Leaping upwards and striking downwards with his destroying heels.Leaping upwards and striking downwards with his destroying heels.
The cock, perceiving that taunt and insolence were wasted, now began to circle warily toward the left, as if to take his opponent in the flank. The hawk at once shifted front to face him. But this was the side of his disabled wing. The sprawling member would not move, would not get out of the way. In the effort to manage it, he partly lost his precarious balance. The cock saw his advantage instantly. He dashed in like a feathered and flaming thunderbolt, leaping upwards and striking downwards with his destroying heels. The hawk was hurled over backwards, with one spur through his throat, the other through his lungs. As he fell he dragged his conqueror down with him, and one convulsive but blindly-clutching talon ripped away a strip of flesh and feathers from the victor's thigh. There was a moment's flapping, a few delicate red feathers floated off upon the morning air, then the hawk lay quite still, and the red cock, stepping haughtily off the body of his foe, crowed long and shrill, three times, as if challenging any other champions of the wilderness to come and dare a like fate.
For a few minutes he stood waiting and listening for an answer to his challenge. As no answer came, he turned, without deigning to glance at his slain foe, and stalked off, stepping daintily, up the old wood-road and into the depths of the forest. To the raw, red gash in his thigh he paid no heed whatever.
Having no inkling of the fact that the wilderness, silent and deserted though it seemed, was full of hostile eyes and unknown perils, he took no care at all for the secrecy of his going. Indeed, had he striven for concealment, hisbrilliant colouring, so out of key with the forest gloom, would have made it almost impossible. Nevertheless, his keenness of sight and hearing, his practised and unsleeping vigilance as protector of his flock, stood him in good stead, and made up for his lack of wilderness lore. It was with an intense interest and curiosity, rather than with any apprehension, that his bold eyes questioned everything on either side of his path through the dark spruce woods. Sometimes he would stop to peck the bright vermilion bunches of the pigeon-berry, which here and there starred the hillocks beside the road. But no matter how interesting he found the novel and delicious fare, his vigilance never relaxed. It was, indeed, almost automatic. The idea lurking in his subconscious processes was probably that he might at any moment be seen by some doughty rival of his own kind, and challenged to the great game of mortal combat. But whatever the object of his watchfulness, it served him as well against the unknown as it could have done against expected foes.
Presently he came to a spot where an old, half-rotted stump had been torn apart by a bear hunting for wood-ants. The raw earth about the up-torn roots tempted the wanderer to scratch for grubs. Finding a fat white morsel, much too dainty to be devoured alone, he stood over it and began to callkt-kt-kt,kt-kt-kt,kt-kt-ktin his most alluring tones, hoping that some coy young hen would come stealing out of the underbrush in response to his gallant invitation. There was no such response; but as he peered about hopefully, he caught sight of a sinister, reddish-yellow shape creeping towards him behind the shelter of a withe-wood bush. He gulped down the fat grub, and stood warily eyeing the approach of this new foe.
It looked to him like a sharp-nosed, bushy-tailed yellow dog—a very savage and active one. He was not afraid, but he knew himself no match for a thoroughly ferocious dog of that size. This one, it was clear, had evil designs upon him. He half crouched, withwings loosed and every muscle tense for the spring.
The next instant the fox pounced at him, darting through the green edges of the withe-wood bush with most disconcerting suddenness. The cock sprang into the air, but only just in time, for the fox, leaping up nimbly at him with snapping jaws, captured a mouthful of glossy tail feathers. The cock alighted on a branch overhead, some seven or eight feet from the ground, whipped around, stretched his neck downwards, and eyed his assailant with a glassy stare. "Kr-rr-rr-eee?" he murmured softly, as if in sarcastic interrogation. The fox, exasperated at his failure, and hating, above all beasts, to be made a fool of, glanced around to see if there were any spectators. Then, with an air of elaborate indifference, he pawed a feather from the corner of his mouth and trotted away as if he had just remembered something.
He had not gone above thirty yards or so, when the cock flew down again to the exact spot where he had been scratching. He pretendedto pick up another grub, all the time keeping an eye on the retiring foe. He crowed with studied insolence; but the fox, although that long and shrill defiance must have seemed a startling novelty, gave no sign of having heard it. The cock crowed again, with the same lack of result. He kept on crowing until the fox was out of sight. Then he returned coolly to his scratching. When he had satisfied his appetite for fat white grubs, he flew up again to his safe perch and fell to pruning his feathers. Five minutes later the fox reappeared, creeping up with infinite stealth from quite another direction. The cock, however, detected his approach at once, and proclaimed the fact with another mocking crow. Disgusted and abashed, the fox turned in his tracks and crept away to stalk some less sophisticated quarry.
The wanderer, for all his fearlessness, was wise. He suspected that the vicious yellow dog with the bushy tail might return yet again to the charge. For a time, therefore, he sat on his perch, digesting his meal and studyingwith keen, inquisitive eyes his strange surroundings. After ten minutes or so of stillness and emptiness, the forest began to come alive. He saw a pair of black-and-white woodpeckers running up and down the trunk of a half-dead tree, and listened with tense interest to their loud rat-tat-tattings. He watched the shy wood-mice come out from their snug holes under the tree-roots, and play about with timorous gaiety and light rustlings among the dead leaves. He scrutinised with appraising care a big brown rabbit which came bounding in a leisurely fashion down the tote-road and sat up on his hindquarters near the stump, staring about with its mild, bulging eyes, and waving its long ears this way and that, to question every minutest wilderness sound; and he decided that the rabbit, for all its bulk and apparent vigour of limb, would not be a dangerous opponent. In fact, he thought of hopping down from his perch and putting the big innocent to flight, just to compensate himself for having had to flee from the fox.
But while he was meditating this venture,the rabbit went suddenly leaping off at a tremendous pace, evidently in great alarm. A few seconds later a slim little light-brownish creature, with short legs, long, sinuous body, short, triangular head, and cruel eyes that glowed like fire, came into view, following hard upon the rabbit's trail. It was nothing like half the rabbit's size, but the interested watcher on the branch overhead understood at once the rabbit's terror. He had never seen a weasel before, but he knew that the sinuous little beast with the eyes of death would be as dangerous almost as the fox. He noted that here was another enemy to look out for—to be avoided, if possible, to be fought with the utmost wariness if fighting should be forced upon him.
Not long after the weasel had vanished, the cock grew tired of waiting, and restless to renew the quest for the flock on which his dreams were set. He started by flying from tree to tree, still keeping along the course of the tote-road. But after he had covered perhaps a half-mile in this laborious fashion, he gave itup and hopped down again into the road. Here he went now with new caution, but with the same old arrogance of eye and bearing. He went quickly, however, for the gloom of the spruce wood had grown oppressive to him, and he wanted open fields and the unrestricted sun.
He had not gone far when he caught sight of a curious-looking animal advancing slowly down the path to meet him. It was nearly as big as the rabbit, but low on the legs; and instead of leaping along, it crawled with a certain heavy deliberation. Its colour was a dingy, greyish black-and-white, and its short black head was crowned with what looked like a heavy iron-grey pompadour brushed well back. The cock stood still, eyeing its approach suspiciously. It did not look capable of any very swift demonstration, but he was on his guard.
When it had come within three or four yards of him, he said "Kr-rr-rr-eee!" sharply, just to see what it would do, at the same time loweringhis snaky head and ruffing out his neck feathers in challenge. The stranger seemed then to notice him for the first time, and instantly, to the cock's vast surprise, it enlarged itself to fully twice its previous size. Its fur, which was now seen to be quills rather than fur, stood up straight on end all over its head and body, and the quills were two or three inches in length. At this amazing spectacle the cock involuntarily backed away several paces. The stranger came straight on, however, without hastening his deliberate steps one jot. The cock waited, maintaining his attitude of challenge, till not more than three or four feet separated him from the incomprehensible apparition. Then he sprang lightly over it and turned in a flash, expecting the stranger to turn also and again confront him. The stranger, however, did nothing of the kind, but simply continued stolidly on his way, not even troubling to look round. Such stolidity was more than the cock could understand, having never encountered a porcupinebefore. He stared after it for some moments. Then he crowed scornfully, turned about, and resumed his lonely quest.
A little further on, to his great delight, he came out into a small clearing with a log cabin in the centre of it. A house! It was associated in his mind with an admiring, devoted flock of hens, and rivals to be ignominiously routed, and harmless necessary humans whose business it was to supply unlimited food. He rushed forward eagerly, careless as to whether he should encounter love or war.
Alas, the cabin was deserted! Even to his inexperienced eye it was long deserted. The door hung on one hinge, half open. The one small window had no glass in it. Untrodden weeds grew among the rotting chips up to and across the threshold. The roof—a rough affair of poles and bark—sagged in the middle, just ready to fall in at the smallest provocation. A red squirrel, his tail carried jauntily over his back, sat on the topmost peak of it and shrilled high derision at the wanderer as he approached.
The cock was acquainted with squirrels, and thought less than nothing of them. Ignoring the loud chatter, he tip-toed around the cabin, dejected but still inquisitive. Returning at length to the doorway, he peered in, craning his neck and uttering a lowkr-rr. Finally, with head held high, he stalked in. The place was empty, save for a long bench with a broken leg and a joint of rust-eaten stove-pipe. Along two of the walls ran a double tier of bunks, in which the lumbermen had formerly slept. The cock stalked all around the place, prying in every corner and murmuring softly to himself. At last he flew up to the highest bunk, perched upon the edge of it, flapped his wings, and crowed repeatedly, as if announcing to the wilderness at large that he had taken possession. This ceremony accomplished, he flew down again, stalked out into the sunlight, and fell to scratching among the chips with an air of assured possession. And all the while the red squirrel kept on hurling shrill, unheeded abuse at him, resenting him as an intruder in the wilds.
Whenever the cock found a particularly choice grub or worm or beetle, he would hold it aloft in his beak, then lay it down and call loudlykt-kt-kt-kt-kt-kt, as if hoping thus to lure some flock of hens to the fair domain which he had seized. He had now dropped his quest, and was trusting that his subjects would come to him. That afternoon his valiant calls caught the ear of a weasel—possibly the very one which he had seen in the morning trailing the panic-stricken rabbit. The weasel came rushing upon him at once, too ferocious in its blood-lust for any such emotions as surprise or curiosity, and expecting an easy conquest. The cock saw it coming, and knew well the danger. But he was now on his own ground, responsible for the protection of an imaginary flock. He faced the peril unwavering. Fortunately for him, the weasel had no idea whatever of a fighting-cock's method of warfare. When the cock evaded the deadly rush by leaping straight at it and over it, instead of dodging aside or turning tail, the weasel was nonplussed for just a fraction of asecond, and stood snarling. In that instant of hesitation the cock's keen spur struck it fairly behind the ear, and drove clean into the brain. The murderous little beast stiffened out, rolled gently over upon its side, and lay there with the soundless snarl fixed upon its half-opened jaws. Surprised at such an easy victory, the cock spurred the carcase again, just to make sure of it. Then he kicked it to one side, crowed, of course, and stared around wistfully for some appreciation of his triumph. He could not know with what changed eyes the squirrel—who feared weasels more than anything else on earth—was now regarding him.
The killing of so redoubtable an adversary as the weasel must have become known, in some mysterious fashion, for thenceforward no more of the small marauders of the forest ventured to challenge the new lordship of the clearing. For a week the cock ruled his solitude unquestioned, very lonely, but sleeplessly alert, and ever hoping that followers of his own kind would come to him from somewhere. In time, doubtless, his loneliness would havedriven him forth again upon his quest; but Fate had other things in store for him.
Late one afternoon a grizzled woodsman in grey homespun, and carrying a bundle swung from the axe over his shoulder, came striding up to the cabin. The cock, pleased to see a human being once more, stalked forth from the cabin door to meet him. The woodsman was surprised at the sight of what he called a "reel barn-yard rooster" away off here in the wilds, but he was too tired and hungry to consider the question carefully. His first thought was that there would be a pleasant addition to his supper of bacon and biscuits. He dropped his axe and bundle, and made a swift grab at the unsuspecting bird. The latter dodged cleverly, ruffed his neck feathers with an angrykr-rr-rr, hopped up, and spurred the offending hand severely.
The woodsman straightened himself up, taken by surprise, and sheepishly shook the blood from his hand.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he muttered, eyeing the intrepid cock with admiration. "You'resome rooster, you are! I guess you're all right. Guess I deserved that, for thinkin' of wringin' the neck o' sech a handsome an' gritty bird as you, an' me with plenty o' good bacon in me pack. Guess we'll call it square, eh?"
He felt in his pocket for some scraps of biscuits, and tossed them to the cock, who picked them up greedily and then strutted around him, plainly begging for more. The biscuit was a delightful change after an unvarying diet of grubs and grass. Thereafter he followed his visitor about like his shadow, not with servility, of course, but with a certain condescending arrogance which the woodsman found hugely amusing.
Just outside the cabin door the woodsman lit a fire to cook his evening rasher and brew his tin of tea. The cock supped with him, striding with dignity to pick up the scraps which were thrown to him, and then resuming his place at the other side of the fire. By the time the man was done, dusk had fallen; and the cock, chuckling contentedly in his throat, tip-toed into the cabin, flew up to the top bunk,and settled himself on his perch for the night. He had always been taught to expect benefits from men, and he felt that this big stranger who had fed him so generously would find him a flock to preside over on the morrow.
After a long smoke beside his dying fire, till the moon came up above the ghostly solitude, the woodsman turned in to sleep in one of the lower bunks, opposite to where the cock was roosting. He had heaped an armful of bracken and spruce branches into the bunk before spreading his blanket. And he slept very soundly.
Even the most experienced of woodsmen may make a slip at times. This one, this time, had forgotten to make quite sure that his fire was out. There was no wind when he went to bed, but soon afterwards a wind arose, blowing steadily toward the cabin. It blew the darkened embers to a glow, and little, harmless-looking flames began eating their way over the top layer of tinder-dry chips to the equally dry wall of the cabin.
The cock was awakened by a bright light in his eyes. A fiery glow, beyond the reddest of sunrises, was flooding the cabin. Long tongues of flame were licking about the doorway. He crowed valiantly, to greet this splendid, blazing dawn. He crowed again and yet again, because he was anxious and disturbed. As a sunrise, this one did not act at all according to precedent.
The piercing notes aroused the man, who was sleeping heavily. In one instant he was out of his bunk and grabbing up his blanket and his pack. In the next he had plunged out through the flaming doorway, and thrown down his armful at a safe distance, cursing acidly at such a disturbance to the most comfortable rest he had enjoyed for a week.
From within the doomed cabin came once more the crow of the cock, shrilling dauntlessly above the crackle and venomous hiss of the flames.
"Gee whizz!" muttered the woodsman, or, rather, that may be taken as the polite equivalent of his untrammelled backwoods expletive."That there red rooster's game. Ye can't leave a pardner like that to roast!"
With one arm shielding his face, he dashed in again, grabbed the cock by the legs, and darted forth once more into the sweet, chill air, none the worse except for frizzled eyelashes and an unceremonious trimming of hair and beard. The cock, highly insulted, was flapping and pecking savagely, but the man soon reduced him to impotence, if not submission, holding him under one elbow while he tied his armed heels together, and then swaddling him securely in his coat.
"There," said he, "I guess we'll travel together from this out, pardner. Ye've sure saved my life; an' to think I had the notion, for a minnit, o' makin' a meal offen ye! I'll give ye a good home, anyways, an' I guess ye'll lick the socks offen every other rooster in the whole blame Settlement!"
That one stark naked side of the mountain which gave it its name of Old Bald Face fronted full south. Scorched by sun and scourged by storm throughout the centuries, it was bleached to an ashen pallor that gleamed startlingly across the leagues of sombre, green-purple wilderness outspread below. From the base of the tremendous bald steep stretched off the interminable leagues of cedar swamp, only to be traversed in dry weather or in frost. All the region behind the mountain face was an impenetrable jumble of gorges, pinnacles, and chasms, with black woods clinging in crevice and ravine and struggling up desperately towards the light.
In the time of spring and autumn floods, when the cedar swamps were impenetrable to all save mink, otter, and musk-rat, the only way from the western plateau to the group oflakes that formed the source of the Ottanoonsis, on the east, was by a high, nerve-testing trail across the wind-swept brow of Old Bald Face. The trail followed a curious ledge, sometimes wide enough to have accommodated an ox-wagon, at other times so narrow and so perilous that even the sure-eyed caribou went warily in traversing it.
The only inhabitants of Bald Face were the eagles, three pairs of them, who had their nests, widely separated from each other in haughty isolation, on jutting shoulders and pinnacles accessible to no one without wings. Though the ledge-path at its highest point was far above the nests, and commanded a clear view of one of them, the eagles had learned to know that those who traversed the pass were not troubling themselves about eagles' nests. They had also observed another thing—of interest to them only because their keen eyes and suspicious brains were wont to note and consider everything that came within their purview—and that was that the scanty traffic by the pass had its more or less regular times andseasons. In seasons of drought or hard frost it vanished altogether. In seasons of flood it increased the longer the floods lasted. And whenever there was any passing at all, the movement was from east to west in the morning, from west to east in the afternoon.
This fact may have been due to some sort of dimly recognised convention among the wild kindreds, arrived at in some subtle way to avoid unnecessary—and necessarily deadly—misunderstanding and struggle. For the creatures of the wild seldom fight for fighting's sake. They fight for food, or, in the mating season, they fight in order that the best and strongest may carry off the prizes.
But mere purposeless risk and slaughter they instinctively strive to avoid. The airy ledge across Bald Face, therefore, was not a place where the boldest of the wild kindred—the bear or the bull-moose, to say nothing of lesser champions—would wilfully invite the doubtful combat. If, therefore, it had been somehow arrived at that there should be no disastrous meetings, no face-to-face strugglesfor the right of way, at a spot where dreadful death was inevitable for one or both of the combatants, that would have been in no way inconsistent with the accepted laws and customs of the wilderness. On the other hand, it is possible that this alternate easterly and westerly drift of the wild creatures—a scanty affair enough at best of times—across the front of Bald Face was determined in the first place, on clear days, by their desire not to have the sun in their eyes in making the difficult passage, and afterwards hardened into custom. It was certainly better to have the sun behind one in treading the knife-edge pass above the eagles.
Joe Peddler found it troublesome enough, that strong, searching glare from the unclouded sun of early morning full in his eyes, as he worked over toward the Ottanoonsis lakes. He had never attempted the crossing of Old Bald Face before, and he had always regarded with some scorn the stories told by Indians of the perils of that passage. But already, though he had accomplished but asmall portion of his journey, and was still far from the worst of the pass, he had been forced to the conclusion that report had not exaggerated the difficulties of his venture. However, he was steady of head and sure of foot, and the higher he went in that exquisitely clear, crisp air, the more pleased he felt with himself. His great lungs drank deep of the tonic wind which surged against him rhythmically, and seemed to him to come unbroken from the outermost edges of the world. His eyes widened and filled themselves, even as his lungs, with the ample panorama that unfolded before them. He imagined—for the woodsman, dwelling so much alone, is apt to indulge some strange imaginings—that he could feel his very spirit enlarging, as if to take full measure of these splendid breadths of sunlit, wind-washed space.
Presently, with a pleasant thrill, he observed that just ahead of him the ledge went round an abrupt shoulder of the rock-face at a point where there was a practically sheer drop of many hundreds of feet into what appeared afeather-soft carpet of tree-tops. He looked shrewdly to the security of his footing as he approached, and also to the roughnesses of the rock above the ledge, in case a sudden violent gust should chance to assail him just at the turn. He felt that at such a spot it would be so easy—indeed, quite natural—to be whisked off by the sportive wind, whirled out into space, and dropped into that green carpet so far below.
In his flexible oil-tanned "larrigans" of thick cowhide, Peddler moved noiselessly as a wild-cat, even over the bare stone of the ledge. He was like a grey shadow drifting slowly across the bleached face of the precipice. As he drew near the bend of the trail, of which not more than eight or ten paces were now visible to him, he felt every nerve grow tense with exhilarating expectation. Yet, even so, what happened was the utterly unexpected.
Around the bend before him, stepping daintily on her fine hooves, came a young doe.She completely blocked the trail just on that dizzy edge.
Peddler stopped short, tried to squeeze himself to the rock like a limpet, and clutched with fingers of iron at a tiny projection.
The doe, for one second, seemed petrified with amazement. It was contrary to all tradition that she should be confronted on that trail. Then, her amazement instantly dissolving into sheer madness of panic, she wheeled about violently to flee. But there was no room for even her lithe body to make the turn. The inexorable rock-face bounced her off, and with an agonised bleat, legs sprawling and great eyes starting from their sockets, she went sailing down into the abyss.
With a heart thumping in sympathy, Peddler leaned outward and followed that dreadful flight, till she reached that treacherously soft-looking carpet of tree-tops and was engulfed by it. A muffled crash came up to Peddler's ears.
"Poor leetle beggar!" he muttered. "Iwish't I hadn't scared her so. But I'd a sight rather it was her than me!"
Peddler's exhilaration was now considerably damped. He crept cautiously to the dizzy turn of the ledge and peered around. The thought upon which his brain dwelt with unpleasant insistence was that if it had been a surly old bull-moose or a bear which had confronted him so unexpectedly, instead of that nervous little doe, he might now be lying beneath that deceitful green carpet in a state of dilapidation which he did not care to contemplate.
Beyond the turn the trail was clear to his view for perhaps a couple of hundred yards. It climbed steeply through a deep re-entrant, a mighty perpendicular corrugation of the rock-face, and then disappeared again around another jutting bastion. He hurried on rather feverishly, not liking that second interruption to his view, and regretting, for the first time, that he had no weapon with him but his long hunting-knife. He had left his rifle behind him as a useless burden to his climbing. Nogame was now in season, no skins in condition to be worth the shooting, and he had food enough for the journey in his light pack. He had not contemplated the possibility of any beast, even bear or bull-moose, daring to face him, because he knew that, except in mating-time, the boldest of them would give a man wide berth. But, as he now reflected, here on this narrow ledge even a buck or a lynx would become dangerous, finding itself suddenly at bay.
The steepness of the rise in the trail at this point almost drove Peddler to helping himself with his hands. As he neared the next turn, he was surprised to note, far out to his right, a soaring eagle, perhaps a hundred feet below him. He was surprised, too, by the fact that the eagle was paying no attention to him whatever, in spite of his invasion of the great bird's aerial domain. Instinctively he inferred that the eagle's nest must be in some quite inaccessible spot at safe distance from the ledge. He paused to observe from above, and thus fairly near at hand, the slow flappingof those wide wings, as they employed the wind to serve the majesty of their flight. While he was studying this, another deduction from the bird's indifference to his presence flashed upon his mind. There must be a fairly abundant traffic of the wild creatures across this pass, or the eagle would not be so indifferent to his presence. At this thought he lost his interest in problems of flight, and hurried forward again, anxious to see what might be beyond the next turn of the trail.
His curiosity was gratified all too abruptly for his satisfaction. He reached the turn, craned his head around it, and came face to face with an immense black bear.
The bear was not a dozen feet away. At sight of Peddler's gaunt dark face and sharp blue eyes appearing thus abruptly and without visible support around the rock, he shrank back upon his haunches with a startled "woof."
As for Peddler, he was equally startled, but he had too much discretion and self-control to show it. Never moving a muscle, and keeping his body out of sight so that his faceseemed to be suspended in mid-air, he held the great beast's eyes with a calm, unwinking gaze.
The bear was plainly disconcerted. After a few seconds he glanced back over his shoulder, and seemed to contemplate a strategic movement to the rear. As the ledge at this point was sufficiently wide for him to turn with due care, Peddler expected now to see him do so. But what Peddler did not know was that dim but cogent "law of the ledge," which forbade all those who travelled by it to turn and retrace their steps, or to pass in the wrong direction at the wrong time. He did not know what the bear knew namely—that if that perturbed beastshouldturn, he was sure to be met and opposed by other wayfarers, and thus to find himself caught between two fires.
Watching steadily, Peddler was unpleasantly surprised to see the perturbation in the bear's eyes slowly change into a savage resentment—resentment at being baulked in his inalienable right to an unopposed passage over the ledge. To the bear's mind that grim, confrontingface was a violation of the law which he himself obeyed loyally and without question. To be sure, it was the face of man, and therefore to be dreaded. It was also mysterious, and therefore still more to be dreaded. But the sense of bitter injustice, with the realisation that he was at bay and taken at a disadvantage, filled him with a frightened rage which swamped all other emotion. Then he came on.
His advance was slow and cautious by reason of the difficulty of the path and his dread lest that staring, motionless face should pounce upon him just at the perilous turn and hurl him over the brink. But Peddler knew that his bluff was called, and that his only chance was to avoid the encounter. He might have fled by the way he had come, knowing that he would have every advantage in speed on that narrow trail. But before venturing up to the turn he had noted a number of little projections and crevices in the perpendicular wall above him. Clutching at them with fingers of steel and unerring toes, he swarmed upwardsas nimbly as a climbing cat. He was a dozen feet up before the bear came crawling and peering around the turn.
Elated at having so well extricated himself from so dubious a situation, Peddler gazed down upon his opponent and laughed mockingly. The sound of that confident laughter from straight above his head seemed to daunt the bear and thoroughly damp his rage. He crouched low, and scurried past growling. As he hurried along the trail at a rash pace, he kept casting anxious glances over his shoulder, as if he feared the man were going to chase him. Peddler lowered himself from his friendly perch and continued his journey, cursing himself more than ever for having been such a fool as not to bring his rifle.
In the course of the next half-hour he gained the highest point of the ledge, which here was so broken and precarious that he had little attention to spare for the unparalleled sweep and splendour of the view. He was conscious, however, all the time, of the whirling eagles, now far below him, and his veins thrilled withintense exhilaration. His apprehensions had all vanished under the stimulus of that tonic atmosphere. He was on the constant watch, however, scanning not only the trail ahead—which was now never visible for more than a hundred yards or so at a time—and also the face of the rock above him, to see if it could be scaled in an emergency.
He had no expectation of an emergency, because he knew nothing of the law of the ledge. Having already met a doe and a bear, he naturally inferred that he would not be likely to meet any other of the elusive kindreds of the wild, even in a whole week of forest faring. The shy and wary beasts are not given to thrusting themselves upon man's dangerous notice, and it was hard enough to find them, with all his woodcraft, even when he was out to look for them. He was, therefore, so surprised that he could hardly believe his eyes when, on rounding another corrugation of the rock-face, he saw another bear coming to meet him.
"Gee!" muttered Peddler to himself."Who's been lettin' loose the menagerie? Or hev I got the nightmare, mebbe?"
The bear was about fifty yards distant—a smaller one than its predecessor, and much younger also, as was obvious to Peddler's initiated eye by the trim glossiness of its coat. It halted the instant it caught sight of Peddler. But Peddler, for his part, kept right on, without showing the least sign of hesitation or surprise. This bear, surely, would give way before him. The beast hesitated, however. It was manifestly afraid of the man. It backed a few paces, whimpering in a worried fashion, then stopped, staring up the rock-wall above it, as if seeking escape in that impossible direction.
"If ye're so skeered o' me as ye look," demanded Peddler, in a crisp voice, "why in h—ll don't ye turn an' vamoose, 'stead o' backin' an' fillin' that way? Ye can't git up that there rock, 'less ye're a fly."
The ledge at that point was a comparatively wide and easy path; and the bear at length, as if decided by the easy confidence of Peddler'stones, turned and retreated. But it went off with such reluctance, whimpering anxiously the while, that Peddler was forced to the conclusion there must be something coming up the trail which it was dreading to meet. At this idea Peddler was delighted, and hurried on as closely as possible at the retreating animal's heels. The bear, he reflected, would serve him as an excellent advance guard, protecting him perfectly from surprise, and perhaps, if necessary, clearing the way for him. He chuckled to himself as he realised the situation, and the bear, catching the incomprehensible sound, glanced nervously over its shoulder and hastened its retreat as well as the difficulties of the path would allow.
The trail was now descending rapidly, though irregularly, towards the eastern plateau. The descent was broken by here and there a stretch of comparatively level going, here and there a sharp though brief rise, and at one point the ledge was cut across by a crevice some four feet in width. As a jump, of course, it was nothing to Peddler; but inspite of himself he took it with some trepidation, for the chasm looked infinitely deep, and the footing on the other side narrow and precarious. The bear, however, had seemed to take it quite carelessly, almost in its stride, and Peddler, not to be outdone, assumed a similar indifference.
It was not long, however, before the enigma of the bear's reluctance to retrace its steps was solved. The bear, with Peddler some forty or fifty paces behind, was approaching one of those short steep rises which broke the general descent. From the other side of the rise came a series of heavy breathings and windy grunts.
"Moose, by gum!" exclaimed Peddler. "Now, I'd like to know ifallthe critters hev took it into their heads to cross Old Bald Face to-day!"
The bear heard the gruntlings also, and halted unhappily, glancing back at Peddler.
"Git on with it!" ordered Peddler sharply. And the bear, dreading man more than moose, got on.
The next moment a long, dark, ominoushead, with massive, overhanging lip and small angry eyes, appeared over the rise. Behind this formidable head laboured up the mighty humped shoulders and then the whole towering form of a moose-bull. Close behind him followed two young cows and a yearling calf.
"Huh! I guess there's goin' to be some row!" muttered Peddler, and cast his eyes up the rock-face, to look for a point of refuge in case his champion should get the worst of it.
At sight of the bear the two cows and the yearling halted, and stood staring, with big ears thrust forward anxiously, at the foe that barred their path. But the arrogant old bull kept straight on, though slowly, and with the wariness of the practised duellist. At this season of the year his forehead wore no antlers, indeed, but in his great knife-edged fore-hooves he possessed terrible weapons which he could wield with deadly dexterity. Marking the confidence of his advance, Peddler grew solicitous for his own champion, and stood motionless, dreading to distract the bear's attention.
But the bear, though frankly afraid to face man, whom he did not understand, had no such misgivings in regard to moose. He knew how to fight moose, and he had made more than one good meal, in his day, on moose calf. He was game for the encounter. Reassured to see that the man was not coming any nearer, and possibly even sensing instinctively that the man was on his side in this matter, he crouched close against the rock and waited, with one huge paw upraised, like a boxer on guard, for the advancing bull to attack.
He had not long to wait.
The bull drew near very slowly, and with his head held high as if intending to ignore his opponent. Peddler, watching intently, felt some surprise at this attitude, even though he knew that the deadliest weapon of a moose was its fore-hooves. He was wondering, indeed, if the majestic beast expected to press past the bear without a battle, and if the bear, on his part, would consent to this highly reasonable arrangement. Then like a flash, without the slightest warning, the bull whipped up onegreat hoof to the height of his shoulder and struck at his crouching adversary.
The blow was lightning swift, and with such power behind it that, had it reached its mark, it would have settled the whole matter then and there. But the bear's parry was equally swift. His mighty forearm fended the stroke so that it hissed down harmlessly past his head and clattered on the stone floor of the trail. At the same instant, before the bull could recover himself for another such pile-driving blow, the bear, who had been gathered up like a coiled spring, elongated his body with all the force of his gigantic hindquarters, thrusting himself irresistibly between his adversary and the face of the rock, and heaving outwards.
These were tactics for which the great bull had no precedent in all his previous battles. He was thrown off his balance and shouldered clean over the brink. By a terrific effort he turned, captured a footing upon the edge with his fore-hooves, and struggled frantically to drag himself up again upon the ledge. Butthe bear's paw struck him a crashing buffet straight between the wildly staring eyes. He fell backwards, turning clean over, and went bouncing, in tremendous sprawling curves, down into the abyss.
Upon the defeat of their leader the two cows and the calf turned instantly—which the ledge at this point was wide enough to permit—and fled back down the trail at a pace which seemed to threaten their own destruction. The bear followed more prudently, with no apparent thought of trying to overtake them. And Peddler kept on behind him, taking care, however, after this exhibition of his champion's powers, not to press him too closely.
The fleeing herd soon disappeared from view. It seemed to have effectually cleared the trail before it, for the curious procession of the bear and Peddler encountered no further obstacles.
After about an hour the lower slopes of the mountain were reached. The ledge widened and presently broke up, with trails leading off here and there among the foothills. At thefirst of these that appeared to offer concealment the bear turned aside and vanished into a dense grove of spruce with a haste which seemed to Peddler highly amusing in a beast of such capacity and courage. He was content, however, to be so easily quit of his dangerous advance guard.
"A durn good thing for me," he mused, "that that there b'ar never got up the nerve to call my bluff, or I might 'a' been layin' now where that unlucky old bull-moose is layin', with a lot o' flies crawlin' over me."
And as he trudged along the now easy and ordinary trail, he registered two discreet resolutions—first, that never again would he cross Old Bald Face without his gunandhis axe; and second, that never again would he cross Old Bald Face at all, unless he jolly well had to.
All night the big buck rabbit—he was really a hare, but the backwoodsman called him a rabbit—had been squatting on his form under the dense branches of a young fir tree. The branches grew so low that their tips touched the snow all round him, giving him almost perfect shelter from the drift of the storm. The storm was one of icy rain, which everywhere froze instantly as it fell. All night it had been busy encasing the whole wilderness—every tree and bush and stump, and the snow in every open meadow or patch of forest glade—in an armour of ice, thick and hard and glassy clear. And the rabbit, crouching motionless, save for an occasional forward thrust of his long, sensitive ears, had slept in unwonted security, knowing that none of his night-prowling foes would venture forth from their lairs on such a night.
At dawn the rain stopped. The cold deepened to a still intensity. The clouds lifted along the eastern horizon, and a thin, icy flood of saffron and palest rose washed down across the glittering desolation. The wilderness was ablaze on the instant with elusive tongues and points of coloured light—jewelled flames, not of fire, but of frost. The world had become a palace of crystal and opal, a dream-palace that would vanish at a touch, a breath. And, indeed, had a wind arisen then to breathe upon it roughly, the immeasurable crystal would have shattered as swiftly as a dream, the too-rigid twigs and branches would have snapped and clattered down in ruin.
The rabbit came out from under his little ice-clad fir tree, and, for all his caution, the brittle twigs broke about him as he emerged, and tinkled round him sharply. The thin, light sound was so loud upon the stillness that he gave a startled leap into the air, landing many feet away from his refuge. He slipped and sprawled, recovered his foothold, and stood quivering, his great, prominent eyes tryingto look in every direction at once, his ears questioning anxiously to and fro, his nostrils twitching for any hint of danger.
There was no sight, sound, or scent, however, to justify his alarm, and in a few seconds, growing bolder, he remembered that he was hungry. Close by he noticed the tips of a little birch sapling sticking up above the snow. These birch-tips, in winter, were his favourite food. He hopped toward them, going circumspectly over the slippery surface, and sat up on his hindquarters to nibble at them. To his intense surprise and disappointment, each twig and aromatic bud was sealed away, inaccessible, though clearly visible, under a quarter inch of ice. Twig after twig he investigated with his inquiring, sensitive cleft nostrils, which met everywhere the same chill reception. Round and round the tantalising branch he hopped, unable to make out the situation. At last, thoroughly disgusted, he turned his back on the treacherous birch bush and made for another, some fifty yards down the glade.
As he reached it he stopped short, suddenly rigid, his head half turned over his shoulder, every muscle gathered like a spring wound up to extreme tension. His bulging eyes had caught a movement somewhere behind him, beyond the clump of twigs which he had just left. Only for a second did he remain thus rigid. Then the spring was loosed. With a frantic bound he went over and through the top of the bush. The shattered and scattered crystals rang sharply on the shining snow-crust. And he sped away in panic terror among the silent trees.
From behind the glassy twigs emerged another form, snow-white like the fleeting rabbit, and fled in pursuit—not so swiftly, indeed, as the rabbit—with an air of implacable purpose that made the quarry seem already doomed. The pursuer was much smaller than his intended victim, very low on the legs, long-bodied, slender, and sinuous, and he moved as if all compacted of whipcord muscle. The grace of his long, deliberate bounds was indescribable. His head was triangularin shape, the ears small and close-set, the black-tipped muzzle sharply pointed, with the thin, black lips upcurled to show the white fangs as if in a ferocious but soundless snarl, and the eyes glowed red with blood-lust. Small as it was, there was something terrible about the tiny beast, and its pursuit seemed as inevitable as Fate. At each bound its steel-hard claws scratched sharply on the crystal casing of the snow, and here and there an icicle from a snapped twig went ringing silverly across the gleaming surface.
For perhaps fifty yards the weasel followed straight upon the rabbit's track. Then he swerved to the right. He had lost sight of his quarry. But he knew its habits in flight. He knew it would run in a circle, and he took a chord of that circle, so as to head the fugitive off. He knew he might have to repeat this manœuvre several times, but he had no doubts as to the result. In a second or two he also had disappeared among the azure shadows and pink-and-saffron gleams of the ice-clad forest.
For several minutes the glade was empty, still as death, with the bitter but delicate glories of the winter dawn flooding ever more radiantly across it. On a sudden the rabbit appeared again, this time at the opposite side of the glade. He was running irresolutely now, with little aimless leaps to this side and to that, and his leaps were short and lifeless, as if his nerve-power were getting paralysed. About the middle of the glade he seemed to give up altogether, as if conquered by sheer panic. He stopped, hesitated, wheeled round, and crouched flat upon the naked snow, trembling violently, and staring, with eyes that started from his head, at the point in the woods which he had just emerged from.
A second later the grim pursuer appeared. He saw his victim awaiting him, but he did not hurry his pace by a hair's-breadth. With the same terrible deliberation he approached. Only his jaws opened, his long fangs glistened bare; a blood-red globule of light glowed redder at the back of his eyes.
One more of those inexorable bounds, andhe would have been at his victim's throat. The rabbit screamed.
At that instant, with a hissing sound, a dark shadow dropped out of the air. It struck the rabbit. He was enveloped in a dreadful flapping of wings. Iron talons, that clutched and bit like the jaws of a trap, seized him by the back. He felt himself partly lifted from the snow. He screamed again. But now he struggled convulsively, no longer submissive to his doom, the hypnotic spell cast upon him by the weasel being broken by the shock of the great hawk's unexpected attack.
But the weasel was not of the stuff or temper to let his prey be snatched thus from his jaws. Cruel and wanton assassin though he was, ever rejoicing to kill for the lust of killing, long after his hunger was satisfied, he had the courage of a wounded buffalo. A mere darting sliver of white, he sprang straight into the blinding confusion of those great wings.
He secured a hold just under one wing, where the armour of feathers was thinnest, and began to gnaw inwards with his keenfangs. With a startled cry, the hawk freed her talons from the rabbit's back and clutched frantically at her assailant. The rabbit, writhing out from under the struggle, went leaping off into cover, bleeding copiously, but carrying no fatal hurt. He had recovered his wits, and had no idle curiosity as to how the battle between his enemies would turn out.
The hawk, for all her great strength and the crushing superiority of her weapons, had a serious disadvantage of position. The weasel, maintaining his deadly grip and working inwards like a bull-dog, had hunched up his lithe little body so that she could not reach it with her talons. She tore furiously at his back with her rending beak, but the amazingly tough, rubbery muscles resisted even that weapon to a certain degree. At last, securing a grip with her beak upon her adversary's thigh, she managed to pull the curled-up body out almost straight, and so secured a grip upon it with one set of talons.
That grip was crushing, irresistible, but it was too far back to be immediately fatal. Theweasel's lithe body lengthened out under the agonising stress of it, but it could not pull his jaws from their grip. They continued inexorably their task of gnawing inwards, ever inwards, seeking a vital spot.
The struggle went on in silence, as far as the voices of both combatants were concerned. But the beating of the hawk's wings resounded on the glassy-hard surface of the snow. As the struggle shifted ground, those flapping wings came suddenly in contact with a bush, whose iced twigs were brittle as glass and glittering like the prisms of a great crystal candelabra. There was a shrill crash and a thin, ringing clatter as the twigs shattered off and spun flying across the crust.
The sound carried far through the still, iridescent spaces of the wilderness. It reached the ears of a foraging fox, who was tip-toeing with dainty care over the slippering crust. He turned hopefully to investigate, trusting to get a needed breakfast out of some fellow-marauder's difficulties. At the edge of the glade he paused, peering through a bush ofcrystal fire to size up the situation before committing himself to the venture.
Desperately preoccupied though she was, the hawk's all-seeing eyes detected the red outlines of the fox through the bush. With a frantic beating of her wings she lifted herself from the snow. The fox darted upon her with a lightning rush and a shattering of icicles. He was just too late. The great bird was already in the air, carrying her deadly burden with her. The fox leapt straight upwards, hoping to pull her down, but his clashing jaws just failed to reach her talons. Labouring heavily in her flight, she made off, striving to gain a tree-top where she might perch and once more give her attention to the gnawing torment which clung beneath her wing.
The fox, being wise, and seeing that the hawk was in extremest straits, ran on beneath her as she flew, gazing upwards expectantly.
The weasel, meanwhile, with that deadly concentration of purpose which characterises his tribe, paid no heed to the fact that he was journeying through the air. And he knewnothing of what was going on below. His flaming eyes were buried in his foe's feathers, his jaws were steadily working inwards toward her vitals.
Just at the edge of the glade, immediately over the top of a branchy young paper-birch which shot a million coloured points of light in the sunrise, the end came. The fangs of the weasel met in the hawk's wildly throbbing heart. With a choking burst of scarlet blood it stopped.
Stone dead, the great marauder of the air crashed down through the slim birch-top, with a great scattering of gleams and crystals. With wide-sprawled wings she thudded down upon the snow-crust, almost under the fox's complacent jaws. The weasel's venomous head, covered with blood, emerged triumphant from the mass of feathers.
As the victor writhed free, the fox, pouncing upon him with a careless air, seized him by the neck, snapped it neatly, and tossed the long, limp body aside upon the snow. He had no use for the rank, stringy meat of theweasel when better fare was at hand. Then he drew the hawk close to the trunk of the young birch, and lay down to make a leisurely breakfast.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author or on kindred subjects.
AUTHOR OF "KINGS IN EXILE," "HOOF AND CLAW," ETC.
Decorated cloth, illustrated, 12mo, $1.50
"Mr. Roberts knows his animals intimately and writes about them with understanding and reality."—The Continent.
"Whether viewed as stories, as natural history, or as literature, young and old should lose no time in making the acquaintance of 'Neighbors Unknown.'"—N. Y. Times.
"Few stories about animals have as strong a power to interest and entertain or carry as deep a conviction of their truth and reasonableness as those by Charles G. D. Roberts, which comprise the volume 'Neighbors Unknown.'"—Chicago Tribune.
"What observation, what power of description is displayed in Charles G. D. Roberts's latest volume of stories!"—Bellman.
AUTHOR OF "KINGS IN EXILE," "NEIGHBORS UNKNOWN," ETC.
With illustrations byPaul Bransom
Ill., decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.35
"Whoever loves the wilderness and its furred and feathered inhabitants is always glad to know of a new book by Charles G. D. Roberts, whose knowledge and sympathy with wild things is profound, but who never falls into that danger of humanizing his characters."—Springfield Republican.
"A great deal of keen observation has evidently gone into the making of these tales ... city dwellers owe to this sort of book a debt which they probably will never sufficiently pay, and that is to read them."—Chicago Evening Post.
Illustrated. Cloth. 12mo, $1.50
Juvenile Library $.50
"'The Backwoodsmen' shows that the writer knows the backwoods as the sailor knows the sea. Indeed, his various studies of wild life in general, whether cast in the world of short sketch or story or full-length narrative, have always secured an interested public.... Mr. Roberts possesses a keen artistic sense which is especially marked when he is rounding some story to its end. There is never a word too much, and he invariably stops when the stop should be made.... Few writers exhibit such entire sympathy with the nature of beasts and birds as he."—Boston Herald.
"When placed by the side of the popular novel, the strength of these stories causes them to stand out like a huge primitive giant by the side of a simpering society miss, and while the grace and beauty of the girl may please the eye for a moment, it is to the rugged strength of the primitive man your eyes will turn to glory in his power and simplicity. In simple, forceful style Mr. Roberts takes the reader with him out into the cold, dark woods, through blizzards, stalking game, encountering all the dangers of the backwoodsmen's life, and enjoying the close contact with Nature in all her moods. His descriptions are so vivid that you can almost feel the tang of the frosty air, the biting sting of the snowy sleet beating on your face, you can hear the crunch of the snow beneath your feet, and when, after heartlessly exposing you to the elements, he lets you wander into camp with the characters of the story, you stretch out and bask in the warmth and cheer of the fire."—Western Review.
The Macmillan Fiction Library, Ill., 12mo, $.50
Illustrated. Cloth. 12mo, $1.50
"More wonderful animal tales such as only Mr. Roberts can relate. With accurate knowledge of the exiled beasts and a vivid imagination, the author writes stories that are even more than usually interesting."—Book News Monthly.
"It is surprising how much of the wilderness his wistful eye discovers in a Central Park buffalo yard. For this gift of vision the book will be read, a vision with its reminder of the scent of dark forests of fir, the awful and majestic loneliness of sky-towering peaks, the roar of the breakers and salty smell of the sea, the whispering silences of the forests. We rise from its pages with the breath of the open spaces in our lungs."—Boston Transcript.
Author of"Kings in Exile," "The Backwoodsmen,"Etc.
With illustrations, cloth, 12 mo, $1.35
As might be inferred from the title of Charles G. D. Roberts' new book, "Children of the Wild," the reader is brought very close to nature. Mr. Roberts has written many stories about the wild, all of which have the atmosphere which few writers are able to breathe into their books—the atmosphere of outdoor life told with the sure touch of a recognized authority. Here he writes for boys particularly, still of the creatures of the forests and streams, but with a boy as the central human figure. Babe and his Uncle Andy and Bill, the guide, are camping in the wilderness. What they see and hear there suggest stories about young animals, the "children of the wild." These tales are recounted by Uncle Andy. In them Mr. Roberts shows that he knows his fellowmen fully as well as he knows the lore of the woods and the haunts and habits of the animals of the forest. Into his stories creep snatches of humor, glimpses of tragedy, and the poignant touch of pathos, all of which make his work natural. The present work should prove a most acceptable remembrance to every boy who cares, and what boy does not, for a hearty book of outdoor life.
Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.35
Illustrated byPaul Bransom
It is to be doubted whether there is a more popular animal writer to-day than Charles G. D. Roberts, whose stories of forests and streams are read with pleasure by young and old alike. In his present book are tales of the bear, the bat, the seal, the moose, rabbit and other animals written in his usual vivid style.
"A great book for boys of all ages, and one that could have been written only by Charles G. D. Roberts."—Boston Times.