“What were it then?” demanded the woodsman, incredulously.
“It was two big porkypines an’ a monstrous big wildcat,” answered Mrs. Gammit in triumph.
“Did ye ketch ’em at it?” asked the woodsman, with a faint note of sarcasm in his voice. But the sarcasm glanced off Mrs. Gammit’s armour. She regarded the question as a quite legitimate one.
“No, I kain’t say as I did, exackly,” she replied. “But they come anosin’ round, an’ to teach ’em a lesson to keep ther noses out o’ other people’s hens’ nests I shook a little pepper over ’em. I tell ye, they took to the woods, asneezin’ that bad I thought ye might ’a’ heard ’em all the way over here. Ye’d ’ave bust yerself laffin’, ef ye could ’a’ seed 249 ’em rootin’. An’ since then, Mr. Barron, I git all the aigs I want. Don’t ye talk to me o’ weasels––the skinny little rats. They ain’t wuth noticin’, no more’n a chipmunk.”
The Battle in the Mist
In the silver-grey between dawn and sunrise the river was filled with mist from bank to bank. It coiled and writhed and rolled, here thinning, there thickening, as if breathed upon irregularly by innumerable unseen mouths. But there was no wind astir; and the brown-black, glistening current beneath the white folds was glassy smooth save where the occasional big swirls boiled up with a swishing gurgle, or the running wave broke musically around an upthrust shoulder of rock or a weedy snag. The river was not wide––not more than fifty yards from bank to bank; but from the birch canoe slipping quietly down along one shore, just outside the fringe of alder branches, the opposite shore was absolutely hidden. There was nothing to indicate that an opposite shore existed, save that now and again the dark top of a soaring pine or elm would show dimly for a moment, seeming to float above the ghostly gulfs of mist.
The canoe kept close along the shore for guidance, as one feels one’s way along a wall in the dark. The 251 channel, moreover, was deep and clear in shore; while out under the mist the soft noises of ripples proclaimed to the ears of the two canoeists the presence of frequent rock and snag and shallow. Lest they should run upon unseen dangers ahead, the canoeists were travelling very slowly, the bow-man resting with his paddle across the gunwales before him, while the stern-man, his paddle noiselessly waving like the fin of a trout, did no more than keep his craft to her course and let her run with the current.
Down along the shore, keeping just behind the canoe and close to the water’s edge, followed a small, dark, sinuous creature, its piercing eyes, bead-black with a glint of red behind them, fixed in savage curiosity upon the canoemen. It was about two feet in length, with extremely short legs, and a sharp, triangular head. As it ran––and its movements were as soundless and effortless as those of a snake––it humped its long, lithe body in a way that suggested a snake’s coils. It seemed to be following the canoe out of sheer curiosity––a curiosity, however, which was probably well mixed with malevolence, seeing that it was the curiosity of a mink. These two strange creatures moving on the water were, of course, too large and formidable for the big mink to dream of attacking them; but he could wonder at them and hate them––and who could say that some chance to do them 252 a hurt might not arise? Stealthy, wary, and bold, he kept his distance about eight or ten feet from the canoe; and because he was behind he imagined himself unseen. As a matter of fact, however, the steersman of the canoe, wiser in woodcraft and cunninger even than he, had detected him and was watching him with interest from the corner of his eye. So large a mink, and one so daring in curiosity, was a phenomenon to be watched and studied with care. The canoeist did not take his comrade in the bow into his confidence for some minutes, lest the sound of the human voice should daunt the animal. But presently, in a monotonous, rhythmic murmur which carried no alarm to the mink’s ear but only heightened its interest, he called the situation to his companion’s notice; and the latter, without seeming to see, kept watch through half-closed lids.