The Keepers of the Trail: A Story of the Great Woods

by Joseph A. Altsheler

His eyes gleamed with pleasure as he looked upon his world. None knew better than he its immense variety and richness. He noted the different shades of the leaves and he knew by contrast the kind of tree that bore them. His eye fell upon the tanager, and the deep, intense scarlet of its plumage gave him pleasure. It seemed fairly to blaze against the background of woodland green, but it still took no alarm from the presence of the tall youth who neither stirred nor made any sound.

Another bird, hidden behind an immense leaf, began to pour forth the full notes of a chattering, mocking song, almost like the voice of a human being. Henry liked it, too, although he knew the bird was flinging him a pretty defiance. It belonged in his world. It was fitting that one singer, many singers, should live in his wilderness and sing for him.

A gray squirrel, its saucy tail curved over its back, ran lightly up an oak, perched on a bough and gazed at him with a challenging, red eye. Henry gave back his look, and laughed in the silent manner of the border. He had no wish to hurt the swaggering little fellow. His heart was bare of ill will against anything.

A deep, clear creek flowed at the base of the hill, and a fish, snapping at a fly, leaped clear of the water, making a silver streak in the air, gone in an instant as he fell back into the stream. The glimpse pleased Henry. It, too, was a part of his kingdom, stocked with fur, fin and feather, beyond that of any other king, and far more vast.

The brilliant sunlight over his head began to dim and darken. He looked up. The van of a host, the wild pigeons flying northward appeared, and then came the great wide column, millions and millions of birds, returning from their winter in the south. He had seen the huge flights before, but the freshness and zest of the sight never wore away. No matter how far they came nor how far they went they would still be flying over his forest empire. And then would come the great flocks of wild ducks and wild geese, winging swiftly like an arrow toward the north. They, too, were his, and again he took long, deep breaths of a delight so keen that it made his pulses leap.

From the wood at the base of the hill came a crackling sound as of something breaking, and then the long crash of a tree falling. He went a little way down the slope and his moccasins made no sound in the grass. Gently pulling aside the bough of a sheltering bush he saw the beavers at work. Already they were measuring for lengths the tree they had cut through at the base with their long, sharp teeth.

The creek here received a tributary brook of considerable volume, and the dam erected by the beavers had sent the waters far back in a tiny sheet like a little lake. But as Henry saw, they were going to raise the dam higher, and they were working with the intelligence and energy that belong so peculiarly to the beaver. Four powerful fellows were floating a log in the water, ready to put it into place, and others on the bank were launching another.

It was one of the largest beaver colonies he had ever seen, and he watched it with peculiar enjoyment. He killed the beaver now and then—the cap upon his head was made of its skin—but only when it was needful. The industrious animals were safe from his rifle now, and he felt that his wilderness had no more useful people.

He looked at them a long time, merely for the pleasure of looking. They showed so much skill, so much quickness and judgment that he was willing to see and learn from them. He felt, in a sense, that they were comrades. He wished them well in their work, and he knew that they would have snug houses, when the next winter came.

He left them in their peace, returned to the brow of the hill, and then walked slowly down the other side. He heard a woof, a sound of scrambling, and a black bear, big in frame, but yet lean from the winter, ran from its lair in the bushes, stopped a moment at fifty or sixty yards to look hard at him, and then, wheeling again in frightened flight disappeared among the trees. Henry once more laughed silently. He would not have harmed the bear either.