"Lunged away at a terrific pace"
It was that same night, I think,—for my notes make no change of time or place,—that I had another bit of this hunting which fills one's soul with peace and gives him a curious sense of understanding the thoughts and motives of the Wood Folk. I was gliding along in my canoe in the late twilight over still water, in the shadow of the wild high meadow-grass, when a low quacking and talking of wild ducks came to my ears. I pushed the canoe silently into the first open bogan in the direction of the sounds till I was so near that I dared not go another foot, when I rose up cautiously and peered over the grass tops. There were perhaps thirty or forty of the splendid birds—four or five broods at least, and each brood led by its careful mother—that had gathered here for the first time from the surrounding ponds where they had been hatched. For two or three days past I had noticed the young broods flying about, exercising their wings in preparation for the long autumn flights. Now they were all gathered on a dry mud-flat surrounded by tall grass, playing together and evidently getting acquainted. In the middle of the flat were two or three tussocks on which the grass had been trampled and torn down. There was always a duck on each of these tussocks, and below him were four or five more that were plainly trying to get up; but the top was small and had room for but one, and there was a deal of quacking and good-natured scrambling for the place of vantage. It was a game, plainly enough, for while the birds below were trying to get up the little fellow on top was doing his best to keep them down. Other birds scampered in pairs from one side of the flat to the other; and there was one curious procession, or race,—five or six birds that started abreast and very slowly, and ended with a rush and a headlong dive into the grasses of the opposite shore. Here and there about the edges of the playground an old mother bird sat on a tussock and looked down on the wild unconscious play, wiggling her tail in satisfaction and anon stretching her neck to look and listen watchfully. The voices of the playing birds were curiously low and subdued, reminding me strongly of some Indian children that I had once seen playing. At times the quacking had a faint ventriloquous effect, seeming to come from far away, and again it ceased absolutely at a sign from some watchful mother, though the play went steadily on, as if even in their play they must be mindful of the enemies that were watching and listening everywhere to catch them.
As I rose a bit higher to see some birds that were very near me but screened by the meadow-grass, my foot touched a paddle and rattled it slightly. A single quack, different from all others, followed instantly, and every bird stopped just where he was and stretched his neck high to listen. One mother bird saw me, though I could not tell which one it was until she slipped down from her bog and waddled bravely across in my direction. Then a curious thing happened, which I have often seen and wondered at among gregarious birds and animals. A signal was given, but without any sound that my ears could detect in the intense twilight stillness. It was as if a sudden impulse had been sent out like an electric shock to every bird in the large flock. At the same instant every duck crouched and sprang; the wings struck down sharply; the flock rose together as if flung up from a pigeon trap, and disappeared with a rush of wings and a hoarse tumult of quacking that told every creature on the great marsh that danger was afoot. Wings flapped loudly here and there; bitterns squawked; herons croaked; a spike buck whistled and jumped close at hand; a passing musquash went down with a slap of his tail and a plunge like a falling rock. Then silence settled over the marsh again, and there was not a sound to tell what Wood Folk were abroad in the still night, nor what business or pleasure occupied them.
Formerly caribou might be found on these same waterways, and they are the most curious and interesting game that can be hunted without a gun; but years ago a grub destroyed all the larches on which the wandering woodland caribou depend largely for food. The deer, which are already as many as the country can support in winter, take care of the rest of the good browse, so that there was nothing left for the caribou but to cross over the line into New Brunswick, where larches are plenty and where there is an abundance of the barren moss that can be dug up out of the snow. Better still, if one is after caribou, is the great wilderness of northern Newfoundland, where the caribou spend the summer and where from a mountain top one may count hundreds of the splendid animals scattered over the country below in every direction. And hunting them so, with the object of finding out the secrets of their curious lives,—why, for instance, each herd often chooses its own burying-ground, or why a bull caribou loves to pound a hollow stump for hours at a time,—this is, to my mind, infinitely better sport than the hunt for a head where one waylays them on their paths of migration, the paths that have been sacred for untold generations, and shoots them down as they pass like tame cattle.
To the hunter without a gun there is no close season on any game, and a doe and her fawns are better hunting than a ten-point buck. By land or water he is always ready; there are no labors for effects, except what he chooses to impose upon himself; no disappointments are possible, for whether his game be still or on the jump, shy as a wilderness raven or full of curiosity as a blue jay, he always finds something to stow away in his heart in the place where he keeps things that he loves to remember. All is fish that comes into his net, and everything is game that catches the glance of his eye in earth or air or water. Now it is the water-spiders—skaters the boys call them—that play a curious game among the grass stems, and that have more wonderful habits than the common balloon spiders which sometimes turned Jonathan Edwards' thoughts from the stern, unlovable God of his theology to the patient, care-taking Servant of the universe that some call Force, and others Law, and that one who knew Him called The Father, alike among the lilies of the field and in the cities of men. Now it is an otter and her cubs playing on the surface, that sink when they see you and suddenly come up near your canoe, like a log shot up on end, and with half their bodies out of water to see better say w-h-e-e-e-yew! like a baby seal to express their wonder at such a queer thing in the water. Now it is a mother loon taking her young on her back as they leave the eggs, and carrying them around the lake awhile to dry them thoroughly in the sun before she dives from under them and wets them for the first time; and you must follow a long while before you find out why. Now it is a bear and her cubs—I watched three of them for an hour or more, one afternoon, as they gathered blueberries. At first they champed them from the bushes, stems, leaves and all, just as they grew. Again, when they found a good bush, a little one with lots of berries, they would bite it off close to the ground, or tear it up by the roots, and then taking it by the stem with both paws would pull it through their mouths from one side to the other, stripping off every berry and throwing the useless bush away. Again they would strike the bushes with their paws, knocking off a shower of the ripest berries, and then scrape them all together very carefully into a pile and gobble them down at a single mouthful. And whenever, in wandering about after a good bush, one of the cubs spied the other busy at an unusually good find, it gave one a curious remembrance of his own boyhood to see the little fellow rush up whimpering to get his share before all the bushes should be stripped clean.
That was good hunting. It made one glad to let even this rare prowler of the woods go in peace. And that suggests the very best thing that can be said for the hunter without a gun:—"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for him," for something of the gentle spirit of Saint Francis comes with him, and when he goes he leaves no pain nor death nor fear of man behind him.
