The next morning, knife in hand, Andy knelt beside his big buck and expertly skinned out both hindquarters. Frosty, entirely at ease as long as no rifles or shotguns were about, sat contentedly near and watched the proceedings with interest. Slitting the tendons, Andy tied a rope through each, slung the other ends of the ropes over a porch beam and made ready to hoist the carcass aloft and finish skinning.
Frosty slipped into his favorite hiding place under the porch and did not come out again. Andy slackened the taut ropes and eased the buck down onto the floor. Frosty was not precisely a watch dog, but the boy had learned to tell from the big cat's actions when something was coming.
A little while later, Jud Casman appeared around a corner of the house. He was dressed for hunting, but not precisely in the costume which fashion magazines say the well-dressed hunter should wear. He wore wool trousers whose legs had been slit so that they might fit over knee-length rubber boots. It was a good, practical arrangement; snow and water would run down the trouser legs, rather than inside the boots. His upper torso was encased in a jacket over which he wore the cut-off upper half of some red woolen underwear. That, according to Jud, both enabled other hunters to see him and made the jacket snug enough so that some loose end wasn't forever catching in the brush. His hat might have descended to Jud from the first person ever to see the swamp. His rifle matched the costume.
It was a muzzle-loader of a type generally associated with frontiersmen and Indian fighters, and it was almost as long as Jud was tall. A single shot, it had been handed down by Jud's father, who in turn had obtained it from his father. The bore had been re-reamed and re-rifled so many times that now it cast a slug approximately the size of a small cannon ball. A lot of people had laughed at Jud and his rifle, but on his side, Jud snickered at those who needed a whole handful of cartridges when, as any child should know, one ball was plenty, if you put it in the right place. Andy, who had seen Jud pick the heads off squirrels and grouse and shoot flying geese, knew that Jud killed whatever he shot at. He left no wounded creature to die in agony.
Jud eyed the big buck and expressed his opinion, "Hm-m."
Andy said, "It's the big one."
"Give ya a heap of trouble?"
"I walked right up to him," Andy admitted. "He didn't even run."
"I'll give ya a hand," Jud offered. "Just snug them ropes when I lift."
Jud leaned his rifle against the house. No big man, he lifted the 200-pound buck without visible strain or effort and Andy tightened the ropes. Saying not another word, Jud picked up his rifle and went into the swamp.
Andy resumed his work, cutting with the knife point and pulling the loosened skin down around the carcass. Since this was deer season, obviously Jud was going into the swamp to get himself a deer. Andy knew where there were some, but if Jud had wanted advice, he'd have asked for it. Andy skinned his buck down and severed the head as close to the scalp as possible.
He grinned. Some years ago, Old Man Haroldson had taken a party deer hunting and among them they had shot five deer. When it came time to divide the venison, the hunters, with visions of choice steaks and roasts, had offered Old Man Haroldson the five necks. He had accepted with alacrity, and ever since had been gleefully telling how he put one over on the city-slickers, for the neck was the best part of any deer, in his opinion. Whether it was or not, Andy thought, there was a lot of good meat in it.
Frosty came out from beneath the porch and again sat companionably close. He turned up his nose at a little chunk of venison Andy threw him. Able to take his choice of the finest viands in the swamp, Frosty would accept second best only when he could not get first.
Andy looked with regret at the great antlers, a really fine trophy. But it cost money to have a deer head mounted, and he had no money to spare. He consoled himself with the thought that the antlers, sawed from the scalp and nailed over his door, would still look very nice. He split the carcass and made ready to separate it into the cuts he wanted.
A half-hour later, out in the swamp, Jud's rifle roared like a clap of thunder. Looking disgusted, Frosty departed to such peace and quiet as he might find under the porch. Andy glanced toward the swamp. Jud had shot. Therefore he had his buck. . . . In another twenty minutes, he appeared with it.
It was a fair-sized three-year-old. Jud had slit the tendons in the hind legs, thrust the front ones through, fastened them with pegs, and was carrying his buck as Andy would have carried a packsack. But, though the buck probably weighed 140 pounds, Jud was not laboring nor was he the least bit strained. He paused again beside the porch.
"Got one, huh?" Andy greeted him.
"Yep."
"Nice one, too."
"Nice eatin'," Jud grunted. "I take it you know they's owls in the swamp, Andy?"
"Owls?"
"Cat owls," Jud said. "I see six. I'd of shot some but I didn't know as you'd of wanted me to."
"Thanks, Jud."
"Don't mention it," Jud said politely.
He departed with his buck and Andy began to work furiously. "Cat owl" was a local term for great horned owl, and if Jud had seen six during the short time he'd been absent, they had not only invaded the swamp in force but their invasion had occurred since yesterday. Andy nicked his finger, muttered to himself and continued to work feverishly.
One owl in the swamp was a threat. Six could mean only that game had already become scarce in other localities, and the owls were gathering in his swamp to find food. It was true that, in winter, much small game did seek a refuge in the swamp and, for that very reason, it had more than its winter-time quota of great horned owls and other predators. This early in the season, Andy's muskrats must be the very lure that was attracting them. He had feared just such an invasion, and now he must fight it.
He wrapped the venison in flour sacking, hung the portions in his shed and closed the door behind him. Finished, he breathed a sigh of relief, took his .22 from its rack, filled the magazine, stuck a couple of extra boxes of cartridges in his pocket and started for the swamp.
Frosty, who shuddered at the sight of a shotgun but did not mind the .22, came happily to join him. Andy was rational again. They could take up their partnership where it had been broken off. Tail erect and even whiskers seeming to quiver with joy, Frosty trotted by Andy's side.
Andy set a direct course for the nearest trees. He searched eagerly, hoping he would not find what he feared he would, and optimism leaped in his breast when he saw nothing.
Then an owl, a huge bird with a mighty spread of wings, labored up from a slough with a muskrat in its talons. Andy leveled his rifle, holding it steady, even while he tried to conquer the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Compared to some other birds, the owls are not swift fliers and this one was furthered slowed by the burden it carried. It was possible to pick it out of the air with a rifle, but Andy held his fire because, obviously, the owl intended to light in one of the trees. A sitting shot was not sporting, but there was no question of sport connected with this and a sitting shot was far more certain.
The owl dipped gracefully toward a tree and Andy followed with the rifle sights. At exactly the right moment, he squeezed the trigger. The vicious little rifle spat its leaden death and the owl dropped limply. He lay tumbled on the ground, talons still imbedded in the muskrat, when Andy reached him. It was a grip of steel, so powerful that the boy had to use the point of his knife to disengage each talon separately.
Andy skinned the still-warm muskrat, knowing as he did so that the pelt would bring less than a good price because the owl's talons had pierced it. But it was something salvaged.
The next owl was a dodging gray shape that winged erratically over the swamp grass, more than six hundred feet away. Andy leveled his rifle, sighted and shot. He shot a second time . . . and a third. On the third shot, a gray feather detached itself from the bird and floated gracefully downwards. But the shot also warned the owl. He dipped out of sight.
Hearing something in the grass that interested him, Frosty went to investigate. Andy strode grimly toward the next grove of trees. He scored a clean miss on an owl perched in a tree, then brought down one in flight. Quickly, he reloaded his little rifle. It was better than the shotgun for such hunting, partly because shotgun shells were so much more expensive and partly because the shotgun was limited in range. He would certainly have killed the owl in the tree had he had the shotgun, but probably he would have merely wounded the pair he had brought down and even owls deserved better than that.
Far off, hopelessly out of range, Andy saw two owls in the hollow sycamore that overlooked the slough where the five muskrats lived. He stooped to crawl. When he was within rifle shot, he raised cautiously above the swamp grass—to see the sycamore empty. He muttered to himself. He did not think that he had frightened the owls, for they were incredibly bold. Doubtless they'd gone off to hunt, and almost surely they were hunting muskrats.
Rising, Andy walked to the hollow sycamore and cradled the rifle in the crook of his arm while he leaned against it. Five minutes later, a muskrat emerged from an underwater burrow, surfaced and swam in little circles. Only his head and back broke water. He regarded Andy with beady little eyes. Although less than ten feet away, the muskrat considered himself safe because he was in the water.
The owl came so silently and so eerily that, somehow, it seemed to have materialized out of thin air. Gliding over the slough, it took the swimming muskrat in both claws and never missed a wing beat as it flew on. Andy gasped. He leveled the rifle and shot five times, but the gathering dusk made his aim uncertain and again he missed. Andy's brain reeled.
Naturally ferocious, the raiding owls were ten times as fierce and ten times as dangerous as they ever were otherwise because they were also desperately hungry. This one must have seen Andy, but the presence of an armed man had not prevented it from taking a muskrat that was not even a pebble's toss away.
Andy glared at the darkening sky, as though his fierce will to hold back the night and let him continue hunting owls would somehow grant time for so long. But approaching night would not be stopped, and he could do nothing before another morning. However, the owls could and would hunt. All night long the muskrats in the swamp would be at their mercy—and they had no mercy!
Andy trailed tiredly back to his house. He found Frosty on the porch, let him in and nibbled at a supper for which he had neither taste nor desire. Unless something came to his aid, he was ruined and he knew it. One man alone could not turn back the tide of owls. Given one more week, they would take every muskrat from every slough.
Back in the swamp with daylight the next morning, Andy shot two owls almost before night's curtain lifted. Hunting, he got three more and missed four. Then, shortly before noon, the wind began to scream. Just before dusk, it lulled, and that night Andy looked happily at his frosted windows. He had to go outside to read the thermometer, but he'd have walked five miles to discover that it was twelve degrees below zero.
The following morning, every pond and every slough wore a safe armor of ice.
It was an extraordinary winter. Neither mild nor severe, it skipped the usual January thaw completely and lingered on almost as it had started. Except for the one severe cold snap that froze the swamp, the temperature dropped to zero or below only on a few scattered days. However, on two days alone did it climb into the fifties. Most of the time it lingered at a few degrees below or a few above the freezing point.
The customary snows did not fall. The deepest, only about three inches, came shortly before the temperature reached the fifties and much of it melted then. Otherwise, there were only dustings of snow. Thus, though there was tracking most of the time, snowshoes were never needed.
For Andy it was a wonderful, peaceful time, which was further distinguished by being The Winter of the Big Bonanza.
Few of the town dwellers were so old-fashioned as to have coal furnaces. Strictly in tune with modern trends, they used oil or gas. But the ways of the forefathers are not that easily forsaken, and, though the town dwellers also considered this strictly in keeping with progress, a great many of them wanted fireplaces. They served no practical purpose because their houses were always warm enough anyhow. But the fireplaces did fill a spiritual need, and having them, the townsmen wanted fuel to burn in them. Naturally, nobody with a fireplace would consider burning anything except wood.
A fuel-dealer in town had given the Casman brothers an order for 300 cords of fireplace wood, to be picked up at the Casman farm and paid for at six dollars a cord. Even though the same dealer was selling it in town for twelve dollars a cord, it was still a good deal. Jud and Ira, remembering that Andy had invited them to participate in his muskrat ranch on a share basis, invited him to do the same with their wood. Three men were needed for supplying the wood. The Casmans had several acres of yellow birch which they wanted to clear for additional pasture anyhow, also the horses to haul the poles and the machinery for sawing them. The Casmans were to keep one third of the payment. They would split the remaining two thirds three ways with Andy.
Andy accepted happily, for he had already taken as many mink and fox pelts as he could safely take and leave enough for re-stocking. His trappings throughout the rest of the winter would have been confined to taking bobcats and weasels, upon both of which there was a bounty, and he'd have been lucky to earn one hundred dollars. Since his muskrats were safe beneath the ice, a routine patrol sufficed for the swamp. He could do that on Sunday. Anyway, he liked to cut wood.
For the first week, armed with razor-sharp axes that were kept that way by frequent honing, the three of them attacked the grove of yellow birch. Then, while Ira and Andy set up the gasoline-powered buzz saw, Ira used his own horses to drag the wood in to them. When they had enough to keep them busy for a while, he felled and trimmed more trees alone. Except for Sundays, which the Casmans always observed, even though they did not do it in church, the trio worked hard every day from dawn to dusk. As a result, wood piled up fast.
One afternoon, Andy glanced at the sun, calculated that they could work at least one more hour and picked up one end of a birch pole, while Ira took the other. Co-ordinating their actions perfectly, for they had been working together a long while, they swung it into the cradle. Ira had taken the saw end, and Andy was just as happy. The whirling saw, kept as sharp as the axes, could scream its way through a twelve-inch tree in a couple of clock ticks—and through a man's hand in considerably less time! But Ira, who had been handling the business end of a buzz saw ever since he'd been old enough to work, had yet to receive his first nick.
The pair finished the log, took another, and at exactly the right time Jud came in from the wood lot. The three of them worked to arrange the tumbled pile of wood in neat cords, eight feet long by four feet high, and so well did they know what they were doing that, by the time they were finished, it lacked only a few minutes of being too dark to work any more.
Ira solemnly regarded the results of their day's labor. "Twenty mo' cords to go," he announced. "We finish early nex' week."
"Jest in time," Jud said. "Breakup's comin', an' them town folk won't want wood then."
"How do you know the breakup's coming?" Andy challenged him.
"My rheumatiz changed."
"Twon't be much of a breakup," Ira murmured. "Ain't enough snow fo' that. I mistrust 'twill be a puny season' fo' crops, less'n we get a heap o' spring rains."
"There'll be water in the swamp," Andy said.
"Allus some theah," Ira conceded. "How's yo' mushrats doin', Andy?"
Andy hid his instinctive smile. He'd been working with the Casmans all winter, and this was the first time either had asked about his muskrats. In the hills, a man's business was strictly his own.
"I figure the owls cleaned out five colonies," Andy said, "and probably got an animal or two from others. But since I've been able to walk on the ice, I've found seven colonies that I hadn't even known about. They're on little bits of slough arms that I couldn't even reach before."
"Any owls theah now?"
"About the usual winter's supply. I haven't been shooting any since the freeze-up because they can't do any great damage. No sense in shooting anything at all for the sake of killing."
"Tha's right," Jud agreed. "But won't they raise the dickens when the breakup comes?"
"Not too much," Andy said. "Birds will be coming back and everything else will move more. The owls will scatter. Well, see you Monday."
"Shuah thing," Jud said gravely.
"Shuah thing," Ira echoed.
Andy walked homeward and Frosty met him. For the first week, the big cat had accompanied his partner to the wood lot and happily explored new country while trees were felled. But, though Frosty did not mind the thudding of axes, he disliked the screeching buzz saw even more cordially than blasting rifles and shotguns. He was happy to stay near Andy nights and to accompany him on Sunday patrols into the swamp.
They went together the next day, walking safely on ice and frozen earth. The five colonies that had been ravished—and Andy was sure that owls had raided them—were easy to locate. The tops of all muskrat houses protruded above the ice that locked them in, but these five had fallen into disrepair and the winds were scattering them. All the rest of the houses were firm and sound.
The next week, Andy finished his job with the Casmans and, just as Jud had predicted, the breakup followed. It was no violent change but a soft and gentle thing. One day the temperature climbed to near-summer heights and remained there for three days. It wiped out the snow and presently it took the ice, too. Because there had been little snow and not much spring run-off, except for the thaw, there was almost no change in the swamp.
Andy resumed his daily patrols. The owls were still present and, as Andy discovered when one plucked a rabbit from under his very nose, still ravenous. But muskrats that had been ice-bound for weeks were frantic for a taste of fresh food. They swarmed out of dens and houses to dig in the mud for anything succulent. Their very eagerness made them careless. Andy shot a bobcat with a muskrat in its mouth, found where a great horned owl had taken one, and a fox another. But there was no great wave of predators immediately.
Another week elapsed before he knew definitely that something was seriously wrong. The sign left by digging muskrats was easy to see, and after a week, in eight separate colonies, there was not only no fresh sign but the houses were falling into disrepair. Andy redoubled his efforts, going into the swamp with daylight and staying until dark. This predator was a complete mystery. It left neither tracks nor sign, and the only evidence that it had struck at all was another colony that no longer contained muskrats. Andy, who had thought he knew everything there was to know about the swamp, gave up.
He did not understand this, but Joe Wilson might be able to give him some good advice, for Joe was very wise. An hour before dark, Andy climbed the path leading to the road and struck out toward town. He had walked no more than half a mile when he saw a horseman coming toward him.
It was Luke Trull, whose eyes were cold and whose smile was colder. He passed without speaking, but for a full two minutes Andy stood rooted. Then he turned slowly back toward his house. The Trull-Gates feud, with Luke and himself as sole participants, was about to be renewed, for, in addition to his usual disreputable clothing, Luke wore a muskrat-skin hat!
Ten minutes after Andy left, Frosty went into the swamp. He had his full growth now, and his twelve pounds were distributed perfectly over a near-perfect frame. Lithe muscles were under exact control of a brain that, naturally fast, had been further sharpened by the dangers to which he had been exposed. Because he was very sure of himself and what he could do, Frosty disdained to hide from even the great horned owls, unless he felt like it. He would fight anything anywhere, if fighting seemed the wisest course. But he would hide, if hiding best served the ends he wanted to achieve. He was never guided by anything save his own intelligence, and he met each situation according to circumstances.
Not especially hungry, tonight he was in the mood to accept a tempting tidbit should one come his way. Most of all, he wanted to wander and explore, for his feline curiosity never had been and never would be satisfied. No matter how many times he went into the swamp, he always found something new or some new aspect to something old. And he had prowled the swamp so much that, though the rabbit or muskrat that lived its whole life in one comparatively small area might know that area better than he, Frosty grasped the over-all picture more completely than anything else.
He knew the favorite grazing grounds, sleeping places and playgrounds of the deer. Every muskrat colony—and Frosty knew of two which even Andy had not yet found—he had visited time after time and he was aware of the exact number of muskrats in each. He was acquainted with every mink, fox, bobcat, raccoon and coyote in the swamp, and he could go directly to their home dens or the place where each individual preferred to hunt. He knew the trees or copses of trees which the great horned owls preferred, and where the grouse were inclined to roost. Frosty was familiar with those places where rabbits and mice were most abundant. He had trod every safe trail and visited most of the hiding places.
Knowing all this, the swamp still fascinated him because it was never static. There was always change, and, next to his partnership with Andy, keeping aware and abreast of those changes was the most important business in Frosty's life.
The first night Luke Trull entered the swamp, Frosty had known of his presence a half-hour later. Luke's trespassing angered him greatly, and he still would harm the man if he could find a way to do so. He had not discovered the way, and it was far from prudent to attack even a hated man unless there was every chance of winning the fight. Because he did want to discover what Luke was about, Frosty followed him until he knew his exact schedule.
He habitually came just a few minutes after gray twilight shaded into deep night. Invariably he entered the swamp by wading a shallow, hard-bottomed slough four hundred yards from Andy's house. His equipment was always the same, five number one traps that he carried in his left hand and a club clutched in his right. An empty packsack hung loosely over his shoulders and there was a knife at his belt.
He knew the safe trails so well that he needed no light to guide himself, but he carried a small flashlight to carry on his affairs, once he was within the swamp—and his affairs concerned the muskrat colonies. Though he did not understand it, Frosty had watched what he did there.
When Luke approached a colony, the muskrats were sure to be digging for bulbs in the bank. They always fled when he came, but they seldom went farther than the center of the pond or slough in which they lived. Luke used his flashlight to see where they had been digging. Then, depending on what he saw, he set one or more traps. The traps were strung on flexible wires, slipped through the ring in the chain. Wooden pegs prevented their sliding off. Luke cast one end of his wire into the slough or pond, tied the other to any convenient root, tree or shrub, set his traps and went to another colony.
Sometimes the muskrats came back as soon as Luke left. Sometimes they were cautious for an hour or more. But they always came and they were always trapped. When they were, they dived frantically into the water which, hitherto, had provided a safe refuge. The trap chain, sliding along the wire, was invariably stopped by the wooden peg. Since no muskrat in trouble would ever think of turning toward land, they continued their efforts to get into the water until they drowned.
Coming back, Luke picked up the drowned muskrats, placed them in the packsack, took his traps and was out of the swamp well before daylight. He had never taken more than five muskrats on any one night. But neither had he taken any less, and he had visited the swamp for seven consecutive nights.
Frosty expected him again tonight, but he was not particularly worried about the man's possible appearance because he could take care of himself. In the dark, he could always get out of any human's way. They never even seemed to know that he was around.
The big cat faced into the brisk north wind. Spring, showing her face briefly, had only wanted to tantalize the winter-weary. The wind was as cold as it had been most winter nights and there were a few snowflakes, but not enough to whiten the ground and retain tracks. Undaunted by the cold wind, that could ruffle but not penetrate his thick fur, Frosty gave his attention to a sound that was borne to his ears.
The noise was made by a roosting bird that fluttered its wings as it changed position. It was not a bird that had been in the swamp last night. A venturesome robin, impatient to be away from the south and back at the all-important business of building a nest and rearing a family, had taken a chance on the weather. Now, huddling miserably on a naked aspen, it was probably wishing it hadn't. Searching in vain for warmth, the robin shifted again.
Grown a bit hungry, Frosty stalked the tree. He advanced so artfully that few things would have taken fright, so it was not Frosty's presence that launched the robin from its perch. It was the cold wind. The robin fluttered off into the darkness, to see if there might not be a warmer roost.
Always angry when a victim eluded him, Frosty stood with one forepaw uplifted and lashed his tail. Even though experience had taught him that there would be nights when all luck leaned on the side of whatever he hunted, stalking and missing always stung. He hunted to kill, he was satisfied with nothing else, and missing the robin seemed to intensify his hunger.
Frosty abandoned exploring in favor of determined hunting. He headed for a thicket in which several rabbits had wintered and crouched quietly beside a runway. He was hungry and growing hungrier, but he was also patient. He'd stay here for hours, if necessary, and sooner or later a rabbit would come along the runway. But he'd waited only minutes when one hopped toward him. Tense and ready to spring, the black cat did not move.
The rabbit was almost within springing distance when a great horned owl swooped to catch it. Frosty spat his anger and leaped to attack, but the owl was airborne and he fell short by inches. There came the sounds of thumping feet as the other rabbits, finally aware of an enemy in their midst, told each other about it and sought the safety of burrows.
Frosty lashed his tail and glared. Sooner or later, the rabbits would come out again. He would get one if he waited, but he was too hungry to wait. He set his course toward the high knob upon which the hollow sycamore grew. There were a few rabbits in the scrub there. Frosty laid his ambush, waited, made a kill and started to eat.
Almost as soon as he began his meal, he stopped eating. His ears informed him that Luke Trull was coming. Unwilling to abandon his hard-won dinner, Frosty held perfectly still. Luke set his traps, went on, and Frosty finished eating. He washed himself thoroughly and felt a little sleepy.
He'd have a nap before prowling any more, and since he was going to rest, he might as well do it out of the wind. The hollow sycamore, in which he'd slept several times, offered shelter. Frosty padded to the hollow and entered.
He halted abruptly when one of Luke's muskrat traps snapped on his paw, but he did not panic. Frosty touched the trap with his nose and he tried to take a bite from it. The steel was hard and unyielding; if he continued to bite it, he'd do nothing except shatter his jaws. Therefore he would not bite. This was a time for planning.
The pain, severe enough for anything at all, was ten times as excruciating to a cat's complex nervous system. Frosty still refused to panic. He could not fight this thing, so he must outwit it. He looked at the water and shuddered, then he heard Luke coming back.
Dragging the trap with him, Frosty crawled into the sycamore. He crouched, and mounting fury served to counteract pain. Luke reached the knob. His light flashed once and went out. Frosty stayed quiet, hoping to escape detection by so doing.
But if Luke came near him, he would fight as hard and as viciously as he could.
Andy walked slowly back to his house because there was no need to hurry. Whatever he did from this point on—and he intended to do much—would be carried out in black night, and it still lacked a couple of hours until darkness. As he walked, Andy saw almost everything in a clear light.
He should have known, and he blamed himself for not knowing, that the mysterious predator could be none other than Luke Trull. He had been lulled into a false sense of security by Luke's failure to come raiding all autumn and all winter. But he should also have known that, when he came, Luke would strike at that time when muskrats were most valuable. He was nobody's fool, and naturally he would do his poaching at night.
All this was so unbelievably simple that anyone should have figured it out. Andy had not, but since he finally knew, the problem was far more complex than it appeared on the surface.
He might, he supposed, go to the State Police and say that he had seen Luke Trull wearing a muskrat-skin hat. The police would look at him, and each other, then they would consult their copy of the State Game Laws and point out that muskrat season was open to anyone who had a trapping license and it would be open for two weeks more. No doubt they would remember that he had had previous trouble with Luke, and even on the far-fetched possibility that they took him seriously, no State Trooper would stumble around anyone's swamp at night simply because the swamp's owner had seen someone wearing a muskrat-skin hat.
There was only one way. Turn time backwards for thirty years, and once again a Gates and a Trull would settle their differences in their own way. But Andy knew that he must stop short of killing. Murder, any way one considered it, was murder, and the law had no bearing on the fact that Andy did not want another's blood on his hands. But he looked forward with savage joy to fighting. He would find Luke, beat a confession out of him, and take him to the Police himself. There were a number of reliable witnesses who knew that Andy had bought the muskrats with which the swamp was stocked. If he found Luke poaching, nothing else should be necessary.
At the same time, Andy felt the need for caution.
Luke was a clever person, a cunning schemer who weighed every action and made it count. Why, when he saw Andy coming, had he not taken off his hat and hidden it? Was it his way of jeering? Letting the hat speak for him, had he announced to Andy that he, Luke Trull, was stealing muskrats and there was nothing Andy could do about it? Or did he want a meeting in the swamp? If so, why? Luke, always willing to do anything at any time as long as it would turn a dollar for himself, seldom got into trouble. He knew the penalty for murder. It was inconceivable that he would come anywhere near risking that penalty. Neither would he fight. But why had he not hidden the hat?
Andy walked on. Luke's reasons for doing or not doing anything no longer made a difference. Andy had to stop him or surrender to him, and he would not surrender. He thought again of his own lack, not exactly of foresight, but failure to act on foresight. Luke had done exactly as Andy had thought he'd do, and explored the swamp thoroughly while Andy languished in jail. Anybody who knew the trails could go into the swamp as easily by night as by day, and the muskrats had never been hurt by any human being. Therefore, they did not fear humans. They'd be easy to trap.
Reaching his house, Andy calmly and methodically unlaced his shoes, took them off, and pulled on rubber boots. He donned a wool jacket, a wool cap that came over his ears, and looked thoughtfully at the gun rack. Andy turned away from it. There must be no killing, and in any fight, passion was apt to overcome good sense. What he had to do, he'd do with his fists.
When darkness was complete, Andy went into the swamp.
His plan was simple. Knowing every colony that still contained muskrats, he would visit each. If Luke were in the swamp tonight, they'd meet. With only a brief glance at Four-Leaf and Clover, since they were so near the house Luke would know better than to bother them, Andy went on to Dead Man's Slough. He swerved to investigate some colonies in another part of the swamp and swung back. Three hours later, a half-hour before midnight, he thought he saw a light.
Andy stopped in his tracks and fixed intent eyes on the place at which he thought the light had originated. For a second he turned his eyes away, then glanced back. There was no light now and perhaps there never had been any. His imagination could be playing tricks, but Andy turned away from the course he'd set himself and went directly towards the high knob upon which the hollow sycamore grew. He thought he'd seen the light there, and there were still muskrats in that slough.
Nearing the high knob, he stopped to look and listen. But the north wind, still carrying a few snowflakes on its screaming wings, drowned all other noises and there was little light. Very cautiously, Andy continued to advance. He climbed the knob and leaned against a small aspen.
There was a sudden, jarring pain in his head and a galaxy of bright lights danced before his eyes. He staggered, tried to hold himself up by gripping the aspen, and for a second he succeeded. Presently he was aware of pain.
Andy opened bewildered eyes. The last he remembered, he had been holding onto an aspen and looking about. Now he lay prone, hands and feet bound with wire, and a flashlight was shining in his face. Somebody said something he could not hear and he closed his eyes. Then he heard,
"I thought ye'd come, Gates."
Andy reopened his eyes to see Luke Trull, still wearing his disreputable clothing and the muskrat-skin hat, looking down at him. Andy shivered. There was about Luke the same lethal coldness that there is about a rattlesnake just before it strikes. Luke spoke again,
"Ye hit me, Gates."
"Let me loose, you fool!"
Luke grinned mirthlessly, and in the faint light his eyes seemed to glow. He said,
"I wanted ye to know what was goin' to happen. Tha's why I din' do it afore."
"Didn't do what?"
"Put ye in the slough."
"They'll get you for it, Luke."
Luke's grin widened. "Ye know better'n that. Ye know well's I do that more'n one man lies in these deep sand sloughs, my own pappy 'mongst 'em, an' a Gates put him thar. Ye allus mess 'round this swamp, an' what'll folks think when ye jest don't come out?"
"You're putting your head in a noose!"
"No I hain't, Gates. No I hain't. An' ye did hit me. Nobody hits Luke Trull an'," he chuckled, "I thought ye'd be in the swamp after ye saw my hat. How do you like it, Gates? Made it myself with two pelts f'om your swamp."
"You're talking like an idiot!"
"Idiot? I got thirty fi' o' your mushrats so far an' fo' here," he indicated the packsack. "Now I see that I got me 'nother in the hollow tree. I'll let ye see me pull it out an' kill it, Gates, afore I roll ye in the slough an' let ye sink in the deep sand."
He walked toward and bent near the hollow sycamore while Andy made a mighty effort to loose his bonds. He strained, felt the flexible wire give, and knew that he could free himself. If he could only do it in time . . .
He saw Luke pull at the taut wire and heard a spitting snarl. Fury incarnate, Frosty came out of the hollow and sprang straight to Luke's head. He clawed and scratched while he continued to spit.
Luke stood up, waved his hands like windmill blades, lost his footing, and tumbled backwards into the slough. Andy gasped, continuing to strain at the wire that bound him, even while he remained unable to take his eyes from the drama being enacted before his eyes. The slough was quicksand, and as far as Andy knew, it was bottomless. But a good swimmer, even a fully clothed one, who knew what he was doing could cross it safely. Andy sighed in relief.
Luke was a good swimmer, and obviously he both realized his danger and knew what he was doing. Only the muskrat-skin hat, leaving a trailing V-curl behind it, broke water as he dog-paddled very slowly and very cautiously. He would make it all right.
The thing that came did so with uncanny silence. A great horned owl that had not been there a second before was there now, hovering over what could be nothing except a swimming muskrat. It struck, and rose with Luke's hat in its talons. Then it was gone.
Andy struggled frantically to free himself, but each second was an hour long and each minute a day. Finally working bleeding hands from the wire, he loosed his legs and rose. The slough was empty, with not even a ripple to show that anything had ever been on it. After two minutes, Andy turned toward Frosty, who growled warningly but let his partner depress the trap spring and free his paw.
Frosty fell to cleaning himself. With a prayer in his heart, again Andy searched the slough. But all he saw was a pair of swimming muskrats. At least two had survived, just as two must have survived in other sloughs. The muskrats paid no attention to death, for their function was life. They would build houses, dig dens, and eventually they would overspread the swamp.
The muskrats dived and only bubbles rose.
was born in New York City. Happily enough, he was still in the pre-school age when his father decided to move the family to the Pennsylvania mountains. There young Jim grew up among some of the best hunting and fishing in the United States. He says: "If I had pursued my scholastic duties as diligently as I did deer, trout, grouse, squirrels, etc., I might have had better report cards!"
Jim Kjelgaard has worked at various jobs—trapper, teamster, guide, surveyor, factory worker and laborer. When he was in the late twenties he decided to become a full-time writer. He has succeeded in his wish. He has published several hundred short stories and articles and quite a few books for young people.
His hobbies are hunting, fishing, dogs, and questing for new stories. He tells us: "Story hunts have led me from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Arctic Circle to Mexico City. Stories, like gold, are where you find them. You may discover one three thousand miles from home or, as inThe Spell of the White Sturgeon, right on your own door step." And he adds: "I am married to a very beautiful girl and have a teen-age daughter. Both of them order me around in a shameful fashion, but I can still boss the dog! We live in Phoenix, Arizona."
Transcriber's Notes:
hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original
Page 78, scents A mink ==> scents. A mink
Page 79, the sora Silent ==> the sora. Silent
Page 80/81, carelessly dis carded ==> carelessly discarded
Page 95, needn't,' Jud ==> needn't," Jud
Page 96, proceedings Unstrapping ==> proceedings. Unstrapping
Page 128, the law A hillman ==> the law. A hillman
Page 144, pacs ==> packs
Page 164, that are better ==> that area better
Page 167, particulary ==> particularly
Page 169, The plan, severe ==> The pain, severe