Part 16

"Now," said the farmer, tossing the ball of rags up to him, "light this 'ere spittin' devil, an' lower it into the hole, an' we'll see what's what!"

As he spoke, he turned, and gave the schoolmaster a slow wink, which quickened the latter's expectations. The next moment the boy had set a match to the rags, and they were ablaze with wild sputterings and jets of red flame. Eagerly, but carefully, he lowered the fiery ball into the hole, paying out the string till it was evident that the tree was hollow almost down to the butt.

Suddenly there was a wild commotion of squeals, grunts, and scratchings in the depths of the invaded hole. The sounds rose swiftly up the inside of the trunk. Then there was an eruption at the mouth of the hole. A confusion of furry forms shot forth, with such violence that the startled boy almost lost his balance. As it was, he backed away precipitately along the branch, amid derisive encouragement from his friends below.

Having eluded, for the moment, the flaming invader of their home, the raccoons paused on the limb to survey the situation.

"Fling 'em down to us," jeered the farmer, hugely amused at the boy's dismay.

The latter grinned nervously, and started forward as if to obey. But at this moment the raccoons made their decision. The dogs and men below looked more formidable than the hesitating boy astride of their branch. In a resolute line, their fierce old mother leading, they made for him.

The boy backed away with awkward alacrity, but still keeping his hold on the salmon-twine. Consequently, by the time he had nearly reached the end of the limb, the still sputtering fire-ball emerged from the hole in the crotch. At the sound of it behind them the young raccoons turned in terror, and straightway dropped from the tree; but the old mother, undaunted, darted savagely upon her foe. The boy gave a cry of fear. The next instant there was a spiteful crack from the schoolmaster's little rifle. The old raccoon stopped, shrank, and rolled lifeless from the limb.

Meanwhile, the youngsters were in a mêlée with the two dogs. Though little more than three-fourths grown, they had courage; and so brave a front did they oppose to their enemies that for a few moments the dogs were cautious in attack. Then the black and white mongrel sprang in; and the big setter, realizing that these were no such antagonists as their parents had been, followed, and was astonished to learn that he could stand a bite from those sharp teeth and resist the impulse to howl and run away. In less time than it takes to describe, one of the raccoons was shaken to death in the setter's great jaws, and then the other three scattered in flight.

One was overtaken in two seconds by the black and white mongrel, and bitten through the back. The second ran past the farmer, and was killed by a quick blow with his gun-barrel. The third, full of courage and resource, flew straight at the setter's throat, and so alarmed him that he jumped away. Then, seeing no tree within reach, and probably realizing that there was no escape by any ordinary course, he fled straight to the farmer.

The farmer, however, mistook this action for the ferocity of despair. He struck out with his gun-barrel, missed his aim, swore apprehensively, and caught the little animal a kick, which landed it within a couple of yards of the spot where stood the young schoolmaster, watching the scene with mingled interest and pity. His sympathies now went out warmly to this brave and sole survivor of the little people of the sycamore. His quick intuitions had understood the appeal which had been so cruelly repulsed.

For a second the young raccoon stood still where he had fallen, and his keen, dark eyes flashed a glance on each of his enemies in turn. Both dogs were now rushing upon him. The ever-imminent doom of the wild kindred was about to lay hold of him. He half-turned, as if to die fighting, then changed his mind, darted to the feet of the young schoolmaster, ran up his trouser-leg, and confidently took refuge under his coat.

"Shake him off! Shake him off! A 'coon's bite is pizen!" shouted the farmer, in great excitement.

"Not much!" said the young schoolmaster, with decision, gathering his coat snugly around his panting guest. "This 'coon hunt's over. This little chap's coming home to live with me!"

The farmer stared, and then laughed good-naturedly.

"Jest as you say," said he. "Recken ye've 'arned the right to have a say in the matter. But ye'll find 'coons is mighty mischeevous 'round a house. Fetch the karkisses, Jake. Reckon we've done pretty well for one night's huntin', an' there ain't goin' to be no more 'coons messin' in the corn this summer!"

In a few minutes the procession was again plodding, Indian file, through the still, dew-fragrant, midnight woods. The little raccoon, its heart now beating quietly, nestled in secure contentment under the young schoolmaster's arm, untroubled even by the solemn and deep-toned menace of a horned-owl's cry from the spiky top of a dead hemlock near at hand. From the lake behind the hill came the long laughter of a loon, the wildest and saddest of all the wilderness voices. And a lonely silence settled down about the old sycamore on the hill, solitary under the white, high-sailing moon.

Horns and Antlers

The young red and white bull was very angry. He stood by the pasture bars grumbling, and blowing through his nostrils, and shaking his short, straight horns, and glaring fiercely after the man, who was driving three cows down the hill to the farmyard in the shadowy valley. Every evening for weeks the man had come about sunset and taken away the cows in that fashion, rudely suppressing the young bull's efforts to accompany his herd, and leaving him to the sole companionship of two silly and calf-like yearlings whom he scorned to notice. For the past few evenings the bull had been trying to work himself up to the point of fairly joining issue with the man, and having it out with him. But there was something in the man's cool assurance, in his steady, compelling eye, in the abrupt authority of his voice, which made the angry animal hesitate to defy him. Certainly the bull could see that the man was very much smaller than he,--a pigmy, indeed, in comparison; but he felt that within that erect and fragile-looking shape there dwelt an unknown force which no four-footed beast could ever hope to withstand. Every evening, after the man and cows had gone half-way down the hillside, the bull would fall to bellowing and pawing the ground, and rolling his defiance across the quiet valley. But when next the man came face to face with him, and spoke to him, he would assume, in spite of himself, an attitude of lofty and reluctant deference.

The high hill pasture, with its decaying stumps, its rounded hillocks, its patches of withering fern and harsh dwarf juniper, was bathed in all the colours of the autumn sunset, while the farmyard down in the valley was already in the first purple of the twilight. The centre of the pasture was the hilltop, roughly rounded, and naked save for one maple-tree, now ablaze with scarlet and amber. Along the line of hills across the dusk valley the last of the sunset laid a band of clear orange, which faded softly through lemon and pink and violet and tender green to the high, cold gray-blue of the dome above the hill, where one crow was beating his way toward the tree-tops on the farther ridge. The tranquillity of the scene was curiously at variance with the loud vapourings of the bull, as he raged up and down behind the bars, watched tremblingly by the pair of awestruck yearlings.

Over on the other side of the hill, behind the red maple, where the hillocks and fern patches lay already in a cool, violet-brown shadow, stood a high-antlered red buck, listening to the bull's ravings. He had just come out of the woods and up to the snake fence of split rails which bounded the pasture. With some curiosity, not unmixed with scorn, he had sniffed at the fence, a phenomenon with which he was unfamiliar. But the voice of the bull had promptly absorbed his attention. There was something in the voice that irritated him,--which seemed, though in a language he did not know, to convey a taunt and a challenge. His fine, slim head went high. He snorted several times, stamped his delicate hoofs, then bounded lightly over the fence and trotted up the slope toward the shining maple.

For most of the greater members of the wild kindred,--and for the tribes of the deer and moose, in particular,--the month of October is the month of love and war. Under those tender and enchanting skies, amid the dying crimsons and purples and yellows and russets, and in the wistfulness of the falling leaf, duels are fought to the death in the forest aisles and high hill glades. When a sting and a tang strike across the dreamy air, and the frosts nip crisply, then the blood runs hot in the veins and mating-time stirs up both love and hate. The red buck, as it happened, had been something of a laggard in awakening to the season's summons. His antlers, this year, had been late to mature and overlong in the velvet. When he entered the field, therefore, he found that other bucks had been ahead of him, and that there were no more does wandering forlorn. He had "belled" in vain for several days, searched in vain the limits of his wonted range, and at last set out in quest of some little herd whose leader his superior strength might beat down and supplant. Of his own prowess, his power to supplant all rivals, he had no doubt. But hitherto he had found none to answer his challenge, and his humour was testy. He had no idea what sort of an animal it was that was making such objectionable noises on the other side of the hill; but whatever it might be, he did not like it. He knew it was not a bear. He knew it was not a bull-moose. And of nothing else that walked the forest did he stand in deference, when the courage of rutting-time was upon him.

Stepping daintily, the red buck reached the top of the hill and saw the bull below him. A formidable antagonist, surely! The buck stopped where he was. He had now less inclination to pick a quarrel; but he was consumed with curiosity. What could the heavy red and white beast be up to, with his grunting and bellowing, his pawings of the sod, and his rampings to and fro? The buck could see no object for such defiance, no purpose to such rage. It was plain to him, however, that those two odd-looking, rather attractive little animals, who stood aside and watched the bull's rantings, were in no way the cause or object, as the bull completely ignored them. Growing more and more inquisitive as he gazed, the buck took a few steps down the slope, and again paused to investigate.

At this point the bull caught sight of the intruder, and wheeled sharply. His half-artificial rage against the man was promptly forgotten. Who was this daring trespasser, advancing undismayed into the very heart of his domain? He stared for a moment or two in silence, lashing his tail wrathfully. Then, with a rumbling bellow deep in his throat, he lowered his head and charged.

This was a demonstration which the red buck could very well understand, but his ill-humour had been swallowed up in curiosity, and he was not now so ready to fight. In fact, it was with large apprehension that he saw that dangerous bulk charging upon him, and his great, liquid eyes opened wide. He stood his ground, however, till the bull was almost upon him, and then bounded lightly aside.

The bull, infuriated at this easy evasion, almost threw himself in his effort to stop and turn quickly; and in a few seconds he charged again. This time the charge was down-hill, which doubled its speed and resistlessness. But again the buck sprang aside, and the bull thundered on for a score of yards, ploughing up the turf in the fierce effort to stop himself.

And now the big, wondering eyes of the buck changed. A glitter came into them. It had angered him to be so hustled. And moreover, the ponderous clumsiness of the bull filled him with contempt. When the bull charged him for the third time, he stamped his narrow, sharp hoofs in defiance, and stood with antlers down. At the last moment he jumped aside no farther than was absolutely necessary, and plowed a red furrow in the bull's flank as he plunged by.

Beside himself with rage, the bull changed his tactics, trying short, close rushes and side lunges with his horns. But the buck, thoroughly aroused, and elated with the joy of battle, was always just beyond his reach, and always punishing him. Before the fight had lasted ten minutes, his flanks and neck were streaming with blood.

With his matchless agility, the buck more than once sprang right over his enemy's back. It was impossible for the bull to catch him. Sometimes, instead of ripping with the antlers, he would rear straight up, and slash the bull mercilessly with his knifelike hoofs. For a time, the bull doggedly maintained the unequal struggle; but at length, feeling himself grow tired, and realizing that his foe was as elusive as a shadow, he lost heart and tried to withdraw. But the buck's blood was up, and he would have no withdrawing. He followed relentlessly, bounding and goring and slashing, till the helpless bull was seized with panic, and ran bellowing along the fence, looking vainly for an exit.