys did not relish a whole night in Uncle Peter’s old shack very much, but they knew that their folks would not worry about them greatly for frequently, when they were off hunting, they stopped off in some abandoned lumber camp, when they had gone too great a distance to reach the home camp. Ordinarily it would be a lark, but now they were slightly uncomfortable about encountering a catamount, perhaps a pair of them. But as soon as they reached the shack their spirits rose again, for the shelter of a roof, be it ever so humble, lends courage. To be sure the old shack lacked a door, for some one had long ago used it for firewood. The boys gathered quantities of pine brush, and soon had a great fire snapping up the rude stone chimney of the shack, which lighted it from top to bottom. They dressed and broiled their partridges, and ate their dry bread with hearty, healthy appetites, forgetting, for the time, all about catamounts.

But had they only known--straight out through the dense black cover of the spruce bush even now lurked and waited the great tawny cat, peering, peering, with its glowering eyes, right into the shack, simply biding its time, apparently, but growing every minute more desperately hungry and impatient to make an attack.

The boys tumbled into their balsam bunks and were almost asleep, while their fire dwindled and burned down low. Then suddenly the hound gave a little warning whine, and slunk back into the rear of the shack, his tail between his legs. Instantly the boys were wide awake, and just then came that fearful, blood-curdling cry, the yell of the catamount, and at the same time its dark, shadowy form bounded past the entrance of the shack, right outside the doorway. The catamount was now not a dozen paces off. It had tracked them to the old shanty.

“It’s the catamount; I saw him. Look, look, Tom! There he goes again,” whimpered Fred, suddenly stricken with terror.

“You keep still, Fred. Pile on brush on the fire, quick; that’s what we got to do. It’ll help scare him away. They’re awful afraid of fire,” and desperately the two boys worked, piling everything inflammable upon the dying fire until it blazed high again. Meantime the catamount, startled at first by the sudden glare, withdrew, but soon emboldened by its hunger back it came, ever nearer and nearer to the doorway; finally crouching just at the threshold, it made ready to spring.

With quick presence of mind Tom snatched up a great, glowing, resinous firebrand and hurled it with straight, sure aim at the catamount. It struck him squarely between the shoulders and scorched there, for he turned and bit savagely at the firebrand, snarling with pain.

All this time, between whiles, Tom had been fumbling with his gun and found, to his dismay, that he had but two shots left. He loaded, with desperate haste, not telling Fred of his lack of ammunition, but bidding him to keep firing the brands at the catamount.

“Now, Fred, I’m ready for him. You take a big firebrand in your hand, and then in case I miss him, let him have it straight between the eyes,” directed Tom, and crouching low, with

rifle ready, the boys waited for the catamount to come within range of the door.

Vicious with its burns and hunger, they had not long to wait for the appearance of the catamount; crawling, crouching low, cat-like it came, until it reached the door-sill of the shanty; then gathering itself, it made ready to spring into the room.

That very instant Tom fired. Straight between the gleaming, yellow eyes he aimed, and then, with a muffled howl of surprise and pain, the great, tawny beast leaped high in air, his bound broken; with a snuffling, snarling cry of pain he sank down, clawing and spitting. Tom had surely hit and wounded him.

“Look, look, Tom! See; he isn’t dead yet. Quick, hurry and give him another shot. He’s getting ready to jump again,” shouted Fred. Sure enough, the catamount, now mad with pain from its shattered jaw, crouched for a fresh spring.

“Bang,” went the rifle, Tom’s last shot. And when the smoke cleared there lay the catamount, quite dead. Tom was thankful enough, as you can well imagine, for what would have happened if that last shot had not taken effect? For no boy can handle a catamount when it is fierce and desperate.

The two boys were far too excited to sleep again that night; besides, what if its mate should be hanging around somewhere! So they skinned the dead catamount, and the next morning, as soon as the first yellow rays of the rising sun touched the top of Mount Horrid, Fred loaded with the rabbits, and Tom with the rifle over one shoulder and the tawny hide of the catamount draped proudly over the other, tramped back over the Ridge to the home camp, displaying to admiring eyes the largest catamount pelt ever seen on the mountain.

VII

THE CALL OF THE MOOSE

Throughout the dense forests of the great Northland the call of the moose is heard late in April, when the herd leave their winter quarters or “yard” to strike forth with their families into the broader, more open country.

Monsall, the old King Moose of the spruce wood, had once more taken his proper place as leader of his own family. All through the month of March he had been quite content with his lot, and as timorous and helpless as any cow moose in the herd. This was simply because it was the season of shedding; his great branching horns were gone, and the newly sprouting ones were still in their “velvet” stage, so that they would have been of no possible service to Monsall in battle.

But now his horns were gradually hardening, and with the return of his shorn strength all the bold, domineering nature of the King had returned to him, and he was glad.

“Ugh-ugh-waugh, o-o,” he called to his mate loudly and commandingly, and with his heavy antlers held proud and high he shambled triumphantly away. Blazing a wide, clear trail as he traveled through the thick bush, he led his timorous mate afar in the direction of new feeding grounds where beech and moose-wood bark were green and plentiful, and the forest pools full of water.

The call of the moose once heard, is seldom forgotten. It begins with a series of hoarse grunts or groans and winds up with a roar which booms and echoes through the most secret places of the forest, striking terror to the timid. Monsall, the King, was huge and ungainly. His great, powerful body would easily weigh over a thousand pounds, and his now towering antlers, when grown, would measure fully five or six feet from tip to tip. His coarse coat of brownish hair was now shabby, but he wore a fine, bristling mane of black hair, and a flowing beard of the same depended from his chin, which served to make his huge head appear twice its length. Fierce and bold was the King, keen in his likes and dislikes, but usually rather gentle with his mate in his fierce way, and he would do battle for her until he fell rather than own up beaten.

The pair went crashing onward, making their way toward the distant waterways and marshes. Long before you heard the crashing of the underbrush you knew, if you were experienced in wood-lore, that moose were on the trail, because the moose when it travels has a way of striking its hoofs together with a sharp, clicking sound like the striking of castanets, and the sharp sound heralds their coming. But for all the moose is himself noisy, he is perhaps the very keenest one in the forest to detect the approach of an intruder, for he readily takes alarm at the mere cracking of a twig.

Seeking a deep pool where lily-pads had already begun to spread upon the water, the pair took to the pool and plunged their great, velvety muzzles deep down into its muddy depths, dragging forth great mouthfuls of the water plants and their roots, and browsing contentedly together for hours. After the scant fare of the abandoned “yard” how good the luscious, succulent fare tasted to them.

Thus for weeks Monsall and his mate journeyed, until one day the cow moose deliberately deserted him, and hunt as he might, so cleverly had she concealed herself, he could not find her. She did not leave the hidden, mossy covert for days, for any length of time, and when she did, it was simply because, nearly wild from the stings of the black fly, which now swarmed in the woods, she sought water where she might stand to rid herself of her tormentors.

She hoped to find some near-by pool, but in vain; all the shallow, near at hand waterways were dried out, and she traveled long before she found a deep pool. She was very nervous and anxious to get back to the secret covert, for she had left behind her a baby moose. Wise was the cow to hide the little one from its fierce parent, Monsall. For so fiercely selfish or jealous does the male moose become, that sometimes for sheer ugliness he will trample out the life of a very young moose.

When the mother moose came to the pool at last, she gave a long grunt or sigh of relief and sank deep down beneath the grateful water, leaving just the tip of her muzzle and furry ears above the surface. The black flies, which had stung her until she was nearly mad, left her burning flesh and arose in a scum upon the water. So relieved and full of content was the mother moose that she almost forgot about the little furry fellow whom she had left back there in the secret covert. And so it chanced that a lumberman and his boy, who had been following a forest trail, came upon the covert and found the little moose. Lonely, and no doubt wanting its mother, it had stolen out into the forest upon its long awkward legs, and stood exactly on the trail when the man spied it.

Thus it happened that when the mother moose came shambling hastily back to her baby, uttering little rumbling calls deep down inside, just to let it know she was on the way back to it, she found the secret covert quite empty. For weeks she crashed wildly through the forest, calling it vainly; only her own lonely bellow echoed back to her straining ears, while afar off, in quite another direction, in the distant lumber camp the boy was learning to love the little moose, and had built it a rough shelter and yard not far from the lumbermen’s shacks, lest it stray away, and he lose his pet.

In early autumn the mother finally gave up her fruitless search for the calf. Soon the herding time would be at hand, snows would fly, and then each family would seek the “yard” once more, and herd there through the winter. Overcome now with sudden loneliness--for already the hills were red with autumn tints; very soon after, up in the North Country, the first snow flies--the mother moose began to long for companionship, and so she began to haunt the old moose trails once more, and often send out her long-drawn, pleading call for her lost mate.

“Ugh-ugh-waugh, o-o-o” she bellowed, racing through the dark aisles of the tall spruces, whose far-away tops seemed to touch the blue sky.

One day, when she had almost given up her search, a loud, booming challenge, an answer to her call, came from a long distance away. Even then Monsall, the old King, was on his way to her and she was glad.

Now when the King Moose hears the pleading call of his lost mate, and makes up his mind that he will join her, should anything interfere with his plans, or hinder him in his travels to her, he is instantly on the war-path, and a most dangerous, terrifying foe for any one to meet. So when the old King Moose had raised his great antlered head, and after listening patiently, thought he had located the call of his mate, he was soon on his way to join her. Again came to him her welcoming call, oh, miles across the country, through forest and over mountain; but in spite of the long distance, Monsall had recognized her call, and he was coming.

Just as he had drawn in his breath to send out a mighty answering call, even before the echoes of his mate’s cry had fairly died out from afar off, in quite another direction, came the unmistakable answer of a rival moose. Instantly the old King was angry and alert. What rival was trying to call his mate away from him? Whirling indignantly about in his tracks, his great antlers thrown well back upon his black, bristling mane, Monsall charged madly off in the direction of the rival call.

Time after time his mate wailed forth her call to him, and each time a reply came from the rival moose. The great lumbering hulk of the King tore wildly through the forest, felling saplings, and racing over giant tree trunks with no effort whatever, so wild with jealousy and full of rage was he, and at every new call of the strange moose his anger increased. His small eyes gleamed redly, and his heavy breath rushed like steam from an engine through his great distended nostrils, while his heavy jaws crashed together like the fall of a woodman’s axe, as he ran blindly on.

Hours he ran; he would find and settle with this stranger who still sent his hateful bellow from afar, this rival who dared signal his own mate. His great antlers were now so terribly strong that he feared no other moose in the forest. Gradually he drew nearer the rival’s hiding-place, or haunts; for the bellow was nearer and nearer. It was night when the King Moose reached the end of the trail, which led him into the lumber camps; but he had no fear of man now, so keen was he after revenge, and to lock antlers with his rival; only, somehow, that rival’s bellow did not sound as loud or as challenging as his own. Surely his foe would be an easy one to rout.

The lumbermen had long ago gone to sleep in their shacks; they retire early, for their work begins at sunrise, and so the camp-fires smoldered, and it seemed like a deserted village, as Monsall halted right outside the slash or clearing, and stood stock-still to get his bearings, trying to gain sight of his rival. But no proud, antlered form rushed forth to do battle with Monsall. All was still; even the boy had been asleep for hours. He had given his pet moose its supper inside the yard, where he always fed it, had stroked and fondled its long furry ears, and the little moose had rubbed its clumsy, velvety muzzle affectionately over the boy’s body, and allowed him to fit a rough sort of harness over its body; for the boy was planning to train the young moose to carry him upon its back. The creature had now become so tame that it readily followed the boy all about camp, and was a great pet.

So wrapped in sleep was the camp they paid no attention whatever to the strange noises and calls of the young moose through the night. In fact they had become quite accustomed to his rather queer attempts to bellow, so were not disturbed by the sound. For hours the young moose had been restless, sending out call after call from his yard, each call becoming more sustained and carrying wider as the young moose gained experience with his new gift.

So, while the fires burned low and red, into the camp came a great, shambling, hulking black figure; it left the fringe of protecting spruce bush somewhat warily; its great nostrils puffed across the smoldering fires, and sent the floating ashes whirling. Then it began to circle about the camp, drawing steadily nearer and nearer the moose pen.

“Ugh-ugh, waugh, oo,” called the young moose, not very loudly or clearly, and as the sound came to Monsall he stood a second, then charged with raised antlers for the yard. Again the call, and this time the old King strained his great ears, perhaps catching a familiar note in the little moose call. Somehow it seemed to him not to be the loud, insolent bellow which he had followed and longed to do battle with its owner the moment he met. Then a strange thing occurred; instead of replying in his usual savage roar when he met an enemy, Monsall dropped his antlers gently and gave a gentle, unexpected low, which rumbled kindly, deep down inside his giant hulk, and meant only peace and reassurance to the little moose.

Then, through the darkness a great antlered head lifted itself over the high board enclosure where the young moose stood, timidly waiting he knew not what. Two velvety muzzles met over the barrier, the old King found and recognized one of his kindred; his own stray calf.

The lumbermen still slept on, and so they failed to hear the disturbance in camp and the crash which followed when the sharp, impatient hoofs of the King Moose tore down the board prison which separated him from his lost one, and gave it freedom--the freedom of the woods.

The old King and the little furry moose stood hesitatingly close to the dying camp-fires, Monsall to get his lost bearings, the little one waiting. Just then from far off came another long, pleading call, the mother moose calling again for her mate. Then the old moose lifted his antlers proudly, and a great and mighty challenge echoed through the camp and rang its way far over the pine trees to his mate. The great shambling figure of Monsall the moose took the trail once more, while close behind, right through the way which the old King blazed for him, followed the little one; they had heard and were following the call of the moose back into the forest.

VIII

THE LAST WOLF OF THE PACK

Gray Coat, leader of the great Timber Wolf Pack, originally came from the wilds of Northern Canada, where the dense forests form safe shelter and cover for deer, bear, the red fox, and all the wild kindred who seek the silent places of the woods, far away from man. But one year lumbermen entered the forest with their whirring saws, and felling the tall pines, let in light into the dark places and uncovered their trails. The wolf pack was tracked and gradually thinned out and scattered, and Gray Coat, the big, brave leader of the pack, one day realized that he was just one solitary, lonely old wolf roaming the forests alone.

Gray Coat always seemed to lead a charmed sort of life, for no matter how skilfully traps were laid for him he never ventured into one of them, no matter how pressing his hunger might be. Often, nowadays, he would starve for days because he hated the whine of the lumbermen’s saws, and they had frightened away the young deer, so that no longer did they come in early morning and at dew-fall to water at the old pool. Already ferns grew rank and untrodden over the old deer trails, and although Gray Coat watched and prowled about their old haunts, he never caught sight of even one red coat or flashing white tail.

At last the sides of Gray Coat began to show hollowly, gaunt and thin, and his coat became rough and shabby, a starved, baffled look gleamed in his sullen, green eyes, and his long, usually fleet legs were weak from fasting and often played him strange tricks; for sometimes when he chased a cottontail, because he had become reduced to such small fare, instead of the coveted tidbit, his lean, cruel jaws clicked together upon emptiness; he had somehow just missed the rabbit. Then Gray Coat instinctively knew that something strange and unusual had happened to him.

One night, too weak and lonely and disheartened to even start off trailing game, he sat solitary and unhappy just in the edge of a pine slash and lifting up his voice he howled and howled at the moon which looked coldly down upon his misery. It is during the winter that the wolves herd together, traveling in packs, but in spring they separate and mate. But although Gray Coat longed for companionship, there seemed to be no mate for him, for all his kindred had been hunted away from the old haunts. Had Gray Coat only been human, he would have wept bitterly; as he was only a wolf, he just sat all hunched up together, his lean snout low between his haunches, only lifting up his head to send his long howl through the woods.

Then somewhere, after a little silence, a very welcome sound came through the moonlit woods, the long, familiar cry of a wolf.

“Ah-h-o-o-o-oo, Ah-h-o-o-o-oo,” it wailed through the long dusky corridors of the pines. And the next instant Gray Coat forgot all his troubles and, leaping to his feet, with all his strength he sent back a loud-quavering howl of command and pleading.

“Ah-h-o-o-o-oo!” To his joy, back came an answering cry, followed by a series of short, reassuring calls which sounded like sweetest music to poor, lonely Gray Coat. Each time the calls sounded a trifle nearer, and soon his sharp ears caught the swift sound of a “pat, pat, pat” upon the bedded pine-needles, and through the moonbeams came swiftly a welcome gray shadow. Gray Coat had found a mate. After they had nosed each other over, dog-fashion, and snarled together with snapping jaws, as is the wolf way of introduction, the two gray wolves, last of a great pack which had once roamed through the Canadian forests, trotted off together.

Silver Sides, the young wolf, was not starved looking or shabby of coat as her mate, and instinctively sensing his hunger, she led him to the remains of a deer carcass, and snarling together, they finished it. Then, with all his old, strong courage come back to him, Gray Coat took the lead, as he always had done, and together they ran on and on through the woods. For days and nights the pair traveled, just two fleet gray shadows, slipping through the silent places of the forest; skulking warily, they avoided the man scent, but always keeping together, for, by common consent, they were now making for a strange, new country and fresh hunting grounds.

But in one thing they had erred; instead of striking off farther north into the well-nigh impassable wild forests, where the lumbermen had not entered, and where they might have found plenty of game, and others of their kindred, they were traveling south, each day drawing nearer and nearer civilization, and, if they kept on, they would soon reach the Green Mountain country. Finally they came to the edge of a great swamp; its dense growth of dark balsams and spruces promised them a safe retreat, and surely, in such a wilderness, game would be plentiful once more, for not a trace of man could they detect. Little cottontail rabbits they saw in plenty, but, as time wore on, both the appetites of Gray Coat and his mate demanded wilder fare than mere rabbits. In vain they ranged together over the deer passes; the hunters had frightened away most of the wilder game. So, in desperation, the two wolves each day began to grow bolder and bolder, and even ventured down into the valleys beneath the mountains, forgetting their fear of man; soon they commenced to raid the farmers’ sheep pens, and dragged away young calves to their retreat in the swamp. Then, as they were unmolested, they actually crossed the traveled highways at night, and often sent their long, wailing yells through the forests, until the villagers began to wonder what it all meant, because the wolf cry had not been heard in that section for years and years.

One farmer finally lost so many sheep he sat up nights to watch. And one moonlight night he saw the pair, Gray Coat and Silver Sides, come skulking like shadows from behind the granary. Quickly the farmer blazed away with his old flint-lock rifle, but he had not killed, only wounded one of the wolves and it got away, leaving a bloody trail of footprints behind.

Gray Coat had been hit and so badly lamed in one leg that he just managed to crawl back to the swamp before sunrise, and seeking shelter among the friendly spruces he lay there helplessly licking his wound.

As soon as the farmer realized that wolves were actually prowling around nights, he immediately set to work to trap them. But no trap could he find that would hold a wolf, so he invented a great drop trap, using the strong door of the granary for a fall. He then baited the trap with tempting fresh meat and waited for the wolves to come again.

Down in the swamp Gray Coat, sullen and ugly because of his lame leg, saw Silver Sides go off alone in the moonlight, night after night. He tried to follow her, for pangs of hunger were gnawing him, but his leg remained far too lame and stiff to travel upon, and so with a snarl of baffled rage he watched his mate slip off through the dark pines. Finally one night Gray Coat watched and waited impatiently for her to return. Would she find game, and perhaps bring him back a bone, as she sometimes did? At the mere thought his hunger seemed every instant to become more and more pressing, and the fever of his wound made him mad with thirst. Finally he dragged himself to a water hole, down in between the swamp tussocks, and lapped and lapped the green, scum-covered water. Then crawling wearily back to his retreat beneath a sheltering spruce, he waited and longed for Silver Sides to come back to him. All that night and the next day Gray Coat waited, but in vain; she did not return to him. Again the moon rose over the dark mountains, and filtered down into the swamp, and then, much to his relief, he tried his lame leg and found it stronger and better, so that he managed to spring out and catch an unsuspecting rabbit. Making a hasty meal, for he was so hungry he couldn’t very well do anything else, he then struck off through the thick spruces, following eagerly the trail of his mate.

Once or twice, in his haste, he lost the scent, then he would run hither and thither with little baffled whines, his muzzle close to the ground as he made wide détours, circling ever wider and wider, round in a circle, until he struck the lost trail once more. It led him through devious ways down into the valley, straight to the farmer’s sheep pen. Skulking warily in and out among the buildings, Gray Coat soon struck a keener scent, which led him straight to the trap. Strangely enough, the trap was not set, and as Gray Coat came creeping nearer and nearer, he found the heavy door dropped down. Baffled by this, he began to scratch frantically, digging and tearing around and beneath the trap with his sharp nails at the heavy door, for he certainly thought, by the strong scent, that Silver Sides must be back of the door. He gave little, whimpering, reassuring whines to her as he dug, just to let her know he was there, but received no reply from her. At last when his nails were nearly worn down to the quick, he stopped his furious digging. He was completely baffled; because, if she were back of the dropped door, she would surely have answered him. Then, suddenly, his miserable green eyes chanced to light upon a tuft of familiar looking gray fur; he sniffed at it eagerly. Yes, it surely belonged to his mate. Gray Coat tossed about this bit of fur, playing with it as a kitten does a feather, but he gained no response from the tuft of fur. Next instant he began to act like a crazy creature, racing madly in and out between the barns, for he had all at once caught a fresh, new clue. Following the new scent, it led him out behind a great red barn, and there it ended, for nailed against the barn door his despairing eyes saw and recognized the well-known but empty pelt of Silver Sides, his mate. Its plumy gray brush waved softly back and forth over the red barn door as if sending him greeting.

Gray Coat stood upon his long hind legs and tried to reach it with his snout. In vain; he received no welcoming snap from the empty jaws of the familiar pelt. Then, sitting down upon his lean haunches, Gray Coat lifted his head and sent such a long, wailing cry of despair and loneliness through the night that the farmer awoke and, grabbing his gun, started to hunt for the wolf.

But Gray Coat, having gained no response from the limp pelt upon the barn door, had left the barn-yard before the farmer got there.

Back on a great bare hill he sat, overlooking the now hateful valley, and trying to reason out in wolf fashion what it all meant. Soon, however, he had made up his mind--a time for action had come to Gray Coat; and lifting his head once more to the moon, he gave one last long cry, because of his lost mate. Then swiftly, like a gray shadow, he leaped away--for he had a long road to travel, because this time his instinct headed him in the right way, straight for the North Lands, where he would strike old familiar trails, fresh hunting grounds, and his kindred.

IX

HOW UNK-WUNK THE PORCUPINE MET HIS MATCH

In the thick cover of the spruces, down in a natural hollow, where it was dark and still, and the fragrant boughs swept the ground, forming a perfect little bower, or tent, lived a very interesting family, Father and Mother Porcupine and their three young ones. So very young were the little porcupines, or hedgehogs, as they are sometimes called, that they resembled neither cubs nor kittens, but at first sight looked not unlike homely young crows before the pin-feather age; for when the little hedgehog is born, he is strange looking enough, his quilly armor being covered with a transparent skin; and besides, he is totally deaf and blind, and very helpless.

It did not take long, however, for quills to poke through the skin covering, and then sight came to the small, piggy eyes, and the little ones began to look more like porcupines. One fine day the wanderlust seized Father Porcupine, and off he strolled into the deep woods, and was never seen again. He had deliberately deserted his little family beneath the green tent, which is not at all an uncommon occurrence in hedgehog circles.

The little ones were quite often left alone now to shift for themselves, for their mother also took to wandering, and so one night when she had been gone all day, upon her return she found two of them missing. In the early twilight a stealthy, sinuous stranger had entered her home; just two little protesting squeaks came from beneath the hedgehog tent, and when the weasel left, only Unk-Wunk, the largest of the little ones, was left.

“Unk-Wunk, Unk-Wunk,” grunted the lonely little hedgehog to his mother, as she peered in at him with her little dull eyes through the curtain of balsams, her cold manner showing no emotion whatever, for such is the nature of the hedgehog tribe that they rarely show much feeling over anything, no matter how tragic.

Now Unk-Wunk would never have escaped from the sharp teeth of the sly weasel had not his quills been longer and sharper than his unfortunate brothers. He had heard their terrified squeaks, and when the weasel made for him, he simply backed away, and for the first time in his life made use of his quill armor.

“Unk-Wunk, Unk-Wunk,” he grunted fiercely, while the weasel glared at him savagely with its hateful, little red eyes. The weasel thought to himself, no doubt, what a silly, helpless thing you are to grunt at me so boldly. Who’s afraid of your stupid “Unk-Wunk?” But the weasel soon found out his mistake, and backed out in haste from the hedgehog tent, his sly, pointed snout stuck full of cruel barbs, which it took him days to rub out, and taught him such a lesson that, ever after that, he never cared to cross the track of a hedgehog, and would frequently make a long détour whenever he chanced to spy one along the forest trails.

Unk-Wunk being of a particularly bold, independent nature, his mother soon left him, and went off to live with a colony of hedgehogs who had located their camp on a distant ledge. But somehow Unk-Wunk tarried in the old tent, for he loved the fragrant balsam scent, where overhead, when autumn came, the beech leaves turned golden yellow, and the brown nuts came rattling down in showers to his very door. Besides, just a short stroll away lay the marsh pools, threaded thick with succulent lily roots, considered, by the hedgehog tribe, the very daintiest eating to be had. All this lay close at hand, and as Unk-Wunk was naturally a lazy, indolent fellow, and did not care to hurry, or take unnecessarily long journeys, no wonder the place suited him.

Never, perhaps, had there been such an absolutely fearless hedgehog as young Unk-Wunk, because his first great success in driving off the sly old weasel had taught him the use of his quills, and made him unafraid of anything in the forest, whether it wore fur or feathers. He actually never bothered himself to get out of their very tracks, but would just stand looking very stupid indeed, and stare at them coldly with his little, dull eyes; if they presumed to come too near he would raise his armor and utter threatening grunts at them, so that usually they passed him by.

At twilight, when the old hoot owl, who nested above him in the beech tree, came out upon a limb and began to send out his weird call, and the hermit thrushes called to each other across the marsh-lands, then Unk-Wunk would lazily uncurl himself from an all day snooze, and leisurely stroll off through the silent places of the forest looking for a meal. When it began to grow frosty in the lowlands, and the nights were cooler, he covered longer distances in his raids, and even ventured into the lumber camps, gnawing his way through intervening boards of the shacks and sampling fat bacon, which he found so good that he would travel long distances to taste it. He stole eggs, too, and would manage one so deftly that he rarely spilled a drop of the golden contents, for he had a nice way of cracking a small place in the shell at the top, and inserting his tongue, or small paw, and never losing a morsel, leaving behind him just a pile of empty shells.

Strangely enough, the lumbermen’s yellow hound, when he heard the steady “gnaw, gnaw, gnaw” of Unk-Wunk’s sharp teeth through the shack flooring, would simply raise his head and utter little timorous, muffled whines under his breath, never offering to drive him away; if the truth were known the yellow dog was terribly afraid of Unk-Wunk. He would not hesitate to bay fiercely, chase a fox, coon, or even a bob cat, but once he had returned to camp with his jowls stuck full of Unk-Wunk’s terrible quills, and after that he played the coward whenever he saw a hedgehog.

When you studied Unk-Wunk carefully, you might think him a very stupid, dull-looking animal. But back of his ugly, half-witted skull lay an alert brain, what there was of it. He dearly loved to play a joke, and for sheer sport would roll himself up into a ball and lie stupidly in one of the well-worn trails of the wood people; unsuspectingly, they would creep nearer and nearer the queer looking bundle. Then Unk-Wunk’s dull eyes, peering out at them, perhaps, from beneath his hind leg, would sparkle with malice, and, like a flash, out would fly his tail, which held the very sharpest, most penetrating quills on his body. Then the curious one would usually go squeaking off on a jump, very much wiser than it had been before concerning the hedgehog family.

One autumn evening Unk-Wunk visited the marsh pool; his desire for a feast of lily roots, before the pool froze over, was keen upon him. To his dismay he found the pool already occupied by the blue heron family who were wading about upon their long, stilt-like legs for minnows or crawfish. Unk-Wunk realized well enough that he would be at the mercy of the herons’ long, sword-like beaks once he entered the water, so he just stood behind the shelter of a spruce bush and thought out a plan to get rid of the herons, and have the pool to himself.