Part 12

Four foolish, sleepy hens, with muffled, terrified squawks, were quickly caught, and a stillness settled over the farmyard, broken only by the sound of little satisfied grunts; the chicken feast had begun. Then something happened, and a series of terrified squeaking cries came to Mrs. White-Spot’s ears; it was the little weakling; he must be in danger. Instantly the mother skunk forgot her hunger and went to investigate. Sure enough, the little skunk was in trouble; he had accidentally got caught in one of the boy’s traps, which had been temptingly baited with a chicken head. Fortunately he had been caught by just the end of one toe, and Mrs. White-Spot set about at once to free him. First she tried to pull the little one from the trap, then, finding she could not, she began with her little sharp teeth to try to gnaw the toe from the trap, trying to quiet the little skunk’s cries of fear and pain by uttering comforting squeaks, and much nose rubbing.

It was just at this critical moment that the yellow dog, who had been fast asleep in the barn all the time, awoke and, suddenly becoming brave, scenting adventures, out in the moonlight, he bounded, overbold and ferocious, baying wildly, from the stable window, and in an instant had sighted the skunk family.

Then Mrs. White-Spot in great fear and sudden desperation gave a tug with her sharp teeth. The little weakling was free of the trap and the yellow dog, not knowing what was in store for him, bounded confidently right into the midst of the little family group. The next instant, to the great surprise of the dog, who had expected them all to run when they caught sight of him, Mrs. White-Spot turned and bravely faced her enemy. Poor foolish yellow hound, he knew nothing about skunks, and so he did not turn about and run. Why should he? What could such small black and white creatures ever do to bother him?

But the next instant the yellow dog found out his mistake, for with blinded eyes, smarting as though they had been filled with red pepper, staggering back in dismay, groveling and whining, and frantically trying to rub his head and yellow hide free of the sickening skunk scent which covered him he ran about in circles blindly digging up the earth wildly with his claws. All in vain; at last, in sheer desperation, fearing he knew not what, he managed to get away and crawl far out of sight beneath the barn. Mrs. White-Spot was revenged.

Calling her little family together, calmly they went back to their interrupted feast, and afterward lifting the little weakling in her teeth by its neck, and calling the rest to follow her, the skunk family all went back together over the moonlit road together, and finally reached the home nest and went to sleep, well content with their adventure.

Strangely enough the yellow dog can never be persuaded to follow the trail of a skunk; he will never forget his terrible experiences with Mrs. White-Spot and her family; furthermore, he had to be banished from society for days, and could barely be tolerated in the wood-shed, and so cowardly did the yellow dog become that even a sudden glimpse of the black and white cat and her kittens sends him bolting like a shot beneath the barn with whines and trembling body.

As for Mrs. White-Spot, she remained in her snug home beneath the sugar house for a long time, until all the little ones had grown up and were old enough to look after themselves, and the farmer’s boy did not get the skunk pelts after all, but trapped muskrats instead, and in time sold enough to buy the longed-for Flexible Flyer.

XIII

IN THE BOBCAT’S DEN

Through tangled jungles of wild blackberry vines and tall brake crept a tawny, mottled figure with stealthily velvet tread. At a distance the creature resembled a tiger, but following close behind its padding footsteps into the open, it appeared somewhat less formidable. Its head was round, but flattened at the top of its skull, and its jaws were beautifully marked and lined out with dark streakings. Its ears were fairly long and tufted, resembling in this respect its near relative, the dreaded Canadian lynx; its greenish, watchful eyes were alert and glittered savagely as it halted close to the edge of the swamp, where it was bound for its prey, but it had scented the presence of others, and had stopped to reconnoiter.

The solitary prowler was a full-grown, male bay lynx, commonly known in the northern country as the bob, or wildcat. This great cat resembles closely in its habits the tiger of the jungles, and loves best the dark, secret places of the forest; so, when the whine of the lumbermen’s saws breaks the silence of the woods, the great tawny cat is ever seeking new dens, going back farther into the wilderness.

Already had the frost touched the maples in the low-lying grounds, and the forest trails were deep with fallen, yellow beech leaves, so that the comings and goings of all the wild things were rendered doubly silent.

In the heart of the swamp, for which the bobcat was headed, lay a sluggish pond, its waters black with rotting water weeds, and alive with catfish and pickerel. Close in the edge of the tall reeds lay an old flat-bottomed boat in which were two boys, who were fishing for catfish. Already, back in the dense forest surrounding the pond, it was growing black with coming night shadows, but the boys hadn’t noticed it, because the fish were biting splendidly, as they always do just after sunset, leaping right out of the water with sudden splashes, in the center of the pond. Over the farther side of the pond a great night-bird was fishing, sailing low and screaming its uncanny cry as it dove after a fish. One of the boys suddenly noticed it, for the cry made him shiver.

“Say, Jud, what’s that thing, anyhow?” he questioned.

“Just a loon, I guess,” replied the older boy, easily, hooking a wriggling catfish, and taking it from his hook carefully, lest it stab his fingers with its sharp horn.

“Sounds awful kind of scary an’ lonesome, I think, Jud, ’specially when it’s most dark, like it is now. Say, Jud, let’s quit and start for home.”

“Well, we may as well, I guess,” replied Jud, “but I hate to leave now; it’s terrible good fishing. I got two dandy big fellows the last few bites. Guess we got enough, though, for a good mess, and we’ll go before it gets any darker. Say, mother’ll be awful glad of the fresh fish.”

“Bet she will,” replied Tom, as he carefully strung his catch on a willow withe. “Say, it’s funny we can’t get meat and things up here like we do home in Cleveland.”

“Course, we couldn’t expect to, but who cares? Mother’s most well of her cough, staying up here,” replied Jud.

“Say, Jud, I don’t seem to remember this place,” spoke Tom, as they plunged waist high through a forest of tall brakes into swampy, black mire. “Do you s’pose we’re on the right road? Wish we had one of the camp men along.”

“Oh, we’re on the right track. If we keep straight on, I guess we’re bound to strike that piece of corduroy road; then we’re all right anyhow; that’s the lumbermen’s trail,” replied Jud confidently. A long, weird, mocking cry came back to the boys from the direction of the black pond.

“There’s that hateful old loon yelling again; wish we could shoot him,” remarked Tom.

“Hugh, guess when you hit a loon, you’ll have to be pretty old. Why, Indian Pete’s lived all his life in the woods and in a canoe, and he’s only shot one loon; they dive even before the bullet can reach ’em, and they can stay under water and come up a long ways off from the place where you first see ’em dive. They’ve got a crazy kind of a call; guess that’s why they say some people are ‘loony’ when they go out of their minds. Say, Tom,” suddenly exclaimed Jud, blankly, as he paused, “I--I don’t see---- Say, did we come through all these dead woods?” Ahead of the boys towered a great forest of giant spruce, their dead bayoneted limbs showing gray and ghost-like in the darkness.

“Nope, we sure never saw ’em before. We couldn’t ever get through ’em, anyhow, I guess,” replied Tom.

“Well, I guess we’re kind of off the track, somehow,” agreed Jud. “We’ve got to go round these woods. I believe the corduroy road lies over that direction,” and Jud pointed west.

Wearily the two boys tramped back over the trail, which was growing darker every instant, little suspecting that they were lost, hopelessly lost, in the jungle of the forest, and night was close upon them.

Back on the trail the bobcat kept padding silently on its way bound for the pond. It had come out into the clearing, and gave a muffled snarl of dismay when it had discovered the two boys. Back into the shelter of the tall reeds it crept, and lying there flat upon its tawny mottled stomach, it peered forth sullenly and somewhat curiously, watching the boys until they finally left the pond.

Then clawing and scratching its way up a giant spruce, it sent out a long, reassuring yell to its mate, for back in the bobcat’s den, under a distant ledge, she waited with their three young kittens. From her lair she answered the call; it came back through the distance, echoing over the tops of the pines, and through the silent places. This was what the boys had heard and mistaken for the call of the loon.