Tooth and claw and deadly grip--the old Cat raged and tore, the black fur flew in every direction, and the Skunk for once lost her head and fired random shots of choking spray that drenched herself as well as the Cat. The Skunk"s head and neck were terribly torn. The air was suffocating with the poisonous musk. The Skunk was desperately wounded and threw herself backward into the water. Blinded and choking, though scarcely bleeding, the old Cat would have followed even there, but the Kitten, wedged under the log, mewed piteously and stayed the mother"s fury. She dragged it out unharmed but drenched with musk and carried it quickly to the den in the hollow log, then came out again and stood erect, blinking her blazing eyes--for they were burning with the spray--lashing her tail, the image of a Tigress eager to fight either part or all the world for the little ones she nursed. But the old Skunk had had more than enough. She scrambled off down the canon. Her three young ones had tumbled over each other to get out of the way when they got that first accidental charge of their mother"s battery.
She waddled away, leaving a trail of blood and smell, and they waddled after, leaving an odour just as strong.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "The old Cat raged and tore"]
Yan was thrilled by the desperate fight of the heroic old Cat. Her whole race went up higher in his esteem that day; and the fact that the house Cat really could take to the woods and there maintain herself by hunting was all that was needed to give her a place in his list of animal heroes.
p.u.s.s.y walked uneasily up and down the log, from the hole where the Kittens were to the end overlooking the canon. She blinked very hard and was evidently suffering severely, but Yan knew quite well that there was no animal on earth big enough or strong enough to frighten that Cat from her post at the door of her home. There is no courage more indomitable than that of a mother Cat who is guarding her young.
At length all danger of attack seemed over, and p.u.s.s.y, shaking her paws and wiping her eyes, glided into her hole. Oh, what a shock it must have been to the poor Kittens, though partly prepared by their brother"s unsavoury coming back. There was the mother, whose return had always been heralded by a delicious odour of fresh Mouse or bird, interwoven with a loving and friendly odour of Cat, that was in itself a promise of happiness. Scent is the main thing in Cat life, and now the hole was darkened by a creature that was rank with every nasal guarantee of deadly enmity. Little wonder that they all fled puffing and spitting to the dark corners. It was a hard case; all the little stomachs were upset for a long time. They could do nothing but make the best of it and get used to it. The den never smelt any better while they were there, and even after they grew up and lived elsewhere many storms pa.s.sed overhead before the last of the Skunk smell left them.
X
THE ADVENTURES OF A SQUIRREL FAMILY
"I"ll bet I kin make a Woodp.e.c.k.e.r come out of that hole," said Sapwood, one day as the three Red-men proceeded, bow in hand, through a far corner of Burns"s Bush. He pointed to a hole in the top of a tall dead stub, then going near he struck the stub a couple of heavy blows with a pole. To the surprise of all there flew out, not a Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, but a Flying Squirrel. It scrambled to the top of the stub, looked this way and that, then spread its legs, wings and tail and sailed downward, to rise slightly at the end of its flight against a tree some twenty feet away. Yan bounded to catch it. His fingers clutched on its furry back, but he got such a cut from its sharp teeth that he was glad to let it go. It scrambled up the far side of the trunk and soon was lost in the branches.
Guy was quite satisfied that he had carried out his promise of bringing a Woodp.e.c.k.e.r out of the hole, "For ain"t a Flying Squirrel a kind of Woodp.e.c.k.e.r?" he argued. He was, in consequence, very "c.o.c.ky"
the rest of the day, proposing to produce a Squirrel whenever they came to a stub with a hole in it, and at length, after many failures, had the satisfaction of driving a belated Woodp.e.c.k.e.r out of its nest.
The plan was evidently a good one for discovering living creatures.
Yan promptly adopted it, and picking up a big stick as they drew near another stub with holes, he gave three or four heavy thumps. A Red Squirrel scrambled out of a lower hole and hid in an upper one; another sharp blow made it pop out and jump to the top of the stub, but eventually back into the lower hole.
The boys became much excited. They hammered the stub now without making the Squirrel reappear.
"Let"s cut it down," said Little Beaver.
"Show you a better trick than that," replied the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r. He looked about and got a pole some twenty feet long. This he placed against a rough place high up on the stub and gave it a violent push, watching carefully the head of the stub. Yes! It swayed just a little. Sam repeated the push, careful to keep time with the stub and push always just as it began to swing away from him. The other boys took hold of the pole and all pushed together, as Sam called, "Now--now--now--"
A single push of 300 or 400 pounds would scarcely have moved the stub, but these little fifty-pound pushes at just the right time made it give more and more, and after three or four minutes the roots, that had begun to crack, gave way with a craunching sound, and down crashed the great stub. Its hollow top struck across a fallen log and burst open in a shower of dust, splinters and rotten wood. The boys rushed to the spot to catch the Squirrel, if possible. It did not scramble out as they expected it would, even when they turned over the fragments. They found the front of the stub with the old Woodp.e.c.k.e.r hole in it, and under that was a ma.s.s of finely shredded cedar bark, evidently a nest. Yan eagerly turned it over, and there lay the Red Squirrel, quite still and unharmed apparently, but at the end of her nose was a single drop of blood. Close beside her were five little Squirrels, evidently a very late brood, for they were naked, blind and helpless. One of them had at its nose a drop of blood and it lay as still as the mother. At first the hunters thought the old one was playing "Possum, but the stiffness of death soon set in.
Now the boys felt very guilty and sorry. By thoughtlessly giving way to their hunting instincts they had killed a harmless mother Squirrel in the act of protecting her young, and the surviving little ones had no prospect but starvation.
Yan had been the most active in the chase, and now was far more conscience-stricken than either of the others.
"What are we going to do with them?" asked the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r. "They are too young to be raised for pets."
"Better drown them and be done with them," suggested Sappy, recalling the last honours of several broods of Kittens at home.
"I wish we could find another Squirrel"s nest to put them into,"
said Little Beaver remorsefully, and then as he looked at the four squirming, helpless things in his hand the tears of repentance filled his eyes. "We might as well kill them and end their misery. We can"t find another Squirrel"s nest so late as this." But after a little silence he added, "I know some one who will put them out of pain. She may as well have them. She"d get them anyway, and that"s the old gray wild Cat. Let"s put them in her nest when she"s away."
This seemed a reasonable, simple and merciful way of getting rid of the orphans. So the boys made for the "canon" part of the brook. At one time of the afternoon the sun shone so as to show plainly all that was in the hole. The boys went very quietly to Yan"s lookout bank, and seeing that only the Kittens were there, Yan crept across and dropped the young Squirrels into the nest, then went back to his friends to watch, like Miriam, the fate of the foundlings.
They had a full hour to wait for the old Cat, and as they were very still all that time they were rewarded with a sight of many pretty wild things.
A Humming-bird "boomed" into view and hung in a misty globe of wings before one Jewel-flower after another.
"Say, Beaver, you said Humming-birds was something or other awful beautiful," said Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, pointing to the dull grayish-green bird before them.
"And I say so yet. Look at that," as, with a turn in the air, the hanging Hummer changed its jet-black throat to flame and scarlet that silenced the critic.
After the Humming-bird went away a Field-mouse was seen for a moment dodging about in the gra.s.s, and shortly afterward a Shrew-mole, not so big as the Mouse, was seen in hot pursuit on its trail.
Later a short-legged brown animal, as big as a Rabbit, came nosing up the dry but shady bed of the brook, and as it went beneath them Yan recognized by its little Beaver-like head and scaly oar-shaped tail that it was a Muskrat, apparently seeking for water.
There was plenty in the swimming-pond yet, and the boys realized that this had become a gathering place for those wild things that were "drowned out by the drought," as Sam put it.
The Muskrat had not gone more than twenty minutes before another deep-brown animal appeared. "Another Muskrat; must be a meeting,"
whispered the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r. But this one, coming close, proved a very different creature. As long as a Cat, but lower, with broad, flat head and white chin and throat, short legs, in shape a huge Weasel, there was no mistaking it; this was a Mink, the deadly enemy of the Muskrat, and now on the track of its prey. It rapidly turned the corner, nosing the trail like a Hound. If it overtook the Muskrat before it got to the pond there would be a tragedy. If the Muskrat reached the deep water it might possibly escape. But just as sure as the pond became a gathering place for Muskrats it would also become a gathering place for Mink.
Not five minutes had gone since the Mink went by before a silent gray form flashed upon the log opposite. Oh, how sleek and elegant it looked! What perfection of grace she seemed after the waddling, hunchy Muskrat and the quick but lumbering Mink. There is nothing more supple and elegant than a fine Cat, and men of science the world over have taken the Cat as the standard of perfection in animal make-up. p.u.s.s.y glanced about for danger. She had brought no bird or Mouse, for the Kittens were yet too young for such training. The boys watched her with intensest interest. She glided along the log to the hole--the Skunk-smelling hole--uttered her low "_purrow, purrow_," that always sets the hungry Kittens agog, and was curling in around them, when she discovered the pink Squirrel-babies among her own. She stopped licking the nearest Kitten, stared at a young Squirrel, and smelled it. Yan wondered what help that could be when everything smelled of Skunk. But it did seem to decide her, for she licked it a moment, then lying down she gathered them all in her four-legged embrace, turned her chin up in the air and Sappy announced gleefully that "The little Squirrels were feeding with the little Cats."
The boys waited a while longer, then having made sure that the little Squirrels had been lovingly adopted by their natural enemy, they went quietly back to camp. Now they found a daily pleasure in watching the mixed family.
And here it may be as well to give the rest of the story. The old gray Cat faithfully and lovingly nursed those foundlings. They seemed to prosper, and Yan, recalling that he had heard of a Cat actually raising a brood of Rabbits, looked forward to the day when Kittens and Squirrelets should romp together in the sun. After a week Sappy maintained that only one Squirrel appeared at the breakfast table, and in ten days none. Yan stole over to the log and learned the truth. All four were dead in the bottom of the nest. There was nothing to tell why. The old Cat had done her best--had been all love and tenderness, but evidently had not been able to carry out her motherly intentions.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Four tiny headstones]
XI
HOW TO SEE THE WOODFOLK
The days went merrily now, beginning each morning with a hunting of the Woodchuck. The boys were on terms of friendship with the woods that contrasted strongly with the feelings of that first night.
This was the thought in Sam"s mind when he one day remarked, "Say, Yan, do you remember the night I slep" with the axe an" you with the hatchet?"
The Indians had learned to meet and conquer all the petty annoyances of camp life, and so forgot them. Their daily routine was simplified.
Their acquaintance with woodfolk and wood-ways had grown so fast that now they were truly at home. The ringing "_Kow_--_Kow_--_Kow_"
in the tree-tops was no longer a mere wandering voice, but the summer song of the Black-billed Cuckoo. The loud, rattling, birdy whistle in the low trees during dull weather Yan had traced to the Tree-frog.
The long-drawn "_Pee--re-e-e-e"_ of hot afternoons was the call of the Wood-peewee, and a vast number of mysterious squeaks and warbles had been traced home to the ever-bright and mischievous Blue Jay.
The nesting season was now over, as well as the song season; the birds, therefore, were less to be seen, but the drying of the streams had concentrated much life in the swimming-pond. The fence had been arranged so that the cattle could reach one end of it to drink, but the lower parts were safe from their clumsy feet, and wild life of many kinds were there in abundance.
The Muskrats were to be seen every evening in the calm pool, and fish in great numbers were in the deeper parts. Though they were small, the boys found them so numerous and so ready to bite that fishing was great sport, and more than one good meal they had from that pond.
There were things of interest discovered daily. In a neighbour"s field Sam had found another Woodchuck with a "price on his head." Rabbits began to come about the camp at night, especially when the moon was bright, and frequently of late they had heard a querulous, yelping bark that Caleb said was made by a Fox "probably that old rascal that lives in Callahan"s woods."
The gray Cat in the log was always interesting. The boys went very regularly to watch from a distance, but for good reasons did not go near. First, they did not wish to scare her; second, they knew that if they went too close she would not hesitate to attack them.
One of the important lessons that Yan learned was this. In the woods _the silent watcher sees the most_. The great difficulty in watching was how to pa.s.s the time, and the solution was to sit and _sketch._ Reading would have done had books been at hand, but not so well as sketching, because then the eyes are fixed on the book instead of the woods, and the turning of the white pages is apt to alarm the shy woodfolk.