Part 17

The trout was staring upward with his blank, lidless eyes. He was hungry, and he felt that it was from that direction that food was like to come to him most easily. Smaller fish had learned, from the fate of so many of their fellows, to shun the haunted stillness of this mid-lake depth; and the big trout was growing tired of caddis bait and such small game.

The surface of the lake, as he looked up at it, presented to him a sort of semitransparent mirror, thronged with reflections, yet allowing the sky overhead, and the shadows of many dreaming insects, to show through. If a swallow, for instance, or a low-winged snipe, flew over, the trout could see not only the bird itself, and the shadow of the bird on the bottom, but also a dim, swift-moving reflection of the shadow, on the silvery mirror above. If a swallow's wing-tip flicked the surface, sending down a bright little jet of bubbles, these bubbles also would double themselves in reflections as they darted up again and vanished in the mirroring ripples.

All this, however, was of little interest to the hungry trout, till he caught sight of a large butterfly zigzagging languidly close above the water. Its flight was so feeble that the big fish's expectations were aroused. Slowly he started upwards, to be on hand for whatever favour fortune might have in store for him.

As he swam up out of the gloom, the butterfly flickered above him, and its big shadow danced along the bottom beside his own. A small beetle, its wings all outspread, struck the surface violently close by, shattering the mirror for a second, then starting a series of tiny ripples. The big trout paid no heed to the convulsive gyrations of the beetle. He was wholly intent upon the butterfly, whose faltering flight drooped ever nearer and nearer to the shining flood. At last, the splendid painted wings failed to flutter; and lightly, softly, like a leaf, the gorgeous insect sank upon the water, hardly marring the surface. Without a struggle, without even a quiver. They rested,--for perhaps a second. Then, there was a heavy boil in the water immediately beneath. A pair of black jaws opened. The dead butterfly was sucked down. With a wanton flick of his broad, powerful tail, just above the surface, the big trout turned to sink back into the watery silence with his spoils.

There was a harsh, strong hissing in the air, and a dark body fell out of the sky. Fell? Rather it seemed to have been shot downward from a catapult. No mere falling could be so swift as that sheer yet governed descent. Just at the surface of the water the wedge of the eagle's body turned, his snow-white head and neck bent upwards, his broad wings spread, and beat heavily. In spite of the terrific force of his descent, his body did not go wholly under water, but the water splashed high and white about him. The next instant he rose clear, flapping ponderously. In the iron clutch of his talons writhed the great trout, gripped behind the head and by the middle of the back, its tail thrashing spasmodically.

Never before had this fierce and majestic visitant from the upper silence fallen upon so difficult a prey. Its weight, alone, was all that his mighty wings could lift; and its vehement writhings were so full of energy that it was all he could do to hold it. With his most strenuous flapping, he could hardly lift the victim clear of the water. To bear it off to his lonely rock-ledge on the peak was manifestly impossible. After a few moments of laborious indecision he beat his way heavily toward shore. Nowhere, up and down the beach, in the thickets, or in the dark corridors of the forest, could his piercing eyes detect any foe.

The nearest point of land was an arrow ribbon of clean white rock with a screen of Indian willow close behind it. This point he made for. A few feet above the water's edge he alighted. For a moment he stood haughtily, his hard, implacable yellow eyes challenging the wilderness. Then, his snake-like white head stooped quickly forward, and his powerful beak bit clear through to the victim's backbone, a little behind the spot where it joined the neck. The trout's body stiffened straight out, with a strong shudder, then lay limp and still. Very deliberately, as if scorning to display his hunger, the royal bird began to make his meal.

But one palpitating morsel had gone down his outstretched, snowy throat, when it seemed to him that a leaf whispered in the willow thicket behind him. There was no air stirring, so why should a leaf whisper? His claws relaxed their grip upon the prey; his wings shot out and gave one powerful flap; he bounced lightly upward and aside. At the same moment a black bulk burst out from the willow thicket, and a great black paw smote at him savagely.

The eagle had sprung aside just in time. Had that terrific buffet fairly reached him, never again would he have mounted to his aërial haunts of silence. But as it was, the sweep of the black paw just touched the bird's tail. Two or three dark, regal feathers fluttered to the ground. His spacious pinions caught the air and winnowed out a few feet over the water. The bear, content at having captured the prize, paid no more attention to him, but greedily fell upon the prey.

Ordinarily, an eagle would no more think of interfering with a bear than of assailing a granite boulder. But in this case the aggravation was unprecedented. Never before had the "King of the Air" known what it was to have his lawful prey and hard-won spoils snatched from him. With a sudden sharp yelp of rage he whirled, shot upward, and swooped, with a twang of stiff-set feathers, straight at his adversary's head. Totally unprepared for such a daring assault, the bear could not ward it off. Several sudden red gashes on his head showed where those knife-like talons had struck. "Wah!" he bawled, half-rising on his haunches and throwing up a great forearm in defence. The eagle, swooping upward out of reach, swung round and hovered as if about to repeat the attack.

As the bear crouched, half-sitting, one paw on the mangled prey, the other uplifted in readiness for stroke or parry, the furious bird hesitated. He knew the full menace of that massive upraised paw, which, clumsy though it looked, could strike as swiftly as the darting head of a snake. For all his rage, he had no mind to risk a maimed wing. In a second or two he swooped again, this time as if to catch the foe in the back; but he took care not to come too close. The bear whirled on his haunches, and struck viciously; but his claws met nothing but empty air, while a stiff wing-tip brushed smartingly across his eyes.

Again, and yet again, the eagle swooped, never coming quite within reach. Again and yet again the bear, boiling with embarrassed fury, whirled and struck, but in vain. He struck nothing more tangible than air. The sharp indignant yelps of the great bird flapping close above him were a defiance which he could not answer. He had the prize, but he could not enjoy it. For a few moments he hesitated. Then doggedly he crouched down, with his head partly shielded between his fore paws, and fell to eating hurriedly. Before he could fairly swallow one mouthful, the air again hissed ominously in his ears, and those clutching talons tore at his neck. With a roar of pain, and wrath, and discomfiture, he snatched the prey up in his jaws, and plunged into the thicket with his head well down between his legs. As he vanished the implacable talons struck once more, ripping red furrows in the black fur of his rump.

Smarting, and grumbling heavily, the bear lay down in the heart of the willow thicket, and finished devouring the great trout. Still yelping, the eagle circled above the thicket. Through the leafy branches he could see the black form of his adversary; but into the thicket he dared not swoop lest he should be caught at a disadvantage there. For a long time he circled, hoping that his enemy would come out and give him another opportunity of vengeance. Then, seeing that the bear lay motionless, apparently asleep, his rage wore itself out. Higher he whirled, and yet higher, while the wary beast in the thicket watched patiently for his going. Then suddenly he changed his course. With long, splendid sweep of wing he made off in direct flight, slanting swiftly upward toward the blue silence above the peak.

On the Night Trail

The radiant, blue-white, midwinter moonlight, flooding the little open space of white in the blackness of the spruce forest, revealed the frozen fragments of a big lake trout scattered over the snow. They stood out sharply, so that no midnight forager of the wilds, prowling in the fringes of the shadow and peering forth in the watch for prey or foe, could by any possibility fail to sight them.

The stillness of the solitude was intense, breathless, as if sealed to perpetual silence by the bitter cold. At last, at one corner of the open, a spruce branch that leaned upon the snow stirred ever so slightly; and from its shelter a little gray-brown nose, surmounted by a pair of tiny eyes like black beads, anxiously surveyed the perilous space of illumination. For perhaps half a minute there was not another movement. Then the shrew-mouse, well aware that death might be watching him from under every tree, plucked up a desperate valour and darted out into the light. The goad of his winter hunger driving him, he seized the nearest bit of fish that was small enough for him to handle, and scurried back with it to his safe hole under a fir-root. It was brave adventure, and deserved its success.

For ten minutes more nothing happened to break the stillness. Then again the little shrew-mouse peered from the covert of his hanging branch. This time, however, he drew back instantly. He had caught sight of a pointed black head and snake-like neck stealthily reconnoitring from the opposite side of the open. A hungry mink was making ready to appropriate some of the fish; but since he knew that a forest glade, far from the water, was not a customary resort of fish, alive or frozen, he was inclined to be suspicious of some kind of trap or ambuscade. Instead of looking at the delicious morsels, there in plain, alluring view, he scanned piercingly the shadows and drooping branches which encircled the glade. Suddenly he seemed to detect something to his distaste. A red gleam of anger and ferocity flared into his eyes, and he sank back noiselessly into covert.

A moment later came a huge lynx, padding softly but fearlessly straight out into the revealing light, as if he knew that at this season, when the bears were asleep and the bull moose, bereft of their antlers, had lost their interest in combat, there was none of all the forest kindreds to challenge his supremacy. He was stealthy, of course, in every movement, and his round, sinister eyes glared palely into every covert, but that was merely because he dreaded to frighten off a possible quarry, not because he feared a lurking foe. The frozen fish, however, showed no signs of flight at his approach; so he fell upon the nearest fragment and bolted it ravenously.

Having thus eagerly disposed of several substantial lumps, the great lynx became more critical, and went sniffing fastidiously from morsel to morsel as if he revelled in such unexpected abundance. Suddenly there was a vicious click; and with a spit and a yowl the lynx started as if to jump into the air. Instead of rising, however, some six or seven feet, under the propulsion of his mighty, spring-like muscles, he merely bowed his back and strained tremendously. In response, a small thing of dark steel emerged from the snow, followed closely by a log of heavy wood. The lynx was caught in a trap by his right fore foot.

For a minute or two the panic-stricken beast went through a number of more or less aimless contortions, spitting and screeching, biting at the trap, and clawing frantically at the log. Presently, however, finding that his contortions only made the thing that had him grip the harder and hurt him the more savagely, he halted to consider his predicament. Consideration not appearing to ease that urgent anguish in his paw, he began to strain steadily backward, hoping, if he could not free himself, at least to drag his captor into the woods and perhaps lose it among the trees. The log, however, was very heavy, and his best efforts could move it but a few inches at a time. When, at the end of an hour of fierce struggle, he lay down utterly exhausted, he was still in the full glare of the moon, still several feet from the shelter of the branches. But no sooner had he lain down, than the crunching of a footstep on the crisp snow brought him to his feet again; and with every hair on end along his back, his eyes ablaze with rage and fear, he turned to face the tall figure of a backwoodsman, who stood gazing at him with a smile of satisfaction from the other side of the glade.

Just about three hours earlier, on his way into the Cross Roads Settlement, Pete Logan had set that trap with particular care, and with the definite purpose of capturing that particular lynx. With all his cunning, little did the great tuft-eared cat suspect that for weeks the backwoodsman had been watching him, noting his haunts and trails, observing his peculiarities, and laying plans for his capture. That very evening, at the Cross Roads, Logan had boasted that single-handed he would bring the big lynx into the Settlement, alive and undamaged. He wanted the splendid animal to sell to an American who was collecting wild beasts for menageries; and to avoid injuring the captive's fine gray fur he had partly muffled the cruel teeth of the trap, that they might take hold without tearing.

Having no dread of anything that inhabited the wilds, Logan had left his rifle at home, and carried no weapon but the knife in his belt and his light, straight-hafted axe. In the pack on his back, however, he brought what he intended should serve him better than any weapon,--a thick blanket, and a heavy canvas sack. Now, as he stood eying the frightened and furious captive, he undid the pack and shook the big blanket loose. The lynx glared with new terror at the ample folds. He had seen men before, but he had never seen one shaking out a blanket, which looked to him like a kind of gigantic and awful wings.

Logan had made his plans with careful foresight; and now it was with the deliberation of absolute confidence that he went about the execution of them. His axe gripped in readiness for any unforeseen piece of strategy on the part of the foe, he advanced with the blanket outspread before him like a shield. Back and back, to the limit of his bonds, cowered the lynx, glaring defiance and inextinguishable hate. Slowly the man drew near, till, just barely within reach of the beast's spring, he stopped. For perhaps half a minute more neither man nor beast stirred a muscle,--till the tension of the captive's nerves must have neared the breaking-point. Then, as if his own nerves knew by sympathy the exactly proper moment for the next move in the game, Logan made a swooping forward plunge with the blanket. With a screech of fury the lynx sprang to the grapple,--to find himself, in half a second, rolled over and tangled up and swathed helpless in the smothering woollen folds. In vain he bit, and spat, and yowled, and tore. His keen white fangs caught nothing but choking wool; his rending claws had no chance to do their work; and the crushing weight of the woodsman's sturdy body was bearing him down into the snow. In a few moments, daunted by the thick darkness over his eyes and exhausted by the impotence of his efforts, he lay still, quivering with rage. Then, with the most delicate caution, working through a couple of folds of the blanket, Logan released the jaws of the trap and slipped it warily from the imprisoned paw. To remove it from within the perilous paral was, of course, not to be thought of; but he feared to damage the joint by leaving it in that inexorable clutch a moment longer than was necessary. This done, he deftly whipped a lashing of cod-line about the bundle, binding the legs securely, but leaving a measure of freedom about the head and neck. Then he thrust the bundle into the canvas bag, slung it over his back, and started on the five-mile tramp back to his camp.

Logan travelled without snow-shoes, because there was just now little snow on the trails, or even in the deep woods. What snow there was, moreover, was frozen almost as hard as rock, except for an inch or two of fluffy stuff which had fallen leisurely within a couple of days. An extraordinarily heavy and prolonged January thaw, followed by fierce and sudden frost, had brought about this unusual condition, making something like a famine among the hunting kindreds of the forest, whose light-footed quarry, the eaters of bark and twig and bud, now found flight easy over the frozen surfaces.

The complacent trapper, ruminating pleasantly over his triumph and the handsome price his captive was to bring him, had covered perhaps a mile of his homeward journey when from far behind him came to his ears a novel sound, faintly pulsing down the still night air. Without seeming to pay it any attention whatever, he nevertheless was instantly and keenly concerned; and he perceived that the uneasy bundle on his back was interested too, for it stopped its indignant wrigglings to listen. Up to this moment Logan had believed that there was no voice in all the wilderness unfamiliar to his ears, no speech of all the wild kindreds which he could not in rough fashion interpret. But this cry he did not understand. Presently it was repeated, a little nearer, and a little more convincingly strange to him. He knotted his rugged brows. A few moments more and again it floated down the moonlight, high, quavering, musical, yet carrying in its mysterious cadences an unmistakable menace. Logan knew now to a certainty that it was a sound he had never heard before; and he knew what it was, though he refused to acknowledge it to himself, because it was a refutation of many of his most dogmatic pronouncements.

"It ain't wolves!" He muttered to himself obstinately. "Ther' ain't never been a wolf in New Brunswick!"

But even as he spoke, the sinister cry arose again, nearer and yet nearer; and he was obliged to confess to himself that, whatever it was, it was on his trail, and he was likely to know more about it within a few minutes. He was not alarmed, but he was annoyed, both at the upsetting of his theories and at the absence of his gun. Undoubtedly, these Charlotte County romancers had been right. There were wolves in New Brunswick. He was ready to apologize for having so sarcastically questioned it.

In spite of the fact that his dignity as a woodsman would not permit him to be alarmed, he could not but recognize that the cry upon his trail was made up of a number of voices, and that a number of wolves might be capable of making things very unpleasant for him. He remembered, uncomfortably, that in this weather, with the snow so hard that the deer could run their fastest upon it, the wolves must be extremely hungry. The more he thought of this fact the more clearly he realized that the wolves must be very hungry indeed, to dare to trail a man. He had been walking as fast as he could; but now he broke into a long, swinging lope, his moccasined feet padding with a soft whisper upon the snow. For a moment he thought of ridding himself of the burden upon his back; but this idea he rejected resentfully and with scorn. He was not going to be robbed of his triumph by a bunch of rascally, interloping vermin like wolves.