"Yoo-o-o-o!" screamed one of the wolves, as he fell, while the cries of the other two retreated into the forest. And Whoo Lee, the great barred owl, could have told you that they carried their tails between their legs. Their weird voices faded rapidly into the depths of the woods; for wolves travel fast on their round, furry feet, which spread out beneath them like round snow-shoes.
The Hired Man strode on down the Old Logging Road past the charred trunks which the forest fire had swept,-standing like white ghosts now in their snowy mantles,-and on nearly to Lone Lake. But never a sign of the gleaming eyes of the two remaining wolves could he see, though his ears shuddered at the weird howls that rang down the wind, and Lop Ear bristled and growled.
Fleet Foot and the starving fawns nibbled and nibbled at the hay-mow,-for the time, at least, safe and happy. But could they ever get back to the herd-yard, with those wolves still at large?
For once they were in luck. The Hired Man was not the only hunter who followed the wolves that night. Old Man Lynx, that fierce, furry fellow with ta.s.sels on his ears and claws that could rend like steel hooks, had also been driven down to the Valley by the winter"s famine. He, too, heard the howling of the wolves.
He heard the piercing scream of the wolf the Hired Man had shot, and he knew what it meant. The lynx was hungry, for the storms had lasted many days, and the rabbits and grouse hens hid away where he could not find them. On his own wide, spreading paws, therefore, he set out over the snow to find the wolf that had fallen. His heart was glad at the unexpected feast in store, and he whined hungrily under his breath.
Every now and again he had to pause to bite off the icy b.a.l.l.s that had formed under his warm feet. But before ever the Hired Man had turned back from Lone Lake, Old Man Lynx was peering and sniffing at the wolf that lay dead.
One thing he did not know, though. No sooner had the two remaining wolves raced to Lone Lake, with their tails between their legs, and the roar of the thunder-stick in their ears, than it occurred to them that they were still ravenously hungry. And the one that had fallen would go far toward easing that terrible emptiness that drew their sides together and made them desperate. (For wolves are cannibals!)
So, back the horrid beasts came, running on their furry snow-shoes-back down the wind, which told the noses of these great wild dogs as plainly as words that Old Man Lynx was there before them.
"Who-o-o-o," they howled wrathfully, speeding back through the burnt-wood, over whose ghost-like trunks they leapt in the darkness so fast that no Hired Man could have shot them had he tried.
Old Man Lynx raised his whiskered face and yowled an answering challenge.
"Ye-ow-w-w!" he screamed at them defiantly. Then he bent his head to s.n.a.t.c.h another mouthful of the meat he knew the wolves were on their way to claim.
"Ye-ow-w-w!" he screamed again, as the wolf cry swept nearer. This time he saw two pairs of red eyes gleaming in the darkness.
"I got here first, and I"ll make it hot for the first one that comes within reach of my claws," he warned them, in tones they understood without words.
"We are two to your one!" they answered him.
Little did Old Man Lynx imagine that he had an ally so near. To him it was merely a case of having found a meal in the wolf the Hired Man had shot, and of having the rest of the pack demand it of him. So the giant cat took his stand, with claws outspread over the prize, his savage face tense with hate. His green eyes blazed at them through the darkness.
The cowardly wolves paused just out of reach, neither one of them quite daring to begin the attack, yet willing to fall in, should the other go first, for both were wild with hunger.
Old Man Lynx was not afraid. He meant merely to meet each wolf as he came, and fight him off with tooth and claw-or if worst came to worst, he could climb the nearest tree. For the power to climb is the one great advantage that cats have over all members of the dog tribe.
Old Man Lynx himself was lean with famine, for the great storm had made hunting all but impossible for him. Not so much as a wood-mouse had shown its tracks on the snow for days. And there had been nothing in his rocky den save the dried and frozen bones of dinners long since past.
To surrender his supper to-night might mean starvation and actual death to him. But so it did to the wolves. It was to be a fight for life!
Now a lynx"s claws are like so many little curved swords of poisoned steel,-and he had five on each foot. He could dig at a wolf"s unprotected sides with his hind legs while his fore legs were clinging to the throat in which he would try to fasten his fangs.
The gray wolves knew all this, for Old Man Lynx visited the same Canadian wilds that they had come from. But even so, in another moment they had taken the leap-together! And there was more lynx fur flying than wolf fur-as Whoo Lee, the owl overhead, could have told you.
Just in the nick of time for Old Man Lynx, the Hired Man returned. When he heard the shrill chorus of returning wolves, he had hastened back, his great snow-shoes shuffling their way down the Old Logging Road at a speed of which he had not known them capable.
He was not thinking of Fleet Foot and the fawns. But with the barn full of cattle, it would never do to leave such beasts at large in the forest. When he heard Old Man Lynx, however, the Hired Man understood just what was going on. He had not lived in the back-woods for nothing all his days. And he decided to draw a little nearer, in the hope of getting another shot or two at the great gray terrors from the North.
CHAPTER XVI.-THE FARMER"S PLAN.
It was thus at the very moment that Old Man Lynx was striking out with bared claws, and the gray wolves were closing in on him both at once, that his unexpected ally reached the scene.
The Hired Man raised his gun, pointing it straight between two gleaming eyes that shone out in the darkness. He had to do it quickly, they jumped about so fast. Then a shot rang out on the silent night!
It singed a streak across the lynx"s flank, but it felled the wolf whose jaws were just about to clamp about his leg. A second shot nicked the ta.s.seled ear of the great cat fighting so desperately. But it singed the fur on the neck of the second wolf, just in time to check him, as his fangs were finding their way through the thick fur ruff that protected the lynx"s throat. At this second shot, the wolf, with a howl of terror, tucked his tail between his legs and ran.
The Hired Man hesitated, then decided that the lynx had won the right to live by his pluck. Thus Old Man Lynx was left, somewhat the worse for the meeting, but still able to enjoy the rest of his meal; while the Hired Man, counting the night well spent, shuffled home on his snow-shoes. But there was still a gaunt gray wolf at large in the forest-and Fleet Foot and the fawns had still to get back to the herd-yard before morning found them in the haunts of man!
But strange things can happen. No sooner had the lone gray wolf fled from the unexpected slaughter than the wind shifted, and he caught an odor most agreeable to his palate. For his gaunt sides were so hollow that every rib showed. It was an odor he had never before followed up.
He had not met it in his Northern wilds, but it smelled porky and delicious.
It was on the trunk of a wild apple tree that he found the little round bristly fellow. And he could see, by the gray light of dawn, that his black sides bulged with fat, in a winter when all the furry folk were lean and hungry.
That alone was puzzling. But what surprised him even more was that this queer fellow showed no sign of fear. He was singing a little song, all in one flat key-"Unk-wunk, unk-wunk, unk-wunk." It was a young porcupine, one of these p.r.i.c.kly fellows so like a tiny bear, only with long black needles instead of fur. The gray wolf did not know how terrible those needle-like quills can be, when once they get in one"s paw. For they are barbed like a hook on the end, and when they stick into one, it hurts worse to pull them out than to leave them where they are. The wood folk that lived around Lone Lake knew enough to leave Unk-Wunk strictly alone. So, he was never afraid. But the wolf did not know. And when the little porcupine, instead of climbing higher, out of his reach, came lazily back down the trunk and began to gnaw the frozen bark, the wolf thought it was easy game.
Thus, without so much as wondering what made this strange beast so fearless, he leaped open-jawed upon the little porcupine. There was just one howl of agony, as he clamped his jaws on those barbed quills, and it was not the porcupine who gave it!
Whining and clawing at his tortured mouth, the wolf rolled about in the snow-drift, choking and spluttering in mingled wrath and terror. For Unk-Wunk"s terrible barbed quills were working deeper and deeper into the roof of his mouth. Finally he rolled over on them, and they pierced through to the brain. That was the last of the great gray wolf that had come down out of the North to prey upon the forest folk around the Valley Farm.
Unk-Wunk, without in the least realizing that he had done so, had performed a public service. And in particular, he had made it safe for Fleet Foot and her fawns to go back home to the deer yard in the gray of the winter dawn.
"I tell you what," said the Farmer to his son next day. "I"ve a plan that I think will interest you."
"What is it?" asked the Boy, eagerly.
"Just this: I"ve plenty of hay this year, (more than enough for the stock,) and I"m going to pitch a little of it out, after this, every time the storms make it hard for the deer. I declare, I can"t bear to think of their being so starved!" And he gazed thoughtfully out over the drifting snow, as he thought how Fleet Foot had braved everything to reach their hay-stack.
"Hurray!" shouted the Boy. "May I pitch some out right now? Poor things, there wasn"t much they could reach between the bars," and he gazed at the dainty footprints the fawns had made the night before.
The deep, dry snow was followed by a freeze that left a glistening crust over every drift. Once more Fleet Foot and the rest of the deer could run nimbly on their spreading hoofs; and young Frisky Fox and Mother Grouse Hen and Mammy Cotton tail, the brown bunny, could foot their way across the white expanse in search of food. For they were sure of at least a fighting chance of getting home again.
Fleet Foot and the fawns, returning every night to the hay-stack, with a little band whose sides were as pinched with hunger as their own, now pa.s.sed Old Man Lynx without a fear. For where there was footing that would bear their weight, they knew they could outspeed him.
Hereafter the snow might whirl and the spruce trees bend and sway in the wind that wailed through their tops, but the white-tailed deer of the woods about Mount Olaf were always sure of a little hay to tide them over the month of hunger.
"Father," said the Boy, "I"ve made a birthday resolution. I am going to befriend every furred and feathered creature in these woods."
"All of them?" his Father asked. The Hired Man paused in the smoking of his traps to listen. "You aren"t going to tell us we can"t do any more trapping this winter?"
"You can trap muskrats," said the Boy thoughtfully. "And, of course, wolves, if any more should come. And weasels-the wicked creatures! They are only cruel, blood-thirsty ruffians who kill without need, just for the love of killing."
"What about Old Man Lynx?"
"Well, I know he is not popular. But, after all, he"s a good mouser. And we must spare our mousers, the fox and the skunk and the big barn owl,-for the mice destroy our grain, and I don"t know anything muskrats are good for except their fur. I"m not quite sure about the wild cat, but he doesn"t do much harm, does he, as long as there are fish to be caught? And he is a good mouser."