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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wood Folk at School, by William J. Long
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Wood Folk at School
+
+Author: William J. Long
+
+Release Date: July 19, 2007 [EBook #22101]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOOD FOLK AT SCHOOL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, LN Yaddanapudi and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_Wood Folk at School_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: "THERE AT A TURN IN THE PATH, NOT TEN YARDS AHEAD, STOOD
+A HUGE BEAR."]
+
+
+
+
+WOOD FOLK AT SCHOOL
+
+BY
+
+WILLIAM J. LONG
+
+_WOOD FOLK SERIES
+BOOK FOUR_
+
+GINN & COMPANY
+BOSTON . NEW YORK . CHICAGO . LONDON
+
+
+ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1902, 1903
+BY WILLIAM J. LONG
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+The Athenaeum Press
+GINN & COMPANY . CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+It may surprise many, whose knowledge of wild animals is gained from
+rare, fleeting glimpses of frightened hoof or wing in the woods, to
+consider that there can be such a thing as a school for the Wood Folk;
+or that instruction has any place in the life of the wild things.
+Nevertheless it is probably true that education among the higher order
+of animals has its distinct place and value. Their knowledge, however
+simple, is still the result of three factors: instinct, training, and
+experience. Instinct only begins the work; the mother's training
+develops and supplements the instinct; and contact with the world, with
+its sudden dangers and unknown forces, finishes the process.
+
+For many years the writer has been watching animals and recording his
+observations with the idea of determining, if possible, which of these
+three is the governing factor in the animal's life. Some of the results
+of this study were published last year in a book called "School of the
+Woods," which consisted of certain studies of animals from life, and
+certain theories in the form of essays to account for what the writer's
+eyes had seen and his own ears heard in the great wilderness among the
+animals.
+
+A school reader is no place for theories; therefore that part of the
+book is not given here. The animal studies alone are reproduced in
+answer to the requests from many teachers that these be added to the
+Wood Folk books. From these the reader can form his own conclusions as
+to the relative importance of instinct and training, if he will. But
+there is another and a better way open: watch the purple martins for a
+few days when the young birds first leave the house; find a crow's nest,
+and watch secretly while the old birds are teaching their little ones to
+fly; follow a fox, or any other wild mother-animal, patiently as she
+leaves the den and leads the cubs out into the world of unknown sights
+and sounds and smells,--and you will learn more in a week of what
+education means to the animals than anybody's theories can ever teach
+you.
+
+These are largely studies of individual animals and birds. They do not
+attempt to give the habits of a class or species, for the animals of the
+same class are alike only in a general way; they differ in interest and
+intelligence quite as widely as men and women of the same class, if you
+but watch them closely enough. The names here given are those of the
+Milicete Indians, as nearly as I can remember them; and the incidents
+have all passed under my own-eyes and were recorded in the woods, from
+my tent or canoe, just as I saw them.
+
+WILLIAM J. LONG.
+
+STAMFORD, CONN., March, 1903.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                               PAGE
+WHAT THE FAWNS MUST KNOW         1
+
+A CRY IN THE NIGHT              11
+
+ISMAQUES THE FISHHAWK           31
+
+A SCHOOL FOR LITTLE FISHERMEN   48
+
+WHEN YOU MEET A BEAR            58
+
+QUOSKH THE KEEN EYED            75
+
+UNK WUNK THE PORCUPINE         111
+
+A LAZY FELLOW'S FUN            124
+
+THE PARTRIDGES' ROLL CALL      134
+
+UMQUENAWIS THE MIGHTY          151
+
+AT THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET    175
+
+GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES       187
+
+
+
+
+FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"THERE AT A TURN IN THE PATH, NOT TEN YARDS AHEAD,
+  STOOD A HUGE BEAR"                                    _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                         FACING PAGE
+"THE WHITE FLAG SHOWING LIKE A BEACON LIGHT AS SHE
+  JUMPED AWAY"                                                    9
+
+"HER EYES ALL ABLAZE WITH THE WONDER OF THE LIGHT"               24
+
+"PRESENTLY THEY BEGAN TO SWOOP FIERCELY AT SOME ANIMAL"          43
+
+"GRIPPING HIS FISH AND _pip-pipping_ HIS EXULTATION"             53
+
+"A DOZEN TIMES THE FISHER JUMPED, FILLING THE AIR WITH
+  FEATHERS"                                                     104
+
+"BOTHERS AND IRRITATES THE PORCUPINE BY FLIPPING EARTH AT HIM"  118
+
+"THEY WOULD TURN THEIR HEADS AND LISTEN INTENTLY"               145
+
+"PLUNGING LIKE A GREAT ENGINE THROUGH UNDERBRUSH AND OVER
+  WINDFALLS"                                                    152
+
+"A MIGHTY SPRING OF HIS CROUCHING HAUNCHES FINISHED THE WORK"   183
+
+
+
+
+What the Fawns Must Know
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+To this day it is hard to understand how any eyes could have found them,
+they were so perfectly hidden. I was following a little brook, which led
+me by its singing to a deep dingle in the very heart of the big woods. A
+great fallen tree lay across my path and made a bridge over the stream.
+Now, bridges are for crossing; that is plain to even the least of the
+wood folk; so I sat down on the mossy trunk to see who my neighbors
+might be, and what little feet were passing on the King's highway.
+
+Here, beside me, are claw marks in the moldy bark. Only a bear could
+leave that deep, strong imprint. And see! there is where the moss
+slipped and broke beneath his weight. A restless tramp is Mooween, who
+scatters his records over forty miles of hillside on a summer day, when
+his lazy mood happens to leave him for a season. Here, on the other
+side, are the bronze-green petals of a spruce cone, chips from a
+squirrel's workshop, scattered as if Meeko had brushed them hastily from
+his yellow apron when he rushed out to see Mooween as he passed. There,
+beyond, is a mink sign, plain as daylight, where Cheokhes sat down a
+little while after his breakfast of frogs. And here, clinging to a stub,
+touching my elbow as I sit with heels dangling idly over the lazy brook,
+is a crinkly yellow hair, which tells me that Eleemos the Sly One, as
+Simmo calls him, hates to wet his feet and so uses a fallen tree or a
+stone in the brook for a bridge, like his brother fox of the
+settlements.
+
+Just in front of me was another fallen tree, lying alongside the stream
+in such a way that no animal more dangerous than a roving mink would
+ever think of using it. Under its roots, away from the brook, was a
+hidden and roomy little house with hemlock tips drooping over its
+doorway for a curtain. "A pretty place for a den," I thought; "for no
+one could ever find you there." Then, as if to contradict me, a stray
+sunbeam found the spot and sent curious bright glintings of sheen and
+shadow dancing and playing under the fallen roots and trunk.
+"Beautiful!" I cried, as the light fell on the brown mold and flecked it
+with white and yellow. The sunbeam went away again, but seemed to leave
+its brightness behind it; for there were still the gold-brown mold
+under the roots and the flecks of white and yellow. I stooped down to
+see it better; I reached in my hand--then the brown mold changed
+suddenly to softest fur; the glintings of white and yellow were the
+dappled sides of two little fawns, lying there very still and
+frightened, just where their mother had hidden them when she went away.
+
+They were but a few days old when I found them. Each had on his little
+Joseph's coat; and each, I think, must have had also a magic cloak
+somewhere about him; for he had only to lie down anywhere to become
+invisible. The curious markings, like the play of light and shadow
+through the leaves, hid the little owners perfectly so long as they held
+themselves still and let the sunbeams dance over them. Their beautiful
+heads were a study for an artist,--delicate, graceful, exquisitely
+colored. And their great soft eyes had a questioning innocence, as they
+met yours, which went straight to your heart and made you claim the
+beautiful creatures for your own instantly. Indeed, there is nothing in
+all the woods that so takes your heart by storm as the face of a little
+fawn.
+
+They were timid at first, lying close without motion of any kind. The
+instinct of obedience--the first and strongest instinct of every
+creature born into this world--kept them loyal to the mother's command
+to stay where they were and be still till she came back. So even after
+the hemlock curtain was brushed aside, and my eyes saw and my hand
+touched them, they kept their heads flat to the ground and pretended
+that they were only parts of the brown forest floor, and that the spots
+on their bright coats were but flecks of summer sunshine.
+
+I felt then that I was an intruder; that I ought to go straight away and
+leave them; but the little things were too beautiful, lying there in
+their wonderful old den, with fear and wonder and questionings dancing
+in their soft eyes as they turned them back at me like a mischievous
+child playing peekaboo. It is a tribute to our higher nature that one
+cannot see a beautiful thing anywhere without wanting to draw near, to
+see, to touch, to possess it. And here was beauty such as one rarely
+finds, and, though I was an intruder, I could not go away.
+
+The hand that touched the little wild things brought no sense of danger
+with it. It searched out the spots behind their velvet ears where they
+love to be rubbed; it wandered down over their backs with a little wavy
+caress in its motion; it curled its palm up softly under their moist
+muzzles and brought their tongues out instantly for the faint suggestion
+of salt that was in it. Suddenly their heads came up. All deception was
+over now. They had forgotten their hiding, their first lesson; they
+turned and looked at me full with their great, innocent, questioning
+eyes. It was wonderful; I was undone. One must give his life, if need
+be, to defend the little things after they had looked at him just once
+like that.
+
+When I rose at last, after petting them to my heart's content, they
+staggered up to their feet and came out of their house. Their mother had
+told them to stay; but here was another big, kind animal, evidently,
+whom they might safely trust. "Take the gifts the gods provide thee" was
+the thought in their little heads; and the salty taste in their tongues'
+ends, when they licked my hand, was the nicest thing they had ever
+known. As I turned away they ran after me, with a plaintive little cry
+to bring me back. When I stopped they came close, nestling against me,
+one on either side, and lifted their heads to be petted and rubbed
+again.
+
+Standing so, all eagerness and wonder, they were a perfect study in
+first impressions of the world. Their ears had already caught the deer
+trick of twitching nervously and making trumpets at every sound. A leaf
+rustled, a twig broke, the brook's song swelled as a floating stick
+jammed in the current, and instantly the fawns were all alert. Eyes,
+ears, noses questioned the phenomenon. Then they would raise their eyes
+slowly to mine. "This is a wonderful world. This big wood is full of
+music. We know so little; please tell us all about it,"--that is what
+the beautiful eyes were saying as they lifted up to mine, full of
+innocence and delight at the joy of living. Then the hands that rested
+fondly, one on either soft neck, moved down from their ears with a
+caressing sweep and brought up under their moist muzzles. Instantly the
+wood and its music vanished; the questions ran away out of their eyes.
+Their eager tongues were out, and all the unknown sounds were forgotten
+in the new sensation of lapping a man's palm, which had a wonderful
+taste hidden somewhere under its friendly roughnesses. They were still
+licking my hands, nestling close against me, when a twig snapped faintly
+far behind us.
+
+Now, twig snapping is the great index to all that passes in the
+wilderness. Curiously enough, no two animals can break even a twig under
+their feet and give the same warning. The _crack_ under a bear's foot,
+except when he is stalking his game, is heavy and heedless. The hoof of
+a moose crushes a twig, and chokes the sound of it before it can tell
+its message fairly. When a twig speaks under a deer in his passage
+through the woods, the sound is sharp, dainty, alert. It suggests the
+_plop_ of a raindrop into the lake. And the sound behind us now could
+not be mistaken. The mother of my little innocents was coming.
+
+I hated to frighten her, and through her to destroy their new
+confidence; so I hurried back to the den, the little ones running close
+by my side. Ere I was halfway, a twig snapped sharply again; there was a
+swift rustle in the underbrush, and a doe sprang out with a low bleat as
+she saw the home log.
+
+At sight of me she stopped short, trembling violently, her ears pointing
+forward like two accusing fingers, an awful fear in her soft eyes as she
+saw her little ones with her archenemy between them, his hands resting
+on their innocent necks. Her body swayed away, every muscle tense for
+the jump; but her feet seemed rooted to the spot. Slowly she swayed back
+to her balance, her eyes holding mine; then away again as the danger
+scent poured into her nose. But still the feet stayed. She could not
+move; could not believe. Then, as I waited quietly and tried to make my
+eyes say all sorts of friendly things, the harsh, throaty _K-a-a-a-h!
+k-a-a-a-h!_ the danger cry of the deer, burst like a trumpet blast
+through the woods, and she leaped back to cover.
+
+At the sound the little ones jumped as if stung, and plunged into the
+brush in the opposite direction. But the strange place frightened them;
+the hoarse cry that went crashing through the startled woods filled them
+with nameless dread. In a moment they were back again, nestling close
+against me, growing quiet as the hands stroked their sides without
+tremor or hurry.
+
+Around us, out of sight, ran the fear-haunted mother, calling, calling;
+now showing her head, with the terror deep in her eyes; now dashing
+away, with her white flag up, to show her little ones the way they must
+take. But the fawns gave no heed after the first alarm. They felt the
+change; their ears were twitching nervously, and their eyes, which had
+not yet grown quick enough to measure distances and find their mother in
+her hiding, were full of strange terror as they questioned mine. Still,
+under the alarm, they felt the kindness which the poor mother,
+dog-driven and waylaid by guns, had never known. Therefore they stayed,
+with a deep wisdom beyond all her cunning, where they knew they were
+safe.
+
+I led them slowly back to their hiding place, gave them a last lick at
+my hands, and pushed them gently under the hemlock curtain. When they
+tried to come out I pushed them back again. "Stay there, and mind your
+mother; stay there, and follow your mother," I kept whispering. And to
+this day I have a half belief that they understood, not the word but
+the feeling behind it; for they grew quiet after a time and looked out
+with wide-open, wondering eyes. Then I dodged out of sight, jumped the
+fallen log to throw them off the scent should they come out, crossed the
+brook, and glided out of sight into the underbrush. Once safely out of
+hearing I headed straight for the open, a few yards away, where the
+blasted stems of the burned hillside showed faintly through the green of
+the big woods, and climbed, and looked, and changed my position, till at
+last I could see the fallen tree under whose roots my little innocents
+were hiding.
+
+The hoarse danger cry had ceased; the woods were all still again. A
+movement in the underbrush, and I saw the doe glide out beyond the brook
+and stand looking, listening. She bleated softly; the hemlock curtain
+was thrust aside, and the little ones came out. At sight of them she
+leaped forward, a great gladness showing eloquently in every line of her
+graceful body, rushed up to them, dropped her head and ran her keen nose
+over them, ears to tail and down their sides and back again, to be sure
+that they were her own little ones and were not harmed. All the while
+the fawns nestled close to her, as they had done a moment before to me,
+and lifted their heads to touch her sides with their noses, and ask in
+their own dumb way what it was all about, and why she had run away.
+
+[Illustration: "THE WHITE FLAG SHOWING LIKE A BEACON LIGHT AS SHE JUMPED
+AWAY"]
+
+Then, as the smell of the man came to her from the tainted underbrush,
+the absolute necessity of teaching them their neglected second lesson
+before another danger should find them swept over her in a flood. She
+sprang aside with a great bound, and the hoarse _K-a-a-a-h! k-a-a-a-h!_
+crashed through the woods again. Her tail was straight up, the white
+flag showing like a beacon light as she jumped away. Behind her the
+fawns stood startled a moment, trembling with a new wonder. Then their
+flags went up too, and they wabbled away on slender legs through the
+tangles and over the rough places of the wood, bravely following their
+leader. And I, watching from my hiding, with a vague regret that they
+could never again be mine, not even for a moment, saw only the crinkling
+lines of underbrush and here and there the flash of a little white flag.
+So they went up the hill and out of sight.
+
+First, lie still; and second, follow the white flag. When I saw them
+again it needed no danger cry of the mother to remind them of these two
+things that every fawn must know who would live to grow up in the big
+woods.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A Cry in the Night
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+This is the rest of the story, just as I saw it, of the little fawns
+that I found under the mossy log by the brook. There were two of them,
+you remember; and though they looked alike at first glance, I soon found
+out that there is just as much difference in fawns as there is in folks.
+Eyes, faces, dispositions, characters,--in all things they were as
+unlike as the virgins of the parable. One of them was wise, and the
+other was very foolish. The one was a follower, a learner; he never
+forgot his second lesson, to follow the white flag. The other followed
+from the first only his own willful head and feet, and discovered too
+late that obedience is life. Until the bear found him, I have no doubt
+he was thinking, in his own dumb, foolish way, that obedience is only
+for the weak and ignorant, and that government is only an unfair
+advantage which all the wilderness mothers take to keep little wild
+things from doing as they please.
+
+The wise old mother took them both away when she knew I had found them,
+and hid them in a deeper solitude of the big woods, nearer the lake,
+where she could the sooner reach them from her feeding grounds. For days
+after the wonderful discovery I used to go in the early morning or the
+late afternoon, while mother deer are away feeding along the
+watercourses, and search the dingle from one end to the other, hoping to
+find the little ones again and win their confidence. But they were not
+there; and I took to watching instead a family of mink that lived in a
+den under a root, and a big owl that always slept in the same hemlock.
+Then, one day when a flock of partridges led me out of the wild berry
+bushes into a cool green island of the burned lands, I ran plump upon
+the deer and her fawns lying all together under a fallen treetop, dozing
+away the heat of the day.
+
+They did not see me, but were only scared into action as a branch, upon
+which I stood looking for my partridges, gave way beneath my feet and
+let me down with a great crash under the fallen tree. There, looking
+out, I could see them perfectly, while Kookooskoos himself could hardly
+have seen me. At the first crack they all jumped like Jack-in-a-box
+when you touch his spring. The mother put up her white flag--which is
+the snowy underside of her useful tail, and shows like a beacon by day
+or night--and bounded away with a hoarse _Ka-a-a-a-h!_ of warning. One
+of the little ones followed her on the instant, jumping squarely in his
+mother's tracks, his own little white flag flying to guide any that
+might come after him. But the second fawn ran off at a tangent, and
+stopped in a moment to stare and whistle and stamp his tiny foot in an
+odd mixture of curiosity and defiance. The mother had to circle back
+twice before he followed her, at last, unwillingly. As she stole back
+each time, her tail was down and wiggling nervously--which is the sure
+sign, when you see it, that some scent of you is floating off through
+the woods and telling its warning into the deer's keen nostrils. But
+when she jumped away the white flag was straight up, flashing in the
+very face of her foolish fawn, telling him as plain as any language what
+sign he must follow if he would escape danger and avoid breaking his
+legs in the tangled underbrush.
+
+I did not understand till long afterwards, when I had watched the fawns
+many times, how important is this latter suggestion. One who follows a
+frightened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off at breakneck pace
+over loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift
+on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side
+till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you
+must follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break an
+ankle,--finds himself asking with unanswered wonder how any deer can
+live half a season in the wilderness without breaking all his legs. And
+when you run upon a deer at night and hear him go smashing off in the
+darkness at the same reckless speed, over a tangled blow-down, perhaps,
+through which you can barely force your way by daylight, then you
+realize suddenly that the most wonderful part of a deer's education
+shows itself, not in keen eyes or trumpet ears, or in his finely trained
+nose, more sensitive a hundred times than any barometer, but in his
+forgotten feet, which seem to have eyes and nerves and brains packed
+into their hard shells instead of the senseless matter you see there.
+
+Watch the doe yonder as she bounds away, wigwagging her heedless little
+one to follow. She is thinking only of him; and now you see her feet
+free to take care of themselves. As she rises over the big windfall,
+they hang from the ankle joints, limp as a glove out of which the hand
+has been drawn, yet seeming to wait and watch. One hoof touches a twig;
+like lightning it spreads and drops, after running for the smallest
+fraction of a second along the obstacle to know whether to relax or
+stiffen, or rise or fall to meet it. Just before she strikes the ground
+on the down plunge, see the wonderful hind hoofs sweep themselves
+forward, surveying the ground by touch, and bracing themselves, in a
+fraction of time so small that the eye cannot follow, for the shock of
+what lies beneath them, whether rock or rotten wood or yielding moss.
+The fore feet have followed the quick eyes above, and shoot straight and
+sure to their landing; but the hind hoofs must find the spot for
+themselves as they come down and, almost ere they find it, brace
+themselves again for the push of the mighty muscles above.
+
+Once only I found where a fawn with untrained feet had broken its leg;
+and once I heard of a wounded buck, driven to death by dogs, that had
+fallen in the same way never to rise again. Those were rare cases. The
+marvel is that it does not happen to every deer that fear drives through
+the wilderness.
+
+And that is another reason why the fawns must learn to obey a wiser head
+than their own. Till their little feet are educated, the mother must
+choose the way for them; and a wise fawn will jump squarely in her
+tracks. That explains also why deer, even after they are full grown,
+will often walk in single file, a half-dozen of them sometimes following
+a wise leader, stepping in his tracks and leaving but a single trail. It
+is partly, perhaps, to fool their old enemy, the wolf, and their new
+enemy, the man, by hiding the weakling's trail in the stride and hoof
+mark of a big buck; but it shows also the old habit, and the training
+which begins when the fawns first learn to follow the flag.
+
+After that second discovery I used to go in the afternoon to a point on
+the lake nearest the fawns' hiding place, and wait in my canoe for the
+mother to come out and show me where she had left her little ones. As
+they grew, and the drain upon her increased from their feeding, she
+seemed always half starved. Waiting in my canoe I would hear the crackle
+of brush, as she trotted straight down to the lake almost heedlessly,
+and see her plunge through the fringe of bushes that bordered the water.
+With scarcely a look or a sniff to be sure the coast was clear, she
+would jump for the lily pads. Sometimes the canoe was in plain sight;
+but she gave no heed as she tore up the juicy buds and stems, and
+swallowed them with the appetite of a famished wolf. Then I would paddle
+away and, taking my direction from her trail as she came, hunt
+diligently for the fawns until I found them.
+
+This last happened only two or three times. The little ones were already
+wild; they had forgotten all about our first meeting, and when I showed
+myself, or cracked a twig too near them, they would promptly bolt into
+the brush. One always ran straight away, his white flag flying to show
+that he remembered his lesson; the other went off zigzag, stopping at
+every angle of his run to look back and question me with his eyes and
+ears.
+
+There was only one way in which such disobedience could end. I saw it
+plainly enough one afternoon, when, had I been one of the fierce
+prowlers of the wilderness, the little fellow's history would have
+stopped short under the paw of Upweekis, the shadowy lynx of the burned
+lands. It was late afternoon when I came over a ridge, following a deer
+path on my way to the lake, and looked down into a long narrow valley
+filled with berry bushes, and with a few fire-blasted trees standing
+here and there to point out the perfect loneliness and desolation of the
+place.
+
+Just below me a deer was feeding hungrily, only her hind quarters
+showing out of the underbrush. I watched her awhile, then dropped on all
+fours and began to creep towards her, to see how near I could get and
+what new trait I might discover. But at the first motion (I had stood at
+first like an old stump on the ridge) a fawn that had evidently been
+watching me all the time from his hiding sprang into sight with a sharp
+whistle of warning. The doe threw up her head, looking straight at me as
+if she had understood more from the signal than I had thought possible.
+There was not an instant's hesitation or searching. Her eyes went direct
+to me, as if the fawn's cry had said: "Behind you, mother, in the path
+by the second gray rock!" Then she jumped away, shooting up the opposite
+hill over roots and rocks as if thrown by steel springs, blowing
+hoarsely at every jump, and followed in splendid style by her watchful
+little one.
+
+At the first snort of danger there was a rush in the underbrush near
+where she had stood, and a second fawn sprang into sight. I knew him
+instantly--the heedless one--and knew also that he had neglected too
+long the matter of following the flag. He was confused, frightened,
+chuckle-headed now; he came darting up the deer path in the wrong
+direction, straight towards me, to within two jumps, before he noticed
+the man kneeling in the path before him and watching him quietly.
+
+At the startling discovery he stopped short, seeming to shrink smaller
+and smaller before my eyes. Then he edged sidewise to a great stump, hid
+himself among the roots, and stood stock-still,--a beautiful picture of
+innocence and curiosity, framed in the rough brown roots of the spruce
+stump. It was his first teaching, to hide and be still. Just as he
+needed it most, he had forgotten absolutely the second lesson.
+
+We watched each other full five minutes without moving an eyelash. Then
+his first lesson ebbed away. He sidled out into the path again, came
+towards me two dainty, halting steps, and stamped prettily with his left
+fore foot. He was a young buck, and had that trick of stamping without
+any instruction. It is an old, old ruse to make you move, to startle you
+by the sound and threatening motion into showing who you are and what
+are your intentions.
+
+But still the man did not move; the fawn grew frightened at his own
+boldness and ran away down the path. Far up the opposite hill I heard
+the mother calling him. But he heeded not; he wanted to find out things
+for himself. There he was in the path again, watching me. I took out my
+handkerchief and waved it gently; at which great marvel he trotted back,
+stopping anon to look and stamp his little foot, to show me that he was
+not afraid.
+
+"Brave little chap, I like you," I thought, my heart going out to him as
+he stood there with his soft eyes and beautiful face, stamping his
+little foot. "But what," my thoughts went on, "had happened to you ere
+now, had a bear or lucivee lifted his head over the ridge? Next month,
+alas! the law will be off; then there will be hunters in these woods,
+some of whom leave their hearts, with their wives and children, behind
+them. You can't trust them, believe me, little chap. Your mother is
+right; you can't trust them."
+
+The night was coming swiftly. The mother's call, growing ever more
+anxious, more insistent, swept over the darkening hillside. "Perhaps," I
+thought, with sudden twinges and alarms of conscience, "perhaps I set
+you all wrong, little chap, in giving you the taste of salt that day,
+and teaching you to trust things that meet you in the wilderness." That
+is generally the way when we meddle with Mother Nature, who has her own
+good reasons for doing things as she does. "But no! there were two of
+you under the old log that day; and the other,--he's up there with his
+mother now, where you ought to be,--he knows that old laws are safer
+than new thoughts, especially new thoughts in the heads of foolish
+youngsters. You are all wrong, little chap, for all your pretty
+curiosity, and the stamp of your little foot that quite wins my heart.
+Perhaps I am to blame, after all; anyway, I'll teach you better now."
+
+At the thought I picked up a large stone and sent it crashing, jumping,
+tearing down the hillside straight at him. All his bravado vanished
+like a wink. Up went his flag, and away he went over the logs and rocks
+of the great hillside; where presently I heard his mother running in a
+great circle till she found him with her nose, thanks to the wood wires
+and the wind's message, and led him away out of danger.
+
+One who lives for a few weeks in the wilderness, with eyes and ears
+open, soon finds that, instead of the lawlessness and blind chance which
+seem to hold sway there, he lives in the midst of law and order--an
+order of things much older than that to which he is accustomed, with
+which it is not well to interfere. I was uneasy, following the little
+deer path through the twilight stillness; and my uneasiness was not
+decreased when I found on a log, within fifty yards of the spot where
+the fawn first appeared, the signs of a big lucivee, with plenty of
+fawn's hair and fine-cracked bones to tell me what he had eaten for his
+midnight dinner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Down at the lower end of the same deer path, where it stopped at the
+lake to let the wild things drink, was a little brook. Outside the mouth
+of this brook, among the rocks, was a deep pool; and in the pool lived
+some big trout. I was there one night, some two weeks later, trying to
+catch some of the big trout for my next breakfast.
+
+Those were wise fish. It was of no use to angle for them by day any
+more. They knew all the flies in my book; could tell the new Jenny Lind
+from the old Bumble Bee before it struck the water; and seemed to know
+perfectly, both by instinct and experience, that they were all frauds,
+which might as well be called Jenny Bee and Bumble Lind for any sweet
+reasonableness that was in them. Besides all this, the water was warm;
+the trout were logy and would not rise.
+
+By night, however, the case was different. A few of the trout would
+leave the pool and prowl along the shores in shallow water to see what
+tidbits the darkness might bring, in the shape of night bugs and
+careless piping frogs and sleepy minnows. Then, if you built a fire on
+the beach and cast a white-winged fly across the path of the firelight,
+you would sometimes get a big one.
+
+It was fascinating sport always, whether the trout were rising or not.
+One had to fish with his ears, and keep most of his wits in his hand,
+ready to strike quick and hard when the moment came, after an hour of
+casting. Half the time you would not see your fish at all, but only hear
+the savage plunge as he swirled down with your fly. At other times, as
+you struck sharply at the plunge, your fly would come back to you, or
+tangle itself up in unseen snags; and far out, where the verge of the
+firelight rippled away into darkness, you would see a sharp wave-wedge
+shooting away, which told you that your trout was only a musquash.
+Swimming quietly by, he had seen you and your fire, and slapped his tail
+down hard on the water to make you jump. That is a way Musquash has in
+the night, so that he can make up his mind what queer thing you are and
+what you are doing.
+
+All the while, as you fish, the great dark woods stand close about you,
+silent, listening. The air is full of scents and odors that steal abroad
+only by night, while the air is dew-laden. Strange cries, calls,
+squeaks, rustlings run along the hillside, or float in from the water,
+or drop down from the air overhead, to make you guess and wonder what
+wood folk are abroad at such unseemly hours, and what they are about. So
+that it is good to fish by night, as well as by day, and go home with
+heart and head full, even though your creel be empty.
+
+I was standing very still by my fire, waiting for a big trout that had
+risen and missed my fly to regain his confidence, when I heard cautious
+rustlings in the brush behind me. I turned instantly, and there were two
+great glowing spots, the eyes of a deer, flashing out of the dark
+woods. A swift rustle, and two more coals glow lower down, flashing and
+scintillating with strange colors; and then two more; and I know that
+the doe and her fawns are there, stopped and fascinated on their way to
+drink by the great wonder of the light, and by the witchery of the
+dancing shadows that rush up at timid wild things, as if to frighten
+them, but only jump over them and back again, as if inviting them to
+join the silent play.
+
+I knelt down quietly beside my fire, slipping on a great roll of birch
+bark which blazed up brightly, filling the woods with light. There,
+under a spruce, where a dark shadow had been a moment agone, stood the
+mother, her eyes all ablaze with the wonder of the light; now staring
+steadfastly into the fire; now starting nervously, with low questioning
+snorts, as a troop of shadows ran up to play hop-scotch with the little
+ones, which stood close behind her, one on either side.
+
+A moment only it lasted. Then one fawn--I knew the heedless one, even in
+the firelight, by his face and by his bright-dappled Joseph's coat--came
+straight towards me, stopping to stare with flashing eyes when the fire
+jumped up, and then to stamp his little foot at the shadows to show them
+that he was not afraid.
+
+[Illustration: "HER EYES ALL ABLAZE WITH THE WONDER OF THE LIGHT"]
+
+The mother called him anxiously; but still he came on, stamping
+prettily. She grew uneasy, trotting back and forth in a half circle,
+warning, calling, pleading. Then, as he came between her and the fire,
+and his little shadow stretched away up the hill where she was, showing
+how far away he was from her and how near the light, she broke away from
+its fascination with an immense effort: _Ka-a-a-h! ka-a-a-h!_ the hoarse
+cry rang through the startled woods like a pistol shot; and she bounded
+away, her white flag shining like a wave crest in the night to guide her
+little ones.
+
+The second fawn followed her instantly; but the heedless one barely
+swung his head to see where she was going, and then came on towards the
+light, staring and stamping in foolish wonder.
+
+I watched him a little while, fascinated myself by his beauty, his
+dainty motions, his soft ears with a bright oval of light about them,
+his wonderful eyes glowing like burning rainbows kindled by the
+firelight. Far behind him the mother's cry ran back and forth along the
+hillside. Suddenly it changed; a danger note leaped into it; and again I
+heard the call to follow and the crash of brush as she leaped away. I
+remembered the lynx and the sad little history written on the log above.
+As the quickest way of saving the foolish youngster, I kicked my fire
+to pieces and walked out towards him. Then, as the wonder vanished in
+darkness and the scent of the man poured up to him on the lake's breath,
+the little fellow bounded away--alas! straight up the deer path, at
+right angles to the course his mother had taken a moment before.
+
+Five minutes later I heard the mother calling a strange note in the
+direction he had taken, and went up the deer path very quietly to
+investigate. At the top of the ridge, where the path dropped away into a
+dark narrow valley with dense underbrush on either side, I heard the
+fawn answering her, below me among the big trees, and knew instantly
+that something had happened. He called continuously, a plaintive cry of
+distress, in the black darkness of the spruces. The mother ran around
+him in a great circle, calling him to come; while he lay helpless in the
+same spot, telling her he could not, and that she must come to him. So
+the cries went back and forth in the listening night,--_Hoo-wuh_, "come
+here." _Bla-a-a, blr-r-t,_ "I can't; come here." _Ka-a-a-h, ka-a-a-h!_
+"danger, follow!"--and then the crash of brush as she rushed away
+followed by the second fawn, whom she must save, though she abandoned
+the heedless one to prowlers of the night.
+
+It was clear enough what had happened. The cries of the wilderness all
+have their meaning, if one but knows how to interpret them. Running
+through the dark woods his untrained feet had missed their landing, and
+he lay now under some rough windfall, with a broken leg to remind him of
+the lesson he had neglected so long.
+
+I was stealing along towards him, feeling my way among the trees in the
+darkness, stopping every moment to listen to his cry to guide me, when a
+heavy rustle came creeping down the hill and passed close before me.
+Something, perhaps, in the sound--a heavy, though almost noiseless
+onward push which only one creature in the woods can possibly
+make--something, perhaps, in a faint new odor in the moist air told me
+instantly that keener ears than mine had heard the cry; that Mooween the
+bear had left his blueberry patch, and was stalking the heedless fawn,
+whom he knew, by the hearing of his ears, to have become separated from
+his watchful mother in the darkness.
+
+I regained the path silently--though Mooween heeds nothing when his game
+is afoot--and ran back to the canoe for my rifle. Ordinarily a bear is
+timid as a rabbit; but I had never met one so late at night before, and
+knew not how he would act should I take his game away. Besides, there
+is everything in the feeling with which one approaches an animal. If one
+comes timidly, doubtfully, the animal knows it; and if one comes swift,
+silent, resolute, with his power gripped tight, and the hammer back, and
+a forefinger resting lightly on the trigger guard, the animal knows it
+too, you may depend. Anyway, they always act as if they knew; and you
+may safely follow the rule that, whatever your feeling is, whether fear
+or doubt or confidence, the large and dangerous animals will sense it
+instantly and adopt the opposite feeling for their rule of action. That
+is the way I have always found it in the wilderness. I met a bear once
+on a narrow path--but I must tell about that elsewhere.
+
+The cries had ceased; the woods were all dark and silent when I came
+back. I went as swiftly as possible--without heed or caution; for
+whatever crackling I made the bear would attribute to the desperate
+mother--to the spot where I had turned back. Thence I went on
+cautiously, taking my bearings from one great tree on the ridge that
+lifted its bulk against the sky; slower and slower, till, just this side
+a great windfall, a twig cracked sharply under my foot. It was answered
+instantly by a grunt and a jump beyond the windfall--and then the
+crashing rush of a bear up the hill, carrying something that caught and
+swished loudly on the bushes as it passed, till the sounds vanished in a
+faint rustle far away, and the woods were still again.
+
+All night long, from my tent over beyond an arm of the big lake, I heard
+the mother calling at intervals. She seemed to be running back and forth
+along the ridge, above where the tragedy had occurred. Her nose told her
+of the bear and the man; but what awful thing they were doing with her
+little one she knew not. Fear and questioning were in the calls that
+floated down the ridge and across the water to my little tent.
+
+At daylight I went back to the spot. I found without trouble where the
+fawn had fallen; the moss told mutely of his struggle; and a stain or
+two showed where Mooween grabbed him. The rest was a plain trail of
+crushed moss and bent grass and stained leaves, and a tuft of soft hair
+here and there on the jagged ends of knots in the old windfalls. So the
+trail hurried up the hill into a wild, rough country where it was of no
+use to follow.
+
+As I climbed the last ridge on my way back to the lake, I heard
+rustlings in the underbrush, and then the unmistakable crack of a twig
+under a deer's foot. The mother had winded me; she was now following
+and circling down wind to find out whether her lost fawn were with me.
+As yet she knew not what had happened. The bear had frightened her into
+extra care of the one fawn of whom she was sure. The other had simply
+vanished into the silence and mystery of the great woods.
+
+Where the path turned downward, in sight of the lake, I saw her for a
+moment plainly, standing half hid in the underbrush, looking intently at
+my old canoe. She saw me at the same instant and bounded away,
+quartering up the hill in my direction. Near a thicket of evergreen that
+I had just passed, she sounded her hoarse _K-a-a-h, k-a-a-h!_ and threw
+up her flag. There was a rush within the thicket; a sharp _K-a-a-h!_
+answered hers. Then the second fawn burst out of the cover where she had
+hidden him, and darted along the ridge after her, jumping like a big red
+fox from rock to rock, rising like a hawk over the windfalls, hitting
+her tracks wherever he could, and keeping his little nose hard down to
+his one needful lesson of following the white flag.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ISMAQUES, THE FISHHAWK
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+_Whit, whit, ch'wee? Whit, whit, whit, ch'weeeeee!_ over my head went
+the shrill whistling, the hunting cry of Ismaques. Looking up from my
+fishing I could see the broad wings sweeping over me, and catch the
+bright gleam of his eye as he looked down into my canoe, or behind me at
+the cold place among the rocks, to see if I were catching anything.
+Then, as he noted the pile of fish,--a blanket of silver on the black
+rocks, where I was stowing away chub for bear bait,--he would drop lower
+in amazement to see how I did it. When the trout were not rising, and
+his keen glance saw no gleam of red and gold in my canoe, he would
+circle off with a cheery _K'weee!_ the good-luck call of a brother
+fisherman. For there is no envy nor malice nor any uncharitableness in
+Ismaques. He lives in harmony with the world, and seems glad when you
+land a big one, even though he be hungry himself, and the clamor from
+his nest, where his little ones are crying, be too keen for his heart's
+content.
+
+What is there in going a-fishing, I wonder, that seems to change even
+the leopard's spots, and that puts a new heart into the man who hies him
+away to the brook when buds are swelling? There is Keeonekh the otter.
+Before he turned fisherman he was probably fierce, cruel, bloodthirsty,
+with a vile smell about him, like all the other weasels. Now he lives at
+peace with all the world and is clean, gentle, playful as a kitten and
+faithful as a dog when you make a pet of him. And there is Ismaques the
+fishhawk. Before he turned fisherman he was probably hated, like every
+other hawk, for his fierceness and his bandit ways. The shadow of his
+wings was the signal for hiding to all the timid ones. Jay and crow
+cried _Thief! thief!_ and kingbird sounded his war cry and rushed out to
+battle. Now the little birds build their nests among the sticks of his
+great house, and the shadow of his wings is a sure protection. For owl
+and hawk and wild-cat have learned long since the wisdom of keeping well
+away from Ismaques' dwelling.
+
+Not only the birds, but men also, feel the change in Ismaques'
+disposition. I hardly know a hunter who will not go out of his way for a
+shot at a hawk; but they send a hearty good-luck after this winged
+fisherman of the same fierce family, even though they see him rising
+heavily out of the very pool where the big trout live, and where they
+expect to cast their flies at sundown. Along the southern New England
+shores his coming--regular as the calendar itself--is hailed with
+delight by the fishermen. One state, at least, where he is most
+abundant, protects him by law; and even our Puritan forefathers, who
+seem to have neither made nor obeyed any game laws, looked upon him with
+a kindly eye, and made him an exception to the general license for
+killing. To their credit, be it known, they once "publikly reeprimanded"
+one Master Eliphalet Bodman, a son of Belial evidently, for violently,
+with powder and shot, doing away with one fishhawk, and wickedly
+destroying the nest and eggs of another.
+
+Whether this last were also done violently, with powder and shot, by
+blowing the nest to pieces with an old gun, or in simple boy-fashion by
+shinning up the tree, the quaint old town record does not tell. But all
+this goes to show that our ancestors of the coast were kindly people at
+heart; that they looked upon this brave, simple fisherman, who built his
+nest by their doors, much as the German village people look upon the
+stork that builds upon their chimneys, and regarded his coming as an
+omen of good luck and plenty to the fisher folk.
+
+Far back in the wilderness, where Ismaques builds his nest and goes
+a-fishing just as his ancestors did a thousand years ago, one finds the
+same honest bird, unspoiled alike by plenty or poverty, that excited our
+boyish imagination and won the friendly regard of our ancestors of the
+coast. Opposite my camp on the lake, where I tarried long one summer,
+charmed by the beauty of the place and the good fishing, a pair of
+fishhawks had built their nest in the top of a great spruce on the
+mountain side. It was this pair of birds that came daily to circle over
+my canoe, or over the rocks where I fished for chub, to see how I fared,
+and to send back a cheery _Ch'wee! chip, ch'weeee!_ "good luck and good
+fishing," as they wheeled away. It would take a good deal of argument
+now to convince me that they did not at last recognize me as a
+fellow-fisherman, and were not honestly interested in my methods and
+success.
+
+At first I went to the nest, not so much to study the fishhawks as to
+catch fleeting glimpses of a shy, wild life of the woods, which is
+hidden from most eyes. The fishing was good, and both birds were expert
+fishermen. While the young were growing there was always an abundance in
+the big nest on the spruce top. The overflow of this abundance, in the
+shape of heads, bones and unwanted remnants, was cast over the sides of
+the nest and furnished savory pickings for a score of hungry prowlers.
+Mink came over from frog hunting in the brook, drawn by the good smell
+in the air. Skunks lumbered down from the hill, with a curious, hollow,
+bumping sound to announce their coming. Weasels, and one grizzly old
+pine marten, too slow or rheumatic for successful tree hunting, glided
+out of the underbrush and helped themselves without asking leave.
+Wild-cats quarreled like fiends over the pickings; more than once I
+heard them there screeching in the night. And one late afternoon, as I
+lingered in my hiding among the rocks while the shadows deepened, a big
+lucivee stole out of the bushes, as if ashamed of himself, and took to
+nosing daintily among the fish bones.
+
+It was his first appearance, evidently. He did not know that the feast
+was free, but thought all the while that he was stealing somebody's
+catch. One could see it all in his attitudes, his starts and listenings,
+his low growlings to himself. He was bigger than anybody else there, and
+had no cause to be afraid; but there is a tremendous respect among all
+animals for the chase law and the rights of others; and the big cat felt
+it. He was hungry for fish; but, big as he was, his every movement
+showed that he was ready to take to his heels before the first little
+creature that should rise up and screech in his face: "This is mine!"
+Later, when he grew accustomed to things and the fishhawks' generosity
+in providing a feast for all who might come in from the wilderness
+byways and hedges, he would come in boldly enough and claim his own; but
+now, moving stealthily about, halting and listening timidly, he
+furnished a study in animal rights that repaid in itself all the long
+hours of watching.
+
+But the hawks themselves were more interesting than their unbidden
+guests. Ismaques, honest fellow that he is, mates for life, and comes
+back to the same nest year after year. The only exception to this rule
+that I know is in the case of a fishhawk, whom I knew well as a boy, and
+who lost his mate one summer by an accident. The accident came from a
+gun in the hands of an unthinking sportsman. The grief of Ismaques was
+evident, even to the unthinking. One could hear it in the lonely,
+questioning cry that he sent out over the still summer woods; and see it
+in the sweep of his wings as he went far afield to other ponds, not to
+fish, for Ismaques never fishes on his neighbor's preserves, but to
+search for his lost mate. For weeks he lingered in the old haunts,
+calling and searching everywhere; but at last the loneliness and the
+memories were too much for him. He left the place long before the time
+of migration had come; and the next spring a strange couple came to the
+spot, repaired the old nest, and went fishing in the pond. Ordinarily
+the birds respect each other's fishing grounds, and especially the old
+nests; but this pair came and took possession without hesitation, as if
+they had some understanding with the former owner, who never came back
+again.
+
+The old spruce on the mountain side had been occupied many years by my
+fishing friends. As is usually the case, it had given up its life to its
+bird masters. The oil from their frequent feastings had soaked into the
+bark, following down and down, checking the sap's rising, till at last
+it grew discouraged and ceased to climb. Then the tree died and gave up
+its branches, one by one, to repair the nest above. The jagged, broken
+ends showed everywhere how they had been broken off to supply the hawks'
+necessities.
+
+There is a curious bit of building lore suggested by these broken
+branches, that one may learn for himself any springtime by watching the
+birds at their nest building. Large sticks are required for a
+foundation. The ground is strewed with such; but Ismaques never comes
+down to the ground if he can avoid it. Even when he drops an unusually
+heavy fish, in his flight above the trees, he looks after it
+regretfully, but never follows. He may be hungry, but he will not set
+his huge hooked talons on the earth. He cannot walk, and loses all his
+power there. So he goes off and fishes patiently, hours long, to replace
+his lost catch.
+
+When he needs sticks for his nest, he searches out a tree and breaks off
+the dead branches by his weight. If the stick be stubborn, he rises far
+above it and drops like a cannon ball, gripping it in his claws and
+snapping it short off at the same instant by the force of his blow.
+Twice I have been guided to where Ismaques and his mate were collecting
+material by reports like pistol shots ringing through the wood, as the
+great birds fell upon the dead branches and snapped them off. Once, when
+he came down too hard, I saw him fall almost to the ground, flapping
+lustily, before he found his wings and sailed away with his four-foot
+stick triumphantly.
+
+There is another curious bit of bird lore that I discovered here in the
+autumn, when, much later than usual, I came back through the lake.
+Ismaques, when he goes away for the long winter at the South, does not
+leave his house to the mercy of the winter storms until he has first
+repaired it. Large fresh sticks are wedged in firmly across the top of
+the nest; doubtful ones are pulled out and carefully replaced, and the
+whole structure made shipshape for stormy weather. This careful repair,
+together with the fact that the nest is always well soaked in oil, which
+preserves it from the rain, saves a deal of trouble for Ismaques. He
+builds for life and knows, when he goes away in the fall, that, barring
+untoward accidents, his house will be waiting for him with the quiet
+welcome of old associations when he comes back in the spring. Whether
+this is a habit of all ospreys, or only of the two on Big Squatuk
+Lake--who were very wise birds in other ways--I am unable to say.
+
+What becomes of the young birds is also, to me, a mystery. The home ties
+are very strong, and the little ones stay with the parents much longer
+than most other birds do; but when the spring comes you will see only
+the old birds at the home nest. The young come back to the same general
+neighborhood, I think; but where the lake is small they never build nor
+trespass on the same waters. As with the kingfishers and sheldrakes,
+each pair of birds seem to have their own pond or portion; but by what
+old law of the waters they find and stake their claim is yet to be
+discovered.
+
+There were two little ones in the nest when I first found it; and I used
+to watch them in the intervals when nothing was stirring in the
+underbrush near my hiding place. They were happy, whistling, little
+fellows, well fed and contented with the world. At times they would
+stand for hours on the edge of the nest, looking down over the slanting
+tree-tops to the lake, finding the great rustling green world, and the
+passing birds, and the glinting of light on the sparkling water, and the
+hazy blue of the distant mountains marvelously interesting, if one could
+judge from their attitude and their pipings. Then a pair of broad wings
+would sweep into sight, and they would stretch their wings wide and
+break into eager whistlings,--_Pip, pip, ch'wee? chip, ch'weeeeee?_ "did
+you get him? is he a big one, mother?" And they would stand tiptoeing
+gingerly about the edge of the great nest, stretching their necks
+eagerly for a first glimpse of the catch.
+
+At times only one of the old birds would go a-fishing, while the other
+watched the nest. But when luck was poor both birds would seek the lake.
+At such times the mother bird, larger and stronger than the male, would
+fish along the shore, within sight and hearing of her little ones. The
+male, meanwhile, would go sweeping down the lake to the trout pools at
+the outlet, where the big chub lived, in search of better fishing
+grounds. If the wind were strong, you would see a curious bit of sea
+lore as he came back with his fish. He would never fly straight against
+the wind, but tack back and forth, as if he had learned the trick from
+watching the sailor fishermen of the coast beating back into harbor.
+And, watching him through your glass, you would see that he always
+carried his fish endwise and head first, so as to present the least
+possible resistance to the breeze.
+
+While the young were being fed, you were certain to gain new respect for
+Ismaques by seeing how well he brought up his little ones. If the fish
+were large, it was torn into shreds and given piecemeal to the young,
+each of whom waited for his turn with exemplary patience. There was no
+crowding or pushing for the first and biggest bite, such as you see in a
+nest of robins. If the fish were small, it was given entire to one of
+the young, who worried it down as best he could, while the mother bird
+swept back to the lake for another. The second nestling stood on the
+edge of the nest meanwhile, whistling good luck and waiting his turn,
+without a thought, apparently, of seizing a share from his mate beside
+him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just under the hawks a pair of jays had built their nest among the
+sticks of Ismaques' dwelling, and raised their young on the abundant
+crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. It was curious and
+intensely interesting to watch the change which seemed to be going on
+in the jays' disposition by reason of the unusual friendship. Deedeeaskh
+the jay has not a friend among the wood folk. They all know he is a
+thief and a meddler, and hunt him away without mercy if they find him
+near their nests. But the great fishhawks welcomed him, trusted him; and
+he responded nobly to the unusual confidence. He never tried to steal
+from the young, not even when the mother bird was away, but contented
+himself with picking up the stray bits that they had left. And he more
+than repaid Ismaques by the sharp watch which he kept over the nest, and
+indeed over all the mountain side. Nothing passes in the woods without
+the jay's knowledge; and here he seemed, for all the world, like a
+watchful terrier, knowing that he had only to bark to bring a power of
+wing and claw sufficient to repel any danger. When prowlers came down
+from the mountain to feast on the heads and bones scattered about the
+foot of the tree, Deedeeaskh dropped down among them and went dodging
+about, whistling his insatiable curiosity. So long as they took only
+what was their own, he made no fuss about it; but he was there to watch,
+and he let them know sharply their mistake, if they showed any desire to
+cast evil eyes at the nest above.
+
+[Illustration: "PRESENTLY THEY BEGAN TO SWOOP FIERCELY AT SOME ANIMAL"]
+
+Once, as my canoe was gliding along the shore, I heard the jays'
+unmistakable cry of danger. The fishhawks were wheeling in great circles
+over the lake, watching for the glint of fish near the surface, when the
+cry came, and they darted away for the nest. Pushing out into the lake,
+I saw them sweeping above the tree-tops in swift circles, uttering
+short, sharp cries of anger. Presently they began to swoop fiercely at
+some animal--a fisher, probably--that was climbing the tree below. I
+stole up to see what it was; but ere I reached the place they had driven
+the intruder away. I heard one of the jays far off in the woods,
+following the robber and screaming to let the fishhawks know just where
+he was. The other jay sat close by her own little ones, cowering under
+the shadow of the great dark wings above. And presently Deedeeaskh came
+back, bubbling over with the excitement, whistling to them in his own
+way that he had followed the rascal clear to his den, and would keep a
+sharp watch over him in future.
+
+When a big hawk came near, or when, on dark afternoons, a young owl took
+to hunting in the neighborhood, the jays sounded the alarm, and the
+fishhawks swept up from the lake on the instant. Whether Deedeeaskh were
+more concerned for his own young than for the young fishhawks I have no
+means of knowing. The fishermen's actions at such times showed a
+curious mixture of fear and defiance. The mother would sit on the nest
+while Ismaques circled over it, both birds uttering a shrill, whistling
+challenge. But they never attacked the feathered robbers, as they had
+done with the fisher, and, so far as I could see, there was no need.
+Kookooskoos the owl and Hawahak the hawk might be very hungry; but the
+sight of those great wings circling over the nest and the shrill cry of
+defiance in their ears sent them hurriedly away to other hunting
+grounds.
+
+There was only one enemy that ever seriously troubled the fishhawks; and
+he did it in as decent a sort of way as was possible under the
+circumstances. That was Cheplahgan the eagle. When he was hungry and had
+found nothing himself, and his two eaglets, far away in their nest on
+the mountain, needed a bite of fish to vary their diet, he would set his
+wings to the breeze and mount up till he could see both ospreys at their
+fishing. There, sailing in slow circles, he would watch for hours till
+he saw Ismaques catch a big fish, when he would drop like a bolt and
+hold him up at the point of his talons, like any other highwayman. It
+was of no use trying to escape. Sometimes Ismaques would attempt it, but
+the great dark wings would whirl around him and strike down a sharp and
+unmistakable warning. It always ended the same way. Ismaques, being
+wise, would drop his fish, and the eagle would swoop down after it,
+often seizing it ere it reached the water. But he never injured the
+fishhawks, and he never disturbed the nest. So they got along well
+enough together. Cheplahgan had a bite of fish now and then in his own
+high-handed way; and honest Ismaques, who never went long hungry, made
+the best of a bad situation. Which shows that fishing has also taught
+him patience, and a wise philosophy of living.
+
+The jays took no part in these struggles. Occasionally they cried out a
+sharp warning as Cheplahgan came plunging down out of the blue, over the
+head of Ismaques; but they seemed to know perfectly how the unequal
+contest must end, and they always had a deal of jabber among themselves
+over it, the meaning of which I could never make out.
+
+As for myself, I am sure that Deedeeaskh could never make up his mind
+what to think of me. At first, when I came, he would cry out a danger
+note that brought the fishhawks circling over their nest, looking down
+into the underbrush with wild yellow eyes to see what danger threatened.
+But after I had hidden myself away a few times, and made no motion to
+disturb either the nest or the hungry prowlers that came to feast on
+the fishhawks' bounty, Deedeeaskh set me down as an idle, harmless
+creature who would, nevertheless, bear watching. He never got over his
+curiosity to know what brought me there. Sometimes, when I thought him
+far away, I would find him suddenly on a branch just over my head,
+looking down at me intently. When I went away he would follow me,
+whistling, to my canoe; but he never called the fishhawks again, unless
+some unusual action of mine aroused his suspicion; and after one look
+they would circle away, as if they knew they had nothing to fear. They
+had seen me fishing so often that they thought they understood me,
+undoubtedly.
+
+There was one curious habit of these birds that I had never noticed
+before. Occasionally, when the weather threatened a change, or when the
+birds and their little ones had fed full, Ismaques would mount up to an
+enormous altitude, where he would sail about in slow circles, his broad
+vans steady to the breeze, as if he were an ordinary hen hawk, enjoying
+himself and contemplating the world from an indifferent distance.
+Suddenly, with one clear, sharp whistle to announce his intention,
+he would drop like a plummet for a thousand feet, catch himself in
+mid-air, and zigzag down to the nest in the spruce top, whirling,
+diving, tumbling, and crying aloud the while in wild, ecstatic
+exclamations,--just as a woodcock comes whirling, plunging, twittering
+down from a height to his brown mate in the alders below. Then Ismaques
+would mount up again and repeat his dizzy plunge, while his larger mate
+stood quiet in the spruce top, and the little fishhawks tiptoed about
+the edge of the nest, _pip-pipping_ their wonder and delight at their
+own papa's dazzling performance.
+
+This is undoubtedly one of Ismaques' springtime habits, by which he
+tries to win an admiring look from the keen yellow eyes of his mate; but
+I noticed him using it more frequently as the little fishhawks' wings
+spread to a wonderful length, and he was trying, with his mate, by every
+gentle means to induce them to leave the nest. And I have
+wondered--without being able at all to prove my theory--whether he were
+not trying in this remarkable way to make his little ones want to fly by
+showing them how wonderful a thing flying could be made to be.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A School for Little Fishermen
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+There came a day when, as I sat fishing among the rocks, the cry of the
+mother osprey changed as she came sweeping up to my fishing
+grounds,--_Chip, ch'wee! Chip, chip, ch'weeeee?_ That was the
+fisherman's hail plainly enough; but there was another note in it, a
+look-here cry of triumph and satisfaction. Before I could turn my head,
+for a fish was nibbling, there came other sounds behind it,--_Pip, pip,
+pip, ch'weee! pip, ch'wee! pip, ch'weeee!_ a curious medley, a hail of
+good-luck cries; and I knew without turning that two other fishermen had
+come to join the brotherhood.
+
+The mother bird--one can tell her instantly by her greater size and
+darker breast markings--veered in as I turned to greet the newcomers,
+and came directly over my head, her two little ones flapping lustily
+behind her. Two days before, when I went down to another lake on an
+excursion after bigger trout, the young fishhawks were still standing
+on the nest, turning a deaf ear to all the old birds' assurances that
+the time had come to use their big wings. The last glimpse I had of them
+through my glass showed me the mother bird in one tree, the father in
+another, each holding a fish, which they were showing the young across a
+tantalizing short stretch of empty air, telling the young in fishhawk
+language to come across and get it; while the young birds, on their
+part, stretched wings and necks hungrily and tried to whistle the fish
+over to them, as one would call a dog across the street.
+
+In the short interval that I was absent mother wiles and mother patience
+had done their good work. The young were already flying well. Now they
+were out for their first lesson in fishing, evidently; and I stopped
+fishing myself, letting my bait sink into the mud--where an eel
+presently tangled my hooks into an old root--to see how it was done. For
+fishing is not an instinct with Ismaques, but a simple matter of
+training. As with young otters, they know only from daily experience
+that fish, and not grouse and rabbits, are their legitimate food. Left
+to themselves, especially if one should bring them up on flesh and then
+turn them loose, they would go straight back to the old hawk habit of
+hunting the woods, which is much easier. To catch fish, therefore, they
+must be taught from the first day they leave the nest. And it is a
+fascinating experience for any man to watch the way they go about it.
+
+The young ospreys flew heavily in short irregular circles, scanning the
+water with their inexperienced eyes for their first strike. Over them
+wheeled the mother bird on broad, even wings, whistling directions to
+the young neophytes, who would presently be initiated into the old sweet
+mysteries of going a-fishing. Fish were plenty enough; but that means
+nothing to a fishhawk, who must see his game reasonably near the surface
+before making his swoop. There was a good jump on the lake, and the sun
+shone brightly into it. Between the glare and the motion on the surface
+the young fishermen were having a hard time of it. Their eyes were not
+yet quick enough to tell them when to swoop. At every gleam of silver in
+the depths below they would stop short and cry out: _Pip!_ "there he
+is!" _Pip, pip!_ "here goes!" like a boy with his first nibble. But a
+short, clear whistle from the mother stopped them ere they had begun to
+fall; and they would flap up to her, protesting eagerly that they could
+catch that fellow, sure, if she would only let them try.
+
+As they wheeled in over me on their way down the lake, one of the
+youngsters caught the gleam of my pile of chub among the rocks. _Pip,
+ch'weee!_ he whistled, and down they came, both of them, like rockets.
+They were hungry; here at hand were fish galore; and they had not
+noticed me at all, sitting very still among the rocks. _Pip, pip, pip,
+hurrah!_ they piped as they came down.
+
+But the mother bird, who had noted me and my pile of fish the first
+thing as she rounded the point, swept in swiftly with a curious,
+half-angry, half-anxious chiding that I had never heard from her
+before,--_Chip, chip, chip! Chip! Chip!_--growing sharper and shriller
+at each repetition, till they heeded it and swerved aside. As I looked
+up they were just over my head, looking down at me now with eager,
+wondering eyes. Then they were led aside in a wide circle and talked to
+with wise, quiet whistlings before they were sent back to their fishing
+again.
+
+And now as they sweep round and round over the edge of a shoal, one of
+the little fellows sees a fish and drops lower to follow it. The mother
+sees it too; notes that the fish is slanting up to the surface, and
+wisely lets the young fisherman alone. He is too near the water now; the
+glare and the dancing waves bother him; he loses his gleam of silver in
+the flash of a whitecap. Mother bird mounts higher, and whistles him up
+where he can see better. But there is the fish again, and the youngster,
+hungry and heedless, sets his wings for a swoop. _Chip, chip!_ "wait,
+he's going down," cautions the mother; but the little fellow, too
+hungry to wait, shoots down like an arrow. He is a yard above the
+surface when a big whitecap jumps up at him and frightens him. He
+hesitates, swerves, flaps lustily to save himself. Then under the
+whitecap is a gleam of silver again. Down he goes on the instant,--_ugh!
+boo!_--like a boy taking his first dive. He is out of sight for a full
+moment, while two waves race over him, and I hold my breath waiting for
+him to come up. Then he bursts out, sputtering and shaking himself, and
+of course without his fish.
+
+As he rises heavily the mother, who has been circling over him whistling
+advice and comfort, stops short with a single blow of her pinions
+against the air. She has seen the same fish, watched him shoot away
+under the plunge of her little one, and now sees him glancing up to the
+edge of the shoal where the minnows are playing. She knows that the
+young pupils are growing discouraged, and that the time has come to
+hearten them. _Chip, chip!_--"watch, I'll show you," she
+whistles--_Cheeeep!_ with a sharp up-slide at the end, which I soon grow
+to recognize as the signal to strike. At the cry she sets her wings and
+shoots downward with strong, even plunge, strikes a wave squarely as it
+rises, passes under it, and is out on the other side gripping a big
+chub. The little ones follow her, whistling their delight, and
+telling her that perhaps now they will go back to the nest and take a
+look at the fish before they go on with their fishing. Which means, of
+course, that they will eat it and go to sleep perfectly satisfied with
+the good fun of fishing; and then lessons are over for the day.
+
+[Illustration: "GRIPPING HIS FISH AND _PIP-PIPPING_ HIS EXULTATION"]
+
+The mother, however, has other thoughts in her wise head. She knows that
+the little ones are not yet tired, only hungry; and that there is much
+to teach them before the chub stop shoaling and fishhawks must be off to
+the coast. She knows also that they have thus far missed the two things
+she brought them out to learn: to take a fish always as he comes up; and
+to hit a wave always on the front side, under the crest. Gripping her
+fish tightly, she bends in her slow flight and paralyzes it by a single
+blow in the spine from her hooked beak. Then she drops it back into the
+whitecaps, where, jumping to the top of my rock, I can see it
+occasionally struggling near the surface.
+
+_Cheeeep!_ "try it now," she whistles.
+
+_Pip, pip!_ "here goes!" cries the little one who failed before; and
+down he drops, _souse!_ going clear under in his impatient hunger,
+forgetting precept and example and past experience.
+
+Again the waves race over him; but there is a satisfied note in the
+mother's whistle which tells me that she sees him, and that he is doing
+well. In a moment he is out again with a great rush and sputter,
+gripping his fish and _pip-pipping_ his exultation. Away he goes in low
+heavy flight to the nest. The mother circles over him a moment to be
+sure he is not overloaded; then she goes back with the other neophyte
+and ranges back and forth over the shoal's edge.
+
+It is clear now to even my eyes that there is a vast difference in the
+characters of young fishhawks. The first was eager, headstrong,
+impatient; the second is calmer, stronger, more obedient. He watches the
+mother; he heeds her signals. Five minutes later he makes a clean,
+beautiful swoop and comes up with his fish. The mother whistles her
+praise as she drops beside him. My eyes follow them as, gossiping like
+two old cronies, they wing their slow way over the dancing whitecaps and
+climb the slanting tree-tops to the nest.
+
+The day's lessons are over now, and I go back to my bait-catching with a
+new admiration for these winged members of the brotherhood. Perhaps
+there is also a bit of envy or regret in my meditation as I tie on a new
+hook to replace the one that an uneasy eel is trying to rid himself of,
+down in the mud. If I had only had some one to teach me like that, I
+should certainly now be a better fisherman.
+
+Next day, when the mother came up the lake to the shoal with her two
+little ones, there was a surprise awaiting them. For half an hour I had
+been watching from the point to anticipate their coming. There were some
+things that puzzled me, and that puzzle me still, in Ismaques' fishing.
+If he caught his fish in his mouth, after the methods of loon and otter,
+I could understand it better. But to catch a fish--whose dart is like
+lightning--under the water with his feet, when, after his plunge, he can
+see neither his fish nor his feet, must require some puzzling
+calculation. And I had set a trap in my head to find out how it is done.
+
+When the fishermen hove into sight, and their eager pipings came faintly
+up the lake ahead of them, I paddled hastily out and turned loose a
+half-dozen chub in the shallow water. I had kept them alive as long as
+possible in a big pail, and they still had life enough to fin about near
+the surface. When the fishermen arrived I was sitting among the rocks as
+usual, and turned to acknowledge the mother bird's _Ch'wee?_ But my
+deep-laid scheme to find out their method accomplished nothing; except,
+perhaps, to spoil the day's lesson. They saw my bait on the instant. One
+of the youngsters dove headlong without poising, went under, missed his
+fish, rose, plunged again. He got him that time and went away
+sputtering. The second took his time, came down on a long swift slant,
+and got his fish without going under. Almost before the lesson began it
+was over. The mother circled about for a few moments in a puzzled sort
+of way, watching the young fishermen flapping up the slope to their
+nest. Something was wrong. She had fished enough to know that success
+means something more than good luck; and this morning success had come
+too easily. She wheeled slowly over the shallows, noting the fish there,
+where they plainly did not belong, and dropping to examine with
+suspicion one big chub that was floating, belly up, on the water. Then
+she went under with a rush, where I could not see, came out again with a
+fish for herself, and followed her little ones to the nest.
+
+Next day I set the trap again in the same way. But the mother, with her
+lesson well laid out before her, remembered yesterday's unearned success
+and came over to investigate, leaving her young ones circling along the
+farther shore. There were the fish again, in shallow water; and
+there--too easy altogether!--were two dead ones floating among the
+whitecaps. She wheeled away in a sharp turn, as if she had not seen
+anything, whistled her pupils up to her, and went on to other fishing
+grounds.
+
+Presently, above the next point, I heard their pipings and the sharp,
+up-sliding _Cheeeep!_ which was the mother's signal to swoop. Paddling
+up under the point in my canoe, I found them all wheeling and diving
+over a shoal, where I knew the fish were smaller and more nimble, and
+where there were lily pads for a haven of refuge, whither no hawk could
+follow them. Twenty times I saw them swoop only to miss, while the
+mother circled above or beside them, whistling advice and encouragement.
+And when at last they struck their fish and bore away towards the
+mountain, there was an exultation in their lusty wing beats, and in the
+whistling cry they sent back to me, which was not there the day before.
+
+The mother followed them at a distance, veering in when near my shoal to
+take another look at the fish there. Three were floating now instead of
+two; the others--what were left of them--struggled feebly at the
+surface. _Chip, ch'weee!_ she whistled disdainfully; "plenty fish here,
+but mighty poor fishing." Then she swooped, passed under, came out with
+a big chub, and was gone, leaving me only a blinding splash and a
+widening circle of laughing, dancing, tantalizing wavelets to tell me
+how she catches them.
+
+
+
+
+When You Meet a Bear
+
+
+There are always two surprises when you meet a bear. You have one, and
+he has the other. On your tramps and camps in the big woods you may be
+on the lookout for Mooween; you may be eager and even anxious to meet
+him; but when you double the point or push into the blueberry patch and,
+suddenly, there he is, blocking the path ahead, looking intently into
+your eyes to fathom at a glance your intentions, then, I fancy, the
+experience is like that of people who have the inquisitive habit of
+looking under their beds nightly for a burglar, and at last find him
+there, stowed away snugly, just where they always expected him to be.
+
+Mooween, on his part, is always looking for you when once he has learned
+that you have moved into his woods. But not from any desire to see you!
+He is like a lazy man looking for work, and hoping devoutly that he may
+not find it. A bear has very little curiosity--less than any other of
+the wood folk. He loves to be alone; and so, when he goes hunting for
+you, to find out just where you are, it is always with the creditable
+desire to leave you in as large a room as possible, while he himself
+goes quietly away into deeper solitudes. As this desire of his is much
+stronger than your mere idle curiosity to see something new, you rarely
+see Mooween even where he is most at home. And that is but another bit
+of the poetic justice which you stumble upon everywhere in the big
+woods.
+
+It is more and more evident, I think, that Nature adapts her gifts, not
+simply to the necessities, but more largely to the desires, of her
+creatures. The force and influence of that intense desire--more intense
+because usually each animal has but one--we have not yet learned to
+measure. The owl has a silent wing, not simply because he needs it--for
+his need is no greater than that of the hawk, who has no silent
+wing--but, more probably, because of his whole-hearted desire for
+silence as he glides through the silent twilight. And so with the
+panther's foot; and so with the deer's eye, and the wolf's nose, whose
+one idea of bliss is a good smell; and so with every other strongly
+marked gift which the wild things have won from nature, chiefly by
+desiring it, in the long years of their development.
+
+This theory may possibly account for some of Mooween's peculiarities.
+Nature, who measures her gifts according to the desires of her
+creatures, remembers his love of peace and solitude, and endows him
+accordingly. He cares little to see you or anybody else; therefore his
+eyes are weak--his weakest point, in fact. He desires ardently to avoid
+your society and all society but his own; therefore his nose and ears
+are marvelously alert to discover your coming. Often, when you think
+yourself quite alone in the woods, Mooween is there. The wind has told
+your story to his nose; the clatter of your heedless feet long ago
+reached his keen ears, and he vanishes at your approach, leaving you to
+your noise and inquisitiveness and the other things you like. His gifts
+of concealment are so much greater than your powers of detection that he
+has absolutely no thought of ever seeing you. His surprise, therefore,
+when you do meet unexpectedly is correspondingly greater than yours.
+
+What he will do under the unusual circumstances depends largely, not
+upon himself, but upon you. With one exception, his feelings are
+probably the reverse of your own. If you are bold, he is timid as a
+rabbit; if you are panic-stricken, he knows exactly what to do; if you
+are fearful, he has no fear; if you are inquisitive, he is instantly
+shy; and, like all other wild creatures, he has an almost uncanny way of
+understanding your thought. It is as if, in that intent, penetrating
+gaze of his, he saw your soul turned inside out for his inspection. The
+only exception is when you meet him without fear or curiosity, with the
+desire simply to attend to your own affairs, as if he were a stranger
+and an equal. That rare mental attitude he understands perfectly--for is
+it not his own?--and he goes his way quietly, as if he had not seen you.
+
+For every chance meeting Mooween seems to have a plan of action ready,
+which he applies without a question or an instant's hesitation. Make an
+unknown sound behind him as he plods along the shore, and he hurls
+himself headlong into the cover of the bushes, as if your voice had
+touched a button that released a coiled spring beneath him. Afterwards
+he may come back to find out what frightened him. Sit perfectly still,
+and he rises on his hind legs for a look and a long sniff to find out
+who you are. Jump at him with a yell and a flourish the instant he
+appears, and he will hurl chips and dirt back at you as he digs his
+toes into the hillside for a better grip and scrambles away whimpering
+like a scared puppy.
+
+Once in a way, as you steal through the autumn woods or hurry over the
+trail, you will hear sudden loud rustlings and shakings on the hardwood
+ridge above you, as if a small cyclone were perched there for a while,
+amusing itself among the leaves before blowing on. Then, if you steal up
+toward the sound, you will find Mooween standing on a big limb of a
+beech tree, grasping the narrowing trunk with his powerful forearms,
+tugging and pushing mightily to shake down the ripe beechnuts. The
+rattle and dash of the falling fruit are such music to Mooween's ears
+that he will not hear the rustle of your approach, nor the twig that
+snaps under your careless foot.
+
+If you cry aloud now to your friends, under the hilarious impression
+that you have Mooween sure at last, there is another surprise awaiting
+you. And that suggests a bit of advice, which is most pertinent: don't
+stand under the bear when you cry out. If he is a little fellow, he will
+shoot up the tree, faster than ever a jumping jack went up his stick,
+and hide in a cluster of leaves, as near the top as he can get. But if
+he is a big bear, he will tumble down on you before you know what has
+happened. No slow climbing for him; he just lets go and comes down by
+gravitation. As Uncle Remus says--who has some keen knowledge of animal
+ways under his story-telling humor--"Brer B'ar, he scramble 'bout
+half-way down de bee tree, en den he turn eve'ything loose en hit de
+groun' _kerbiff_! Look like 't wuz nuff ter jolt de life out'n 'im."
+
+Somehow it never does jolt the life out of him, notwithstanding his
+great weight; nor does it interfere in any way with his speed of action,
+which is like lightning, the instant he touches the ground. Like the
+coon, who can fall from an incredible distance without hurting himself,
+Mooween comes down perfectly limp, falling on himself like a great
+cushion; but the moment he strikes, all his muscles seem to contract at
+once, and he bounds off like a rubber ball into the densest bit of cover
+at hand.
+
+Twice have I seen him come down in this way. The first time there were
+two cubs, nearly full-grown, in a tree. One went up at our shout; the
+other came down with such startling suddenness that the man who stood
+ready with his rifle, to shoot the bear, jumped for his life to get out
+of the way; and before he had blinked the astonishment out of his eyes
+Mooween was gone, leaving only a violent nodding of the ground spruces
+to tell what had become of him.
+
+All these plans of ready action in Mooween's head, for the rare
+occasions when he meets you unexpectedly, are the result of careful
+training by his mother. If you should ever have the good fortune to
+watch a mother bear and her cubs when they have no idea that you are
+near them, you will note two characteristic things. First, when they are
+traveling--and Mooween is the most restless tramp in all the woods--you
+will see that the cubs follow the mother closely and imitate her every
+action with ludicrous exactness, sniffing where she sniffs, jumping
+where she jumps, rising on their hind legs, with forearms hanging
+loosely and pointed noses thrust sharp up into the wind, on the instant
+that she rises, and then drawing silently away from the shore into the
+shelter of the friendly alders when some subtle warning tells the
+mother's nose that the coast ahead is not perfectly clear. So they learn
+to sift the sounds and smells of the wilderness, and to govern their
+actions accordingly. And second, when they are playing you will see that
+the mother watches the cubs' every action as keenly as they watched hers
+an hour ago. She will sit flat on her haunches, her fore paws planted
+between her outstretched hind legs, her great head on one side, noting
+every detail of their boxing and wrestling and climbing, as if she had
+showed them once how it ought to be done and were watching now to see
+how well they remembered their lessons. And now and then one or the
+other of the cubs receives a sound cuffing; for which I am unable to
+account, except on the theory that he was doing something contrary to
+his plain instructions.
+
+It is only when Mooween meets some new object, or some circumstance
+entirely outside of his training, that instinct and native wit are set
+to work; and then you see for the first time some trace of hesitation on
+the part of this self-confident prowler of the big woods. Once I
+startled him on the shore, whither he had come to get the fore quarters
+of a deer that had been left there. He jumped for cover at the first
+alarm without even turning his head, just as he had seen his mother do,
+a score of times, when he was a cub. Then he stopped, and for three or
+four seconds considered the danger in plain sight--a thing I have never
+seen any other bear imitate. He wavered for a moment more, doubtful
+whether my canoe were swifter than he and more dangerous. Then satisfied
+that, at least, he had a good chance, he jumped back, grabbed the deer,
+and dragged it away into the woods.
+
+Another time I met him on a narrow path where he could not pass me and
+where he did not want to turn back, for something ahead was calling him
+strongly. That short meeting furnished me the best study in bear nature
+and bear instinct that I have ever been allowed to make. And, at this
+distance, I have small desire to repeat the experience.
+
+It was on the Little Sou'west Mirimichi, a very wild river, in the heart
+of the wilderness. Just above my camp, not half a mile away, was a
+salmon pool that, so far as I know, had never been fished. One bank of
+the river was an almost sheer cliff, against which the current fretted
+and hissed in a strong deep rush to the rapids and a great silent pool
+far below. There were salmon under the cliff, plenty of them, balancing
+themselves against the arrowy run of the current; but, so far as my
+flies were concerned, they might as well have been in the Yukon. One
+could not fish from the opposite shore--there was no room for a back
+cast, and the current was too deep and swift for wading--and on the
+shore where the salmon were there was no place to stand. If I had had a
+couple of good Indians, I might have dropped down to the head of the
+swift water and fished, while they held the canoe with poles braced on
+the bottom; but I had no two good Indians, and the one I did have was
+unwilling to take the risk. So we went hungry, almost within sight and
+sound of the plunge of heavy fish, fresh run from the sea.
+
+One day, in following a porcupine to see where he was going, I found a
+narrow path running for a few hundred yards along the side of the cliff,
+just over where the salmon loved to lie, and not more than thirty feet
+above the swift rush of water. I went there with my rod and, without
+attempting to cast, dropped my fly into the current and paid out from my
+reel. When the line straightened I raised the rod's tip and set my fly
+dancing and skittering across the surface to an eddy behind a great
+rock. In a flash I had raised and struck a twenty-five pound fish; and
+in another flash he had gone straight downstream in the current, where
+from my precarious seat I could not control him. Down he went, leaping
+wildly high out of water, in a glorious rush, till all my line buzzed
+out of the reel, down to the very knot at the bottom, and the leader
+snapped as if it had been made of spider's web.
+
+I reeled in sadly, debating with myself the unanswerable question of how
+I should ever have reached down thirty feet to gaff my salmon, had I
+played him to a standstill. Then, because human nature is weak, I put on
+a stronger, double leader and dropped another fly into the current. I
+might not get my salmon; but it was worth the price of fly and leader
+just to raise him from the deeps and see his terrific rush downstream,
+jumping, jumping, as if the witch of Endor were astride of his tail in
+lieu of her broomstick.
+
+A lively young grilse plunged headlong at the second fly and, thanks to
+my strong leader, I played him out in the current and led him
+listlessly, all the jump and fight gone out of him, to the foot of the
+cliff. There was no apparent way to get down; so, taking my line in
+hand, I began to lift him bodily up. He came easily enough till his tail
+cleared the water; then the wiggling, jerky strain was too much. The fly
+pulled out, and he vanished with a final swirl and slap of his broad
+tail to tell me how big he was.
+
+Just below me a bowlder lifted its head and shoulders out of the
+swirling current. With the canoe line I might easily let myself down to
+that rock and make sure of my next fish. Getting back would be harder;
+but salmon are worth some trouble; so I left my rod and started back to
+camp for the stout rope that lay coiled in the bow of my canoe. It was
+late afternoon and I was hurrying along the path, giving chief heed to
+my feet in the ticklish walking, with the cliff above and the river
+below, when a loud _Hoowuff!_ brought me up with a shock. There at a
+turn in the path, not ten yards ahead, stood a huge bear, calling
+unmistakable halt, and blocking me in as completely as if the mountain
+had toppled over before me.
+
+There was no time to think; the shock and scare were too great. I just
+gasped _Hoowuff!_ instinctively, as the bear had shot it out of his deep
+lungs a moment before, and stood stock-still, as he was doing. He was
+startled as well as I. That was the only thing that I was sure about.
+
+I suppose that in each of our heads at first there was just one thought:
+"I'm in a fix; how shall I get out?" And in his training or mine there
+was absolutely nothing to suggest an immediate answer. He was anxious,
+evidently, to go on. Something, a mate perhaps, must be calling him up
+river; else he would have whirled and vanished at the first alarm. But
+how far might he presume on the big animal's timidity who stood before
+him blocking the way? That was his question, plainly enough. Had I been
+a moment sooner, or he a moment later, we would have met squarely at the
+turn; he would have clinched with me in sudden blind ferocity, and that
+would have been the end of one of us. As it was he saw me coming
+heedlessly and, being peaceably inclined, had stopped me with his sharp
+_Hoowuff!_ before I should get too near. There was no snarl or growl, no
+savageness in his expression; only intense wonder and questioning in the
+look which fastened upon my face and seemed to bore its way through, to
+find out just what I was thinking.
+
+I met his eyes squarely with mine and held them, which was perhaps the
+most sensible thing I could have done; though it was all unconscious on
+my part. In the brief moment that followed I did a lot of thinking.
+There was no escape, up or down; I must go on or turn back. If I jumped
+forward with a yell, as I had done before under different circumstances,
+would he not rush at me savagely, as all wild creatures do when
+cornered? No, the time for that had passed with the first instant of our
+meeting. The bluff would now be too apparent; it must be done without
+hesitation, or not at all. On the other hand, if I turned back he would
+follow me to the end of the ledge, growing bolder as he came on; and
+beyond that it was dangerous walking, where he had all the advantage and
+all the knowledge of his ground. Besides, it was late, and I wanted a
+salmon for my supper.
+
+I have wondered since how much of this hesitation he understood; and how
+he came to the conclusion, which he certainly reached, that I meant him
+no harm, but only wanted to get on and was not disposed to give him the
+path. All the while I looked at him steadily, until his eyes began to
+lose their intentness. My hand slipped back and gripped the handle of my
+hunting knife. Some slight confidence came with the feel of the heavy
+weapon; though I would certainly have gone over the cliff and taken my
+chances in the current, rather than have closed with him, with all his
+enormous strength, in that narrow place. Suddenly his eyes wavered from
+mine; he swung his head to look down and up; and I knew instantly that I
+had won the first move--and the path also, if I could keep my nerve.
+
+I advanced a step or two very quietly, still looking at him steadily.
+There was a suggestion of white teeth under his wrinkled chops; but he
+turned his head to look back over the way he had come, and presently he
+disappeared. It was only for a moment; then his nose and eyes were poked
+cautiously by the corner of rock. He was peeking to see if I were still
+there. When the nose vanished again I stole forward to the turn and
+found him just ahead, looking down the cliff to see if there were any
+other way below.
+
+He was uneasy now; a low, whining growl came floating up the path. Then
+I sat down on a rock, squarely in his way, and for the first time some
+faint suggestion of the humor of the situation gave me a bit of
+consolation. I began to talk to him, not humorously, but as if he were a
+Scotchman and open only to argument. "You're in a fix, Mooween, a
+terrible fix," I kept saying softly; "but if you had only stayed at home
+till twilight, as a bear ought to do, we should be happy now, both of
+us. You have put me in a fix, too, you see; and now you've just got to
+get me out of it. I'm not going back. I don't know the path as well as
+you do. Besides, it will be dark soon, and I should probably break my
+neck. It's a shame, Mooween, to put any gentleman in such a fix as I am
+in this minute, just by your blundering carelessness. Why didn't you
+smell me anyway, as any but a fool bear would have done, and take some
+other path over the mountain? Why don't you climb that spruce now and
+get out of the way?"
+
+I have noticed that all wild animals grow uneasy at the sound of the
+human voice, speaking however quietly. There is in it something deep,
+unknown, mysterious beyond all their powers of comprehension; and they
+go away from it quickly when they can. I have a theory also that all
+animals, wild and domestic, understand more of our mental attitude than
+we give them credit for; and the theory gains rather than loses strength
+whenever I think of Mooween on that narrow pass. I can see him now,
+turning, twisting uneasily, and the half-timid look in his eyes as they
+met mine furtively, as if ashamed; and again the low, troubled whine
+comes floating up the path and mingles with the rush and murmur of the
+salmon pool below.
+
+A bear hates to be outdone quite as much as a fox does. If you catch him
+in a trap, he seldom growls or fights or resists, as lynx and otter and
+almost all other wild creatures do. He has outwitted you and shown his
+superiority so often that he is utterly overwhelmed and crushed when you
+find him, at last, helpless and outdone. He seems to forget all his
+great strength, all his frightful power of teeth and claws. He just lays
+his head down between his paws, turns his eyes aside, and refuses to
+look at you or to let you see how ashamed he is. That is what you are
+chiefly conscious of, nine times out of ten, when you find a bear or a
+fox held fast in your trap; and something of that was certainly in
+Mooween's look and actions now, as I sat there in his path enjoying his
+confusion.
+
+Near him a spruce tree sprang out of the rocks and reached upward to a
+ledge far above. Slowly he raised himself against this, but turned to
+look at me again sitting quietly in his own path--that he could no
+longer consider his--and smiling at his discomfiture as I remember how
+ashamed he is to be outdone. Then an electric shock seemed to hoist him
+out of the trail. He shot up the tree in a succession of nervous, jerky
+jumps, rising with astonishing speed for so huge a creature, smashing
+the little branches, ripping the rough bark with his great claws,
+sending down a clattering shower of chips and dust behind him, till he
+reached the level of the ledge above and sprang out upon it; where he
+stopped and looked down to see what I would do next. And there he
+stayed, his great head hanging over the edge of the rock, looking at me
+intently till I rose and went quietly down the trail.
+
+It was morning when I came back to the salmon pool. Unlike the mossy
+forest floor, the hard rock bore no signs to tell me--what I was most
+curious to know--whether he came down the tree or found some other way
+over the mountain. At the point where I had stood when his deep
+_Hoowuff!_ first startled me I left a big salmon, for a taste of which
+any bear will go far out of his way. Next morning it was gone; and so it
+may be that Mooween, on his next journey, found another and a pleasanter
+surprise awaiting him at the turn of the trail.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Quoskh the Keen Eyed
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Sometimes, at night, as you drift along the shore in your canoe, sifting
+the night sounds and smells of the wilderness, when all harsher cries
+are hushed and the silence grows tense and musical, like a great
+stretched chord over which the wind is thrumming low suggestive
+melodies, a sudden rush and flapping in the grasses beside you breaks
+noisily into the gamut of half-heard primary tones and rising, vanishing
+harmonics. Then, as you listen, and before the silence has again
+stretched the chords of her Eolian harp tight enough for the wind's
+fingers, another sound, a cry, comes floating down from the
+air--_Quoskh? quoskh-quoskh?_ a wild, questioning call, as if the
+startled night were asking who you are. It is only a blue heron, wakened
+out of his sleep on the shore by your noisy approach, that you thought
+was still as the night itself. He circles over your head for a moment,
+seeing you perfectly, though you catch never a shadow of his broad
+wings; then he vanishes into the vast, dark silence, crying _Quoskh?
+quoskh?_ as he goes. And the cry, with its strange, wild interrogation
+vanishing away into the outer darkness, has given him his most
+fascinating Indian name, Quoskh the Night's Question.
+
+To many, indeed, even to some Indians, he has no other name and no
+definite presence. He rarely utters the cry by day--his voice then is a
+harsh croak--and you never see him as he utters it out of the solemn
+upper darkness; so that there is often a mystery about this voice of the
+night, which one never thinks of associating with the quiet, patient,
+long-legged fisherman that one may see any summer day along the borders
+of lonely lake or stream. A score of times I have been asked by old
+campers, "What is that?" as a sharp, questioning _Quoskh-quoskh?_ seemed
+to tumble down into the sleeping lake. Yet they knew the great blue
+heron perfectly--or thought they did.
+
+Quoskh has other names, however, which describe his attributes and
+doings. Sometimes, when fishing alongshore with my Indian at the paddle,
+the canoe would push its nose silently around a point, and I would see
+the heron's heavy slanting flight already halfway up to the tree-tops,
+long before our coming had been suspected by the watchful little mother
+sheldrake, or even by the deer feeding close at hand among the lily
+pads. Then Simmo, who could never surprise one of the great birds
+however silently he paddled, would mutter something which sounded like
+_Quoskh K'sobeqh_, Quoskh the Keen Eyed. At other times, when we noticed
+him spearing frogs with his long bill, Simmo, who could not endure the
+sight of a frog's leg on my fry pan, would speak of him disdainfully in
+his own musical language as Quoskh the Frog Eater, for my especial
+benefit. Again, if I stopped casting suddenly at the deep trout pool
+opposite a grassy shore, to follow with my eyes a tall, gray-blue shadow
+on stilts moving dimly alongshore in seven-league-boot strides for the
+next bog, where frogs were plenty, Simmo would point with his paddle and
+say: "See, Ol' Fader Longlegs go catch-um more frogs for his babies.
+Funny kin' babies dat, eat-um bullfrog; don' chu tink so?"
+
+Of all his names--and there were many more that I picked up from
+watching him in a summer's outing--"Old Father Longlegs" seemed always
+the most appropriate. There is a suggestion of hoary antiquity about
+this solemn wader of our lakes and streams. Indeed, of all birds he is
+the nearest to those ancient, uncouth monsters which Nature made to
+people our earth in its uncouth infancy. Other herons and bitterns have
+grown smaller and more graceful, with shorter legs and necks, to suit
+our diminishing rivers and our changed landscape. Quoskh is also,
+undoubtedly, much smaller than he once was; but still his legs and neck
+are disproportionately long, when one thinks of the waters he wades and
+the nest he builds; and the tracks he leaves in the mud are startlingly
+like those fossilized footprints of giant birds that one finds in the
+rocks of the Pliocene era, deep under the earth's surface, to tell what
+sort of creatures lived in the vast solitudes before man came to
+replenish the earth and subdue it.
+
+Closely associated with this suggestion of antiquity in Quoskh's
+demeanor is the opposite suggestion of perpetual youth which he carries
+with him. Age has no apparent effect on him whatsoever. He is as old and
+young as the earth itself is; he is a March day, with winter and spring
+in its sunset and sunrise. Who ever saw a blue heron with his jewel eye
+dimmed or his natural force abated? Who ever caught one sleeping, or saw
+him tottering weakly on his long legs, as one so often sees our common
+wild birds clinging feebly to a branch with their last grip? A Cape Cod
+sailor once told me that, far out from land, his schooner had passed a
+blue heron lying dead on the sea with outstretched wings. That is the
+only heron that I have ever heard of who was found without all his wits
+about him. Possibly, if Quoskh ever dies, it may suggest a solution to
+the question of what becomes of him. With his last strength he may fly
+boldly out to explore that great ocean mystery, along the borders of
+which his ancestors for untold centuries lived and moved, back and
+forth, back and forth, on their endless, unnecessary migrations,
+restless, unsatisfied, wandering, as if the voice of the sea were
+calling them whither they dared not follow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just behind my tent on the big lake, one summer, a faint, woodsy little
+trail wandered away into the woods, with endless turnings and twistings,
+and without the faintest indication anywhere, till you reached the very
+end, whither it intended going. This little trail was always full of
+interesting surprises. Red squirrels peeked down at you over the edge of
+a limb, chattering volubly and getting into endless mischief along its
+borders. Moose birds flitted silently over it on their mysterious
+errands. Now a jumping, smashing, crackling rush through the underbrush
+halts you suddenly, with quick beating heart, as you climb over one of
+the many windfalls across your path. A white flag followed by another
+little one, flashing, rising, sinking and rising again over the fallen
+timber, tells you that a doe and her fawn were lying behind the
+windfall, all unconscious of your quiet approach. Again, at a turn of
+the trail, something dark, gray, massive looms before you, blocking the
+faint path; and as you stop short and shrink behind the nearest tree, a
+huge head and antlers swing toward you, with widespread nostrils and
+keen, dilating eyes, and ears like two trumpets pointing straight at
+your head--a bull moose, _sh!_
+
+For a long two minutes he stands there motionless, watching the new
+creature that he has never seen before; and it will be well for you to
+keep perfectly quiet and let him surrender the path when he is so
+disposed. Motion on your part may bring him nearer to investigate; and
+you can never know at what slight provocation the red danger light will
+blaze into his eyes. At last he moves away, quietly at first, turning
+often to look and to make trumpets of his ears at you. Then he lays his
+great antlers back on his shoulders, sticks his nose far up ahead of
+him, and with long, smooth strides lunges away over the windfalls and is
+gone.
+
+So every day the little trail had some new surprise for you,--owl, or
+hare, or prickly porcupine rattling his quills, like a quiver of arrows,
+and proclaiming his Indian name, _Unk-wunk! Unk-wunk!_ as he loafed
+along. When you had followed far, and were sure that the loitering trail
+had certainly lost itself, it crept at last under a dark hemlock; and
+there, through an oval frame of rustling, whispering green, was the
+loneliest, loveliest little deer-haunted beaver pond in the world, where
+Quoskh lived with his mate and his little ones.
+
+The first time I came down the trail and peeked through the oval frame
+of bushes, I saw him; and the very first glimpse made me jump at the
+thought of what a wonderful discovery I had made, namely, that little
+herons play with dolls, as children do. But I was mistaken. Quoskh had
+been catching frogs and hiding them, one by one, as I came along. He
+heard me before I knew he was there, and jumped for his last frog, a big
+fat one, with which he slanted up heavily on broad vans--with a hump on
+his back and a crook in his neck and his long legs trailing below and
+behind--towards his nest in the hemlock, beyond the beaver pond. When I
+saw him plainly he was just crossing the oval frame through which I
+looked. He had gripped the frog across the middle in his long beak, much
+as one would hold it with a pair of blunt shears, swelling it out at
+either side, like a string tied tight about a pillow. The head and short
+arms were forced up at one side, the limp legs dangled down on the
+other, looking for all the world like a stuffed rag doll that Quoskh was
+carrying home for his babies to play with.
+
+Undoubtedly they liked the frog much better; but my curious thought
+about them, in that brief romantic instant, gave me an interest in the
+little fellows which was not satisfied till I climbed to the nest, long
+afterwards, and saw them, and how they lived.
+
+When I took to studying Quoskh, so as to know him more intimately, I
+found a fascinating subject; not simply because of his queer ways, but
+also because of his extreme wariness and the difficulties I met in
+catching him doing things. Quoskh K'sobeqh was the name that at first
+seemed most appropriate, till I had learned his habits and how best to
+get the weather of him--which happened only two or three times in the
+course of a whole summer.
+
+One morning I went early to the beaver pond and sat down against a gray
+stump on the shore, with berry bushes growing to my shoulders all about
+me. "Now I shall keep still and see everything that comes," I thought,
+"and nothing, not even a blue jay, will see me."
+
+That was almost true. Little birds, that had never seen a man in the
+woods before, came for the berries and billed them off within six feet
+of my face before they noticed anything unusual. When they did see me
+they would turn their heads so as to look at me, first with one eye,
+then with the other, and shoot up at last, with a sharp _Burr!_ of their
+tiny wings, to a branch over my head. There they would watch me keenly,
+for a wink or a minute, according to their curiosity, then swoop down
+and whirr their wings loudly in my face, so as to make me move and show
+what I was.
+
+Across a little arm of the pond, a stone's throw away, a fine buck came
+to the water, put his muzzle into it, then began to fidget uneasily.
+Some vague, subtle flavor of me floated across and made him uneasy,
+though he knew not what I was. He kept tonguing his nostrils, as a cow
+does, so as to moisten them and catch the scent of me better. On my
+right, and nearer, a doe was feeding unconcernedly among the lily pads.
+A mink ran, hopping and halting, along the shore at my feet, dodging in
+and out among roots and rocks. Cheokhes always runs that way. He knows
+how glistening black his coat is, how shining a mark he makes for owl
+and hawk against the sandy shore; and so he never runs more than five
+feet without dodging out of sight; and he always prefers the roots and
+rocks that are blackest to travel on.
+
+A kingfisher dropped with his musical _K'plop!_ into the shoal of
+minnows that were rippling the water in their play just in front of me.
+Farther out, a fishhawk came down heavily, _Souse!_ and rose with a big
+chub. And none of these sharp-eyed wood folk saw me or knew that they
+were watched. Then a wide, wavy, blue line, like a great Cupid's bow,
+came gliding swiftly along the opposite bank of green, and Quoskh hove
+into sight for his morning's fishing.
+
+Opposite me, just where the buck had stood, he folded his great wings;
+his neck crooked sharply; his long legs, which had been trailed
+gracefully behind him in his swift flight, swung under him like two
+pendulums as he landed lightly on the muddy shore. He knew his ground
+perfectly; knew every stream and frog-haunted bay in the pond as one
+knows his own village; yet no amount of familiarity with his
+surroundings can ever sing lullaby to Quoskh's watchfulness. The instant
+he landed he drew himself up straight, standing almost as tall as a man,
+and let his keen glance run along every shore just once. His head, with
+its bright yellow eye and long yellow beak glistening in the morning
+light, veered and swung over his long neck like a gilded weather-vane on
+a steeple. As the vane swung up the shore toward me I held my breath, so
+as to be perfectly motionless, thinking I was hidden so well that no eye
+could find me at that distance. As it swung past me slowly I chuckled,
+thinking that Quoskh was deceived. I forgot altogether that a bird never
+sees straight ahead. When his bill had moved some thirty degrees off my
+nose, just enough so as to bring his left eye to bear, it stopped
+swinging instantly.--He had seen me at the first glance, and knew that I
+did not belong there.
+
+For a long moment, while his keen eye seemed to look through and through
+me, he never moved a muscle. One could easily have passed over him,
+thinking him only one of the gray, wave-washed roots on the shore. Then
+he humped himself together, in that indescribably awkward way that all
+herons have at the beginning of their flight, slanted heavily up to the
+highest tree on the shore, and stopped for a longer period on a dead
+branch to look back at me. I had not moved so much as an eyelid;
+nevertheless he saw me too plainly to trust me. Again he humped himself,
+rose high over the tree-tops and bore away in strong, even, graceful
+flight for a lonelier lake, where there was no man to watch or bother
+him.
+
+Far from disappointing me, this keenness of Quoskh only whetted my
+appetite to know more about him, and especially to watch him, close at
+hand, at his fishing. Near the head of the little bay, where frogs were
+plenty, I built a screen of boughs under the low thick branches of a
+spruce tree, and went away to watch other wood folk.
+
+Next morning he did not come back; nor were there any fresh tracks of
+his on the shore. This was my first intimation that Quoskh knows well
+the rule of good fishermen, and does not harry a pool or a place too
+frequently, however good the fishing. The third morning he came back;
+and again the sixth evening; and then the ninth morning, alternating
+with great regularity as long as I kept tabs on him. At other times I
+would stumble upon him far afield, fishing in other lakes and streams;
+or see him winging homeward, high over the woods, from waters far beyond
+my ken; but these appearances were too irregular to count in a theory. I
+have no doubt, however, that he fished the near-by waters with as great
+regularity as he fished the beaver pond, and went wider afield only when
+he wanted a bit of variety, or bigger frogs, as all fishermen do; or
+when he had poor luck in satisfying the clamorous appetite of his
+growing brood.
+
+It was on the sixth afternoon that I had the best chance of studying his
+queer ways of fishing. I was sitting in my little blind at the beaver
+pond, waiting for a deer, when Quoskh came striding along the shore. He
+would swing his weather-vane head till he saw a frog ahead, then stalk
+him slowly, deliberately, with immense caution; as if he knew as well as
+I how watchful the frogs are at his approach, and how quickly they dive
+headlong for cover at the first glint of his stilt-like legs. Nearer and
+nearer he would glide, standing motionless as a gray root when he
+thought his game was watching him; then on again more cautiously,
+bending far forward and drawing his neck back to the angle of greatest
+speed and power for a blow. A quick start, a thrust like lightning--then
+you would see him shake his frog savagely, beat it upon the nearest
+stone or root, glide to a tuft of grass, hide his catch cunningly, and
+go on unincumbered for the next stalk, his weather-vane swinging,
+swinging in the ceaseless search for frogs, or possible enemies.
+
+If the swirl of a fish among the sedges caught his keen eye, he would
+change his tactics, letting his game come to him instead of stalking it,
+as he did with the frogs. Whatever his position was, both feet down or
+one foot raised for a stride, when the fish appeared, he never changed
+it, knowing well that motion would only send his game hurriedly into
+deeper water. He would stand sometimes for a half hour on one leg,
+letting his head sink slowly down on his shoulders, his neck curled
+back, his long sharp bill pointing always straight at the quivering line
+which marked the playing fish, his eyes half closed till the right
+moment came. Then you would see his long neck shoot down, hear the
+splash and, later, the whack of his catch against the nearest root, to
+kill it; and watch with curious feelings of sympathy as he hid it in the
+grass and covered it over, lest Hawahak the hawk should see, or Cheokhes
+the mink smell it, and rob him while he fished.
+
+If he were near his last catch, he would stride back and hide the two
+together; if not, he covered it over in the nearest good place and went
+on. No danger of his ever forgetting, however numerous the catch!
+Whether he counts his frogs and fish, or simply remembers the different
+hiding places, I have no means of knowing.
+
+Sometimes, when I surprised him on a muddy shore and he flew away
+without taking even one of his tidbits, I would follow his back track
+and uncover his hiding places to see what he had caught. Frogs, fish,
+pollywogs, mussels, a baby muskrat,--they were all there, each hidden
+cunningly under a bit of dried grass and mud. And once I went away and
+hid on the opposite shore to see if he would come back. After an hour or
+more he appeared, looking first at my tracks, then at all the shore with
+greater keenness than usual; then he went straight to three different
+hiding places that I had found, and two more that I had not seen, and
+flew away to his nest, a fringe of frogs and fish hanging at either side
+of his long bill as he went.
+
+He had arranged them on the ground like the spokes of a wheel, as a fox
+does, heads all out on either side, and one leg or the tail of each
+crossed in a common pile in the middle; so that he could bite down over
+the crossed members and carry the greatest number of little frogs and
+fish with the least likelihood of dropping any in his flight.
+
+The mussels which he found were invariably, I think, eaten as his own
+particular tidbits; for I never saw him attempt to carry them away,
+though once I found two or three where he had hidden them. Generally he
+could crack their shells easily by blows of his powerful beak, or by
+whacking them against a root; and so he had no need (and probably no
+knowledge) of the trick, which every gull knows, of mounting up to a
+height with some obstinate hardshell and dropping it on a rock to crack
+it.
+
+If Quoskh were fishing for his own dinner, instead of for his hungry
+nestlings, he adopted different tactics. For them he was a hunter, sly,
+silent, crafty, stalking his game by approved still-hunting methods; for
+himself he was the true fisherman, quiet, observant, endlessly patient.
+He seemed to know that for himself he could afford to take his time and
+be comfortable, knowing that all things, especially fish, come to him
+who waits long enough; while for his little ones he must hurry, else
+their croakings from too long fasting would surely bring hungry,
+unwelcome prowlers to the big nest in the hemlock.
+
+Once I saw him fishing in a peculiar way, which reminded me instantly of
+the chumming process with which every mackerel fisherman on the coast is
+familiar. He caught a pollywog for bait, with which he waded to a deep,
+cool place under a shady bank. There he whacked his pollywog into small
+bits and tossed them into the water, where the chum speedily brought a
+shoal of little fish to feed. Quoskh meanwhile stood in the shadow,
+where he would not be noticed, knee-deep in water, his head drawn down
+into his shoulders, and a friendly leafy branch bending over him to
+screen him from prying eyes. As a fish swam up to his chum he would
+spear it like lightning; throw his head back and wriggle it head-first
+down his long neck; then settle down to watch for the next one. And
+there he stayed, alternately watching and feasting, till he had enough;
+when he drew his head farther down into his shoulders, shut his eyes,
+and went fast asleep in the cool shadows,--a perfect picture of fishing
+indolence and satisfaction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I went to the nest and hid myself in the underbrush to watch, day
+after day, I learned more of Quoskh's fishing and hunting. The nest was
+in a great evergreen, in a gloomy swamp,--a villainous place of bogs and
+treacherous footing, with here and there a little island of large trees.
+On one of these islands a small colony of herons were nesting. During
+the day they trailed far afield, scattering widely, each pair to its own
+particular fishing grounds; but when the shadows grew long, and night
+prowlers stirred abroad, the herons came trailing back again, making
+curious, wavy, graceful lines athwart the sunset glow, to croak and be
+sociable together, and help each other watch the long night out.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Quoskh the Watchful--I could tell my great bird's mate by sight or
+hearing from all others, either by her greater size or a peculiar double
+croak she had--had hidden her nest in the top of a great green hemlock.
+Near by, in the high crotch of a dead tree, was another nest, which she
+had built, evidently, years before and added to each successive spring,
+only to abandon it at last for the evergreen. Both birds used to go to
+the old nest freely; and I have wondered since if it were not a bit of
+great shrewdness on their part to leave it there in plain sight, where
+any prowler might see and climb to it; while the young were securely
+hidden, meanwhile, in the top of the near-by hemlock, where they could
+see without being seen. Only at a distance could you find the nest. When
+under the hemlock, the mass of branches screened it perfectly, and your
+attention was wholly taken by the other nest, standing out in bold
+relief in the dead tree-top.
+
+Such wisdom, if wisdom it were and not chance, is gained only by
+experience. It took at least one brood of young herons, sacrificed to
+the appetite of lucivee or fisher, to teach Quoskh the advantage of that
+decoy nest to tempt hungry prowlers upon the bare tree hole where she
+could have a clear field to spear them with her powerful bill and beat
+them down with her great wings before they should discover their
+mistake.
+
+By watching the birds through my glass as they came to the young, I
+could generally tell what kind of game was afoot for their following.
+Once a long snake hung from the mother bird's bill; once it was a bird
+of some kind; twice she brought small animals, whose species I could not
+make out in the brief moment of alighting on the nest's edge,--all these
+besides the regular fare of fish and frogs, of which I took no account.
+And then, one day while I lay in my hiding, I saw the mother heron slide
+swiftly down from the nest, make a sharp wheel over the lake, and plunge
+into the fringe of berry bushes on the shore after some animal that her
+keen eyes had caught moving. There was a swift rustling in the bushes, a
+blow of her wing to head off a runaway, two or three lightning thrusts
+of her javelin beak; then she rose heavily, taking a leveret with her;
+and I saw her pulling it to pieces awkwardly on the nest to feed her
+hungry little ones.
+
+It was partly to see these little herons, the thought of which had
+fascinated me ever since I had seen Quoskh taking home what I thought,
+at first glance, was a rag doll for them to play with, and partly to
+find out more of Quoskh's hunting habits by seeing what he brought home,
+that led me at last to undertake the difficult task of climbing the huge
+tree to the nest. One day when the mother had brought home some unknown
+small animal--a mink, I thought--I came suddenly out of my hiding and
+crossed over to the nest. It had always fascinated me. Under it, at
+twilight, I had heard the mother heron croaking softly to her little
+ones--a husky lullaby, but sweet enough to them--and then, as I paddled
+away, I would see the nest dark against the sunset with Mother Quoskh
+standing over it, a tall, graceful silhouette against the glory of
+twilight, keeping sentinel watch over her little ones. Now I would solve
+the mystery of the high nest by looking into it.
+
+The mother, alarmed by my sudden appearance,--she had no idea that she
+had been watched,--shot silently away, hoping I would not notice her
+home through the dense screen of branches. I climbed up with difficulty;
+but not till I was within ten feet could I make out the mass of sticks
+above me. The surroundings were getting filthy and evil-smelling by this
+time; for Quoskh teaches the young herons to keep their nest perfectly
+clean by throwing all refuse over the sides of the great home. A dozen
+times I had watched the mother birds of the colony push their little
+ones to the edge of the nest to teach them this rule of cleanliness, so
+different from most other birds.
+
+As I hesitated about pushing through the filth-laden branches, something
+bright on the edge of the nest caught my attention. It was a young
+heron's eye looking down at me over a long bill, watching my approach
+with a keenness that was but thinly disguised by the half-drawn eyelids.
+I had to go round the tree at this point for a standing on a larger
+branch; and when I looked up, there was another eye watching down over
+another long bill. So, however I turned, they watched me closely getting
+nearer and nearer, till I reached up my hand to touch the nest. Then
+there was a harsh croak. Three long necks reached down suddenly over the
+edge of the nest on the side where I was; three long bills opened wide
+just over my head; and three young herons grew suddenly seasick, as if
+they had swallowed ipecac.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I never saw the inside of that home. At the moment I was in too much of
+a hurry to get down and wash in the lake; and after that, so large were
+the young birds, so keen and powerful the beaks, that no man or beast
+might expect to look over the edge of the nest, with hands or paws
+engaged in holding on, and keep his eyes for a single instant. It is
+more dangerous to climb for young herons than for young eagles. A heron
+always strikes for the eye, and his blow means blindness or death,
+unless you watch like a cat and ward it off.
+
+When I saw the young again they were taking their first lessons. A
+dismal croaking in the tree-tops attracted me, and I came over
+cautiously to see what my herons were doing. The young were standing up
+on the big nest, stretching necks and wings, and croaking hungrily;
+while the mother stood on a tree-top some distance away, showing them
+food and telling them plainly, in heron language, to come and get it.
+They tried it after much coaxing and croaking; but their long, awkward
+toes missed their hold upon the slender branch on which she was
+balancing delicately--just as she expected it to happen. As they fell,
+flapping lustily, she shot down ahead of them and led them in a long,
+curving slant to an open spot on the shore. There she fed them with the
+morsels she held in her beak; brought more food from a tuft of grass
+where she had hidden it, near at hand; praised them with gurgling croaks
+till they felt some confidence on their awkward legs; then the whole
+family started up the shore on their first frogging expedition.
+
+It was intensely interesting for a man who, as a small boy, had often
+gone a-frogging himself--to catch big ones for a woodsy corn roast, or
+little ones for pickerel bait--to sit now on a bog and watch the little
+herons try their luck. Mother Quoskh went ahead cautiously, searching
+the lily pads; the young trailed behind her awkwardly, lifting their
+feet like a Shanghai rooster and setting them down with a splash to
+scare every frog within hearing, exactly where the mother's foot had
+rested a moment before. So they went on, the mother's head swinging like
+a weather-vane to look far ahead, the little ones stretching their necks
+so as to peek by her on either side, full of wonder at the new world,
+full of hunger for things that grew there, till a startled young frog
+said _K'tung!_ from behind a lily bud, where they did not see him, and
+dove headlong into the mud, leaving a long, crinkly, brown trail to tell
+exactly how far he had gone.
+
+A frog is like an ostrich. When he sees nothing, because his head is
+hidden, he thinks nothing can see him. At the sudden alarm Mother Quoskh
+would stretch her neck, watching the frog's flight; then turn her head
+so that her long bill pointed directly at the bump on the muddy bottom,
+which marked the hiding place of Chigwooltz, and croak softly as a
+signal. At the sound one of the young herons would hurry forward
+eagerly; follow his mother's bill, which remained motionless, pointing
+all the while; twist his head till he saw the frog's back in the mud,
+and then lunge at it like lightning. Generally he got his frog, and
+through your glass you would see the unfortunate creature wriggling and
+kicking his way into Quoskh's yellow beak. If the lunge missed, the
+mother's keen eye followed the frog's frantic rush through the mud, with
+a longer trail this time behind him, till he hid again; whereupon she
+croaked the same youngster up for another try, and then the whole family
+moved jerkily along, like a row of boys on stilts, to the next clump of
+lily pads.
+
+As the young grew older and stronger on their legs, I noticed the
+rudiments, at least, of a curious habit of dancing, which seems to
+belong to most of our long-legged wading birds. Sometimes, sitting
+quietly in my canoe, I would see the young birds sail down in a long
+slant to the shore. Immediately on alighting, before they gave any
+thought to frogs or fish or carnal appetite, they would hop up and down,
+balancing, swaying, spreading their wings, and hopping again round about
+each other, as if bewitched. A few moments of this crazy performance,
+and then they would stalk sedately along the shore, as if ashamed of
+their ungainly levity; but at any moment the ecstasy might seize them
+and they would hop again, as if they simply could not help it. This
+occurred generally towards evening, when the birds had fed full and
+were ready for play or for stretching their broad wings in preparation
+for the long autumn flight.
+
+Watching them, one evening, I remembered suddenly a curious scene that I
+had stumbled upon when a boy. I had seen a great blue heron sail
+croaking, croaking, into an arm of the big pond where I was catching
+bullpouts, and crept down through dense woods to find out what he was
+croaking about. Instead of one, I found eight or ten of the great birds
+on an open shore, hopping ecstatically through some kind of a crazy
+dance. A twig snapped as I crept nearer, and they scattered in instant
+flight. It was September, and the instinct to flock and to migrate was
+at work among them. When they came together for the first time some dim,
+old remembrance of generations long gone by--the shreds of an ancient
+instinct, whose meaning we can only guess at--had set them to dancing
+wildly; though I doubted at the time whether they understood much what
+they were doing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Perhaps I was wrong in this. Watching the young birds at their ungainly
+hopping, the impulse to dance seemed uncontrollable; yet they were
+immensely dignified about it at times; and again they appeared to get
+some fun out of it--as much, perhaps, as we do out of some of our
+peculiar dances, of which a visiting Chinaman once asked innocently:
+"Why don't you let your servants do it for you?"
+
+I have seen little green herons do the same thing in the woods at mating
+time; and once, in the Zooelogical Gardens at Antwerp, I saw a
+magnificent hopping performance by some giant cranes from Africa. Our
+own sand-hill and whooping cranes are notorious dancers; and undoubtedly
+it is more or less instinctive with all the tribes of the cranes and
+herons, from the least to the greatest. But what the instinct
+means--unless, like our own dancing, it is a pure bit of
+pleasure-making, as crows play games and loons swim races--nobody can
+tell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the young were fully grown, and while yet they were following the
+mother to learn the ways of frogging and fishing, a startling thing
+occurred which made me ever afterwards look up to Quoskh with honest
+admiration. I was still-fishing in the middle of the big lake, one late
+afternoon, when Quoskh and her little ones sailed over the trees from
+the beaver pond and lit on a grassy shore. A shallow little brook stole
+into the lake there, and Mother Quoskh left her young to frog for
+themselves, while she went fishing up the brook under the alders. I was
+watching the young herons through my glass when I saw a sudden rush in
+the tall grass near them. All three humped themselves, heron fashion, on
+the instant. Two got away safely; the other had barely spread his wings
+when a black animal leaped out of the grass for his neck and pulled him
+down, flapping and croaking desperately.
+
+I pulled up my killick on the instant and paddled over to see what was
+going on, and what the creature was that had leaped out of the grass.
+Before my paddle had swung a dozen strokes I saw the alders by the brook
+open swiftly, and Mother Quoskh sailed out and drove like an arrow
+straight at the struggling wing tips, which still flapped spasmodically
+above the grass. Almost before her feet had dropped to a solid landing
+she struck two fierce, blinding, downward blows of her great wings. Her
+neck curved back and shot straight out, driving the keen six-inch bill
+before it, quicker than ever a Roman arm drove its javelin. Above the
+_lap-lap_ of my canoe I heard a savage cry of pain; the same black
+animal leaped up out of the tangled grass, snapping for the neck; and a
+desperate battle began, with short gasping croaks and snarls that made
+caution unnecessary as I sped over to see who the robber was, and how
+Quoskh was faring in the good fight.
+
+The canoe shot up behind a point where, looking over the low bank, I had
+the arena directly under my eye. The animal was a fisher--black-cat the
+trappers call him--the most savage and powerful fighter of his size in
+the whole world, I think. In the instant that I first saw him, quicker
+than thought he had hurled himself twice at the towering bird's breast.
+Each time he was met by a lightning blow in the face from Quoskh's
+stiffened wing. His teeth ground the big quills to pulp; his claws tore
+them into shreds; but he got no grip in the feathery mass, and he
+slipped, clawing and snarling, into the grass, only to spring again like
+a flash. Again the stiff wing blow; but this time his jump was higher;
+one claw gripped the shoulder, tore its way through flying feathers to
+the bone, while his weight dragged the big bird down. Then Quoskh
+shortened her neck in a great curve. Like a snake it glided over the
+edge of her own wing for two short, sharp down-thrusts of the deadly
+javelin--so quick that my eye caught only the double yellow flash of it.
+With a sharp screech the black-cat leaped away and whirled towards me
+blindly. One eye was gone; an angry red welt showed just over the
+other, telling how narrowly the second thrust had missed its mark.
+
+A shiver ran over me as I remembered how nearly I had once come myself
+to the black-cat's condition, and from the same keen weapon. I was a
+small boy at the time, following a big, good-natured hunter that I met
+in the woods, one day, from pure love of the wilds and for the glory of
+carrying the game bag. He shot a great blue heron, which fell with a
+broken wing into some soft mud and water grass. Carelessly he sent me to
+fetch it, not caring to wet his own feet. As I ran up, the heron lay
+resting quietly, his neck drawn back, his long keen bill pointing always
+straight at my face. I had never seen so big a bird before, and bent
+over him wondering at his long bill, admiring his intensely bright eye.
+
+I did not know then--what I have since learned well--that you can always
+tell when the rush or spring or blow of any beast or bird--or of any
+man, for that matter--will surely come by watching the eye closely.
+There is a fire that blazes in the eye before the blow comes, before
+ever a muscle has stirred to do the brain's quick bidding. As I bent
+over, fascinated by the keen, bright look of the wounded bird, and
+reached down my hand to pick him up, there was a flash deep in the eye,
+like the glint of sunshine from a mirror, and I dodged instinctively.
+Well for me that I did so. Something shot by my face like lightning,
+opening up a long red gash across my left temple from eye-brow to ear.
+As I jumped I heard a careless laugh. "Look out, Sonny, he may bite
+you--Gosh! what a close call!" And with a white, scared face, as he saw
+the ugly wound that the heron's beak had opened, he dragged me away as
+if there had been a bear in the water grass.
+
+The black-cat had not yet received punishment enough. He is one of the
+largest of the weasel family, and has a double measure of the weasel's
+savageness and tenacity. He darted about the heron in a quick, nervous,
+jumping circle, looking for an opening behind; while Quoskh lifted her
+great torn wings as a shield and turned slowly on the defensive, so as
+always to face the danger. A dozen times the fisher jumped, filling the
+air with feathers; a dozen times the stiffened wings struck down to
+intercept his spring, and every blow was followed by a swift javelin
+thrust. Then, as the fisher crouched snarling in the grass, off his
+guard for an instant, I saw Mother Quoskh take a sudden step forward,
+her first offensive move--just as I had seen her twenty times at the
+finish of a frog stalk--and her bill shot down with the whole power
+of her long neck behind it. A harsh screech of pain followed the swift
+blow; then the fisher wobbled away with blind, uncertain jumps towards
+the shelter of the woods.
+
+[Illustration: "A DOZEN TIMES THE FISHER JUMPED, FILLING THE AIR WITH
+FEATHERS"]
+
+And now, with her savage enemy in full flight, a fierce, hot anger
+seemed to flare within the mother heron, burning out all the previous
+cool, calculating defense. Her wings heaved aloft, as the soldiers of
+old threw up their shields in the moment of victory; while her whole
+frame seemed to swell with power, like a hero whose fight is won. She
+darted after the fisher, first on the run, then with heavy wing beats,
+till she headed him and with savage blows of pinion and beak drove him
+back, seeing nothing, guided only by fear and instinct, towards the
+water. For five minutes more she chevied him hither and yon through the
+trampled grass, driving him from water to bush and back again, jabbing
+him at every turn; till a rustle of leaves invited him, and he dashed
+blindly into thick underbrush, where her broad wings could not follow.
+Then with marvelous watchfulness she saw me standing near in my canoe;
+and without a thought, apparently, for the young heron lying so still in
+the grass close beside her, she spread her torn wings and flapped away
+heavily in the path of her more fortunate younglings.
+
+I followed the fisher's trail into the woods and found him curled up in
+a hollow stump. He made slight resistance as I pulled him out. All his
+ferocity was already lulled to sleep in the vague, dreamy numbness which
+Nature always sends to her stricken creatures. He suffered nothing,
+apparently, though he was fearfully wounded; he just wanted to be let
+alone. Both eyes were gone, and there was nothing left for me except to
+finish mercifully what little Quoskh had left undone.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When September came, and family cares were over, the colony beyond the
+beaver pond scattered widely, returning each one to the shy, wild,
+solitary life that Quoskh likes best. Almost anywhere, in the loneliest
+places, I might come upon a solitary heron stalking frogs, or chumming
+little fish, or treading the soft mud expectantly, like a clam digger,
+to find where the mussels were hidden by means of his long toes; or
+just standing still to enjoy the sleepy sunshine till the late afternoon
+came, when he likes best to go abroad.
+
+They slept no more on the big nest, standing like sentinels against the
+twilight glow and the setting moon; but each one picked out a good spot
+on the shore and slept as best he could on one leg, waiting for the
+early fishing. It was astonishing how carefully even the young birds
+picked out a safe position. By day they would stand like statues in the
+shade of a bank or among the tall grasses, where they were almost
+invisible by reason of their soft colors, and wait for hours for fish
+and frogs to come to them. By night each one picked out a spot on the
+clean open shore, off a point, generally, where he could see up and
+down, where there was no grass to hide an enemy, and where the bushes on
+the bank were far enough away so that he could hear the slight rustle of
+leaves before the creature that made it was within springing distance.
+And there he would sleep safe through the long night, unless disturbed
+by my canoe or by some other prowler. Herons see almost as well by night
+as by day, and their ears are keen as a weasel's; so I could never get
+near enough to surprise them, however silently I paddled. I would hear
+only a startled rush of wings, and then a questioning call as they
+sailed over me before winging away to quieter beaches.
+
+If I were jacking, with a light blazing brightly before me in my canoe,
+to see what night folk I might surprise on the shore, Quoskh was the
+only one for whom my jack had no fascination. Deer and moose, foxes and
+wild ducks, frogs and fish,--all seemed equally charmed by the great
+wonder of a light shining silently out of the vast darkness. I saw them
+all, at different times, and glided almost up to them before timidity
+drove them away from the strange bright marvel. But Quoskh was not to be
+watched in that way, nor to be caught by any such trick. I would see a
+vague form on the far edge of the light's pathway; catch the bright
+flash of either eye as he swung his weather-vane head; then the vague
+form would slide into the upper darkness. A moment's waiting; then,
+above me and behind, where the light did not dazzle his eyes, I would
+hear his night cry--with more of anger than of questioning in it--and as
+I turned the jack upward I would catch a single glimpse of his broad
+wings sailing over the lake. Nor would he ever come back, like the fox
+on the bank, for a second look to be quite sure what I was.
+
+When the bright, moonlit nights came, there was uneasiness in Quoskh's
+wild breast. The solitary life that he loves best claimed him by day;
+but at night the old gregarious instinct drew him again to his fellows.
+Once, when drifting over the beaver pond through the delicate witchery
+of the moonlight, I heard five or six of the great birds croaking
+excitedly at the heronry, which they had deserted weeks before. The
+lake, and especially the lonely little pond at the end of the trail, was
+lovelier than ever before; but something in the south was calling him
+away. I think that Quoskh was also moonstruck, as so many wild creatures
+are; for, instead of sleeping quietly on the shore, he spent his time
+circling aimlessly over the lake and woods, crying his name aloud, or
+calling wildly to his fellows.
+
+At midnight of the day before I broke camp, I was out on the lake for a
+last paddle in the moonlight. The night was perfect,--clear, cool,
+intensely still. Not a ripple broke the great burnished surface of the
+lake; a silver pathway stretched away and away over the bow of my
+gliding canoe, leading me on to where the great forest stood, silent,
+awake, expectant, and flooded through all its dim, mysterious arches
+with marvelous light. The wilderness never sleeps. If it grow silent, it
+is to listen. To-night the woods were tense as a waiting fox, watching
+to see what new thing would come out of the lake, or what strange
+mystery would be born under their own soft shadows.
+
+Quoskh was abroad too, bewitched by the moonlight. I heard him calling
+and paddled down. He knew me long before he was anything more to me than
+a voice of the night, and swept up to meet me. For the first time after
+darkness fell I saw him--just a vague, gray shadow with edges touched
+softly with silver light, which whirled once over my canoe and looked
+down into it. Then he vanished; and from far over on the edge of the
+waiting woods, where the mystery was deepest, came a cry, a challenge, a
+riddle, the night's wild question which no man has ever yet
+answered--_Quoskh? quoskh?_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+UNK WUNK THE PORCUPINE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+A rustling in the brakes just outside my little tent roused me from a
+light slumber. There it was again! the push of some heavy animal trying
+to move noiselessly through the tangle close at hand; while from the old
+lumber camp in the midst of the clearing a low gnawing sound floated up
+through the still night. I sat up quickly to listen; but at the slight
+movement all was quiet again. The night prowlers had heard me and were
+on their guard.
+
+One need have no fear of things that come round in the night. They are
+much shyer than you are, and can see you better; so that, if you blunder
+towards them, they mistake your blindness for courage, and take to their
+heels promptly. As I stepped out there was a double rush in some bushes
+behind my tent, and by the light of a half-moon I caught one glimpse of
+a bear and her cub jumping away for the shelter of the woods.
+
+The gnawing still went on behind the old shanty by the river. "Another
+cub!" I thought--for I was new to the big woods--and stole down to peek
+by the corner of the camp, in whose yard I had pitched my tent the first
+night out in the wilderness.
+
+There was an old molasses hogshead lying just beyond the log camp, its
+mouth looking black as ink in the moonlight, and the scratching-gnawing
+sounds went on steadily within its shadow. "He's inside," I thought with
+elation, "scraping off the crusted sugar. Now to catch him!"
+
+I stole round the camp, so as to bring the closed end of the hogshead
+between me and the prize, crept up breathlessly, and with a quick jerk
+hove the old tub up on end, trapping the creature inside. There was a
+thump, a startled scratching and rustling, a violent rocking of the
+hogshead, which I tried to hold down; then all was silent in the trap.
+"I've got him!" I thought, forgetting all about the old she-bear, and
+shouted for Simmo to wake up and bring the ax.
+
+We drove a ring of stakes close about the hogshead, weighted it down
+with heavy logs, and turned in to sleep. In the morning, with cooler
+judgment, we decided that a bear cub was too troublesome a pet to keep
+in a tent; so I stood by with a rifle while Simmo hove off the logs and
+cut the stakes, keeping a wary eye on me, meanwhile, to see how far he
+might trust his life to my nerve in case the cub should be big and
+troublesome; for an Indian takes no chances. A stake fell; the hogshead
+toppled over by a push from within; Simmo sprang away with a yell; and
+out wobbled a big porcupine, the biggest I ever saw, and tumbled away
+straight towards my tent. After him went the Indian, making sweeping
+cuts at the stupid thing with his ax, and grunting his derision at my
+bear cub.
+
+Halfway to the tent Unk Wunk stumbled across a bit of pork rind, and
+stopped to nose it daintily. I caught Simmo's arm and stayed the blow
+that would have made an end of my catch. Then, between us, Unk Wunk sat
+up on his haunches, took the pork in his fore paws and sucked the salt
+out of it, as if he had never a concern and never an enemy in the wide
+world. A half hour later he loafed into my tent, where I sat repairing a
+favorite salmon fly that some hungry sea-trout had torn to tatters, and
+drove me unceremoniously out of my own bailiwick in his search for more
+salt.
+
+Such a philosopher, whom no prison can dispossess of his peace of mind,
+and whom no danger can deprive of his simple pleasures, deserves more
+consideration than the naturalists have ever given him. I resolved on
+the spot to study him more carefully. As if to discourage all such
+attempts and make himself a target for my rifle, he nearly spoiled my
+canoe the next night by gnawing a hole through the bark and ribs for
+some suggestion of salt that only his greedy nose could possibly have
+found.
+
+Once I found him on the trail, some distance from camp, and, having
+nothing better to do, I attempted to drive him home. My intention was to
+share hospitality; to give him a bit of bacon, and then study him as I
+ate my own dinner. He turned at the first suggestion of being driven,
+came straight at my legs, and by a vicious slap of his tail left some of
+his quills in me before I could escape. Then I drove him in the opposite
+direction, whereupon he turned and bolted past me; and when I arrived at
+camp he was busily engaged in gnawing the end from Simmo's ax handle.
+
+However you take him, Unk Wunk is one of the mysteries. He is a
+perpetual question scrawled across the forest floor, which nobody
+pretends to answer; a problem that grows only more puzzling as you study
+to solve it.
+
+Of all the wild creatures he is the only one that has no intelligent
+fear of man, and that never learns, either by instinct or experience,
+to avoid man's presence. He is everywhere in the wilderness, until he
+changes what he would call his mind; and then he is nowhere, and you
+cannot find him. He delights in solitude, and cares not for his own
+kind; yet now and then you will stumble upon a whole convention of
+porcupines at the base of some rocky hill, each one loafing around,
+rattling his quills, grunting his name _Unk Wunk! Unk Wunk!_ and doing
+nothing else all day long.
+
+You meet him to-day, and he is timid as a rabbit; to-morrow he comes
+boldly into your tent and drives you out, if you happen to be caught
+without a club handy. He never has anything definite to do, nor any
+place to go to; yet stop him at any moment and he will risk his life to
+go just a foot farther. Now try to drive or lead him another foot in the
+same direction, and he will bolt back, as full of contrariness as two
+pigs on a road, and let himself be killed rather than go where he was
+heading a moment before. He is perfectly harmless to every creature; yet
+he lies still and kills the savage fisher that attacks him, or even the
+big Canada lynx, that no other creature in the woods would dare to
+tackle.
+
+Above all these puzzling contradictions is the prime question of how
+Nature ever produced such a creature, and what she intended doing with
+him; for he seems to have no place nor use in the natural economy of
+things. Recently the Maine legislature has passed a bill forbidding the
+shooting of porcupines, on the curious ground that he is the only wild
+animal that can easily be caught and killed without a gun; so that a man
+lost in the woods need not starve to death but may feed on porcupine, as
+the Indians sometimes do. This is the only suggestion thus far, from a
+purely utilitarian standpoint, that Unk Wunk is no mistake, but may have
+his uses.
+
+Once, to test the law and to provide for possible future contingencies,
+I added Unk Wunk to my bill of fare--a vile, malodorous suffix that
+might delight a lover of strong cheese. It is undoubtedly a good law;
+but I cannot now imagine any one being grateful for it, unless the stern
+alternative were death or porcupine.
+
+The prowlers of the woods would eat him gladly enough, but that they are
+sternly forbidden. They cannot even touch him without suffering the
+consequences. It would seem as if Nature, when she made this block of
+stupidity in a world of wits, provided for him tenderly, as she would
+for a half-witted or idiot child. He is the only wild creature for whom
+starvation has no terrors. All the forest is his storehouse. Buds and
+tender shoots delight him in their season; and when the cold becomes
+bitter in its intensity, and the snow packs deep, and all other
+creatures grow gaunt and savage in their hunger, Unk Wunk has only to
+climb the nearest tree, chisel off the rough, outer shell with his
+powerful teeth, and then feed full on the soft inner layer of bark,
+which satisfies him perfectly and leaves him as fat as an alderman.
+
+Of hungry beasts Unk Wunk has no fear whatever. Generally they let him
+severely alone, knowing that to touch him would be more foolish than to
+mouth a sunfish or to bite a Peter-grunter. If, driven by hunger in the
+killing March days, they approach him savagely, he simply rolls up and
+lies still, protected by an armor that only a steel glove might safely
+explore, and that has no joint anywhere visible to the keenest eye.
+
+Now and then some cunning lynx or weasel, wise from experience but
+desperate with hunger, throws himself flat on the ground, close by Unk
+Wunk, and works his nose cautiously under the terrible bur, searching
+for the neck or the underside of the body, where there are no quills.
+One grip of the powerful jaws, one taste of blood in the famished throat
+of the prowler--and that is the end of both animals. For Unk Wunk has a
+weapon that no prowler of the woods ever calculates upon. His broad,
+heavy tail is armed with hundreds of barbs, smaller but more deadly than
+those on his back; and he swings this weapon with the vicious sweep of
+a rattlesnake. It is probably this power of driving his barbs home by a
+lightning blow of his tail that has given rise to the curious delusion
+that Unk Wunk can shoot his quills at a distance, as if he were filled
+with compressed air--which is, of course, a harmless absurdity that
+keeps people from meddling with him too closely.
+
+Sometimes, when attacked, Unk Wunk covers his face with this weapon.
+More often he sticks his head under a root or into a hollow log, leaving
+his tail out ready for action. At the first touch of his enemy the tail
+snaps right and left quicker than thought, driving the hostile head and
+sides full of the deadly quills, from which there is no escape; for
+every effort, every rub and writhe of pain, only drives them deeper and
+deeper, till they rest in heart or brain and finish their work.
+
+Mooween the bear is the only one of the wood folk who has learned the
+trick of attacking Unk Wunk without injury to himself. If, when very
+hungry, he finds a porcupine, he never attacks him directly,--he knows
+too well the deadly sting of the barbs for that,--but bothers and
+irritates the porcupine by flipping earth at him, until at last Unk Wunk
+rolls all his quills outward and lies still. Then Mooween, with immense
+caution, slides one paw under him and with a quick flip hurls him
+against the nearest tree, and knocks the life out of him.
+
+[Illustration: "BOTHERS AND IRRITATES THE PORCUPINE BY FLIPPING EARTH AT
+HIM"]
+
+If he find Unk Wunk in a tree, he will sometimes climb after him and,
+standing as near as the upper limbs allow, will push and tug mightily to
+shake him off. That is usually a vain attempt; for the creature that
+sleeps sound and secure through a gale in the tree-tops has no concern
+for the ponderous shakings of a bear. In that case Mooween, if he can
+get near enough without risking a fall from too delicate branches, will
+wrench off the limb on which Unk Wunk is sleeping and throw it to the
+ground. That also is usually a vain proceeding; for before Mooween can
+scramble down after his game, Unk Wunk is already up another tree and
+sleeping, as if nothing had happened, on another branch.
+
+Other prowlers, with less strength and cunning than Mooween, fare badly
+when driven by famine to attack this useless creature of the woods, for
+whom Nature nevertheless cares so tenderly. Trappers have told me that
+in the late winter, when hunger is sharpest, they sometimes catch a
+wild-cat or lynx or fisher in their traps with his mouth and sides full
+of porcupine quills, showing to what straits he had been driven for
+food. These rare trapped animals are but an indication of many a silent
+struggle that only the trees and stars are witnesses of; and the
+trapper's deadfall, with its quick, sure blow, is only a merciful ending
+to what else had been a long, slow, painful trail, ending at last under
+a hemlock tip with the snow for a covering.
+
+Last summer, in a little glade in the wilderness, I found two skeletons,
+one of a porcupine, the other of a large lynx, lying side by side. In
+the latter three quills lay where the throat had once been; the shaft of
+another stood firmly out of an empty eye orbit; a dozen more lay about
+in such a way that one could not tell by what path they had entered the
+body. It needed no great help of imagination to read the story here of a
+starving lynx, too famished to remember caution, and of a dinner that
+cost a life.
+
+Once also I saw a curious bit of animal education in connection with Unk
+Wunk. Two young owls had begun hunting, under direction of the mother
+bird, along the foot of a ridge in the early twilight. From my canoe I
+saw one of the young birds swoop downward at something in the bushes on
+the shore. An instant later the big mother owl followed with a sharp,
+angry _hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!_ of warning. The youngster dropped into the
+bushes; but the mother fairly knocked him away from his game in her
+fierce rush, and led him away silently into the woods. I went over on
+the instant, and found a young porcupine in the bushes where the owl had
+swooped, while two more were eating lily stems farther along the shore.
+
+Evidently Kookooskoos, who swoops by instinct at everything that moves,
+must be taught by wiser heads the wisdom of letting certain things
+severely alone.
+
+That he needs this lesson was clearly shown by an owl that my friend
+once shot at twilight. There was a porcupine quill imbedded for nearly
+its entire length in his leg. Two more were slowly working their way
+into his body; and the shaft of another projected from the corner of his
+mouth like a toothpick. Whether he were a young owl and untaught, or
+whether, driven by hunger, he had thrown counsel to the winds and
+swooped at Unk Wunk, will never be known. That he should attack so large
+an animal as the porcupine would seem to indicate that, like the lynx,
+hunger had probably driven him beyond all consideration for his mother's
+teaching.
+
+Unk Wunk, on his part, knows so very little that it may fairly be
+doubted whether he ever had the discipline of the school of the woods.
+Whether he rolls himself into a chestnut bur by instinct, as the possum
+plays dead, or whether that is a matter of slow learning is yet to be
+discovered. Whether his dense stupidity, Which disarms his enemies and
+brings him safe out of a hundred dangers where wits would fail, is,
+like the possum's blank idiocy, only a mask for the deepest wisdom; or
+whether he is quite as stupid as he acts and looks, is also a question.
+
+More and more I incline to the former possibility. He has learned
+unconsciously the strength of lying still. A thousand generations of fat
+and healthy porcupines have taught him the folly of trouble and rush and
+worry in a world that somebody else has planned, and for which somebody
+else is plainly responsible. So he makes no effort and lives in profound
+peace. But this also leaves you with a question which may take you
+overseas to explore Hindu philosophy. Indeed, if you have one question
+when you meet Unk Wunk for the first time, you will have twenty after
+you have studied him for a season or two. His paragraph in the woods'
+journal begins and ends with a question mark, and a dash for what is
+left unsaid.
+
+The only indication of deliberate plan and effort that I have ever noted
+in Unk Wunk was in regard to teaching two young ones the simple art of
+swimming,--which porcupines, by the way, rarely use, and for which there
+seems to be no necessity. I was drifting along the shore in my canoe
+when I noticed a mother porcupine and two little ones, a prickly pair
+indeed, on a log that reached out into the lake. She had brought them
+there to make her task of weaning them more easy by giving them a taste
+of lily buds. When they had gathered and eaten all the buds and stems
+that they could reach, she deliberately pushed both little ones into the
+water. When they attempted to scramble back she pushed them off again,
+and dropped in beside them and led them to a log farther down the shore,
+where there were more lily pads.
+
+The numerous hollow quills floated them high in the water, like so many
+corks, and they paddled off with less effort than any other young
+animals that I have ever seen in the water. But whether this were a
+swimming lesson, or a rude direction to shift and browse for themselves,
+is still a question. With the exception of one solitary old genius, who
+had an astonishing way of amusing himself and scaring all the other wood
+folk, this was the only plain bit of fore-thought and sweet
+reasonableness that I have ever found in a porcupine.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A LAZY FELLOW'S FUN
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+A new sound, a purring rustle of leaves, stopped me instantly as I
+climbed the beech ridge, one late afternoon, to see what wood folk I
+might surprise feeding on the rich mast. _Pr-r-r-r-ush, pr-r-r-r-ush!_ a
+curious combination of the rustling of squirrels' feet and the soft,
+crackling purr of an eagle's wings, growing nearer, clearer every
+instant. I slipped quietly behind the nearest tree to watch and listen.
+
+Something was coming down the hill; but what? It was not an animal
+running. No animal that I knew, unless he had gone suddenly crazy, would
+ever make such a racket to tell everybody where he was. It was not
+squirrels playing, nor grouse scratching among the new-fallen leaves.
+Their alternate rustlings and silences are unmistakable. It was not a
+bear shaking down the ripe beechnuts--not heavy enough for that, yet too
+heavy for the feet of any prowler of the woods to make on his stealthy
+hunting. _Pr-r-r-r-ush, swish! thump!_ Something struck the stem of a
+bush heavily and brought down a rustling shower of leaves; then out from
+under the low branches rolled something that I had never seen before,--a
+heavy, grayish ball, as big as a half-bushel basket, so covered over
+with leaves that one could not tell what was inside. It was as if some
+one had covered a big kettle with glue and sent it rolling down the
+hill, picking up dead leaves as it went. So the queer thing tumbled past
+my feet, purring, crackling, growing bigger and more ragged every moment
+as it gathered up more leaves, till it reached the bottom of a sharp
+pitch and lay still.
+
+I stole after it cautiously. Suddenly it moved, unrolled itself. Then
+out of the ragged mass came a big porcupine. He shook himself,
+stretched, wobbled around a moment, as if his long roll had made him
+dizzy; then he meandered aimlessly along the foot of the ridge, his
+quills stuck full of dead leaves, looking big and strange enough to
+frighten anything that might meet him in the woods.
+
+Here was a new trick, a new problem concerning one of the stupidest of
+all the wood folk. When you meet a porcupine and bother him, he usually
+rolls himself into a huge pincushion with all its points outward, covers
+his face with his thorny tail, and lies still, knowing well that you
+cannot touch him anywhere without getting the worst of it. Now had he
+been bothered by some animal and rolled himself up where it was so steep
+that he lost his balance, and so tumbled unwillingly down the long hill;
+or, with his stomach full of sweet beechnuts, had he rolled down lazily
+to avoid the trouble of walking; or is Unk Wunk brighter than he looks
+to discover the joy of roller coasting and the fun of feeling dizzy
+afterwards?
+
+There was nothing on the hill above, no rustle or suggestion of any
+hunting animal to answer the question; so I followed Unk Wunk on his
+aimless wanderings along the foot of the ridge.
+
+A slight movement far ahead caught my eye, and I saw a hare gliding and
+dodging among the brown ferns. He came slowly in our direction, hopping
+and halting and wiggling his nose at every bush, till he heard our
+approach and rose on his hind legs to listen. He gave a great jump as
+Unk Wunk hove into sight, covered all over with the dead leaves that
+his barbed quills had picked up on his way downhill, and lay quiet where
+he thought the ferns would hide him.
+
+The procession drew nearer. Moktaques, full of curiosity, lifted his
+head cautiously out of the ferns and sat up straight on his haunches
+again, his paws crossed, his eyes shining in fear and curiosity at the
+strange animal rustling along and taking the leaves with him. For a
+moment wonder held him as still as the stump beside him; then he bolted
+into the bush in a series of high, scared jumps, and I heard him
+scurrying crazily in a half circle around us.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Unk Wunk gave no heed to the interruption, but yew-yawed hither and yon
+after his stupid nose. Like every other porcupine that I have followed,
+he seemed to have nothing whatever to do, and nowhere in the wide world
+to go. He loafed along lazily, too full to eat any of the beechnuts
+that he nosed daintily out of the leaves. He tried a bit of bark here
+and there, only to spit it out again. Once he started up the hill; but
+it was too steep for a lazy fellow with a full stomach. Again he tried
+it; but it was not steep enough to roll down afterwards. Suddenly he
+turned and came back to see who it was that followed him about.
+
+I kept very quiet, and he brushed two or three times past my legs,
+eyeing me sleepily. Then he took to nosing a beechnut from under my
+foot, as if I were no more interesting than Alexander was to Diogenes.
+
+I had never made friends with a porcupine,--he is too briery a fellow
+for intimacies,--but now with a small stick I began to search him
+gently, wondering if, under all that armor of spears and brambles, I
+might not find a place where it would please him to be scratched. At the
+first touch he rolled himself together, all his spears sticking straight
+out on every side, like a huge chestnut bur. One could not touch him
+anywhere without being pierced by a dozen barbs. Gradually, however, as
+the stick touched him gently and searched out the itching spots under
+his armor, he unrolled himself and put his nose under my foot again. He
+did not want the beechnut; but he did want to nose it out. Unk Wunk is
+like a pig. He has very few things to do besides eating; but when he
+does start to go anywhere or do anything he always does it. Then I bent
+down to touch him with my hand.
+
+That was a mistake. He felt the difference in the touch instantly. Also
+he smelled the salt in my hand, for a taste of which Unk Wunk will put
+aside all his laziness and walk a mile, if need be. He tried to grasp
+the hand, first with his paws, then with his mouth; but I had too much
+fear of his great cutting teeth to let him succeed. Instead I touched
+him behind the ears, feeling my way gingerly through the thick tangle of
+spines, testing them cautiously to see how easily they would pull out.
+
+The quills were very loosely set in, and every arrowheaded barb was as
+sharp as a needle. Anything that pressed against them roughly would
+surely be pierced; the spines would pull out of the skin, and work their
+way rapidly into the unfortunate hand or paw or nose that touched them.
+Each spine was like a South Sea Islander's sword, set for half its
+length with shark's teeth. Once in the flesh it would work its own way,
+unless pulled out with a firm hand spite of pain and terrible
+laceration. No wonder Unk Wunk has no fear or anxiety when he rolls
+himself into a ball, protected at every point by such terrible weapons.
+
+The hand moved very cautiously as it went down his side, within reach of
+Unk Wunk's one swift weapon. There were thousands of the spines, rough
+as a saw's edge, crossing each other in every direction, yet with every
+point outward. Unk Wunk was irritated, probably, because he could not
+have the salt he wanted. As the hand came within range, his tail snapped
+back like lightning. I was watching for the blow, but was not half quick
+enough. At the rustling snap, like the voice of a steel trap, I jerked
+my hand away. Two of his tail spines came with it; and a dozen more were
+in my coat sleeve. I jumped away as he turned, and so escaped the quick
+double swing of his tail at my legs. Then he rolled into a chestnut bur
+again, and proclaimed mockingly at every point: "Touch me if you dare!"
+
+I pulled the two quills with sharp jerks out of my hand, pushed all the
+others through my coat sleeve, and turned to Unk Wunk again, sucking my
+wounded hand, which pained me intensely. "All your own fault," I kept
+telling myself, to keep from whacking him across the nose, his one
+vulnerable point, with my stick.
+
+Unk Wunk, on his part, seemed to have forgotten the incident. He
+unrolled himself slowly and loafed along the foot of the ridge, his
+quills spreading and rustling as he went, as if there were not such a
+thing as an enemy or an inquisitive man in all the woods.
+
+He had an idea in his head by this time and was looking for something.
+As I followed close behind him, he would raise himself against a small
+tree, survey it solemnly for a moment or two, and go on unsatisfied. A
+breeze had come down from the mountain and was swaying all the tree-tops
+above him. He would look up steadily at the tossing branches, and then
+hurry on to survey the next little tree he met, with paws raised against
+the trunk and dull eyes following the motion overhead.
+
+At last he found what he wanted,--two tall saplings growing close
+together and rubbing each other as the wind swayed them. He climbed one
+of these clumsily, higher and higher, till the slender top bent with his
+weight towards the other. Then he reached out to grasp the second top
+with his fore paws, hooked his hind claws firmly into the first, and lay
+there binding the tree-tops together, while the wind rose and began to
+rock him in his strange cradle.
+
+Wider and wilder he swung, now stretched out thin, like a rubber string,
+his quills lying hard and flat against his sides as the tree-tops
+separated in the wind; now jammed up against himself as they came
+together again, pressing him into a flat ring with spines sticking
+straight out, like a chestnut bur that has been stepped upon. And there
+he swayed for a full hour, till it grew too dark to see him, stretching,
+contracting, stretching, contracting, as if he were an accordion and the
+wind were playing him. His only note, meanwhile, was an occasional
+squealing grunt of satisfaction after some particularly good stretch, or
+when the motion changed and both trees rocked together in a wide, wild,
+exhilarating swing. Now and then the note was answered, farther down the
+ridge, by another porcupine going to sleep in his lofty cradle. A storm
+was coming; and Unk Wunk, who is one of the wood's best barometers to
+foretell the changing weather, was crying it aloud where all might hear.
+
+So my question was answered unexpectedly. Unk Wunk was out for fun that
+afternoon, and had rolled down the hill for the joy of the swift motion
+and the dizzy feeling afterwards, as other wood folk do. I have watched
+young foxes, whose den was on a steep hill side, rolling down one after
+the other, and sometime varying the programme by having one cub roll as
+fast as he could, while another capered alongside, snapping and worrying
+him in his brain-muddling tumble.
+
+That is all very well for foxes. One expects to find such an idea in
+wise little heads. But who taught Unk Wunk to roll downhill and stick
+his spines full of dry leaves to scare the wood folk? And when did he
+learn to use the tree-tops for his swing and the wind for his motive
+power?
+
+Perhaps--since most of what the wood folk know is a matter of learning,
+not of instinct--his mother teaches him some things that we have never
+yet seen. If so, Unk Wunk has more in his sleepy, stupid head than we
+have given him credit for, and there is a very interesting lesson
+awaiting him who shall first find and enter the porcupine school.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Partridges' Roll Call
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+I was fishing, one September afternoon, in the pool at the foot of the
+lake, trying in twenty ways, as the dark evergreen shadows lengthened
+across the water, to beguile some wary old trout into taking my flies.
+They lived there, a score of them, in a dark well among the lily pads,
+where a cold spring bubbled up from the bottom; and their moods and
+humors were a perpetual source of worry or amusement, according to the
+humor of the fisherman himself.
+
+For days at a time they would lie in the deep shade of the lily pads in
+stupid or sullen indifference. Then nothing tempted them. Flies, worms,
+crickets, redfins, bumblebees,--all at the end of dainty hair leaders,
+were drawn with crinkling wavelets over their heads, or dropped gently
+beside them; but they only swirled sullenly aside, grouty as King Ahab
+when he turned his face to the wall and would eat no bread.
+
+At such times scores of little fish swarmed out of the pads and ran riot
+in the pool. Chub, shiners, "punkin-seeds," perch, boiled up at your
+flies, or chased each other in savage warfare through the forbidden
+water, which seemed to intoxicate them by its cool freshness. You had
+only to swing your canoe up near the shadowy edge of the pool and draw
+your cast once across the open water to know whether or not you would
+eat trout for breakfast. If the small fish chased your flies, then you
+might as well go home or study nature; you would certainly get no trout.
+But you could never tell when the change would come. With the smallest
+occasion sometimes--a coolness in the air, the run of a cat's-paw
+breeze, a cloud shadow drifting over--a transformation would sweep over
+the speckled Ahabs lying deep under the lily pads. Some blind, unknown
+warning would run through the pool before ever a trout had changed his
+position. Looking over the side of your canoe you would see the little
+fish darting helter-skelter away among the pads, seeking safety in
+shallow water, leaving the pool to its tyrant masters. Now is the time
+to begin casting; your trout are ready to rise.
+
+A playful mood would often follow the testy humor. The plunge of a
+three-pound fish, the slap-dash of a dozen smaller ones would startle
+you into nervous casting. But again you might as well spare your
+efforts, which only served to acquaint the trout with the best frauds
+in your fly book. They would rush at Hackle or Coachman or Silver
+Doctor, swirl under it, jump over it, but never take it in. They played
+with floating leaves; their wonderful eyes caught the shadow of a
+passing mosquito across the silver mirror of their roof, and their broad
+tails flung them up to intercept it; but they wanted nothing more than
+play or exercise, and they would not touch your flies.
+
+Once in a way there would come a day when your study and patience found
+their rich reward. The slish of a line, the flutter of a fly dropping
+softly on the farther edge of the pool--and then the shriek of your
+reel, buzzing up the quiet hillside, was answered by a loud snort, as
+the deer that lived there bounded away in alarm, calling her two fawns
+to follow. But you scarcely noticed; your head and hands were too full,
+trying to keep the big trout away from the lily pads, where you would
+certainly lose him with your light tackle.
+
+On the afternoon of which I write the trout were neither playful nor
+sullen. No more were they hungry. The first cast of my midget flies
+across the pool brought no answer. That was good; the little fish had
+been ordered out, evidently. Larger flies followed; but the big trout
+neither played with them nor let them alone. They followed cautiously, a
+foot astern, to the near edge of the lily pads, till they saw me and
+swirled down again to their cool haunts. They were suspicious clearly;
+and with the lower orders, as with men, the best rule in such a case is
+to act naturally, with more quietness than usual, and give them time to
+get over their suspicion.
+
+As I waited, my flies resting among the pads near the canoe, curious
+sounds came floating down the hillside--_Prut, prut, pr-r-r-rt!
+Whit-kwit? whit-kwit? Pr-r-rt, pr-r-rt! Ooo-it, ooo-it? Pr-r-reeee_!
+this last with a swift burr of wings. And the curious sounds, half
+questioning, half muffled in extreme caution, gave a fleeting impression
+of gliding in and out among the tangled underbrush. "A flock of
+partridges--ruffed grouse," I thought, and turned to listen more
+intently.
+
+The shadows had grown long, with a suggestion of coming night; and other
+ears than mine had heard the sounds with interest. A swifter shadow fell
+on the water, and I looked up quickly to see a big owl sail silently out
+from the opposite hill and perch on a blasted stub overlooking the pool.
+Kookooskoos had been sleeping in a dark spruce when the sounds waked
+him, and he started out instantly, not to hunt--it was still too
+bright--but to locate his game and follow silently to the roosting
+place, near which he would hide and wait till the twilight fell darkly.
+I could see it all in his attitude as he poised forward, swinging his
+round head to and fro, like a dog on an air trail, locating the flock
+accurately before he should take another flight.
+
+Up on the hillside the eager sounds had stopped for a moment, as if some
+strange sixth sense had warned the birds to be silent. The owl was
+puzzled; but I dared not move, because he was looking straight over me.
+Some faint sound, too faint for my ears, made him turn his head, and on
+the instant I reached for the tiny rifle lying before me in the canoe.
+Just as he spread his wings to investigate the new sound, the little
+rifle spoke, and he tumbled heavily to the shore.
+
+"One robber the less," I was thinking, when the canoe swung slightly on
+the water. There was a heavy plunge, a vicious rush of my unheeded line,
+and I seized my rod to find myself fast to a big trout, which had been
+watching my flies from his hiding among the lily pads till his
+suspicions were quieted, and the first slight movement brought him up
+with a rush.
+
+Ten minutes later he lay in my canoe, where I could see him plainly to
+my heart's content. I was waiting for the pool to grow quiet again, when
+a new sound came from the underbrush, a rapid _plop, lop, lop, lop,
+lop_, like the sound in a sunken bottle as water pours in and the air
+rushes out.
+
+There was a brook near the sounds, a lazy little stream that had lost
+itself among the alders and forgotten all its music; and my first
+thought was that some animal was standing in the water to drink, and
+waking the voice of the brook as the current rippled past his legs. The
+canoe glided over to find out what he was, when, in the midst of the
+sounds, came the unmistakable _Whit-kwit?_ of partridges--and there they
+were, just vanishing glimpses of alert forms and keen eyes gliding among
+the tangled alder stems. When near the brook they had changed the soft,
+gossipy chatter, by which a flock holds itself together in the wild
+tangle of the burned lands, into a curious liquid sound, so like the
+gurgling of water by a mossy stone that it would have deceived me
+completely, had I not seen the birds. It was as if they tried to remind
+the little alder brook of the music it had lost far back among the
+hills.
+
+Now I had been straitly charged, on leaving camp, to bring back three
+partridges for our Sunday dinner. My own little flock had grown a bit
+tired of trout and canned foods; and a taste of young broiled grouse,
+which I had recently given them, had left them hungry for more. So I
+left the pool and my fishing rod, just as the trout began to rise, to
+glide into the alders with my pocket rifle.
+
+There were at least a dozen birds there, full-grown and strong of wing,
+that had not yet decided to scatter to the four winds, as had most of
+the coveys which one might meet on the burned lands. All summer long,
+while berries are plenty, the flocks hold together, finding ten pairs of
+quiet eyes much better protection against surprises than one frightened
+pair. Each flock is then under the absolute authority of the mother
+bird; and one who follows them gets some curious and intensely
+interesting glimpses of a partridge's education. If the mother bird is
+killed, by owl or hawk or weasel, the flock still holds together, while
+berries last, under the leadership of one of their own number, more bold
+or cunning than the others. But with the ripening autumn, when the birds
+have learned, or think they have learned, all the sights and sounds and
+dangers of the wilderness, the covey scatters; partly to cover a wider
+range in feeding as food grows scarcer; partly in natural revolt at
+maternal authority, which no bird or animal likes to endure after he has
+once learned to take care of himself.
+
+I followed the flock rapidly, though cautiously, through an interminable
+tangle of alders that bordered the little stream, and learned some
+things about them; though they gave me no chance whatever for a rifle
+shot. The mother was gone; their leader was a foxy bird, the smallest
+of the lot, who kept them moving in dense cover, running, crouching,
+hiding, inquisitive about me and watching me, yet keeping themselves
+beyond reach of harm. All the while the leader talked to them, a curious
+language of cheepings and whistlings; and they answered back with
+questions or sharp exclamations as my head appeared in sight for a
+moment. Where the cover was densest they waited till I was almost upon
+them before they whisked out of sight; and where there was a bit of
+opening they whirred up noisily on strong wings, or sailed swiftly away
+from a fallen log with the noiseless flight that a grouse knows so well
+how to use when the occasion comes.
+
+Already the instinct to scatter was at work among them. During the day
+they had probably been feeding separately along the great hillside; but
+with lengthening shadows they came together again to face the wilderness
+night in the peace and security of the old companionship. And I had
+fortunately been quiet enough at my fishing to hear when the leader
+began to call them together and they had answered, here and there, from
+their feeding.
+
+I gave up following them after a while--they were too quick for me in
+the alder tangle--and came out of the swamp to the ridge. There I ran
+along a deer path and circled down ahead of them to a thicket of cedar,
+where I thought they might pass the night.
+
+Presently I heard them coming--_Whit-kwit? pr-r-r, pr-r-r, prut,
+prut!_--and saw five or six of them running rapidly. The little leader
+saw me at the same instant and dodged back out of sight. Most of his
+flock followed him; but one bird, more inquisitive than the rest, jumped
+to a fallen log, drew himself up straight as a string, and eyed me
+steadily. The little rifle spoke at his head promptly; and I stowed him
+away comfortably, a fine plump bird, in a big pocket of my hunting
+shirt.
+
+At the report another partridge, questioning the unknown sound, flew to
+a thick spruce, pressed close against the trunk to hide himself, and
+stood listening intently. Whether he was waiting to hear the sound
+again, or was frightened and listening for the call of the leader, I
+could not tell. I fired at his head quickly, and saw him sail down
+against the hillside, with a loud thump and a flutter of feathers behind
+him to tell me that he was hard hit.
+
+I followed him up the hill, hearing an occasional flutter of wings to
+guide my feet, till the sounds vanished into a great tangle of
+underbrush and fallen trees. I searched here ten minutes or more in
+vain, then listened in the vast silence for a longer period; but the
+bird had hidden himself away in some hole or covert where an owl might
+pass by without finding him. Reluctantly I turned away toward the swamp.
+
+Close beside me was a fallen log; on my right was another; and the two
+had fallen so as to make the sides of a great angle, their tops resting
+together against the hill. Between the two were several huge trees
+growing among the rocks and underbrush. I climbed upon one of these
+fallen trees and moved along it cautiously, some eight or ten feet above
+the ground, looking down searchingly for a stray brown feather to guide
+me to my lost partridge.
+
+Suddenly the log under my feet began to rock gently. I stopped in
+astonishment, looking for the cause of the strange teetering; but there
+was nothing on the log beside myself. After a moment I went on again,
+looking again for my partridge. Again the log rocked, heavily this time,
+almost throwing me off. Then I noticed that the tip of the other log,
+which lay balanced across a great rock, was under the tip of my log and
+was being pried up by something on the other end. Some animal was there,
+and it flashed upon me suddenly that he was heavy enough to lift my
+weight with his stout lever. I stole along so as to look behind a great
+tree--and there on the other log, not twenty feet away, a big bear was
+standing, twisting himself uneasily, trying to decide whether to go on
+or go back on his unstable footing.
+
+He discovered me at the instant that my face appeared behind the tree.
+Such surprise, such wonder I have seldom seen in an animal's face. For a
+long moment he met my eyes steadily with his. Then he began to twist
+again, while the logs rocked up and down. Again he looked at the strange
+animal on the other log; but the face behind the tree had not moved nor
+changed; the eyes looked steadily into his. With a startled movement he
+plunged off into the underbrush, and but for a swift grip on a branch
+the sudden lurch would have sent me off backward among the rocks. As he
+jumped I heard a swift flutter of wings. I followed it timidly, not
+knowing where the bear was, and in a moment I had the second partridge
+stowed away comfortably with his brother in my hunting shirt.
+
+The rest of the flock had scattered widely by this time. I found one or
+two and followed them; but they dodged away into the thick alders, where
+I could not find their heads quick enough with my rifle sight. After a
+vain, hasty shot or two I went back to my fishing.
+
+Woods and lake were soon quiet again. The trout had stopped rising, in
+one of their sudden moods. A vast silence brooded over the place,
+unbroken by any buzz of my noisy reel, and the twilight shadows were
+growing deeper and longer, when the soft, gliding, questioning chatter
+of partridges came floating out of the alders. The leader was there, in
+the thickest tangle--I had learned in an hour to recognize his peculiar
+_Prut, prut_--and from the hillside and the alder swamp and the big
+evergreens his scattered flock were answering; here a _kwit_, and there
+a _prut_, and beyond a swift burr of wings, all drawing closer and
+closer together.
+
+I had still a third partridge to get for my own hungry flock; so I stole
+swiftly back into the alder swamp. There I found a little game path and
+crept along it on hands and knees, drawing cautiously near to the
+leader's continued calling.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY WOULD TURN THEIR HEADS AND LISTEN INTENTLY"]
+
+In the midst of a thicket of low black alders, surrounded by a perfect
+hedge of bushes, I found him at last. He was on the lower end of a
+fallen log, gliding rapidly up and down, spreading wings and tail and
+budding ruff, as if he were drumming, and sending out his peculiar call
+at every pause. Above him, in a long line on the same log, five other
+partridges were sitting perfectly quiet, save now and then, when an
+answer came to the leader's call, they would turn their heads and listen
+intently till the underbrush parted cautiously and another bird flitted
+up beside them. Then another call, and from the distant hillside a faint
+_kwit-kwit_ and a rush of wings in answer, and another partridge would
+shoot in on swift pinions to pull himself up on the log beside his
+fellows. The line would open hospitably to let him in; then the row grew
+quiet again, as the leader called, turning their heads from side to side
+for the faint answers.
+
+There were nine on the log at last. The calling grew louder and louder;
+yet for several minutes now no answer came back. The flock grew uneasy;
+the leader ran from his log into the brush and back again, calling
+loudly, while a low chatter, the first break in their strange silence,
+ran back and forth through the family on the log. There were others to
+come; but where were they, and why did they tarry? It was growing late;
+already an owl had hooted, and the roosting place was still far away.
+_Prut, prut, pr-r-r-reee!_ called the leader, and the chatter ceased as
+the whole flock listened.
+
+I turned my head to the hillside to listen also for the laggards; but
+there was no answer. Save for the cry of a low-flying loon and the snap
+of a twig--too sharp and heavy for little feet to make--the woods were
+all silent. As I turned to the log again, something warm and heavy
+rested against my side. Then I knew; and with the knowledge came a swift
+thrill of regret that made me feel guilty and out of place in the
+silent woods. The leader was calling, the silent flock were waiting for
+two of their number who would never answer the call again.
+
+I lay scarcely ten yards from the log on which the sad little drama went
+on in the twilight shadows, while the great silence grew deep and
+deeper, as if the wilderness itself were in sympathy and ceased its
+cries to listen. Once, at the first glimpse of the group, I had raised
+my rifle and covered the head of the largest bird; but curiosity to know
+what they were doing held me back. Now a deeper feeling had taken its
+place; the rifle slid from my hand and lay unnoticed among the fallen
+leaves.
+
+Again the leader called. The flock drew itself up, like a row of
+gray-brown statues, every eye bright, every ear listening, till some
+vague sense of fear and danger drew them together; and they huddled on
+the ground in a close group; all but the leader, who stood above them,
+counting them over and over, apparently, and anon sending his cry out
+into the darkening woods.
+
+I took one of the birds out of my pocket and began to smooth the rumpled
+brown feathers. How beautiful he was, how perfectly adapted in form and
+color for the wilderness in which he had lived! And I had taken his
+life, the only thing he had. Its beauty and something deeper, which is
+the sad mystery of all life, were gone forever. All summer long he had
+run about on glad little feet, delighting in nature's abundance, calling
+brightly to his fellows as they glided in and out in eager search
+through the lights and shadows. Fear on the one hand, absolute obedience
+to his mother on the other, had been the two great factors of his life.
+Between them he grew strong, keen, alert, knowing perfectly when to run
+and when to fly and when to crouch motionless, as danger passed close
+with blinded eyes. Then when his strength was perfect, and he glided
+alone through the wilderness coverts in watchful self-dependence--a
+moment's curiosity, a quick eager glance at the strange animal standing
+so still under the cedar, a flash, a noise; and all was over. The call
+of the leader went searching, searching through the woods; but he gave
+no heed any more.
+
+The hand had grown suddenly very tender as it stroked his feathers. I
+had taken his life; I must try to answer for him now. At the thought I
+raised my head and gave the clear _whit-kwit_ of a running partridge.
+Instantly the leader answered; the flock sprang to the log again and
+turned their heads in my direction to listen. Another call, and now the
+flock dropped to the ground and lay close, while the leader drew himself
+up straight on the log and became part of a dead stub beside him.
+
+Something was wrong in my call; the birds were suspicious, knowing not
+what danger had kept their fellows silent so long, and now threatened
+them out of the black alders. A moment's intent listening; then the
+leader stepped slowly down from his log and came towards me cautiously,
+halting, hiding, listening, gliding, swinging far out to one side and
+back again in stealthy advance, till he drew himself up abruptly at
+sight of my face peering out of the underbrush. For a long two minutes
+he never stirred so much as an eyelid. Then he glided swiftly back, with
+a faint, puzzled, questioning _kwit-kwit?_ to where his flock were
+waiting. A low signal that I could barely hear, a swift movement--then
+the flock thundered away in scattered flight into the silent, friendly
+woods.
+
+Ten minutes later I was crouched in some thick underbrush looking up
+into a great spruce, when I could just make out the leader standing by
+an upright branch in sharp silhouette against the glowing west. I had
+followed his swift flight, and now lay listening again to his searching
+call as it went out through the twilight, calling his little flock to
+the roosting tree. From the swamp and the hillside and far down by the
+quiet lake they answered, faintly at first, then with clearer call and
+the whirr of swift wings as they came in.
+
+But already I had seen and heard enough; too much, indeed, for my peace
+of mind. I crept away through the swamp, the eager calls following me
+even to my canoe; first a plaint, as if something were lacking to the
+placid lake and quiet woods and the soft beauty of twilight; and then a
+faint question, always heard in the _kwit_ of a partridge, as if only I
+could explain why two eager voices would never again answer to roll call
+when the shadows lengthened.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Umquenawis The Mighty
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Umquenawis the Mighty is lord of the woodlands. None other among the
+wood folk is half so great as he; none has senses so keen to detect a
+danger, nor powers so terrible to defend himself against it. So he fears
+nothing, moving through the big woods like a master; and when you see
+him for the first time in the wilderness pushing his stately, silent way
+among the giant trees, or plunging like a great engine through
+underbrush and over windfalls, his nose up to try the wind, his broad
+antlers far back on his mighty shoulders, while the dead tree that
+opposes him cracks and crashes down before his rush, and the alders
+beat a rattling, snapping tattoo on his branching horns,--when you see
+him thus, something within you rises up, like a soldier at salute, and
+says: "Milord the Moose!" And though the rifle is in your hand, its
+deadly muzzle never rises from the trail.
+
+[Illustration: "PLUNGING LIKE A GREAT ENGINE THROUGH UNDERBRUSH AND OVER
+WINDFALLS"]
+
+That great head with its massive crown is too big for any house. Hung
+stupidly on a wall, in a room full of bric-a-brac, as you usually see
+it, with its shriveled ears that were once living trumpets, its bulging
+eyes that were once so small and keen, and its huge muzzle stretched out
+of all proportion, it is but misplaced, misshapen ugliness. It has no
+more, and scarcely any higher, significance than a scalp on the pole of
+a savage's wigwam. Only in the wilderness, with the irresistible push of
+his twelve-hundred pound, force-packed body behind it, the crackling
+underbrush beneath, and the lofty spruce aisles towering overhead, can
+it give the tingling impression of magnificent power which belongs to
+Umquenawis the Mighty in his native wilds. There only is his head at
+home; and only as you see it there, whether looking out in quiet majesty
+from a lonely point over a silent lake, or leading him in his terrific
+rush through the startled forest, will your heart ever jump and your
+nerves tingle in that swift thrill which stirs the sluggish blood to
+your very finger tips, and sends you quietly back to camp with your
+soul at peace--well satisfied to leave Umquenawis where he is, rather
+than pack him home to your admiring friends in a freight car.
+
+Though Umquenawis be lord of the wilderness, there are two things, and
+two things only, which he sometimes fears: the smell of man, and the
+spiteful crack of a rifle. For Milord the Moose has been hunted and has
+learned fear, which formerly he was stranger to. But when you go deep
+into the wilderness, where no hunter has ever gone, and where the bang
+of a rifle following the roar of a birch-bark trumpet has never broken
+the twilight stillness, there you may find him still, as he was before
+fear came; there he will come smashing down the mountain side at your
+call, and never circle to wind an enemy; and there, when the mood is on
+him, he will send you scrambling up the nearest tree for your life, as a
+squirrel goes when the fox is after him. Once, in such a mood, I saw him
+charge a little wiry guide, who went up a spruce tree with his snowshoes
+on; and never a bear did the trick quicker, spite of the four-foot webs
+in which his feet were tangled.
+
+We were pushing upstream, late one afternoon, to the big lake at the
+headwaters of a wilderness river. Above the roar of rapids far behind,
+and the fret of the current near at hand, the rhythmical _clunk_,
+_clunk_ of the poles and the _lap_, _lap_ of my little canoe as she
+breasted the ripples were the only sounds that broke the forest
+stillness. We were silent, as men always are to whom the woods have
+spoken their deepest message, and to whom the next turn of the river may
+bring its thrill of unexpected things.
+
+Suddenly, as the bow of our canoe shot round a point, we ran plump upon
+a big cow moose crossing the river. At Simmo's grunt of surprise she
+stopped short and whirled to face us. And there she stood, one huge
+question mark from nose to tail, while the canoe edged in to the lee of
+a great rock and hung there quivering, with poles braced firmly on the
+bottom.
+
+We were already late for camping, and the lake was still far ahead. I
+gave the word at last, after a few minutes' silent watching, and the
+canoe shot upward. But the big moose, instead of making off into the
+woods, as a well-behaved moose ought to do, splashed straight toward us.
+Simmo, in the bow, gave a sweeping flourish of his pole, and we all
+yelled in unison; but the moose came on steadily, quietly, bound to find
+out what the queer thing was that had just come up river and broken the
+solemn stillness.
+
+"Bes' keep still; big moose make-um trouble sometime," muttered Noel
+behind me; and we dropped back silently into the lee of the friendly
+rock, to watch awhile longer and let the big creature do as she would.
+
+For ten minutes more we tried every kind of threat and persuasion to get
+the moose out of the way, ending at last by sending a bullet _zipping_
+into the water under her body; but beyond an angry stamp of the foot
+there was no response, and no disposition whatever to give us the
+stream. Then I bethought me of a trick that I had discovered long before
+by accident. Dropping down to the nearest bank, I crept up behind the
+moose, hidden in the underbrush, and began to break twigs, softly at
+first, then more and more sharply, as if something were coming through
+the woods fearlessly. At the first suspicious crack the moose whirled,
+hesitated, started nervously across the stream, twitching her nostrils
+and wigwagging her big ears to find out what the crackle meant, and
+hurrying more and more as the sounds grated harshly upon her sensitive
+nerves. Next moment the river was clear and our canoe was breasting the
+rippling shallows, while the moose watched us curiously, half hidden in
+the alders.
+
+That is a good trick, for occasions. The animals all fear twig snapping.
+Only never try it at night, with a bull, in the calling season, as I did
+once unintentionally. Then he is apt to mistake you for his tantalizing
+mate and come down on you like a tempest, giving you a big scare and a
+monkey scramble into the nearest tree before he is satisfied.
+
+Within the next hour I counted seven moose, old and young, from the
+canoe; and when we ran ashore at twilight to the camping ground on the
+big lake, the tracks of an enormous bull were drawn sharply across our
+landing. The water was still trickling into them, showing that he had
+just vacated the spot at our approach.
+
+How do I know it was a bull? At this season the bulls travel constantly,
+and the points of the hoofs are worn to a clean, even curve. The cows,
+which have been living in deep retirement all summer, teaching their
+ungainly calves the sounds and smells and lessons of the woods, travel
+much less; their hoofs, in consequence, are generally long and pointed
+and overgrown.
+
+Two miles above our camp was a little brook, with an alder swale on one
+side and a dark, gloomy spruce tangle on the other--an ideal spot for a
+moose to keep her little school, I thought, when I discovered the place
+a few days later. There were tracks on the shore, plenty of them; and I
+knew I had only to watch long enough to see the mother and her calf, and
+to catch a glimpse, perhaps, of what no man has ever yet seen clearly;
+that is, a moose teaching her little one how to hide his bulk; how to
+move noiselessly and undiscovered through underbrush where, one would
+think, a fox must make his presence known; how to take a windfall on the
+run; how to breast down a young birch or maple tree and keep it under
+his body while he feeds on the top,--and a score of other things that
+every moose must know before he is fit to take care of himself in the
+big woods.
+
+I went there one afternoon in my canoe, grasped a few lily stems to hold
+the little craft steady, and snuggled down till only my head showed
+above the gunwales, so as to make canoe and man look as much like an
+old, wind-blown log as possible. It was getting toward the hour when I
+knew the cow would be hungry, but while it was yet too light to bring
+her little one to the open shore. After an hour's watching, the cow came
+cautiously down the brook. She stopped short at sight of the floating
+log; watched it steadily for two or three minutes, wigwagging her ears;
+then began to feed greedily on the lily pads that fringed all the shore.
+When she went back I followed, guided now by the crack of a twig, now by
+a swaying of brush tops, now by the flip of a nervous ear or the push of
+a huge dark body, keeping carefully to leeward all the time and making
+the big, unconscious creature guide me to where she had hidden her
+little one.
+
+Just above me, and a hundred yards in from the shore, a tree had fallen,
+its bushy top bending down two small spruces and making a low den, so
+dark that an owl could scarcely have seen what was inside. "That's the
+spot," I told myself instantly; but the mother passed well above it,
+without noting apparently how good a place it was. Fifty yards farther
+on she turned and circled back, below the spot, trying the wind with
+ears and nose as she came on straight towards me.
+
+"Aha! the old moose trick," I thought, remembering how a hunted moose
+never lies down to rest without first circling back for a long distance,
+parallel to his trail and to leeward, to find out from a safe distance
+whether anything is following him. When he lies down, at last, it will
+be close beside his trail, but hidden from it; so that he hears or
+smells you as you go by. And when you reach the place, far ahead, where
+he turned back he will be miles away, plunging along down wind at a pace
+that makes your snowshoe swing like a baby's toddle. So you camp where
+he lay down, and pick up the trail in the morning.
+
+When the big cow turned and came striding back I knew that I should find
+her little one in the spruce den. But would she not find me, instead,
+and drive me out of her bailiwick? You can never be sure what a moose
+will do if she finds you near her calf. Generally they run--always, in
+fact--but sometimes they run your way. And besides, I had been trying
+for years to see a mother moose teaching in her little school. Now I
+dropped on all fours and crawled away down wind, so as to get beyond ken
+of the mother's inquisitive nose if possible.
+
+She came on steadily, moving with astonishing silence through the
+tangle, till she stood where I had been a moment before, when she
+started violently and threw her head up into the wind. Some scent of me
+was there, clinging faintly to the leaves and the moist earth. For a
+moment she stood like a rock, sifting the air in her nose; then, finding
+nothing in the wind, she turned slowly in my direction to use her ears
+and eyes. I was lying very still behind a mossy log by this time, and
+she did not see me. Suddenly she turned and called, a low bleat. There
+was an instant stir in the spruce den, an answering bleat, and a moose
+calf scrambled out and ran straight to the mother. There was an unvoiced
+command to silence that no human sense could understand. The mother put
+her great head down to earth--"Smell of that; mark that, and remember,"
+she was saying in her own way; and the calf put his little head down
+beside hers, and I heard him sniff-sniffing the leaves. Then the mother
+swung her head savagely, bunted the little fellow out of his tracks, and
+drove him hurriedly ahead of her away from the place--"Get out, hurry,
+danger!" was what she was saying now, and emphasizing her teaching with
+an occasional bunt from behind that lifted the calf over the hard
+places. So they went up the hill, the calf wondering and curious, yet
+ever reminded by the hard head at his flank that obedience was his
+business just now, the mother turning occasionally to sniff and listen,
+till they vanished silently among the dark spruces.
+
+For a week or more I haunted the spot; but though I saw the pair
+occasionally, in the woods or on the shore, I learned no more of
+Umquenawis' secrets. The moose schools are kept in far-away, shady
+dingles beyond reach of inquisitive eyes. Then, one morning at daylight
+as my canoe shot round a grassy point, there were the mother and her
+calf standing knee-deep among the lily pads. With a yell I drove the
+canoe straight at the little one.
+
+Now it takes a young moose or caribou a long time to learn that when
+sudden danger threatens he is to follow, not his own frightened head,
+but his mother's guiding tail. To young fawns this is practically the
+first thing taught by the mothers; but caribou are naturally stupid, or
+trustful, or burningly inquisitive, according to their several
+dispositions; and moose, with their great strength, are naturally
+fearless; so that this needful lesson is slowly learned. If you surprise
+a mother moose or caribou with her young at close quarters and rush at
+them instantly, with a whoop or two to scatter their wits, the chances
+are that the mother will bolt into the brush, where safety lies, and the
+calf into the lake or along the shore, where the going is easiest.
+
+Several times I have caught young moose and caribou in this way, either
+swimming or stogged in the mud, and after turning them back to shore
+have watched the mother's cautious return and her treatment of the lost
+one. Once I paddled up beside a young bull moose, half grown, and
+grasping the coarse hair on his back had him tow me a hundred yards, to
+the next point, while I studied his expression.
+
+As my canoe shot up to the two moose they did exactly what I had
+expected; the mother bolted for the woods in mighty, floundering jumps,
+mud and water flying merrily about her; while the calf darted along the
+shore, got caught in the lily pads, and with a despairing bleat settled
+down in the mud of a soft place, up to his back, and turned his head to
+see what I was.
+
+I ran my canoe ashore and approached the little fellow quietly, without
+hurry or excitement. Nose, eyes, and ears questioned me; and his fear
+gradually changed to curiosity as he saw how harmless a thing had
+frightened him. He even tried to pull his awkward little legs out of the
+mud in my direction. Meanwhile the big mother moose was thrashing around
+in the bushes in a terrible swither, calling her calf to come.
+
+I had almost reached the little fellow when the wind brought him the
+strong scent that he had learned in the woods a few days before, and he
+bleated sharply. There was an answering crash of brush, a pounding of
+hoofs that told one unmistakably to look out for his rear, and out of
+the bushes burst the mother, her eyes red as a wild pig's, and the long
+hair standing straight up along her back in a terrifying bristle. "Stand
+not upon the order of your mogging, but mog at once--_eeeunh! unh!_" she
+grunted; and I turned otter instantly and took to the lake, diving as
+soon as the depth allowed and swimming under water to escape the old
+fury's attention. There was little need of fine tactics, however, as I
+found out when my head appeared again cautiously. Anything in the way of
+an unceremonious retreat of the enemy satisfied her as perfectly as if
+she had been a Boer general. She went straight to her calf, thrust her
+great head under his belly, hiked him roughly out of the mud, and then
+butted him ahead of her into the bushes.
+
+It was stern, rough discipline; but the youngster needed it to teach him
+the wisdom of the woods. From a distance I watched the quivering line of
+brush tops that marked their course, and then followed softly. When I
+found them again, in the twilight of the great spruces, the mother was
+licking the sides of her calf, lest he should grow cold too suddenly
+after his unwonted bath. All the fury and harshness were gone. Her great
+head lowered tenderly over the foolish, ungainly youngster, tonguing
+him, caressing him, drying and warming his poor sides, telling him in
+mother language that it was all right now, and that next time he would
+do better.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were other moose on the lake, all of them as uncertain as the big
+cow and her calf. Probably most of them had never seen a man before our
+arrival, and it kept one's expectations on tiptoe to know what they
+would do when they saw the strange two-legged creature for the first
+time. If a moose smelled me before I saw him, he would make off quietly
+into the woods, as all wild creatures do, and watch from a safe
+distance. But if I stumbled upon him unexpectedly, when the wind brought
+no warning to his nostrils, he was fearless, usually, and full of
+curiosity.
+
+The worst of them all was the big bull whose tracks were on the shore
+when we arrived. He was a morose, ugly old brute, living apart by
+himself, with his temper always on edge ready to bully anything that
+dared to cross his path or question his lordship. Whether he was an
+outcast, grown surly from living too much alone, or whether he bore some
+old bullet wound to account for his hostility to man, I could never find
+out. Far down the river a hunter had been killed, ten years before, by a
+bull moose that he had wounded; and this may have been, as Noel
+declared, the same animal, cherishing his resentment with a memory as
+merciless as an Indian's.
+
+Before we had found this out I stumbled upon the big bull one afternoon,
+and came near paying the penalty of my ignorance. I had been
+still-fishing for togue (lake trout), and was on my way back to camp
+when, doubling a point, I ran plump upon a bull moose feeding among the
+lily pads. My approach had been perfectly silent,--that is the only way
+to see things in the woods,--and he was quite unconscious that anybody
+but himself was near.
+
+He would plunge his great head under water till only his antler tips
+showed, and nose around on the bottom till he found a lily root. With a
+heave and a jerk he would drag it out, and stand chewing it endwise
+with huge satisfaction, while the muddy water trickled down over his
+face. When it was all eaten he would grope under the lily pads for
+another root in the same way.
+
+Without thinking much of the possible risk, I began to steal towards
+him. While his head was under I would work the canoe along silently,
+simply "rolling the paddle" without lifting it from the water. At the
+first lift of his antlers I would stop and sit low in the canoe till he
+finished his juicy morsel and ducked for more. Then one could slip along
+easily again without being discovered.
+
+Two or three times this was repeated successfully, and still the big,
+unconscious brute, facing away from me fortunately, had no idea that he
+was being watched. His head went under water again--not so deep this
+time; but I was too absorbed in the pretty game to notice that he had
+found the end of a root above the mud, and that his ears were out of
+water. A ripple from the bow of my canoe, or perhaps the faint brush of
+a lily leaf against the side, reached him. His head burst out of the
+pads unexpectedly; with a snort and a mighty flounder he whirled upon
+me; and there he stood quivering, ears, eyes, nose,--everything about
+him reaching out to me and shooting questions at my head with an
+insistence that demanded instant answer.
+
+I kept quiet, though I was altogether too near the big brute for
+comfort, till an unfortunate breeze brushed the bow of my canoe still
+nearer to where he stood, threatening now instead of questioning. The
+mane on his back began to bristle, and I knew that I had but a small
+second in which to act. To get speed I swung the bow of the canoe
+outward, instead of backing away. The movement brought me a trifle
+nearer, yet gave me a chance to shoot by him. At the first sudden motion
+he leaped; the red fire blazed out in his eyes, and he plunged straight
+at the canoe--one, two splashing jumps, and the huge velvet antlers were
+shaking just over me and the deadly fore foot was raised for a blow.
+
+I rolled over on the instant, startling the brute with a yell as I did
+so, and upsetting the canoe between us. There was a splintering crack
+behind me as I struck out for deep water. When I turned, at a safe
+distance, the bull had driven one sharp hoof through the bottom of the
+upturned canoe, and was now trying awkwardly to pull his leg out from
+the clinging cedar ribs. He seemed frightened at the queer, dumb thing
+that gripped his foot, for he grunted and jumped back and thrashed his
+big antlers in excitement; but he was getting madder every minute.
+
+To save the canoe from being pounded to pieces was now the only pressing
+business on hand. All other considerations took to the winds in the
+thought that, if the bull's fury increased and he leaped upon the canoe,
+as he does when he means to kill, one jump would put the frail thing
+beyond repair, and we should have to face the dangerous river below in a
+spruce bark of our own building. I swam quickly to the shore and
+splashed and shouted and then ran away to attract the bull's attention.
+He came after me on the instant--_unh! unh! chock, chockety-chock!_ till
+he was close enough for discomfort, when I took to water again. The bull
+followed, deeper and deeper, till his sides were awash. The bottom was
+muddy and he trod gingerly; but there was no fear of his swimming after
+me. He knows his limits, and they stop him shoulder deep.
+
+When he would follow no farther I swam to the canoe and tugged it out
+into deep water. Umquenawis stood staring now in astonishment at the
+sight of this queer man-fish. The red light died out of his eyes for the
+first time, and his ears wigwagged like flags in the wind. He made no
+effort to follow, but stood as he was, shoulder deep, staring,
+wondering, till I landed on the point above, whipped the canoe over, and
+spilled the water out of it.
+
+The paddle was still fast to its cord--as it should always be in trying
+experiments--and I tossed it into the canoe. The rattle roused
+Umquenawis from his wonder, as if he had heard the challenging clack of
+antlers on the alder stems. He floundered out in mighty jumps and came
+swinging along the shore, _chocking_ and grunting fiercely. He had seen
+the man again and knew it was no fish--_Unh! unh! eeeeeunh-unh!_ he
+grunted, with a twisting, jerky wriggle of his neck and shoulders at the
+last squeal, as if he felt me already beneath his hoofs. But before he
+reached the point I had stuffed my flannel shirt into the hole in the
+canoe and was safely afloat once more. He followed along the shore till
+he heard the sound of voices at camp, when he turned instantly and
+vanished in the woods.
+
+A few days later I saw the grumpy old brute again in a curious way. I
+was sweeping the lake with my field glasses when I saw what I thought
+was a pair of black ducks near a grassy shore. I paddled over, watching
+them keenly, till a root seemed to rise out of the water between them.
+Before I could get my glasses adjusted again they had disappeared. I
+dropped the glasses and paddled faster. They were diving, perhaps--an
+unusual thing for black ducks--and I might surprise them. There they
+were again; and there again was the old root bobbing up unexpectedly
+between them. I whipped my glasses up--the mystery vanished. The two
+ducks were the tips of Umquenawis' big antlers; the root that rose
+between them was his head, as he came up to breathe.
+
+It was a close, sultry afternoon; the flies and mosquitos were out in
+myriads, and Umquenawis had taken a philosophical way of getting rid of
+them. He was lying in the water, over a bed of mud, his body completely
+submerged. As the swarm of flies that pestered him rose to his head he
+would sink it slowly, drowning them off. Through my glass, as I drew
+near, I could see a cloud of them hovering above the wavelets, or
+covering the exposed antlers. After a few moments there would be a
+bubbling grumble down in the mud, as Umquenawis blew the air from his
+great lungs. His head would come up lazily to breathe among the popping
+bubbles; the flies would settle upon him like a cloud, and he would
+disappear again, blinking sleepily as he went down, with an air of
+immense satisfaction.
+
+It seemed too bad to disturb such comfort; but I wanted to know more
+about the surly old tyrant that had treated me with such scant courtesy;
+so I stole near him again, running up when his head disappeared, and
+lying quiet whenever he came up to breathe. He saw me at last when I was
+quite near, and leaped up with a terrible start. There was fear in his
+eyes this time. Here was the man-fish again, the creature that lived on
+land or water, and that could approach him so silently that the senses
+in which he had always trusted gave him no warning. He stared hard for a
+moment; then as the canoe glided rapidly straight towards him without
+fear or hesitation he waded out, stopping every instant to turn, and
+look, and try the wind, till he reached the fringe of woods beyond the
+grasses. There he thrust his nose up ahead of him, laid his big antlers
+back on his shoulders, and plowed straight through the tangle like a
+great engine, the alders snapping and crashing merrily about him as he
+went.
+
+In striking contrast was the next meeting. I was out at midnight,
+jacking, and passed close by a point where I had often seen the big
+bull's tracks. He was not there, and I closed the jack and went on along
+the shore, listening for any wood folk that might be abroad. When I came
+back, a few minutes later, there was a suspicious ripple on the point. I
+opened the jack, and there was Umquenawis, my big bull, standing out
+huge and magnificent against the shadowy background, his eyes glowing
+and flashing in fierce wonder at the sudden brightness. He had passed
+along the shore within twenty yards of me, through dense underbrush,--as
+I found out from his tracks next morning,--yet so silently did he push
+his great bulk through the trees, halting, listening, trying the ground
+at every step for telltale twigs ere he put his weight down, that I had
+heard no sound, though I was listening intently in the dead hush that
+was on the lake.
+
+It may have been curiosity, or the uncomfortable sense of being watched
+and followed by the man-fish, who neither harmed nor feared him, that
+brought Umquenawis at last to our camp to investigate. One day Noel was
+washing some clothes of mine in the lake when some subtle warning made
+him turn his head. There stood the big bull, half hidden by the dwarf
+spruces, watching him intently. On the instant Noel left the duds where
+they were and bolted along the shore under the bushes, calling me loudly
+to come quick and bring my rifle. When we went back Umquenawis had
+trodden the clothes into the mud, and vanished as silently as he came.
+
+The Indians grew insistent at this, telling me of the hunter that had
+been killed, claiming now, beyond a doubt, that this was the same bull,
+and urging me to kill the ugly brute and rid the woods of a positive
+danger. But Umquenawis was already learning the fear of me, and I
+thought the lesson might be driven home before the summer was ended. So
+it was; but before that time there was almost a tragedy.
+
+One day a timber cruiser--a lonely, silent man with the instincts of an
+animal for finding his way in the woods, whose business it is to go over
+timber lands to select the best sites for future cutting--came up to
+the lake and, not knowing that we were there, pitched by a spring a mile
+or two below us. I saw the smoke of his camp fire from the lake, where I
+was fishing, and wondered who had come into the great solitude. That was
+in the morning. Towards twilight I went down to bid the stranger welcome
+and to invite him to share our camp, if he would. I found him stiff and
+sore by his fire, eating raw-pork sandwiches with the appetite of a
+wolf. Almost at the same glance I saw the ground about a tree torn up,
+and the hoof marks of a big bull moose all about.--
+
+"Hello! friend, what's up?" I hailed him.
+
+"Got a rifle?" he demanded, with a rich Irish burr in his voice, paying
+no heed to my question. When I nodded he bolted for my canoe, grabbed my
+rifle, and ran away into the woods.
+
+"Queer Dick! unbalanced, perhaps, by living too much alone in the
+woods," I thought, and took to examining the torn ground and the bull's
+tracks to find out for myself what had happened.
+
+But there was no queerness in the frank, kindly face that met mine when
+the stranger came out of the bush a half hour later.--
+
+"Th' ould baste! he's had me perrched up in that three there, like a
+blackburrd, the last tin hours; an' niver a song in me throat or a bite
+in me stomach. He wint just as you came--I thought I could returrn his
+compliments wid a bullet," he said, apologetically, as he passed me back
+the rifle.
+
+Then, sitting by his fire, he told me his story. He had just lit his
+fire that morning, and was taking off his wet stockings to dry them,
+when there was a fierce crashing and grunting behind him, and a bull
+moose charged out of the bushes like a fury. The cruiser jumped and
+dodged; then, as the bull whirled again, he swung himself into a tree
+and sat there astride a limb, while the bull grunted and pushed and
+hammered the ground below with his sharp hoofs. All day long the moose
+had kept up the siege, now drawing off cunningly to hide in the bushes,
+now charging out savagely as the timber cruiser made effort to come down
+from his uncomfortable perch.
+
+A few minutes before my approach a curious thing happened; which seems
+to indicate, as do many other things in the woods, that certain
+animals--perhaps all animals, including man--have at times an unknown
+sixth sense, for which there is no name and no explanation. I was still
+half a mile or more away, hidden by a point and paddling silently
+straight into the wind. No possible sight or sound or smell of me could
+have reached any known sense of any animal; yet the big brute began to
+grow uneasy. He left his stand under the tree and circled nervously
+around it, looking, listening, wigwagging his big ears, trying the wind
+at every step, and setting his hoofs down as if he trod on dynamite.
+Suddenly he turned and vanished silently into the brush. McGarven, the
+timber cruiser, who had no idea that there was any man but himself on
+the lake, watched the bull with growing wonder and distrust, thinking
+him possessed of some evil demon. In his long life in the woods he had
+met hundreds of moose, but had never been molested before.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+With the rifle at full cock and his heart hot within him, he had
+followed the trail, which stole away, cautiously at first, a long
+swinging stride straight towards the mountain.--"Oh, 'tis the quare
+baste he is altogether!" he said as he finished his story.
+
+
+
+
+AT THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+It was now near the calling season, and the nights grew keen with
+excitement. Now and then as I fished, or followed the brooks, or prowled
+through the woods in the late afternoon, the sudden bellow of a cow
+moose would break upon the stillness, so strange and uncertain in the
+thick coverts that I could rarely describe, much less imitate, the
+sound, or even tell the direction whence it had come. Under the dusk of
+the lake shore I would sometimes come upon a pair of the huge animals,
+the cow restless, wary, impatient, the bull now silent as a shadow, now
+ripping and rasping the torn velvet from his great antlers among the
+alders, and now threatening and browbeating every living thing that
+crossed his trail, and even the unoffending bushes, in his testy humor.
+
+One night I went to the landing just below my tent with Simmo and tried
+for the first time the long call of the cow moose. He and Noel refused
+absolutely to give it, unless I should agree to shoot the ugly old bull
+at sight. Several times of late they had seen him near our camp, or had
+crossed his deep trail on the nearer shores, and they were growing
+superstitious as well as fearful.
+
+There was no answer to our calling for the space of an hour; silence
+brooded like a living, watchful thing over sleeping lake and forest, a
+silence that grew only deeper and deeper after the last echoes of the
+bark trumpet had rolled back on us from the distant mountain. Suddenly
+Simmo lowered the horn, just as he had raised it to his lips for a call.
+
+"Moose near!" he whispered.
+
+"How do you know?" I breathed; for I had heard nothing.
+
+"Don' know how; just know," he said sullenly. An Indian hates to be
+questioned, as a wild animal hates to be watched. As if in confirmation
+of his opinion, there was a startling crash and plunge across the
+little bay over against us, and a bull moose leaped the bank into the
+lake within fifty yards of where we crouched on the shore.
+
+"Shoot! shoot-um quick!" cried Simmo; and the fear of the old bull was
+in his voice.
+
+For answer there came a grunt from the moose--a ridiculously small,
+squeaking grunt, like the voice of a penny trumpet--as the huge creature
+swung rapidly along the shore in our direction.
+
+"Uh! young bull, lil fool moose," whispered Simmo, and breathed a soft,
+questioning _Whooowuh?_ through the bark horn to bring him nearer.
+
+He came close to where we were hidden, then entered the woods and
+circled silently about our camp to get our wind. In the morning his
+tracks, within five feet of my rear tent pole, showed how little he
+cared for the dwelling of man. But though he circled back and forth for
+an hour, answering Simmo's low call with his ridiculous little grunt, he
+would not show himself again on the open shore.
+
+I stole up after a while to where I had heard the last twig snap under
+his hoofs. Simmo held me back, whispering of danger; but there was a
+question in my head which has never received a satisfactory answer: Why
+does a bull come to a call anyway? It is held generally--and with truth,
+I think--that he comes because he thinks the sound is made by a cow
+moose. But how his keen ears could mistake such a palpable fraud is the
+greatest mystery in the woods. I have heard a score of hunters and
+Indians call, all differently, and have sometimes brought a bull into
+the open at the wail of my own bark trumpet; but I have never yet
+listened to a call that has any resemblance to the bellow of a cow moose
+as I have often heard it in the woods. Nor have I ever heard, or ever
+met anybody who has heard, a cow moose give forth any sound like the
+"long call" which is made by hunters, and which is used successfully to
+bring the bull from a distance.
+
+Others claim, and with some reason, that the bull, more fearless and
+careless at this season than at other times, comes merely to investigate
+the sound, as he and most other wild creatures do with every queer or
+unknown thing they hear. The Alaskan Indians stretch a skin into a kind
+of tambourine and beat it with a club to call a bull; which sound,
+however, might not be unlike one of the many peculiar bellows that I
+have heard from cow moose in the wilderness. And I have twice known
+bulls to come to the _chuck_ of an ax on a block; which sound, at a
+distance, has some resemblance to the peculiar _chock-chocking_ that the
+bulls use to call their mates from a distance.
+
+From any point of view the thing has contradictions enough to make one
+wary of a too positive opinion. Here at hand was a "lil fool moose" who
+knew no fear, and who might, therefore, enlighten me on the obscure
+subject. I told Simmo to keep on calling softly at intervals while I
+crept up into the woods to watch the effect.
+
+It was all as dark as a pocket beyond the open shore. One had to feel
+his way along, and imitate the moose himself in putting his feet down.
+Spite of my precaution a bush whispered; a twig cracked. Instantly there
+was a swift answering rustle ahead as the bull glided towards me. He had
+heard the faint message and was coming to see if it were not his
+tantalizing mate, ready to whack her soundly, according to his wont, for
+causing him so much worry, and to beat her out ahead of him to the open
+where he could watch her closely and prevent any more of her hiding
+tricks.
+
+I stood motionless behind a tree, grasping a branch above, ready to
+swing up out of reach when the bull charged. A vague black hulk thrust
+itself out of the dark woods, close in front of me, and stood still.
+Against the faint light, which showed from the lake through the fringe
+of trees, the great head and antlers stood out like an upturned root;
+but I had never known that a living creature stood there were it not
+for a soft, clucking rumble that the bull kept going in his throat,--a
+ponderous kind of love note, intended, no doubt, to let his elusive mate
+know that he was near.
+
+He took another step in my direction, brushing the leaves softly, a low,
+whining grunt telling of his impatience. Two more steps and he must have
+discovered me, when fortunately an appealing gurgle and a measured
+_plop, plop, plop_--like the feet of a moose falling in shallow
+water--sounded from the shore below, where Simmo was concealed.
+Instantly the bull turned and glided away, a shadow among the shadows. A
+few minutes later I heard him running off in the direction whence he had
+first come.
+
+After that the twilight always found him near our camp. He was convinced
+that there was a mate hiding somewhere near, and he was bound to find
+her. We had only to call a few times from our canoe, or from the shore,
+and presently we would hear him coming, blowing his penny trumpet, and
+at last see him break out upon the shore with a crashing plunge to waken
+all the echoes. Then, one night as we lay alongside a great rock in deep
+shadow, watching the puzzled young bull as he ranged along the shore in
+the moonlight, Simmo grunted softly to call him nearer. At the sound a
+larger bull, that we had not suspected, leaped out of the bushes close
+beside us with a sudden terrifying plunge and splashed straight at the
+canoe. Only the quickest kind of work saved us. Simmo swung the bow off,
+with a startled grunt of his own, and I paddled away, while the bull,
+mistaking us in the dim light for the exasperating cow that had been
+calling and hiding herself for a week, followed after us into deep
+water.
+
+There was no doubt whatever that this moose, at least, had come to what
+he thought was the call of a mate. Moonlight is deceptive beyond a few
+feet; so when the low grunt sounded in the shadow of the great rock he
+was sure he had found the coy creature at last, and broke out of his
+concealment resolved to keep her in sight and not to let her get away
+again. That is why he swam after us. Had he been investigating some new
+sound or possible danger, he would never have left the land, where alone
+his great power and his wonderful senses have full play. In the water he
+is harmless, as most other wild creatures are.
+
+I paddled cautiously just ahead of him, so near that, looking over my
+shoulder, I could see the flash of his eye and the waves crinkling away
+before the push of his great nose. After a short swim he grew suspicious
+of the queer thing that kept just so far ahead, whether he swam fast or
+slow, and turned in towards the shore whining his impatience. I followed
+slowly, letting him get some distance ahead, and just as his feet
+struck bottom whispered to Simmo for his softest call. At the sound the
+bull whirled and plunged after us again recklessly, and I led him across
+to where the younger bull was still ranging up and down the shore,
+calling imploringly to his phantom mate.
+
+I expected a battle when the two rivals should meet; but they paid
+little attention to each other. The common misfortune, or the common
+misery, seemed to kill the fierce natural jealousy whose fury I had more
+than once been witness of. They had lost all fear by this time; they
+ranged up and down the shore, or smashed recklessly through the swamps,
+as the elusive smells and echoes called them hither and yon in their
+frantic search.
+
+Far up on the mountain side the sharp, challenging grunt of a master
+bull broke out of the startled woods in one of the lulls of our exciting
+play. Simmo heard and turned in the bow to whisper excitedly: "Nother
+bull! Fetch-um Ol' Dev'l this time, sartin." Raising his horn he gave
+the long, rolling bellow of a cow moose. A fiercer trumpet call from the
+mountain side answered; then the sound was lost in the _crash-crash_ of
+the first two bulls, as they broke out upon the shore on opposite sides
+of the canoe.
+
+We gave little heed now to the nearer play; our whole attention
+was fixed on a hoarse, grunting roar--_Uh, uh, uh! eeeyuh!
+r-r-r-runh-unh!_--with a rattling, snapping crash of underbrush for an
+accompaniment. The younger bull heard it; listened for a moment, like a
+great black statue under the moonlight; then he glided away into the
+shadows under the bank. The larger bull heard it, threw up his great
+head defiantly, and came swinging along the shore, hurling a savage
+challenge back on the echoing woods at every stride.
+
+There was an ominous silence up on the ridge where, a moment before, all
+was fierce commotion. Simmo was silent too; the uproar had been
+appalling, with the sleeping lake below us, and the vast forest, where
+silence dwells at home, stretching up and away on every hand to the sky
+line. But the spirit of mischief was tingling all over me as I seized
+the horn and gave the low appealing grunt that a cow would have uttered
+under the same circumstances. Like a shot the answer was hurled back,
+and down came the great bull--smash, crack, _r-r-runh!_ till he burst
+like a tempest out on the open shore, where the second bull with a
+challenging roar leaped to meet him.
+
+Simmo was begging me to shoot, shoot, telling me excitedly that "Ol'
+Dev'l," as he called him, would be more dangerous now than ever, if I
+let him get away; but I only drove the canoe in closer to the splashing,
+grunting uproar among the shadows under the bank.
+
+[Illustration: "A MIGHTY SPRING OF HIS CROUCHING HAUNCHES FINISHED THE
+WORK"]
+
+There was a terrific duel under way when I swung the canoe alongside a
+moment later. The bulls crashed together with a shock to break their
+heads. Mud and water flew over them; their great antlers clashed and
+rang like metal blades as they pushed and tugged, grunting like demons
+in the fierce struggle. But the contest was too one-sided to last long.
+The big bull that had almost killed me, but in whom I now found myself
+taking an almost savage pride, had smashed down from the mountain in a
+frightful rage, and with a power that nothing could resist. With a quick
+lunge he locked antlers in the grip he wanted; a twist of his massive
+neck and shoulders forced the opposing head aside, and a mighty spring
+of his crouching haunches finished the work. The second moose went over
+with a plunge like a bolt-struck pine. As he rolled up to his feet again
+the savage old bull jumped for him and drove the brow antlers into his
+flanks. The next moment both bulls had crashed away into the woods, one
+swinging off in giant strides through the crackling underbrush for his
+life, the other close behind, charging like a battering-ram into his
+enemy's rear, grunting like a huge wild boar in his rage and exultation.
+So the chase vanished over the ridge into the valley beyond; and silence
+stole back, like a Chinese empress, into her disturbed dominions.
+
+From behind a great windfall on the point above, where he had evidently
+been watching the battle, the first young bull stole out, and came
+halting and listening along the shore to the scene of the conflict. "To
+the discreet belong the spoils" was written in every timorous step and
+stealthy movement. A low grunt from my horn reassured him; he grew
+confident. Now he would find the phantom mate that had occasioned so
+much trouble, and run away with her before the conqueror should return
+from his chase. He swung along rapidly, rumbling the low call in his
+throat. Then up on the ridge sounded again the crackle of brush and the
+roar of a challenge. Rage had not made the victor to forget; indeed,
+here he was, coming back swiftly for his reward. On the instant all
+confidence vanished from the young bull's attitude. He slipped away into
+the woods. There was no sound; scarcely a definite motion. A shadow
+seemed to glide away into the darker shadows. The underbrush closed
+softly behind it, and he was gone.
+
+Next morning at daybreak I found my old bull on the shore, a mile below;
+and with him was the great cow that had hunted me away from her little
+one. The youngster was well grown and sturdy now, but still he followed
+his mother obediently; and the big bull had taken them both under his
+protection. I left them there undisturbed, with a thought of the mighty
+offspring that shall some day come smashing down from the mountain to
+delight the heart of camper or hunter and set his nerves a-tingle, when
+the lake shall again be visited and the roar of a bark trumpet roll over
+the sleeping lake and the startled woods. Let them kill who will. I have
+seen Umquenawis the Mighty as he was before fear came, and am satisfied.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES
+
+
++Cheokhes+, _che-ok-hes'_, the mink.
+
++Cheplahgan+, _chep-lah'gan_, the bald eagle.
+
++Ch'geegee-lokh-sis+, _ch'gee-gee'lock-sis_, the chickadee.
+
++Chigwooltz+, _chig-wooltz'_, the bullfrog.
+
++Clote Scarpe+, a legendary hero, like Hiawatha, of the Northern
+  Indians. Pronounced variously, Clote Scarpe, Groscap, Gluscap, etc.
+
++Commoosie+, _com-moo-sie'_, a little shelter, or hut, of boughs and
+  bark.
+
++Deedeeaskh+, _dee-dee'ask_, the blue jay.
+
++Eleemos+, _el-ee'mos_, the fox.
+
++Hawahak+, _ha-wa-hak'_, the hawk.
+
++Hukweem+, _huk-weem'_, the great northern diver, or loon.
+
++Ismaques+, _iss-ma-ques'_, the fishhawk.
+
++Kagax+, _kag'ax_, the weasel.
+
++Kakagos+, _ka-ka-gos'_, the raven.
+
++K'dunk+, _k'dunk'_, the toad.
+
++Keeokuskh+, _kee-o-kusk'_, the muskrat.
+
++Keeonekh+, _kee'o-nek_, the otter.
+
++Killooleet+, _kil'loo-leet_, the white-throated sparrow.
+
++Kookooskoos+, _koo-koo-skoos'_, the great horned owl.
+
++Koskomenos+, _kos'kom-e-nos'_, the kingfisher.
+
+{~COMBINING DIAERESIS BELOW~}+Kupkawis+, _cup-ka{~COMBINING DIAERESIS BELOW~}'wis_, the barred owl.
+
++Kwaseekho+, _kwa-seek'ho_, the sheldrake.
+
++Lhoks+, _locks_, the panther.
+
++Malsun+, _mal'sun_, the wolf.
+
++Meeko+, _meek'o_, the red squirrel.
+
++Megaleep+, _meg'a-leep_, the caribou.
+
++Milicete+, _mil'i-cete_, the name of an Indian tribe; written also
+  Malicete.
+
++Mitches+, _mit'ches_, the birch partridge, or ruffed grouse.
+
++Moktaques+, _mok-ta'ques_, the hare.
+
++Mooween+, _moo-ween'_, the black bear.
+
++Musquash+, _mus'quash_, the muskrat.
+
++Nemox+, _nem'ox_, the fisher.
+
++Pekquam+, _pek-wam'_, the fisher.
+
++Quoskh+, _quoskh_, the blue heron.
+
++Seksagadagee+, _sek'sa-ga-da'gee_, the Canada grouse, or spruce
+  partridge.
+
++Skooktum+, _skook'tum_, the trout.
+
++Tookhees+, _tok'hees_, the wood mouse.
+
++Umquenawis+, _um-que-na'wis_, the moose.
+
++Unk Wunk+, _unk' wunk_, the porcupine.
+
++Upweekis+, _up-week'iss_, the Canada lynx.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ANNOUNCEMENTS
+
+
+WOOD FOLK SERIES
+
+By WILLIAM J. LONG
+
+The unique merit of this nature student rests in his fascinating style
+of writing, which invariably interests young and old; for without this
+element his pioneer work in the realm of nature would now be familiar
+only to scientists. As it is, Long's Wood Folk Series is in use in
+thousands of schools the country over, has been adopted by many reading
+circles, and is now on the library lists of six important states; thus
+leading laymen, young and old, into the wonderland of nature hitherto
+entirely closed to all.
+
+
+WAYS OF WOOD FOLK
+
+205 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents
+
+This delightful work tells of the lives and habits of the commoner wood
+folk, such as the crow, the rabbit, the wild duck. The book is profusely
+illustrated by Charles Copeland and other artists.
+
+
+WILDERNESS WAYS
+
+155 pages. Illustrated. List price, 45 cents; mailing price, 50 cents
+
+"Wilderness Ways" is written in the same intensely interesting style as
+its predecessor, "Ways of Wood Folk." The hidden life of the wilderness
+is here presented by sketches and stories gathered, not from books or
+hearsay, but from the author's personal contact with wild things of
+every description.
+
+
+SECRETS OF THE WOODS
+
+184 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents
+
+This is another chapter in the shy, wild life of the fields and woods.
+Little Toohkees, the wood mouse that dies of fright in the author's
+hand; the mother otter, Keeonekh, teaching her little ones to swim; and
+the little red squirrel with his many curious habits,--all are presented
+with the same liveliness and color that characterize the descriptions in
+the first two volumes. The illustrations by Charles Copeland are
+unusually accurate in portraying animal life as it really exists in its
+native haunts.
+
+
+WOOD FOLK AT SCHOOL
+
+186 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents
+
+The title of this new book suggests the central thought about which the
+author has grouped some of his most fascinating animal studies. To him
+"the summer wilderness is one vast schoolroom in which a multitude of
+wise, patient mothers are teaching their little ones the things they
+must know in order to hold their place in the world and escape unharmed
+from a hundred dangers." This book, also, is adequately illustrated by
+Charles Copeland.
+
+
+A LITTLE BROTHER TO THE BEAR
+
+178 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents; mailing price, 60 cents
+
+This latest book in the Wood Folk Series contains observations covering
+a period of nearly thirty years. Some of the chapters represent the
+characteristics of animals of the same species, and others show the
+acute intelligence of certain individual animals that nature seems to
+have lifted far above the level of their fellows. The book is well
+illustrated and is the most noteworthy contribution to nature literature
+during the past two years.
+
+
+GINN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
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+NATURE STUDY
+
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+                                                        List    Mailing
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+  The Seven Little Sisters                              $0.50     $0.55
+  Each and All                                            .50       .55
+  Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children                 .50       .55
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+Atkinson's First Studies of Plant Life                    .60       .70
+Beal's Seed Dispersal                                     .35       .40
+Bergen's Glimpses at the Plant World                      .40       .45
+Burt's Little Nature Studies for Little People.
+  Vol. I. A Primer and a First Reader.
+  Vol. II. A Second Reader and a Third Reader        each .25      .30
+Burkett, Stevens, and Hill's Agriculture for Beginners    .75      .80
+Comstock's Ways of the Six-Footed                         .40      .45
+Eddy's Friends and Helpers                                .60      .70
+Frye's Brooks and Brook Basins                            .58      .70
+Frye's Child and Nature                                   .80      .88
+Gould's Mother Nature's Children                          .60      .70
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+Hardy's Sea Stories
+Hodge's Nature Study and Life                            1.50     1.65
+Holden's The Sciences                                     .50      .60
+Jefferies' Sir Bevis                                      .30      .35
+Lane's Oriole Stories                                     .28      .33
+Long's Wood Folk Series:
+  Ways of Wood Folk                                       .50      .60
+  Wilderness Ways                                         .45      .50
+  Secrets of the Woods                                    .50      .60
+  Wood Folk at School                                     .50      .60
+Morley's Little Wanderers                                 .30      .35
+Morley's Insect Folk                                      .45      .50
+Porter's Stars in Song and Legend                         .50      .55
+Roth's First Book of Forestry                             .75      .85
+Stickney's Study and Story Nature Readers:
+  Earth and Sky, No. I                                    .30      .35
+  Earth and Sky, No. II                                   .30      .35
+  Pets and Companions                                     .30      .40
+  Bird World                                              .60      .70
+Strong's All the Year Round.
+  Part I, Autumn.
+  Part II, Winter.
+  Part III, Spring                                   each .30      .35
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+Weed's Stories of Insect Life:
+  First Series                                            .25      .30
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+
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+TEXT-BOOKS IN ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
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+Bergen's Glimpses at the Plant World                     .40    .45
+Blaisdell's Child's Book of Health                       .30    .35
+Blaisdell's How to Keep Well                             .45    .55
+Blaisdell's Our Bodies and How We Live                   .65    .75
+Burkett, Stevens, and Hill's Agriculture for Beginners   .75    .80
+Frye's Elements of Geography                             .65    .80
+Frye's Grammar School Geography                         1.25   1.45
+Frye's Child and Nature                                  .80    .88
+Frye's Brooks and Brook Basins                           .58    .70
+Gould's Mother Nature's Children                         .60    .70
+Hall's Our World Reader, No. 1                           .50    .60
+Hodge's Nature Study and Life                           1.50   1.65
+Holden's The Sciences                                    .50    .60
+Newell's Outlines of Lessons in Botany:
+  Part I. From Seed to Leaf                              .50    .55
+  Part II. Flower and Fruit                              .80    .90
+Newell's Reader in Botany:
+  Part I. From Seed to Leaf                              .60    .70
+  Part II. Flower and Fruit                              .60    .70
+Roth's First Book of Forestry                            .75    .85
+Shaler's Story of Our Continent                          .75    .85
+Weed's Seed-Travellers                                   .25    .30
+Weed's Stories of Insect Life:
+  First Series                                           .25    .30
+  Second Series. (Murtfeldt and Weed)                    .30    .35
+
+GINN & COMPANY Publishers
+
+
+
+
+AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS
+
+By C. W. BURKETT, Professor of Agriculture; F. L. STEVENS, Professor of
+Biology; and D. H. HILL, Professor of English in the North Carolina
+College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts
+
+12mo. Cloth. 267 pages. Illustrated. List price, 75 cents; mailing
+price, 80 cents
+
+No book for common schools in recent years has aroused such widespread
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+adoption in two great states before its publication, and in still
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+
+The authors believe that there is no line of separation between the
+science of agriculture and the practical art of agriculture, and that
+the subject is eminently teachable. Theory and practice are presented at
+one and the same time, so that the pupil is taught the fundamental
+principles of farming just as he is taught the fundamental truths of
+arithmetic, geography, or grammar.
+
+The work is planned for use in grammar-school classes. It thus presents
+the subject to the pupil when his aptitudes are the most rapidly
+developing and when he is forming life habits. It will give to him,
+therefore, at the vital period of his life a training which will go far
+toward making his life work profitable and delightful. The text is
+clear, interesting, and teachable. While primarily intended for class
+work in the public schools, it will no doubt appeal to all who desire a
+knowledge of the simple scientific truths which lie at the foundation of
+most farm operations.
+
+The two hundred and eighteen illustrations are unusually excellent and
+are particularly effective in illuminating the text. The book is
+supplied throughout with practical exercises, simple and interesting
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+mixtures and fertilizer formulas, the Glossary, in which are explained
+unusual and technical words, and the complete Index are important.
+
+In mechanical execution--in the attractive and durable binding, in the
+clear, well-printed page, and in the illustrations--the book is easily
+superior to any other elementary work on agriculture.
+
+GINN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  |                      Transcriber's Note                      |
+  |                                                              |
+  | The following words were found in both hyphenated and        |
+  | unhyphenated forms:                                          |
+  |                                                              |
+  |   half-way   halfway                                         |
+  |   tree-top   treetop                                         |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Words printed in bold font in the book are surrounded by '+' |
+  | signs.                                                       |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Illustrations have been moved to more appropriate places in  |
+  | the text.                                                    |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
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