Wood-folk comedies

by William J. Long

The response was immediate, and more than a little startling. Before the echoes of my call were quiet, there came from beyond the pond on my left a gruff quoh! It was a bull barking his answer. A rattling of antlers on alder stems, then a sqush, sqush of mud to say that he was coming. Hardly had he started when, from a hill on the opposite side, a second bull hurled himself down with a hoarse challenge, followed by a terrific smashing of brush. No doubt about it, he was coming, too! When near me he swerved away for the pond or for the other bull, and passed along the farther edge of the bog, where I could hardly see him for the shadows. After him came another, then in a straggling rout three or four more, I think; but they made such commotion in the woods, threshing bushes, grunting, squealing at times, as an old bull will, that it was impossible to keep track of individuals. No sooner did I begin to locate one brute than a nearer or more nerve-shaking rumpus demanded my attention.

Apparently I had blundered into a rare band of traveling moose, and this on the one unlucky night of the year when all wild creatures were strangely excited. For the next half-hour, it seemed (it may have been only a few minutes; I had lost all notion of time), the uneasy brutes went questing over the bog, both bulls and cows. The latter were silent appearing mysteriously here or there; but the bulls seemed to be looking for trouble. At times two or three would go smashing along the fringes of the wood, where they appeared as grotesque shadows; again, a solitary bull would break into the open at a slashing trot, hackles up, bell swinging, and in his throat a chock! chock! chock! which sounded in that place and hour rather ferocious. Once a truculent pair dashed out from opposite sides, only to range challenging down the length of the bog to the pond, where they locked antlers for another bullish kind of argument.

Meanwhile I was making myself as small as possible under an upturned root, where I could see a little of what went on, but where a bull might almost step over me before noticing anything to arouse his fear or anger. Not a moose circled to get my wind, as a solitary bull would surely have done; and I think that they had no inkling of a hidden enemy. They appeared freely here or disappeared there; while I lay close to the ground, where no air stirs, and made no lunatic attempt to call them nearer. They were near enough. Three times out of four you can tell what a wild beast will do, especially if he sees you or suspects where you are, and nine times out of ten you can safely count on his timidity; but a big beast that stumbles upon you is always uncertain, and sometimes dangerous. Once a questing brute chanced within a dozen yards of my point; and when a monster bull with antlers like a pair of rocking-chairs ramped past, gritting his teeth and grunting, one glimpse of him was enough to put the fear of God in any man. I had no rifle, no wish to kill any of these huge beasts; neither did I care to spend the remainder of the chill night reciting mea culpa in a tree.

The moose left the bog when their excitement cooled, trailing off in a procession eastward, whence they had come. They traveled noisily, contrary to all my observation; I could trace their course through the woods long after they had vanished from sight. Their gruff calling ceased; their crashing died away in a surge, a rustle, a shiver as of leaves, and they were gone.

And then the blessed silence returned to brood again over the wilderness. The owls, first to begin the tumult, were last to end; but presently they too were quiet, save for an occasional hunting call. On the way back to camp not a cry, not a rustle disturbed the perfect stillness. The moon shone wondrously clear, making magic of the familiar woods; the lake began whispering to its banks; the air trembled at times to that rushing sound of music which is heard only on still nights in dense forest, and which always fills one with wonder, as if hearing at last the old harmony of the spheres. All around the trail or the gliding canoe the great wilderness stood silent, alert, listening.

That is the last as well as the first impression of a northern forest, the impression of listening. Though silent, it is never dead nor even asleep; it is alive and awake, as a man is most awake when living in his own thoughts. You may range the vast solitude for hours and start no living thing; but you have never a thought that the woods are deserted. No, they are only hiding their wild creatures, which may step forth at any moment. Day or night, summer or winter, the wilderness is always animate. As you move through it on careful feet, awed by its mystery or sublimity, you are every instant in the presence of life, a life so full and deep that silence is its only expression.

THE TRAIL OF THE LOUP-GAROU

A HOWLING as of wolves fetched me wide-awake one night in my winter camp in Quebec. The sound was familiar enough in that lonely place; yet because it has a fascination for me, an appeal which I can neither satisfy nor explain, I must don whatever warm thing I could lay hands on in the darkness, and go out where I could hear better.