But he had found his intended victim a game one. The heron had a character to sustain; and although he might easily have flown away, or even waded farther out, yet he seemed to scorn to do either.
Not an inch would it budge, but stood with its long, javelin-like beak poised, ready to strike into the fisher’s eye, uttering, from moment to moment, that menacing, guttural quock, which had first attracted our attention.
This sound, mingling with the eager snarling and fretting of the cat, made the most dismal and incongruous duet I had ever listened to. For some moments they stood thus threatening and defying each other; but at length, lashing itself up to the proper pitch of fury, the fisher jumped at his antagonist with distended jaws, to seize hold of the long, slender throat. One bite at the heron’s slim neck would settle the whole affair. But this attempt was very adroitly balked by the plucky old wader’s taking a long step aside, when the fisher fell into the water with a great splash, and while struggling back to the log, received a series of strokes, or, rather, stabs, from the long, pointed beak, dealt down with wonderful swiftness, and force, too; for we distinctly heard them prod into the cat’s tough hide, as he scrambled upon the log, and ran spitting up the bank. This defeat, however, was but temporary, as any one acquainted with the singular persistence and perseverance of the whole weasel family will readily guess. The fisher had soon worked his way down the log again, the heron retiring to his former position in the water.
Another succession of quocks and growlings, and another spring, with even less success, on the side of the cat. For this time the heron’s bill wounded one of his eyes; and as he again retreated up the log, we could see the bloody tears trickling down over his shaggy jowl.
Thus far the battle seemed favorable to the heron; but the fisher again rallied, and, now thoroughly maddened, rushed down the log, and leaped blindly upon his foe. Again and again his attacks were parried. The snarling growls now rose to shrieks, and the croaking quocks to loud, dissonant cries.
“Faugh!” muttered Ben. “Smell his breath—fisher’s breath—clean here. Always let that out somehow when they’re mad.”
Even at our distance, that strong, fetid odor, sometimes perceptible when a cat spits, could plainly be discerned.
“Old hairn seems to be having the best of it,” continued Ben. “I bet on him. How cool he keeps! Fights like a machine. See that bill come down now! Look at the marks it makes, too!” For the blood, oozing out through the thick fur of the cat in more than a dozen spots, was attesting the prowess of the heron’s powerful beak.
But at length, with a sudden bound upward, the fisher fell with his whole weight upon the back of his lathy antagonist. Old long-legs was upset, and down they both went in the water, where a prodigious scuffle ensued. Now one of the heron’s big feet would be thrust up nearly a yard; then the cat would come to the top, sneezing and strangling; and anon the heron’s long neck would loop up in sight, bending and doubling about in frantic attempts to peck at its foe, its cries now resembling those of a hen when seized in the night, save that they were louder and harsher. Over and over they floundered and rolled. The mud and water flew about. Long legs, shaggy paws, wet, wriggling tail, and squawking beak, fur and feathers—all turning and squirming in inextricable confusion. It was hard telling which was having the best of the mêlée, when, on a sudden, the struggle stopped, as if by magic.