Chapter III

It was at this moment that the old lynx, master of Ringwaak, coming suddenly out into the moonlight, saw the grim apparition beneath the rock, and flattened to the ground.

Through long, momentous, pregnant seconds the two formidable and matched antagonists scrutinized each other, the lynx close crouched, ready to launch himself like a thunderbolt, the catamount half risen, his back bowed, one paw of obstinate possession clutching the head of his prey. In the eyes of each, as they measured each other's powers and sought for an advantage, flamed hate, defiance, courage, and savage question.

Seen thus near together, catamount by lucerfee, they were obviously akin, yet markedly different. The cat was heavier in the body, outweighing his rival by perhaps not far from ten pounds, but with shorter and more gracefully shaped legs, and smaller feet. His head was more arched, seeming to indicate a greater intelligence, and his flaming eyes were set wider apart; but his mouth was smaller, his fangs less long and punishing. His fur was of a browner, warmer hue than that of the lynx, whose gray had a half-invisible ghostliness in the moonlight. The tails of both were ridiculously short, not six inches in length, but that of the catamount was straight and stiff, while that of the lucerfee had a curious upward twist that somehow mocked the contortions of his huge and overlong hind legs. The eyes of the lynx, under his flatter forehead, were the more piercing, the less blazing. Altogether the great wildcat was the more beautiful of the two beasts, the more intelligent, the more adaptable and resourceful. But the lynx, with his big, uncouth, hind quarters, and great legs gathered under him, and exaggerated paws, looked to be the more formidable fighting machine.

Thus, unstirring, they eyed each other. Then with a strident screech that seemed to tear the spell of the night to tatters, the gray body of the lynx shot through the air. It landed, not upon the catamount, but squarely upon the carcass of the doe, where, a fraction of a second before, the catamount had stood. The wary intruder had not waited to endure the full shock of that charge, but lightly as a puff of down had leaped aside. The next instant he had pounced, with a yowl of defiance, straight for the lynx's neck.

Lightning quick though he was, the lynx recovered in time to meet the attack with deadly counter-stroke of bared claws, parrying like a skilled boxer. In this forearm work the catamount, lighter of paw and talon, suffered the more; and being quick to perceive his adversary's advantage, he sought to force a close grapple. This the lynx at first avoided, rending and punishing frightfully as he gave ground; while the solemn height of old Ringwaak was shocked by a clamour of spitting and raucous yowling that sent every sleepy bird fluttering in terror from its nest.

Suddenly, perceiving that the lynx was backing dangerously close to the face of the rock, the great cat sprang, took a frightful, ripping buffet across the face, broke down his foe's guard and bore him to the ground by sheer weight. Here, in this close embrace, the hinder claws of both came into play with hideous effect. The clamour died down to a tense, desperate, gasping snarl; for now the verdict of life or death was a matter of moments. But in this fearful and final test, when there was no more room for fencing, no more time for strategy, the more powerful hind legs and longer, more eviscerating claws of the lynx had the decisive advantage. Though borne down, and apparently getting the worst of the fight, the master of Ringwaak was in reality ripping his enemy to pieces from beneath. All at once the latter sprang away with a scream, stood for a second erect and rigid, then sank limp beside the torn carcass of the doe.

The lynx, badly torn and bitten, but with no fatal injury, pounced upon the unresisting body of the catamount and mauled it till well assured of the completeness of his victory. Then, heedless of his wounds, he mounted the carcass of the doe, lifted his head high, and screeched his challenge across the night. No answer coming, he tore a mouthful of the meat to emphasize possession, stepped down, and crept off to nurse his hurts in some dark retreat; for not easy had been the task of defending his lordship. When all was still once more on Ringwaak, presently descended again the enchantment of the mystic light. And under its transforming touch even the torn bodies lying before the bright face of the rock lost their hideousness, becoming remote, and unsubstantial and visionary.

The Decoy

High above the flat-spread earth, their strong wings driving them at tremendous speed through the thin, cold air of dawn, the wild-goose flock journeyed north. In the shape of an irregular V they journeyed, an old gander, wise and powerful, at the apex of the aerial array. As they flew, their long necks stretched straight out, the living air thrilled like a string beneath their wing-beats. From their throats came a throbbing chorus, resonant, far-carrying, mysterious,--_honka, honka, honka, honk, honka, honk_. It seemed to be the proper utterance of altitude and space.

The flight was as true as if set by a compass; but the longer limb of the V would curve and swerve sinuously from time to time as the weaker or less experienced members of the flock wavered in their alignment. Flat, low-lying forests, and lonely meres, and rough, isolated farms sped past below the rushing voyagers,--then a black head-land, and then a wide, shallow arm of the sea. For a few minutes the glimmer of pale, crawling tides was everywhere beneath them,--then league on league of gray-green, sedgy marsh, interlaced with little pools and lanes of bright water, and crisscrossed with ranks of bulrush. The leader of the flock now stretched his dark head downward, slowing the beat of his wings, and the disciplined array started on a long decline toward earth. From its great height the flock covered nearly a mile of advance before coming within a hundred yards of the pale green levels; and all through the gradual descent the confusion of marsh, and pool, and winding creek, seemed to float up gently to meet the long-absent wanderers. At length, just over a shallow, spacious, grassy mere, and some thirty feet above its surface, the leader decided to alight. It was an old and favoured feeding-ground, where the mud was full of tender shoots and tiny creatures of the ooze. The wings of the flock, as if on signal, turned out and upward, showing a flash of paler colour as they checked the still considerable speed of the flight.

In that pause, just before the splash of alighting, from a thick cover of sedge across the pool came two sharp spurts of flame, one after the other, followed by two thunderous reports, so close together as to seem almost like one. Turning straight over, the leader fell upon the water with a heavy splash; and immediately after him dropped his second in leadership, the strong young gander who flew next him on the longer limb of the V. The flock, altogether demoralized, huddled together for a few seconds with loud cries; then rose and flapped off seaward. Before the hunter in the sedge could get fresh cartridges into his gun, the diminished flock was out of range, making desperate haste to safer feeding-grounds.

Of the two birds thus suddenly smitten by fate, the younger, shot through the heart, lay motionless where he had dropped, a sprawl of black and white, and ashen feathers tumbled by the little ripples of the pool. But the older bird was merely winged. Recovering himself almost instantly from the shock of the wound and the fall, he made one pathetically futile effort to rise again, then started swimming down the pond, trailing his shattered wing behind him and straining his gaze toward the departing flock.

Immediately after the two shots, out from the shelter of the rushes had sprung a large, curly-coated, brown retriever. With a yelp of excitement he had dashed into the water and dragged ashore the body of the dead bird. Now the hunter, standing up and stretching his legs as if cramped from a long lying-in-wait, started on a sharp run down the wet shore of the pond, whistling the retriever after him. He had noted the splendid stature of the wounded bird, and wanted to capture him alive.

Not without cause had the great gander achieved the leadership of the flock, for he possessed not only strength but intelligence. When he saw that his trailing wing so hampered his swimming that he would presently be overtaken, he turned and darted into the sedges of the opposite shore, trusting to the difficulties of the swamp to protect him. He did not know that the big brown retriever was almost amphibious, and more cunning than himself.

The hunter stopped, and pointed to the spot of waving reeds where the bird had disappeared.

"Fetch him, Pete!" he commanded,--"But gently, boy, ge-e-ently!" And the wise old dog understood, either from the words or from the tone in which they were uttered, that this was to be a bloodless capture. Barking joyously, he tore around the pond to the place where the gander had vanished, and dashed splashing into the reeds. A few seconds later a tumult arose, the reeds were beaten down, and the dog reappeared, dragging his prize by the uninjured wing.

The great bird, powerful and dauntless, made a gallant fight; but he was hopelessly handicapped. His most formidable weapons were the bony elbows of his strong, untiring wings; and of both these he was now deprived, one wing being shattered, and the other in the grip of the enemy's jaws. He struck and bit and worried with his hard bill; but the dog, half-shutting his eyes, took the mauling grimly and dragged his troublesome captive into the water.

Here, however, he made a mistake. The great bird was a mighty swimmer, and indomitable; and in half a minute his captor was glad to drag him to land again. Then the hunter arrived on the scene; and the dog, gladly relinquishing so unmanageable a prisoner, sat back on his haunches, with tongue hanging out, to see what his master would do. The dauntless gander bit furiously, and pounded with his one undamaged wing, and earned his adversary's unstinted commendation: but in a minute or two he found himself helpless, swathed like a cocoon in a stout, woollen hunting-coat, and his head ignominiously bagged in one of the sleeves. In this fashion, his heart bursting with fear and wrath, his broken wing one hot throb of anguish, he was carried under the hunter's arm for what seemed to him a whole night long. Then he was set free in a little open pen in a garden, beside a green-shuttered, wide-eaved, white cottage on the uplands.

The hunter was so kind to his captive, so assiduous in his care, that the wild bird presently grew almost indifferent to his approach, and ceased to strike at him savagely with his free wing whenever he entered the pen. The other wing, well cleaned and salved, and bound in cunning splints, healed rapidly, and caused no pain save when its owner strove to flap it,--which he did, with long, desolate, appealing cries, whenever a wild-goose flock went honking musically across the evening or morning sky.

At length, while the injured wing was still in bandage, the hunter took the bird in spite of all protest, tucked the long neck and troublesome head under his arm, and attached to one leg a little leather wrapping and a long, strong cord. Then he opened the pen. The big gander strode forth with more haste than quite comported with his dignity. Straight down the slope he started, seeking the wide marshes where he expected to find his flock. Then suddenly he came to the end of his cord with a jerk, and fell forward on his breast and bill with a _honk_ of surprise. He was not free, after all, and two or three violent struggles convinced him of the fact. As soon as he realized himself still a prisoner, his keen, dark eyes turned a look of reproach upon his jailer, who was holding the other end of the cord and watching him intently. Then he slackened on the tether, and fell to cropping the short grass of the lawn as if being tied by the leg was an ancient experience. It was a great thing, after all, to be out of the pen.

"He'll do!" said the man to himself with satisfaction, as he fixed the tether to a young apple-tree. When he had gone into the house the bird stopped feeding, turned first one eye and then the other toward the empty sky, stretched his long, black neck and clean white throat, and sent out across the green spaces his appealing and lonely cry,--_honka, honka, honka, ho-onka_!

Very early the following morning, before the stars had begun to pale at the approach of dawn, the captive was once more wrapped up securely and taken on a blind journey. When he was uncovered, and anxiously stretched out his head, he found himself again on the edge of that shallow pool in the marshes where fate had overtaken him. The brown retriever was sitting on his haunches close by, regarding him amicably. The man was fastening one end of the tether to a stake at the water's edge, and from the east a grayness touched with chill pink was spreading over the sky.

A moment later the surprised bird found himself standing among the wet sedge, close to the water. With a nervous glance at the dog, whom he shrank from with more dread than from the man, he launched himself into the water and swam straight out from shore.

This time, surely, he was free. Next to the spacious solitudes of the air, this was his proper element. How exquisite to the thin webs of his feet felt the coolness of it, as he pushed against it with strong strokes! How it curled away luxuriously from his gray, firm-feathered breast! This was to live again, after the pain and humiliation of his captivity! And yonder, far down the mere, and past those tall reeds standing shadowy in the pallor, surely he would find the flock which had moved on without him! Then, all at once, it was as if something had clutched him by the leg. With a startled cry and a splash he tipped forward, and his glad journey came to an end. He had reached the limit of his tether.

Remembering his experience of the day before, he made no vain struggle, but floated quietly for a minute or two, stricken with his disappointment. The man and the big brown dog had disappeared; but presently his keen and sagacious eyes detected them both, lying motionless in a thicket of reeds. Having stared at them indignantly for a few moments, swimming slowly to and fro and transfixing them with first one eye and then the other, he ducked his head and began biting savagely at the leathern wrapping on his leg. But the uselessness of this soon appearing to him, he gave it up, and sought to ease his despair by diving and guttering with his bill among the roots of the oozy bottom. In this absorbing occupation he so far forgot his miseries that all at once he tried to lift himself on the water, flap his wings, and sound his trumpet-call. One wing did give a frantic flap. The other surged fiercely against its bandages, sending a throb of anguish through his frame, and the trumpet-call broke in a single hoarse _honk_. After this he floated for a long time in dejection, while the level rays of sunrise stole mysteriously across the pale marshes.

The hunter, tired of his long stillness in the sedge, was just about to stand up and stretch himself, when from far down the sky to southward came a hollow and confused clamour. The hunter heard it, and the brown retriever heard it; and both crouched low behind their shelter, as motionless as stones. The wild captive, floating at the end of his tether out on the pink-and-gold mirror of the pond, also heard it, and stretched his fine black head aloft, rigid with expectancy. Nearer and nearer came the thrilling voices. Blacker and larger against the sky grew the journeying V as it approached the marshes. The heart of the captive swelled with hope and longing. Not his own flock, indeed, but his own kin, these free and tireless voyagers coming confidently to safe feeding-grounds! Forgetting everything but his great loneliness, he raised himself as high as he could upon the water, one wing partly outspread, and called, and called again, summoning the travellers to alight.

Hearing this kindly summons, the flock dipped at once and came slanting steeply toward earth. In their haste they broke rank, descending more abruptly than usual, their customary caution quite laid aside when they saw one of their own kind waiting to receive them. The joyous captive ducked and bowed his head in greeting. In another moment the whole flock would have settled clamorously about him, and he would have been happy,--but before that moment came there came instead two bursts of flame and thunder from the covert of sedge. And instead of the descending flock, there fell beside the captive two heavy, fluttering gray-and-black shapes, which beat the water feebly and then lay still.

As the betrayed and panic-stricken flock flapped away in confusion the captive tugged frantically at his tether, crying shrilly and struggling to follow them. In his desperation he paid no heed whatever as the big, brown dog dashed out and triumphantly dragged the bodies of the two victims to land. He was horrified by the terrible noise, and the killing; but his attention was chiefly engrossed by the fact that the flock had been frightened away, leaving him to his loneliness. For several minutes he continued his cries, till the flock was far out of sight. Then silence fell again on the marshes.

A quarter of an hour later much the same thing happened again. Another flock, passing overhead, came clamouring fearlessly down in response to the captive's calls, met the doom that blazed from the reed-covert, and left two of its members gasping on the surface of the pond. This time, however, the despair of the captive was less loud and less prolonged. As leader, for two seasons, of his own flock, he had necessarily learned certain simple processes of deduction. These pitiful tragedies through which he had just passed were quite sufficient to convince him that this particular shallow pond, though so good a feeding-ground, was a fatal place for the voyaging geese to visit. Further, in a dim way, his shocked and shuddering brain began to realize that his own calling was the cause of the horrors. If he called, the flocks came fearlessly, content with his pledge that all was well. Upon their coming, the fire, and dreadful thunders, and inexplicable death burst forth from the sedge; and then the great brown dog appeared to drag his prey to shore. The whole mischief, as it seemed to him, was the work of the dog; and it did not occur to him that the man, who seemed fairly well-disposed and all-powerful, had anything whatever to do with it. This idea gradually grew clear in the captive's brain, as he swam, very slowly, to and fro upon the brightening water. In a vague way his heart determined that he would lure no more of his kindred to their doom. And when, a little later, a third flock came trumpeting up the sky, the captive eyed their approach in despairing silence.

As the beating wings drew near, stooping toward the silvery pools and pale green levels, the captive swam back and forward in wild excitement, aching to give the call and ease his loneliness. The flock, perceiving him, drew nearer; but in his excited movements and his silence its leader discerned a peril. There was something sinister and incomprehensible in this splendidly marked bird who refused to summon them to his feeding-ground, and kept swimming wildly back and forth. Keeping well beyond gunshot, they circled around this smiling but too mysterious water, to alight with great clamour and splashing in a little, sheltered mere some two or three hundred yards farther inland. The hunter, crouching moveless and expectant in his ambush, muttered an exclamation of surprise, and wondered if it could be possible that his incomparable decoy had reached an understanding of the treacherous game and refused to play it.

"There's no smarter bird that flies than a wild gander!" he mused, watching the great bird curiously and with a certain sympathy. "We'll see what happens when another flock comes by!"

Meanwhile the new arrivals, over in the unseen pond behind the rushes, were feeding and bathing with a happy clamour. They little dreamed that a pot-hunting rustic from the village on the hills, flat on his belly in the oozy grass, was noiselessly worming his way toward them. Armed with an old, single-barrel duck gun, the height of his ambition was to get a safe and easy shot at the feeding birds. No delicate wing-shooting for him. What he wanted was the most he could get for his powder and lead. Big and clumsy though he was, his progress through the grass was as stealthy as that of a mink.

It chanced that the path of the pot-hunter took him close past the further shore of the pond where the captive was straining at his tether and eating his heart out in determined silence. The homesick, desolate bird would swim around and around for a few minutes, as a caged panther circles his bounds, then stop and listen longingly to the happy noise from over beyond the reed-fringes. At last, goaded into a moment of forgetfulness by the urge of his desire, he lifted up his voice in a sudden abrupt _honk, honk_!

The pot-hunter stopped his crawling and peered delightedly through the sedgy stems. Here was a prize ready to his hand. The flock was still far off, and might easily take alarm before he could get within range. But this stray bird, a beauty too, was so near that he could not miss. Stealthily he brought his heavy weapon to the shoulder; and slowly, carefully, he took aim.

The report of the big duck gun was like thunder, and roused the marshes. In a fury the hunter sprang from his ambush across the mere, and ran down to the water's edge, threatening vengeance on the lout who would fire on a decoy. The brown retriever, wild with excitement, dashed barking up and down the shore, not knowing just what he ought to do. Sandpipers went whistling in every direction. And the foraging flock, startled from their security, screamed wildly and flapped off unhurt to remoter regions of the marsh. But the lonely captive, the wise old gander who had piloted his clan through so many hundred leagues of trackless air, lay limp and mangled on the stained water, torn by the heavy charge of the duck gun. The whimsical fate that seems to play with the destinies of the wild kindreds had chosen to let him save one flock from the slaughterer, and expiate his blameless treason.

The Laugh in the Dark

Though the darkness under the great trees was impenetrable, it gave an impression of transparency which invited the eyes to strain and peer, as if vision might be expected to reward an adequate effort. It was that liquid darkness which means not mist, but the utter absence of light on a clear air; and it was filled with elusive yet almost illuminating forest scents. To the keen nostrils of the man who was silently mounting the trail, it seemed as if these wild aromas almost enabled him to veritably see the trees which towered all about him, so clearly did they differentiate to him their several species as he passed,--the hemlock, in particular, and the birch, the black poplar, and the aromatic balsam-fir. But his eyes, though trained to the open, could in truth detect nothing whatever, except now and then a darting gleam which might come from a wet leaf, or from the gaze of a watching wood-mouse, or merely from the stirrings of the blood within his own brain.

The man was on his way up from the lake, by an old trail long ago familiar to his feet, to make camp for the night in a deserted lumber shanty about a quarter of a mile back from the water. Over the dimly glimmering, windless water, under a cloudless sky, he had groped his way in his canoe to the old landing. Turning the canoe over his supplies for protection in case of rain, he had set out for the lumber shanty with only a blanket and a couple of hardtack. His rifle he had indifferently left in the canoe, but in his right hand he carried a paddle, to steady his steps and help him feel his way through the dark.

Once the grayness of the open shore had faded behind him, the man found himself walking stealthily, like the stealthiest of the wild kindred themselves. The trail being well-worn, though long deserted by man, his feet kept it without difficulty; but he held the paddle out before him lest he should stumble over a windfall. Presently he took note of the fact that the trail was marvellously smooth for one that had been so long deserted, and with a little creeping of the skin, which was not in any sense fear but rather an acknowledgment of mystery, he realized that it was other than human feet which were keeping the lonely path in use. What kind were they, he wondered,--the great, noiseless pads of bear, or lynx, or panther, the hard hoofs of moose or deer, or the airy, swift feet of hare and mink and marten? As he wondered, moving more and more furtively as the spirit of the unseen wild pervaded and possessed him, his nostrils discerned across the savours of the trees and the mould a sudden musky scent; and he knew that one of the frequenters of the trail was a red fox, who had just gone by.

Impressed by a sense that he was not so utterly alone as he had imagined himself to be, the man now obeyed one of the wary impulses of the wood-folk. He stepped aside from the trail, feeling his way, and leaned his back against a huge birch-tree. The ragged, ancient, sweet-smelling bark felt familiar and friendly to his touch. Here he stood, sniffing the still air with discrimination, testing with initiated ears every faint forest breathing. The infinitesimal and incessant stir of growth and change and readjustment was vaguely audible to his fine sense, making a rhythmic background against which the slightest unusual sound, even to the squeak of a wood-mouse, or the falling of a worm-bitten leaf, would have fairly startled the dark. Once he heard a twig snap, far in the depths on the other side of the trail, and he knew that some one of the wild kindred had moved carelessly. But on the trail nothing went by.

Had there been ever so small a glimmer of light, to enable his eyes to play their part in this forest game, the man could have watched for an hour as moveless as the tree on which he leaned. But in that strange, absolute dark the strain soon grew almost intolerable. The game certainly ceased to be amusing after an uneventful fifteen minutes had passed. He was just about to give up, to step forth into the trail and resume his journey to the cabin, when he caught a strange sound, which made him stiffen back at once into watchful rigidity.

The sound was a great breath. In its suddenness and its vagueness the listener was unable to distinguish whether it came from a dozen yards down the trail, or a couple of dozen inches from his elbow. His nose, however, assured him that he had not the latter alternative to face; so he waited, his right hand upon the knife in his belt. He could hear his heart beating.

For several minutes nothing more was heard. Then through the high leafage overhead splashed a few big drops of rain, with the hushing sound of a shower not heavy enough to break through. The next moment a flash of white lightning lit up the forest aisles,--and in that moment the man saw a huge black bear standing in the trail, not ten feet distant. In that moment the eyes of the man and the eyes of the beast met each other fairly. Then the blackness fell once more; and a thin peal of midsummer thunder rolled over the unseen tree-tops.

When all was silence again the man felt uncomfortable, and regretted the rifle which he had left under the canoe. That the bear would attack him, unprovoked, he knew to be improbable; but he also knew enough about bears to know that it is never well to argue too confidently as to what they will do. The more he waited and listened, the more he felt sure that the bear was also waiting and listening, in an uncertainty not much unlike his own. He decided that it was for him to take the initiative. Clapping his hands smartly, he threw back his head, and burst into a peal of laughter.

The loud, incongruous sound shocked the silences. It almost horrified the man himself, so unexpected, so unnatural, so inexplicable did it seem even to his own ears. When it ceased, he knew that it had accomplished its purpose. He heard rustling and snapping noises swiftly diminishing in the distance, and knew that the bear was retreating in a panic. At this he laughed again, not loudly, but to himself, and stepped out into the trail.

But the man was not yet done with the effects of his loud challenge to the solemnities of the dark. Hardly had he taken three steps along the trail when a little in front of him--perhaps, as he guessed, some five and twenty paces--there arose a slashing and crashing noise of struggle. Branches cracked and rustled and snapped, heavy feet pounded the earth, and a confusion of gasping grunts suggested a blind menagerie in mortal combat. The man, fairly startled, groped his way back to the tree, and waited behind it, knife in hand. In fact he had a strong inclination to climb into the branches; but this impulse he angrily restrained.

For a whole minute the daunting uproar continued, neither approaching nor receding, and at length the man's curiosity, ever insatiable where the mysteries of the wild were concerned, got the better of his prudence. He lit a match and peered from behind his shelter. The little, sudden blaze spread a sharp light, but whatever was making the uproar went on as before, quite heedless of the singular phenomenon. When the match died out it left the man no wiser. Then with hurried hands he stripped some birch bark, and rolled himself a serviceable torch. When this blazed up with its smoky flame, he held it well off to one side and a little behind him, and made his way warily to the scene of the disturbance.

A turn in the trail, and the mystery stood revealed. With a cry of indignation the man darted forward, no longer cautious. What he saw before him was a great, gaunt moose-cow reared upon her hind legs, caught under the jaws by a villainous moose-snare. With her head high among the branches, she lurched and kicked in a brave struggle for life, while every effort but drew tighter the murdering noose. A few feet away stood her lanky calf, trembling, and staring stupidly at the light.

The man lost not a moment. Dropping his bundle and paddle, but carefully guarding the torch, he climbed the tree above the victim, lay out on a branch, reached down, and dexterously severed the noose with his knife. What matter if, with his haste and her struggles, he at the same time cut a slash in the beast's stout hide? The blood-letting was a sorely needed medicine to her choked veins. She fell in a heap, and for a minute or two lay gasping loudly. Then she staggered to her feet, and stood swaying, while she nosed the calf with her long muzzle to assure herself that it had not been hurt in the cataclysm which had overtaken her.

The man watched her until his torch was almost gone, then climbed down the tree (which was not a birch) to get himself another. Noticing him now for the first time, the moose pulled herself together with a mighty effort, and thrust the calf behind her. Could this be the enemy who had so nearly vanquished her? For a moment the man thought she was going to charge upon him, and he held himself in readiness to go up the tree again. But the poor shaken beast thought better of it. Pain, rage, fear, amazement, doubt,--all these the man fancied he could see in her staring, bloodshot eyes. He stood quite still, pitying her, and cursing the brutal poachers who had set the snare. Then, just before the torch gave its last flicker, the great animal turned and led her calf off through the woods, looking back nervously as she went.

When the light was out, and silence had come again upon the forest, the man resumed his journey. He travelled noisily, whistling and stamping as he went, as a warning to all wild creatures that a man was in their woods, and that they must give room to a master. He carried with him now, besides his blanket and his paddle, a generous roll of birch bark, with which to illuminate the lumber shanty before going in. It had occurred to him that possibly some lynx or wildcat might have taken up its dwelling therein; and if so, he was no longer in the mood to meet it at close quarters in the dark.

The Kings of the Intervale

Far out over the pale, smooth surface of the river a crow flew, flapping heavily. From time to time he uttered an angry and frightened squawk. Over, under, and all around him, now darting at his eyes, now dropping upon him like a little, arrow-pointed thunderbolt, now slapping a derisive wing across his formidable beak, flashed a small, dark bird whose silvery white belly now and then caught the sun.

The crow's accustomed alert self-possession was quite shattered. He had forgotten his own powers of attack. He seemed to fear for his eyes,--and among all the wild kindred there is no fear more horrifying than that. When he ducked, and swerved, and tried to dodge, he did it awkwardly, as if his presence of mind was all gone.

His assailant, less than a third of his weight, was a king-bird, whose nest, in the crotch of an elm on the intervale meadow, the crow had been so ill-advised as to investigate. The crow was comparatively inexperienced, or he would have known enough to keep away from the nests of the king-birds. But there it was, in plain sight; and he loved eggs or tender nestlings. Before he had had time to find out which it was that the nest contained, both the parent birds had fallen upon him with a swift ferocity which speedily took away his appetite for food or fight. Their beaks were sturdy and burning sharp. Their short, powerful wings gave them a flight so swift and darting that, for all his superior strength, he felt himself at their mercy. His one thought was to save his eyes and escape.

Both birds chased him till he was well out over the river. Then the female returned to her nest, leaving her mate to complete the intruder's chastisement. Had the crow been an old and cunning bird, he would have sought the extreme heights of air, where the king-bird is disinclined to follow; but lacking this crow-wisdom, he kept on at the level of the tallest tree-tops, and was forced to take his punishment. He was, in reality, more sore and terrified than actually injured. That darting, threatening beak of his pursuer never actually struck his eyes. But for this, it is probable, he had only the indulgence of the king-bird to thank. When at last the chastiser, tired of his task, turned and flew back up the river toward the nest in the elm-crotch, the ruffled crow took refuge out of sight, in the top of the densest hemlock, where he rolled his eyes and preened his plumage silently for an hour before daring again the vicissitudes of the wilderness world.

The nest to which the triumphant king-bird hurried back was audaciously perched in plain view of every prowler. The crotch of the elm-tree which it occupied was about twelve feet from the ground. The intervale, or water-meadow, by the side of the river, held but a few widely scattered trees,--trees of open growth, such as elm, balsam-poplar, and water-ash. It was free from all underbrush. There was nothing, therefore, to shield the nest from even the most careless eyes; and with an insolence of fearlessness matched only by that of the osprey, it was made the more conspicuous by having great tufts of white wool from a neighbouring sheep-pasture woven into its bulky, irregular frame. So irregular and haphazard, indeed, did it appear, that it might almost have been mistaken for a bunch of rubbish left in the tree from the time of freshet. But if the two king-birds relied on this resemblance as a concealment, they presumed as so clever a bird is not likely to do upon the blindness or stupidity of the wild kindred. The wild kindred are seldom blind, and very seldom stupid, because those members of the fellowship who are possessed of such defects sooner or later go to feed their fellows. Hence it was that most of the folk of the riverside, furred or feathered, knew well enough what the big whitish-gray bunch of rubbish in the elm-crotch was.

There were five eggs at the bottom of the smooth, warm cup, which formed the heart of the nest. They were a little smaller than a robin's egg, and of a soft creamy white, blotched irregularly with dull purplish maroon of varying tone. So jealous of these mottled marvels were the king-birds that not even the most harmless of visitors were allowed to look upon them. If so much as a thrush, or a pewee, or a mild-mannered white throat, presumed to alight on the very remotest branch of that elm, it was brusquely driven away.

One morning early, the male king-bird was sitting very erect, as was his custom, on the naked tip of a long, slender, dead branch some ten feet above the nest The morning chill was yet in the air, so it was a little early for the flies which formed his food to be stirring. But he was hungry, and on the alert for the first of them to appear. Only the tense feathers of his crest, raised to show the flame-orange spot which was his kingly crown, betrayed his eagerness; for he was a self-contained bird. The sun was just beginning to show the red topmost edge of his rim through the jagged line of firs across the river, and the long, level streaks of aerial rose, creeping under the branches, filled all the shadowed places of the wilderness with mysterious light. The eastward sides of the tree-trunks and naked branches glimmered pink; and dew-wet leaves, here and there, shone like pale jewels of pink, amber, and violet. The mirror-like surface of the river was blurred with twisting spirals of mist, silvery and opalescent, through which the dim-seen figure of a duck in straight flight shot like a missile.

As the king-bird sat erect on his branch, watching with bright eyes the miracle of the morning, an over-adventurous dragon-fly arose from a weed-top below him and flew into the rosy light. The bird darted straight and true, zigzagged sharply as the victim tried to dodge, caught the lean prize in his beak, and carried it very gallantly to his mate upon the nest. Then he fluttered back to his post on the branch.

As the sun got up over the hill, and the warmth dried their wings, the intervale began to hum softly with dancing flies and hurrying beetles, and the king-bird was continually on the move, twittering with soft monotony (his sole attempt at song), between each successful sally. At length the female rose from her eggs, stood on the edge of the nest, and gave an impatient call. Her mate flew down to take her place, and the two perched side by side, making a low chirping sound in their throats.

Just at this moment a small black snake, warmed into activity and hunger by the first rays of the sun, glided to the tree and began to climb. Bird's-nesting was the black snake's favourite employment; but it had not stopped to consider that the nest in this particular tree was a king-bird's. It climbed swiftly and noiselessly, and the preoccupied birds did not get glimpse of it till it was within two feet of the nest.

There was no time for consultation in the face of this peril. Like lightning the two darted down upon the enemy, buffeting its head with swift wing-strokes. The first assault all but swept it from the tree, and it shrank back upon itself with flattened head and angry hiss. Then it struck fiercely, again and again, at its bewildering assailants. But swift as were its movements, those of the king-birds were swifter, and its fangs never hit upon so much as one harassing feather. Suddenly, in its fury, it struck out too far, weakening for a moment its hold upon the crevices of the bark; and in that moment, both birds striking it together, its squirming folds were hurled to the ground. Thoroughly cowed, it slipped under cover and made off, only a wavering line among the grasses betraying its path. The king-birds, with excited and defiant twittering, followed for a little its hidden retreat, and then returned elated to the nest.

Among the kindred of the wild as well as among those of roof and hearth, events are apt to go in company. For day after day things will revolve in set fashion. Then chance takes sudden interest in a particular spot or a certain individual, and there, for a time, is established a centre for events. This day of the black snake was an eventful day for the little kings of the intervale. They had hardly more than recovered from their excitement over the snake when a red squirrel, his banner of a tail flaunting superbly behind him, came bounding over the grass to their tree. His intentions may have been strictly honourable. But a red squirrel's intentions are liable to change in the face of opportunity. As he ran up the tree, and paused curiously at the nested crotch, a feathered thunderbolt struck him on the side of the head. It knocked him clean out of the tree; and he turned a complete somersault in the air before he could get his balance and spread his legs so as to alight properly. When he reached the ground he fled in dismay, and was soon heard chattering vindictively among the branches of a far-off poplar.

It was a little before noon when came the great event of this eventful day. The male king-bird was on the edge of the nest, feeding a fat moth to his mate. As he straightened up and glanced around he saw a large marsh-hawk winnowing low across the river. As it reached the shore it swooped into the reed-fringe, but rose again without a capture. For a few minutes it quartered the open grass near the bank, hunting for mice. The two king-birds watched it with anxious, angry eyes. Suddenly it sailed straight toward the tree; and the king-birds shot into the air, ready for battle.

It was not the precious nest, however, nor the owners of the nest, on which the fierce eyes of the marsh-hawk had fallen. When he was within twenty paces of the nest he dropped into the grass. There was a moment of thrashing wings, then he rose again, and beat back toward the river with a young muskrat in his talons.

Considering the size and savagery of the hawk, any small bird but the little king would have been well content with his riddance. Not so the king-birds. With shrill chirpings they sped to the rescue. Their wings cuffed the marauder's head in a fashion that confused him. Their wedge-like beaks menaced his eyes and brought blood through the short feathers on the top of his head. He could make no defence or counter-attack against opponents so small and so agile of wing. At length a sharp jab split the lower lid of one eye,--and this added fear to his embarrassment. He dropped the muskrat, which fell into the river and swam off little the worse for the experience.

Relieved of his burden, the hawk made all speed to escape. At the farther shore the female king-bird desisted from the pursuit, and hurried back to her nest. But the avenging wrath of the male was not so easily pacified. Finding the tormentor still at his head, the hawk remembered the security of the upper air, and began to mount in sharp spirals. The king-bird pursued till, seen from the earth, he seemed no bigger than a bee dancing over the hawk's back. Then he disappeared altogether; and the hawk, but for his nervous, harassed flight, might have seemed to be alone in that clear altitude. At last his wings were seen to steady themselves into the tranquil, majestic soaring of his kind. Presently, far below the soaring wings, appeared a tiny dark shape, zigzagging swiftly downward; and soon the king-bird, hastening across the river, alighted once more on his branch and began to preen himself composedly.

The Kill

It was early winter and early morning, and the first of the light lay sharp on the new snow. The sun was just lifting over a far and low horizon. Long, level rays, streaking the snow with straight, attenuated stains of pinkish gold and sharp lines of smoky-blue shadow, pierced the edges of the tall fir forests of Touladi. Though every tint--of the blackish-green firs, of the black-brown trunks, of the violet and yellow and gray birch saplings, of the many-hued snow spaces--was unspeakably tender and delicate, the atmosphere was of a transparency and brilliancy almost vitreous. One felt as if the whole scene might shatter and vanish at the shock of any sudden sound. Then a sound came--but it was not sudden; and the mystic landscape did not dissolve. It was a sound of heavy, measured, muffled footfalls crushing the crisp snow. There was a bending and swishing of bare branches, a rattling as of twigs upon horn or ivory--and a huge bull moose strode into view. With his splendid antlers laid far back he lifted his great, dilating nostrils, stared down the long, white lanelike open toward the rising sun, and sniffed the air inquiringly. Then he turned to browse on the aromatic twigs of the birch saplings.

The great moose was a lord of his kind. His long, thick, glistening hair was almost black over the upper portions of his body, changing abruptly to a tawny ochre on the belly, and the inner and lower parts of the legs. The maned and hump-like ridge of his mighty fore-shoulders stood a good six feet three from the ground; and the spread of his polished, palmated antlers, so massive as to look a burden for even so colossal a head and neck as his, was well beyond five feet. The ridge of his back sloped down to hind-quarters disproportionately small, finished off with a little, meagrely tufted tail that on any beast less regal in mien and stature would have looked ridiculous. The majesty of a bull moose, however, is too secure to be marred by the incongruous pettiness of his tail. From the lower part of his neck, where the great muscles ran into the spacious, corded chest, hung a curious tuft of long and very coarse black hair, called among woodsmen the "bell." As he turned to his browsing, his black form stood out sharply against the background of the firs. Far down the silent, glittering slope, a good mile distant, a tall, gray figure on snow-shoes appeared for a second in the open, caught sight of the pasturing moose, and vanished hurriedly into the birch thickets.

Having cropped a few mouthfuls here and there from branches within easy reach, the great bull set himself to make a more systematic breakfast. Selecting a tall young birch with a bushy top, he leaned his chest against it until he bore it to the ground. Then, straddling it and working his way along toward the top, he held it firmly while he browsed at ease upon the juiciest and most savoury of the tips.

For some minutes he had been thus pleasantly occupied, when suddenly an obscure apprehension stirred in his brain. He stopped feeding, lifted his head, and stood motionless. Only his big ears moved, turning their wary interrogations toward every point of the compass, and his big nostrils suspiciously testing every current of air. Neither nose nor ears, the most alert of his sentinels, gave any report of danger. He looked about, saw nothing unusual, and fell again to feeding.

Among the wild kindreds, as far as man can judge, there are occasional intuitions that seem to work beyond the scope of the senses. It is not ordinarily so, else would all hunting, on the part of man or of the hunting beasts, be idle. But once in a while, as if by some unwilling telepathic communication from hunter to hunted, or else by an obscure and only half-delivered message from the powers that preside over the wild kindreds, a warning of peril is conveyed to a pasturing creature while yet the peril is far off and unrevealed. The great moose found his appetite all gone. He backed off the sapling and let its top spring up again toward the empty blue. He looked back nervously over his trail, sniffed the air, waved his ears inquiringly. The more he found nothing to warrant his uneasiness, the more his uneasiness grew. It was as if Death, following far off but relentlessly, had sent a grim menace along the windings of the trail. Something like a panic came into the dilating eyes of the big bull. He turned toward the fir forest, at a walk which presently broke into a shambling, rapid trot; and presently he disappeared among the sombre and shadowy colonnades.

In the strange gloom of the forest, a transparent gloom confused by thin glints and threads of penetrating, pinkish light, the formless alarm of the moose began to subside. In a few minutes his wild run diminished into a rapid walk. He would not go back to his feeding, however. He had been seized with a shuddering distrust of the young birch thickets on the slope. Over beyond the next ridge there were some bushy swales which he remembered as good pasturage--where, indeed, he had a mind to "yard up" for the winter, when the snow should get too deep for wide ranging. Once more quickening his pace, he circled back almost to the fringe of the forest, making toward a little stretch of frozen marsh, which was one of his frequented runways between ridge and ridge. That nameless fear in the birch thickets still haunted him, however, and he moved with marvellous quietness. Not once did his vast antlers and his rushing bulk disturb the dry undergrowth, or bring the brittle, dead branches crashing down behind him. The only sound that followed him was that of the shallow snow yielding crisply under his feet, and a light clicking, as the tips of his deep-cleft, loose-spreading hoofs came together at the recovery of each stride. This clicking, one of the most telltale of wilderness sounds to the woodsman's ear, grew more sharp and insistent as the moose increased his speed, till presently it became a sort of castanet accompaniment to his long, hurried stride. A porcupine, busy girdling a hemlock, ruffled and rattled his dry quills at the sound, and peered down with little, disapproving eyes as the big, black form fled by below him.

The snowy surface of the marsh was stained with ghosts of colour--aerial, elusive tinges of saffron and violet--as the moose came out upon it. As he swung down its lonely length, his gigantic shadow, lopsided and blue, danced along threateningly, its head lost in the bushes fringing the open. When he came to the end of the marsh, where the wooded slope of the next ridge began, he half paused, reaching his long muzzle irresolutely toward the tempting twigs of a young willow thicket; but before he could gather one mouthful, that nameless fear came over him again, that obscure forewarning of doom, and he sprang forward toward the cover of the firs. As he sprang, there was a movement and a flash far down a wooded alley--a sharp, ringing crack--and something invisible struck him in the body. He had been struck before, by falling branches, or by stones bounding down a bluff, but this missile seemed very different and very small. Small as it was, however, the blow staggered him for an instant; then he shuddered, and a surge of heat passed through his nerves. But a second later he recovered himself fully, and bounded into the woods, just in time to escape a second bullet, as a second shot rang out in vain behind him.

Straight up the wooded steep he ran, startled, but less actually terrified now, in fleeing from a definite peril, then when trembling before a formless menace. This peril was one that he felt he could cope with. He knew his own strength and speed. Now that he had the start of them, these slow-moving, relentless man-creatures, with the sticks that spoke fire, could never overtake him. With confident vigour he breasted the incline, his mighty muscles working as never before under the black hair of shoulder and flank. But he did not know that every splendid stride was measured by a scarlet sign on the snow.

For a few minutes the moose rushed on through the morning woods, up and up between the tall trunks of the firs, half-forgetting his alarm in the triumph of his speed. Then it began to seem to him that the slope of the hill had grown steeper than of old; gradually, and half-unconsciously, he changed his course, and ran parallel with the ridge; and with this change the scarlet signs upon his trail grew scanter. But in a few minutes more he began to feel that the snow was deeper than it had been--deeper, and more clinging. It weighted his hoofs and fetlocks as it had never done before, and his pace slackened. He began to be troubled by the thick foam welling into his nostrils and obstructing his breath. As he blew it forth impatiently it made red flecks and spatters on the snow. He had no pain, no realization that anything had gone wrong with him. But his eyes took on suddenly a harassed, anxious look, and he felt himself growing tired. He must rest a little before continuing his flight.

The idea of resting while his enemies were still so near and hot upon the trail, would, at any other time, have been rejected as absurd; but now the brain of the black moose was growing a little confused. Often before this he had run till he felt tired, and then lain down to rest. He had never felt tired till he knew that he had run a great distance. Now, from his dimming intelligence the sense of time had slipped away. He had been running, and he felt tired. Therefore, he must have run a long distance, and his slow enemies must have been left far behind. He could safely rest. His old craft, however, did not quite fail him at this point. Before yielding to the impulse which urged him to lie down, he doubled and ran back, parallel to his trail and some fifty paces from it, for a distance of perhaps two hundred yards. Staggering at every other stride, and fretfully blowing the stained froth from his nostrils, he crouched behind a thicket of hemlock seedlings, and watched the track by which his foes must come.

For a little while he kept his watch alertly, antlers laid back, ears attentive, eyes wide and bright. Then, so slowly that he did not seem aware of it himself, his massive head drooped forward till his muzzle lay outstretched upon the snow. So far back from the gate of the senses drew the life within him, that when three gray-coated figures on snow-shoes went silently past on his old trail, he never saw them. His eyes were filled with a blur of snow, and shadows, and unsteady trunks, and confusing little gleams of light.

Of the three hunters following on the trail of the great black moose, one was more impetuous than the others. It was his first moose that he was trailing; and it was his bullet that was speaking through those scarlet signs on the snow. He kept far ahead of his comrades, elated and fiercely glad, every nerve strung with expectation. Behind each bush, each thicket, he looked for the opportunity to make the final, effective shot that should end the great chase. Not unlearned in woodcraft, he knew what it meant when he reached the loop in the trail. He understood that the moose had gone back to watch for his pursuers. What he did not know or suspect was, that the watcher's eyes had grown too dim to see. He took it for granted that the wise beast had marked their passing, and fled off in another direction as soon as they got by. Instead, however, of redoubling his caution, he plunged ahead with a burst of fresh enthusiasm. He was very properly sure his bullet had done good work, since it had so soon compelled the enduring animal to rest.

A puff of wandering air, by chance, drifted down from the running man to the thicket, behind which the black bull lay, sunk in his torpor. The dreaded man-scent--the scent of death to the wilderness folk--was blown to the bull's nostrils. Filled though they were with that red froth, their fine sense caught the warning. The eyes might fail in their duty, the ears flag and betray their trust; but the nostrils, skilled and schooled, were faithful to the last. Their imperative message pierced to the fainting brain, and life resumed its duties. Once more the dull eyes awoke to brightness. The great, black form lunged up and crashed forward into the open, towering, formidable, and shaking ominous antlers.

Taken by surprise, and too close to shoot in time, the rash hunter sprang aside to make for a tree. He had heard much of the charge of a wounded moose. As he turned, the toe of one snow-shoe caught on a branchy stub, just below the surface of the snow. The snow-shoe turned side on, and tripped him, and he fell headlong right in the path of the charging beast.

As he fell, he heard a shout from his comrades, hurrying up far behind him; but the thought that flashed through him was that they could not be in time. Falling on his face, he expected the next instant to feel the bull's great rending hoofs descend upon his back and stamp his life out.

But the blow never fell. The moose had seen his foe coming, and charged to meet him, his strength and valour flashing up for an instant as the final emergency confronted him. But ere he could reach that prostrate shape in the snow, he forgot what he was doing, and stopped short. With legs a little apart he braced himself, and stood rigid. His noble head was held high, as if he scorned the enemies who had dogged him to his last refuge. But in reality he no longer saw them. The breath came hard through his rattling nostrils, and his eyes, very wide open, were dark with a fear which he could not understand. The life within him strove desperately to maintain its hold upon that free and lordly habitation. The second hunter, now, was just lifting his rifle,--but before he could sight and fire, the chase was ended. That erect, magnificent figure, towering over the fallen man, collapsed all at once. It fell together into a mere heap of hide and antlers. The light in the eyes went out, as a spark that is trodden, and the laboured breathing stopped in mid-breath. The fallen hunter sprang up, rushed forward with a shout, and drew his knife across the outstretched throat.

The Little People of the Sycamore