The Three Bears of Porcupine Ridge

by Jean M. Thompson

“Well, old fellow,” commented the hunter to himself, “I’ve shortened your proud career for a while, I reckon; you’re a mighty fine specimen of a goose; leader of the flock, I expect,” and he examined, admiringly, Ring Neck’s glossy head, and the changeable feathers of his neck, circled about with its silver ring, gradually trying to calm his wild struggles, as he smoothed his beautiful plumage.

Then the hunter made up his mind not to kill Ring Neck, for he had another, better plan. He resolved to train the wild goose as a decoy, and put him in among the wooden birds.

“Perhaps, who knows,” remarked the hunter, “you will be able to call down the rest of your flock if they come back this way next fall. I’ll try you and see.”

So Ring Neck was spared, and then began his training as a decoy. Just so long as the wild geese continued to fly north, each morning, very early, Ring Neck was thrust into a bag and taken, with the hideous wooden decoys, to the lake. He soon learned to hate and despise the clumsy, imitation birds, and at first tried to rise and fly away from them, but his wing was not strong enough to sustain him, and so he always fell back weakly among them, where he would peck and jostle them about angrily; but as the wooden things never showed fight he soon tired of them and let them alone. Diving and feeding, floating naturally and contentedly upon the lake among the stupid decoys, he it was who heard the first faint “honk, honk” of a coming flock of geese; then he would become wildly excited and send back a loud answering cry, fluttering his wings and tolling the strange birds down to their doom. Not that Ring Neck wished the hunter to shoot them, which he always did if they came near enough. But somehow Ring Neck always hoped that the flock might be his own; perhaps he even hoped to warn them away. At any rate Ring Neck soon became a very valuable decoy to the hunter, who grew very fond of him.

As soon as the wild geese ceased to fly over, the hunter left the lake, for the season was over, nor would it open again until autumn, when the birds flew back south, stopping at the lake upon their journey to rest. So Ring Neck became a decoy no longer, but was allowed his freedom about the lodge. Strangely enough, he had lost all his wild desire to fly northward and join the flock, even though the association with the decoys had been galling. With each week his lame wing grew stronger, however, and finally his old, wild nature stirred within him, and he flew off alone.

Ring Neck became strangely lonely, for it was hard for the old leader to be without the companionship of the flock. After floating and feeding out on the lake all day, at night he would beat down the coarse grass with his strong webbed feet, and crouching low he would tuck his broad beak beneath his wing and try to sleep and forget his loneliness. But often he was disturbed, for a crafty fox or some enemy, a wild night prowler, would thrust aside the reeds, and then with whirring, frightened thrashings, and terrified squawks, Ring Neck would fly to the water for safety. At daybreak he would feed near the banks, plunging down deep into the mud and ooze at the bottom, searching among the snake-like lily roots and water weeds for fresh clams, crawfish and in the shallows for shoals of little silvery minnows.

One morning he rose to the surface of the water, flirting his great burnished wings, and sending showers of pattering drops over the lily pads, and suddenly stretching out his glittering neck he uttered a loud, hoarse call, full of pleading and loneliness—a cry of longing for his kindred. Then from a little hidden inlet, to his joy and surprise, came back a meek, answering reply—“honk, honk, honk.”

With swift, steady strokes Ring Neck followed the call, and there he found her—a beautiful green-headed duck, one of his own flock. She had dropped out of the flying wedge, weeks before, and had not had courage to join them again; perhaps she had even been wounded by the hunter and had not been able to fly. At any rate she was very lonely, and soon Ring Neck made his presence known, and after consulting together, they built a beautiful nest, high and dry upon a little reedy island right in the middle of the lake, and there they raised ten young geese.

There were few lonely moments now for Ring Neck and his mate, for the young birds had to be taught to forage for food, and most important of all, as soon as their wing feathers grew, they must learn to fly, and strengthen their wings for long flights, for Ring Neck knew that before the lake filmed over with its first ice, the flock must be far away in the southern lagoon, where no frost or cold could reach them.

All summer long the old birds trained the young geese for their long journey, and then when the frost began to touch the tips of the tallest trees, down in the lowlands, and to nip the little fox grapes, the migrating instinct came to Ring Neck and his mate. Another bear came to Ring Neck; perhaps when the flocks began to move southward, the hunter would come back and once, as if to remind him, he heard the crack of the terrible rifle, off in the woods, and saw the thin trail of smoke, which he knew. That day he flew back almost panic-stricken to the island, and with his mate and family nestled hidden together in the thick tangles of water weeds all that night.