I first met with this rare and curious little rodent on the bank of the Chilukweyuk river. My canvas house is pitched in a snug spot, overshadowed by a clump of cottonwood trees, growing close to a stream, that like liquid crystal ripples past in countless channels, finding its way betwixt massive boulders of trap and green-stone, rounded and polished until they look like giant marbles.
Towering up behind me are the Cascade Mountains, with snow-clad summits dim in the haze of distance, their craggy slopes split into chasms and ravines, so deep, dark, and lonesome, that no man’s footfall has ever disturbed their solitudes, so densely wooded up to the very snow-line with pine, that a bare rock has hardly a chance to peep out, and break the sombre monotony of the dark-green foliage.
OU-KA-LA
(Aplodontia leporina).
Before me, stretching away for about three miles, is an open grassy prairie, one side of which is bounded by the Chilukweyuk river, the other by the Fraser. At the junction of the two streams, at an angle of the prairie, stands an Indian village: the rude-plank sheds and rush-lodges; the white smoke, curling gracefully up through the still atmosphere from many lodge-fires; the dusky forms of the savages, as they loll or stroll in the fitful night, give life and character to a scene indescribably lovely.
The Indian summer is drawing to a close; the maple, the cottonwood, and the hawthorn, fringing the winding waterways, like silver cords intersecting the prairie, have assumed their autumn tints, and, clad in browns and yellows, stand out in brilliant contrast to the green of the pine-forest. The prairie looks bright and lovely; the grass, as yet untouched by the frost-fairy’s fingers, waves lazily; wild flowers, of varied tints, peep out from their hiding-places, enjoying to the last the lingering summer.
I had been for some time sitting on a log, admiring the sublime beauty of the scene, spread out before me like a gorgeous picture; the sun was fast receding behind the hilltops, the lengthening shadows were fading and growing dimly indistinct, the birds had settled down to sleep, and the busy hum of insect life was hushed. A deathlike quiet steals over everything in the wilderness as night comes on—a stillness that is painful from its intensity. The sound of your own breathing, the crack of a branch, a stone suddenly rattling down the hillside, the howl of the coyote, or the whoop of the night-owl, seem all intensified to an unnatural loudness. I know of nothing more appalling to the lonely wanderer camping by himself than this ‘jungle silence,’ that reigns through the weary hours of night.
This silence was suddenly broken, as was my reverie, by a sharp ringing whistle; it was so piercing and clear, that I could not believe it was produced by an animal. Hardly had it died away, when another whistler took it up, then a third, and so on, until at least a dozen had joined in the chorus. I stole carefully in the direction from which the sound came, but as I neared the spot the whistle ceased, and it was now far too dark to descry any object on the ground. So, in doubt, and sorely puzzled to account for such an unusual sound, and with a firm determination to unravel the mystery in the morning, I returned to my camp. Could it be Indians? No, impossible; there were far too many whistlers, and the tone of each whistle was precisely alike. I was equally sure it was not the cry of the rock-whistler (Actomys); that sound I knew too well. What could it be?
As the grey light of morning came peering into my tent, I started off to investigate the secret of the mysterious whistler; but all I could discover, after a long and diligent search, was, that there were numerous runs and burrows excavated in the sandy banks of the river, but by what sort of animal I could not for the life of me guess. Setting a steel-trap at the entrance to one of the holes, I strolled down to the Indian village, thinking I should possibly be able to find out from the redskins what it was that made such shrill sounds. Partly by signs, and by using as much of their language as I knew, I endeavoured to make the old chief comprehend my queries.
After attentively watching my absurd attempts to produce a ringing whistle by placing my fingers in my mouth, and blowing through them until my face was like an apoplectic coachman’s, a smile of intelligence lit up his swarthy visage: then I violently dug imaginary holes, and explained that the sounds came about twilight; he nodded his head, dived into the tent, and disappeared in the smoke, to shortly emerge again with a rug or robe, made from the skins of an animal that was quite new to me.