Secret of the Woods
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William J. Long >> Secret of the Woods
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I had gone nearly through the alders, following the course of a
little brook and stealing along without a sound, when behind me I
heard the kingfisher coming above the alders, rattling as if
possessed, klrrr, klrrr, klrrr-ik-ik-ik! On the instant there was
a heavy plunge and splash just ahead, and the swift rush of some
large animal up the hillside. Over me poised the kingfisher,
looking down first at me, then ahead at the unknown beast, till
the crashing ceased in a faint rustle far away, when he swept
back to his fishing-stub, clacking and chuckling immoderately.
I pushed cautiously ahead and came presently to a beautiful pool
below a rock, where the hillside shelved gently towards the
alders. From the numerous tracks and the look of the place, I
knew instantly that I had stumbled upon a bear's bathing pool.
The water was still troubled and muddy; huge tracks, all soppy
and broken, led up the hillside in big jumps; the moss was torn,
the underbrush spattered with shining water drops. "No room for
doubt here," I thought; "Mooween was asleep in this pool, and the
kingfisher woke him up--but why? and did he do it on purpose?
I remembered suddenly a record in an old notebook, which reads:
"Sugarloaf Lake, 26 July.--Tried to stalk a bear this noon. No
luck. He was nosing alongshore and I had a perfect chance; but a
kingfisher scared him." I began to wonder how the rattle of a
kingfisher, which is one of the commonest sounds on wilderness
waters, could scare a bear, who knows all the sounds of the
wilderness perfectly. Perhaps Koskomenos has an alarm note and
uses it for a friend in time of need, as gulls go out of their
way to alarm a flock of sleeping ducks when danger is
approaching.
Here was a new trait, a touch of the human in this unknown,
clattering suspect of the fishing streams. I resolved to watch
him with keener interest.
Somewhere above me, deep in the tangle of the summer wilderness,
Mooween stood watching his back track, eyes, ears, and nose alert
to discover what the creature was who dared frighten him out of
his noonday bath. It would be senseless to attempt to surprise
him now; besides, I had no weapon of any kind.--"To-morrow,
about this time, I shall be coming back; then look out, Mooween,"
I thought as I marked the place and stole away to my canoe.
But the next day when I came to the place, creeping along the
upper edge of the alders so as to make no noise, the pool was
clear and quiet, as if nothing but the little trout that hid
under the foam bubbles had ever disturbed its peace. Koskomenos
was clattering about the bay below as usual. Spite of my
precaution he had seen me enter the alders; but he gave me no
attention whatever. He went on with his fishing as if he knew
perfectly that the bear had deserted his bathing pool.
It was nearly a month before I again camped on the beautiful
lake. Summer was gone. All her warmth and more than her
fragrant beauty still lingered on forest and river; but the
drowsiness had gone from the atmosphere, and the haze had
crept into it. Here and there birches and maples flung out their
gorgeous banners of autumn over the silent water. A tingle came
into the evening air; the lake's breath lay heavy and white in
the twilight stillness; birds and beasts became suddenly changed
as they entered the brief period of sport and of full feeding.
I was drifting about a reedy bay (the same bay in which the
almost forgotten kingfisher had cheated me out of my bear, after
eating a minnow that my paddle had routed out for him) shooting
frogs for my table with a pocket rifle. How different it was
here, I reflected, from the woods about home. There the game was
already harried; the report of a gun set every living creature
skulking. Here the crack of my little rifle was no more heeded
than the plunge of a fish-hawk, or the groaning of a burdened elm
bough. A score of fat woodcock lay unheeding in that bit of alder
tangle yonder, the ground bored like a colander after their
night's feeding. Up on the burned hillside the partridges said,
quit, quit! when I appeared, and jumped to a tree and craned
their necks to see what I was. The black ducks skulked in the
reeds. They were full-grown now and strong of wing, but the early
hiding habit was not yet broken up by shooting. They would glide
through the sedges, and double the bogs, and crouch in a tangle
till the canoe was almost upon them, when with a rush and a
frightened hark-ark! they shot into the air and away to the
river. The mink, changing from brown to black, gave up his
nest-robbing for honest hunting, undismayed by trap or deadfall;
and up in the inlet I could see grassy domes rising above the
bronze and gold of the marsh, where Musquash was building thick
and high for winter cold and spring floods. Truly it was good to
be here, and to enter for a brief hour into the shy, wild but
unharried life of the wood folk.
A big bullfrog showed his head among the lily pads, and the
little rifle, unmindful of the joys of an unharried existence,
rose slowly to its place. My eye was glancing along the sights
when a sudden movement in the alders on the shore, above and
beyond the unconscious head of Chigwooltz the frog, spared him
for a little season to his lily pads and his minnow hunting. At
the same moment a kingfisher went rattling by to his old perch
over the minnow pool. The alders swayed again as if struck; a
huge bear lumbered out of them to the shore, with a disgruntled
woof! at some twig that had switched his ear too sharply.
I slid lower in the canoe till only my head and shoulders were
visible. Mooween went nosing along-shore till something--a
dead fish or a mussel bed--touched his appetite, when he
stopped and began feeding, scarcely two hundred yards
away. I reached first for my heavy rifle, then for the paddle,
and cautiously "fanned" the canoe towards shore till an old
stump on the point covered my approach. Then the little bark
jumped forward as if alive. But I had scarcely started when--
klrrrr! klrrr! ik-ik--ik! Over my head swept Koskomenos
with a rush of wings and an alarm cry that spoke only of haste
and danger. I had a glimpse of the bear as he shot into the
alders, as if thrown by a catapult; the kingfisher wheeled in a
great rattling circle about the canoe before he pitched upon the
old stump, jerking his tail and clattering in great excitement.
I swung noiselessly out into the lake, where I could watch the
alders. They were all still for a space of ten minutes; but
Mooween was there, I knew, sniffing and listening. Then a great
snake seemed to be wriggling through the bushes, making no sound,
but showing a wavy line of quivering tops as he went.
Down the shore a little way was a higher point, with a fallen
tree that commanded a view of half the lake. I had stood there a
few days before, while watching to determine the air paths and
lines of flight that sheldrakes use in passing up and down the
lake,--for birds have runways, or rather flyways, just as foxes
do. Mooween evidently knew the spot; the alders showed that he
was heading straight for it, to look out on the lake and see what
the alarm was about. As yet he had no idea what peril had
threatened him; though, like all wild creatures, he had obeyed
the first clang of a danger note on the instant. Not a creature
in the woods, from Mooween down to Tookhees the wood mouse, but
has learned from experience that, in matters of this kind, it is
well to jump to cover first and investigate afterwards.
I paddled swiftly to the point, landed and crept to a rock from
which I could just see the fallen tree. Mooween was coming. "My
bear this time," I thought, as a twig snapped faintly. Then
Koskomenos swept into the woods, hovering over the brush near the
butt of the old tree, looking down and rattling--klrrrik, clear
out! klrrr-ik, clear out! There was a heavy rush, such as a bear
always makes when alarmed; Koskomenos swept back to his perch;
and I sought the shore, half inclined to make my next hunting
more even-chanced by disposing of one meddlesome factor. "You
wretched, noisy, clattering meddler!" I muttered, the front sight
of my rifle resting fair on the blue back of Koskomenos, "that is
the third time you have spoiled my shot, and you won't have
another chance.--But wait; who is the meddler here?"
Slowly the bent finger relaxed on the trigger. A loon went
floating by the point, all unconscious of danger, with a rippling
wake that sent silver reflections glinting across the lake's deep
blue. Far overhead soared an eagle, breeze-borne in wide circles,
looking down on his own wide domain, unheeding the man's
intrusion. Nearer, a red squirrel barked down his resentment from
a giant spruce trunk. Down on my left a heavy splash and a wild,
free tumult of quacking told where the black ducks were coming
in, as they had done, undisturbed, for generations. Behind me a
long roll echoed through the woods--some young cock partridge,
whom the warm sun had beguiled into drumming his spring
love-call. From the mountain side a cow moose rolled back a
startling answer. Close at hand, yet seeming miles away, a
chipmunk was chunking sleepily in the sunshine, while a nest of
young wood mice were calling their mother in the grass at my
feet. And every wild sound did but deepen the vast, wondrous
silence of the wilderness.
"After all, what place has the roar of a rifle or the smell of
sulphurous powder in the midst of all this blessed peace?" I
asked half sadly. As if in answer, the kingfisher dropped with
his musical plash, and swept back with exultant rattle to his
watchtower.--"Go on with your clatter and your fishing. The
wilderness and the solitary place shall still be glad, for you
and Mooween, and the trout pools would be lonely without you. But
I wish you knew that your life lay a moment ago in the bend of my
finger, and that some one, besides the bear, appreciates your
brave warning."
Then I went back to the point to measure the tracks, and to
estimate how big the bear was, and to console myself with the
thought of how I would certainly have had him, if something had
not interfered--which is the philosophy of all hunters since
Esau.
It was a few days later that the chance came of repaying
Koskomenos with coals of fire. The lake surface was still warm;
no storms nor frosts had cooled it. The big trout had risen from
the deep places, but were not yet quickened enough to take my
flies; so, trout hungry, I had gone trolling for them with a
minnow. I had taken two good fish, and was moving slowly by the
mouth of the bay, Simmo at the paddle, when a suspicious movement
on the shore attracted my attention. I passed the line to Simmo,
the better to use my glasses, and was scanning the alders
sharply, when a cry of wonder came from the Indian. "O bah cosh,
see! das second time I catchum, Koskomenos." And there, twenty
feet above the lake, a young kingfisher--one of Koskomenos'
frowzy-headed, wild-eyed-youngsters--was whirling wildly at the
end of my line. He had seen the minnow trailing a hundred feet
astern and, with more hunger than discretion, had swooped for it
promptly. Simmo, feeling the tug but seeing nothing behind him,
had struck promptly, and the hook went home.
I seized the line and began to pull in gently. The young
kingfisher came most unwillingly, with a continuous clatter of
protest that speedily brought Koskomenos and his mate, and two or
three of the captive's brethren, in a wild, clamoring about the
canoe. They showed no lack of courage, but swooped again and
again at the line, and even at the man who held it. In a moment I
had the youngster in my hand, and had disengaged the hook. He was
not hurt at all, but terribly frightened; so I held him a little
while, enjoying the excitement of the others, whom the captive's
alarm rattle kept circling wildly about the canoe. It was
noteworthy that not another bird heeded the cry or came near.
Even in distress they refused to recognize the outcast. Then, as
Koskomenos hovered on quivering wings just over my head, I tossed
the captive close up beside him. "There, Koskomenos, take your
young chuckle-head, and teach him better wisdom. Next time you
see me stalking a bear, please go on with your fishing."
But there was no note of gratitude in the noisy babel that swept
up the bay after the kingfishers. When I saw them again, they
were sitting on a dead branch, five of them in a row, chuckling
and clattering all at once, unmindful of the minnows that played
beneath them. I have no doubt that, in their own way, they were
telling each other all about it.
MEEKO THE MISCHIEF-MAKER
There is a curious Indian legend about Meeko the red
squirrel--the Mischief-Maker, as the Milicetes call him--which is
also an excellent commentary upon his character. Simmo told it to
me, one day, when we had caught Meeko coming out of a
woodpecker's hole with the last of a brood of fledgelings in his
mouth, chuckling to himself over his hunting.
Long ago, in the days when Clote Scarpe ruled the animals, Meeko
was much larger than he is now, large as Mooween the bear. But
his temper was so fierce, and his disposition so altogether bad
that all the wood folk were threatened with destruction. Meeko
killed right and left with the temper of a weasel, who kills from
pure lust of blood. So Clote Scarpe, to save the little
woods-people, made Meeko smaller--small as he is now.
Unfortunately, Clote Scarpe forgot Meeko's disposition; that
remained as big and as bad as before. So now Meeko goes about the
woods with a small body and a big temper, barking, scolding,
quarreling and, since he cannot destroy in his rage as before,
setting other animals by the ears to destroy each other.
When you have listened to Meeko's scolding for a season, and have
seen him going from nest to nest after innocent fledgelings; or
creeping into the den of his big cousin, the beautiful gray
squirrel, to kill the young; or driving away his little cousin,
the chipmunk, to steal his hoarded nuts; or watching every fight
that goes on in the woods, jeering and chuckling above it,--then
you begin to understand the Indian legend.
Spite of his evil ways, however, he is interesting and always
unexpected. When you have watched the red squirrel that lives
near your camp all summer, and think you know all about him, he
does the queerest thing, good or bad, to upset all your theories
and even the Indian legends about him.
I remember one that greeted me, the first living thing in the
great woods, as I ran my canoe ashore on a wilderness river.
Meeko heard me coming. His bark sounded loudly, in a big spruce,
above the dip of the paddles. As we turned shoreward, he ran down
the tree in which he was, and out on a fallen log to meet us. I
grasped a branch of the old log to steady the canoe and watched
him curiously. He had never seen a man before; he barked, jeered,
scolded, jerked his tail, whistled, did everything within his
power to make me show my teeth and my disposition.
Suddenly he grew excited--and when Meeko grows excited the woods
are not big enough to hold him. He came nearer and nearer to my
canoe till he leaped upon the gunwale and sat there chattering,
as if he were Adjidaumo come back again and I were Hiawatha. All
the while he had poured out a torrent of squirrel talk, but now
his note changed; jeering and scolding and curiosity went out of
it; something else crept in. I began to feel, somehow, that he
was trying to make me understand something, and found me very
stupid about it.
I began to talk quietly, calling him a rattle-head and a
disturber of the peace. At the first sound of my voice he
listened with intense curiosity, then leaped to the log, ran the
length of it, jumped down and began to dig furiously among the
moss and dead leaves. Every moment or two he would stop, and jump
to the log to see if I were watching him.
Presently he ran to my canoe, sprang upon the gunwale, jumped
back again, and ran along the log as before to where he had been
digging. He did it again, looking back at me and saying plainly:
"Come here; come and look." I stepped out of the canoe to the old
log, whereupon Meeko went off into a fit of terrible excitement.
--I was bigger than he expected; I had only two legs;
kut-e-k'chuck, kut-e-k'chuck! whit, whit, whit, kut-e-k'chuck!
I stood where I was until he got over his excitement. Then he
came towards me, and led me along the log, with much chuckling
and jabbering, to the hole in the leaves where he had been
digging. When I bent over it he sprang to a spruce trunk, on a
level with my head, fairly bursting with excitement, but watching
me with intensest interest. In the hole I found a small lizard,
one of the rare kind that lives under logs and loves the dusk. He
had been bitten through the back and disabled. He could still use
legs, tail and head feebly, but could not run away. When I picked
him up and held him in my hand, Meeko came closer with
loud-voiced curiosity, longing to leap to my hand and claim his
own, but held back by fear.--"What is it? He's mine; I found him.
What is it?" he barked, jumping about as if bewitched. Two
curiosities, the lizard and the man, were almost too much for
him. I never saw a squirrel more excited. He had evidently found
the lizard by accident, bit him to keep him still, and then,
astonished by the rare find, hid him away where he could dig him
out and watch him at leisure.
I put the lizard back into the hole and covered him with leaves;
then went to unloading my canoe. Meeko watched me closely. And
the moment I was gone he dug away the leaves, took his treasure
out, watched it with wide bright eyes, bit it once more to keep
it still, and covered it up again carefully. Then he came
chuckling along to where I was putting up my tent.
In a week he owned the camp, coming and going at his own will,
stealing my provisions when I forgot to feed him, and scolding me
roundly at every irregular occurrence. He was an early riser and
insisted on my conforming to the custom. Every morning he would
leap at daylight from a fir tip to my ridgepole, run it along to
the front and sit there, barking and whistling, until I put my
head out of my door, or until Simmo came along with his axe. Of
Simmo and his axe Meeko had a mortal dread, which I could not
understand till one day when I paddled silently back to camp and,
instead of coming up the path, sat idly in my canoe watching the
Indian, who had broken his one pipe and now sat making another
out of a chunk of black alder and a length of nanny bush.
Simmo was as interesting to watch, in his way, as any of the wood
folk.
Presently Meeko came down, chattering his curiosity at seeing the
Indian so still and so occupied. A red squirrel is always unhappy
unless he knows all about everything. He watched from the nearest
tree for a while, but could not make up his mind what was doing.
Then he came down on the ground and advanced a foot at a time,
jumping up continually but coming down in the same spot, barking
to make Simmo turn his head and show his hand. Simmo watched out
of the corner of his eye until Meeko was near a solitary tree
which stood in the middle of the camp ground, when he jumped up
suddenly and rushed at the squirrel, who sprang to the tree and
ran to a branch out of reach, snickering and jeering.
Simmo took his axe deliberately and swung it mightily at the foot
of the tree, as if to chop it down; only he hit the trunk with
the head, not,the blade of his weapon. At the first blow, which
made his toes tingle, Meeko stopped jeering and ran higher. Simmo
swung again and Meeko went up another notch. So it went on, Simmo
looking up intently to see the effect and Meeko running higher
after each blow, until the tiptop was reached. Then Simmo gave a
mighty whack; the squirrel leaped far out and came to the
ground, sixty feet below; picked himself up, none the worse for
his leap, and rushed scolding away to his nest. Then Simmo said
umpfh! like a bear, and went back to his pipemaking. He had not
smiled nor relaxed the intent expression of his face during the
whole little comedy.
I found out afterwards that making Meeko jump from a tree top is
one of the few diversions of Indian children. I tried it myself
many times with many squirrels, and found to my astonishment that
a jump from any height, however great, is no concern to a
squirrel, red or gray. They have a way of flattening the body and
bushy tail against the air, which breaks their fall. Their
bodies, and especially their bushy tails, have a curious
tremulous motion, like the quiver of wings, as they come down.
The flying squirrel's sailing down from a tree top to another
tree, fifty feet away, is but an exaggeration, due to the
membrane connecting the fore and hind legs, of what all squirrels
practice continually. I have seen a red squirrel land lightly
after jumping from an enormous height, and run away as if nothing
unusual had happened. But though I have watched them often, I
have never seen a squirrel do this except when compelled to do
so. When chased by a weasel or a marten, or when the axe beats
against the trunk below --either because the vibration hurts
their feet, or else they fear the tree is being cut down--they
use the strange gift to save their lives. But I fancy it is a
breathless experience, and they never try it for fun, though I
have seen them do all sorts of risky stumps in leaping from
branch to branch.
It is a curious fact that, though a squirrel leaps from a great
height without hesitation, it is practically impossible to make
him take a jump of a few feet to the ground. Probably the upward
rush of air, caused by falling a long distance, is necessary to
flatten the body enough to make him land lightly.
It would be interesting to know whether the raccoon also, a
large, heavy animal, has the same way of breaking his fall when
he jumps from a height. One bright moonlight night, when I ran
ahead of the dogs, I saw a big coon leap from a tree to the
ground, a distance of some thirty or forty feet. The dogs had
treed him in an evergreen, and he left them howling below while
he stole silently from branch to branch until a good distance
away, when to save time he leaped to the ground. He struck with a
heavy thump, but ran on uninjured as swiftly as before, and gave
the dogs a long run before they treed him again.
The sole of a coon's foot is padded thick with fat and gristle,
so that it must feel like landing on springs when he jumps; but I
suspect that he also knows the squirrel trick of flattening his
body and tail against the air so as to fall lightly.
The chipmunk seems to be the only one of the squirrel family in
whom this gift is wanting. Possibly he has it also, if the need
ever comes. I fancy, however, that he would fare badly if
compelled to jump from a spruce top, for his body is heavy and
his tail small from long living on the ground; all of which seems
to indicate that the tree-squirrel's bushy tail is given him, not
for ornament, but to aid his passage from branch to branch, and
to break his fall when he comes down from a height.
By way of contrast with Meeko, you may try a curious trick on the
chipmunk. It is not easy to get him into a tree; he prefers a log
or an old wall when frightened; and he is seldom more than two or
three jumps from his den. But watch him as he goes from his
garner to the grove where the acorns are, or to the field where
his winter corn is ripening. Put yourself near his path (he
always follows the same one to and fro) where there is no refuge
close at hand. Then, as he comes along, rush at him suddenly and
he will take to the nearest tree in his alarm. When he recovers
from his fright--which is soon over; for he is the most trustful
of squirrels and looks down at you with interest, never
questioning your motives--take a stick and begin to tap the tree
softly. The more slow and rhythmical your tattoo the sooner he is
charmed. Presently he comes down closer and closer, his eyes
filled with strange wonder. More than once I have had a chipmunk
come to my hand and rest upon it, looking everywhere for the
queer sound that brought him down, forgetting fright and
cornfield and coming winter in his bright curiosity.
Meeko is a bird of another color. He never trusts you nor anybody
else fully, and his curiosity is generally of the vulgar, selfish
kind. When the autumn woods are busy places, and wings flutter
and little feet go pattering everywhere after winter supplies, he
also begins garnering, remembering the hungry days of last
winter. But he is always more curious to see what others are
doing than to fill his own bins. He seldom trusts to one
storehouse--he is too suspicious for that--but hides his things
in twenty different places; some shagbarks in the old wall, a
handful of acorns in a hollow tree, an ear of corn under the
eaves of the old barn, a pint of chestnuts scattered about in the
trees, some in crevices in the bark, some in a pine crotch
covered carefully with needles, and one or two stuck firmly into
the splinters of every broken branch that is not too conspicuous.
But he never gathers much at a time. The moment he sees anybody
else gathering he forgets his own work and goes spying to see
where others are hiding their store. The little chipmunk, who
knows his thieving and his devices, always makes one turn, at
least, in the tunnel to his den too small for Meeko to follow.
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