Wood-folk comedies

by William J. Long

The five visible squirrels are running in erratic circles, drawing nearer to the strange creature that puzzles and irritates them, till one scurries up my leg almost to my waist, where he loses courage and leaps off, scared but chattering. At this they all scatter and climb different trees, stopping at the level of my eyes, where they jump up and down on the same spot, crying kilch! kilch! as they jump. Then, for they are a rattle-headed folk, they forget curiosity and take to chasing or punishing one poor, squealing wretch who, they think, caused all this ado about nothing.

There is life here, you see, and in the snow at your feet is the record of it, more interesting by far than any book of natural history. So with senses all alert we move onward to the rhythmic swish and click of the snowshoes, mile after lonely mile, now over mighty hardwood ridges that probably never before were marked by a man’s footprints, again pushing through dense evergreen thickets to break out on the silent expanse of a caribou barren, a beaver pond, an unnamed lake; and hardly a rood of all this ground but offers a trail to follow and a story to read. Here is good hunting.

As we follow down a ridge in the late afternoon, we get one shock and meet with the only nerve-testing adventure which this big, lonely wilderness can furnish. There is no game in sight; the woods are still, the snow unmarked by any trail; but we are moving cautiously, lifting the snowshoes so as to avoid all noise. Somewhere on that densely wooded hillside across the valley is a deer yard; our eyes are searching far ahead, trying to pick up a moving shadow, when with startling suddenness comes a rumble, a roar, a violent upheaval of snow, and out from underfoot bursts a whirring, booming thing that scares us stiff. Through the flurry of snow the thing looks like a bomb and sounds like an explosion; but—we laugh at our fright—it is only a bird, a grouse, who is making all that commotion. Seksagadagee, Little Thunder-maker, the Indians call him, and now you know why: he has a thunderclap way of startling you at times, and in the spring his hollow drumming has a suggestion of distant thunder. This one, having eaten his fill of birch buds, had swooped into the snow for the night, as grouse often do before the big owls begin to hunt, and I had put one of the snowshoes fairly over him before seeing the hole he made when he went in.

That hole is scarcely noticeable even now, for no sooner was it made than the falling snow almost filled it again. Beneath it is a tunnel, cloven by the bird’s plunge, which slants downward and makes a sharp turn to the left. At the end is, or was, a little chamber where Seksagadagee intended to sleep warm, out of eyeshot of hunting owls, with a blanket of snow all around him.

There he is now, cuddled against the stem of a big spruce, where he is hard to find. He is motionless, like a knob of the tree, but he is looking back alertly to see what startled him. At sight of his plump breast the thought of food replaces natural history; my revolver comes up in line with his head. He will be a rare bonne bouche, and the wilderness must feed its wanderers—but wait! Grouse are scarce here, as they are at home this year, having gone through a wet breeding season which killed most of the chicks, after enduring a pest of goshawks that came down from the north and harried the old birds all winter. That is why we have crossed but one grouse track to-day, though we have traversed miles of good cover since sunrise.

It seems a pity to take this lonesome fellow. When you kill a bird he is dead, and makes no more trails. “Well, Little Thunder-maker, you and your poults have had a hard enough rub with hawks and foxes, and these big woods seem to need you. Good-by and good luck!” I call, and we break even. But I was more scared than he was. The bomb paralyzed me for a moment, exploding so suddenly; while his booming flight said that he was master of his own motions.

In the valley beyond, just before entering the deer yard, we cross the trail of the wolves we are seeking,—six powerful brutes that keep together at this point, traveling in single file till they reach the hillside with its tangle of deer paths, when they spread out to sweep the cover from end to end. The air was northerly last night; they are hunting upwind after their usual fashion. We must hurry now; it is growing late, and we have one more story to read from the trails, a story which I wish had not been written. Ah, see that!

Yonder are holes in the snow where two deer (probably a doe and her fawn of last spring) rested near one of the paths of their winter yard; and up the path comes a wolf, stealing along like a cat. That fellow is hunting keenly; but though near enough to smell his game under ordinary conditions, the trail shows that he has no inkling of the two animals only a few yards away. They are hidden by the snow a little to one side of his course, which will take him past them if he keeps on as he is going. Fortunately for the deer, they give out very little scent when resting; and since a wolf does not follow foot scent, he must run almost over them before he knows where they are. See, he has passed without smelling them; they will be safe in another minute if they hold still. There! too bad! too bad! The deer have caught the rank wolf smell, and a single whiff stampedes them. As they jump, the wolf catches the body scent and whirls toward them. Two great bounds bring him into their trail; he is after them in a terrific rush.

Poor deer! it is all up with them now; they have no chance with that grim brute at their heels. Luckily he will kill only one, leaving the other, for deer are not like crowding sheep; they scatter when a wolf attacks the herd. But what is this?

A short run, and the wolf leaves the hot trail and speeds to a distant part of the yard, hurling himself forward by extraordinary bounds, as if life depended on getting somewhere else on the instant.