Chapter 11

A PLEASANT COMPANION

When Black Bruin awoke from his long sleep, stretched himself, and sallied forth into the open world, the first faint touch of red was appearing upon the soft maples. Buds upon the other trees had not started and there were yet suggestions of the chill of melting snow-banks upon the air. The tones of the forest were still somber, light gray-green or ash color, suggesting the funeral pile of the last year.

If the sun shone brightly for an hour, there might come a dash of hail the next and a chilling blast of wind that seemed to retard the oncoming spring for a whole month.

Life hung in the balance, the seasons coquetted, gray-haired old Winter trifling and flirting with the warm, blushing, sweet-breathed Spring.

The awakening had not yet come. It might come the next week, or, if the spring was exceptionally late, it might not come until the next month.

In accordance with his usual spring custom Black Bruin fasted for several days, eating only grasses, buds and roots. This satisfied him until the thick layers of fat, with which he had come forth from his winter sleep, disappeared and then he became ravenous, "as ravenous as a wolf," as the proverb says.

He hunted mice persistently, but mice seemed not to be as plentiful in the wilderness as they were nearer civilization. Squirrels also were not as numerous here as nearer the abode of man.

Most people, when they go to the great woods, expect to find them teeming with all kinds of life, and are much disappointed to find that song-birds and squirrels are decidedly more plentiful in their home village than in the wilderness. Many of the birds and smaller animals are social little creatures and love to be near the abode of man, while others live upon the scatterings which agriculture deigns not to pick up.

One day Black Bruin was following along the banks of a good-sized stream, looking for frogs, or anything, for that matter, which might fit into a bear menu, when to his great astonishment he discovered another bear, not as large as himself, sitting upon a flat rock a few feet from the shore, watching the stream intently. Black Bruin had never seen any of his kind before and a feeling of curiosity and friendly inquiry came over him. He did not go at once to make the acquaintance of the stranger, but kept very quiet and watched to see what she was doing.

He did not have long to wait, for a gust of wind soon dropped a bit of bark upon the stream near the crouching bear. There was a spray of water, and a flash of the silver sides of the salmon as it darted to the surface. Then the bear on the rock reached down with her paw and, with a lightning-like motion, batted the fish out of the water and well up on the bank.

Black Bruin, during his year of wild life, had found several dead fish, which he had eaten with great relish. So, without waiting to consider that the prize did not belong to him, he started out of the bushes for it.

But the real fisherman rushed at him with such ferocity that he quickly retreated to cover and sat watching while she killed the fish.

When it had been dispatched, the lucky fisherman took it in her mouth and went away into the woods with the prize. Black Bruin followed at a distance, smelling of the bushes, where the fish brushed in passing, leaving a tantalizing scent.

Finally, the bear with the fish stopped under some spruces and began eating it.

Soon two fuzzy shuffling little creatures joined her. What they were or where they came from Black Bruin did not know. They seemed not to care much for the fish which the old bear offered them, but preferred to romp and tumble about in the jolliest kind of frolic.

In the old days there had been a litter of puppies at the farmhouse. These queer little creatures were about the size of puppies, but Black Bruin did not think they were small dogs.

When the fish had been eaten, the three went away farther into the woods, the two small creatures following in the footsteps of their mother.

Then Black Bruin went up and smelled of their tracks and his good nose told him that they were small bears.

After that Black Bruin saw the old bear and her two cubs often, but she would not let him come near them, and did not evince much friendliness for him. But he had learned one valuable lesson and the following day was upon the flat rock watching for fish.

He did not get one that day or the next, but he had patience, which all fishermen must have, and the third day got his fish.

It was much larger than the one he had seen the strange bear take and it made him a fine meal. After that he was a tireless fisherman.

One morning Black Bruin discovered a little dappled fawn following its mother gleefully through the fragrant breeze-haunted forest, and remembering his calf-killing episode, just before the bear-hunt, he approached cautiously. This was not a calf, for the habitation of man had been left far behind. Calves he had made the acquaintance of when he was the farmhouse pet, in those far-off days. This was a wilderness creature and it belonged to him if he could kill it, as did all the wild creatures that he could master.

This is the universal cry of the woods,--food, food, food; and it is the cry of civilization as well. There is no dingle dell, where the harebell and the anemone grow, where the pine and the spruce stand darkling and sweet peace seems to fold her wings and sit brooding, but danger is there. Danger that crawls and creeps and runs with great bounds. Danger upon velvety paws, that fall on the mosses of the forest carpet as lightly as an autumn leaf; danger that slinks in gray protectively colored forms which pass like shadows; danger upon wings, as sure and speedy as the hunter's arrow,--wings fringed with down, that their coming may be noiseless and fatal.

The tiny wood-mouse scampers gleefully in the dead leaves, but above him and about him are a dozen dangers. The nervous cottontail sits erect upon his haunches, his nose twitches and his large trumpet-like ears are turned this way and that to catch the slightest sound. His whole attitude is one of intense watching and listening, and well he may, for his enemies are legion and in every thicket, bush and tree-top a dark danger is lurking.

This is the war of the woods. The old, old story of carnage, life that takes life that the breath of life may not go out of the nostrils. Cruel as fate is the law of the woods, but it is also the law of the shambles and carnivorous man.

Black Bruin was not as well versed in hunting as most of his wild kindred, so he did not take the precaution to get upon the windward side of his game. The ever-watchful mother scented danger long before he got within striking distance. Her white flag went up and she led her offspring at a breakneck pace from the place, but Black Bruin had marked them for his own and it was only a matter of patience.

For several days he watched their coming and going, until at last he discovered where the mother left her offspring while she went to a distant lake to feed upon lily-pads.

The little dappled deer was hidden under a fallen tree-top and one day, while the doe was gone, he fell upon the helpless fawn, which, according to the unwritten law of the forest, was his legitimate meat.

With a swift sure rush and a savage snarl, he brought the little deer from hiding. There was a short, swift chase, an agonized bleat or two, and Black Bruin had a breakfast that well repaid him for all his watching and waiting.

The same afternoon he saw the mother, wild-eyed and bleating, racing wildly up and down the forest, asking, by terrified looks and actions, "Have you seen my little dappled fawn? He is gone and there is strong bear-scent about the tree-top where I hid him." For several days she haunted the region and her anxiety and heedlessness of her own safety nearly caused her to fall a victim to the wary hunter, but she finally disappeared altogether.

It was not until the full glory of mid-summer was over the land that Black Bruin met White Nose in a blueberry patch upon a barren hillside. At first she would have nothing to do with him, but he followed her so persistently that she was at last obliged to take notice.

For a long time something in earth and air had been calling to Black Bruin,--something that he craved above all other things; but what it was he never knew until he rubbed muzzles with White Nose and felt her warm breath in his face. Then he knew that he had found what he wanted and that the old loneliness would not haunt him again.

But there was one thing about him that made his mate most suspicious and it took much patient coaxing upon Black Bruin's part to overcome her misgivings. This was the strong leather collar that the former dancing-bear still wore about his neck.

It was the collar into which Pedro had fastened the chain during the latter part of the bear's captivity. This White Nose could not understand. In all her experience she had never seen a bear wearing such a thing as this. The man-scent about it, too, made it still more alarming. But at last her prejudice was overcome, and the two came and went together during the rest of the summer and the early autumn.

From her Black Bruin learned many of the secrets of the woods that had hitherto been hidden from him. White Nose had been reared in the wild, so all her senses were keen and the woods and waters were her hunting-ground.

Together they caught salmon at a shallow point in the stream where all they had to do was to sit upon a rock and knock them out on the bank as they passed. Together, in the early autumn, they raided a beaver colony, breaking into the houses and killing several of the members. Black Bruin thought he had never tasted anything in his life quite so delicious as beaver-meat.

White Nose also taught him how to lie in wait for the deer in a clump of bushes by some pathway that they were in the habit of following, or by the lick, or perhaps by a spring where they often came to drink, and then, before they suspected their presence, to make a sudden rush.

She showed him a hollow birch-stub, in which a family of raccoons dwelt, and together they set to work to destroy the household of their own smaller brother. They dug and tore at the base of the stub until they had undermined it, and then together pushed it over.

At first the raccoon family were much astonished and terrified at the commotion outside their dwelling, and when finally the house came down, three sleek raccoons fled in as many directions. White Nose secured one and Black Bruin another, while the third escaped.

The last thing in the autumn, before they denned up, the two bears made a long journey of several days to the nearest settlement, where they killed several sheep, and also carried off two small pigs. In this stealing, Black Bruin took the lead, for he knew much better the ways of man, and the danger from his thunder and lightning than did his companion.

Upon this good supply of mutton and pork they laid on the final layers of fat, and then returned to their wilderness and denned up for the winter.