Part 3
A little later Old Roby hove into sight, singing _ough! ough! oooooooh!_ in jubilation of the melancholy joy he followed. Clean over the bridge he went, head up, picking the rich scent from the air rather than from the ground, and took three or four jumps into the meadow before he discovered that the fox was no longer ahead of him. Then he came out of his trance, circled over the bridge, poked his nose into the tunnel. There before his bulging eyes was the fox, and in his nostrils was a reek to drive any foxhound crazy. “Ow-wow! here’s the villain at last! And, woooo! what won’t I do to him!” yelled Roby, pulling out his head and lifting it over the edge of the bridge for a mighty howl of exultation. Again he thrust his nose into the tunnel and began to dig furiously; but the sight of the fox, so near, so reeky, so surely caught at last, set the old dog’s heart leaping and his tongue a-clamoring. Every other minute he would stop digging, back out of the tunnel for room, for air, and lifting his head over the bridge send up to heaven another jubilation.
Now Roby was bow-legged, as many foxhounds are that run too young; also he was apt to spread his feet as he howled, so that there was plenty of room to pass under him, and when his head was lifted up for joy he could see nothing but the sky. He had been alternately digging and celebrating for some time, working his way farther under the bridge, when as he raised his head for another bowl of relief a flash of yellow passed between his bowlegs, out under his belly and up over the hill. The thing was done so boldly that it made one gasp, so quickly that a living streak seemed to be drawn through the woods; but the entranced old dog saw nothing of it. When he thrust his head confidently into the tunnel once more, there was no fox and no pungent odor of fox where landscape and smellscape had just been filled with foxiness.
Roby looked a second time and sniffed with a loud sniffing to be sure he was not dreaming. He looked all over the bridge, and sat down upon it. He examined the ditch on the other or closed side, and took a final squint into the tunnel; while every line and hair of him from furrowed face to ratty tail proclaimed that he considered himself the foolishest of all fool dogs that ever thought they could catch a fox. Then he shook his ears violently, as if ridding himself of hallucinations, and began to cast about methodically in circles. A fresh reek of fox poured into his nostrils, filling him with the old ecstasy; he threw up his head for a glad hoot, and went pounding up the hill after his nose, singing _ough! ough! oooooh!_ as an epitome of all fox hunting.
Whenever I heard the hounds after that, I pictured comedy afoot and followed it eagerly, still roaming alone in hope of meeting the fox, and making myself a nuisance to many a proper fox hunter who, waiting expectantly for a shot, heard the chase draw away and fell to cursing the luck or the mischief that had turned the fox from his runway. So it befell, one winter, that I saw Old Roby and a pack of hounds completely fooled by a fox that lay quietly watching them while they hunted and howled for his lost trail.
The place was a deep gully in some big woods. Its sides were covered with a mat of vines and bushes; at the bottom ran a stream, too broad to jump and too swift to freeze even in severe weather. Several times an old fox had been “lost” here, his trail leading straight to the gully, and vanishing as completely as if the river had swallowed him up. He was frequently started in some rugged hills to the westward, and would commonly play back and forth from one ridge to another till he wearied of the game, or till he met a hunter and felt the sting of shot on a runway, when he would break away eastward at top speed. For a mile or more his course could be traced by the hounds giving tongue on a hot scent until they reached the gully, where their steady trail-cry changed to howls of vexation. And that was the end of the chase for that day, unless the weary dogs had ambition enough to hunt up another fox.
At first it was assumed that the game had run into a ledge, as red foxes do when they are fagged or wounded; but when hunters followed their baffled dogs time and again, they always found them running wildly up and down both banks of the stream, looking for a trail which they never found. Then some said that the fox had a secret den, which he approached by running over a tangle of vines where the hounds could not follow; but one old hunter, who had chased foxes for half a century, settled the matter briefly. “My dogs,” he said, “can follow anything that runs above ground. They can’t follow this fox. Therefore he takes to water, like a buck, and swims so far downstream that we never find where he comes out.” Though nobody had ever seen a fox take to water, a man who has followed foxes half a century is ready to believe almost anything within reason.
On stormy nights the hunters would forgather at the village store, and whenever the talk turned to the old fox of the gully I was all ears. I knew the place well, and wondered why some Nimrod, instead of merely shooting foxes or theorizing about them, did not take the simplest means of solving the mystery; but it would have been foolhardy in that veteran company to venture a new opinion on the ancient sport of fox hunting. I remember once, when they were swapping yarns, of breaking rashly into the conversation to tell of a fox I had seen at a lucky moment when he did not see me. He was nosing along the edge of a wood, and I threw a chunk of wood after him as he moved away. It missed him by a foot, and he pounced upon it like a flash as it went bouncing among the dead leaves.
Now that was perhaps the most natural thing for any hungry fox to do, to catch a thing which ran away, instead of asking where it came from; but the veterans received the tale in grim silence. One told me that I had surely seen a “sidehill garger”; another wished he could have seen it, too; the rest pestered me unmercifully about the beast all winter. One of them is now in his dotage; but he never meets me without asking, “Son, did that ’ere fox really run arter that chunk of wood you hove at him?” And when I answer, “Yes, he did, and caught it,” he says, “Well, well, well!” in a way to indicate that he has been straining at that gnat for forty years. Heaven only knows how many fox-hunting camels he has swallowed in the interim.
One Saturday morning (a glorious day it was, with all signs pointing to a good fox run) I went early to the gully, crossed it, and hid where I had a view up or down the stream. Several times during the day I heard hounds in the offing, but the chase did not head in my direction. When the winter sunset came, and an owl began to hoot in the darkening woods, it was time for a hungry boy to go home.
The next time I had better luck. From some hills far away the hoot of hounds came clear and sweet through the still air; then the flat report of a gun, a brief silence, a renewed clamor, and my ears began to tingle as the hunt drew my way, louder and louder. Suddenly there was a flash of ruddy color, warm and brilliant on the snow; the fox appeared on the farther side of the gully, slipped over the edge at a slow trot, and disappeared among the vines.
I was watching the stream keenly when the same flash of color caught my eye, again on the other side, but some fifty yards above where the fox had vanished. He bounded lightly up the steep bank, sprang to the level above, listened a moment to the dogs, ran along the edge a short distance, dropped down into the vines, came up quickly, and scuttled back again in another place. There were fleeting glimpses of orange fur as he dodged here or there, now near the stream, now among the thickest vines; then he tiptoed up and stood alert in the open, at the precise spot, apparently, where he had first entered the gully. After cocking his ears once more at the increasing clamor of hounds, he headed back toward them into the woods; and I had the impression that he was carefully stepping in his own footprints, back-tracking, as many hunted creatures do. So he went, cat-footedly at first, then in swift jumps, till he came to a huge tree that had been twisted off by a gale, leaving a slanting stub some fifteen feet high. Here Eleemos took a flying leap at the stub, scrambled up it with almost the ease of a squirrel, and disappeared into the top.
[Illustration: “_He scrambled up it with almost the ease of a squirrel and disappeared into the top._”]
The hounds were by this time close at hand. A wild burst of music preceded them as they rushed into sight, heads up, giving tongue at every jump, and followed the hot trail headlong over the gully’s edge into the vines. Evidently the fox had run about most liberally there; in a moment the bounds were tangled in a pretty crisscross, lost all sense of direction, and broke out in lamentation. Most of them went threshing about the gully till the delicate fox trail was covered by a maze of dog tracks; but one old fellow, who had been through the same mill before, lay down in an open spot and rolled about on his back, his feet in the air, as if to say, “Well, here’s the end of this chase.” Another veteran with furrowed face and a deep, sad voice (it was Roby again), managed to nose out half the puzzle, for he came creeping up over the edge of the gully at the point where the fox had first leaped out; but there he ran up and down, up and down, finding plenty of fresh scent everywhere without being able to follow it to any end except the empty vines. Another hound, a youngster with a notion in his head that anything which runs must go ahead, plunged into the stream, swam it, and went casting about the woods on the farther side.
Meanwhile there was a stir, the ghost of a motion, in the leaning stub. Over the top of it came two furry ears, then a pointed nose and a bright yellow eye. The fox was there, watching every play of the game with intense interest; and in his cocked ears, his inquisitive nose, his wrinkling eyebrows, were the same lively expressions that you see in the face of a fox when he is hunting mice, and thinks he hears one rustling about in the frozen grass.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PLAYERS IN SABLE
In severe weather, when snow lay deep on the silent fields, a few crows would enter the yard in view of my birds’ table, sitting aloof in trees where they could view the feast, but making no attempt to join it. I did not then know that crows are nest-robbers, like the jay, or that the smallest bird at the table was ready to bristle his feathers if one of the black bandits approached too near.
For several days, while the crows grew pinched, I waited expectantly for hunger to tame them, only to learn that a crow never ventures into a flock of smaller birds, being absurdly afraid of their quickness of wing and temper. Then, because any hungry thing always appealed to me, I spread a variety of food, scraps of meat and the entrails of fish or fowl, on a special table at a distance; but the crows would not go near it, probably thinking it some new device to insnare them. They have waged a long battle with the farmer, and the battle has bred in them a suspicion that not even hunger can heal. As a last resort, I scattered food carelessly on the snow, and within the hour the hungry fellows were eating it. Their first meal was a revelation to me; no gobbling or quarreling, but a stately and courteous affair of very fine manners. Nor have I ever seen a crow do anything to belie that first impression.
Among the scraps was some field corn, dry and hard from the crib; but the canny birds knew too much to swallow the grain whole, ravenous though they were. Green or soft corn they will eat with gusto, but ripened field corn calls for proper treatment. Each crow would take a single kernel (never more than that at one time) to a flat rock on the nearest wall, and there, holding the kernel between the toes of a foot, would strike it a powerful blow with his pointed beak. I used to tremble for his toes, remembering my own experience with hammer or hatchet; but every crow proved himself a good shot. Occasionally a descending beak might glance from the outer edge of a kernel, sending it spinning out from under the crow’s foot; whereupon he hopped nimbly after it and brought it back to the block. After a trial or two he would hit it squarely in the “eye”; it would fly into bits, and he would gather up every morsel before going back for a fresh supply.
Once when a hungry crow splintered a kernel in this way, I saw a piece fly to the feet of another crow, who bent his head to eat it as the owner came running up. The two bandits bumped together; but instead of fighting over the titbit, as I expected, they drew back quickly with a sense of “Oh, excuse me!” in their nodding heads and half-spread wings. Then they went through a little comedy of manners, “After you, my dear Alphonse” or “You first, my dear Gaston,” till they settled the order of precedence in some way of their own, when the owner ate his morsel and went back to the wall to find the rest of the fragments.
Watching these crows, with their sable dress and stately manners, it was hard to imagine them off their dignity; but I soon learned that they are rare comedians, that they spend more time in play or mere fooling than any other wild creature of my acquaintance, excepting only the otters. I have repeatedly watched them play games, somewhat similar in outward appearance to games that boys used to play in country school yards, and once I witnessed what seemed to be a good crow joke. Indeed, so sociable are they, so dependent on one another for amusement, that a solitary crow is a great rarity at any season. Twice have I seen a white crow (an albino), but never a crow living by himself.
The joke, or what looked like a joke, occurred when I was a small boy. I was eating my lunch in a shady spot at the edge of a berry pasture when a young crow appeared silently in a pine tree, only a few yards away. A deformed tree it was, with a splintered top. In the distance a flock of crows were calling idly, and the youngster seemed to cock his ears to listen. Presently he set up a distressed wailing, which the flock answered on the instant. When a flurry of wings leaped into sight above the trees, the youngster dodged into the splintered pine, and remained there while a score of his fellows swept back and forth over him, and then went to search a grove of pines beyond. When they flew back across the berry pasture, and only an occasional _haw_ came from the distance, the young crow came out and set up another wail; and again the flock went clamoring all over the place without finding where he was hidden.
The play ended in an uproar, as such affairs commonly end among the crows; but whether the uproar spelled anger or hilarity would be hard to tell. The youngster had called and hidden several times; each time the flock returned in great excitement, circled over the neighborhood, and straggled back to the place whence they had come. Then one crow must have hidden and watched, I think, for he came with a rush behind the youngster, and caught him in the midst of his wailing. A sharp signal brought the flock straight to the spot, and with riotous _haw-hawing_ they chased the joker out of sight and hearing.
It was this little comedy which taught me how easily crows can be called, and I began to have no end of fun with them. In the spring when they were mating, or in autumn when immense flocks gathered in preparation for sending the greater part of their number to the seacoast for winter, I had only to hide and imitate the distressed call I had heard, and presto! a flock of excited crows would be clamoring over my head. Yet I noticed this peculiarity: at times every crow within hearing would come to my first summons; while at other times they would bide in their trees or hold steadily on their way, answering my call, but paying no further attention to it. I mark that crows still act in the same puzzling way, now coming instantly, again holding aloof; but what causes one or the other action, aside from mere curiosity, I have never learned. In the northern wilderness, where crows are comparatively scarce, it is almost impossible to call them at any season. They live there in small family groups, each holding its own bit of territory; and apparently they know each voice so perfectly that they recognize my imposture on the instant.
Whenever the “civilized” crows found me, after hearing my invitation, they rarely seemed to associate me with the crow talk they had just heard; for they would go searching elsewhere, and would readily come to my call in another part of the wood. If I were well concealed, and they found nothing to account for the disturbance, most of the flock would go about their affairs; but some were almost sure to wait near at hand for hours, apparently standing guard over the place where I had been calling.
Once at midday I called a large flock to a thicket of scrub pine, and resolved to see the end of the adventure. Though they circled over me again and again, they learned nothing; for I kept well hidden, and a crow will not enter thick scrub where he cannot use his wings freely. Late in the afternoon it set in to rain, and I thought that the crows were all gone away, since they paid no more attention to my calling; but the first thing I saw when my head came out of the scrub was a solitary crow on guard. He was on the tip of a hickory tree, hunched up in the rain, and he gave one derisive _haw_ as I appeared. From behind came an answering _haw_, and I had a glimpse of another crow that had evidently been keeping watch over the other side of the thicket.
Next I discovered that my dignified crows are always ready for fun at the expense of other birds or beasts, and especially do they make holiday of an owl whenever they have the luck to find one asleep for the day. To wake him up, berate him, and follow him with peace-shattering clamor from one retreat to another, seems to furnish them unfailing entertainment. I have watched them many times when they were pestering an owl or a hawk or a running fox, and once I saw them square themselves for all the indignity they had suffered at the beaks of little birds by paying it back with interest to a bald eagle. These last were certainly making a picnic of their rare occasion; never again have I seen crows so crazily happy, or a free eagle so helpless and so furious.
It was on the shore of a river, near the sea, in midwinter. The eagle may have come down to earth after a dead fish, unmindful of crows that were ranging about; but I think it more likely that they had cornered him in an unguarded moment, as they are themselves often cornered by sparrows or robins. Have you seen a crowd of small birds chivvy a crow that they catch in the open, whirling about his slow flight till they drive him to cover and sit around him, scolding him violently for all the nests he has robbed; while he cowers in the middle of the angry circle, very uncomfortable where he is, but afraid to move lest he bring another tempest around his ears? That is how the lordly eagle now stood on the open shore, twisting his head uneasily, his eyes flashing impotent fury. Around him in a jubilant circle were half-a-hundred crows, some watchfully silent, some jeering; and behind him on a rock perched one glossy old bandit, his head cocked for trouble, his eye shining. “Oh, if I could only grip some of you!” said the eagle. “If I could only get these” (working his great claws) “into your black hides! If I could once get aloft, where I could use my--”
He crouched suddenly and sprang, his broad wings threshing heavily. “Haw! haw! To him, my bullies!” yelled the old crow on the rock, hurling himself into the air, shooting over the eagle and ripping a white feather from the royal neck. In a flash the whole rabble was over and around the laboring lord of the air, pecking at his head, interfering with his flight, making a din to crack his ears. He stood it for a turbulent moment, then dropped, and the jeering circle closed around him instantly. He was a thousand times more powerful, more dangerous than any crow; but they were smaller and quicker than he, and they knew it, and he knew it. That was the comedy of what might have been imagined a tragical situation.
Twice, while I watched, the eagle tried to escape, and twice the crows chivvied him down to earth, the only place where he is impotent. Then he gave up all thought of the blue sky and freedom, standing majestically on his dignity, his eyes half closed, as if the sight of such puny babblers wearied him. But under the narrowed lids was a fierce gleam that kept his tormentors at a safe distance. Then a man with a gun blundered upon the stage, and spoiled the play.