Part 14

So long as you are seen or suspected, you need have little fear of any wild beast (only the tame or half-tame are dangerous), but a brute that stumbles upon you in an unexpected place or moment is always a problem. Nine times out of ten he will fall all over himself in his haste to get away; but the tenth time he may fall upon you and give you a mauling. Moose, for example, are apt to strike a terrible blow with their fore feet, or to upset a canoe when the jack-light approaches them; not to attack, I think, at least not consciously, but in blind panic or to ward off a fancied enemy. So when I have watched from the shore of a lake and a moose came swinging along without noticing me, I have risen to my feet or thrown my hat at the big brute when he was as near as I cared to have him. And more than once, after a tremendous start of surprise, he has come nearer with his hackles up as soon as he got over the first effect of my demonstration. Yet when I am roaming the woods that same brute will catch my scent at from two to five hundred yards, and rush away before I can get even a glimpse of him.

That the same surprising sense-limitation is upon deer and other game animals may be inferred from the following experience, which is typical of many others. I was perched among some cedar roots on the shore of a pond, one September day, watching a buck with the largest antlers I have ever seen on one of his kind. I had been some time quiet when he glided out to feed in a little bay, on my right; and my heart was with him in the wish that he might keep his noble crown through the hunting season, for his own pleasure and the adornment of the woods and the confusion of all head-hunters. There was no breeze; but a moistened finger told of a faint drift of air from the lake to the woods.

As I watched the buck, there came to my ears a crunching of gravel from the opposite direction, and two deer appeared on the point at my left, heading briskly down into the bay. They passed between my outstretched feet and the water’s edge, where the strip of shore was perhaps three yards wide; then they turned in my direction, seeing or smelling nothing, went slowly up the bank and halted at the edge of the woods to the right and a little behind me, so close that I dared not move even my eyes to follow them. I measured the distance afterward, and found that from their hoof-marks to the cedar root against which I rested was less than eight feet. Imperceptibly I turned for another look, and saw both deer at attention, their heads luckily pointed away from me. They were regarding the big buck intently, as if to question him. They showed no alarm as yet; but they were plainly uneasy, searching the forest on all sides and at times turning to look over my head upon the breathless lake. Every nervous action said that they found something wrong in the air, some hint or taint or warning which they could not define. So they moved alertly into the woods, halting, listening, testing the air, using all their senses to locate a danger which they had passed and left behind them.

From such experiences one might reasonably conclude that, like the brooding grouse or the hidden fawn, a motionless man gives off so little scent that the keenest nose is at fault until it comes almost within touching distance. If any further proof is needed, you may find it when you sleep in the open, and shy creatures draw near without any fear of you. By daylight deer, bear and moose are extremely timid; they rarely come within eyeshot of your camp, and they vanish at the first sniff which tells them that you have invaded their feeding-grounds. But when you are well asleep the same animals will pass boldly through your camp-yard; or they will awaken you, as they have many times awakened me, when you are tenting or sleeping under the stars by some outlying pond. If you lie quiet, content to listen, the invading animal will move freely here or there without concern; but no sooner do you begin to stir, however quietly, than he catches the warning scent, and a thudding of earth or a smashing of brush tells the rest of the story.

I recall one night, cloudy and very still, when I slept under my canoe on a strip of sand beside a wilderness lake. The movement of an animal near at hand awoke me. In the black darkness I could see nothing; but somehow I knew he was big, and aside from the crepitation of the sand, which I plainly heard, I seemed to feel the brute near me. For a moment there was a pause, a dead silence; then came a thump, a rattlety-bang; the canoe shook as something hit the lower end of it, and the creature moved away. There was nothing to be done without eyes, so I snuggled the blanket closer and went to sleep again. In the morning there were the tracks of a moose, a bull as I judged from the shape of his feet, to say that he had come down the shore at a fast walk, halted, stepped over the stern of the canoe, and went on without hastening his pace.

That was odd enough; but more surprising were some tracks on the other side, between the bow of the canoe and the woods. Very faint and dainty tracks they were, as if a soft pad had touched the sand here and there in an uneven line; but they told of a fox who had come trotting along under the bank, and who had passed in the night without awakening me. That neither he nor the moose had smelled the sleeping man, or nothing alarming in him at least, is about as near to certainty as you will come in interpreting animal action.

There is another and not wholly unreasonable hypothesis which may help to explain such phenomena; namely, that it is not the scent of man but of excitement, anger, blood-lust or some other abnormal quality which alarms a wild animal. It sounds queer, I know, to say that anger can be smelled; but it is more than probable that anger or fierce excitement of any kind distils in the body a kind of poison which is physical and sensible. Such excitement certainly weakens a man, clogging his system with the ashes of its hot fires; and there is no reason why it should not smell to earth as well as to high heaven.

You have but to open your eyes and expand your nostrils for some evidence of this matter. Bees when angered give off a pungent odor, which is so different from the ordinary smell of the hive that even your dull nose may detect the change of temper. The same is true of even cold-blooded reptiles. When you find a rattler or a black-snake squirming in the sun, you can smell him faintly at a few yards’ distance. Now stir him up with a pole, or pin him to the earth by pressing a forked stick with short prongs over his neck. As the snake becomes enraged he pours off a rank odor, very different from the musky smell that first attracted your notice, and it travels much wider, and clings to your clothes for an hour afterward. It is not only possible but very likely, therefore, that strong emotions affect the bodies of all creatures in a way perceptible to senses other than sight. If so, one man who is peaceable and another who is angry or highly excited may give off such different odors that a brute with sensitive nostrils may be merely curious about the one and properly afraid of the other.

That wild animals instinctively fear the scent of humanity, as such, is probably not true. The notion arises, I think, from judging the natural animal by those we have made unnatural by abuse or persecution. Whenever man penetrates a wild region for the first time he finds, as a rule, that the animals have little fear of him, the tameness of wild game having been noted with surprise by almost every explorer. It has been noted also, but without surprise, by saints and ascetics who “for the greater glory of God” have adopted a life of solitude and meditation, and who have often found the birds or beasts about their hermitage to be quite fearless of them, and receptive of their kindness. Not till the abundant flocks and herds of a new region have been harried and decimated by senseless slaughter do the survivors begin to be fearful and unapproachable, as we unfortunately know them. Yet even now, no sooner do we drop our persecution and assume a rational or humane attitude than the wild ducks come to the boat landing of a winter hotel, deer feed at our haystacks, and bears come in broad daylight to comfort themselves at our garbage-cans. Such things could hardly be if the fear of man were an age-old or instinctive inheritance.

Nearer home, on any farm bordering the wilderness, you may see wild deer feeding quite tamely about the edges of the cleared fields all summer. I recall one such farm in Maine, where the owner had fifteen acres of green oats waving over virgin soil—a glorious crop for me, but for him an occasion of lamentation. You could go through that field at any hour before six in the morning or after six at night and find a dozen deer with a moose or two making themselves at home. The owner’s cattle were kept out by a rail fence; but the moose simply leaned against the fence and went through, while the nimble deer sailed over the obstruction like grasshoppers. On all such farms the deer have the scent of man almost constantly in their nostrils, and they are simply watchful, running when you approach too near, but turning after a short flight to have a look at you. At times you may see them feeding when the scent of laborers or fishermen blows fairly over them. But when October comes, and the law is “off,” and wild-eyed hunters appear with guns in their hands and death in their thoughts, then the same deer quickly become as other and wilder creatures, rushing off in alarm at the first sniff of an enemy. The fact and the changed action are evident enough; the only interesting question is, To what extent does the smell of man change when he changes his peaceable ways?

Two or three times I have had opportunity to test the effect of the human scent in another way, the first time being when I had the good luck to see a natural child and a natural animal together. The child, a baby girl just beginning to toddle, was making a journey by means of a comfortable Indian paukee on my back, and I had left her in an opening beside a portage trail while I went back to my canoe for a thing I had forgotten. While I was gone, three deer sauntered into the opening. They saw the baby, and were instantly as curious about her as so many gossips, a little spotted fawn especially. The baby saw them, and began creeping eagerly forward, calling or “crowing” as she went. The deer saw and heard and smelled her every moment; yet they walked around her with springy steps, now on this side, now on that, showing a world of curiosity in their bright eyes, but never a sign of fear.

From a distance I watched the lovely scene, kindling at the beauty of it, or feeling a bit anxious when I saw the sharp feet of the old doe a little too near the sunny head or the outstretched hands. Then an eddy of wind from the mountain got behind me and whirled over the deer. They caught the scent and were away with a wild alarm-call, their white flags flying, and the baby waving by-by as they vanished in the woods.

Quite naturally, therefore, when a sensitive animal runs away from me, I find myself thinking that perhaps it is not the smell of humanity but of some evil trait or quality which frightens him. I first laid down this hypothesis after meeting a strange, childlike man, who had a passion for roaming by himself in the fields or woods. White men, after a puzzling acquaintance, would tap their heads or call him crazy; an Indian would look once in his eyes and say, very softly, “The Great Spirit has touched him.” He was all gentleness, without a thought or possibility of harm in his nature. He was also without fear, and perhaps for this reason he inspired no fear in others. When he appeared in the woods, singing to himself, the animals would watch him for a moment, and then go their ways quietly, as if they understood him. What would happen if a race of such men lived near the wood folk must be left to the imagination.

MY POND: A SYMPHONY OF THE WOODS

X

THE TRAIL

To reach my pond you must leave your canoe on the shore of Sungeegamook, the home lake, and go eastward through the big woods. Yonder is the landing, that bank of green topped by “everlasting” and blue asters, with a cleft like an arched doorway in the forest behind it. A rugged jack-pine leans out over a bit of shingle, as if to indicate a good place to beach your canoe, and there is something curiously alive, almost sentient, in its attitude. The old tree seems to watch your approach; through its leaves runs a low murmur of welcome as you step ashore.

Entering the woods (and because you are alone, and therefore natural, something in their dim aisles, their mysterious depths, their breathing silence, makes you go gently) you find yourself in an old logging-road, once a garish symbol of man’s destructiveness, but growing yearly more subdued, more beautiful, since Nature began her work of healing. The earth beneath your feet, the restful earth which the lumbermen left torn by iron tools or rent by dynamite, has again put on her soft-colored garments. Feathery beds of fern push boldly into the road from shadowy places; wild grasses fill all its sunny openings with their bloom and fragrance; and winding down through shade or sunshine comes a trail made by the feet of deer and moose. Already these timid animals have adopted the forgotten road as a runway; you may meet them here when you return in the evening twilight.

Everywhere beside the trail are old marks of the destroyer. Noble maples or cedars that were centuries growing have been slashed down, dismembered, thrust aside to decay, and all because they stood in the way of a lumber-boss who thought only of getting his cut of spruce down to the lake. To look upon such trees, dead and shorn of their beauty, is to feel pity or indignation; but Nature does not share your feeling, being too abundant of life and resource to waste any moment in regret. Already she is upbuilding what man has torn down. Glaring ax-wounds have all disappeared under bandages of living moss; every fallen log has hidden its loss under a mantle of lichen, soft and gray, which speaks not of death but of life renewed.

Where the sun touches these prostrate giants a blush of delicate color spreads over them. See, it deepens as you look upon it curiously, and you examine it to find a multitude of “fairy-cups” on slender stems, each lifting its scarlet chalice to the light. Very soft and inviting seats they offer, yielding to your weight, sending up an odor as of crushed herbs; but do not accept the invitation. If you must halt to rest or to enjoy the stillness, sit not down on one of these mossy logs, but before it at a little distance, and let its blended colors be to your eye what the wind in the pine is to your ear, or the smell of hemlock to your nostrils. Then will all your senses delight in harmony, their natural birthright, while you rest by the way.

Where the old road winds about the end of a ridge, avoiding every steep pitch, young balsams are crowding thickly into it; where it turns downward to the lowlands, quick-growing alders claim it as their own; and as you leave the lake far behind it begins to divide interminably, each branch breaking into smaller branches, like the twigs of a tree as you trace them outward. The twig ends with a bud in clear space; but the farther or landward end of a logging-road dwindles to a deer-path, the path to a rabbit-run, and the run vanishes in some gloomy cedar swamp or trackless thicket where is no outlook on any side.

It is in such places, while you puzzle over another man’s road instead of keeping your own trail straight, that you are most apt to get lost. Coming back you need have no fear of going astray, since all these trails lead to the main road, and thence downhill to the lake; but going forward it is well to steer clear of all branch roads, which lead nowhere and confuse the sense of direction.

Leaving the road behind, therefore, and heading still eastward, you cross a ridge where the hardwoods stand, as their ancestors stood, untouched by the tools of men. Immense trunks of beech or sugar-maple or yellow birch tower upward wide apart, the moss of centuries upon them; far overhead is a delicate tracery of leaves, a dance of light against the blue, and over all is the blessed silence.

Beyond the ridge the ground slopes downward to a uniform level. Soon the moss grows deeper underfoot, with a coolness that speaks of perpetual moisture. The forest becomes dense, almost bewildering; here a “black growth” of spruce or fir, there a tangle of moosewood, yonder a swale where impenetrable alder-thickets make it impossible to hold a straight course. Because all this growth is useless to the lumberman, there is no cutting to be seen; but because I have passed this way before, instinctively following the same course like an animal, a faint winding trail begins to appear, with a bent twig or a blazed tree at every turn to give direction.

As you move forward more confidently, learning the woodsman’s way of looking far ahead to pick up the guiding signs before you come to them, the dim forest suddenly brightens; a wave of light runs in, saying as it passes overhead that you are near an opening. As if to confirm the message, the trail runs into a well-worn deer-path, which looks as if the animals that used it knew well where they were going. Clumps of delicate young larches spring up ahead; between them open filmy vistas, like windows draped in lace, and across one vista stretches a ribbon of silver. A few more steps and—there! my little pond is smiling at you, reflecting the blue deeps of heaven or the white of passing clouds from its setting of pale-green larch-trees and crimson mosses.

And now, if you are responsive, you shall have a new impression of this old world, the wonderful impression which a wilderness lake gives at the moment of discovery, but never again afterward. As you emerge from cover of the woods, the pond seems to awaken like a sleeper. See, it returns your gaze, and on its quiet face is a look of surprise that you are here. Enjoy that first awakening look; for there is more of wisdom and pleasure in it, believe me, than in hurrying forth blindly intent on making a map or catching a trout, or doing something else that calls for sight to the neglect of insight. All sciences, including chartography and angling, can easily be learned by any man; but understanding is a gift of God, and it comes only to those who keep their hearts open.

Your own nature is here your best guide, and it shows you a surprising thing: that your old habitual impressions of the world have suddenly become novel and strange, as if this smiling landscape were but just created, and you were the first to look with seeing eyes upon the glory of it. It tells you, further, if you listen to its voice, that creation is all like this, under necessity to be beautiful, and that the beauty is still as delightful as when the evening and the morning were the first day. This dance of water, this rain of light, this shimmer of air, this upspringing of trees, this blue heaven bending over all—no artist ever painted such things; no poet ever sang or could sing them. Like a mother’s infinite tenderness, they await your appreciation, your silence, your love; but they hide from your description in words or pigments.

Finally, in the lowest of whispers, your nature tells you that the most impressive and still most natural thing in this quiet scene is the conscious life that broods silently over it. As the little pond seems to awaken, to be alive and sentient, so also does that noble tree yonder when you view it for the first time, or that delicate orchid wafting its fragrance over the lonely bog. Each reflects something greater than itself, and it is that greater “something” which appeals to you when you enter the solitude. Your impressions here are those of the first man, a man who found many beautiful things in a garden, and God walking among them in the cool of the day. Call the brooding life God or the Infinite or the Unknown or the Great Spirit or the Great Mystery—what you will; the simple fact is that you have an impression of a living Being, who first speaks to you in terms of personality that you understand.

So much, and more, of eternal understanding you may have if you but tarry a moment under these larches with an open mind. Then, when you have honored your first impression, which will abide with you always, you may trace out the physical features of my pond at leisure. Just here it is not very wide; your eye easily overlooks it to rest with pleasure on a great mound of moss, colored as no garden of flowers was ever colored, swelling above the bog on the farther shore. On either hand the water sparkles wider away, disappearing around a bend with an invitation to come and see. To the left it ends in velvety shadow under a bank of evergreen; to the right it seems to merge into the level shore, where shadow melts with substance in a belt of blended colors. A few yards back from the shore groups of young larches lift their misty-green foliage above the caribou moss; they seem not to be rooted deep in the earth, but to be all standing on tiptoe, as if to look over the brim of my pond and see their own reflections. Everywhere between these larch groups are shadowy corridors; and in one of them your eye is caught by a spot of bright orange. The spot moves, disappears, flashes out again from the misty green, and a deer steps forth to complete the wilderness picture with the grace of life.