Part 5
Another romantic trait of the terrible packs of the tale is that they always howl when they charge home. It is one of the marked characteristics of the real wolf that he is silent when stalking or running down game of any kind. His howling has nothing to do with his hunting, being reserved for social or other occasions; he wastes no breath in noise, as hounds do, when he means to overtake anything. Indeed, one of the most uncanny qualities of a wolf is the fleet, soundless, mysterious way he has of appearing where he is least expected. In the northern wilderness this is the typical way of it:
You are swinging along campward, following your lonely snowshoe trail over ice-locked waters, through snow-filled woods, when there comes a vague change or chill in the air. It is the moment when we say that night is falling, when gray shadows rise from the lake to meet other shadows flowing down from the hills; and that is the moment when you can count most surely on hearing the first howl of a stirring wolf. It is a creepy sound in such a place or moment, especially when it is followed by the clamor of a pack, a cry that carries far over the silent places, and that may come from the hills on either side or from the trail behind you. However far away it may be, there is always a menace in the wolf’s challenge; your nerves tingle as you stop to listen.
If you believe your imagination now, the fierce outcry grows louder, sweeps nearer; but if you trust your ears, you will know that it remains stationary, dying away where it began. Those noisy brutes are only proclaiming their ego, like awakened dogs; and having marked their direction you move homeward again, noting the increasing tension of the brief winter twilight, so different from the summer gloaming with its velvet shadows, its thrush song, its lingering light. Presently you have lost all thought of the distant wolves; if you remember them at all, you are thinking of the morrow’s hunt, how you will go back and search out their trail, when suddenly and most startlingly--there they are! And always the disturbing part of such a meeting is this: the wolves are behind you, in front of you, and on either side, before you have the first inkling that they are anywhere near.
So open is the forest here, and so white the snow, that you fancied a rabbit could hardly move without betraying himself to your eyes; yet without noise or shadow of motion surely that is a wolf watching you over a fallen log, where you can see only his eyes and his cocked ears. On the other side of the trail a bush quivers as a wolf creeps under it, but you catch no sure glimpse of him. Look behind you, and a gray something vanishes; then the woods are motionless again. And that is all you will see or hear of your ferocious wolf pack, unless, perchance, you run away; in which event some cub-wolf that knows no better may take a jump or two after you.
These timber wolves of the north are immensely interesting brutes, tireless, powerful, unbelievably cunning. To follow their trail is to have increasing respect for their keenness, their vim, their hair-trigger way of meeting any emergency. Once when I was tracking a solitary dog wolf, an uncommonly big brute, and lazy after eating his fill of venison, I came out of the woods to a frozen lake, and saw him ambling along near shore a few hundred yards ahead of me. He happened to be passing under an icy ledge, utterly unsuspicious of man or danger, when a bullet struck the ice, _ping!_ at his heels.
That was a range shot, a bit shy, and I expected him to give me another chance; but he never even looked around to see where the _ping_ or the _bang_ came from. Almost, it seemed, before the report could reach him he had tried the ledge twice, only to find it overhigh for a standing jump and too slippery to climb. Without an instant’s hesitation he darted out on the lake for a flying start, whirled to the right-about, came at the ledge, and went superbly over it into thick cover. The ledge was over eight feet in the rise, and from the foot of it to his take-off was another ten feet; but in a flash he had measured his leap and taken it rather than expose himself any longer in the open.
Another time I saw a single wolf throw and kill a buck, a matter which called for skill as well as strength, and he did it so easily that one was left wondering what chance a man would have with a few brutes of that kind rolling in upon him. In numbers or when made reckless by hunger our timber wolves might well prove terrible enemies; but the simple fact is that they have no desire to meet a man. They are afraid of him, and avoid him even when they are hungry. Again and again, when wolves have howled about my winter camp at night, I have gone out and given them opportunity for a man hunt; but though they are much bolder by night than by day, they have never, save in one peculiar instance, shown any evidence of a hostile or dangerous disposition. And then they scared me properly, making me know how a man might feel if he were running with a pack of wolves at his heels.
The startling exception came one winter afternoon as I was crossing a frozen lake in a snowstorm. It was almost dusk when I came out of the woods, hurrying because I had far to go, and started fair across the middle of the lake. Soon the wind was blowing the snowflakes in level lines; what with snow and darkened air it became difficult to keep one’s bearings, and in order to see my way better I edged in nearer and nearer to the weather shore.
Two or three times, as I headed steadily up the lake, I had a vague impression that something moved in the woods, and moved so as to keep abreast of me; but the flying flakes interfered with clear vision till I began to come under the lee of a point of evergreens. Then I surely saw a creeping motion among the trees on my left, and stopped dead in my tracks to watch it. The next instant the underbrush was ripped open in a dozen places, and a pack of wolves rushed out. One turned and loped swiftly between me and the point ahead; another that I dared not watch sped down the lake, at a broad angle from the course of the first; the rest spread into a fan-shaped formation that broadened swiftly and must soon spring its ends together like a trap. In a twinkling every avenue of escape to the woods was shut by a wolf; there was left only a fight or a straightaway run across the ice.
[Illustration: “_The rest spread into a fan-shaped formation as they came straight on._”]
The wolves were perhaps a hundred yards distant when they broke cover. They came on easily, their heads low, some with a curious sidling motion that presented a rough shoulder till the fangs had a chance to snap. The brutes uttered no cry, not a howl of any kind. They had been upwind from me when I came out of the woods, and I think now that they mistook me in the storm for a deer or some other game animal; but at the moment their rush looked dangerous, and their grim silence was more terrifying than any clamor. Bending down, I threw off the snowshoe straps for free footing and, as I straightened up, pulled a heavy revolver from its sheath. Then I stood stock-still, which is the most surprising thing you can do to any charging wild beast. He is so accustomed to running away from danger himself, and to seeing other beasts run away from it, that a motionless figure puzzles him, makes him suspect that there must be a mistake somewhere.
From one end of the charging line a big wolf suddenly shot out at top speed, circling to get behind me. I picked him as the one I must first kill; but I would wait till the last moment for two reasons: because shooting must be straight, there being only half as many bullets as there were wolves; and because here was the chance of a lifetime to learn whether a wolf, knowing what he was doing, would ever run into a man. The mental process is slow and orderly now, but then it came and went with a snowflake that swept before my eyes.
As the big wolf whirled in on the run, still some forty yards away, the wind came fair from me to him; he got his first whiff of the man scent, and with it a terrible shock, I think, since its effect was a contortion which looked as if it might dislocate the brute’s back. At the top of a jump he tried to check himself by a violent wriggle. Down he came, his legs stiff as bars, and slid to his toes and leaped straight up again with a wild yelp, as if I had shot him. Yet up to that moment, when his nose told him what game he was running, I had not stirred a muscle.
That single yelp stopped the rush as if by magic. Most of the pack scattered on the instant; but two or three younger wolves that did not understand their blunder hesitated a bit, with surprise written all over them. Then they, too, caught the alarm, and the whole pack went speeding for cover in immense bounds, which grew convulsive when I began to play my part in the comedy. At the shot every flying brute went up in the air, as if safety lay only in the clouds or on the other side of the mountain.
Such are the real wolves. I see them yet, the snow powdering their grizzled coats, streaking away like flushed quail and vanishing with one last tremendous jump into the dusky woods, whenever I hear a good wolf story.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
EARS FOR HEARING
One night in June I heard a new bird note, wonderfully clear and sweet, but so dreamlike that it seemed some tiny creature had blown a flute from elfland. The note came from far away, apparently; but I traced it at last to a branch just over my head, where a pair of grosbeaks had built their nest. There the male bird was singing near his brooding mate, singing in his dreams, I think, for his song was like no other that I ever heard from him.
The surprise of that dream song returned to me at dawn, one winter morning, when I heard low, eager voices outside my “Commoosie,” and crept out to find a family of partridges under the birds’ table.
Now a mother partridge has many notes, from the sibilant squeal of anger to the deep _kroo-kroo_ that calls the chicks from hiding; but these voices were quite different from all grouse sounds with which I had grown familiar in the woods. They had what one might call an intimate quality, musical, softly modulated, marvelously expressive. When the partridges were gone, gliding away as if they had not meant to be overheard, I spread the table abundantly, as usual; and that day hardly a bird came without giving me at least one new note, perhaps because I was for the first time really listening.
From that time forth the voices of these feeding birds were a revelation to me, as I heard them close at hand. Surprise, confidence, pleasure, resentment, hunger, loneliness, alarm,--a dozen different emotions seemed to find ready expression, either in varied cries or by modulations of a single note. In making mental register of this bird “talk,” I became convinced that the ear needs more training than the eye if one is to understand the wood folk or enter into the spirit of their little comedy. Even if you turn mere ornithologist, with an interest in feathers or species rather than in birds, hearing is a better or surer sense than sight if you would name birds without the needless barbarity of killing them for identification. Once you recognize the peculiar quality of any bird’s voice, you may surely name him at any season. He may change his plumage as he will, for youth or age, for spring or winter; but he cannot change his natural voice, and, like Peter’s, his speech bewrayeth him.
One morning, in that same winter camp where the grouse appeared, a woodpecker sent a long call rattling across the frozen lake. The first subtle feeling of spring was in the air. Deep under snow the sap began to well upward from roots of the sugar maples to express itself in coloring buds; and I fancy that something stirred upward from some root of being in the woodpecker, also, to find expression in lusty drumming. Ever since we made camp we had heard him or his fellows signaling, answering, drilling their food out of frost-bound wood; but this call was entirely different, and Bob’s keen ears were instantly turned to it.
“Aha! that chap wants something. Can ye answer him now?” he said; and in his eye was a challenge.
I imitated the drumming, closely as I thought; but though I tried repeatedly, I received nothing like an answer. Downy or logcock or goldenwing, a woodpecker is an independent chap that I have never been able to call fairly; not even in spring, when he is all ears for a mate or a rival. Like many other birds, he will come quickly to an excited and deceptive squeaking between my fingers, but to my best drumming he remains deaf or indifferent.
“Ye haven’t the right combination, b’y,” said Bob when I gave over my fruitless attempt, and using his hunting knife as a hammer he began talking woodpecker-talk on a dry stub. At his first _tunk-a-tunk_ (which was not like the call we had just heard) the answer came back like an echo, and when he varied his note the woodpecker came speeding across the lake. He could do that almost any time when woodpeckers were talking, as he could excite a red squirrel into emotional fits by his gibbering; but he abused me when I told him the truth, that it was not his secret combination of raps but the fellow feeling he put into it which brought the woodpeckers.
Still more amusing have been my efforts to make talk with the timber wolves. The dog wolf has a tremendous voice for occasions, and his pack has several distinct calls, challenge, trail yelp, rallying cry, lunatic baying of the moon; but though I seem to recognize these when I hear them, and to imitate them closely enough to deceive some ears, it is seldom that I can put into my voice the true wolf quality which brings an answer. For in the woods, as elsewhere, “the tone makes the music”; it is tone quality rather than any sound or combination of sounds, the feeling behind a cry rather than the cry itself, which appeals to moose or owl or any other wild beast or bird you happen to be calling.
One still, winter night I stood in front of my “Commoosie” and repeatedly gave the gray wolf’s challenge. That wolves were within hearing I was quite sure, having crossed the fresh trail of a pack at sundown; but none made answer. Then old Noel stirred and came forth from his blanket. “Hwolf don’ spik dat way; he spik dis way,” he said, and gave a howl so nearly like mine that no ordinary ear could detect the difference. Something was in his voice, however, some primal or animal quality which a wolf understood; for hardly had his howl gone forth when it was flung back eagerly from the woods behind us; and when the Indian changed his howl to a whimper, he had wolves answering from three different directions.
The point is, that when one opens his ears to the medley of calls that enliven the day or the night, he receives many an invitation which beforetime had passed over his head unheeded. Around your summer camp, for example, red squirrels are the most numerous and, as you think, the most familiar of animals; but did you ever attempt to interpret the astonishing variety of sounds which a squirrel uses habitually in the way of speech? Until you do that, Meeko the mischief-maker is a stranger to you, dwelling far on the other side of an unbridged gulf.
I do not mean that Meeko or any other animal has a language, for that is a doubtful matter; but all wild creatures communicate with others of their kind; and even when alone an animal is like a child in that he has changing moods or emotions which he expresses very plainly by modulations of his voice. So these familiar squirrels, which you hear about your camp, are not jabbering idiotically or without meaning. When angry they scold; when surprised they snicker; at other times they fling jest or repartee or abuse at one another, their voices changing noticeably with their changing moods. Now and then, as you follow Meeko to see what he is doing, he utters a long, vibrant and exultant call, in sheer delight at being alive, you think; or he stops short in a gambol and puzzles you by sitting very still, very attentive, with his nose pressed against a branch between his paws. Gone suddenly are all his jeers, his exultations, his mischief-making; he has a sober, introspective air, as if trying to remember something, or as if listening to what his other self might be saying.
If you watch Meeko’s eye at such a moment, noting its telltale lights, you will have a different opinion of his silence. He is listening, indeed, but to something so fine or distant that he cannot be quite sure what it is, or rather what it says. Therefore does he use the branch as a sounding board, pressing nose or teeth against it to catch the faint vibrations in a way to help his ears, just as woodpeckers use their tongues for the same purpose of better hearing. There! you hear the sound faintly now, and Meeko hears it distinctly enough to understand it, if one may judge by his actions. It comes from another squirrel out yonder, a truculent fellow, who is proclaiming his heretical opinion to the universe, and to this little dogmatist in particular.
Watch Meeko now; see his silent absorption change to violent rage. He barks; he seems to curse in his own way; he springs up and down on the same spot, like a boastful Quebec lumberman who jumps on his hat to work himself up to the fighting pitch. Out of breath, he stops a moment to listen, to ascertain whether he has silenced his opponent. A jeer floats in from the distance. Meeko says, “Kilch-kilch! I’ll show that impostor; I’ll teach him a lesson,” and away he goes headlong. To follow him is to witness a characteristic squirrel argument, a challenge, a rush, an upset, a furious chase up and down the swaying branches, till your head grows dizzy in following it. And then one long, triumphant yell to proclaim that another heresy is silenced forever.
Many times I have thus watched Meeko as he listened to something I could not at first hear; and almost invariably, when I have followed his rush, I have found him either berating some passing animal much bigger than himself or engaged in a hurry-scurry kind of argument with another squirrel.
Once I saw that the fellow who dared dispute Meeko’s doctrine was a very little squirrel, not big enough to hold opinion of his own, much less to challenge a quidnunc. He was bowled over at the first charge, and fell to the ground, where he darted off at top speed, doubling and dodging here, there, anywhere for a quiet life. Hot at his heels followed the irate Meeko, berating him like a pirate, giving him no chance to retract his impudence. The little fellow whisked up a tree at last, and squirmed into a knothole that seemed too small for any squirrel. Meeko was so close behind that nose met tail; but wriggle as he would, he could not get halfway into the knothole. It was an impossible squeeze for a squirrel of his bulk. As he worked and scolded himself into a passion, every now and then came a hollow, muffled snicker from within the doorway, which seemed to drive Meeko frantic.
He gave up the attempt after a time, and headed down the tree, threatening vengeance as he went. Before he was halfway to the ground the little fellow put his head out and repeated his original opinion, which started the explosive argument all over again. Eight times, while I watched, Meeko went away fuming, after vainly trying to force himself into the knothole; and every time Meekosis, as Simmo calls the little squirrel, came to the doorway to jibe at him, bringing him back in a fury that ran the gamut from volubility to speechlessness. The comedy was still running when lengthening shadows called me away to the trout pool, where my supper needed catching.
That same pool recalls another wood-folk comedy, none the less amusing because two of the actors were serious as owls when they played it out. Simmo, the Indian, and I were on our homeward way through the wilderness when we came to a beautiful place on the river, and camped there, day after heavenly day, until my vacation drew to an end. Then, because trout were plentiful at the mouth of a cold brook, I broke my rule of catching only enough for my table, and decided to take a few good fish as a thank-offering to some people who had been kind to me, a stranger. Two mornings and evenings I whipped the pools, ignoring small rises, striking only at the big fellows; and at dusk of the second day I packed away my catch and my rod with a sigh of heartfelt content. It was my last fishing for the year. There were only fifteen fish to show for it; but they weighed full thirty pounds, all clean, silvery, beautiful trout. Each one was wiped dry for keeping, wrapped separately in dried moss, and set away under a rock by a cold spring.
Early next morning Simmo went to fetch one of the trout for breakfast. I was stirring the fire when I heard him calling, “Come here! Oh, by cosh, come here!” and ran to find him standing open-mouthed over the storehouse, his eyes like gimlets, a blank, utterly bewildered expression spread all over his dark face. There was not a fish left, and not a sign on the hard soil to tell who had taken them.
We gave up the puzzle and went back to a meager breakfast, wagging our heads soberly. A bear or a lynx would have left plenty of signs for us to read. As we were eating, I saw a mink dodging along the shore, humping his back in true weasel fashion, as if in a great hurry. He disappeared under a root, all but his tail, and seemed to be very busy about something. When he backed out he was dragging a big trout.