CHAPTER VII

A MIDNIGHT BATTLE

For perhaps three minutes the two creatures spat and screamed at each other. David awakened, uncovered his face cautiously and gazed about with interest. Then he murmured:

"I say, Nell, just look!"

"I know," her voice was equally low pitched.

"What'll they do?"

"Oh, run away. The cat won't fight the lynx."

"Is it a lynx? Snakes, what a row! I say, Nell, that cat yells like a slate pencil with a bit of wire in it screaming down a slate. Doesn't it make your teeth feel gritty?" he giggled.

"Hush," warned Nell.

"They don't hear, they are jolly busy. Oh, I _say_!"

This last "I say" was caused by a new movement on the part of the lynx. It was very hungry, and had no intention of letting that rabbit be eaten by a mere wild cat if anything could be gained by interfering! Evidently it ran or jumped from the rock top to the snow barrier, for the two malevolent green eyes suddenly glared palely from the bank. Then Nell saw the dark crouching shape run round on to the upturned sled. She was sure now it was a lynx, she could distinguish the heavy, powerful hind legs and the bob tail, then in a moment, right across the faint glow of the fire, the flat, wicked face with the tufted ears laid back.

But the great wild cat held on to the rabbit. There was no time to eat, but it would not run, as, of course, the lynx expected. They are terrible creatures and will fight almost anything that does fight in the forest. Their teeth, and the knife-like talons on their powerful hind legs make them dangerous everywhere. Nell wished the cat would run and be done with it all. She put out her hand to the wood pile, meaning to throw some sticks on the fire that glowed dully between them and these dangerous neighbours, when David saw what she intended and urged her not to.

"Don't, Nell, it'll send them off with one jump. Do let's see what they'll do!"

"But, Da----"

"Oh, I know they are awful brutes, but we've never had a chance of seeing a catamount stand up to a lynx. Do wait!"

Nell gave in. All the same, she was not sure it was wise, and she kept a bunch of sticks in her hand ready to beat on the smoulder of the fire with them and so drive about a shower of sparks, supposing the fighters became too unpleasant.

Robin was uneasy, but he remained as before, just watchful. Both Nell and David knew that he would fight a wolf, but not a lynx--not if he could possibly get out of it, anyway.

The wild cat was drawn up into a hoop, looking like a picture of a huge witch cat. It was a picture, too, of rage indescribable, one paw holding down the rabbit, one lifted, as it screeched at the crouching lynx on the top of the sled. Every tooth in its stretched, open mouth was bare, and its ears lay flat and close. The face of the lynx was like a wicked mask in front of its hunched-up body.

Then, in a second the suspense was over, and the noise that followed was like nothing Nell had ever heard in all her years of forest life. The silence of the woods seemed to be split and shaken by the hideous yowls and screeches of the furious beasts as they struggled for a mastery. Most people have heard two cats fight. If that can be imagined at least twenty times worse, and in the profound stillness of winter night in a snow-laden forest, that is what the girl and boy heard.

The bodies of the two wild creatures rolled, bounded, and spun in one raging ball. No one could have told which was which.

David scrambled to his feet, bag and all, and leaned against the rock watching, too intent to notice Nell's actions. She did what she had wanted to do in the first place, threw a handful of dried sticks on the twinkling red ashes. Amongst the sticks were some dead birch saplings. These burst into a flame almost on the instant, and a rush of crackling light streamed up into the air, making the tree boles look pink, like the rosy tinted snow.

In that same instant Nell saw that the cat was uppermost, with teeth fastened in the face of the lynx. He would not give way, but the lynx was killing him by terrible strokes of those razor-like claws which were lashing at the soft underpart of the catamount's body.

This she saw in a sort of instantaneous vision. Then the leaping flame did its work. With one spasmodic movement the mad beasts fell apart. The lynx ran away, crouching close to the snow, with a curious hunched movement of his strong hind legs, and the great cat disappeared in two bounds, leaving a trail of dark stains on the snow. He was shockingly hurt.

"Oh, I say, why _did_ you, Nell?" cried David.

"I wasn't going to have the catamount killed," said his sister firmly. "I loathe lynxes. Their faces are as wicked as demons. I believe they are demons."

"Cats are pretty well as bad. It was a catamount that bit Dad, Stenson said."

"It was in a trap," Nell excused the cat briskly. "Of course they're savage, they are wild animals, but I didn't want that lynx to triumph. Who got the rabbit? It was the cat's own rabbit."

"Poor rabbit," said David.

Then they both laughed. It was such a very mad sort of scene, as Nell said.

David walked round the fire cautiously and found the rabbit. There it was, left on the battered battlefield. He picked it up gingerly.

"If we knew where the catamount was, we might go to him and say, 'Here is your rabbit.' As we don't, Robin had better have it. He won't mind. He didn't get much supper. We've got to make our food last."

Robin did not seem to mind much, and so the other two let him finish the poor cat's find, while they divided a bit of Nell's bread between them. It was cold. They were both rather weary all over, but they laughed and neither one nor the other confessed to that weariness, for this was only the beginning of the trail.

Nell decreed just one more hour in their bags, and then they must break camp and get off with dawn. She got no more sleep herself, that interlude had been too strenuous. She lay warm in her fur bag thinking--thinking, as the dark turned into grey. Then she got out of her bag and started on the morning work, perhaps the most miserable and difficult time in the twenty-four hours of a day's trail. The stiffness had not gone out of her tired muscles, her hands seemed stupid with the bitter morning chill. But Nell said never a word. She was leader, and it was her job to keep the flag flying, whatever she felt herself.

Soon the fire was blazing and the billy-can hung over it to boil water. Then she got out her treat, the special secret she had planned for the two first mornings. In the bag with the foodstuffs and utensils she had hidden a tight-lidded can of ready-made oatmeal porridge. There was always a sack of the coarse kind at the log house, and so Nell had boiled enough--or rather taken what was boiling--it was always ready at home. Only enough for two mornings, but even that would be a help. "One wants breaking in by degrees," thought poor Nell as her blue hands stirred the porridge.

David woke and saw it; what he said about that surprise made things very cheerful. Later on there grew a faint pinkness, low between the trees. The snow had ceased to fall, and far away the sun was rising on the white world. Nell did not say so, because her principle always was never to look for trouble, or to express dread of a possible one, but it was a pity the snow had ceased to fall. Moreover, either the shelter of the wood made the air less bitter or it really was warmer. And she did not want a thaw--not yet. There was that long, long river road ahead, and though the ice would remain thick, a thaw would start the little streamlets in the hills, thousands of small springs would trickle down into the river bed, and that would set the water swelling and lifting under the ice.

There was the more need for hurry. That was the way she looked at it. So breakfast was eaten, the sled neatly packed, and the party on the trail again before true daylight.

The first thing they came across as they turned into the river road was the dead body of the catamount. Nell was sorry about it. The great brindled beast was so torn and disfigured.

"After all, it was his rabbit," she said again. "I hate lynxes."

"The lynx got an ugly one in the eye all the same," suggested David. "It's not feeling very lively this morning."

So they left their first camp and sped away and away again along the white road, eating up the miles. Their spirits rose after the first effort, because it seemed so easy. The stiffness wore off and they seemed to grow stronger. The only thing that worried Nell at all was the thaw. It made the snow soft, so that the trail was heavy, and every now and then they heard the tiny trickle sound that meant water from somewhere.

Again, supposing they were followed, the trail was deep and obvious. Of course, if the thaw continued the snow would go into a slush, but at present the track lay horribly plain, long ruts made by the sled runners and the print of Robin's feet.

However, there was no use lamenting what could not be helped, but it made Nell more anxious than she showed in her manner. They stopped every now and then to change places, and made the longer halt about twelve for dinner as before. They were so hot with pulling that there was not the least hankering after hot food, which was a comfort, as the meal was made off pemmican as before.

It was late afternoon, and when they were beginning to get tired--really tired, that the first serious check came in the long hours of swift progress.

The thaw seemed to have ceased and an icy wind got up, moaning dismally in the tree-tops. The river, which had been always rather narrow, widened out within a sort of gorge of rocks and brushwood. The bed of it began to slope slightly in a long series of what would be rapids when the water was flowing, and then, on a turn, they came to the rocky dip of a high waterfall. Frozen it was still, of course. One mass of ice and snow. Rather a terrible place in the strange stillness of its hold-up. And everywhere rocks--rocks and steep, difficult places blending with the forest.

"And _now_ what next?" said David, looking about.

"Let's look round first," his sister answered cautiously.

So they left the sled, and taking Robin they made an examination of both sides of the fall. This was a long business, but it ended in the discovery that the river made a sharp loop here, as well as a fall, and their best plan would be to drag the sled through the wood--down the hill, of course--cut across the loop, and pick up the river again about a mile below.

It was going to delay them some time, and both of them were too well versed in scoutcraft to think for a moment that it would confuse the trail or shake off a pursuer, because what they had done would be so obvious. However, it could not be helped, and so Nell, keen to get it over, decided to start on this overland bit at once. David was willing enough, but they soon found the business was a worse job than their worst fears had reached.

A yard or two at a time, and then it became a matter of going far round some impossible obstacle, cutting a way through impassable undergrowth, or letting the sled down a rock wall. And darkness was closing in.