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Title: The Race of the Swift
Author: Litsey, Edwin Carlile
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Race of the Swift" ***
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THE RACE OF THE SWIFT
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: “The gray fox was leading bravely.” Frontispiece. See
page 16]
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----------------------------
THE
RACE OF THE SWIFT
----------------------------
BY
EDWIN CARLILE LITSEY
AUTHOR OF “THE LOVE STORY OF ABNER STONE”
Illustrated from Drawings by
CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL
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BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1905
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1903, 1904,
BY FRANK LESLIE PUBLISHING HOUSE.
Copyright, 1904,
BY FIELD AND STREAM, INC.
Copyright, 1905,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
-------
All rights reserved
Published October, 1905
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO
CARRIE SELECMAN LITSEY
I INSCRIBE THESE STORIES
E. C. L.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The author wishes to make public acknowledgment to _Leslie’s Monthly
Magazine_ for permission to use in this volume “The Race of the Swift,”
“The King of the Northern Slope,” and “The Ghost Coon.” Thanks are also
due _Field and Stream_ for their courtesy in allowing the use of “The
Fight on the Tree-Bridge.” The other stories presented here have never
appeared in print before.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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CONTENTS
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THE RACE OF THE SWIFT 1
THE ROBBER BARON 21
THE GHOST COON 43
THE SPOILER OF THE FOLDS 63
THE FIGHT ON THE TREE-BRIDGE 83
THE GUARDIAN OF THE FLOCK 107
THE KING OF THE NORTHERN SLOPE 129
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
From drawings by Charles Livingston Bull
------------------------------------
“The gray fox was leading bravely.” _Frontispiece_
“Zigzagging nimbly, he strove to elude 41
his pursuer”
“What was this upon his bridge!” 102
“The King stopped long enough to throw 143
back his head and give one terrifying
scream of victory”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE RACE OF THE SWIFT
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THE RACE OF THE SWIFT
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A HALVED moon was shedding a faint glow over the rugged knob country.
The twisted, broken, distorted ground, with its spasmodic growth of
blackberry, sassafras, and juniper bushes, seemed the center of
desolation. But something was living, moving, in the midst of this
loneliness. Creeping along a ragged fence line at the base of a knob
went a stealthy figure. Sharp-muzzled, keen-eyed, lean of body and wiry
of limb, the object moved forward at a swift trot. The night was young.
Scarcely had the salmon tints which the sun had left in the west
disappeared. Through the pure, lambent air the rolling tones of the
farmer could be heard as he called his pigs home. Above the high hills
gleamed the timid tapers of the early stars. A low breeze was chanting a
gentle vesper among the pines and oaks upon the knob-side. A blundering
rabbit butted blindly through the weeds on the creek bank; a bullfrog,
fat and inert, bellowed forth his thunderous note; a muskrat splashed
softly from a half-sunken log and spread his flat paddles to propel him
to his hidden home. A whip-poor-will’s heart-broken tones came from a
point further down the hollow. Nature was saying that the day was gone.
The she-fox trotting by the worm-eaten fence stopped abruptly. The fence
was curving around the knob, and this did not coincide with her purpose.
She stopped with one fore foot upheld, and ears pricked attentively. The
sounds she heard were familiar, legitimate; a part of her nightly life.
The she-fox was painfully attenuated. Her tawny body was barred with
bulging ribs; there was a gaunt, starved look upon her bony face. The
two rows of teats along her belly were clean and bare—even moist, for
ten minutes ago a half dozen tiny tongues had striven vainly to draw
nourishment from them. But she had none to give. For two days and nights
she had tasted food but once, and during that time her hungry brood had
insistently drawn her very life from her hour after hour. She had given
it freely and without grudge, licking caressingly first one baby form
and then another; had even borne unflinchingly the sharp nips from
little teeth when the milk would not flow. The night before she had
ranged for miles, though so weak that only the deathless strength of her
mother-love sustained her in her quest. Not far from her home was a
place where human-people lived. But they were wary, and placed their
hens and chickens under lock and key at the going down of every sun.
Thither had she gone first, because it was the closest, but not a
feather could she find. At the corner of the hen-house she stopped and
sniffed eagerly. Beyond the white-washed planks were scores of fat
fowls, and the she-fox knew it, but they were safe from her long, white
teeth. She listened. The sound of rustling feathers and drowsy clucks
smote her ears, and the saliva of famine dripped from the loose skin of
her lower jaw. Emboldened by desperation, she walked around the
building. At the bottom of the door a hole had been cut, so that the
fowls could enter when the door was shut. But this was secured by a
plank, which in turn was held in place by a heavy stone. She could not
move it, because she was weak from fasting. Thrusting her sharp, black
nose into a crack about an inch wide between the planks, she drank in
the ravishing odor of many a choice pullet. Suddenly realizing that this
course was worse than futile, she turned, vaulted the fence enclosing
the cow-lot, swerved around a prostrate, ponderous figure sleepily
chewing its cud, and vanished in the direction of the stable. Here,
likewise, her investigation was fruitless, so she gave up and turned her
head towards another farm-house, five miles away.
The journey, which ordinarily would not have caused the least fatigue,
came near to overcoming the dauntless forager. Near her destination she
tottered to a brook and sank in the cool water, lapping it at intervals.
This brought back some of her strength, and she essayed to complete her
task. Through the orchard she trailed; then suddenly her delicate
nostrils conveyed to her subtle brain some welcome intelligence.
Stopping about twenty feet from the yard fence, she reconnoitred. A big
walnut tree grew close to the fence, and upon the limbs of this tree
were some huge, shapeless knots; knots with convex backs and drooping
tails; turkeys! The eyes of the starved raider glowed green and blue.
Here was a feast. Strength for her, and life for her little ones back in
their rocky den, crawling blindly about and wailing piteously for food.
Softly as a moonbeam she crept forward, then came to a halt in dismay
and sank upon her haunches. The plank with strips nailed across it, by
the aid of which the turkeys gained their roost, had been removed and
lay there upon the ground before her, to mock her baffled hopes and her
bitter despair. With a keen sense of distances, she measured with her
eye the height of the lowest limb from the ground. It was not far; she
had made greater leaps time and again. But now her leaden, paralyzed
limbs could scarcely carry her pinched body over the ground. To make the
effort would be suicide. The dog-pack were sleeping somewhere near by,
and their sleep was light! A cracking twig would rouse them, and that
night she could not lead them. There were babies at home who needed her;
she dared not make the attempt. One of the knots on a limb moved
cautiously, then toppled. The watcher sprang forward eagerly, to again
meet with disappointment. The sleepy wings flapped once or twice, a new
footing was secured, and the head of the restless turkey receded into
the neck feathers as the fowl relapsed into slumber. After a few moments
the dull red shadow on the ground moved on again, hunger-mad, yet
crafty. Into the confines of the yard crept the fox—up to a long, tall
bench by the kitchen door. The scent of something strangely like fresh
meat had reached her. There was a vessel of some sort covered with a
piece of wood on the bench. To leap up and muzzle off the cover was the
work of a second. And there was the dressed carcass of a chicken soaking
overnight to serve as a breakfast for the human-people in the morning.
Quickly as a star twinkles she of the forest-folk had the spoil in her
strong jaws. Softly as a shadow falling she dropped to earth; swiftly as
the wind she glided through the long corn rows growing in the garden
back of the house, and was soon a mile away, safe, because unpursued.
Then she sank upon her belly, and ate, and ate. Crunched the tender
bones and the juicy flesh, impregnated as they were with salt, and
gradually she felt the glad elation of returning strength. Through her
worn, famished body renewed life was running, although the edge of her
hunger had barely been removed. She lay quiet for a while, gathering
together the taxed forces of her being, and thinking of the miles
stretching between her and the little ones. But before the shadows upon
the hill-tops turned into the misty halos of morning, six tiny forms lay
at their mother’s breasts, well-fed and asleep.
Now another day had come and gone, and she was as bad off as before. Her
mate, who had bided with her until the babies came, had tired of her and
gone to seek a fairer wench, leaving her unaided to provide for the
offsprings of their wild, free love. She had planned and worked, plotted
and slain. The floor of the den was covered with feathers and sprinkled
with broken bones—dry bones which she had cracked in desperation while
searching for sustenance. It was a fight all the time. Fight for food;
fight to live. So when the night had barely come, and the salmon tints
in the west were yet a shadow, the she-fox nosed her importunate progeny
into a whining heap at one side of the den and slipped softly without
and moved down the hill-side, her waving tail like a smouldering torch
in the gloom of the woods.
Keeping in the shadow of the rickety rail fence till it could no longer
serve her, she halted a moment for deliberation, then twisted her supple
body and half leaped, half crawled through a crack near the bottom. As
she had stood with ears alert before veering her course, the faintest
kind of tone had come to her. It was different from the hill-voices. The
forest-kind know all the dozens of low noises which float along the
knob-side at night. The voices and sounds are all soft—peculiarly soft.
Only when a wild-cat is at bay, or the pack swings mouthing over the
lowlands and the hills, is the wonderful silence of that region
disturbed after the sun has gone. If her ear was not at fault—and
privation had sharpened all of her faculties—the she-fox knew that a
rich reward would soon be hers. Skirting the creek till she came to a
place where it narrowed, she leaped across, and moved on in the same
steady trot through the blackberry and sassafras bushes. Behind a low
tangle of weeds and vines she crept at last, and crouched not three feet
from a narrow hog-path winding on towards the farm-house half a mile
away. From the pond at the base of the slight elevation over which the
path led, some belated geese were ambling homeward. A half dozen or
more; awkward, matronly, placid, moving in Indian file with never a
thought beyond dipping in the hog-trough in the barnyard, or gobbling up
the food thrown to the chickens. The webbed feet plodded on—straight to
death. One, two, three, four—six plump bodies marched sedately by the
low clump of matted weeds. Destruction swift and sure seized the last.
Out of the shadows sprang a shape; two sinewy forelegs glided around the
long white neck and skilful fangs tore open the portals of death. It was
done almost without a sound. A feather or two and a few drops of blood
were the only traces of the deed. Taking the blood as it gushed from the
gaping wounds, the fox seized the neck firmly at a point near the base,
slung the heavy body across her back with a dexterous jerk of her head,
and started for her den at a swift lope. That night she feasted to
repletion, and the next day she gorged herself on her kill. Made
indolent by gluttony, she did not leave her lair for two whole days.
Then her old enemy, hunger, returned again, and drove her to action.
During the days she had been lying inert in her rocky chamber, some
things had happened which disturbed her not a little. The morning
following the night she had brought in her prize, she had heard the
dread voices of the hounds on some far-off range. All day, at intervals,
the unwelcome chant had come to her ears, and so she knew that the
human-people had missed their goose, and were abroad with the pack in
quest of its destroyer. The second day a more alarming thing had
happened. It was when the shadows of the taller trees began to lengthen
towards the east, and twilight reigned in her cave home, that she was
roused once more by the determined notes of the pursuing pack. Creeping
to the entrance, she presently saw the chase passing along the
knob-side. A great gray fox, nearly spent, was gliding, falling down the
incline, his red mouth stretched for breath, and his bushy tail
drooping. After him raced the hated friends of the human-people,
loud-tongued and tireless. The gray fox was leading bravely, and hunters
and hunted passed from view to the accompaniment of rustling leaves and
snapping twigs and triumphant bays.
The next morning, near midday, her merciless offsprings teased and
worried her so that the she-fox crept forth in spite of the warning of
the day before, and set her sharp muzzle towards the crest of the range,
with the intention of invading territory which hitherto her feet had
never pressed. There were wild turkeys back in the hills, and wary and
suspicious as she knew them to be, they were no match for her wily
woodcraft. But scarcely had her noiseless feet gone over the top of the
knob, when a sharp yelp immediately behind her caused her to jump and
turn quickly. They were there—her enemies—and their noses were smelling
out her trail, for as yet they had not seen her. Even as she leaped for
the nearest cover like a yellow flash, her first thought was of the
little ones biding at home. She must lead her foes away from that cleft
in the rocks where her love-children lay awaiting her return. And though
her life should be given up, yet would she die alone, and far away,
before she would sacrifice her young.
It was a hard and stubborn race which she ran for the next six hours. At
times her loyal, loving heart seemed ready to burst from the strain she
thrust upon it. At times fleet feet were pattering almost at her heels,
and pitiless jaws were held wide to grasp her; then again only the echo
of the stubborn cry of her pursuers reached her. She had doubled time
and again. Once a brief respite was granted her when she dashed up a
slanting tree-trunk which, in falling, had lodged in the branches of
another tree. Eight tawny forms dashed hotly, furiously by, then she
descended and took the back track. Only for a moment, however, were the
cunning dogs deceived. They discovered the artifice almost as soon as it
was perpetrated, and came harking back themselves with redoubled zeal.
So the long hours of the afternoon wore away. Not a moment that was free
from effort; not an instant that death did not hover over the mother
fox, awaiting the least misstep to descend. Back and forth, around and
across, and still the subtlety of the fox eluded the haste and fury of
the hounds. All were tired to the point of exhaustion, but none would
give up. The sun went down; tremulous shadows, like curtains hung, were
draped among the trees. The timid stars came out again and the halfed
moon arose, a little larger than the night before. And still, with
inveterate hate on the one side, and the undying strength of despair on
the other, the grim chase swept through the night. At last the
blood-rimmed eyes of the reeling quarry saw familiar landmarks.
Unconsciously, in her blind efforts, she had come to the neighborhood of
her den. Perhaps the love within her heart had guided her back. She
found her strength quickly failing, and with a realization of this her
scheming brain awoke as from a trance, and drove her to deeper guile.
Two rods away was the creek. To it she staggered, splashed through the
low water for a dozen yards, and hid herself beneath the gnarled roots
of a tree from the base of which the stream had eaten away the soil. She
listened intensely. She heard the pack lose the scent, search
half-heartedly for a few minutes, for they, too, were weary to dropping,
then withdraw one at a time, beaten. But for half an hour the brave
animal lay against the tree roots, waiting and resting. Then she came
out cautiously, looked around her, and with difficulty gained the mouth
of her den. Casting one keen glance over her shoulder through the
checkered spaces of the forest, she glided softly within, and lying
down, curled her tired body protectingly around her sleeping little
ones.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ROBBER BARON
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THE ROBBER BARON
THE Robber Baron sat upon his throne—for he was also a king. No
courtiers attended him; no pages hung upon his slightest gesture. In
dignified solitude he sat, and watched, and watched, and watched.
Part of the country through which Green River runs is almost as it was
when the Master left it with the seal of completeness. Its topography is
unchanged except for the natural changes brought about by the primeval
elements of wind and water. There are vast stretches of timbered country
checkered with cultivated acres, and rugged limestone cliffs fringed
with moss and garlanded with poison ivy. The home of the Robber Baron
was on the edge of one of these timbered tracts, in an old oak tree.
This was his castle, and his alone. None of his feathered cousins dared
perch in the spreading branches, even to rest for a moment. That tree
was the property of the Baron, and he had proven his title to complete
ownership more than once with beak and claws and beating wings. At the
very top of the tree a dead snag shot up a distance of ten or twelve
feet. This was the turret of the castle—the watch-tower. On its summit
the old hen-hawk would perch, and complacently view his wide domain and
his trembling subjects. And he was indeed a king. He levied tribute from
the air, the earth, and the water alike, and whenever he poised and
swooped, a life went out. One sound only caused his warrior heart to
quake, and that was the solemn voice of the great horned owl, crying
dismally in the night from the recesses of the wood. Here was a foe
worthy of his steel; bigger, stronger, and bulldog-like in his battles.
But the hawk took care not to pit his prowess against the power of this
night marauder. During the day he was safe, for his one enemy who could
wage successful warfare with him moped on a limb from sunrise till after
dusk. In the darkness he sat high and safe, for the night-bird hunted
low. More than once the Baron, sleeping the sleep of the gorged glutton,
had awakened to the sound of mighty wings winnowing the air, and he
would draw his fierce head a little further down between his
wing-shoulders, shuddering and afraid. And if the night was moonlit, and
he happened to look down, he would see a broad, black shadow gliding
swiftly between the trees—a veritable spectre of death.
Day after day the Robber Baron sat on the top of the snag in the oak
tree. This was his home, his bed, his point of lookout, and his banquet
chamber. With almost telescopic keenness of vision, he could see what
was going on for incredible distances around him. A rabbit’s quiet
movements while feeding a half mile away on the young clover in a brown
stubble-field; the neutral tints of the prim little quail as they
scurried over the saffron leaves and through the yellow grass; a
squirrel’s bark back in the forest behind him; a leaping fish in the
stream which ran a good mile from his gray snag—all this he saw and
heard, as well as many other things. If he had recently dined and was
well filled and comfortable, he would ruffle his wings, preen his breast
feathers, and gaze calmly upon the things which were his. When he wanted
them he would go and get them, and when once those needle-pointed talons
touched fur, feathers, or fins, they never let go their hold until they
reached the snag. Then one foot would seek the familiar grasp, while the
other held the victim down rigidly until the rending beak of the spoiler
had torn out the life of his prize.
Now years of rapine and plunder and slaughter had not only schooled the
Robber Baron in the fine art of taking game of every description, but it
had made him an epicure as well. For, sailing over a barnyard one day,
he saw a plump pullet dozing in the warm dust by the side of a stone
wall. The instinct imparted by some daintily fed ancestor awoke, and
hardly knowing it, the hawk swooped and clutched. There was a terrible
outcry from the stricken pullet, and the barnyard tribe joined in the
row with one voice. The pullet was fat and heavy and struggled
desperately, but the sinewy pinions of the attacker had never failed
him, and he slowly arose, with labored flapping, taking his captive with
him. But the hubbub had reached indoors, where the farmer and his sons
were taking their noonday meal, and to them the fuss outside meant
“Hawk! Hawk!” and nothing else, for hens never cackle at any other time
as they do when a hawk or a mink invades their midst. So a boy rushed
out with a gun, and there, barely clearing the tops of the trees in the
orchard, flew the raider. The boy fired twice, but when he ducked his
head to gaze under the smoke, the hawk was still going, and with him the
pullet. The shot had whistled about the ears of the Baron, and a hot
streak had run up his back and across his neck, but no shot struck him
fairly, and he went grimly on. When he at last sighted his tower his
strength was giving down, for his burden was heavy and the way had been
long. But he went up, up, bravely up, breasting the clear air higher and
higher, and finally his feet rested on the old familiar place, and he
skilfully balanced himself with his wings.
As he feasted, he realized that he had made a great discovery. The
tender, juicy flesh which entered his greedy mouth in tempting strips
was far more suited to his palate than was the meat of the wild things
upon which he had hitherto preyed. All of the wild flesh was tainted,
more or less, with the exception of the luscious quail, but here was
something fit for even his kingly beak. So as he ate, he planned, and
his thoughts boded ill for the farm housewife.
Thus it happened that for a time a feeling of peace and security reigned
in the dominion of the king. In the rabbit world the cotton-tails came
more and more into the open, venturing out from the brier patches and
the low-growing bushes which were their natural protectors; but they
never failed to watch the air with one eye while they ate, for the
destroyer came silently, and the first warning was the fatal shadow
falling upon them, followed by the smothering swish of wings. Then woe
to the long-eared luckless one who was even a few feet from cover. The
descent of the bold robber was like a lightning bolt—as swift and as
deadly. The quail began to trot with more confidence between the
stubble-rows—for it was the autumn season—and to hunt for berries and
stray grains of wheat with less fear. So with all the different families
over which the Robber Baron held sway. Every day a broad, thin shadow
would pass over, but it never dropped, and the timid ground-people
whispered to each other that their dreaded enemy had found a new
hunting-place, and rejoiced accordingly. At times they saw him
returning, nearly always flying low and heavily, with a cumbersome prey
in his clutches. What it was, they did not know, but so long as he left
them in peace they were content not to question his doings.
One golden afternoon the Robber Baron sat upon his turret in majestic
loneliness. He was a royal bird. His head was flat; his brow niched and
frowning, and his beak was curved like a boat-hook. His mighty wings
were folded closely to his sides; his gray-white breast, flecked with
brown, bravely met the winds which blew about his towering snag. His
sturdy legs were tufted to the second joint, and his scaly talons, black
and steel-like in their powerful grasp, curved firmly around the dead
wood which formed his perch. He was a type of strength and grace, and
the embodiment of rapacity and cruelty. Calmly and proudly his bold eyes
roamed far and wide, resting for a moment upon a waving, irregular line
of sedge, caused by the passage of some four-footed thing; then being
drawn to the glinting breast of the river, where some constantly
widening circles showed the upward leap of a frolicsome fish. But no
heed at all did he pay to these signs, which upon other days would have
lured him to pursuit. His aristocratic taste would no longer admit of
such petty sacrifices and such poor food. Were not the feathers of a
plump hen even at that moment littering the ground at the foot of his
castle, and had he not heard, the night before, a prowling raccoon
crunching the bones which he had disdainfully cast aside? The air was
crisp with the tang of wild leaves which the frost had bitten, and hazy
with the Indian summer glory of the season. Back in the forest behind
him some maples were blazing in their crimson garments, and the hardier
leaves of the oak and chestnut were tingeing. A creeper, encircling with
many a close embrace the trunk of his own high tree, burned like the
fiery serpent of some magician. Emboldened by the truce which their lord
had declared, the Bob Whites sent their inexpressibly pure notes from
different points like the sounds of answering bells. In the corn-field
just across the river some men were working. With long knives in their
hands they attacked the serried ranks of yellow-uniformed soldiery, and
wherever they went they left a gap. Round pumpkins, which the Midas hand
of frost had turned to purest gold, were being carried by others to one
huge pile, forming a pyramid of plenty from the bountiful Giver. In a
hickory tree near his castle two old crows were engaged in a very silly
dispute, and the Baron turned a disgusted gaze upon the quarrelsome
black things, who knew nothing of dignity, and all of sly theft. Far
overhead a buzzard sailed along—that dumb, faithful scavenger of the
wild, who was never known to utter a sound from the beginning of time.
Him the big hawk respected. He attended to his affairs, and never
engaged in bickerings with his neighbors. That he nested on the
ground—in the caves and in the hollows of rotten tree-trunks—was no
concern of the Baron, who scorned the earth, and never touched it but to
rise again immediately.
The sun was slowly dipping towards a line of hills far to the west. The
watcher on the snag took note of this, as he did of everything that went
on around him, and he knew that if he was to have a feast that day he
must go about procuring it. The barnyard which had been supplying him
with his daily meal for the past ten days was not far away, but the wily
robber had become used to many things during his predatory existence,
and one of these things was that every house possessed a gun, and that a
gun has a remarkably long range when loaded for hawk. During his last
raid he had lost some feathers, and there was a constant, itching pain
in one of his thighs, where a shot had lodged. He had tried to pluck it
out with his murderous beak, but his efforts had only aggravated the
wound, with the result that he was continually irritated. He would visit
that barnyard no more. Sweeping his bold eyes in another direction, he
beheld, several miles away, a wavering column of smoke ascending. This
came from the chimney of a farm-house. He made his resolve quickly. The
memory of countless repasts forbade the idea of even a day’s fast. The
clamped toes unclasped, clasped, and unclasped again; the graceful body
leaned forward, and the wing feathers quivered. Squatting low, the big
bird launched himself in air and the broad wings shot out and bore him
up. Once again he was in the element he loved.
The tiny hearts of the ground-people shook with fear as the shadow of
the destroyer passed over the stubble-field, for weeks of immunity from
attack had not lessened their fear of their bloodthirsty ruler. But the
shadow passed on and disappeared; the river’s placid breast mirrored his
image as the great hawk sped on, flying leisurely, for he would need his
strength upon his return. Then over the corn-field, where the men were
husking the yellow grain. Just over the variegated floor which the
tree-tops of another forest made he passed on his flight, for there was
no reason to mount high, and thus tire himself. Very soon the farm-house
came in sight, and in the big yard was a grove of locust trees. These
afforded an excellent shelter from which to spy, and presently his feet
gripped a limb, he tilted forward from the momentum of his flight, but
regained his equilibrium instantly, and his searching eyes turned this
way and that in quest of a victim. About the yard some matronly hens
were straying, with here and there a strutting cock, self-conscious and
pompous. The daring robber did not hesitate long. A particularly
tempting Plymouth Rock hen drew his eye, and instantly he left his
perch, arose in the air, and prepared to swoop. Just as he closed his
wings for this purpose, a babel of twittering arose which he had learned
to dread, and around the corner of the house sped two martens with
fluttering wings and wild cries of anger. Dismayed, the marauder spread
his wings again and strove to escape, while a fearful tumult began among
the fowls in the yard, followed by a wild rush for cover. Swift of wing
and fearless, the tiny attackers vigorously pursued the fleeing hawk,
hovering over him with their shrill cries, and now and again dropping
upon his back to deliver a sharp peck. When they had chased the invader
from the yard they considered their duty done, and came back in wild
curves to their box on the pole in the rear of the house.
Enraged and smarting from the chastisement which he had received, the
hawk sailed up in a white ash tree to rest and consider the situation.
As he debated dusk came on, and he became aware that he was desperately
hungry. The yard was guarded, and he could not enter there. Disappointed
and sore, he was preparing to depart empty-handed, when his restless eye
caught sight of a dark spot moving over the ground not far away. It was
a foraging hen coming home to roost. Five seconds later his pinions
hissed over the head of the doomed fowl, the knife-like talons caught
and held, and he painfully arose to begin his homeward flight. His prey
was a full-grown hen and was heavy as lead, but when he arose with his
spoil he never let go his hold. So over the tops of the trees he went
again, the limp body in his grip brushing some of the leaves, so heavily
did it sag. Back over the corn-field, forsaken now by the harvesters,
and his flight was so low that a man with a club might have struck him.
Then the river, in which the first stars were beginning to gleam. How
his legs ached, and each motion of his wings wrenched his body. He had
never been so late returning before, and the distance had never seemed
so long. On the other side of the stubble-field rose his tower, waiting
for him to come home, as it had waited through all his life. Would he
ever reach it? He would if it cost him his life, for he could not sit on
the earth and eat, like a filth-devouring buzzard. His dragging flight
over the field was more than half completed, when he heard a sound that
turned his blood to ice. It was the deep, solemn note of the horned owl,
boomed forth at the edge of the wood. He had tarried too long at his
hunting, and his enemy was coming on his night-hunt for food.
[Illustration: “Zigzagging nimbly, he strove to elude his pursuer.”]
Swiftly the hawk dipped and swerved, but those big red-green eyes, to
which darkness was day, beheld him, and gave chase. The wily robber
dropped his burden, hoping to bribe the spectre in his wake. But with a
rush the owl passed over the cast-off carcass, and sped on. The hen-hawk
heard the soft, feathery wing-swish coming nearer and nearer, and though
he was no coward he knew that his hour was at hand, for he was worn and
spent, whereas his foe had fresh strength. Zigzagging nimbly, he strove
in this manner to elude his pursuer. But the big owl had waited long for
this chance, and he was resolved that it should not escape him. Suddenly
he struck out with beak and claws, and the hawk careened wildly from the
shock, then righting himself, turned to give battle—it was the last
resort. And so they clashed and clashed again. There arose the rasping
of beak on beak and the dull thud of flesh propelled against flesh.
Feathers were torn out by clawfuls, and the breast of each combatant was
streaked and dabbled with blood. At last the owl, maddened and
all-powerful in his might, beat and smothered his antagonist to the
earth, and holding that kingly head on the ground with the vise-like
grip of one foot, with his curved beak he prodded and tore till life was
gone from the Robber Baron.
The gray old snag which was his tower waited for his coming that night
in vain.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GHOST COON
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GHOST COON
SOMETHING white was moving warily through the shadows of Beech Hollow.
It was near the turning of night, and the heart of the wide, uncleared
knob area was quiet. Not the quiet of sleep, indeed, for the wood-folk
were abroad in numbers, each bent upon a separate errand whose aim and
end was death. But they moved without noise, from the largest to the
smallest. A brown mink wriggled his serpentine way along the erratic
path which a field-mouse had made; following him, perchance, with subtle
cunning and fell purpose, was a wild-cat. A fox sniffed where a pheasant
had passed, and trailed hungrily and swiftly for a dozen yards, to a
point where the bird had risen in the air. So through the night they
went, big and little, threading the secret ways of the underbrush, and
sooner or later finding that for which they sought. Few went beyond the
limits which marked Beech Hollow on every side. The lore of the
wood-kind taught that this place was haunted by the ghost of a big coon,
and that death awaited the invader into his precincts. By a secret
telegraphic code, by purrings and by barks, there was not a denizen of
the wild but knew the fact. More than one had seen the spectre. It was
not the hallucination of a March-crazed cotton-tail. The ghost coon ran
every night from the first cock-crow till near dawn, and his hunting
ground was held inviolate by his four-footed flesh-and-blood kindred.
It was an opulent night in autumn. The half-naked beeches which gave the
hollow its name shivered in their scant covering. The hillsides were
heavy with drifted leaves, russet and gold and poppy-veined. Through the
hollow purled a small stream, sleepily. Along the trunk of a long-dead
beech, prostrate and blackened, moved something white, a figure almost
ball-shaped. Its head was held low to the surface of the log; its body
rose up in a peculiarly rounded hump, and its snow-white, bushy tail
trailed along behind. It was the ghost coon of Beech Hollow on his
nightly quest for food. His progress was most ungainly. The fore feet
would move forward a few inches and the body would lengthen. Then the
hind feet would get in motion and the back would assume an arc, and all
the time the busy nose would be smelling to left and right. Reaching the
end of the tree at last the coon reared upon his haunches, squirrel
fashion, and gazed about him keenly. Nothing was stirring beyond a
fluttering leaf; nothing was heard but the low soughing of the wind.
Suddenly the triangular head went up a little higher, and the nose
pointed directly across the hollow. Thus it was held rigidly for several
moments, while the beady eyes glowed fiercely. Then a slender red tongue
curved swiftly around his upper lip; he sank to the log again, and
thence to the ground, and moved down the hillside with a shambling,
awkward, yet incredibly swift gait.
That very day, as he was sleeping in his hollow tree at the end of the
ravine, he had been awakened by the shots of some hunters in the
corn-field bordering his valley of refuge. Then he had stretched himself
and gone to sleep again, confident of a rich banquet in the hours of the
coming night. He knew well—for he had learned the lesson when half
grown—that frightened birds always take to the nearest cover when
annoyed too much by men and dogs. Not long after sundown he had crawled
out of his hole and crouched on the limb in front of it, and listened to
the rallying call of the quail as they gathered together to squat for
the night. Then, when the night was far enough advanced, he had slid
down the tree like a patch of moonlight, and gone in search of his prey.
In a direct line with the coon’s progress, the stream below spread into
a pool of considerable breadth and some depth, and as the soft-footed
prowler gained its edge he stopped, leaned over the water, and eyed the
surface intently. A born fisherman, he could not let the opportunity
pass to land one of the small perch which had their home in this pool.
For a number of minutes he stood as still as one of the stones lining
the bank. Then he burst into action with the agility of one of the cat
tribe. One claw-rimmed foot shot forward and downward, then up again all
at one stroke, and the star rays glittered on a scaly body flying
through the air. The fish had scarcely touched the ground when the
nimble animal was beside it. Quickly the faithful paws pounced upon the
flopping object and pinioned it to the earth. Then just back of the neck
the sharp fangs crunched, and the ghostly ruler of the hollow ate
leisurely of the toothsome dainty which his craft and skill had
provided, spitting and clawing out the bones when in his greediness they
stuck in his tongue. When his supper was over, the coon, his hunger
appeased in a measure, did not at once take up the air-trail which was
still wafted gently to him from the top of the other slope. He moved
around and around the heap of bones and offal which marked his late
repast, sniffing and nibbling by turns. Finally he veered about and
started back over the track which he had come. Just then his nostrils
were tickled by another light gust, laden with the partridge smell. It
was too much to resist. He swerved again, and began to climb the slope
of his temptation.
Nestling at the base of a rugged knob not two miles distant from Beech
Hollow was a log-roller’s hut. Of its human inmates we have no word to
say, for our story has naught to do with them. But of a certain low,
heavy-bodied, vengeful, mongrel cur dog which harbored at this hut in
the day, it becomes necessary now to speak. This dog feared
nothing—absolutely nothing. He would bite at the thick sole of the shoe
which kicked him; he would fight anything that walked upon two feet or
four. He was totally wicked, totally merciless in his battles, and he
cherished an inveterate hatred for coons. Throughout the day he would
hang around the miserable shelter of the human-people—his companions,
but not his masters—and when night sank down over the broad wastes of
forest and hill he would go trailing through the dense passes of the
wild, sharp-nosed and vigilant; his stub tail moving like the pendulum
of a clock, and keeping time to his rapid footsteps. Once in his
wanderings he had entered Beech Hollow, and had run upon that which the
wood-folk feared. A large, white, ghostly figure coming towards him down
the ravine. The cur yelped and fled. Gaining the open to the south of
the hollow, the moonlight gave him courage, and he warily circled the
place, coming in at the other end and running with his keen nose not an
inch above the ground. He stumbled upon the scent quickly, and the
chase-yelp bubbled to his throat. But he choked it back, for he was
wiser than most coon dogs, who give tongue as soon as the trail is
caught, and thus warn their quarry of danger. The trail that night led
him to the base of a large beech tree, and there was the coon smell on
the bark as high as he could reach by standing upon his hind legs. From
that night the hollow held no terror for him. A coon had but one smell,
and though this one was white, whereas all with whom he had drawn blood
were gray with black-ringed tails, still it was a coon, and the one idea
in his head now was to harass and harry it into open fight.
So he began to stalk the lonely hollow which was shunned by the
forest-people, inbred guile driving him to all the cunning artifices
known to the wood-dwellers. But the ghost coon was his match in
subtlety. Never since that first night had the vindictive cur laid eyes
upon the phantom, though two and three times a week he would come with
his fangs whetted for fight. But upon that night in autumn when the coon
feasted upon the fish, and subsequently started in quest of the huddled
quail, a dark, noiseless shape entered the hollow from the north, and
glided down it as a cloud shadow glides over a field. The cur struck the
trail a few feet from the point where the coon had dropped from the
prostrate tree, and instantly he crouched and grew rigid. The odor was
fresh and strong, and he had waited long and travelled far for this
chance. Flattening his body on the damp leaves, he looked about him with
glowing eyes. Nothing was to be seen or heard. Which way was he to go?
Had his prey gone up hill or down? Guided by that unerring instinct
which all animals possess, the dog arose after an instant’s hesitation
and moved down the hill with his black muzzle brushing the leaves.
At the top of the other slope the white marauder was slowly closing in
upon his sleeping victims. Each step was taken with painful
deliberateness and extreme care, for he knew that his journey would end
in a clump of huckleberry bushes just at the edge of the wood. Onward he
glided, his tiny feet as noiseless in their progress as the fall of a
snowflake. Beneath a bending, berry-laden spray he stopped, and gazed
gloatingly for a second upon a dozen or more brown bodies crowded
together with their tails touching. Then he pounced. A few sleepy
chirrups, a wild scramble, and the sound of whirring wings followed. The
chagrined coon, cheated of his anticipated meal, shook a few downy
feathers from the claws of his right fore foot, backed out of the
bushes, and took the return trail for his tree of refuge. In his anger
at failing in his last adventure, he neglected to scan the slope before
him as he started down it. Soon he realized that a strange stump had
taken root in his path since he had trodden it a few moments before. A
squat, black, ugly thing, which he had not previously noticed. He came
on stubbornly, however, and did not stop until he saw two blazing eyes
looking at him with an expression of fiendish joy. There was nothing to
do but fight.
For a very perceptible time the two glared at each other. The dog cruel,
mean, wicked; the coon angry, furtive, sly. Then low sounds came from
the throat of each. The dog gave a deep, muttering growl; the coon a
succession of sharp hisses, not unlike those made by a goose, the while
he withdrew into himself and glanced about as if meditating flight,
though no tree grew near enough for him to reach. The dog quickly
assumed the offensive, for his eager hate would not countenance delay.
His spring was like the rebound of a cross-bow, but his enemy knew how
to fight. While the cur was yet in air the ghost of the hollow had
reared and fallen prone upon his back, his hind feet drawn close down
upon his belly, and his fore feet arched and ready. At the right moment
the hind feet shot up, and ripped a half dozen streaming seams in the
flanks of the cur as he descended with snapping jaws. A screech, a
scuffle, a howl of pain, and the dog leaped backward, drew his tongue
rapidly across the stinging rents in his side, and bounded for the
second time upon his foe. Aiming at the throat, his teeth found the
loose skin at one side of the neck instead; the coon secured one of the
stub ears of the attacker in his mouth, and thus they grappled. Strange
sounds floated through the length of Beech Hollow that night; sounds
which never before had disturbed its accustomed quiet. There were the
sounds of heavy bodies threshing the earth, the rasping snarl, the yelp
of distress, and the clashing of teeth. In the still night the noise
carried far, and the keen ears of some wood-dwellers running on a
near-by range heard it, and the forest-folk stopped, listened, and
turned their faces from it, for it came from the haunted hollow.
On the leaf-strewn slope one great ball of intermingled black and white
gradually drew near the bottom of the hill. Neither knew nor thought of
the course the fight was taking. Their hearts were inflamed with the
battle-lust, and with lightning-like movements they fought for the
death-hold. After a time the level was reached, and here, by mere
chance, the jaws of the dog found the throat of his enemy. The coon
realized his strait, and plied all four feet with such good effect that
the blood ran in streams from the ragged wounds which he inflicted. But
his breath was shut off, and nothing can live or fight without air. It
was then that he felt something cool clasp his hind leg. With his
remaining strength he threw himself backward, dragging the cur with him,
and the water of the pool closed over them both.
A coon can remain under water for a marvelously long time. A dog knows
it, and will never attack them in or near a stream. The ghost coon sank,
taking his enemy with him. In the foreign element the cur, confused,
strangled, and frightened, loosed his hold, came to the surface and
struck out for the shore. But the tables had turned, and the valiant old
boar knew it. Rising also, he received the grateful rush of air into his
strained lungs, and in another moment he was on the back of his opponent
and forcing him under. Fastening his teeth in the loose folds of skin at
the base of the skull he sank again, dragging the cur down with him. The
water boiled like a caldron, and though a leg, or even a shoulder at
times appeared, no head came into view. Soon the pool grew quiet. Then,
near the bank, a sharp muzzle came up, slowly followed by the dripping
form of the victor. His den-tree stood quite near the other end of the
hollow, and as he painfully began his march towards it, leaving a trail
of water and blood behind him as he went, his body swayed and his steps
were uncertain. At last he stood among the roots which he knew so well,
and with eyes which scarcely saw, looked up the bare trunk which he had
been wont to climb with perfect ease. Feebly he reared, and began the
ascent. Six feet from the ground he stopped, gently let his head fall
forward upon the bark, quivered from end to end, and dropped to the
earth, dead.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SPOILER OF THE FOLDS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SPOILER OF THE FOLDS
HIGH over the crest of Bald Knob the storm clouds had gathered. A dull,
uncertain, ghostly light lay upon the land, for the moon was at its
full, though hidden by the driving wrack. Directly in the mouth of
Devil’s Gorge, where it debouched upon the low-lying pastures of the
hill-farmers, a gaunt figure was standing. It was neither fox, nor
wild-cat, nor dog, for it was bigger than any of these. In the fantastic
shadows which the wild night cast the figure seemed monstrous, grisly.
Its eyes burned with a basilisk glare; its head was broad, with a long,
tapering muzzle; its shoulders were strong, and its lean legs stood
firmly upon the earth. Moment by moment the storm grew fiercer. It
rushed among the great trees on the knob-side, and tore the leaves
hissing from the tossing branches. A blinding flash of lightning
corkscrewed the gloom, followed by a terrible peal of thunder.
Immediately there was a crash from far up the slope. An oak tree had
fallen before the wind. The figure standing in the mouth of Devil’s
Gorge crouched as under a blow, turned its head and glared in the
direction of the sound, then glided out into the open with lowered
muzzle and drooping tail.
The gray wolf knew his mind and his business well. Depending largely on
guile for success in his hunting, yet there were times when wit and
fleetness were of no avail, and his great strength alone had won him
through. His ribbed sides bore many a scar, black and hairless, where a
dog’s tooth had furrowed its way through his hide. So, with added craft
on account of his many battles, he had come to skulk more, holding meat
won by stealth equally as good as that fought for, and realizing as he
grew older that in time he would be overcome. This was new territory he
was treading now; a virgin field wherein he hoped to find rich harvest.
Nor was disappointment in store for him.
Guided by that precious instinct which is the eternal heritage of all
the wood-kind, the spectre-like shape moved briskly across some gullied
foot-hills, climbing, slipping, leaping, and crept through a brush-fence
just as the lowering clouds opened, and the rain began to pour in
driving torrents. As the water beat upon his back and plastered the hair
to his lean sides, the old forager began to move faster and with less
desire for concealment, for well he knew that human beings would not
dare thrust their noses out on such a night. It was all his own, and he
could work his will unhampered. Through coarse clumps of wire-grass and
stray patches of clover he went, casting his sharp eyes neither to right
nor left, for he was fully aware that his gentle prey would never wander
around in an open field on such a night as this. Near a corner in the
farther end of the pasture rose a great black bulk; when the lightning
flashed the gray wolf could see it, and something white at its base
besides. It was a straw rick, the result of last year’s wheat harvest,
and it afforded some protection from the wrath of the elements. Towards
this the marauder went, relentlessly, steadily. Some two rods from it he
stopped, crouched, and waited. Presently a vivid glare lit up the
drenched landscape, and there, huddling in the lee of the rick, was a
flock of sheep, crowded together and shivering from the wet. Dense
darkness followed the lightning’s flash, and under its cover the robber
drew nearer, nearer, nearer. Now, through the gloom and the sheets of
rain he could make out the cowering forms—for they had already scented
danger, though powerless to resist it. Closer yet crept the shape of
death, his empty stomach dragging the ground so low had his body sunk.
The sheep pressed with short, jerky movements against their straw
shelter, wild-eyed, helpless. They felt the danger, but did not know how
to combat it. Then the climax came, as swiftly as a bolt from the sky. A
dim shape was projected through the night; there was a bleat choked
short off and a wild scurry of feet flying blindly from danger. One ewe
alone remained, prostrate upon the ground, while at her soft throat keen
fangs tore, and a curved red tongue lapped up the warm blood as it
flowed. The gray wolf was skilled in strategy. He knew that when a
sheep-dog turned traitor and began to harry the flocks, he never went
beyond the throats of his victims, and took only one a night. So the
killer lay and drank the rich life-current as it came; drank until even
his ravenous hunger was appeased. Then gnawing tentatively at the
draggled wound he had made, he arose and turned his besmeared visage
towards the dark line of knobs which was his hiding-place and his home.
A short time later, when the summer storm was dying away in the east and
the thunder was but a growling echo, a gaunt figure entered the mouth of
Devil’s Gorge and became engulfed in the black shadows which hung over
it.
Five hours later the sun came up into a sky of purest blue. With it
arose the hill-farmers, strong from their long night’s rest for the day
of toil. One there was who mounted his piebald saddle mare, with a
bucket balanced on his saddle-bow, and went to salt his sheep. At the
bars one was missing; an unusual thing. He called and called again, the
cry which had never failed to bring her before. But there was no answer.
Then the farmer urged his horse forward and began the search. Around the
field he went, and at last drew up at the straw rick. There lay the lost
one, dead. He dismounted and made an examination. Her throat was wofully
mangled and torn, but there was no other hurt upon her. “A sheep-dog’s
gone wrong!” was the man’s audible comment, as he arose and mounted his
horse again to summon his fellow-farmers.
They came to the scene of the slaughter, one and all, for sheep-raising
was their most paying industry, and sheep-murder was a crime to which
there was attached one penalty and one only—death. The ewe lay as the
killer had left her, limbs straight and stiffened, head back, and that
awful, damning wound in her white throat. One by one they came and
looked, those rugged, gnarled, horny-handed hill-men. One by one they
shook their heads. “A sheep-dog done it,” was the one remark; “an’ be he
mine, I’ll kill ’im myself!” Then arose the question, how to detect the
culprit? Each dog had followed his master and each was called up and
examined, but nothing was proven. Every mouth was clean and fresh; there
were no clots of wool nor blood-stained noses. And each man breathed a
sigh of relief when his favorite was exonerated, for “Love me, love my
dog” is never more exemplified than in the sheep-raising districts,
where, with almost human intelligence, the four-footed retainers care
for the flocks entrusted to their care. The meeting was preparing to
break up when some one discovered a track in the rain-soaked ground. It
was fully four inches across, and the claw to each toe was plainly
marked. It was useless to fit a dog’s foot to that colossal track. Some
strange animal had assaulted the flock, and there was not a heart but
beat easier when they found this out. For a farmer to kill his dog
required a sacrifice almost as great as that which Abraham made when he
prepared to offer up Isaac.
So, amid wild conjectures and impossible theories, the farmers
dispersed. That very night another flock was visited and one taken from
it. The raider left no clue. He came, slew one sheep and drained its
blood, then went his way and the darkness hid him. The farmers met again
and held council. It must be a dog, they said, for it killed like a dog.
Anything else would do away with half a dozen sheep, or more. But the
meeting resulted in nothing, because there was nothing to do except keep
a sharp lookout. The next night the same thing happened, and the next,
and the next, and so on for a week. Always a different flock, but always
one sheep was claimed, one only. Then it was the farmers took to sitting
up of nights and gathering their flocks under shelter. This invisible
scourge bade fair to devastate their folds, and strenuous action must
needs be taken. That first night of watching one went to sleep at his
post along towards morning, and when the call of a neighboring cock
awakened him at sunrise, it was to find one of his yearlings dead not
ten feet from him. The destroyer had crept in while he slept and laughed
at the loaded gun across his knees, while proceeding to feast on the
choicest of his flock. Then alarm changed to terror. What was this
dreadful thing which came at night and which left no trace behind? No
one could answer, and the deeper the mystery grew, the more the farmers
quaked and wondered.
But later, upon a night when the moon was waning, another had seen a
huge gray object gliding towards the lot in which his sheep were
corralled. Then haste got the better of judgment, and the man fired
before the marauder got within good range. The result was only a handful
of coarse drab hair found upon the ground the next morning. Then hounds
were brought and put upon the trail. They followed it, mouthing, to the
entrance of Devil’s Gorge, and there lost the scent on the boulders and
the pebbly soil. But this gave a clue to the men. Their enemy dwelt
somewhere within the gloomy recesses of that mighty cleft in the hills.
So thither they came, night by night, and watched the entrance of that
dismal place. But when they returned, unsuccessful, to their homes in
the morning, it was to discover that one of their unguarded flocks had
been entered, and a member of it lifeless. So dismay seized them, for it
seemed that they were helpless before the subtlety of this mysterious
assassin. Their nicest plans were frustrated, and their schemes brought
to naught.
Then traps were laid, cunning devices of wood, and pitfalls, screened
with leaves and dry limbs. Sometimes these were found sprung, sometimes
unmolested, but sprung or set, they never claimed a prey. Whatever it
was that worried their sheep seemed proof against all their wiles. Still
the nightly visits continued, and dead mutton lay everywhere, and the
buzzards darkened the sky in their circling flight. It was as though a
plague had come upon the land. Driven to desperation, the farmers took
their guns and fell to patrolling the dark ravines, especially Devil’s
Gorge, whither it was surely known the destroyer had at one time gone.
They found nothing, though day by day they went in numbers and scoured
the defiles of the knobs. That for which they sought remained in hiding,
and came forth only when the generous mantle of night covered his
movements.
Among the many who had suffered from the nocturnal prowler’s
depredations was one of sterner mould than his fellows. A tall,
bony-faced, austere man, who talked little and thought much. And his
thinking led him to this. When, in the ceaseless round of slaying, three
of his sheep had been taken, he mounted his horse one day without a word
to any one, and rode into town. When he came back after nightfall, he
brought with him a huge steel trap, big enough to hold a bear. The next
morning he arose while the stars were yet shining, whistled his dog, and
started on foot to Devil’s Gorge, taking the trap with him. The dog went
in advance and after him the man, struggling through the damp hollow
with his heavy burden over his shoulder. Day dawned on the peaks above
them, and filtered faintly down into the depths through which they
toiled. Suddenly the dog came rushing back to his master, his bushy tail
between his legs and his whole body a-quiver from fright. The man
quickened his pace and pushed forward grimly, drawing a large revolver
from his pocket at the same time. Rounding a bend in the gorge, he came
upon that which had sent the shepherd dog cowering back. Perched upon a
large boulder was a monstrous wolf, gray and grim in the half light.
Raising his arm the man fired, but the wolf leaped just before the flash
and ran in the other direction. The man followed as quickly as he could,
and presently saw the big form disappear in a hole up the sloping side
of the cliff. The entrance of this den was worn as by the constant
passing of feet, and the man felt that he had found the home of his
enemy. So he set his trap, right under the lip of the crevice, cunningly
hiding it with dead leaves and the rubbish of the woods, and securing
the strong chain to the trunk of a dwarfed black oak. The first step the
monster took on his next raid would make him a prisoner; the steel gyves
would hold him fast until his foes came and killed him.
In the dead of night, when the moon had climbed the towering peak of
Bald Knob, and the hill-farmers below kept silent watch for the coming
of the raider, a face appeared in the cleft on the side of Devil’s
Gorge. There was the craft of a lifetime in the burning eyes as they
suspiciously swept the ground immediately in front of his den. There was
nothing to awaken distrust except the tumbled condition of the earth,
but the old wolf hesitated. Then hunger, the one law which the wood-folk
know not how to disobey, drove him out. He rested one foot gingerly upon
a bed of leaves, leant a little more weight to it as he prepared to draw
the other one forward, and just then two bands of steel arose up out of
the ground and gripped him nearly to the knee. With a deep howl of wrath
and terror the old warrior fought for his freedom. Around and around he
tore, gnashing with impotent teeth at that awful thing which held him
like a vise. For the space of an hour he wrenched and struggled, then
suddenly realizing the futility of his efforts, he crouched upon his
belly to rest. It was near morning when he accepted the last resort, and
began the heroic task of freeing himself.
Before sunup, the man who had set the trap came with exultation on his
face, confident of victory. He found the trampled ground, the sprung
trap, and fastened in it the fore foot of a large wolf with part of the
leg, which had been gnawed in two just below the knee. The spoiler of
the folds had baffled them to the end, but the flocks were never more
disturbed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FIGHT ON THE TREE-BRIDGE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FIGHT ON THE TREE-BRIDGE
THE forest lay black in the close embrace of the odorous young night.
Soft, balsamic waves of air rose strata above strata, stealing between
roughly corrugated boles and smooth trunks, and the satin-soft stems of
the young saplings who had yet to win their spurs as knights of the wood
against the mighty winds; permeating every dell and dingle, every copse
and tangled covert. The nostrils which these air-waves touched tingled
with delight, and the lungs which were bathed and invigorated by this
life-giving essence from nature’s laboratory expanded with a conscious
strength, and sent the red blood bounding from them on its ceaseless
errand. The season was early summer. Beneath the interlacing boughs it
was black—black as the night of Egypt’s curse. A solid bank of gloom
which bore no outline and no shape. So might it have been just before
God uttered his first command to things terrestrial. Here and there a
tree arose above its army of fellows, and the delicate tracery of
spreading branch, and even of tapering leaf, was etched upon the
vastness overhead. In the sky the faithful stars were burning. Not the
smallest speck of cloud veiled their earnest faces, and the mellow
radiance which their united power shed fell like a blessing upon the
glad earth. But the forest baffled the star rays—those gentle messengers
which came so timidly upon their missions of light. The leaves at the
tops of the trees gleamed glossy and green, but they were a numberless
multitude of shields to the solitude below.
The forest went off to the gullied hills in one direction; in another it
sloped sharply down a bluff to the river, with an accompaniment of
running briers and rotting, lichen-covered stumps and an occasional
fallen warrior of the wood which some storm had overcome. The river was
not wide—a half-grown rabbit might have swum it with ease had the water
been stagnant—but here it ran swift and deep between its high,
rock-bound banks. It flowed silently, though, except for a low purling
where a drift had formed and a sucking gurgle where a ledge let down the
bed.
This river was a source of much worry and concern to the wood-people.
All of them could swim, some well and some very badly, but more than one
family circle had been bereft by reason of the treacherous stream, for
in addition to the velocity with which it wound its way through the
wood, shifting whirlpools lurked within it, against which the strongest
swimmer’s power was as naught. There was a second forest across the
river, not as large as the first, it is true, but still wide enough to
shelter many a tiny dweller, as well as give him food. So when friend
wanted to visit friend, or cousin to call upon cousin, there was this
black, whispering barrier stretching between, mocking them with its
insinuating murmurs, and seeking to lure them to its faithless and fatal
bosom with low cooings and shining, siren arms. And on certain moonlit
nights in spring there had been those who heard the mating call wafted
through the stillness. Coming in answer, they had suddenly found
themselves standing on the brink of that taunting river, while from the
other shore the cry would come again, tender and appealing. Then hot
blood and the madness of the season would have their way, and the young
buck, belong to what family he may, would put discretion behind him and
glide out into the stream with the echo of his mistress’ call as a
beacon and a guide. On rare occasions one would make the passage safely.
More often, as he battled with the current, snaky fingers would shoot up
from beneath and grip him, whirl him around and around in maddening
circles, and finally drag him down with a hiss of victory, and his
lifeless carcass might have been seen afloat the next day, miles away.
All this was before the great storm. After that had come and gone things
were different with the forest-people.
It was at the close of a day in mid-summer. For weeks there had been no
rain. Day after day the sun had come up, had scorched and burned and
seared, and had gone down. The leaves curled upon the trees; the grass
blades became brittle; the rabbit runs were so hot at midday that they
hurt the pads of the cottontails, and they lay panting in their burrows,
waiting for night. Then it was that the wood-people blessed the river,
for there was no water anywhere else. The river sank foot by foot,
leaving cracked, baked stretches of yellow clay as it receded. Still it
ran doggedly, and breathed defiance. It would take more than one dry
summer to rob it of its terror and strength. At last there came a day
which was born with portents of some awful thing to come. The sun rose
hazy, like a ball of blood. The air, which had been hot, became
stifling. It pressed on the chest and burned in the throat. The
chipmunks and the squirrels sought their nests wildly; the birds went
deeper into the forest. By noon all of the little people who had a home
were in it. But so far nothing had happened. Mid-afternoon a growl of
wrath came from the west, and a long, leaden band pushed its edge over
the horizon. A terrible silence hung over the forest; the unnatural calm
which precedes some great calamity. Then a chill breath stirred the
upper leaves, followed by gusts of wind almost icy. Night came long
before its time, and the sky which for weeks had been a shining surface
of blinding light became a seething, tossing caldron of billowy clouds
and murky vapors, and threading through all the tumbled mass was a vivid
network of flame. The chariots of the storm came thundering down the
slopes of the sky, and the forest shivered, and bent, and tossed its
thousands of arms in agony. Thick limbs were rent from writhing,
groaning bodies, and cast furiously down. Some veteran giants, weakened
by the natural decay of years, mingled their death-cry with the hoarse
bellow of the destroying wind and fell crashing and quivering to the
earth. Then came rain, and a cessation of the demoniac fury.
It was a night which the wood-dwellers never forgot. Birds were killed
by the dozens, and the lives of many of the four-footed kind were given
up as well. The secret trails were obliterated and blocked, and the
runways of the weasel and the rabbit became a trackless wilderness.
Long before the sun arose the next morning, an old raccoon cautiously
poked his black nose out of a hole in a maple tree, near the first fork.
This raccoon was the oldest and the wiliest of the wood-folk that lived
in the forest. An old boar coon was he, and many years had passed over
his wise little head. Once before, in his youth, such a storm as this
had swept over the forest. His mother had him out teaching him how to
stalk ground sparrows, and the storm came so suddenly that they had no
time to reach home, so had taken shelter under a shelving rock on the
bluff by the river. He had weathered that storm successfully, and in
later years had paid scant heed to nature’s bursts of anger. A raccoon,
of all things, was surely smart enough to keep out of the way of a
falling limb. The whiskers about the muzzle of the old coon were gray;
his eyes were black and beady, and some wonderment was expressed in them
as he rolled them around on the once familiar scene. He had not slept
the night before, for his house had shook and creaked its warnings hour
after hour, and the hungry voice of the wind had howled down at him from
the hole above his head. Everything was changed outside. A neighbor tree
lay prostrate at the foot of his own; a broken limb sagged at the side
of his door, and everywhere was disorder and destruction. A trifle dazed
by it all in spite of his superior wisdom, the old fellow slid back into
his den and fell to crunching the bones of a chicken he had captured two
nights before.
Though the storm had hopelessly tangled the secret ways which had been
nosed out and trodden with so much care, and had been the death of many
of their kind, yet it had brought its blessing, too, in that it had
conquered for the people of the wild their enemy, the river. It was in
this way.
At a certain point on the southern bank of the river an old elm tree
grew, quite near the edge of the water. The bank had crumbled and the
tree had leaned, until at length its top hung almost over the center of
the stream. Nothing but its great roots twined about hidden rocks kept
it from falling. Directly across from the elm, close to the shore on the
other bank, an ancient sycamore had stood, leaning very slightly towards
the river. Now when the storm came down from the north the sycamore’s
roots gave way and it swayed and fell, its top, by some strange freak,
lodging in the fork of the elm, and the force of its fall wedged it in
firmly and snugly. And behold! here was a bridge for the feet of the
wood-folk, and they could pass high and dry and laugh down at their
baffled foe.
There was but one passageway for the many members of the many tribes,
and naturally trouble arose sometimes, and there were nights when the
river smiled placidly and opened its arms and waited. Sometimes one
victim came; sometimes two, for the bridge became the scene of many a
midnight tragedy and moonlighted fray, and in the end it was the river
which was the victor, after all. It did not have to seek its prey. It
simply waited, and took its tribute very much as of old, though in a
different manner.
So the years went by. Mates were chosen; families were born; battles
were fought. The strong devoured the weak, much as the human folks do in
another way. The old raccoon still lived in his maple. Though others of
his kind often harbored by threes, fours, or even sixes in a single
tree, this aristocrat was not sociable, and preferred a hermit existence
except once a year, when the sap of spring renewed his youth and sent
him a-courting. Then a sleek, mild-eyed little mate would come and keep
house for him until the children were old enough to hear a dog running
half a mile away. Then quite abruptly, upon the return of mother and
offspring some day, they would be met by a white-fanged visage and
ordered to go elsewhere for a bed.
The forest was the abode of little people. Nothing larger than the
raccoon found a home there. He was practically lord of the demesne,
partly because of his age and sagacity, partly because of his might as a
warrior. His record was three dogs whipped in single fight. He did not
fear any dog so long as the men did not come poking around with their
blinding lanterns and their guns. And it might be told, further, that
when he set foot upon one end of the tree-bridge, he usually went to the
other end.
In a field at the edge of the smaller forest was a negro cabin, where
lived the black people with a horde of tattered children and two dogs.
One was a shepherd; gentle, calm-eyed, intelligent. The other was a
coon-dog; little, muscular, aggressive. A coon-dog is as distinctive a
breed as is the collie or the spaniel. It is true he is an ignoble
mixture of many, but it takes the certain and correct blending of
various strains to make a coon-dog. He must have the nose of a pointer,
the speed of a greyhound, the strength of a mastiff, and the
stubbornness of a bull-dog. The model coon-dog is low, short, and
heavy-set; his back and sides are nearly black, and his throat, belly,
and feet are a reddish brown. Such was the dog which hung about the
negro cabin till hunger sent him nosing along the floor of the forest.
He had trailed coons long enough to know that they never touch earth in
the day, and that the scent is freshest in the early part of the night,
just after a light rain. So that night in spring when the soft, balsamic
odors rose strata above strata, the coon-dog, impelled by the pain in
his stomach, which was like a hundred tearing claws, set off at a smart
trot through the sassafras bushes and the dewberry vines, heading for
the smaller forest on the southern side of the river. His keen nostrils
revealed a trail before he had gone a dozen yards in the wood, and with
a low whine he followed it with amazing swiftness and accuracy. In and
out it led, and the smell which the traitor feet had left grew stronger.
Almost the dog gave tongue, so close he knew his quarry must be, when he
stopped, confused, with his fore feet resting on the slanting trunk of a
tree. He had come to the bridge of the forest-people, and the hot trail
led up the incline before him. Off in the shadows near to one side
something called—a sharp, barking cry. The dog cocked his ears and
jerked his head around, but quickly decided that he had nothing to do
with whatever it was that had temporarily engaged his attention, and
again turned to the bridge, restless and eager. He had never attempted
its passage, but its surface was broad and the bark rough, and hunger is
a stern master. Quickly he squatted and leaped, thrust out his claws so
that they caught and held, and in another moment he was creeping warily
up the tree with the scent still warm beneath his guiding nostrils.
But other ears had heard that low mating call which the dog had ignored.
The old boar coon of the maple tree, driven by loneliness and the magic
of the season, was ambling in his humpbacked, awkward way along a narrow
path curving down the bluff on the northern side of the river, bent on
securing a bride for perhaps the twentieth time. He stopped and listened
alertly at the Circe-sound, then moved swiftly towards the tree-bridge
to respond in person. With remarkable agility for his years he gained a
footing on the sycamore trunk, showing his teeth with a low growl of
displeasure as the strong odor of opossum told him that one had just
passed that way. A few feet further on his ears detected a scratching
sound on the other end of the bridge. Some impudent cousin had dared to
risk his anger—for was not this his bridge when he chose to set his
royal foot upon it? He would make him give way and retreat, or cast him
off, for he had done the like before. On up the ghostly white trunk of
the fallen sycamore he glided, his fur rising in wrath as the scratching
beyond grew louder and louder and came closer and closer. Gaining the
apex of the bridge first, the raccoon thrust his black muzzle over the
fork where the two trees touched, and not five feet away came the
coon-dog, timorously but steadily. The ring-tailed warrior did not
attempt to choke the fierce snarl which rasped between his white fangs.
What was this upon his bridge! A four-footed thing which disgraced his
shape by living with and serving the human-people—a dog!
[Illustration: “What was this upon his bridge!”]
The intruder stopped, sank on his belly, and gave back a savage
growl—his gage of battle. Below the river dimpled in the starlight and
murmured joyfully along the shores. Carefully the dog inched forward,
his mouth open, his upper lip curled back. The coon waited, his beady
eyes watching the play of every muscle in the form of his antagonist,
and the curving claws on all four feet shot out to their fullest length.
These were his main defence; his teeth were secondary. Both animals were
at a disadvantage. The dog was out of his element, and his footing was
very precarious. On the other hand the coon, while perfectly at home,
never waged his battles in a tree. When he fought it was lying flat on
his back on the ground. But the guile of many years was in his sly old
brain, and where the trees locked was a little hollow safely bulwarked
by the peculiar way in which the branches had entwined. As the dog
leaped at his throat he threw himself on his back and struck out with
all four feet at once. But the starved alien knew his business well.
Ignoring the stinging rents which the hind claws made, he bore the fore
legs down with the force of his fall, and his jaws gained the coveted
hold without which no coon can be conquered. But that was not all the
battle. Fiercely the old boar wrestled, ripping the body of his foe with
lightning-like movements of his strong legs, gnashing his teeth in a
vain effort to use them, and struggling for breath. The dog bore his
awful punishment like a martyr, lying as closely as he could so as to
impede the other’s movements, but never uttering a cry of pain and
wrenching and tugging at the furry throat over which his jaws had
closed. In the intensity of their joint efforts neither had a thought of
caution. Presently the raccoon was out of the hollow where he had lain
to receive the attack; there was a slip, a scuffle, and through twenty
feet of space two writhing bodies, locked so closely as to seem almost
one, fell with a loud splash into the liquid depths below. And so the
river received them both, and a whirlpool sucked them down.
Now the bark on the tree-bridge is almost worn away from the constant
passing of little feet, which before had been afraid.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GUARDIAN OF THE FLOCK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GUARDIAN OF THE FLOCK
IN a ravine where men seldom placed their feet, a rod or more up a
rocky, bushy hillside, in a hole almost concealed by an overhanging
dewberry bush, lay a dog. A big dog. His head, huge, disfigured,
terrible, rested upon the earth between his paws, and the lids had
fallen over the fierce eyes, which glowed with changing lights when
open. The big dog was asleep. His back-bone was a succession of knots,
with small depressions between. It terminated in a tawny stump, perhaps
six inches long, which stood for a tail. The bones above his hips jutted
out like door-knobs; his flanks were sunk in cavernously, and palpitated
with each sharply indrawn breath. There were scars on the ribbed body;
old scars which had healed bare and blackly; others where the aggrieved
flesh was beginning to join, and still others which showed raw and
red—almost dripping, and about these tiny gnats had gathered and sat in
rows at their feast, while their colorless bodies quickly took on a
crimson shade. A large green fly boomed into the hole in the hill,
zigzagged about over the recumbent form, and then plumped his spiked
feet down in one of the rawest of the wounds. A convulsive shiver passed
over the side of the dog and the green fly lost his foothold; but, not
to be cheated out of his meal, he returned more cautiously, and,
standing among the scant, scrubby hair at the edge of the moist fissure
he stretched out his neck and thrust out his tongue. The muscles along
the bruised side moved again, but more slightly, and the fly and the
gnats ate and drank their fill.
The dog’s high shoulder-blades seemed ready to burst through their
covering; there was a deep hollow between them. The neck was short,
thick, bull-like. One ear was bleeding—the other was gone, and a tangled
mass of gnarled flesh marked where it had been. About the grim muzzle
were some patches of sheep wool, draggled and red.
The dog had been out nearly all night, and it was now early morning. He
had travelled many miles since the sun had set the day before; ranging
back and forth, skulking, hiding, waiting. Before he returned to his
hiding-place he had battened on blood and fought a battle.
The dog had no name, no lineage, no friends, no home. He was simply the
dog. He bore within him the strains of a badly mixed ancestry, and had
been hated and cuffed since puppyhood. Hanging to the outskirts of a
straying gypsy band, he had come to the neighborhood where he now abode.
A farmer whose flocks were beginning to multiply swiftly saw the
uncouth, bony frame and the defiant face, and thought that here was a
fitting guardian for his ewes and lambs. He bought him for a fifty-cent
piece and set him to watch over his sheep. But there came a night when
the farmer’s allowance of food did not satisfy him; when the hard bread
and cold stuff flung to him only whetted his appetite. That night he
trotted to his post with guile in his heart. But hour after hour he held
himself in check, though at times almost rubbing shoulders with his
fleece-covered charges. It was past the turning of night, and his
stomach was empty, and hurting him. The master was asleep; the night was
so still; he was hungry, hungry, and had never known a law! All around
him sleeping patches of white dotted the grass. He was lying down, too,
but his red-green eyes were wide, for he was the guardian of the flock.
There is a point that marks the limit of endurance. Directly the dog
arose, swiftly, silently, stood rigid for the briefest space of time,
then launched himself at the soft throat of a half-grown lamb. A stifled
bleat; a struggle which ended with its inception, and the traitor lay
upon his belly and lapped the warm blood and worried at the tender neck
of his victim. That was the first. When the farmer came out before sunup
the next morning, he found the mangled bodies of five of his lambs that
had been born that spring, and he whom he had placed to watch over them
gone.
In this way was the dog accursed and outlawed, and the heart of every
person and thing was set against him.
He, for his part, fostered hate by day and wreaked it by night. Every
step he took was fraught with danger. Men were against him, and men’s
dogs were against him. He soon learned that the men carried long sticks
that spat flame, and at one time when the fire jumped out, and the stick
was pointed towards him, he felt a sharp pain in the fleshy part of his
thigh, and blood ran down his leg. Then he grew more cautious, and
ventured out only at night, when he had to smell and feel his way. He
could baffle the men in the night, and his own blood-kind were a little
slow in chasing him. But they had fallen upon him once unexpectedly, and
he was a sorry sight when he at last broke from them and escaped to
cover. His wounds upon that occasion were long in healing, for there is
venom in a dog fang. He was sick for many days, and ate nothing but
certain herbs which instinct told him would counteract the poison in his
system. He grew well after a long period of pain and weakness, and upon
his next raid he came too near the house and had one of his ears shot
off by a farmer’s boy. That night he crept back without his spoil,
staggering up the ravine with a red trail behind him. He scratched away
the dirt on one side of his den, and laid his wounded head on the cool,
black earth. This made the blood to clot, and to finally stop running,
but the dog was so weak that he lay over on his side, catching his
breath in jerks. Thereafter he fasted many days, because of his spent
strength, but at last he essayed to crawl to the back of his hole and
feebly excavate some provender which he had hidden against this very day
a fortnight ago. When he had eaten, new energy began to diffuse itself
through his worn body, and once more he grew well, but more ugly than
ever, and in his heart was nothing but vindictive hate, and treachery,
and craft. He was an outcast, hunted by every living thing that was big
enough to harass and kill. He had skulked and run all his life. Now
things would change. He would turn hunter, and harry and slay until they
made an end of him.
The big green fly, forgetting caution in his hungry zeal, probed his
lance-like tongue a little too deep in the sensitive flesh. The dog
awoke and snapped viciously at his tormentor, but the pop-eyes of the
fly saw the movement, and he escaped the cavernous jaws projected
towards him. The dog fell to licking his new wounds. Between the hours
of twelve and four of the past night he had sallied forth, and found the
flock in a pen near the barn, unguarded, as he thought. To bring one
down was play. He gorged himself on the blood and was turning to another
victim, when a form larger than his own leaped at his throat from the
shadows. The dog wheeled, and the fangs of the attacker closed in his
side. For a while they wrestled silently, save for deep-throated snarls.
Then of a sudden the dog broke away, leaped from the pen, and ran. The
wolf-hound attempted to follow, but his feet slipped on the blood-soaked
ground as he made his jump, his breast struck the top rail of the pen
and he fell back, and did not make the effort again. The dog sought his
den, resentful, sore, desperate. That night he slept from weariness; in
the early morning the green fly woke him. In his round, ugly, disfigured
head was born the thought that he would turn hunter now, and wreak
vengeance on his persecutors.
Throughout the day he lay still and rested, licking his sores at
intervals, and dozing from time to time. When the black night came he
arose, stretched himself and yawned hugely, shook his big body
vigorously and stalked forth with the fell intent in his heart to
kill—kill—kill!
With his keen nostrils set to catch every odor the breeze might bring;
his one macerated ear cocked for the slightest sound, he trotted down
the ravine and soon emerged into the open country. He had come to know
the neighborhood well. Who sat up late; who kept close watch; who
slumbered careless of his stock. Past houses where lights burned in the
windows, making detours to avoid possible detection, crouching low on
his haunches when he heard footsteps,—the dog pursued his way through
the night. Mile after mile, over fences and ditches, through the corn,
along the roadside when it ran parallel with his purpose. At last he
passed the boundary which had marked all of his wanderings heretofore,
and as he entered this unexplored territory he moved more freely and
with less caution. His trained muzzle scented a familiar smell. Through
a rail fence he dragged himself, scratching his torn side cruelly on a
splinter as he did so, then started down a hill-slope briskly. Soon he
found them, alone, sleeping, helpless. One by one he pulled them down.
As each fell, the survivors would huddle closer together, dazed and
afraid. First the lambs, then the ewes, then the bucks. The blood-lust
grew in the dog’s savage heart with each fresh massacre. The first four
had sated his appetite and filled his maw to repletion, but his mission
was to kill without mercy. His strong jaws snapped out their lives one
by one, and the bell-wether went last. He was old, and had seen killers
at work before. He had always kept well in the background until the
bloodthirsty invader had got his fill, and gone away. To-night he had
stayed on the further side of the flock, expecting the killer to leave
after each victim. But he did not leave, and kept drawing nearer to him
instead. The end of it was that the bell-wether ran, but there was
something that ran faster than his shadow—something that pounced heavily
upon his back—and then it was all over; the butchery was done.
Back over the path which he had come went the murderer. His chops were
gory, his shoulders and fore legs were bloody, his whole body was
streaked and splashed with the telltale red. But he did not care.
Everything was against him, he was against everything. There would be no
backsliding nor capitulation until death closed the scene. Back over the
path which he had come he went—a fearful figure, big, deformed with
wounds, drunken with blood. He held to the highway now so long as it did
not run out of his course, for he was possessed of a reckless bravery
which took into account neither friend nor foe. It was the still hour of
the night. The hour when life ebbs lowest in the hearts of those who
sleep; the hour just before the roosters smell the coming day and awake
to give the alarm. He met nothing, nothing opposed him. Just when the
darkness began to quiver before the bare hint of encroaching light the
dog felt, rather than saw, some object moving awkwardly in the road
before him. It was not large, and lay close to earth. The pads of his
feet bore him noiselessly forward. The terrible jaws opened, snapped,
the head was flung contemptuously to one side, there was a thud, and a
dead opossum lay in a patch of huckleberry bushes by the old rock fence.
In a hollow tree in the woods, not far away, some little opossums lay
piled upon each other, asleep. The mother’s supply of milk had run low,
and she had started in quest of food. The youngsters would sleep until
hunger wakened them, and then life’s tragedy would soon be over.
The dog quickened his pace, because daylight abroad meant death for him.
Through the dim first-light of the coming day he ran, easily. It is true
he had covered many miles that night, but his stomach was full of the
rich, hot life-blood he had drained from palpitating throats, and new
strength had been imparted to him. Misty cobwebs hung about his head
like a veil, gathered from his passage through the bushes and
underbrush. His tongue lolled, dripping, from his deadly jaws. In this
way he came to the ravine just as the gray dawn was beginning to be
silvered by the rising sun.
Across the hollow from his den, on the opposite slope, where some
hickorynut trees were growing, a silent figure stood with a gun in its
hands. A half-grown boy had come out after squirrels, knowing that the
bushy-tailed, active little creatures sought their breakfast just before
sunup, when the air was fresh and moist from the night dews. He had
stood still for a long time, as one must who hunts squirrels, and
presently his eyes were drawn by something moving on the opposite side
of the hollow. He looked and saw a large, dark-brown shape disappear, as
it were, into the earth. The boy rubbed his eyes and looked again, and
then he discovered the orifice under the dewberry bush. He had found the
hiding-place of the scourge! A squirrel barked in a tree not ten feet
away, and scampered about on a limb in plain view. The boy did not
shoot. He tucked the gun under his arm instead and walked on his toes
for a quarter of a mile, then he broke into a run, and arrived at home
breathless a few minutes later.
The dog, with a full stomach and a contented mind, was sleeping. He had
lain down with his wounded side next to earth, so that the flies could
not annoy him. But into his dreams of slaughter and feasting crept some
disturbing force. Something insistent, alarming, if intangible and
vague. So strong was it that the dog grudgingly opened his eyes a tiny
slit, and almost at the same time his ear cocked up, the end of it
hanging limply, because it had been bitten through at some former
encounter. The eyes opened wider, and rolled craftily towards the mouth
of the lair. A second more, and the big, round head was raised quickly.
There was a sudden stiffening throughout the strong, rugged frame, and
the dog arose to his feet and stole forward. He crouched low, and peered
out expectantly. Directly beneath him was a mixed crowd of men and dogs.
All of the men carried those sticks which he had learned to dread; they
were all looking towards his refuge, and some were pointing. It had come
at last. He had tarried too long at his killing, and somehow the
daylight had betrayed him. But not a tremor of fear passed over the dog.
He merely sank to the earth, and watched.
A succession of sharp clicks came to his ear; the men swung their sticks
forward and started up the slope in a body, calling the dogs with them.
About half way up the hill they halted. One picked up a stone and flung
it towards the hole in the hill. One of the dogs detached himself from
the others and sped after it. He was a coon-dog, small and venturesome.
He poked his head under the dewberry bush inquisitively. The sunlight
outside was still in his eyes, and he thrust part of his body in, too,
catching a scent which warranted investigation. The move was fatal. Like
a bolt of lightning some curved fangs tore his throat open, and without
a sound and with scarcely a struggle the coon-dog rolled back down the
slope, dead at the feet of his master. Above, the dog licked his chops,
and waited. The men tried to urge the wolf-hound forward, but he slunk
back, afraid. Among those of his own blood-kind who had come forth to
take the outcast was a half-breed—part bull, part mastiff. He was a
powerful fellow, and sullen looking. His owner took him by the collar
and led him up the hill a few feet, then spoke to him and pointed
towards the hole. The half-breed seemed to understand, for his hackles
rose bristling, and he advanced slowly and warily. Just in front of the
overhanging bush he stopped, thrust his head forward, and stood as a
setter stands when he holds a flock of birds. The dog inside arose, and
made ready for the attack. It came speedily. Without sound or warning
the half-breed leaped, and they closed. The dog had sprung forward to
meet his foe, and in the fearful struggle that ensued they both appeared
on the hill-side, full in the open. Urged on by the voices of the men
the other dogs closed in too, and the tawny shape of the outcast became
the centre of a whirling vortex of animal fury. Down the slope they all
rolled together, the men cheering on their allies, and trying to find an
opportunity to use their weapons. Down, down to the little stream that
ran through the ravine the battle went, the half-breed never losing the
throat-hold which he took at the first leap. There, on the bank of the
rivulet, the tragedy was played.
The men said they had never seen such a fight.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE KING OF THE NORTHERN SLOPE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE KING OF THE NORTHERN SLOPE
ALONG a path which a man’s eye could not have seen, but which, even at
night, was visible to the kind that dwell in the hills, a long, lithe
object passed swiftly and without noise. It was down a knob-slope, in a
diagonal course, the object came, and the night was only star-bright,
for the moon was late in coming. This quiet figure, which glided
serpent-like on its way, was about three feet in length; its slender,
round body was covered with short, thick hair, drab and mottled brown in
color, and had only a stump of a tail about three inches long. The head
was bullet-round, the short, stubby ears pricked and alert, and the nose
muscles distended and twitched with every cautious step. The padded feet
of this night rambler were almost as noiseless as the star rays’ fall.
Scarcely a leaf was overturned, scarcely a dead twig snapped. His body,
curving sinuously, would not have brushed an ant from the stem of a
sapling. The King of the Northern Slope was hungry, and his present
errand was to the sheepfold or pigsty of the nearest farmer.
He was the biggest wild-cat in that part of the country, and his reign
on the northern slope was respected and acknowledged by all the
four-footed things that harbored and hunted in the hills. The mountains
far eastward had dwindled away here to a chain of knobs, bisecting the
country from east to west. Miniature mountains they were, indeed;
wooded, rocky, untillable, and lonely. Wild-cats, foxes, and the smaller
gentry of the forest, squirrels, raccoons, and opossums, lived and
throve upon this chain of knobs. But gradually those that had lived on
the northern slope went over the crest to the other side, and left the
field to the undisputed possession of the big cat, who did not care to
have his preserves poached upon by the rag-tags and bob-tails of
creation. Once a year he would go questing for a mate, boldly invading
the southern side of the range, and not coming back until he had found
the lady of his choice. Then after a while a brood of whelps would be
born in the secret lair of the King, and when these were scarcely able
to fall about the floor of their birthplace in play, and bite at each
other’s sawed-off tails, the King would, one fine day, hustle them and
their mother, his erstwhile bride, out of his home and over the crest of
the range, to fare good or ill, as luck would send. At least this was
the story that the human-people told, and this much goes to support the
tale, that, whereas those farmers living beyond the line of knobs to the
southward lost but few hogs from nocturnal depredations, those living to
the north were in nightly fear that morning would show a trail of blood
from barnyard or pen. And the men-people had sat together night after
night in council, with heads bobbing and tongues wagging, trying to
evolve a plan whereby to capture or destroy this scourge of their fields
and pastures. But they had failed. The truest nosed hounds of the
various packs scattered around could not keep his trail, but would lose
the scent and return crest-fallen and shame-faced. He was never seen
within gunshot, and they could not find his lair. But one thing they
knew—that nothing else ran at night on the northern slope.
Picking his way as daintily as a satin-shod miss tips across a dirty
street from carriage door to house door, the King pursued his diagonal
course, which would eventually bring him to a field adjoining the garden
of a farm-house. He had but little more than half completed his journey,
when to his quick ears came a sharp snap, and something struck him
sharply on the back just behind his shoulders. He bared his teeth with a
low growl of wrath, and smote back blindly with one paw, which was
rimmed with five curving claws unsheathed with lightning swiftness. At
the same time there came the sound of huge wings beating the air to bear
a heavy body up, and a hoot owl laboriously made his way through the
trees, his perch, a dead limb, having at last broken beneath his weight.
Low on the ground two fiery eyes glared up in savage hate; then the
long, white claws slowly drew back out of sight and the cushioned feet
moved on again.
It had been a hard and long winter for the King, and the spring had been
slow in coming. There had been days when he could not leave his den;
when the leaden clouds had unburdened themselves for hours at a time,
and the snow had piled up, up, up over the very door of his home, and
all familiar landmarks were obliterated. Then he must needs chafe inside
his hiding-place, and when hunger seized him the cold nipped him the
harder, and it was a bitter battle to keep them both off. But his fur
had grown heavy and thick, and he could curl up and sleep and forget
that hunger was gnawing within him. He had lived through too many
winters and seen too many snows to venture out. For tracks can be seen
by the men-people, and then it would be all over with him, for they
would come and smoke him out. Once before, when he was younger, his life
had been thus jeopardized, and it was only by finding another exit far
off from the one where his enemies sat waiting that he escaped. The
winter just passed had seen his endurance tested to the utmost. Tortured
by starvation, he had at last determined to scout around on the top of
the knob, when the half-covered entrance to his den was darkened and a
striped-tail raccoon came ambling in. One swift blow and then the King
feasted royally, although his victim was old and bony and had but little
blood in his carcass. But this stayed his craving maw for a few days
longer, and then he crunched the dry bones and licked the snow in lieu
of water and waited for a thaw. It came at last, and the prisoned King
sat just within his door and watched the snow disappear with gloating
eyes. But even then there was danger in every step he took, for the
soaked ground caught and held the scent of his tracks, and there were
ever roaming the hills in search of him those lop-eared, thin-flanked,
tireless hounds, the only four-footed things in all his kingdom that he
feared. And they never came alone to do him fair battle, but always in
overpowering numbers with hereditary hate in their hearts. And so it was
incumbent upon him to employ flight and wily woodcraft when dealing with
these arch-enemies, and such had been his cunning that he had always
fooled them and shaken them from his tracks ere he crept tired, yet
victorious, into his hidden chamber to rest.
The phantom-like figure trailing its way down the knob-slope reached the
timberline without let or hindrance save the single exception which we
have seen. His back was still beset by occasional sharp pains where the
limb had struck, and this fact did not heighten the quality of mercy in
his heart, if, indeed, such a thing abode there. He halted for a moment
on the edge of the cleared ground before trusting himself to the open,
and looked and listened with painful intentness; then a slender red
tongue leaped from his mouth and swept his chops hungrily, for a
peculiar odor was wafted to his nostrils across the field—it came from
the backs of a bunch of sleeping shotes in a far-off corner of the
barnyard. Discretion immediately gave place to the unsatisfied hunger of
many days and the insatiable lust for blood. With swift bounds the King
advanced across the field, which had been sown in wheat the fall before,
and was now totally bare of vegetation. He reached the rail fence
enclosing the garden and skirted it warily, every nerve keyed to its
highest tension, for not a hundred feet away were the pack, sleeping the
light dog-sleep under and about the house of their master, and they had
been taught from puppyhood—nay, for generations even—to rouse and give
chase at the wild-cat smell. The King knew this, but he had dared the
same thing before, and carried off a prize while the guardians of the
flock slept. The mottled shape moved on with soundless steps, and in the
shadow of the barn it stopped. But it was only to glance about to see
that everything was still, and that none of his blood-enemies had
scented him in their slumbers. Again he moved forward—to stop rigidly. A
fat fowl was roosting on the top of a stake in the fence-corner three
feet from him. This was more delicate than hog meat, but there was less
of it, and the marauder was half starved—he felt that he could have
eaten a full-grown ox, and then slept peacefully. So the big rooster
dreamed on, not knowing how narrowly he had escaped, and the sly cat
resumed his creeping journey. His trained and faultless nostrils had
already located the exact whereabouts of his prey, and in a few moments
he was as close as he dared to go before the final move.
The fence was high and the rails were placed too closely for even his
sleek body to squeeze through a crack. He could see the half-grown
shotes in the corner, sleeping huddled together. They were very still.
At times one would flick an ear; another would give a spasmodic kick at
some tormenting flea, and a third would “Ugh! Ugh!” drowsily, and
relapse into unconsciousness. It was easy game for an old hunter—and how
juicy their sides looked in the starlight! But the King had hoped for a
crack through which to crawl. True, it would be no effort for him to
scale the highest fence ever built, but top rails have a way of falling
off with a terrible clatter, and sometimes, if the spoil be very heavy,
it is not such an easy matter to get back over the fence to freedom. In
the midst of his cogitations a light wind sprang up, and he noted with
dismay that it blew from him to the house yard—to the keen nostrils of
the dog-pack. Indecision vanished. With eyes glowing like sulphurous
coals he crouched low, and swiftly inched his hind feet and haunches up
under his belly. But the semi-darkness deceived him, and he
miscalculated the distance. The spring was too strong, and he clutched
wildly at the top rail as he passed over, only to drag it crashing from
its place. With a quickness found only in the tribe to which he
belonged, the great cat touched the ground only to rise in another leap
which landed him in the midst of the half-awakened and dazed pigs. The
deadly claws were bare, and they ripped at the throat of a victim as the
wicked teeth closed upon its neck and snapped the _vertebrae_. With the
gush of hot blood in his face and the smell of it deluging his nostrils,
caution and secrecy took wing, and the King stopped long enough to throw
back his head and give one terrifying scream of victory. Then he seized
the limp form before him in his powerful jaws, and with one gigantic
bound cleared the barrier before him and was gone.
[Illustration: “The King stopped long enough to throw back his head
and give one terrifying scream of victory.”]
Almost instantly another sound went up to the listening stars; the
full-throated bay of alarm from the gaunt leader of the dog-pack. Then
over the yard fence brown shadows flitted; singly and in pairs, and a
score of swift feet passed hither and thither, while sniffing noses
searched for the trail. They found the place of the slaughter, and the
tracks of the bold marauder smelled fresh and strong. Then for a time
the circling forms were baffled. But quickly one, leaner and wirier than
the rest, had wriggled through the fence, and his keen-voiced, excited
yelp told that the trail had been found again. Leaping, climbing,
crawling, the whole pack were soon over, and with waving tails and
deep-mouthed cries took up the pursuit. It was not the first time that
they had followed the King of the Northern Slope, but now he was close
at hand, for his tracks were hot in the soft soil of the wheat-field.
The wild-cat had barely reached the timber line when his pursuers took
up his trail in earnest. His progress across the field had been slow,
for the ground was yielding, and the burden which he carried was almost
half as large as himself. For a while he ran parallel to the open,
husbanding his strength for greater need, then took a course up the
knob-side directly opposite the way he had come and away from his lair.
He heard the dog-pack after him; he heard them change their course at
the timber line, and he knew that they were not to be lost by any simple
ruse. The enmity of years was in their hearts and their teeth were
whetted for his death. They were drawing nearer every moment, for they
were fleet of foot and had nothing to hold them back. The dead weight in
his vise-like teeth dragged at his neck, and as he ran the King made up
his mind. He must leave his prize if he would escape, for they were
running two yards to his one. He stopped for the shortest instant by the
side of a fallen tree, thrust his muzzle into the torn neck of his kill
and drank of the blood, then, relieved of his load, he sped up the hill
with long, quick bounds. His enemies were pressing him hard. He could
hear them crashing through the twigs and bushes, and their short, sharp
cries told him that they were straining every muscle to overtake him. No
matter; they had done it before, and he was ahead of them now and still
King of the Northern Slope. Nearer and nearer the top of the knob they
came, and the cat redoubled his efforts, for a cunning scheme had crept
into his subtle brain. He reached the crest twenty yards in advance of
the closest hound, dashed across a small plateau terminating in a cliff,
then swerved to the left, and was lost to sight as the pack came panting
on his heels with their noses close to earth. The lead hound went sheer
over the cliff with a howl of dismay; the one immediately behind him
braced his fore legs and ploughed two furrows in the leafy loam,
stopping with his dripping tongue hanging over the chasm. In the
momentary confusion which followed the hunted gained twenty more yards,
and then the chase swept on again hotter than before. Along the crest of
the range the King led them, his eyes glowing like twin headlights, and
his muscles playing free and strong under his loose skin. But his
strength was leaving him. The long winter fasts, together with the
weight which he had carried that night for the first mile of his flight,
combined to weaken that tenacious strength which was his birthright. His
blood-enemies were fresh from sleep and strong from food, and their
tireless limbs were gradually overtaking him. He did not know how
desperately near they were till the sharp clicking of teeth at his
hind-quarters told him that the chase was nearly done. There was one
alternative now—the last, and he took it. Before him rose a large oak
tree. Gathering his spent energies he leaped upon it, ran half way up
the trunk, then crouched on a limb with the breath rasping in his throat
and a dreadful aching in his strained lungs.
It had been a long, hard race, and he was only half a victor. For
beneath him was the pack, gnawing at the bark in blind frenzy, or
patrolling the tree with lugubrious howls expressive of baffled hate.
Throughout the long hours of the spring night they remained thus—the
King a prisoner in his tower, his captors keeping sleepless guard below.
All knew what the end would be. Especially did the silent figure in the
tree think on what the dawn would bring. There was no escape, but there
were two deaths—the one fighting, the other to be shot down like a
skulking fox or a cringing opossum. But life was sweet to the big
wild-cat, and as the slow dawn broke it seemed that the balsam of the
forest had never come so sweet to his nostrils, and he could feel the
old-time vigor coursing through his rested limbs. He placed his bullet
head on his paws, and looked down. Through the misty vapor of early
morning he could see them, ten in number, keeping wide-eyed watch over
him who had so long eluded their best efforts. They had been quiet
towards morning, but none of them had slept. Now one lifted up his head,
and sent forth his battle-call of victory. Others joined in, and just as
the sun was beginning to peep over the edge of the world the answer
came—a fox-horn sounded not far away. The men-people were coming, and
there were two deaths. There was no need to wait. No two-footed thing
should stand laughing by and see him perish. Let the four-footed kind
wreak his death; but he would not die alone.
Swiftly he raised himself and walked along the limb for a few inches.
Then he lifted his back into an arch, reversed his fur so that he looked
like a great brown ball, and sent forth one last, awful cry, which
echoed far and wide over the knob-range and over the lowlands, causing
the hate-eager hounds to involuntarily draw back in their tracks, and
sending a shiver of fear to the hearts of the denizens of the southern
slope. Then he launched his body in mid-air, straight at the leader of
the dog-pack. The wily hound drew back, and the wild-cat struck the
earth. They were on him before he could lift his paws from the shock of
the fall. Yet he shook them off bravely and gave blow for blow, and in a
second the curving white claws were dripping red drops. The pack leader
held off for a time, for he was old in war. But when the right moment
came he rushed in for the throat-hold—and got it. Then there was a
confused medley of legs, tails, teeth, claws, hair, and blood, all in a
writhing heap. When order was evolved from this chaos, two hounds were
dead, two limped on three legs, another had but one ear, and not one of
the pack had a whole skin. And in their midst was a shapeless, lifeless
ball of mottled brown.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
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