CHAPTER XLVII
WHEN NATURE SMILED
It seems a law that every deep valley must be next a high mountain. Our sorrows ended when we quit the canyon, and then, as though in compensation, nature crammed the days with the small joys that seem so little and mean so much to the naturalist.
Those last few days, unmarred of the smallest hardship, were one long pearl-string of the things I came for—the chances to see and be among wild life.
Each night the Coyote and the Fox came rustling about our camp, or the Weasel and Woodmouse scrambled over our sleeping forms. Each morning at gray dawn, gray Wiskajon and his mate—always a pair came wailing through the woods, to flirt about the camp and steal scraps of meat that needed not to be stolen, being theirs by right. Their small cousins, the Chicadees, came, too, at breakfast time, and in our daily travelling, Ruffed Grouse, Ravens, Pine Grosbeaks, Bohemian Chatterers, Hairy Woodpeckers, Shrikes, Tree-sparrows, Linnets, and Snowbirds enlivened the radiant sunlit scene.
One afternoon I heard a peculiar note, at first like the "cheepy-teet-teet" of the Pine Grosbeak, only louder and more broken, changing to the jingling of Blackbirds in spring, mixed with some Bluejay "jay-jays," and a Robin-like whistle; then I saw that it came from a Northern Shrike on the bushes just ahead of us. It flew off much after the manner of the Summer Shrike, with flight not truly undulatory nor yet straight, but flapping half a dozen times—then a pause and repeat. He would dive along down near the ground, then up with a fine display of wings and tail to the next perch selected, there to repeat with fresh variations and shrieks, the same strange song, and often indeed sang it on the wing, until at last he crossed the river.
Sometimes we rode in the canoe, sometimes tramped along the easy shore. Once I came across a Great Homed Owl in the grass by the water. He had a fish over a foot long, and flew with difficulty when be bore it off. Another time I saw a Horned Owl mobbed by two Wiskajons. Spruce Partridge as well as the Ruffed species became common: one morning some of the former marched into camp at breakfast time. Rob called them "Chickens"; farther south they are called "Fool Hens," which is descriptive and helps to distinguish them from their neighbours—the "Sage Hens." Frequently now we heard the toy-trumpeting and the clack of the Pileated Woodpecker or Cock-of-the-Pines, a Canadian rather than a Hudsonian species. One day, at our three o'clock meal, a great splendid fellow of the kind gave us a thrill. "Clack-clack-clack," we heard him coming, and he bounded through the air into the trees over our camp. Still uttering his loud "Clack-clack-clack," he swung from tree to tree in one long festoon of flight, spread out on the up-swoop like an enormous black butterfly with white-starred wings. "Clack-clack-clack," he stirred the echoes from the other shore, and ignored us as he swooped and clanged. There was much in his song of the Woodpecker tang; it was very nearly the springtime "cluck-cluck" of a magnified Flicker in black; and I gazed with open mouth until he thought fit to bound through the air to another woods. This was my first close meeting with the King of the Woodpeckers; I long to know him better. Mammals, too, abounded, but we saw their signs rather than themselves, for most are nocturnal. The Redsquirrels, so scarce last spring, were quite plentiful, and the beach at all soft places showed abundant trace Of Weasels, Chipmunks, Foxes, Coyotes, Lynx, Wolves, Moose, Caribou, Deer. One Wolf track was of special interest. It was 5 1/2 inches, long and travelling with it was the track of a small Wolf; it vividly brought back the days of Lobo and Blanca, and I doubt not was another case of mates; we were evidently in the range of a giant Wolf who was travelling around with his wife. Another large Wolf track was lacking the two inner toes of the inner hind foot, and the bind foot pads were so faint as to be lost at times, although the toes were deeply impressed in the mud. This probably meant that he, had been in a trap and was starved to a skeleton.
We did not see any of these, but we did see the post-graduate evidences of their diet, and were somewhat surprised to learn that it included much fruit, especially of the uva-ursi. We also saw proof that they had eaten part of a Moose; probably they had killed it.
Coyote abounded now, and these we saw from time to time. Once I tramped up within thirty feet of a big fellow who was pursuing some studies behind a log. But again the incontrovertible-postmortem-evidence of their food habits was a surprise—the bulk of their sustenance now was berries, in one case this was mixed with the tail hairs—but no body hairs—of a Chipmunk. I suppose that Chipmunk escaped minus his tail. There was much evidence that all those creatures that can eat fruit were in good condition, but that flesh in its most accessible form—rabbits—was unknown, and even next best thing—the mice—were too scarce to count; this weighed with especial force on the Lynxes; they alone seemed unable to eke out with fruit. The few we saw were starving and at our camp of the 28th we found the wretched body of one that was dead of hunger.
On that, same night we had a curious adventure with a Weasel.