The Watchers of the Trails: A Book of Animal Life

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

Very early one morning, when all his world was of a silvery gray, and over the glassy pallor of his roof thin gleams of pink were mingled with ghostly, swirling mist-shadows, a strange fly touched the surface, directly above him. It had a slender, scarlet, curving body, with long hairs of yellow and black about its neck, and brown and white wings. It fell upon the water with the daintiest possible splash, just enough to catch his attention. Being utterly unlike anything he had ever seen before, it aroused his interest, and he slanted slowly upward. A moment later a second fly touched the water, a light gray, mottled thing, with a yellow body, and pink and green hairs fringing its neck. This, too, was strange to him. He rolled a foot higher, not with any immediate idea of trying them, but under his usual vague impulse to investigate everything pertaining to his pool. Just then the mist-swirls lifted slightly, and the light grew stronger, and against the smooth surface he detected a fine, almost invisible, thread leading from the head of each fly. With a derisive flirt of his tail he sank back to the bottom of his lair. Right well he knew the significance of that fine thread.

The strange flies skipped lightly over the surface of the pool, in a manner that to most trout would have seemed very alluring. They moved away toward a phenomenon which he just now noticed for the first time, a pair of dark, pillar-like objects standing where the water was about two feet deep, over toward the further shore. These dark objects moved a little, gently. Then the strange flies disappeared. A moment later they dropped again, and went through the same performance. This was repeated several times, the big trout watching with interest mingled with contempt. There was no peril for him in such gauds.

Presently the flies disappeared for good. A few minutes later two others came in their place,—one a tiny, white, moth-like thing, the other a big, bristling bunch of crimson hairs. The latter stirred, far back in his dull memory, an association of pain and fear, and he backed deeper into his watery den. It was a red hackle; and in his early days, when he was about eight inches long and frequented the tail of a shallow, foamy rapid, he had had experience of its sharp allurements. The little moth he ignored, but he kept an eye on the red hackle as it trailed and danced hither and thither across the pool. Once, near the other side, he saw a misguided fingerling dart from under a stone in the shallow water and seize the gay morsel. The fingerling rose, with a jerk, from the water, and was no more seen. It vanished into the unknown air; and the master of the pool quailed as he marked its fate. After this, the pair of dark, pillar-like objects moved away to the shore, no longer careful, but making a huge, splashing noise. No more strange flies appeared; and the gold light of full day stole down to the depths of the pool. Soon, flies which the master well knew, with no fine threads attached to them, began to speck the surface over him, and he fed, in his lazy way, without misgiving.

The big trout had good reason for his dread of the angler's lure. His experience with the red hackle had given him the wisdom which had enabled him to live through all the perils of a well-known trout-stream and grow to his present fame and stature. Behind that red hackle which hooked him in his youth had been a good rod, a crafty head, and a skilful wrist. His hour had sounded then and there, but for a fortunate flaw in the tackle. The leader had parted just at the drop, and the terrified trout (he had taken the tail fly) had darted away frantically through the rapids with three feet of fine gut trailing from his jaw. For several weeks he trailed that hampering thread, and carried that red hackle in the cartilage of his upper jaw; and he had time to get very familiar with them. He grew thin and slab-sided under the fret of it before he succeeded, by much nosing in gravel and sand, in wearing away the cartilage and rubbing his jaw clear of the encumbrance. From that day forward he had scrutinized all unfamiliar baits or lures to see if they carried any threadlike attachment.

When any individual of the wild kindreds, furred, feathered, or finned, achieves the distinction of baffling man's efforts to undo him, his doom may be considered sealed. There is no beast, bird, or fish so crafty or so powerful but some one man can worst him, and will take the trouble to do it if the game seems to be worth while. Some lure would doubtless have been found, some scheme devised for the hiding of the line, whereby the big trout's cunning would have been made foolishness. Some swimming frog, some terrified, hurrying mouse, or some great night-moth flopping down upon the dim water of a moonless night, would have lulled his suspicions and concealed the inescapable barb; and the master of the pool would have gone to swell the record of an ingenious conqueror. He would have been stuffed, and mounted, and hung upon the walls of the club-house, down at the mouth of the Clearwater. But it pleased the secret and inscrutable deities of the woods that the end of the lordly trout should come in another fashion.

It is an unusual thing, an unfortunate and pitiful thing, when death comes to the wild kindred by the long-drawn, tragic way of overripeness. When the powers begin to fail, the powers which enabled them to conquer, or to flee from, or to outwit their innumerable foes,—then life becomes a miserable thing for them. But that is not for long. Fate meets them in the forest trails or the flowing water-paths; and they have grown too dull to see, too heavy to flee, too indifferent to contend. So they are spared the anguish of slow, uncomprehending decrepitude.

But to the master of Golden Pool Fate came while he was yet master unchallenged, and balked the hopes of many crafty fishermen. It came in a manner not unworthy of the great trout's dignity and fame, giving him over to swell no adversary's triumph, betraying him to no contemptible foe.

One crisp autumn morning, when leaves were falling all over the surface of the pool, and insects were few, and a fresh tang in the water was making him active and hungry, the big trout was swimming hither and thither about his domain instead of lying lazily in his deep lair. He chanced to be over in the shallows near the grassy shore, when he saw, at the upper end of the pool, a long, dark body slip noiselessly into the water. It was not unlike the mink in form, but several times larger. It swam with a swift movement of its forefeet, while its hind legs, stretched out behind with the tail, twisted powerfully, like a big sculling oar. Its method, indeed, combined the advantages of that of the quadruped and that of the fish. The trout saw at once that here was a foe to be dreaded, and he lay quite still against a stone, trusting to escape the bright eyes of the stranger.

But the stranger, as it happened, was hunting, and the stranger was an otter. The big trout was just such quarry as he sought, and his bright eyes, peering restlessly on every side, left no corner of the pool uninvestigated. They caught sight of the master's silver and vermilion sides, his softly waving, gay-coloured fins.

With a dart like that of the swiftest of fish, the stranger shot across the pool. The trout darted madly toward his lair. The otter was close upon him, missing him by a fin's breadth. Frantic now with terror, the trout shot up-stream toward the broken water. But the otter, driven not only by his forefeet but by that great combined propeller of his hind legs and tail, working like a screw, swam faster. Just at the edge of the broken water he overtook his prey. A set of long, white teeth went through the trout's backbone. There was one convulsive twist, and the gay-coloured fins lay still, the silver and vermilion body hung limp from the captor's jaws.