Another instance of the sinister influences at work throughout the wilds occurred about this time to the Boy. He was moving in his noiseless fashion along an old, mossy wood-road, his bright eyes taking in every detail of the shadowy world, when he saw a small yellow weasel running directly toward him. Instantly he stopped, stiffened himself to the stillness of a stump, and waited in keen curiosity to see what the weasel was up to. He was not left long in doubt. Almost before he could realize what was happening, the snaky little beast reached his feet, and with gnashing teeth and blazing eyes darted straight up his leg. It had almost gained his throat—its evident object—before he regained his wits enough to strike it to the ground with a blow of his hand. In a flash, however, it was back at him again, with a virulence of malice that filled the Boy’s ordinarily gentle soul with rage. As he again dashed it down, this time with all his strength, he sprang forward simultaneously and caught it under his foot as it touched the earth. Then, with a savage satisfaction that amazed himself, he ground the mad beast’s life out under his heel. The experience, however, had something fearsome and uncanny about it, which for a few days spoiled his interest in the wilderness. Under the malign spell of the drought, the woods had lost for him their sweet, familiar influence.
One scorching morning somewhat later, when the curse of the yellow thirst had lain upon the land for weeks, Red Fox, looking down from the shade of the juniper-bush, saw a big muskrat climb the bank of the dwindling brook and start straight across the meadow toward the deep woods, where no muskrat in its senses had any business. Red Fox eyed its erratic progress suspiciously. He did not like these beasts that lost their heads and acted as nature never intended them to act. Suddenly, to his angry alarm, he saw the big, headstrong, foolhardy member of his litter creep out from the den and steal warily down to intercept the approaching muskrat. The young fox, of course, took every precaution to conceal himself, keeping behind the grass tufts and crawling belly to earth. But the muskrat detected him; and at once, instead of darting, panic-stricken, back to the brook, came straight at him fiercely. Red Fox saw that the muskrat had gone mad, and that a single one of its venomous bites might be fatal to its ignorant young antagonist. Like a red streak he left his lair, and was out across the meadow, coming upon the muskrat a little behind and to one side. So intent were the two as they approached each other that they never saw Red Fox’s coming. Another second and they would have been at each other’s throats, and nothing but a miracle could have saved the youngster, though he would undoubtedly have killed the muskrat in half a minute. But at this instant Red Fox arrived with an arrowy, straight spring, and his invincible jaws caught the muskrat’s neck close behind the ears. There was no chance for the mad little animal to bite, or even squeal. One jerk and its neck was broken. Red Fox left the sprawling victim on the ground, and trotted back to his lair under the bush, willing to leave the prize to the youngster who had started out to win it. But the latter, sullenly enraged at what he considered his father’s wanton interference, would have nothing more to do with it. He turned off sulkily into the woods, and the body was left neglected in the sun, an object of immediate interest to the ants and flies.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE RED SCOURGE OF THE FOREST
When the drought had grown almost unbearable, and man and beast, herb and tree, all seemed to hold up hands of appeal together to the brazen sky, crying out, “How long? How long?” there came at last a faint, acrid pungency on the air which made the dry woods shudder with fear. Close on the heels of this fierce, menacing smell came a veil of thinnest vapour, lilac-toned, delicate, magical, and indescribably sinister. Sky and trees, hills and fields, they took on a new beauty under this light, transfiguring touch. But the touch was one that made all the forest folk, and the settlement folk as well, scan the horizon anxiously and calculate the direction of the wind.
Miles away, far down the wooded ridges and beyond the farthest of the little lakes to southward, some irresponsible and misbegotten idiot had gone away and left his camp-fire burning. Eating its way furtively through the punk-dry turf, and moss, and dead-leaf débris, the fire had spread undiscovered over an area of considerable width, and had at last begun to lay hold upon the trees. On an almost imperceptible wind, one morning, the threatening pungency stole up over the settlement and the ridge. Later in the day the thinnest of the smoke-veil arrived. And that night, had any one been on watch on the top of the ridge, where Red Fox had had his lookout two months earlier, he might have discerned a thread of red light, cut here and there with slender, sharp tongues of flame, along a section of the southward sky. Only the eagles, however, saw this beautiful, ominous sight. In the last of the twilight they rose and led off their two nestlings—now clothed with loose black feathers, and looking nearly as large as their parents—to the top of a naked cliff far up the flank of old Ringwaak. Here they all four huddled together on a safe ledge, and watched the disastrous red light with fascinated eyes.
“A DOE AND TWO FAWNS . . . WENT BOUNDING PAST.”
Red Fox, meanwhile, was in his lair, too troubled and apprehensive to go hunting. He had had no experience of that scourge of the drought-stricken woods, the forest fire. His instinct gave him no sufficient information on the subject, at least at this early stage of the emergency. And for once his keen sagacity found itself at fault. He could do nothing but wait.
As the night deepened a wind arose, and the red line across the southern horizon became a fierce glow that mounted into the sky, with leaping spires of flame along its lower edge. The wind quickly grew into a gale, driving the smoke and flame before it. Soon a doe and two fawns, their eyes wide with terror, went bounding past Red Fox. Still he made no stir, for he wanted to know more about the peril that threatened him before he decided which way to flee to escape it. As he pondered,—no longer resting under his bush, but standing erect behind his den mouth, his mate and the youngsters crouching near and trembling,—a clumsy porcupine rattled past, at a pace of which Red Fox would never have believed a porcupine capable. Then a weasel,—and four or five rabbits immediately at its heels, all unmindful of its insatiable ferocity. By this time the roar and savage crackle of the flames came clearly down the wind, with puffs of choking smoke. It was plainly time to do something. Red Fox decided that it was hopeless to flee straight ahead of the flames, which would be sure to outrace and outwind his family in a short time. He thought it best to run at a slant across the path of the conflagration, and so, if possible, get beyond the skirts of it. He thought of the open fields adjoining the settlement, and made up his mind that there lay the best chance of safety. With a sharp signal to his mate, he started on a long diagonal across the meadow, over the brook, and down the hill, the whole family keeping close behind him. No sooner had they crossed it than the meadow was suddenly alive with fleeing shapes,—deer, and a bear, woodchucks, squirrels, and rabbits, two wildcats, and mice, weasels, and porcupines. There were no muskrats or mink, because these latter were keeping close to the watercourses, however shrunken, and putting their trust in these for final escape.
As Red Fox ran on his cunning cross line, he suddenly saw the red tongues licking through the trees ahead of him, while blazing brands and huge sparks began to drop about him. The air was full of appalling sights and sounds. Seeing that the fire had cut him off, he turned and ran on another diagonal, hoping to escape over the ridge. For a little while he sped thus, cutting across the stream of wild-eyed fugitives; but presently found that in this direction also the flames had headed him. Checked straight behind his den by a long stretch of hardwood growth, the flames had gone far ahead on either flank, tearing through the dry balsamy fir and spruce groves. Not understanding the properties of that appalling element, fire, nor guessing that it preferred some kinds of woods to others, Red Fox had been misled in his calculations. There was nothing now for him to do but join the ordinary, panic-stricken throng of fugitives, and flee straight ahead.