When spring came back to the island, with the nightly shrill chorus of fluting frogs in the shallow sedgy pools, and the young grass alive with nesting birds, the prisoner’s life became almost luxurious in its easy abundance. But now she was once more homeless, since her snug den had vanished with the snow. This did not matter much to her now, however, for the weather grew warmer and more tranquil day by day, and, moreover, she herself, in being forced back upon long latent instincts, had learned the heedless vagrancy of the wild. Nevertheless, with all her capacity for learning and adapting herself, she had not forgotten anything. So when, one day in June, a crowded boat came over from the mainland, and children’s voices, clamoring across the grass-tops, broke the desolate silence of the island, the cat heard, and sprang up out of her sleep on the veranda steps. For one second she stood listening intently. Then, almost as a dog would have done, and as few of her supercilious tribe ever condescend to do, she went racing across to the landing-place, to be snatched up into the arms of four happy children at once, and to have her fine fur ruffled to a state which it would cost her an hour’s assiduous toilet to put in order.
LITTLE BULL OF THE BARRENS
Through the thick drive of the snowflakes—small, hard, bitter flakes, borne on the long wind of the terrible Coppermine barrens—the man and the beast stood staring at each other, motionless. In the beast’s eyes was a heavy wonder, mixed with curiosity and dread. Never before had he seen any being like this erect slim shape, veiled and vague and dark in the whirling drift. He felt it to be dangerous, but he was loath to tear himself away from the scrutiny of it.
The man, on the other hand, had neither wonder, curiosity, nor dread in his gaze. He knew that the black and massive apparition before him was a musk-ox. His first impulse had been to snatch up his rifle and shoot, before the beast could fade off into the white confusion of the storm. But his practised eye had told him that the animal was an old bull. His necessity was not fierce enough to drive him to the eating of such flesh—tough and reeking to nausea with musk. He wanted a young cow whose meat would be tender and sweet as caribou. He was content to wait, knowing that the herd must be near, and would not leave these feeding-grounds unless frightened. At this season the black bull, there staring at him heavily through the drift, would not be solitary.
The man was a trapper, who was making his way down the river to the Hudson Bay Company’s post at the mouth. Through failure of the caribou to come his way according to their custom, his supplies had run short, and he was seeking the post in good time before the pinch of hunger should fix itself upon him. But he had had bad luck. The failure of the caribou had hit others besides himself. The wolves had suffered by it. Perhaps, in their shrewd and savage spirits, they had blamed the man for the absence of their accustomed quarry. Some weeks before his start they had craftily picked off his dogs—a reasonable and satisfying retaliation. And now the man was hauling the sledge himself.
In a moment’s lift of the storm, the man had noted a little valley, a depression in the vast wind-swept level of the barrens, lying but a couple of stone’s-throws aside from the banks of the river which was his guide. He knew that there he would find a dense growth of the stunted firs which spring up wherever they can find shelter from the wind. There he knew he would find dry stuff in plenty for his fire. There he would take covert till the storm should go down and suffer him to trail the musk-ox herd. After eying the black bull steadily for some minutes, he softly turned away, and without haste made for the valley of the little firs, dragging the laden sledge behind him.
The black bull snorted thickly and took several steps forward. The strange figure fading silently away through the drift evidently feared him. A fleeing foe was surely to be followed. But that long dark shape crawling at the stranger’s heels—that looked formidable and very mysterious. The beast stopped, shook his head, snorted again more loudly, and drew back those few paces which he had advanced. Perhaps it was just as well not to be too bold in interrogating the unknown. After a few moments of hesitation he wheeled aside, lifted his massive and shaggy head, sniffed the air, listened intently, and withdrew to rejoin the little herd, which was lying down and contentedly chewing the cud, all indifferent to the drive of the polar storm.
The black bull of the barrens, as he stood and eyed contemplatively the resting herd, showed small in stature but extraordinarily massive in build. A scant six feet in length from muzzle to root of tail, and not much over three feet high at the shoulder, he was modelled, nevertheless, on lines that for power a mammoth might have envied. His square frame was clothed with long blackish hair reaching almost to the fetlocks. His ponderous head, maned and shaggy, was armed with short crescent horns, keen-tipped and serviceable for battle. And he carried it swung low, muzzle in and front well forward, always ready for defence against the enemies of the herd.
The herd numbered some dozen or fifteen cows, armed and powerful like their mates, several younger bulls, and perhaps a dozen yearling or two-year-old calves. At one moment, as the fierce drift slackened, they would all be more or less visible—shrouded, dark forms with contemplative eyes, peacefully ruminating. A moment more and they would vanish, as the snow again closed down about them.
It was the old bull alone who seemed to be thoroughly on the alert. Hither and thither, with a certain slow vigilance, he moved through the herd. All at once he lifted his head sharply and questioned the air with dilating nostrils, while his eyes gleamed with anger and anxiety. The next instant he stamped his foot and gave a loud abrupt call, half bleat, half bellow.