Part 14
I was on my way to the next barren when, from a point of woods on my left, a spikehorn bull came out on the trot, making me freeze in my tracks once more. Whether he mistook me for one of his tribe or was a bit moonstruck, as every other creature seemed to be that night, I could not tell. He ran up as if he had been expecting me, and thrust his nose within a yard of my face, so near that I saw his eyes glow like foxfire in the moonlight; then without a word he brushed past and ran away down the caribou trail.
I had taken only a few steps after the spikehorn left me, and was about to enter the woods to cross to the next barren, when a vixen squalled out loudly, as a cat squalls when you step on her tail. Instantly three or four young foxes, her cubs, undoubtedly, rushed out and scurried all over the trail at my feet. From the woods came a lively outcry, a petulant, bagpipey droning; but it was some time before the cubs paid enough attention to it to dive headlong for cover. And then I heard squalls of a different tenor, one angry, another protesting, as if some youngster were getting nipped for his heedlessness.
Such nights come very rarely, perhaps once in a long season of watching wild animals; and always they affect a man queerly, as if some lunacy were abroad, and he must share it with other natural creatures. I remember vividly one night, many years ago, so different from all others that it seemed to do violence to my experience of the quiet wilderness. The time was September, and the place a wild lake which is still, I am told, the best big-game region in New Brunswick. It was then an unhunted solitude.
During the day I had been ranging the woods, and had noticed that flocking birds were acting strangely, as chickens grow erratic when the barometer is rapidly falling. Yet no storm threatened; the weather, as I remember it, had been for some days unusually brilliant. Late in the afternoon, as I was catching a supper of trout at the inlet of the lake, Kook’skoos the horned owl suddenly started a racket; not his deep hunting call, but an uncanny _hoo-hooing_ up and down the scale, as if he were possessed by some crazy notion. He was answered by others of his kind here or there; and when I stalked the nearest, to find out what was afoot, he upset all my notions of the solemn birds without giving me even a hint of answer to my question. Instead of perching on the top of a stub so as to look like a part of it, as horned owls habitually do, he was hopping up and down a horizontal branch, as if dancing a _pas seul_. Instead of holding perfectly still save for a vibration of the throat when he sent forth his call, as I had often seen him, he would swoop almost to the ground and whirl about in fantastic circles, at the same time uttering a rapid, guttural note, which ended in a wild yell as he sailed back to his perch.
When I reached camp after sundown, the excitement seemed to have spread widely to others. Kupkawis the barred owl was then going about demanding, _Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?_ and breaking out in wild clack-clacking before anybody could answer him.
By that time there was a tingle in the air, such as one feels before an electrical storm. Simmo, my smoky companion, was uneasy. I noticed that his eyes had no rest, that they were searching lake or sky or somber forest continually; but I did not question him, having learned to hold my tongue with an Indian; nor did I know enough about the woods to expect anything unusual. Besides, my thoughts were mostly on moose just then. I had found a pond hidden away among low hills and caribou bogs, its shores pitted with moose tracks, among which the slots of a monster bull appealed to my imagination. I intended to call him that night, and had carefully spotted the trail I must follow. When I told Simmo, who did not like my nocturnal rambles, he broke silence to advise me soberly.
“Now I goin’ tell you one t’ing: bes’ don’t go,” he said. “An’ if you do go, bes’ look out; be careful. Moose not hunted here, like down settlement way. I hear-um bull two, t’ree time, an’ he _mitcheego_, very cross. He come quick to-night if you call-um, an’ he don’t ’fraid of not’ing.”
No sooner was twilight come than a wild calling began, and the woods were as near to noisy as I shall ever hear them. Loons were yelling, owls hooting, ducks quacking, and foxes yapping in all directions. At frequent intervals came the plaint of a black bear, a rare cry, and the loneliest you will ever hear in the night. When the moon rose in a marvelously clear sky I crossed the lake and entered the dim trail that led to my moose pond.
I was following the trail cautiously, feeling my way between a cedar swamp and a burnt hillside, when just ahead of me rang out a screech that seemed to split the air. It was an appalling sound in that lonely place; my skin wrinkled under it, like a dog’s skin under the lash. Again it sounded, making me cringe, though I was waiting for it. It was answered from the hill, and I began to suspect the creature that made it when a caterwauling began which made night hideous. The beasts were approaching each other slowly, screeching as they went, when up through the cedar swamp came a snarling, yowling, unseen thing that sped along the ground with the rush of an arrow. The three lynxes flew together in a rowdydow that spoke of tearing one another to ribbons; yet they were not fighting at all, I think, for when I crept near I could hear no sound of struggle, but only a fiendish yelling. When the rumpus seemed almost under my nose it ceased abruptly; there was no lynx in sight, nor any moving shadow to say what had become of them.
At any ordinary time such an outcry seems to stun the wilderness into deeper silence; but now it had an opposite effect, as if it were an alarm for which wild ears had been waiting. In the dark swamp, on the hillside flooded with pale light, even in the air overhead, alert creatures were moving or crying in nameless excitement. As I went on, following the dim trail, the woods on either side seemed alive with rustlings, some of which were surely not imaginary. Wood mice were abroad, scores of them, it seemed, for the moonlight caught the white edges of their scurrying tails; and within a short space I passed four or five porcupines. Every one of the prickly fellows had climbed to the top of a slender tree, and was perched there, swaying and whining. Birds that sleep by night were peeping or stirring in the shadows. Herons and bitterns, which are always restless when the moon shines, were circling by threes or fours over every lake and bog; while questing individuals winged their way from one group to another, as if seeking or bearing strange news.
Pausing under one of these groups, I would hear the hoarse _kruk-kruk_ of a blue heron drawing nearer, nearer. Suddenly from the air above would come a sharp question, a challenge flung at my head, as the great birds discovered me. Whether by night or day, nothing can remain hidden from their bright yellow eyes. I would see a vague motion, as of wings, emerging from the silver radiance or melting away into it, like gleams and shadows in the eddy of a river under the moonlight. The wings would vanish going I knew not whither; but far and wide forest and lake and caribou barren would all be ringing to the heron’s challenge, _Quoskh? Quoskh-quoskh?_ And I understood then why Indians call this bird the night’s question.
[Illustration: “_Their very attitude made me feel queer, for they were in touch with a matter of which I had no warning._”]
I had left the lake behind and was traveling through a stratum of silence, a restful silence which I devoutly hoped might endure, when an uproar of moose--grunts, splashings, the ring of smitten antler blades--sounded not far away in the direction I was heading. As I emerged from the woods upon the barren that bordered my moose pond, two bulls were having an argument in the shallow water near shore. At first they seemed to be fighting, mud and water flying over them as they surged about with locked antlers; but I soon judged them to be youngsters that were trying their strength while waiting for something else to happen. At intervals they would listen intently to a message I could not hear; then they would drop heads, lock antlers once more, and strive mightily to push each other over.
As they backed away from one of these encounters the nearer bull turned and threw his nose into the wind. The other, instead of driving brow prongs into his rival’s flank (as he surely would have done had they been fighting), took a step toward shore, and both stood at tense attention. Their attitude made me feel queer, for they were in touch with a matter of which I had no warning. Something was passing yonder on the hill, something too fine or distant for me to sense, and the moose were following every rumor of it minutely. Suddenly they leaped from the water, laid their antlers back, thrust their great muzzles out ahead of them, and raced away side by side. They passed close by my hiding place, heading for the thing to which they had been listening.
A little later I began calling from a point of evergreen that thrust itself into the barren from the southern side. Before me and on either hand stretched the level bog, misty and unreal, ringed about by dark woods. Beyond the bog to the right, whither the bulls had gone, rose low hills with pointed spruces standing over them like sentinels. On my left at a little distance was the pond, its placid face glimmering like silver in the moonlight.
Such was the stage, ideal in the perfection of its setting, on which I expected a shy and solitary actor to appear at my summons. Of the moose-caller’s art I knew very little, having at odd times tried to imitate Simmo, who was an excellent caller, but, like all his secretive tribe, an unwilling teacher. Without any preliminary whining, therefore, such as a careful caller employs on the chance that a bull may be near, I sent the bellow of a cow-moose rolling out of my birch-bark trumpet.
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
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.
The night was still and nipping cold. Big northern stars glittered over the spruce tops. The light of a waning moon wrought its magic on the frozen lake, its beautiful enchantment on the brooding forest. Under its spell every stately tree had an outline of burnished silver; massive rocks became shadowy and unreal; remote things drew near, and over nearer things was drawn a transparent veil, making them seem remote and mysterious. Through every dim avenue of the snowy woods went a luminous mist, working its wondrous transformation till one seemed to live in a world of dreams and illusions.
The howling ceased as I opened the camp door, but not before I had caught its general direction. In hope of hearing it again and of locating the wolves for my next day’s hunting, I headed toward them, following a snowshoe trail deep into the moonlit woods.
Suddenly to the northward a cry broke out, not the many-tongued uproar for which I listened, but a moan, a wail of unimaginable woe. A wolf’s voice, certainly, but a queer one, so unlike any other that I forgot all else in trying to read its meaning. This was no lunatic baying of the moon, such as must bring response from many wolves, each sitting alone with his nose to the sky. It was not the trail-cry that a wolf utters when he jumps big game and wants the pack to close in. It had no resemblance to the thrilling food call, which brings every hungry wolf within hearing to a kill; nor was it like the howl of a she-wolf, leader of the pack, when she calls her cubs to the hunting, and they come with the clamor of hounds unleashed. A single wolf, unanswered, was voicing some wild emotion in a cry for which I had no explanation. He would begin with a falsetto note, a wail like the keen of a banshee; without a break he would slide down to a full-chested roar, a monstrous, earth-filling sound, and taper off in a moan that made the woods shudder.
“If that brute matches his voice, he must be the father of all wolves,” I thought, feeling a chill in my spine that was not of the frosty night. “In the morning I shall run his trail to find out what he is doing, and get him if I can. Perhaps he is the loup-garou himself!”
Thus naturally, to a wailing accompaniment, I fell to thinking of a fearsome beast, the werewolf of Oriental and Western, of medieval and ancient belief. Even such wide limits of space or time are too narrow; the superstition has flourished wherever wolves and men are found. In corners of modern Europe and on fringes of the Canadian wilderness are people who still believe it; yes, and tremble. In all folklore, in Malory’s _Morte d’Arthur_, in books of witchcraft and books of werewolves, in judgments of criminal courts and acts of parliaments,--through all human records runs the red trail of the loup-garou, haunting the lonely roads, waylaying belated travelers, laying the spell of unearthly fear on all who hear his voice on a winter night.
Everywhere in these old records, as in tales still told by the Habitant’s fireside, the monster has the same gruesome qualities. He is a man “not of one skin” who assumes the form of a beast to gratify a debased appetite for human flesh. While in this shape he has the ferocity of the brute, the intelligence of a man, the cunning of his master the devil. Fear and pity are alike unknown to him. He is not to be shaken from any trail, nor can he be slain by mortal weapons. Being under an evil spell, only magic can overcome him, or bell, book and candle if you have no magic handy. As Drayton wrote:
About the fields religiously they went With hallowing charms, the werewolf thence to fray.
Which indicates that as late as Elizabethan times men had no thought of killing the loup-garou, but only of laying such a powerful charm on their outlying fields that he could not break through to approach their villages. With different emphasis the ancients call him “wolf-man,” the moderns “man-wolf”; but both agree that while he runs in a beast’s skin he looks precisely like a huge wolf; all but his eyes, which are human, and which betray him.
Such was the superstition, hoary with the fear of ages, which came moaning over the startled woods; and surely never were place and hour more propitious for its reception. In the region where I camped on a winter holiday the tracks of an enormous wolf had been seen at intervals for years past; the rumor of him was in every lumber camp, the fear of him in every village for fifty miles around. If a man vanished in the woods and was never seen again, what but the beast could have caught him and left no trace? At such a thought the Habitant would cross himself, hitch nearer the fire, and, if you were sympathetic, relate a blood-curdling tale of “_mon frère Bawteese_” or of “_bonhomme Philorum_” to prove that the loup-garou was still abroad, and terrible as ever.
The lone wolf ceased his cry, and presently in a different direction a pack of wolves set up a hair-raising ululation. These were the brutes that had called me out; after locating them for the morrow I went back to camp and to sleep.