Part 12

Just over the low ridge yonder is another lake; and under the ledge which you see cropping out is a spring-hole that never freezes. It is nearer than the mouth of the inlet, though the traveling looks much harder, uphill through deep snow. With the wolf in sight, coming up the lake like a cyclone, Keeonekh takes a desperate chance, knowing his advantage if he can top the ridge. Both trails go up the bank by a natural runway, otter and wolf sinking shoulder-deep at every jump. The wolf is gaining here at a frightful rate, one of his flying leaps covering two or three of the otter’s. Nose to tail, they reach the top, where Keeonekh springs aside from the runway and plunges headlong over the ledge. One clean slide of thirty feet, and with a final convulsive leap he lands on the edge-ice of the spring-hole. It breaks under his impact; down he goes in a swirl of black water.

The trail now brings a smile or a chuckle, for we follow Malsun the wolf. Here he hesitates at the brink of the ledge, slippery where snow has melted by day or frozen by night; looking down the almost perpendicular slope, he sees the glistening body of Keeonekh glance away from under his nose. Malsun will sit on his tail and slide down an ordinary bank, but he balks at this icy ledge. It is too steep; and the black ice below, with water lapping over its broken edges, looks dangerous. Turning from the ledge, he leaps down the runway and creeps around to the farther side of the spring-hole, where he stands waiting expectantly. Keeonekh is under water, and can go where he pleases; he can even cross the lake to another spring-hole, if need be, since he has learned the trick of breathing under the ice. But the wolf, who has no notion of such possibilities in a mere beast, thinks that whoever goes into water must soon come out again, and waits for Keeonekh to reappear.

Malsun is not a patient waiter, being too much like a dog. Soon a doubt enters his head, then a suspicion which sends him sniffing around the edges of the spring-hole to be sure the game did not slip away while he was coming down the runway. “No, nothing went away from here,” he says. “Nothing could possibly go away without telling my nose about it.”

The uneasy trail, weaving here and there, shows that Malsun is more puzzled than ever. Suddenly a notion strikes him, a cunning notion that his game is hiding somewhere, waiting for a chance to continue the flight. He trots off to the woods, as if going away; but no sooner is he hidden than he creeps back behind a stump, where he can see the spring-hole without being seen. He is a young wolf, sure enough; the cub habit of stalking things, like a cat, is still strong in him; but his patience is no better than before. He fidgets, changes position; after watching awhile, as you see by a depression in the snow, he goes to have another sniff around the spring-hole. Then he turns away reluctantly and lopes off eastward, probably to rejoin the pack, which we heard howling in this direction last night.

We shall follow him later, to see what else he chased and how he fared; but now a heavy blue shadow drawn across the second lake demands attention. It is trail of some kind; but most wilderness trails are devious, and this goes straight as a string from one wooded point to another on the opposite shore. From this distance it looks like an artificial roadway; we must see who made it.

The shadow, as we draw near it, turns into a path beaten deep in the snow; so deep that, in places near shore, it would easily hide the animals that made use of it. On either side are curious marks or scratches, all slanting one way; in the fresh snow at the bottom are tracks which say that a pair of large beavers have gone back and forth many times. That is an amazing thing, since Hamoosabik the builder, as Simmo calls him, ought now to be safe in his winter lodge, especially in a wolf and lynx country like this. He is a clumsy creature on land or ice; he is courting sudden death to be more than a few jumps from open water at this hungry time of year.

Following the path to the nearer woods, on our right, we find that the beavers have been felling poplar trees and trimming branches into convenient lengths for transportation. The heavy butts lie where they fell, but all smaller pieces have disappeared, showing that the animals are gathering a new supply of food. I have known beavers, driven by necessity, to leave their winter lodge and forage in the woods, eating where they could; but here are no signs of feeding, and no peeled sticks such as a beaver leaves when he has eaten the good bark.

The cutting has been done near a brook, which you hear singing to itself under its blanket of snow and ice. To the brook go several snow tunnels, each starting beside the stump of a fallen poplar, and examination brings out this interesting bit of animal foresight: wherever the beavers fell a tree, they also dig a tunnel leading to the unseen brook. The digging was first in order, and its purpose was to furnish a way of escape should the beavers be surprised at their work.

It is plain now that we are following an uncommonly cunning pair of animals; that they are working in great danger to transport food-wood to their lodge (which must be on the other side of the lake), and that the curious marks beside their path were made by projecting ends of sticks that they carried crosswise in their teeth. Since beavers store an ample food supply in autumn, some misfortune must have sent this pair abroad in the snow; but why do they not eat their bark where they find it? That they know the danger of crossing an expanse of ice, where they may be caught under their burden by prowling enemies, becomes increasingly apparent as we follow the trail. It heads straight across the narrowest part of the lake to a wooded point, where it turns southward, hiding under banks or underbrush, and then cuts across a bay to the open mouth of a large brook.

Here the beavers have their winter home in a great domed lodge. Around the open water are tracks made by three generations of beaver, and these with the uncommonly big house tell us that the family is a large one. Probably their bark soured under water, the wood having been cut early with too much sap, and they were compelled to go afield for a fresh supply. It is hard, perhaps impossible, for a man to judge what went on in their troubled heads when the need of food grew imperative; but a little memory and some study of the trail bring out two facts to make one thoughtful. The first fact, from memory, is that old and young members of a beaver family habitually work together in gathering their winter store of food; the second, from the trail, is that this particular family is not following its habitual or instinctive custom. Though there are kits and well-grown yearlings in the lodge, only two of the largest beavers have gone forth on their dangerous foraging.

An inviting trail leads up beside the brook, and we follow it to find where several of the family have been cutting a huge yellow birch this very morning. That this tree was intended for food is most improbable; the branches are untouched, and beavers do not care for yellow-birch bark at any season. Had they been driven to such fare by necessity, there are smaller trees with more tender bark near the lodge. They have cut this tough tree for exercise, I think. Their teeth grow rapidly, and unless cutting edges are worn down to the proper bevel they soon grow troublesome. That is why a beaver often comes out beside his lodge, if he can possibly reach open water, and cuts for an hour or two at the butt of a tree to keep his teeth in trim. If he is unable to reach open water, he may find himself in need of heroic treatment when the ice breaks up. I once found a beaver that had starved to death simply because his cutting teeth had grown so long, overlapping below and above, that he could not open his mouth wide enough to separate them and so peel the bark from his food-wood.

Farther up the brook the trail of a solitary beaver leaves the path and heads away into a swamp. Step by step we follow him, till he finds a young cedar tree and cuts it down. That is an odd proceeding, since beavers never eat cedar bark for food. See, as the tree falls he jumps aside to be clear of the butt, which has a trick of lashing out and knocking over anything in its path. Then he mogs around to the very tip, where he eats a few of the greenest sprays, filled with pungent oil of cedar. This for medicine, undoubtedly, which some beavers seem to need in winter, perhaps because of their scant exercise and restricted diet.

The lodge looms up finely across the stream, inviting a closer inspection. It is an enormous structure for a single family, higher than my head and full twelve feet in diameter. An old wolf trail leads to the top on one side, a fresh lynx trail on the other, showing where these hungry prowlers climbed up on tiptoe, as if stalking game, for a smell of the odors that steamed through the beavers’ ventilator. A ravenous smell it must have been to them, like the smell of frying onions to a hungry man. There is hardly a flesh-eating animal in the north that will not leave any other game for a taste of musky beaver. Neither wolf nor lynx attempted to dig the game out, you see; they merely sniffed and passed on; and that, too, tells a story. When they were cubs, perhaps, both animals tried to dig a beaver out of some other lodge like this, only to find that the thick walls of sticks and grass, cemented by frozen mud, were too strong to be breached by any beast in the wilderness.

At thought of these hungry brutes, some vague hint of a nearer hunger floats in and turns our mind to minnows; for that bit of open water looks fishy, and if we can catch a minnow there, we are sure of a good breakfast. There are plenty of trout in the lake by the home camp; but lately they have shown a capricious appetite for minnows, which are more precious here than rubies. To catch a trout is easy enough. All you need do is to place a slanting twig over the hole from which we get drinking water, tie a bit of cloth to your line for a flag, stick this into the split upper end of the twig, and sit comfortably by the fire till your flag is jerked into the hole; whereupon you run quickly and pull out your trout, a fat, delicious trout that tastes as if he had been raised on milk and honey. But first you must catch a minnow for bait, and that calls for a fisherman.

Spreading some brush to distribute my weight, for the ice here is dangerous, I crumble a bit of bread from our lunch into the open water--this to attract any minnow that happily may dwell in the beavers’ playground. Suddenly a flash of silver flickers in the black water amid the sinking crumbs. It inspires hope, tingling and electric, like that which thrills one when the swirl of a noble salmon follows his cast. Then for an hour, it seems, or until I am almost frozen, I use all my fisherman’s art with a bent pin, a morsel of meat, a thread and a moosewood twig; after which I wriggle ashore proudly, holding up one minnow a good inch-and-a-half long. Letting him freeze in the snow while we kindle a fire and brew a dipper of tea for lunch, I carry him off in an outside pocket, where he will keep cold enough until we need him. Sport is a matter of sentiment, and is nine-tenths imagination; but real enjoyment is born of necessity. Never a big salmon, of all that I have taken on the fly, was so well angled for or gave so much solid satisfaction as that tiny minnow.

* * * * *

We shall cruise in strange woods for the rest of the day, taking a hint from Malsun the wolf when he left the otter’s spring-hole. Turning away from the lake, we head rapidly northeast through broken country, on a course which may bring us to the trail of the wolves we heard howling in the night. Malsun was heading this way when we left his trail, and a wolf always knows where to find his pack.

Over a hillock we go, and across a white-faced bog bordered by ghostly larches, so wild, so lonely, that it seems nothing ever breathed here since the world began. Nature seems dead, her form shrouded in snow, her lips sealed with ice; but she is only playing with us, having slipped on another of her many masks. Though nothing moves here, though your snowshoes glide on hour after hour and start no bird or beast, there is life near you at every instant, an eager, abundant life, which finds health and cheerfulness in these apparently desolate places. That you cannot see it is part of the winter game; wild life is too alert now, and much too secretive, to reveal itself to any careless eye.

Beyond the bog an immense ridge of hardwood sweeps upward to the sky line. As we climb it, we cross a succession of delicate trails that seem to move onward at a stealthy fox trot. No wonder that Indians call the maker of such a trail Eleemos the sly one! A dozen foxes have crossed the ridge this morning, probably between dawn and sunrise. That seems too many for one locality until you consult the snow, which says that most of the “sly ones” are heading the same way, and that they are no longer hunting, but moving to a definite goal. In the ledges yonder, which front the sunshine, are probably two or three dens that have been used by generations of foxes; and the cubs, after hunting far afield, come back every morning to pass the day near the familiar place or, it may be, near familiar companions, as young foxes commonly do in regions where they are not disturbed by hunting.

Would you like to see one of these wilderness foxes? Then come, follow this dainty trail. It was made by a young dog fox (his habits betray him), and we shall not be long in finding his day bed.

For a half-mile or more Eleemos holds steadily on his course, stopping once to listen and spring aside when he heard a wood mouse squeak under a fallen pine. See, there is a pinkish tinge in the snow where he dropped a morsel of his small game, and lapped it to the last smell. That does not mean necessarily that Eleemos was very hungry. A fox will stop to catch a mouse when his stomach is so full that you wonder how it can hold any more. One October day, when hunting with a gun, I called a fox by a mouselike squeaking. His stomach was tight as a drum; when I opened it I found that Eleemos had already eaten three or four mice, two birds, some stuff I could not name, and part of a young muskrat.

The fox we are following turns from his straight course and heads diagonally upward toward the ledges. Never mind the trail at your feet now; it will soon begin to twist, because a fox never goes straight to his day bed, and you should see the turn before you come to it. So look far ahead, and go carefully; don’t click the snowshoes or let your clothing scrape on a frozen twig. See, the trail turns sharp to the left, and beyond that to the right. There he is! a flash of ruddy color, as Eleemos slips away from the log on which he was curled up in the sun. He saw us before we saw him, though he was more or less asleep. Had he not waited to learn who was coming, you would not have caught even a glimpse of him. Now he half circles to get our wind, for like most animals he trusts his nose above all other senses. There are fleeting glimpses of fur as he passes an opening or halts behind a windfall that hides all but his ears; then he heads away in swift jumps, his brush quivering nervously, and disappears in thick cover. No use to follow; you will not see that fox again.

The older foxes are mating now, and their trails are amazingly devious. Ordinarily Eleemos leaves a plain story in the snow; but if you attempt to read it at a time when he is cajoling a mate, or in a region where his enemies, the wolves, have just been hunting, you will be at your wits’ end to untangle the puzzle. Aside from his courting or hunting habits, every fox has times or moods when his actions are humanly incomprehensible. Last week, for example, I found the trail of a fox that had taken one of Bob’s wolf baits; but instead of eating it he carried it off in his mouth, taking a very erratic course, and setting the bait down here or there to have another look at it. Once he dropped it under a drooping fir tip, crept completely around the fir, and crouched to watch the thing from hiding, as a kitten plays with a paralyzed mouse. Then he carried it hither and yon over the crookedest trail I ever tried to follow, sometimes trotting quietly, again rushing away as if something were chasing him, now and then squatting to look at his prize as it lay immobile under his nose. Though I had a perfect tracking snow, which showed every footprint of the fox and every resting place of the bait, what with his crisscrosses and back-tracking I could not trace him a straight mile from the starting point, and I left him without the faintest notion of where he was heading or what he would do with his stolen morsel.

That bait, by the way, was an odd thing for any fox to uncover in his familiar woods. It was invented in an idle, lunatic moment after the wolves had refused to go near a variety of natural baits, and immediately it brought forth the fantastic fruits of lunacy by becoming excellent “medicine.” It was the size of a teacup; it was compounded of meat scraps held together by melted lard; just before it hardened, it was rolled in powdered fish skins; then the tail feather of a crow was stuck into it, as a marker on the snow. From beginning to end of the alchemy no human hand touched it to leave a suspicious odor. No doubt the queer but appetizing thing was enough to puzzle any fox, making him cut strange capers; but I was unable to generalize about its effect on a canny beast, because the next fox that took a similar bait not only ate it on the spot, but licked up every crumb and looked about for more.

As we resume our course after seeing Eleemos, we run into another trail, which confuses us by its odd appearance until we read that it was made by a pair of foxes, male and female, that were carefully stepping in each other’s tracks. They came over the ridge one behind the other, not heading for the den, but approaching the lake by endless roundabouts, stopping here or there to leave a tangle of tracks which record some little comedy. Instead of trying to read the puzzle, which is beyond all woodcraft, I sketch a portion of the trail just as the foxes left it,--so:

Sketch of the trail of a pair of foxes coming from a, at the right, and going at b. Arrow points indicate the direction of the trail; opposite points where a fox went off at a tangent, and returned, stepping carefully in his own tracks. Single lines show where the foxes followed one behind the other; double lines Where they ran side by side. From a to b is about two hundred yards in a straight line. Note that, when the foxes end their crisscross, they head away in the direction they were holding when they first appeared.]

On the farther side of the ridge, as we turn downward to a cedar swamp, we begin to cross other trails, each with a tale to tell if one follows it far enough. But the winter day is too short; we must hurry if we are to learn what the wolves were doing. Here is where a solitary Canada lynx passed, leaving round pugs like enormous cat tracks. His trail gives a curious impression of mingled cunning and stupidity; it is wavering, sneaky, suspicious, like all cat trails. Since it is heading our way, we follow it through the swamp, to see how Upweekis stalks a hare, before climbing the next ridge. Here in a wind-swept spot a few wood mice have ventured up from their tunnels under the snow; and red squirrels--’sh! there’s one now.

Meeko was hidden in a spruce as we approached, and we would never have seen him had he kept still. Being packed full of curiosity, he cannot be quiet, but must run down his tree to see a man, no doubt the first biped of that kind he has ever met. He begins to scold when we stand motionless, telling him nothing, and I answer him by talking squirrel talk between lips and teeth. Meeko listens in amazed silence; his eyes seem to enlarge, to snap fire; then, as if he had discovered something of vast importance, he leaps jabbering from the tree and scurries away in breakneck fashion. At his summons a second squirrel tumbles out from under a log; whereupon I talk more gibberish, and two more come rushing down the hill. From a sugar maple comes a volley of questions, protests, expostulations. A squirrel is up there who thinks he is being neglected; when he can stand his isolation no longer he comes down to join the crowd. That makes five in this small spot, and we hear more voices in the distance, shrill, querulous voices, demanding the news or scolding about it, whatever it may be.