Part 4

Monsall, the old King Moose of the spruce wood, had once more taken his proper place as leader of his own family. All through the month of March he had been quite content with his lot, and as timorous and helpless as any cow moose in the herd. This was simply because it was the season of shedding; his great branching horns were gone, and the newly sprouting ones were still in their “velvet” stage, so that they would have been of no possible service to Monsall in battle.

But now his horns were gradually hardening, and with the return of his shorn strength all the bold, domineering nature of the King had returned to him, and he was glad.

“Ugh-ugh-waugh, o-o,” he called to his mate loudly and commandingly, and with his heavy antlers held proud and high he shambled triumphantly away. Blazing a wide, clear trail as he traveled through the thick bush, he led his timorous mate afar in the direction of new feeding grounds where beech and moose-wood bark were green and plentiful, and the forest pools full of water.

The call of the moose once heard, is seldom forgotten. It begins with a series of hoarse grunts or groans and winds up with a roar which booms and echoes through the most secret places of the forest, striking terror to the timid. Monsall, the King, was huge and ungainly. His great, powerful body would easily weigh over a thousand pounds, and his now towering antlers, when grown, would measure fully five or six feet from tip to tip. His coarse coat of brownish hair was now shabby, but he wore a fine, bristling mane of black hair, and a flowing beard of the same depended from his chin, which served to make his huge head appear twice its length. Fierce and bold was the King, keen in his likes and dislikes, but usually rather gentle with his mate in his fierce way, and he would do battle for her until he fell rather than own up beaten.

The pair went crashing onward, making their way toward the distant waterways and marshes. Long before you heard the crashing of the underbrush you knew, if you were experienced in wood-lore, that moose were on the trail, because the moose when it travels has a way of striking its hoofs together with a sharp, clicking sound like the striking of castanets, and the sharp sound heralds their coming. But for all the moose is himself noisy, he is perhaps the very keenest one in the forest to detect the approach of an intruder, for he readily takes alarm at the mere cracking of a twig.

Seeking a deep pool where lily-pads had already begun to spread upon the water, the pair took to the pool and plunged their great, velvety muzzles deep down into its muddy depths, dragging forth great mouthfuls of the water plants and their roots, and browsing contentedly together for hours. After the scant fare of the abandoned “yard” how good the luscious, succulent fare tasted to them.

Thus for weeks Monsall and his mate journeyed, until one day the cow moose deliberately deserted him, and hunt as he might, so cleverly had she concealed herself, he could not find her. She did not leave the hidden, mossy covert for days, for any length of time, and when she did, it was simply because, nearly wild from the stings of the black fly, which now swarmed in the woods, she sought water where she might stand to rid herself of her tormentors.

She hoped to find some near-by pool, but in vain; all the shallow, near at hand waterways were dried out, and she traveled long before she found a deep pool. She was very nervous and anxious to get back to the secret covert, for she had left behind her a baby moose. Wise was the cow to hide the little one from its fierce parent, Monsall. For so fiercely selfish or jealous does the male moose become, that sometimes for sheer ugliness he will trample out the life of a very young moose.

When the mother moose came to the pool at last, she gave a long grunt or sigh of relief and sank deep down beneath the grateful water, leaving just the tip of her muzzle and furry ears above the surface. The black flies, which had stung her until she was nearly mad, left her burning flesh and arose in a scum upon the water. So relieved and full of content was the mother moose that she almost forgot about the little furry fellow whom she had left back there in the secret covert. And so it chanced that a lumberman and his boy, who had been following a forest trail, came upon the covert and found the little moose. Lonely, and no doubt wanting its mother, it had stolen out into the forest upon its long awkward legs, and stood exactly on the trail when the man spied it.

Thus it happened that when the mother moose came shambling hastily back to her baby, uttering little rumbling calls deep down inside, just to let it know she was on the way back to it, she found the secret covert quite empty. For weeks she crashed wildly through the forest, calling it vainly; only her own lonely bellow echoed back to her straining ears, while afar off, in quite another direction, in the distant lumber camp the boy was learning to love the little moose, and had built it a rough shelter and yard not far from the lumbermen’s shacks, lest it stray away, and he lose his pet.

In early autumn the mother finally gave up her fruitless search for the calf. Soon the herding time would be at hand, snows would fly, and then each family would seek the “yard” once more, and herd there through the winter. Overcome now with sudden loneliness--for already the hills were red with autumn tints; very soon after, up in the North Country, the first snow flies--the mother moose began to long for companionship, and so she began to haunt the old moose trails once more, and often send out her long-drawn, pleading call for her lost mate.

“Ugh-ugh-waugh, o-o-o” she bellowed, racing through the dark aisles of the tall spruces, whose far-away tops seemed to touch the blue sky.

One day, when she had almost given up her search, a loud, booming challenge, an answer to her call, came from a long distance away. Even then Monsall, the old King, was on his way to her and she was glad.

Now when the King Moose hears the pleading call of his lost mate, and makes up his mind that he will join her, should anything interfere with his plans, or hinder him in his travels to her, he is instantly on the war-path, and a most dangerous, terrifying foe for any one to meet. So when the old King Moose had raised his great antlered head, and after listening patiently, thought he had located the call of his mate, he was soon on his way to join her. Again came to him her welcoming call, oh, miles across the country, through forest and over mountain; but in spite of the long distance, Monsall had recognized her call, and he was coming.

Just as he had drawn in his breath to send out a mighty answering call, even before the echoes of his mate’s cry had fairly died out from afar off, in quite another direction, came the unmistakable answer of a rival moose. Instantly the old King was angry and alert. What rival was trying to call his mate away from him? Whirling indignantly about in his tracks, his great antlers thrown well back upon his black, bristling mane, Monsall charged madly off in the direction of the rival call.

Time after time his mate wailed forth her call to him, and each time a reply came from the rival moose. The great lumbering hulk of the King tore wildly through the forest, felling saplings, and racing over giant tree trunks with no effort whatever, so wild with jealousy and full of rage was he, and at every new call of the strange moose his anger increased. His small eyes gleamed redly, and his heavy breath rushed like steam from an engine through his great distended nostrils, while his heavy jaws crashed together like the fall of a woodman’s axe, as he ran blindly on.

Hours he ran; he would find and settle with this stranger who still sent his hateful bellow from afar, this rival who dared signal his own mate. His great antlers were now so terribly strong that he feared no other moose in the forest. Gradually he drew nearer the rival’s hiding-place, or haunts; for the bellow was nearer and nearer. It was night when the King Moose reached the end of the trail, which led him into the lumber camps; but he had no fear of man now, so keen was he after revenge, and to lock antlers with his rival; only, somehow, that rival’s bellow did not sound as loud or as challenging as his own. Surely his foe would be an easy one to rout.

The lumbermen had long ago gone to sleep in their shacks; they retire early, for their work begins at sunrise, and so the camp-fires smoldered, and it seemed like a deserted village, as Monsall halted right outside the slash or clearing, and stood stock-still to get his bearings, trying to gain sight of his rival. But no proud, antlered form rushed forth to do battle with Monsall. All was still; even the boy had been asleep for hours. He had given his pet moose its supper inside the yard, where he always fed it, had stroked and fondled its long furry ears, and the little moose had rubbed its clumsy, velvety muzzle affectionately over the boy’s body, and allowed him to fit a rough sort of harness over its body; for the boy was planning to train the young moose to carry him upon its back. The creature had now become so tame that it readily followed the boy all about camp, and was a great pet.

So wrapped in sleep was the camp they paid no attention whatever to the strange noises and calls of the young moose through the night. In fact they had become quite accustomed to his rather queer attempts to bellow, so were not disturbed by the sound. For hours the young moose had been restless, sending out call after call from his yard, each call becoming more sustained and carrying wider as the young moose gained experience with his new gift.

So, while the fires burned low and red, into the camp came a great, shambling, hulking black figure; it left the fringe of protecting spruce bush somewhat warily; its great nostrils puffed across the smoldering fires, and sent the floating ashes whirling. Then it began to circle about the camp, drawing steadily nearer and nearer the moose pen.

“Ugh-ugh, waugh, oo,” called the young moose, not very loudly or clearly, and as the sound came to Monsall he stood a second, then charged with raised antlers for the yard. Again the call, and this time the old King strained his great ears, perhaps catching a familiar note in the little moose call. Somehow it seemed to him not to be the loud, insolent bellow which he had followed and longed to do battle with its owner the moment he met. Then a strange thing occurred; instead of replying in his usual savage roar when he met an enemy, Monsall dropped his antlers gently and gave a gentle, unexpected low, which rumbled kindly, deep down inside his giant hulk, and meant only peace and reassurance to the little moose.

Then, through the darkness a great antlered head lifted itself over the high board enclosure where the young moose stood, timidly waiting he knew not what. Two velvety muzzles met over the barrier, the old King found and recognized one of his kindred; his own stray calf.

The lumbermen still slept on, and so they failed to hear the disturbance in camp and the crash which followed when the sharp, impatient hoofs of the King Moose tore down the board prison which separated him from his lost one, and gave it freedom--the freedom of the woods.

The old King and the little furry moose stood hesitatingly close to the dying camp-fires, Monsall to get his lost bearings, the little one waiting. Just then from far off came another long, pleading call, the mother moose calling again for her mate. Then the old moose lifted his antlers proudly, and a great and mighty challenge echoed through the camp and rang its way far over the pine trees to his mate. The great shambling figure of Monsall the moose took the trail once more, while close behind, right through the way which the old King blazed for him, followed the little one; they had heard and were following the call of the moose back into the forest.

VIII

THE LAST WOLF OF THE PACK

Gray Coat, leader of the great Timber Wolf Pack, originally came from the wilds of Northern Canada, where the dense forests form safe shelter and cover for deer, bear, the red fox, and all the wild kindred who seek the silent places of the woods, far away from man. But one year lumbermen entered the forest with their whirring saws, and felling the tall pines, let in light into the dark places and uncovered their trails. The wolf pack was tracked and gradually thinned out and scattered, and Gray Coat, the big, brave leader of the pack, one day realized that he was just one solitary, lonely old wolf roaming the forests alone.

Gray Coat always seemed to lead a charmed sort of life, for no matter how skilfully traps were laid for him he never ventured into one of them, no matter how pressing his hunger might be. Often, nowadays, he would starve for days because he hated the whine of the lumbermen’s saws, and they had frightened away the young deer, so that no longer did they come in early morning and at dew-fall to water at the old pool. Already ferns grew rank and untrodden over the old deer trails, and although Gray Coat watched and prowled about their old haunts, he never caught sight of even one red coat or flashing white tail.

At last the sides of Gray Coat began to show hollowly, gaunt and thin, and his coat became rough and shabby, a starved, baffled look gleamed in his sullen, green eyes, and his long, usually fleet legs were weak from fasting and often played him strange tricks; for sometimes when he chased a cottontail, because he had become reduced to such small fare, instead of the coveted tidbit, his lean, cruel jaws clicked together upon emptiness; he had somehow just missed the rabbit. Then Gray Coat instinctively knew that something strange and unusual had happened to him.

One night, too weak and lonely and disheartened to even start off trailing game, he sat solitary and unhappy just in the edge of a pine slash and lifting up his voice he howled and howled at the moon which looked coldly down upon his misery. It is during the winter that the wolves herd together, traveling in packs, but in spring they separate and mate. But although Gray Coat longed for companionship, there seemed to be no mate for him, for all his kindred had been hunted away from the old haunts. Had Gray Coat only been human, he would have wept bitterly; as he was only a wolf, he just sat all hunched up together, his lean snout low between his haunches, only lifting up his head to send his long howl through the woods.

Then somewhere, after a little silence, a very welcome sound came through the moonlit woods, the long, familiar cry of a wolf.

“Ah-h-o-o-o-oo, Ah-h-o-o-o-oo,” it wailed through the long dusky corridors of the pines. And the next instant Gray Coat forgot all his troubles and, leaping to his feet, with all his strength he sent back a loud-quavering howl of command and pleading.

“Ah-h-o-o-o-oo!” To his joy, back came an answering cry, followed by a series of short, reassuring calls which sounded like sweetest music to poor, lonely Gray Coat. Each time the calls sounded a trifle nearer, and soon his sharp ears caught the swift sound of a “pat, pat, pat” upon the bedded pine-needles, and through the moonbeams came swiftly a welcome gray shadow. Gray Coat had found a mate. After they had nosed each other over, dog-fashion, and snarled together with snapping jaws, as is the wolf way of introduction, the two gray wolves, last of a great pack which had once roamed through the Canadian forests, trotted off together.

Silver Sides, the young wolf, was not starved looking or shabby of coat as her mate, and instinctively sensing his hunger, she led him to the remains of a deer carcass, and snarling together, they finished it. Then, with all his old, strong courage come back to him, Gray Coat took the lead, as he always had done, and together they ran on and on through the woods. For days and nights the pair traveled, just two fleet gray shadows, slipping through the silent places of the forest; skulking warily, they avoided the man scent, but always keeping together, for, by common consent, they were now making for a strange, new country and fresh hunting grounds.

But in one thing they had erred; instead of striking off farther north into the well-nigh impassable wild forests, where the lumbermen had not entered, and where they might have found plenty of game, and others of their kindred, they were traveling south, each day drawing nearer and nearer civilization, and, if they kept on, they would soon reach the Green Mountain country. Finally they came to the edge of a great swamp; its dense growth of dark balsams and spruces promised them a safe retreat, and surely, in such a wilderness, game would be plentiful once more, for not a trace of man could they detect. Little cottontail rabbits they saw in plenty, but, as time wore on, both the appetites of Gray Coat and his mate demanded wilder fare than mere rabbits. In vain they ranged together over the deer passes; the hunters had frightened away most of the wilder game. So, in desperation, the two wolves each day began to grow bolder and bolder, and even ventured down into the valleys beneath the mountains, forgetting their fear of man; soon they commenced to raid the farmers’ sheep pens, and dragged away young calves to their retreat in the swamp. Then, as they were unmolested, they actually crossed the traveled highways at night, and often sent their long, wailing yells through the forests, until the villagers began to wonder what it all meant, because the wolf cry had not been heard in that section for years and years.

One farmer finally lost so many sheep he sat up nights to watch. And one moonlight night he saw the pair, Gray Coat and Silver Sides, come skulking like shadows from behind the granary. Quickly the farmer blazed away with his old flint-lock rifle, but he had not killed, only wounded one of the wolves and it got away, leaving a bloody trail of footprints behind.

Gray Coat had been hit and so badly lamed in one leg that he just managed to crawl back to the swamp before sunrise, and seeking shelter among the friendly spruces he lay there helplessly licking his wound.

As soon as the farmer realized that wolves were actually prowling around nights, he immediately set to work to trap them. But no trap could he find that would hold a wolf, so he invented a great drop trap, using the strong door of the granary for a fall. He then baited the trap with tempting fresh meat and waited for the wolves to come again.

Down in the swamp Gray Coat, sullen and ugly because of his lame leg, saw Silver Sides go off alone in the moonlight, night after night. He tried to follow her, for pangs of hunger were gnawing him, but his leg remained far too lame and stiff to travel upon, and so with a snarl of baffled rage he watched his mate slip off through the dark pines. Finally one night Gray Coat watched and waited impatiently for her to return. Would she find game, and perhaps bring him back a bone, as she sometimes did? At the mere thought his hunger seemed every instant to become more and more pressing, and the fever of his wound made him mad with thirst. Finally he dragged himself to a water hole, down in between the swamp tussocks, and lapped and lapped the green, scum-covered water. Then crawling wearily back to his retreat beneath a sheltering spruce, he waited and longed for Silver Sides to come back to him. All that night and the next day Gray Coat waited, but in vain; she did not return to him. Again the moon rose over the dark mountains, and filtered down into the swamp, and then, much to his relief, he tried his lame leg and found it stronger and better, so that he managed to spring out and catch an unsuspecting rabbit. Making a hasty meal, for he was so hungry he couldn’t very well do anything else, he then struck off through the thick spruces, following eagerly the trail of his mate.

Once or twice, in his haste, he lost the scent, then he would run hither and thither with little baffled whines, his muzzle close to the ground as he made wide détours, circling ever wider and wider, round in a circle, until he struck the lost trail once more. It led him through devious ways down into the valley, straight to the farmer’s sheep pen. Skulking warily in and out among the buildings, Gray Coat soon struck a keener scent, which led him straight to the trap. Strangely enough, the trap was not set, and as Gray Coat came creeping nearer and nearer, he found the heavy door dropped down. Baffled by this, he began to scratch frantically, digging and tearing around and beneath the trap with his sharp nails at the heavy door, for he certainly thought, by the strong scent, that Silver Sides must be back of the door. He gave little, whimpering, reassuring whines to her as he dug, just to let her know he was there, but received no reply from her. At last when his nails were nearly worn down to the quick, he stopped his furious digging. He was completely baffled; because, if she were back of the dropped door, she would surely have answered him. Then, suddenly, his miserable green eyes chanced to light upon a tuft of familiar looking gray fur; he sniffed at it eagerly. Yes, it surely belonged to his mate. Gray Coat tossed about this bit of fur, playing with it as a kitten does a feather, but he gained no response from the tuft of fur. Next instant he began to act like a crazy creature, racing madly in and out between the barns, for he had all at once caught a fresh, new clue. Following the new scent, it led him out behind a great red barn, and there it ended, for nailed against the barn door his despairing eyes saw and recognized the well-known but empty pelt of Silver Sides, his mate. Its plumy gray brush waved softly back and forth over the red barn door as if sending him greeting.

Gray Coat stood upon his long hind legs and tried to reach it with his snout. In vain; he received no welcoming snap from the empty jaws of the familiar pelt. Then, sitting down upon his lean haunches, Gray Coat lifted his head and sent such a long, wailing cry of despair and loneliness through the night that the farmer awoke and, grabbing his gun, started to hunt for the wolf.

But Gray Coat, having gained no response from the limp pelt upon the barn door, had left the barn-yard before the farmer got there.

Back on a great bare hill he sat, overlooking the now hateful valley, and trying to reason out in wolf fashion what it all meant. Soon, however, he had made up his mind--a time for action had come to Gray Coat; and lifting his head once more to the moon, he gave one last long cry, because of his lost mate. Then swiftly, like a gray shadow, he leaped away--for he had a long road to travel, because this time his instinct headed him in the right way, straight for the North Lands, where he would strike old familiar trails, fresh hunting grounds, and his kindred.

IX

HOW UNK-WUNK THE PORCUPINE MET HIS MATCH

In the thick cover of the spruces, down in a natural hollow, where it was dark and still, and the fragrant boughs swept the ground, forming a perfect little bower, or tent, lived a very interesting family, Father and Mother Porcupine and their three young ones. So very young were the little porcupines, or hedgehogs, as they are sometimes called, that they resembled neither cubs nor kittens, but at first sight looked not unlike homely young crows before the pin-feather age; for when the little hedgehog is born, he is strange looking enough, his quilly armor being covered with a transparent skin; and besides, he is totally deaf and blind, and very helpless.