Caleb to see them. The Trapper said that one was probably the track of a Blue Crane (Heron), and the other, "Well, I don't hardly know; but it looks to me mighty like the track of a big Buck—only there ain't any short of the Long Swamp, and that's ten miles at least. Of course, when there's only out it ain't a track; it's an accident."
"Yes; but I've found lots of them—a trail every time, but not quite enough to follow."
That night after dark, when he was coming to camp with the product of a "massacree," Yan heard a peculiar squawking, guttural sound that rose from the edge of the pond and increased in strength, [457] drawing nearer, till it was a hideous and terrifying uproar. It was exactly the sound that Guy had provoked on that first night when he came and tried to frighten the camp. It passed overhead, and Yan saw for a moment the form of a large slow-flying bird.
Next day it was Yan's turn to cook. At sunrise, as he went for water, he saw a large Blue Heron rise from the edge of the pond and fly on heavy pinions away over the tree-tops. It was a thrilling sight. The boy stood gazing after it, absolutely rapt with delight, and when it was gone he went to the place where it rose and found plenty of large tracks just like the one he had sketched. Unquestionably it was the same bird as on the night before, and the mystery of the Wolf with the sore throat was solved. This explanation seemed quite satisfactory to everybody but Guy. He had always maintained stoutly that the woods were full of Bears right after sundown. Where they went at other times was a mystery, but he "reckoned he hadn't yet run across the bird that could scare him—no, nor the beast, nuther."
Caleb agreed that the grating cry must be that of the Blue Crane, but the screech and wail in the tree-tops at night he could shed no light on.
There were many other voices of the night that became more or less familiar. Some of them were evidently birds; one was the familiar Song-Sparrow, and high over the tree-tops from the gloaming sky they often heard a prolonged sweet song. It was [458] not till years afterward that Yan found out this to be the night-song of the Oven-bird, but he was able to tell them at once the cause of the startling outcry that happened one evening an hour after sundown.
The Woodpecker was outside, the other two inside the teepee. A peculiar sound fell on his ear. It kept on—a succession of long whines, and getting stronger. As it gave no sign of ending, Sam called the other boys. They stood in a row there and heard this peculiar "whine, whine, whine" develop into a loud, harsh "whow, whow, whow."
"It must be some new Heron cry," Yan whispered.
But the sound kept on increasing till it most resembled the yowling of a very strong-voiced Cat, and still grew till each separate "meow" might have been the yell of a Panther. Then at its highest and loudest there was a prolonged "meow" and