Part 7

Had the trees not been of hardwood, a fire might have started that would have eaten its way over miles of woodland. As it was, everyone at the farm turned out with wet gunny sacks to beat back every flame that leaped across the road as it wound from the pond on around at right angles to the river. It should at least be kept within those natural boundaries.

But to the Forest Folk whose homes were in the burned area, the fire seemed the most terrible thing that had ever happened to them. To those who crouched, waiting, on the bank of the river, the approaching flames and the long swim across the current to the opposite bank seemed equally impossible to face. Bobby Lynx, coughing and blinking in the acrid smoke, as he clung to the limb of his pine tree, felt, catlike, that it would scarce be worse to stay where he was than to plunge into the water.

Twinkly Eyes, sitting like a black stump beneath, stared with amazement as a band of hares, cousins of Mammy Cottontail, came galloping madly before the racing flames. They were gasping for breath, their round eyes bulging in terror and their hearts beating like trip-hammers in their furry chests.

One scatter-brained brown bunny so far lost his wits as to circle around and go dashing straight back into the advancing fire, while another sought shelter fairly between Twinkly’s black feet. But the little Bear was far too interested in the crackle of the flames to notice.

Almost on the heels of the hares loped Red Fox and his family, whom a sudden shift of the wind had cut off from safety. But they likewise gave the hares no more than a passing glance, but sat down opposite them at the river’s brink to watch, and cough, and blink their smoke-stung eyes.

Next came Mother Red Squirrel and others of her kin, leaping from branch to branch above the smoking ground till they had taken up their places directly above the stream’s edge.

Here, too, came Betty Bluebird and Conqueree the Blackbird, and Mother Grouse Hen, hurrying her fledglings along as best she could. Jim Crow and his black brothers, frightened from their nest in the top of the Pine, had gone soaring high above the smoke line, and so off to a point from which they could watch in safety.

There were other creatures, too, who sought haven along the River Bank. There was Writho the Black Snake, and Timothy Field Mouse, and Fleet Foot, the Spotted Fawn who had strayed too far from her mother. The little deer huddled with the hares as far from Twinkly Eyes and Red Fox as they could crowd, without actually leaping off the bank.

The Red Squirrel family hid out of sight of both Bobby Lynx and Red Fox, and Timothy Field Mouse and his deadliest enemy, the Black Snake, both tried to hide in the same hole under the very nose of Red Fox, without any one of the three having a thought beyond their common peril.

[Illustration: [Fleeing]]

L WHILE THERE IS LIFE THERE IS HOPE

Yes, Sir, “while there is life there is hope!” But things certainly looked bad for Bobby Lynx and Twinkly Eyes and Red Fox and his family as the flames licked nearer and nearer through the circling trees.

The heat fairly seared their eyeballs, the smoke set them gasping every time the wind turned their way, and the huge sparks that now began to drop on their fur added pain to their terror.

Yet there was no way out, save the River which here ran wide and deep.

But if the larger animals were terror-stricken, imagine the feelings of Mother Red Squirrel’s family, and the brown bunnies, and Fleet Foot the Fawn, and Writho the Black Snake, and Timothy Field Mouse! For would they not escape the red flames and the cutting smoke but to furnish luncheon for their enemies, at whose very feet they crouched?

Of a sudden, as a blazing brand fell hissing beside Red Fox, he took a good grip on his resolution and plunged into the stream, and yelped to his family to follow. It was, after all, the only thing to do, as he had known for some time. His hesitation had lain in the fact of the puppies’ inexperience in the water. But after all, the youngsters of the wilderness could nearly always swim, once they were forced to it. And there was Mother Red Fox and himself to help the pups along, should they become too tired to make the entire distance.

Young Frisky Fox splashed in like any healthy puppy, his fat legs paddling so energetically that he had little difficulty in keeping up with his father. There did come a moment, however, when he felt as if he would have to rest or sink, and with one of these sudden bright ideas that make the foxes the cleverest creatures in all the wilderness, he grabbed the tip of his father’s plumy tail in his teeth and clung. The wiry fellow, from whom Frisky had inherited both strength and cunning, cut across the current and towed him to the shallow waters of the opposite bank.

Seeing Frisky, Mother Red Fox gave a sharp command to the youngest pup, while she towed him the same way. Then both parents swam back to aid the remaining youngsters, one by a timely word of encouragement, another by holding to his ear, and the third as they had aided the first two.

Seeing the Fox family making so valiantly for safety, Twinkly Eyes flung himself into their wake, and began gasping and snorting in his fight with the current. Bobby Lynx, half blinded by the smoke, peered vaguely at the sounds beneath his tree, then, with the courage of desperation, leaped far out into the unknown element.

But so ill do the great cats take to water that his head went under, and he felt that now surely it must be all up with him. Then, suddenly, he clutched at the little Bear’s haunches and was half towed to shore.—Thus ended their quarrel!

LI THE BOY FROM THE VALLEY FARM

Landed on the other shore, Twinkly hid in a tree-top to see what else he might see.

Now it often looks darkest just before daylight.

That was the way in this case. The little group of refugees on the shore were all but ready to leap into the river, preferring death by drowning, as the flames swept nearer through the underbrush, snapping and crackling and spitting red sparks.

The wind had veered upstream, driving the smoke with it, but the heat was fast becoming unbearable.

The brown bunnies, huddling close together in their terror, were not built to swim at all. Fleet Foot, the spotted fawn, was yet too young for the water, having indeed acquired the art of walking but a few days before. While Mother Grouse Hen could have flown across, her chicks could not, and she of course would not leave them.

All these stared with wide, hopeless eyes as the flames ate their way toward them. Their throats were parched and their hearts beat visibly.

Mother Douglas Squirrel and her family were perched on the very tipmost branch of the tree nearest the water, and there they raged and scolded. Shadow Tail measured the distance to the nearest tree of the opposite shore, half tempted to try the leap at the risk of landing in mid-stream, but Mother Douglas was too wise to attempt it, for any squirrel with half an eye could have seen it was impossible.

Then, suddenly, up the stream came creaking a broad, flat-bottomed row-boat, and at its oar locks sat the Boy from the Valley Farm and his sister,—the Little Girl on one side of the broad seat, he on the other.

The two children being too small to aid the men with the fire-fighting, back along the Old Logging Road, had ventured up here on their own account, to see if any sparks had leaped across the river to the dry timber on the other side. Once they had seen a flying brand which the Boy had gone ashore to quench with mud from the river’s bank.

Now they rounded the bend just in time to see Twinkly Eyes, the little Black Bear, and his passenger, Bobby Lynx, climb up the farther bank and dart off to hiding.

“Oh, see!” cried the Girl, pityingly, as she saw the group on the river bank.

“Let’s get ’em!” proposed the Boy.

“Let’s!” agreed the Girl, and the pair rowed swiftly up the doomed right bank and began grabbing the trembling hares by their long brown ears, dropping them into the bottom of the boat.

Once the leaders were aboard, some sign seemed to go the rounds, and the rest of the bunnies did not wait for assistance, but went scuttling over the side of the boat so fast that the children could scarce find a place to put their feet.

At that instant a flaming branch fell hissing almost into the boat.

“Pull out, quick!” gasped the Boy, swinging the boat around.

“Oh, but the Fawn!” wailed the Girl. “We can’t leave the Fawn!”

“We’ve got to!” commanded the boy, sternly, “or that whole tree will be down on us!”

[Illustration: [Fleeing]]

LII TWINKLY’S FELLOW REFUGEES

The Boy’s judgment told him it was not safe for them to linger a moment longer so near the racing flames. Any moment the wind might shift and blind them with its yellow smoke cloud, and it was hard enough at best for the children to handle the heavy row-boat.

But there stood Fleet Foot, her broad ears turned inquiringly at the newcomers, whom she was too young to fear, her great velvet eyes round with terror and her pink nose twitching nervously.

She was tinier than a three weeks’ calf, and nothing could have been lovelier than her white-spotted red-brown coat shading into light tan on throat and chest.

[Illustration:

“He lifted her bodily into the boat”

—Page 161 ]

The Boy dropped his oar again and stepped ashore, while his sister held the boat, with its cargo of brown bunnies, in position, by reaching out and clinging to an overhanging bush.

In all her three weeks of life the Fawn had never laid eyes on human kind, nor, indeed, on any creature larger than herself save her mother, the Doe. She therefore raised trusting eyes to the Boy, licking his palm as he rubbed her nose, and she made no protest when he lifted her bodily into the boat, shoving the hares aside till he had found a place for her at the Little Girl’s feet.

Just at that moment they caught sight of the Squirrels. Mother Red Squirrel and Shadow Tail and his brothers clung to a branch almost above their heads, and their cries grew shrill as a creeping flame began ascending the very tree they were on.

“Oh, please see if you can’t get them!” begged the Girl, calling and coaxing to make them come down. The Boy tried, too, but in vain. Poor Mother Red Squirrel didn’t understand, and she feared the children quite as much as she feared the flames.

In vain, too, the Boy pursued the Grouse chicks, while the sparks began showering all around them.

“Pull out, quick!” he cried. The Girl’s eyes filled as she thought of Shadow Tail, the squirrel baby she had once held in her hand.

Mother Grouse Hen had clucked her chicks beneath her wings and now crouched despairingly on the wet mud of the jutting bank. She would protect them with her own body till the last possible moment.

“I have it!” exclaimed the Boy, bending to one strong oar while his sister took the other. “Let’s get across quick, and then I’ll show you!”

[Illustration: [Hen]]

LIII A WAY FOR THE SQUIRREL FAMILY

For the space of four minutes the children bent to their oars, while the breath of the flames on the shore behind them scorched their cheeks and parched their nostrils, and the fire ate its way through the brush to the very water’s edge.

The bunnies fairly stood on top of one another till they filled the rowboat with brown billows of soft fur. And Fleet Foot, the little spotted Fawn, crouched with soft eyes fastened appealingly on the children’s faces. In all the wilderness there is no creature so innocent and so helpless and so altogether lovely as a spotted fawn. So at least the children thought.

“Poor, poor bunnies!” sighed the Girl, as one was all but crowded over the edge of the boat.

“Aw, they’ll be all right once they’re on the other side,” said the Boy. “Get in there, you!” and he shoved the hare back from the edge with his foot. His voice was just gruff enough to hide the pity in it.

But once drawn up on the opposite bank, he paused not even to help lift the bunnies out, but grabbed the belt axe that a backwoods boy always carries, and went hacking away at a slender sapling just opposite the tree the squirrels were on.

He made quick work of it, I can tell you, for there wasn’t a moment to lose. Notching it first on the side toward the river, he took care that it fell so that its slender top reached into the far-hanging branch on which the little family had taken its last stand.

As the sapling landed, Mother Red Squirrel’s black eyes snapped with a sudden hope. I can assure you she needed no second invitation to use the bridge thus mir-a-cu-lous-ly thrown across to her. With a glad bark to the youngsters to follow, she raced down the sapling across the stream, Shadow Tail at her heels. They didn’t even stop to draw breath till they had scrambled up a pine tree set well back from the sight and the smell of the fire across the stream.

The Boy’s eyes shone. “It didn’t take them long to make up their minds,” he chuckled.

“Now, get out of here,” and he lifted the last of the bunnies out of the boat, to go bounding off into the depths of the green woods beyond,—far too fast for either Bob or Twinkly, I can assure you.

For the truce of their common peril was over, and the hares well knew if they didn’t get into hiding before Bobby Lynx got sight of them, he’d celebrate his escape on one of his fellow-refugees.

Back on the wet mud of the bank they had left, Mother Grouse Hen seemed in a fair way to pull through after all, for the fire had stopped at the River’s brink, and there was now but one great vista of charred and smoking tree trunks for as far as the eye could reach.

[Illustration: [Squirrels]]

LIV WHAT HAPPENED TO FLEET FOOT

“What worries me,” said the Boy, with an amused glance after the fleeing hares, “is what we are going to do with the Fawn. She’s far too young to look out for herself,” nodding toward the green depths into which bear and lynx had disappeared.—Twinkly wondered too.

“She is certainly too young to get along without her mother,” agreed the Girl, as the children from the Valley Farm studied the last of the refugees, who gazed into her face with her great trusting eyes.

“The trouble is,” said the Boy, “she probably has a mother somewhere, and then she’s a wild thing. She’d never be really happy with the cows. I suppose the doe just managed to save the other fawn. Aren’t there always two?”

“You think her mother got away then?” asked the Girl.

“Well I don’t know,” returned the Boy, gazing searchingly across the River through the charred tree trunks. Here the ground still smoked yellowly as the fire ate into the damp leaves of the nether layer of the forest floor. Red embers glowed where the flames had raged through the underbrush.

Now, as it happened, the Doe was searching despairingly that very moment for her Fawn. She had made her escape in good season with the larger fawn, but Fleet Foot she had missed from her side when it was too late to return, and a wall of flame had risen between her and her little one.

The lost Fawn had raced, with the other Wood Folk, on before the flames to the River’s brink, where the children had found her.

Meantime her mother had circled clear around the fire with her remaining little one, trotting up-stream until she came to a narrow part where her fawn could cross, peering and searching everywhere for Fleet Foot.

Now suddenly the children heard a dainty stamp and a shrill whistled “H-e-e-e-yew, he-u!” And over a copse of hazel bushes peered a red-brown doe, who instantly turned and leaped out of sight, tail raised like a little white flag behind to show the fawn which way to follow.

And “He-w!” said Fleet Foot, with a tiny stamp, and followed.

And Twinkly Eyes, the bear cub, took it all in, from the hiding of his tree-top.

[Illustration: [Bear]]

LV TWINKLY EYES GOES HOUSE-HUNTING

Betty Bluebird, like most of the other feathered folk, was beginning to think of starting south. For the wild ducks honking overhead told her it was going to be a cold winter and advised her to start without delay.

Twinkly Eyes also heard the warning. And it set him restlessly searching about for a snug den in which to pass the winter. For Twinkly Eyes was going to hi-ber-nate. With the first snow-fall he would cuddle up in the depth of some cave and pull the dead leaves after him, and tuck himself in bed for a sleep that would last until spring.

Every day now he rose with the dawn to begin his search. And every night he kept up till black darkness made it im-pos-sible to see.

But with all his searching, Twinkly Eyes never once ceased to eat everything good he came to.

No, indeed, Twinkly Eyes was not the bear to stop eating just because he was busy house-hunting.

Not a bit of it! In fact, if anything he ate more. Though he cut himself down to one meal, that one meal lasted from the moment he awoke in the morning to the moment he dropped to sleep in the chill of the autumn night.

One effect of so much eating was, of course, to make him as fat as a ball of butter. Another was to make his fur as thick and warm and glossy as the finest sleeping bag that ever was invented.

But search as he would, Twinkly Eyes could not find just the right place in which to den up for the winter. Of course, the first place he had visited was the den where he had been born. But his mother was there with this year’s cubs, and she had made it quite plain that there would not be room for him too.

Then he thought of the pine woods on the slope of Mount Olaf, on the side toward the Valley Farm. And one chill October morning, when a fine drizzle reminded him that up north here winter was not far away, he decided to explore these woods.

The dried pine needles lay like a velvet carpet over the forest floor, and everywhere was the fragrance of wet pine. Through the thick gloom he could make out countless mushrooms growing at his feet, and each one he had sniffed, eating such as he knew would not poison him.

For his mother had taught him as a cub to know mushrooms.

The ground here slanted up a rocky knoll, and here and there were boulders, and here and there a fallen tree trunk.

But nowhere could Twinkly find a cave. And besides, he smelled lynx tracks everywhere, and it would never do to go to sleep for the winter in a place where Old Man Lynx could find him.

No, decidedly, the pine woods would not do.—Where, then, should he search?

Cutting down through a mixed wood that led to a tiny lake, Twinkly soon found himself neck-high in blueberry shrub. Only now the berries were all gone. He had been here many times before, only never with a den in mind. So now he went over the ground again and through the brush around the lake, and back up the slippery hillside.

Suddenly a strange, sweet odor smote his nostrils. He was approaching an old deserted shack, with roof tumbling in and door hanging on one hinge. It had once been a sugar camp, had Twinkly Eyes but known. And the knowledge would have hastened his clumsy foot-steps. For that new smell was the fragrance of maple sugar, the one thing in the world that bears consider even better than honey.

There was no thought of danger as Twinkly Eyes approached the shack. Though had he not been too sleepy to reason it out, he might have known that anything so delicious as maple sugar would never be left like that. Not if the bees could get at it! And then how was it that his mother had never taken a chance on anything so tempting?

LVI AT THE SUGAR CAMP

Twinkly sniffed and sniffed.

From the tumble-down shack on the mountain-side came the most wonderful odor! It fairly made his mouth water.

But still his natural cunning bade him sniff all about the place before he ventured within. Though there were hobnailed footprints everywhere, the man-scent had long since disappeared.

That twisting thunder-storm last July was doubtless to blame for the charred and crumbling appearance of the side the door was on. There was nothing to keep him from walking straight inside.

There were a number of iron kettles in the shack, and into each of these Twinkly sniffed with interest. But they were clean and empty. Where, then, did that sugary odor come from? Ah, over in one corner, where it had fallen, lay a wooden cask. This, Twinkly’s wriggling nose told him, was the place. Inside this cask was the delicious something that made his mouth water so. Successive wettings, as rain and wind had pummeled through the side of the shack, had wet the contents till they were oozing liquidly through the cracks.

Twinkly Eyes put out his tongue and licked the sides, then set joyously to work with his curved claws to tear an opening into the thing.

So suddenly that it struck him square in the face, the half of one stave came off. Then he broke off another, and after that a third. The keg had not been full, and the part he had torn an opening into was the empty part. But Twinkly didn’t care. He simply thrust his head in and licked, and licked, and licked at the sugary cake.

He could just reach it with the red tip of that greedy tongue. There was nothing he could reach with his jaws. And presently he began to twist and wiggle in the effort to get more.

By dint of much shoving he finally got his head clear inside the cask. Then he was happy. My, how that bear enjoyed the next half-hour! By stretching his neck farther and farther through the narrow opening he could just scrape the delicious contents with his teeth.

His jaws dripped with the combined delights of an-tic-i-pa-tion and real-i-za-tion. That the feast would continue till the last crumb was gone he had no doubt whatever. Not Twinkly Eyes!