WHY THE FOXES TRUSTED DUSTY STAR
When Dusty Star and Kiopo, after many long days of journeying came into the valley below the den of the Silver Fox, they saw that there was water, and a good place for rest. They did not waste any time in discussing its advantages or drawbacks. They simply decided at once that here was the goal of their wandering and that here they would make their camp. That is to say, Dusty Star would make it. Kiopo would look on and, if he approved, would consent to making it his temporary home. If he did not approve, he would show his dislike and uneasiness in so many plain ways that Dusty Star had no peace until they moved elsewhere. Even if the wolf was satisfied that no hidden danger lurked in the neighbourhood, and that they might safely settle down for a time, he could never take kindly to a sitting-down existence. For the great life that he had was always in his feet, so that he must be continually on the move, or going long journeys or short ones, as the case might be, but sooner or later, always coming back. So while Dusty Star built the tepee, Kiopo went exploring up and down the valley, getting every point of it well into his eyes, and every drifting smell it had well up his nose. And more than once, when he tried the wind suspiciously, he caught a faint yet unmistakedly musky odour that suggested a fox.
That night they slept soundly; Dusty Star in the bough-built tepee, Kiopo stretched full length across its entrance. And all night long, Carboona, the old savage home of countless lives, gloomed darkly above them, though they did not even know its name. Still less had either of them the least idea that they had chosen their resting-place within the borders of that very region where Kiopo had first drawn breath.
Next morning Dusty Star woke up well pleased with his new home. The day passed quietly, and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood kept well out of the way. Kiopo did his hunting at a distance, and supplied the camp with food. Besides that, there was nothing particular to do. That was the joy of living where the world forgot to get civilized. After you had caught your meat and cooked it, the days and nights were very wide, because there were no clocks to make them narrow, and to chop them up into little bits called Time.
So because there really was nothing particular to do, Dusty Star on the fourth day after settling down in the new home, thought he would climb up Carboona in the climbing afternoon.
Now the same idea, almost at the same moment happened to come to another dweller upon Carboona, and that was the Catamount, or great wild cat, which had its lair in a hollow tree less than half-a-mile from the camp, and carried the dull green fire in his cruel eyes to make the leafy shadows a terror to all lesser forest folk.
He had slept most of the day in his tree after a good kill the night before, and was not feeling especially hungry. Still, to a blood-loving creature like the Catamount, there was always a pleasure in tracking fresh meat even if it was not needed. So the great cat set out for a leisurely stroll across Carboona to find if any new smells had been spilt along the world since he had gone to sleep.
For some time he got nothing that particularly interested his nose. There were smells of course. But some were old, and some were unpleasant, and one or two were really dangerous. Among these last, was one of the big wolf which had recently come to harry Carboona, as if he were its rightful lord. The Catamount's eyes gleamed with an ugly light as he recognised Kiopo's hated scent, and went a little more warily on his way. Unlike Dusty Star, he did not immediately seek the upper sunny slopes. The green glooms of the evening shadows pleased him more. As he slunk along, lifting and setting his cushioned feet so delicately that his coming was like that of a piece of drifting thistledown, he looked as evil a presence as could be found abroad in the ending of the day.
When he reached the last ravine, above the further side of which the foxes had their den, he paused. A faint, unusual sound reached his ears at irregular intervals. At first it sounded like some small creature in distress. That was the very sort of prey the Catamount enjoyed. He began, very cautiously, to make his way across the ravine. When he was half-way up the opposite side, the sound came again. This time he heard not one voice, but several—and the notes were not those of creatures in distress. He was plainly puzzled. He had reached the sunlight now, and partly because of that, partly because every step brought him nearer to possible danger, he went with even greater caution than before. All at once the meaning of the commotion became clear to him. He heard; he smelt; he saw!
All this time, Dusty Star had gone on steadily climbing till he had caught up, as it were, with the very middle of the afternoon. But for all he knew, he mounted alone, and never once got a glimpse of that other stealthy climber who stole up like a furry shadow of the evening itself into the golden places of the afternoon. And the Catamount was equally unaware of the neighbourhood of the boy.
Suddenly Dusty Star came upon one of the surprises which Carboona keeps in its most secret spots. In an open space between a mass of thickets he found a family of fox-cubs playing in the sun. Five, fat, funny little bodies, tumbled and sprawled and tussled and rolled in a frenzied frolic which, if you looked closely, was really a furious battle over the leg-bone of a grouse. Sometimes they bit the bone; sometimes each other. It really didn't seem to matter, so long as somebody bit something. It was the triumphant glory of being able to bite! The fight raged first to one side, then to the other. There were little yelps and squeals, and miniature growls, like fairy thunder. Once the tide of battle rolled almost to Dusty Star's feet. The excitement was so great, and Dusty Star so still, that the cubs saw nothing and smelt nothing.
But for all their seeming unconsciousness, their little ears were keenly alive to sound. For when the mother fox suddenly gave the sharp warning bark which is the signal of approaching danger, four out of the five cubs scurried instantly back to the den.
The fifth cub, either because he was more stupid than the others, or more daring, stayed where he was, sitting up on his little haunches and moving his head from side to side as if to assure himself there was no need to hurry home when there was such an unexpected chance of having the grouse-bone all to himself.
And Dusty Star was not the only watcher of the disobedient cub.
Between him and that other watcher was less than a dozen paces, but as the boy had arrived on the spot a little earlier, and was now as motionless as the tree behind which he peeped, the Catamount was still unaware of his presence. Screened by a thick bush and a tangle of creepers, the great cat watched its opportunity with a mouth that quivered.
His first instinct on seeing the cubs was to retreat immediately with the same caution as he had approached. Various unpleasant experiences had already taught him the danger of interfering with young animals whose parents are likely to be within springing distance. But although he looked from side to side with the utmost care, not the merest whisker-tip of any parent was visible.
It was precisely at this moment that the mother-fox had uttered her cry of warning. What had startled her neither Dusty Star nor Catamount knew.
Over the trackless barrens, along the runways of hare, mink, and fisher, down the world-old trails of the journeying caribou, there have always travelled—there still travel—mysterious warnings that convey themselves to the hunted creature neither by sight, sound nor smell. And when the warning comes, all wise creatures seek the cunning of their feet.
At the cry, the startled Catamount crouched back into the bush; and if the fifth cub had followed the example of his brothers and sisters, the great cat would have retreated as he came; but the sight of that plump, furry little Disobedience, that sat there on its little tail impudently defying the world, almost within reach, was too great a temptation to resist.
The Catamount threw another piercing glance all round the locality. The mother fox gave no sign of her presence. If he wanted the furry Disobedience, it was now, or never. He crept forward half a pace and gathered his legs under him for a spring.
The movement he made was very slight; but it was sufficient to betray him to Dusty Star. Instantly the boy realized the danger threatening the cub, but before he could do anything, a lightning streak of fur flashed out of the bush, and hurled itself on the cub.
No sooner had the Catamount made good his hold on its squirming prey, than it turned to flee. To its intense astonishment, it found itself face to face with Dusty Star!
Never in its life before had the great cat set eyes on a human being. For one brief moment, it was paralysed with fear. And that moment cost it dear. Quick as a hawk, Dusty Star stooped and struck. The keen blade of his hunting knife flickered in the sun, and then buried itself in the Catamount's fur.
With a scream of rage and terror, the animal dropped the cub, and turned savagely on its foe. But at that very instant there was a rush and a hoarse squall, and it was knocked clean head over heels by the furious charge of the mother fox.
This totally unexpected attack completed the great cat's discomfiture. Spitting and squawling, it bounded into the underwood and was instantly out of sight.
It might have been expected that the fox, having routed one enemy of her little one, would have turned at once on what she might have well supposed was another. But just as she had quitted the den to look for the missing cub, she had seen Dusty Star attack the Catamount, and her quick senses told her that the action had not meant any injury to her cub.
For all that, he was a new experience; and the wisdom of the wilderness is that new experiences had better not be trusted. So while she nosed the cub tenderly, turning it over with her paw, to see if it had been injured, she kept one eye jealously on Dusty Star to watch his slightest movement.
And now that wonderful knowledge of the feelings of wild animals partly taught him by Kiopo, which he had been gradually gathering all his life, came to his aid and told him what to do. For while his body remained so absolutely motionless that he hardly seemed to breathe, his mind made itself a finer body, and went out towards the fox; and the fox, receiving the message, learnt that she had nothing to fear. For all that, she was not easy that the cub should be left in the open, so far from the den's mouth. Dusty Star she had ceased to mistrust; but her instinct told her that, although the Catamount had disappeared, he was still in the neighbourhood. So before she allowed herself to find out any more about Dusty Star, she picked up the cub by the loose skin at the back of its fat little neck, and carried it back to the den. As a matter of fact, the Catamount was further than she knew, and now sat in the fork of a red-cedar tree, licking the wound inflicted by Dusty Star's knife, and making up his mind that if this new monster, with a paw that struck so fiercely was a protector of the foxes, it would be wiser to leave the entire gang severely alone.
When Baltook returned from his hunting with a plump partridge in his mouth, he was confronted by a strange sight. At the very entrance of their den he saw his mate sitting wholly at her ease, with a human being by her side.
In all his life of surprises, Baltook had never come upon anything so surprising as that. Boola must be crazy—gone clean mad before the time of the Mad Moon when the wolves and foxes sing. Yet Boola had no appearance of madness. She just sat and gazed at the human being with extreme calmness as if she had known him all her life. For a moment or two, Baltook stood observing this astonishing sight, with one fore foot raised, as if uncertain what to do. Then he laid the partridge down quietly in order to get clear of the smell of the kill and so be able to scent the stranger. Screened by the bushes, he wrinkled his fine nose, and sniffed, and wrinkled, and wrinkled and sniffed, and still was unable to make up his mind. And there Boola sat all the time, as calm as a toadstool and seemed to have neither eyes nor ears except for her new friend.
At last Baltook could bear the suspense no longer. With his brush held high, and his eyes shining, he stepped warily out into the open.
When Boola saw her mate approaching, she rose to her feet with a low growl. But the growl was not meant as a sign of anger: it was merely her way of saying "Now, here we've got a visitor. Mind how you behave." Yet behind these words, if she had used them (which she didn't!) her mind was disturbed. A strange creature was close beside her, whom, though he had proved himself friendly, Baltook did not know.
It was extremely difficult to explain anything at all. Because it really was an unheard of thing that an Indian boy should sit neighbourly at your front door, and spill his mind out at you in a way you couldn't smell! Yet when Dusty Star did it, it didn't seem odd at all, but as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Yet now Baltook came, and made it seem all odd again, because he carried with him the foxiness of things which had always remained foxy since the beginning of the world!
In this embarrassing situation, there was only one thing to be done, and Boola did it. She advanced six paces toward her mate, and touched his nose with hers. Among the wild peoples the nose is a most important organ for conveying information. Because great persons like the President of the United States and the King of England do not use it for conversational purposes, does not alter the fact. Just exactly what Boola told Baltook by this means, I do not know. Whatever it was, Baltook was reassured, and came slowly up to the mouth of the den. Dusty Star never stirred. But again—as he had done with Boola—he moved his mind towards Baltook, while he kept his body still.
And so, while the afternoon climbed still higher, and the evening came softly after it, on its soundless shadow-feet, the three sat on silently together and learnt to know each other, without anything being said. It is like that in the forest-life. You sit in silence, with your mind open; and so you learn to understand.
When at last Baltook and then Boola began to show signs of restlessness, Dusty Star knew it was time to go. He never said good-bye. There was no need. He just rose to his feet quietly and walked down into the trees. The two foxes carefully smelt the place where he had sat, and then, while Boola went back to her cubs, Baltook followed the trail.
It was very dark when Dusty Star reached the camp. Kiopo, who was out hunting, had not returned. Dusty Star made a fire by rubbing two sticks together in the Indian way, in order to be ready to cook anything which Kiopo might bring back.
In the gloom of the dark woods, a black shadow having a wrinkling nose sat up and smelt the fire with wonder, and violent disapproval; and when a little later, the figure of an enormous wolf holding a hare in his jaws, glided into the open, the shadow with the wrinkling nose followed the best fox-wisdom and melted back into the trees.
Although Dusty Star did not actually tell Kiopo where he had been visiting, Kiopo smelt foxiness, and learnt a good deal. Foxes he did not mind, so long as they behaved themselves. If Dusty Star had been with them, Kiopo was not going to make a fuss. So, Dusty Star cooked and ate his hare supper, and thought of the little foxes, and wished they had the bones.