Before sunup, the man who had set the trap came with exultation on his face, confident of victory. He found the trampled ground, the sprung trap, and fastened in it the fore foot of a large wolf with part of the leg, which had been gnawed in two just below the knee. The spoiler of the folds had baffled them to the end, but the flocks were never more disturbed.
THE FIGHT ON THE TREE-BRIDGE
THE FIGHT ON THE TREE-BRIDGE
THE forest lay black in the close embrace of the odorous young night. Soft, balsamic waves of air rose strata above strata, stealing between roughly corrugated boles and smooth trunks, and the satin-soft stems of the young saplings who had yet to win their spurs as knights of the wood against the mighty winds; permeating every dell and dingle, every copse and tangled covert. The nostrils which these air-waves touched tingled with delight, and the lungs which were bathed and invigorated by this life-giving essence from nature’s laboratory expanded with a conscious strength, and sent the red blood bounding from them on its ceaseless errand. The season was early summer. Beneath the interlacing boughs it was black—black as the night of Egypt’s curse. A solid bank of gloom which bore no outline and no shape. So might it have been just before God uttered his first command to things terrestrial. Here and there a tree arose above its army of fellows, and the delicate tracery of spreading branch, and even of tapering leaf, was etched upon the vastness overhead. In the sky the faithful stars were burning. Not the smallest speck of cloud veiled their earnest faces, and the mellow radiance which their united power shed fell like a blessing upon the glad earth. But the forest baffled the star rays—those gentle messengers which came so timidly upon their missions of light. The leaves at the tops of the trees gleamed glossy and green, but they were a numberless multitude of shields to the solitude below.
The forest went off to the gullied hills in one direction; in another it sloped sharply down a bluff to the river, with an accompaniment of running briers and rotting, lichen-covered stumps and an occasional fallen warrior of the wood which some storm had overcome. The river was not wide—a half-grown rabbit might have swum it with ease had the water been stagnant—but here it ran swift and deep between its high, rock-bound banks. It flowed silently, though, except for a low purling where a drift had formed and a sucking gurgle where a ledge let down the bed.
This river was a source of much worry and concern to the wood-people. All of them could swim, some well and some very badly, but more than one family circle had been bereft by reason of the treacherous stream, for in addition to the velocity with which it wound its way through the wood, shifting whirlpools lurked within it, against which the strongest swimmer’s power was as naught. There was a second forest across the river, not as large as the first, it is true, but still wide enough to shelter many a tiny dweller, as well as give him food. So when friend wanted to visit friend, or cousin to call upon cousin, there was this black, whispering barrier stretching between, mocking them with its insinuating murmurs, and seeking to lure them to its faithless and fatal bosom with low cooings and shining, siren arms. And on certain moonlit nights in spring there had been those who heard the mating call wafted through the stillness. Coming in answer, they had suddenly found themselves standing on the brink of that taunting river, while from the other shore the cry would come again, tender and appealing. Then hot blood and the madness of the season would have their way, and the young buck, belong to what family he may, would put discretion behind him and glide out into the stream with the echo of his mistress’ call as a beacon and a guide. On rare occasions one would make the passage safely. More often, as he battled with the current, snaky fingers would shoot up from beneath and grip him, whirl him around and around in maddening circles, and finally drag him down with a hiss of victory, and his lifeless carcass might have been seen afloat the next day, miles away.
All this was before the great storm. After that had come and gone things were different with the forest-people.
It was at the close of a day in mid-summer. For weeks there had been no rain. Day after day the sun had come up, had scorched and burned and seared, and had gone down. The leaves curled upon the trees; the grass blades became brittle; the rabbit runs were so hot at midday that they hurt the pads of the cottontails, and they lay panting in their burrows, waiting for night. Then it was that the wood-people blessed the river, for there was no water anywhere else. The river sank foot by foot, leaving cracked, baked stretches of yellow clay as it receded. Still it ran doggedly, and breathed defiance. It would take more than one dry summer to rob it of its terror and strength. At last there came a day which was born with portents of some awful thing to come. The sun rose hazy, like a ball of blood. The air, which had been hot, became stifling. It pressed on the chest and burned in the throat. The chipmunks and the squirrels sought their nests wildly; the birds went deeper into the forest. By noon all of the little people who had a home were in it. But so far nothing had happened. Mid-afternoon a growl of wrath came from the west, and a long, leaden band pushed its edge over the horizon. A terrible silence hung over the forest; the unnatural calm which precedes some great calamity. Then a chill breath stirred the upper leaves, followed by gusts of wind almost icy. Night came long before its time, and the sky which for weeks had been a shining surface of blinding light became a seething, tossing caldron of billowy clouds and murky vapors, and threading through all the tumbled mass was a vivid network of flame. The chariots of the storm came thundering down the slopes of the sky, and the forest shivered, and bent, and tossed its thousands of arms in agony. Thick limbs were rent from writhing, groaning bodies, and cast furiously down. Some veteran giants, weakened by the natural decay of years, mingled their death-cry with the hoarse bellow of the destroying wind and fell crashing and quivering to the earth. Then came rain, and a cessation of the demoniac fury.