Part 18

As Buck, boosted by Boots, started up the tree, the perfidious lynx disappeared in an unsuspected hole beneath a branch, from which he refused to come out in spite of all that Buck and Boots could do. One member, at least, of that hunting-party was immensely relieved by his unexpected retreat. It was many years later before I learned that even such masters of woodcraft as Buck and Boots could be mistaken, and that the Canada lynx was really a Connecticut coon.

It was not until recently that I ever met Lotor by daylight. Three years ago I was walking down a hillside after a sudden November snowstorm. My way led past two gray-squirrel nests, well thatched and chinked with the leaves by which they can always be told from crows' nests. From one of them I saw peering down at me the funny face of a coon. When I pounded on the other tree, another coon stared sleepily down at me. Probably the unexpected snowstorm had sent them both to bed in the first lodgings which they could find; or it may be that they had decided to try the open-air sleeping-rooms of the squirrels rather than the hollow-tree houses in which the coon family usually spend their winters.

Sometimes at night you may hear near the edge of the woods a plaintive, tremulous call floating from out of the dark trees--"Whoo-oo-oo-oo, whoo-oo-oo-oo." It is one of the night-notes of the coon. It sounds almost like the wail of the little screech-owl, save that there is a certain animal quality to the note. Moreover, the screech-owl will always answer, when one imitates the call, and will generally come floating over on noiseless wings to investigate. The coon, however, instantly detects the imitation and calls no more that night.

Unlike the bears, Mr. and Mrs. Coon and all the little coons, averaging from three to six, hibernate together soon after the first snowstorm of the year. One of the few legends of the long-lost Connecticut Indians which I can remember is that of an old Indian hunter, who would appear on my great-grandfather's farm in the depths of winter and, after obtaining permission, would go unerringly to one or more coon-trees, which he would locate by signs unknown to any white hunter. In each tree he would find from four to six fat coons, whose fur and flesh he would exchange for gunpowder, tobacco, hard cider, and other necessities of life.

Mr. and Mrs. Coon are good parents. They keep their children with them until the arrival of a new family, which occurs with commendable regularity every spring. A friend of mine once saw a young coon fall into the water from its tree in the depths of a swamp. At the splash, the mother coon came out of the den, forty feet up the trunk, and climbed down to help. Master Coon, wet, shaken, and miserable, managed to get back to the tree-trunk and clung there whimpering. Mother Coon gripped him by the scruff of his neck and marched him up the tree to the den, giving him a gentle nip whenever he stopped to cry.

In spite of his funny face and playful ways, Mr. Coon is a cheerful, desperate, scientific fighter. In a fair fight, or an unfair one for that matter, he will best a dog double his size, and he fears no living animal of his own weight, save only that versatile weasel, the blackcat. I became convinced of this one dark November morning many years ago, when I foolishly used to kill animals instead of making friends of them. All night long, with a pack of alleged coon dogs, we had hunted invisible and elusive coons through thick woods. I had scratched myself all over with greenbrier, and, while running through the dark, had plunged head first into the coldest known brook on the continent. Four separate times I had been persuaded by false and flattering words to climb slippery trees after imaginary coons, with a lantern fastened round my neck.

This time my friends assured me there could be no mistake. Both Grip and Gyp, the experts of the pack, had their fore-paws against an enormous tulip tree which stood apart from all others. In order that there might be no possible mistake, black Uncle Zeke, the leader of the hunt, who knew most of the coons in those woods by their first names, agreed to "shine" this particular coon. Lighting a lantern, he held it behind his head, staring fixedly up into the tree as he did so. Sure enough, in a minute, far up along the branches gleamed two green spots. Those were the eyes of the coon, staring down at the light. It was impossible to climb this tree, so we built a fire and waited for daylight.

Dawn found us regarding a monster coon crouched in the branches some forty or fifty feet up. Uncle Zeke produced a cherished shot-gun. The barrel had once burst, by reason of the muzzle being accidentally plugged with mud, and had been thereafter cut down, so that it was less than a foot in length. In spite of its misfortune, Uncle Zeke assured us that it was still a wonderful shooter. We scattered and gave him a free field. In a properly conducted coonhunt, a coon, like a fox, must be killed by dogs or not at all. Uncle Zeke told us that this one, as soon as he heard the shot, although uninjured, would come down, like Davy Crockett's coon.

Sure enough, when the shot cut through the branches well above the animal, he started slowly down the trunk, head-foremost, like a squirrel, and never stopped until he reached a branch some twenty feet above the yelping pack. Then, with hardly a pause, he launched himself right into their midst. As he came through the air, we could see him slashing with his claws, evidently limbering up. He struck the ground, only to disappear in a wave of dogs. In a minute he fought himself clear, and managed to get his back against the tree. Then followed a great exhibition of scientific fighting. The coon was perfectly balanced on all four feet, and did wonderful execution with his flexible fore-paws, armed with sharp, curved claws. He went through that mongrel pack like a light-weight champion in a street fight. Ducking, side-stepping, slashing and biting fiercely in the clinches, he broke entirely through the circle, and started off at a brisk trot toward the thick woods. The pack followed after him, baying ferociously, but doing nothing more. Not one of them would venture again into close quarters. Though we came back empty-handed, not even Uncle Zeke grudged that coon his life.

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The motto of the next sleeper is, "Don't hurry, others will." If you meet in your wanderings a black-and-white animal wearing a pointed nose, a bushy tail, and an air of justified confidence, avoid any altercation with him. The skunk discovered the secret of the gas-attack a million years before the Boche. He is one of the best friends of the farmer--and the worst treated. Given a fair chance, every week he will eat several times his weight in mice and insects. Moreover, with the muskrat he contributes divers furs to the market, whose high-sounding names disguise their lowly origin. During the coldest part of the winter he retires to his burrow and sleeps fitfully. He is the last to go to bed and the first to get up; and on any warm day in late winter you may see his close-set, alternate, stitch-like tracks in the snow. The black-and-white banner of skunk-kind is a huge bushy resplendent tail, sometimes as wide as it is long. At the very tip is set a tuft like the white plume of Henry of Navarre. When it stands straight up, the battle is on, and wise wild-folk remove themselves elsewhere with exceeding swiftness. As for the simple--they wish they had.

The armament of this Seventh Sleeper is simple but effective. It consists of two scent glands located near the base of the tail, which empty into a movable duct or pipe which can be protruded some distance. Through this duct, by means of large contractile muscles, a stream of liquid musk can be propelled with incredible accuracy, and with a range of from six to ten feet. Moreover the skunk's accurate breech-loading and repeating weapon has one device not yet found in any man-made artillery. Each gland, besides the hole for long-range purposes, is pierced with a circle of smaller holes through which the deadly gas can be sprayed in a cloud for work at close quarters. The skunk's battery can be operated over the bow or from port or starboard, but rarely astern.

The liquid musk itself is a clear, golden-yellow fluid full of little bubbles of the devastating gas, and curiously enough is almost identical in appearance with the venom of the rattlesnake. As to its odor, it has been described feelingly as a mixture of perfume-musk, essence of garlic, burning sulphur, and sewer-gas, raised to the thousandth power. Its effect is very much like that produced by the fumes of ammonia, another animal product, or the mustard-gas of modern warfare. It may cause blindness, convulsions, and such constriction and congestion of the breathing passages as even to bring about death. Some individuals and animals, however, seem to be more or less immune to the effects of this secretion. I remember once attending by invitation a possum hunt conducted by a number of noted possumists of color. We were accompanied by a bevy of miscellaneous dogs. The possums were generally found wandering here and there among the thickets, or located in low persimmon trees. Every now and then one of the dogs would bring to bay a strolling skunk. As the skins had a considerable market value, these skunks were regarded as the special prizes of the chase. The hunters dispatched them by a quick blow across the back which broke the spine. Such a blow paralyzed the muscles and effectually prevented any further artillery practice on the part of the skunk which received it. Before it could be delivered, both the hunter and the dog were usually exposed to an unerring barrage, which however seemed to cause them no especial inconvenience. Before long every hunter, except myself, had one or more skunks tucked away in his pockets.

It was a long, strong night. Before it was over I was in some doubt as to whether I had been attending a possum hunt or had taken part in a skunk chase. My family had no doubt whatever on the subject when I reached home the next morning. I was earnestly invited to tarry in the wilderness until such time as I could obtain a complete change of raiment. Thereafter I tried to give my hunting clothes away to the worthy poor. Said poor, however, would have none of them, and they repose in a lonely grave in a Philadelphia back-yard even unto this day.

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I saw him last fall sitting up like a little post in the Half-Moon Lot where the blind blue gentian grows. Every once in a while he would drop down and begin to nibble again, only to stop and sit up stiff and straight on sentry duty. For the gray, grizzled woodchuck is as wary as he is fat. Watchfulness is the price of his life.

Once I spied him far out in a clover-patch, nibbling away at the pink sweet blossoms as I passed along the road. At the bar-way a chipmunk leaped into the wall with a sharp squeak. Without even stopping to raise his head, Mr. Woodchuck scuttled through the clover, and dived into his burrow. It was a bit of animal team-work such as takes place when a fox or a deer uses a far-away crow or a jay as a picket, and dashes away at its warning of the coming of an enemy.

Soon afterwards I was on my way to a spring down in the pasture. As I passed near a stone wall half hidden in a tangle of chokecherries and bittersweet, there was a piercing whistle, followed by a scrambling and a scuffling as the woodchuck dived down among the stones, and I understood why, below Mason and Dixon's Line, he is always called the "whistlepig." It is a good name, for he whistles, and he is certainly like a little pig in that he eats and eats and eats until he seems mostly quivering paunch. According to the farmers of Connecticut, he eats to get strength enough to dig, and then digs to get an appetite to eat, and so passes his life in a vicious circle of eating and digging and digging and eating. In spite of his unwieldy weight, the woodchuck is a bitter, brave fighter when fight he must.

I once watched a bull-terrier named Paddy tackle a big chuck near a shallow brook. Round and round the dog circled, trying for the fatal throat-hold. Round and round whirled the brave old chuck, chattering with his great chisel-like teeth, which could bite through dog-hide and dog-flesh and bone just as easily as they gnawed through stolen apples. Every once in a while Paddy would clinch, but the woodchuck saved himself every time by hunching his neck down between his round shoulders and punishing the dog so terribly with his sharp teeth that the latter would at last retreat, yelping with pain. They would whirl in circles, and roll over and over in the clinches; but always the old chuck would be found with his squat figure on its legs at the end of each round. His thick grizzled coat was more of a protection, too, than the thin skin of the short-haired terrier.

At last both of them were tired out. As if by agreement, both drew back and lay down, panting and watching each other's every movement like two boxers. Finally, the woodchuck, who was nearer the brook, began to drag himself along until he reached the edge of the water. Then he lowered his head, still watching his opponent, and sucked in deep, cool, satisfying drinks.

It was too much for Paddy. He started for the brook also. The old chuck stopped drinking, and pulled himself together; but Paddy wanted water, not blood. In a moment he had his nose in the brook. There the two lay, not a couple of yards apart, and drank until they could drink no more.

The whistlepig was the first out. Slowly and watchfully he waddled away from the brook and toward the stone wall, that refuge of all hunted little animals. Paddy gave a fierce growl, but the water tasted too good, and he stayed for another long drink. Then he darted out after the woodchuck, barking ferociously all the time, as if he could hardly wait to begin the battle again. The woodchuck watched him steadily, ready to stop and fight at any moment.

Somehow, although Paddy barked and growled and rushed at his retreating opponent with exceeding fierceness, there were always a few yards between them, until Mr. Chuck disappeared at last down between two great stones in the wall. Then indeed Paddy dashed in, and growled, and tore up the turf, and stuck his nose deep down between the stones, and told the world all the terrible things he would do to that woodchuck if he could only catch him. From the bowels of the old wall, between barks, sounded now and then the muffled but defiant whistle of the unconquered whistlepig.

Finally, Paddy, with an air of having done all that could be expected, gave some fierce farewell barks and trotted off toward the farmhouse.

Some people claim to have dug woodchucks out of their holes. Personally I believe that it is about as easy to dig a woodchuck out of its hole as it is to catch a squirrel in its tree. They have a network of holes, and have a habit of starting digging on their own account when molested, and sealing up the new hole after them, so that they leave no trace.

Once, in company with another amateur naturalist, we tried to dig an old chuck out of its burrow. After first stopping up all the spare holes we could find, the naturalist dug and dug and dug and dug. Then we enlisted two other men, and they dug and dug and dug. After a while we came to a mass of great boulders. Then we pressed into service a yoke of oxen, and they tugged and tugged and tugged. Said digging and tugging and tugging and digging lasted the half of a long summer day. All together, it was an exceeding great digging--but we never got that woodchuck.

In September and October the woodchuck devotes all of his time to eating. The consequence is that, by the time the first frost comes, he is a big gray bag of fat. Mr. Woodchuck does not believe in storing up food in his burrow, like the chipmunk. He prefers to be the storehouse. Soon after the first frost he disappears in his hole, and far down underground, at the end of a network of intersecting passages, rolls himself up in a round, warm ball, and sleeps until spring.

According to the legend, on Candlemas, or Ground-Hog Day,--which comes on February second,--he peeps out, and, if he can see his shadow, goes in again for six more weeks of cold weather. So far this day has not yet been made a legal holiday. It probably will be some time, along with Columbus Day, Labor Day, and other equally important days. I will not vouch for the fact that the weather depends on the shadow; but there is no doubt that the woodchuck does come out of his burrow in a February thaw and looks around, as his tracks prove; but he is not interested in his shadow. No indeed! What he comes out for is to look for the future Mrs. Woodchuck, and when he finds her he goes in again.